skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Redundancy of supply. It would be insane for Apple's supply chain to be halted because the supplier of one part failed to deliver for whatever reason. Nearly every major and minor component in an iPhone would be second-sourced, else they'd need to accumulate a month's supply of that part in a warehouse...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_source

It's the same reason MacBooks can ship with displays from either Samsung or LG, with SSDs from either Samsung or Toshiba. It's pretty much a lottery, and you won't know which till you run About This Mac.
Nobody has done it fully yet, including Apple. But again, Cringely doesn't give a single reason why Apple would succeed in this space over Google or Microsoft, or something like Ubuntu. Enterprise is probably going to want to stick to mostly one OS if everything has to be ported over and all their accessories need to be compatible, and iOS is very very unlikely to be first choice of most IT departments for obvious reasons.

So the idea of convergence isn't new, and the idea that iOS would win at the convergence game in the Enterprise is implausible - I don't know what he was smoking when he wrote this article.
Google reveals new logo and a redesigned navigation bar
You are ranting about it but don't give any information on what's wrong with the article..
How to ZoomIn Images in jQuery
So, when is Apple going to "invent" the Asus padphone
Even if we don't get Photoshop on the iPad in the near future, that doesn't mean that a simpler version of Photoshop won't appear for tablets or even phones. There are a ton of simple (for the user) operations available in Photoshop, that are memory-intensive, that could become viable on a tablet given more memory.

That said, the important point isn't Photoshop specifically. Consider the Surface Pro - despite its flaws, being able to run virtually any desktop app (decently) is huge. We are nearing that convergence point where the distinction between tablet and desktop becomes fuzzy. More memory and higher power, lower wattage CPUs are getting us closer.
"every single computing device, billions of them, are working non-stop, days and weeks and months on end"

working non-stop? No, they don't. Today’s computers are filled with bugs because bad implementations that comes from bad implementation languages and bad tooling.

The reason C++ is used is because backwards compability/legacy/history trumps everything else. Just look at MS Windows for a proof for that. Or x86 CPU architecture.
The Ubuntu Edge, but I'm not sure of the status of that since it did not get funded
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge
+1 for a good job making all the difference. Everyone should do something they love, that challenges and vitalizes them. And if you are a young developer, coming out of a good position at a good company, with no dependents, you are in a position uniquely capable of achieving this. Shop around now, and pull the trigger when you have a signed offer letter.

Don't waste years at a place you don't love. Three weeks after finding a better place, you will wonder why you waited so long to make the leap.
Mr fusion FTW.
Do you mean Corensic? Their homepage is now "under construction", according to Network Solutions.
> Buy it from ... whom? As the article points out, Russia "reneged on a deal to sell 22 pounds to the U.S." and might not have any left for sale.

Now, that's interesting.

The Chinese are planning to land an RTG-powered spacecraft on the moon in December 2013. That's just 3 months away. Evidently they managed to get hold of some Pu-238 to power their spacecraft with.

Either they manufactured the isotope themselves, or they outbid us for the 22 pounds that Russia was planning to sell.
The offline support which was added recently-ish in Drive has worked for me when I needed it, but I must admit I haven't been a very heavy user.

Anything in particular I'm missing?
Memory hog? Have you tried The Great Suspender[1]? It's really handy when you have lots of tabs open.

1: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great-suspende...
In the enterprise people care about price. A lot. They might be happy to buy a few iPhones for management, but a wide scale iOS deployment as a desktop replacement to everyone in the company would be crazy, in the same way that very few companies give everyone a Mac.
Tesla is the new Tucker. Hope it will be more successful.
The H.264 encoder I use is written in a mixture of C and ASM. It is damn fast and maxes out all cores.

I dare you to write a full-featured, functional H.264 encoder in Haskell with equal or superior performance. Once such a thing exist I will start believing the hype.

Until then I reserve the right to consider the current Haskell/FP craze the biggest amount of bullshit since the Java/OOP craze.

Sorry people, I already know that magic language/paradigm which solves all problems of software engineering. Which allows me to write 4 times less code, said code being robust and maintainable practically by default, yet as fast as C/C++ if not faster, all that thanks to this great new model of software engineering! It is the (only) future!

Yes, the Java/OOP/design patterns/UML crowd made exactly the same bullshit claims back then. Nobody talks like that about Java/OOP anymore because the bullshit eventually hit the fan known as reality.

Oh and before Sun's viral marketing campaign there were the Lisp weenies. Again, same bullshit. We already have a "30x less code" language which comes bundled with an insufferable sense of intellectual superiority not backed by practical results.

Oh, and I almost forgot the Python/Ruby "dynamic" and "human" craze. "Programming for human beings" - it's the (only) future!
Back then the snake oil addicts paraded around dynamic typing and code which read like plain English as the salvation of the programmer. Nowadays they claim dynamic typing is the software engineering equivalent of the Holocaust and that good code must look like math!

I am so tired of it..
Russian Parliament Gives Approval for State to Take Over Academy of Sciences
> Maybe they can use a box full of old pinball parts.

That would be Pu-239, not Pu-238. Remember, the Libyans wanted him to build a bomb -- not a spaceship.
Unbreakable cryptography: The devil and the details
I'm not sure I agree with Cringely here either, but I think you're missing some important points:

1. iPhones do support multi-tasking, but the interface for it is poor. This could remedied, especially if iPhone would detect a larger screen and add an additional menu bar.

2. The killer app for the average desktop user isn't Photoshop, it's some manner of email/doc/spreadsheet. These do not require gobs of ram. For everyday use, they require: monitor, keyboard, mouse.

3. Which is quite possibly why Apple has built a zillion dollar data storage center (iCloud).

Actually, Cringely might be right, but I don't think we're going to see it anytime soon. I think it might be Apple's longer-term plan.

Put another way, it does pull together some interesting choices that Apple has made:

1. iCloud -- and more importantly the monster infrastructure developed for it.

2. The growing iOS-ification of OS X.

3. 64-bit processors (which, of course, allow for 'desktop class' amounts of ram).

4. Hardware accelerated screen sharing (AirPlay).

Another thing, I don't understand why you would classify that as a "genius secret idea". I would call it a multi-billion dollar technology company looking a few years into the future.
Panda poop power
I'm also very optimistic about Pinterest; especially their discovery and advertising. I think much like Twitter did, the platform will sneak up on us.
Interesting notes:

The battery is even harder to remove now and is glued in with excessive amounts of adhesive.

There is no "M7 co-processor" [1] chip in the device - possibly it's just marketing for some part of the A7?

The new fingerprint censor is a bunch of small capacitors. Possible cause for concern if you plan to keep using the fingerprint access for the life of the phone.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/15/apples-m7-motion-sensing-co...
working non-stop? No, they don't.

Those are claims that go against my personal experience (pretty much every device and server system I control has uptime in weeks or months). So unless you can actually show me some hard data to the contrary...
Regulators would require drivers to undergo criminal
background checks, receive driver training, follow a zero-
tolerance policy on drugs and alcohol and carry insurance
policies with a minimum of $1 million in liability
coverage.

Are these state level requirements in line with the city level requirements for those licensed to drive by the taxi commissions? If so, I find it very hard to believe that none of the taxi drivers I've had as my driver don't smoke weed.
I'm pretty sure a bike in good condition is capable of stopping much faster than any motor vehicle, given the same speed and road. I could be mistaken, though.
The article explained why RC is not deterministic.
Oh, didn't know. You could even force highlight colors, by explicitly setting border or outline colors.
US lawmakers vote to cut food stamp benefits from 2014
Honest Work
Elsevier talks about ethical problems. There is a joke in here somewhere.
Hunch: her temerity in possessing both opinions and a vagina at the same time.
Looks good. I personally really really hate installing any crap on my computer or phone (apps). If it works just as regular web-site using browser only, it's just perfect.
Thank you for saying most of what I felt, only so much more clearly!

I don't how anyone whose work depends on creating quality content - programmers, journalists, designers - can achieve even a fraction of their PC (I use that term loosely) productivity on a 'post-PC' device like a tablet.

I see people saying they have ditched PCs and laptops altogether in favour of tablets, and I wonder how. I'm not a Luddite, and I've owned the iPad and Nexus tablets for a while, but I still prefer my laptop for my work every. single. time!
Didn't Ubuntu do 'Ubuntu on Android', which basically meant that when you plugged your Android telephone into a computer, you had a full desktop Ubuntu on it?

I am pretty sure Ubuntu Touch would have the same functionality.
Oh man, and now even Apple has come to a point where it's taking things that were done well and making them worse. So sad.

It may be because it was rushed and hopefully they'll address it, but seeing the UI principles violated so badly is just painful to see. It's not even debatable, because it's not consistent.

I like seeing progress and devices/software improve over time, so every time I see something get worse than a previous version is very upsetting.
What was it like leaving Google
This is disturbing. Hopefully he's not just calling it a day and moving to the mountains.
Yes. See the name change announcement from earlier today: https://blog.mozilla.org/labs/2013/09/reintroducing-together... . “We wanted a name that reflects the wider scope of how to use the tools.”
BlackBerry to drop 40pc of workforce by end of year
"MAYORAL DE MULAS"
"Cabinets are nailed to the floor. Repairability 2/10."
I shouldn't worry, you should try Android's time picker.

Consider a generation not used to the analogue wrist-watch, and give them a clock face with an outer 24-hour clock and an inner 12 hour clock, and then ask the user to select time using the tip of their finger, on a small phone screen, on the inner or outer circle to the hour and minute that they wish.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SK2ljlhHiCU/UaiEjF1lhGI/AAAAAAABJq...

Oh, and that top bit... the time that most people would read and want to change? Yeah, that's just display. Tapping that does nothing useful, just flips the mode from hours to minutes but you can't change the time that way.

So: A modal interface, on a circular control, with small areas of touch, that you cannot navigate one-handed accurately, and that uses the least popular display of time.
> C++ “solved” the problem of redundant casting and error-
> prone size calculations by replacing malloc and free with
> new and delete. The corrected C++ version of the code
> above would be:
>
> struct Pod {
> int count;
> int * counters;
> };
>
> int n = 10;
> Pod * pod = new Pod;
> pod->count = n;
> pod->counters = new int [n];
> ...
> delete [] pod->counters;
> delete pod;

The 'corrected C++ version of the code' is actually:

std:vector< int > pod( 10 );
...

I didn't bother reading any further.
Google Black Bar to be replaced with Chrome Style Apps Launcher Menu
Simple javascript hack to get the new chrome style menu immediately
> Bullying on the internet is trivial, you arn't trapped, you arn't forced into these situations. You can hide if you want to.

Yeah, just stop going online, it's so simple! I know almost your entire social life is online, and the identities we create online are increasingly hard-linked to our real life identities, but all you have to do is exclude yourself from everything that you enjoy doing online and you'll be fine!
It has a sapphire cover over it, it shouldn't be a problem.
Signs of times getting really insane.

Last year, the richest 10% got 50% of all income/wealth.

This year, +/- the same people vote to hurt the poor even more.

At the same time, you have Google wanting to extend life. Whose lives do you think will get extended? The lives of those who can pay. It's even more insane considering the fact that we're already using up all resources of our planet and happily continue to overpopulate it.

If these tendencies continue, there will be a very big clusterf#ck pretty soon.
So, any programming language incapable of beating a heavily tuned C/ASm h.264 encoder is bullshit?
Hack Apple's Touch ID and get $20,000, a sex book and a bottle of whiskey
It depends on your technique. If you have the technique down it isn't difficult to rapidly decelerate on hills. It's mainly just a matter of bracing yourself, keeping your centre of gravity back and modulating the brake.

If you're not prepared for it and slam the front brake on your weight will shift forwards and you'll have lift off.
Are you claiming that there are never any crashes or downtime in any device?
"First" apart from the three implementations which were released before it - including one for linux. So that'd be fourth then...
Can Big Data Distract?
Does anyone know of something like this, but for Markdown?

So, like a collaborative Markdown document editor, as well as a simple way to store those documents and choose them for reading/editing later.
I highly doubt the founders intended questionable patents to be used by idle patent holders to extort licencing agreements from third parties who are actually building something.

I expect if given the choice, they'd be intelligent enough to choose the side of progress, rather than of hindrance.
This reminds me of what Robert Bowman said about the Strategic Defence Initiative, that the great danger of weapons to take out Soviet early warning satellites would be that the Soviets would not be able to tell the difference between a freak accident and a US pre-emptive attack. The fear then is that the Soviets could jump to the wrong conclusions and launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike because they thought the US was about to do the same.

So Scneier's blog is down and we can't tell if it is a freak outage or if it is an outside party. Scary times.
Show HN: Number Duck - a programming library to read and write Excel files
Elasticsearch and Kibana: See What Tweets Can Say About a Conference
The original claim that this subthread is arguing is that the multi-core processes are being "squandered" somehow due to the deficiency of C type imperative languages. I'm pointing out that I see all those multiple cores gainfully and heavily employed using nothing but the imperative languages so primitive, that they are being compared to open sewers of 19th century London at this point :-)

"Ease of writing parallel software" was never the question we were arguing.
> But arguing that Apple has this genius secret idea that no one is able to see it bit too much of fanboyism.

Did you read the article?

He says: "Why would Apple do this? Well for one thing if they don’t Google will. For that matter Google will, anyway, so Apple has some incentive to get this in the market pronto."
College Pirates? U.S. Universities Ranked by BitTorrent Usage
I think if we're painting with really broad brushes, in the end companies care about ease of use. The cost of people is far greater than equipment. Of course, they don't evaluate hardware the same way that individuals do, so it looks like the price matters the most, because most companies already have established IT conventions and those qualify the highest for "ease of use" (they already know what they are doing).

So it will certainly take time, and it will take smaller, riskier companies demonstrating that some futuristic new platform is soooo much easier, but if that really was the case, it really wouldn't be that crazy to see large enterprises starting to shift this way.

Of course this is all based on the assumption that "it's going to be so much better and easier to use that it's obvious to the market as a whole." I'm not saying Apple will achieve that goal, but I think a lot of people who wouldn't traditionally have been "Apple fanboys" are rooting for Apple, simply because we've all seen them make transformative changes with the iPod and iPhone, and we like progress.
Where are you seeing that UI? At least on Android 4.1, the normal time picker is similar to the iOS ones.
Playing Starcraft 2 Might Make You Smarter
Which picker/app is that? Here's the time picker in the Clock app (for setting alarms) on 4.3 (CM 10.2):

http://i.imgur.com/KhhHul5.png
Unless they deleted negative comments, the ones there seem largely complimentary.
Bypassing car dealers is quite important. I don't think its to to screw dealers over but to make sure margins are needed to make their car for the masses, especially being so nascent with the different parts required. I hope this is successful for the prospect of close to $0 marginal cost of travel.
I want something like this for text-searching within a page.
> 2. Phone/pads still don't have necessary RAM to run desktop class applications. Can you imagine running full strength Photoshop on iPad yet?

The argument doesn't require it being able to run all kinds of desktop applications.

He does say: "There are other reasons why Apple would do this. For one thing it is much more likely to hurt the PC market than the Mac market, since pocket desktop performance probably won’t be there for Apple’s core graphics and video markets. Mac sales might actually increase as sales are grabbed from faltering Windows vendors."
The speed limit is exactly that, a limit. From the CA driver's handbook: "California has a "Basic Speed Law." This law means that you may never drive faster than is safe for current conditions. For example, if you are driving 45 mph in a 55 mph speed zone during a dense fog, you could be cited for driving "too fast for conditions."

Limits are based on ideal conditions. This includes the vehicles stopping ability. If a bike is incapable of braking as quickly as a car then the rider should not be travelling at the posted limit.
> There is no "M7 co-processor" [1] chip in the device - possibly it's just marketing for some part of the A7?

Not sure why the iFixit guys jumped to the conclusion that it was possibly marketing fluff. It is an SoC after all, the M7 doesn't have to be a separate chip on the logic board.
AFAIK the yellow signs are "advice" rather than law. I make a point of at least doubling the "advice", visibility and governing speed limit permitting.
There is a Photoshop for Android tablets, at least https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com.adobe....
Enterprise is going to be a slow-adopting beast, no matter what, but that doesn't mean that iOS (or some future evolution of it) is out of the running. Come on, you're not really saying that office work can't ever fundamentally change again, now that PCs are here -- are you?
Hm, it's more likely that when you have a picker column with just a few elements (like only "AM" & "PM"), the tap boundaries aren't adjusted to fill the entire container.

The bigger flag is how this wasn't picked up internally, given how prevalent UIDatePicker is in Apple's own apps. I'd be surprised if no one noticed, so am curious to see if this intentional and stays the same, or was truly accidental.
Does that ever actually happen?
I don't know. Where I'm from the hipsters are the bullies.
> Unix is the reason C is popular and Windows is the reason C++ is popular.

I never understood why people say C++ is popular because of Windows.

C++ was already popular before Windows mattered.

My first C++ applications were targeted at MS-DOS, back in the days most PC compatibles were still sold with 1 MB of RAM and almost no one has Windows installed.

Before Java was created, many of us were already doing C++ with CORBA in commercial UNIX systems.

Microsoft compilers only mattered to us around the time Windows NT started to enter the enterprise and the 32 bit version of Visual C++ was introduced.

C++ got popular due to its almost 100% C compatibility and as with C, UNIX also contributed to its spread in the enterprise, not Windows.
> The technology is only going to get better

Used to think that when I was high on WebGL in summer 2011. Sure some progress was made since then but really not as much as I expected. I really thought "by 2013 this will run on ALL browsers and on MOST mobile devices out-of-box, no config flags needed". We're still not there yet by a long shot.

So you're saying it'll be another 3-5 years? That's cool by me, I'll check back in 3-5 years then. This stuff is easy enough to pick up for anyone who has a grasp on basic modern OpenGL workings anyway..
i had the exact same thought when talking to a friend about the last keynote. he told me the 5c was a ripoff and noone would buy it.

i told him he's missed the most important news : productivity apps for free, and the emphasis on trying to make pads and phones not only reading devices but content writing devices as well (5s as powerful as a laptop)

And since content editing requires more power and Apple is best at producing high level computing platforms, that would let them win market shares over android again (in a "if you can't win the game, change the rules" type of strategy).

i'm predicting a huge rise in medium prices and features for apps in the next year. But we'll only be sure when the new ipad is shown. because of its screen size, it's the only device really capable of providing a true content editing platform at the moment.
I wouldn't be surprised if future versions of iPhone had a (mini?) Thunderbolt "docking" port, which can even support external graphics cards (http://www.macrumors.com/2013/07/30/11-macbook-air-owner-con...).

And CPUs can throttle their speed or disable cores depending on desired power consumption, of course.

Heat dissipation could probably be solved with a metal back plate.

RAM seems like the only major issue for a iPhone-based desktop/laptop. Not sure if RAM expansion via Thunderbold is feasible.
Interesting but I think it's a bit too subtle or quick.
I do not understand the authors conclusion: 'The more immersed I become in Esmee’s homework, the more reassured I am that the teachers, principals, and school-board members who are coming up with this curriculum are earnest about their work.' when his own Daughter's strategy boils down to :"
Memorization, not rationalization" - She isn't learning, she isn't becoming "well rounded", she is memorizing information that will be useless past her next year of schooling.

Some of the things detailed sound horrible, A C because there was no answer column etc. The school sounds broken.