Discussions

@Ian2: As I recall, you recently reported an issue with the WP Store due to some alleged copyright infringement. If you did advertise those apps in your blog, or used some screenshots here and there, I guess it's possible that someone complained and got your blog grounded.

Aside of this, I concur with DCMonkey: a website is just a few pounds these days, and Orchard is your friend...

10 hours ago, cheong wrote

*snip*

I don't have problem for people getting it wrong, but have problem where the teachers teach it without explaining the fundamential reason of doing so.

Once you know the reason, even if you forgot the order, you can deduce it correctly yourself. It's all related to converting goods to their monetary value. "M"oney is the basis of ancient "M"athematics.

The problem is that operator precedence is largely a convention; there's no real reason why 3 + 3 * 4 = 15 and not 24; it's just that we decided it has to be that way.

That's what makes it hard to teach: you can paraphrase it all you want, but the answer is essentially "just because" and that never flies too well with kids.

3 hours ago, cbae wrote

@Blue Ink: Kind people come over for good spaghetti. Anybody remember that one?

I like xkcd's new proposal better.

@Sven Groot:

I stopped relying on mnemonics since I almost flunked a test for misremembering one.

Just curious, though: why should roots be computed after division?

if (CoinResult = true)

is not the same as

if (CoinResult == true)

Classic pitfall; some compilers warn you about this kind of things.

Two ways to avoid this altogether:

1) Reverse all your comparisons, so that the constant appears first. For instance,

if (true = CoinResult)

would produce a compile time error.

2) At least for Boolean expressions, use implied conversion to bool:

if (CoinResult)

HTH

@Bas: in some areas, reality is already surpassing that vision: MSR recently demoed live English to Chinese translation (with voice matching, sort of), which is more advanced than what the two little girls are doing at the beginning. And the amazing sensors that are cropping up (Kinect,  Leap motion) mean remotes are on their way out, stylish or otherwise.

Of course there's a lot of technology in there that we may never see (apparently they don't need cables or batteries, for instance, signs appear in thin air and screens are so cheap you can slap one on a coffee mug), but we are getting there.

On a side note: there's a lot of "Metro done right" in the video, which seems to validate where Microsoft is heading. On the other hand, it proves that Metro looks just gorgeous on glass (hint hint).

Just a quick thought: unless you force your users to use headphones, the background sound will be picked up by the microphone. Mixing it again with the same sound (with some delay) will be tricky at best.

2 hours ago, gcorcoran wrote

For all the businesses using and developing java based applications, it just seems shocking to block it without any warning. Just think about how much time it would take to drop everything and develop in a different language in a business world full of already tight schedules... it's just insane.

Hardly without warning: the way I read it, Apple just reverted a previous decision to re-enable Java after finding out that Oracle's patch was only partially effective.

I'm not an apologist of Apple's tactics, but this time they are kind of justified by Oracle's incompetence.

3 hours ago, davewill wrote

@elmer: Not "all?". When finding a USB/Serial adapter it is important to see what chipset it uses and if it handles both hardware and software handshaking.  Once you find one that meets those criteria then you have found a rock solid adapter.  USBG-232 has been rock solid for years.  http://www.usbgear.com/usbg-232.html

The support and development folks have been at odds for several years now over this.  Support still encourages users to install the converter instead of using USB/(Activesync/WMDM) because it is an instant usable connection and simplifies user life.

Even with perfectly good USB/Serial adapters, there's still the chance that the thing may fail spectacularly. I've seen some devices (no names here, to protect the guilty) that draw small amounts of current off the control signals; no big deal with a real serial port, but enough to make the chip in the adapter go bananas. For extra fun, make sure that the device doesn't draw current continuously and that the peak is borderline.

@Ian2: Amazing. As a regular CAD user, I cannot wait to see what this can do.

This said, I'm kind of worried about how well this would work for the general public, looks like there's going to be a "palm rejection" problem on steroids here. Either users get used to move their hands off the sensing area, or the UI needs to be very picky (or very smart) about intentional and valid gestures. Either way I expect it will need some training.

With a little luck, the coolness of "casting spells" to your PC will be a big enough incentive.

As for the audio commands and feedback, the technology never worked too well for PCs; one thing is to bark commands to an xbox in your living room, another is to have to say what you are doing in public. I doubt that's ever going to change, until they nail subvocalization.

Once that happens, we'll have proven Clarke's third law again: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".