belgianguy's comments

I wouldn't call this a flying car, I would call this a quadcopter with wheels.

While the prospect of having less traffic jams is desirable, the odds of being T-boned from above or below by a distracted pilot become greater than zero.

I think we'll need Type 5-and-then-some AI pilots before any of this becomes a reality in day to day commutes.

I have the same feeling using products that have "Pro", "Ultra" or something alike in their brand name. It usually means the exact opposite.

Is there a dedicated name for such looming mistrust phenomenon? (apart from common sense? :p)

IMHO, it feels like just another hamfisted way to get the adoption of Windows 10 to increase. The whole point of Windows used to be that it would run on nearly every system, with most overhead being reactivating the license, now you'll actually find yourself re-installing an OS that refuses to work on a newer processor.

They're closing the gates to their pseudo-walled garden. Windows 7/8 don't have permanent revenue streams, WIndows 10 does (or will).

For all the song and dance of Windows 10 being superior, Linux seems to not care at all about what processor it runs on.

And Ubuntu does just fine.

This feels eerily reminiscent of my own dilemma 4 years ago: The lack of direction and leadership coming from within Microsoft when it comes to building software, the willy-nilly changing of core development strategies, creating unnecessary risk (learning curves, time, money) by getting a developer to invest in something that might be relegated to the dustbin by tomorrow (including his/her paycheck). Worst of all, you are to find out about that fact yourself, no announcements, just silence, and vague PR about the-next-big-thing, to lead you on once more. It just felt like they were flailing, thinking up something new well before the last new thing had decent support or community behind it.

I also wondered how a programmer used to strong-typed languages (like C#) and a robust IDE/debugger (like Visual Studio) would fare in the hell that was a browser 4 years ago, the joyful world of JS (vanilla + frameworks) debugging and the always entertaining fight with CSS (in)compatibility, (where IE in particular has caused many a dev to utter a sigh).

I even made a post about it back then: https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/p1r3s/st... (and it got on here as well IIRC). It was titled "Stick with Microsoft WPF et al or jump ship?"

I ran as hard as I could from Microsoft and picked up Linux Ubuntu and Android development. I'm a full-time Java developer now (on Ubuntu as we speak) and very happy with that.

Pretty glad I dodged that bullet.

Can you turn it off? I'd imagine a big project (e.g. Linux Kernel) could start to look like a Christmas tree...

I wonder if it'd be possible to either blackhole all this nonsense, or to "quasar" their data servers with preset queries like "I like my privacy", "mind your own business" instead of your original query.

Do a Google search on "Jim Hood vs Google", see who he colluded with, and then come read your own post here again. In short: The MPAA/RIAA hates Google. To top it off, you name Chrome/Chromium as if it's the same product, and then go off on a tangent about a binary blob (voice recognition) that was included. Other comments would have gotten away with that, was it not that the whole issue here _is_ the distinction between Chrome and Chromium, the latter being an FOSS project, which has no place for closed source binary blobs. (And that was the underlying issue, not its functionality.) Some people need to be protected against themselves, for some this protection is a site block, for others it's reading more before writing drivel in the HN comment section.

Link for the lazy: http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2015/04/11/jim-hood-...

The block was put in place because of malware being served by those domains, blocking them is by far the easiest response and _also_ the most motivating for its hosts to undertake action. Occam's Razor seems to agree that this was a bad advertising being blocked rather than "ebil guggle conspirucy".

Paraphrasing from one of the comments there:

IMAX's legal counsel failed to see the big picture.

I'm missing a spinning skull GIF, a permanent under construction sign and blinking pink text that scrolls incessantly.

GooGleoCities, perhaps?

Don't forget that Rift also seemed to support Linux, but then decided to push that to the back of their planning. So even if it's in the list of things to do, that doesn't mean it will happen in the near future, or even at all.

Is there a Ubuntu DE that implements Material Design somewhere? I'm quite fond of the style, but am not in a place where I can easily switch to Arch (from Ubuntu).

I don't think Microsoft is doing it for the Open-Source spirit, as many seem to believe. They have a long history of attacking/smearing open source and displaying a "I heart Linux" slide is not sufficient to erase all the FUD and their questionable software patent licensing schemes (which are completely anti-open). They called Linux a cancer, even.

I think they're approaching this from a redundancy point of view, if person X already has Windows on his desktop (on which they have the market cornered), provide them with subsidized Windows platforms on other hardware where the monopoly is not yet in place. This then would cause the interest in other platforms to dwindle, as people would flock to what they know. Here also the EET mantra could come into play again, by offering features not available to other platforms.

They need a foothold in other hardware, most likely for the coming of Internet Of Things.

It makes business sense for them to increase their reach, but don't think that equals Microsoft being fond of Open-Source.

Managing a spreadsheet does not equal programming by a long shot, and given large enough complexity, you'll run head first into VBA macros and abominable one-liners with so much different branch points that it only makes sense to its author, who could have written a program that seperated the code from the presentation instead of munging up the two.

Sure, it'd get the job done, but the successor would have to rewrite it, as it can hardly be documented, plus, from personal experience, people who are versed in Excel trying to tackle data problems at companies have come up with rather brow-raising solutions. (What's this MySQL you speak of? Does it work with Excel, too?)

Programming is not just hammering away in [language], it's deconstructing a problem into smaller, less complicated problems, to generify and abstract away common properties to allow for repetition in similar contexts. It stimulates efficiency, speeds up rote administration tasks, and allows the programmer to learn something new each time he tackles a new problem.

More so, the writing of code should enlighten a person to write readable functionality, as code is read, compiled code is executed. Using clear and descriptive terms to state the moving parts in his solution, using verbs in function names, not abbreviating unless absolutely necessary, are all tasks that should allow for a person to better state his problem domain and its intended solution.

How cool! It's a nice glimpse into an otherwise hidden past, something even the developers probably never thought would see the light of day again after release. I let a giggle escape at void* _gWanky_arse_tit_fuck;

This being HN, maybe one of them can chip in about what the original binary was that was ran against it? Didn't they do a kickstarter to make a new iteration in this franchise? Or would that land them (or you) in hot legal water?

BTW: Is there a name for such software spelunking? Feels a bit like digital archeology.

Thanks for that! It was a nice introduction, I have a colleague who usually made my eyes glaze over when he started about FP, but now that I have seen it in an environment that I understand and use in my day to day job, a lot of "a-ha" moments occurred in rapid succession. I also liked the humorous bits. It's all pretty self-explanatory and well put, a little Googling will fill in any gaps an interested pupil might face.

Couldn't Google's Project Shield be a nice gesture here for sites that are doing 'the good thing' when they're succumbing under the (positive) attention? It's meant as a DDoS protection measure, but the actual outcome is pretty much the same, namely that the original server can't handle the load and can only offer spotty service or no service at all.

https://projectshield.withgoogle.com/en/

They've done other things after disaster struck, and it'd prove both their kindness, prowess and the sturdyness of their infrastructure. Additionally, the site in question would probably fare better, giving people more incentive to participate and (hopfeully) deliver faster results than they're getting now.

Its future offspring could be the pinnacle of AR (Augmented Reality), add data as an overlay to the existing world, but in such a way that depth and perspective is preserved. In your case, seeing Stay Puft peek through my bedroom window would probably unleash a very real sensation.

I like the mapping ability, imagine mapping out your house and be able to use it as a level in a game, like walking on your ceiling with Oculus Rift.

Its (DK1/DK2) faithful successor would be War For The Overworld: https://wftogame.com/. Looks quite cool and the atmosphere certainly is there, but I don't know how far the development already has progressed.

Last I heard, they were said to have Windows, Mac and Linux betas for pre-orders.

But I concur, the mobile app is an insult to the original IP.

Odd, I have that same sentiment with the Dutch voiceover for DKII, seems Bullfrog really worked out the details there.