Fantastic that they made these available for free and in such an accessible format.

Had a quick look through and one of the major differences between the HTML5 version and the book is the layout, everything is completely linearly presented... i suppose that makes it easier to support mobile devices and various sized screens etc, but not quite as nice as the book.

Depending on the re-use rights perhaps it could be given some love with @media queries and some more caring typography.

The more general principle is that you should design before you code... or rather: experiment, research, understand, test, analyse THEN design THEN code, then RE-write that code. It's the oppose to the write-once philosophy, if the task deserves it, then you should try to fully understand the problem before designing and coding for it.

But often with less engineering orientated programming you don't get time explicitly allocated for doing those things... so when you want to do a good job and are asked to write a moderately complex piece of software, you know that to save time overall and create a body of code that isn't going to cause you a headache to maintain later; you will have to invest some of your own time to think about it.

And the more cynical people here will say, "hey you don't get paid for that, programmers work too long hours blah blah blah" but you know what... it's worth it, because you become a better programmer, you learn more interesting things, you become better at thinking about problems and engineering solutions... if you aren't interested in those things then why are you coding at all, there are easier ways to make a living.

No they work fine... surprisingly a lot of the new css prefixed stuff has equivilent "-ms" prefixes. And i wouldn't have issue with those not working, using prefixed css properties comes with the knowledge that you cannot rely on them cross browser or even in the future.

What i have found is more of the same: browser quirks, things that are standards compliant and they claim to support fully but do not.

After spending a week of cross browser fixing almost entirely focused on IE11 deficiencies i can tell you first hand that it still sucks in more ways to list here and changing it's name will only create a new image to hate.

There is only one thing MS could do to make me happy with it's browser: and that is to discontinue it, because they have proven time and time again that they cannot improve it sufficiently.

Things like ABS EBS and the many engine control computers that i have probably never heard of do not need to be connected to the car stereo or the internet, they should be physically separate from any other non crucial set of components that they have no need to communicate with...

As Andrew Tenenbaum would put it:

When you flush the toilets on an airplane; an error in the toilet flushing mechanism should not be able to possibly cause missile launch systems to go off or engines to shut down.

The same applies for security of a system as important as breaking on a car: Any convenience given by connecting an ABS to a networked computer will never outweigh the safety benefit of the physically isolated security of not having it connected. It's too important and you don't need to have access to it on the same network as your frickin iTunes device. The same goes for all the other critical systems in a car. At most it's central hub should be separated from a networked hub that is capable of connecting to the internet.

CSS + HTML + Javascript is how your HTML file used to look... (A big fucking mess).

Massive monolithic source files are not helpful. What is the purpose of this?

If your food ends up with components of the paint in it that turn out to be mildly carcinogenic... there's this thing called the food chain.

There is also a problem with plastics entering the food chain in a similar way.

I don't entirely disagree... but :P i am a web developer, who also happens to like lots of vector math, writing physics engines and in particular: writing SPH fluid dynamics simulations and other n-body simulations.

I would agree that some of my understanding of slightly above basic math is not necessary in most of the more common web development work in my job, but i do find it helps me be a better programmer in general... so perhaps the point is that math can make you a better programmer. Id also argue that it makes you better at engineering software rather than just "programming" it, but perhaps that has more to do with the experience of programming complex tasks that also require complex math.

That's why people with any sense know that "cutting down" is futile.

If you don't want lung cancer the answer is to not smoke... not just drop from 100 a day to 99 a day... if everyone saves 1% of their energy usage, it will add up globally to whopping... 1% reduction, in combination with the global population growth rate that is utterly pointless.

Change in energy production is the answer, and for that it's not quite as easy for everyone to "do their bit". Trying to justify quantity is impossible, because there is no line to draw, and ultimately not existing is the answer to solving the problem using quantity as the only variable.

:P It lacks certain subtleties of a proper midi keyboard such as velocity, but with 2-3 stacked octaves it's possible to play quite a lot. Learning a different arrangement isn't all that hard, it's just like playing a slightly different instrument. I actually find certain types of playing like monotone arpeggios easier with the supper light action laptop style keyboards, i guess it's also not that dissimilar to using a programmable midi pad.

My most fun tune to play this way yet has to be "The Halls of Science" by Mike Morasky (from portal), as a pure sine wave of course :D and what more appropriate way than performing on a computer keyboard.

...this wouldn't be a story. The law did it's job and the man was fined, but there isn't a news article for every parking ticket.

The reason this is interesting is because the ethics of this part of the law are in question.