Comment Re:democracy (Score 3, Informative) 183
Last year, day before Thanksgiving. They called it "Opt-Out Day."
Another Death in the Cloud As Apple Kills Off iWork 134
Google is retiring the iGoogle page, but on a much shorter time scale, Apple is shutting down an iService of its own: the cloud-storage site iWork.com (linked to Apple's office apps suite iWork) is slated to go offline at the end of this month. Says the article, over at SlashCloud: "As of that date, 'you will no longer be able to access your documents on the iWork.com site or view them on the Web,' reads Apple’s note on the matter, followed by a recommendation that anyone with documents on iWork download them to the desktop." Both of these announcements remind me why I covet local storage for documents and the ability to set my own GUI prefs.
Comment Re:Frequency is troubling (Score 1) 813
What? Where you do live that power lines are not strung through conduit when laid underground???
Comment Re:Bad Idea (Score 5, Insightful) 341
I don't have time to write my own make files to get the thing working.
So you're too cheap to give some money to the person who's offering to do all that work for you?
Comment Provide Support (Score 1) 341
What about this model? Anyone can download the source for free and they're on their own. Donors can get a precompiled binary custom-tailored to their system as needed, and a direct line to you whereby you provide support for installation problems, bug fixes, feature requests, etc.
Comment Where's the "Primary" ? (Score 1) 346
So if this sets the primary email to a Facebook address, and notifications are sent to the primary email address, and incoming email becomes Facebook messages, whose arrival triggers notifications, I'm sensing a bit of an obvious problem here.
But looking over a friend's shoulder at their account, the Facebook address is not set to primary and in fact there appears to be no option to even make it primary.
Comment Re:kinda cheating (Score 1) 389
Far more static structures than you think are not static. Bridges always need to be designed for impact and vibration; long bridges for wind and sway. Tall buildings need to take wind into account and also be able to sway. Depending on geographic location, both might need to be designed for earthquake movements. Structural dynamics is an important field, not only in the more obvious forensic cases (Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Boston's Hancock Tower) but everywhere, as regular movement leads to fatigue leads to failure.
Comment Re:kinda cheating (Score 4, Informative) 389
Civil engineers are also held legally responsible and liable if there's a problem, and it should never, ever, fail or fall down outside of extraordinary circumstances. Unlike software which warrants left and right that there is no warranty and if you're lucky you'll get a patch with a bug fix.
Or compare the licensing requirements:
Civil Engineering: get a degree, pass the Fundamentals of Engineering, optionally get another degree, work professionally for a number of years, apply to take the PE exam, take the 8-hour PE exam, if you're lucky enough to pass (most don't), you now have your Professional Engineering license in that state (only) and can sign/stamp documents and plans.
Software Engineering: n/a
Comment Re:Finally! (Score 1) 137
s/can't/won't/g
When it comes down to it - all that matters is the results. I don't care WHY you won't do it. That you won't do it is all that matters to me.
There, I fixed that for you.
Comment Re:10,000 feet? (Score 1) 683
I don't know why the low service ceiling, but commercial aircraft are pressured to an equivalent of approximately 8,000 feet so it's not a problem. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they were related: that the machines were only actually tested and certified on board pressurized aircraft, not by hiking them up a mountain.
Comment Re:PCs turning into a closed platform... (Score 1) 809
Note that BBEdit has a Mac App Store FAQ page where they explain:
In BBEdit and TextWrangler, authenticated saves (the ability to save changes to files that you do not own) and the command-line tools are not available in the Mac App Store versions, in order to comply with Apple’s submission guidelines.
And then provide methods to circumvent these restrictions.
Comment Re:"They don't turn on unless they hear a gunshot. (Score 1) 215
Linksys WVC54GA and WVC80N cameras will do this.
Comment Re:Find My iPhone is great, but not a panacea (Score 0) 277
Bwahaha! Never had a 13-year-old call me that before. Life never ceases to amaze me.
Comment Re:Find My iPhone is great, but not a panacea (Score 0) 277
Actually, the vibrating action is quite cleansing.
Comment Re:Find My iPhone is great, but not a panacea (Score 1) 277
The kid's dad is chief of police. The kid already has a different perspective on what the police do than the rest of us. If anything I think the lesson here became "the police do work for Daddy's family" and maybe friends.
Now, if you'd made it 2 cops instead of 10, and a class of students, you could have had a teaching lesson about theft and recovery. That'd actually be novel, and appropriate.
