mcooley's comments

I worked on a global consumer mapping app once. Among that team, the idea that address schemes were too inconsistent to be useful was also conventional wisdom.

Tracking flights works better than tracking trains mainly because airlines have global technical standards (coordinated through global bodies like IATA) and rail operators don't. Most of the technical capability to track any flight, anywhere in the world, was built by the airline industry for its own needs and integrated into consumer technology later; I don't think the cultural bias of OS vendors had much to do with it.

Bing has one: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt814921.aspx

Before I moved away recently, I had dinner pretty regularly with the guys at Dismas House Nashville (dismas.org), which provides transitional housing for former offenders. They do a great job helping people get back on their feet with housing, jobs, etc. I don't know if they can help directly, but if Ray has roots in North Carolina perhaps the staff there (I've worked with Davey and Scott) know people in the southeast region who could help.

> Microsoft implemented it back in their glory days (irony intended) by changing the file formats in new versions of the Office suite so that documents created by newer versions of Office could not be read by older versions, thus forcing everyone to upgrade to the newer version in order to share data.

In fact, Microsoft released updates for older versions of Office (back to Word 2000, apparently!) which allowed them to read the new formats [1].

[1] https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Open-a-Word-2007-do...

Windows 10 now has a built-in "Skype video" app which is much more bare-bones. Once I confirmed it worked for calling the few people I need to video chat with, I uninstalled the desktop app right away.

> It isn't flexible

That part may be a feature. A bus stop next to your apartment building might be gone next week, but a light rail station is staying put and developers can more confidently build "transit-oriented" neighborhoods (denser, less parking, etc.).

Earlier versions (or fragments of earlier versions) exist for most parts of the New Testament. I believe the interesting thing about this work is that it's "complete".

The original texts are in Greek, and the King James version is an English translation. Differences between the original and a modern English version would have less to do with uncertainty about the original text than with the difficulties of doing translations. The various English versions in use take different approaches to translation: some attempt to stay true to the original wording, while others are less rigid and attempt to use phrasing that is more intelligible to a modern reader.

CM = Contract Manufacturer CNC = Computer Numerical Control (an automated mill) BOM = Bill of Materials (a parts list)

It is jargon, but it's jargon that someone who would be concerned about "not showing ejector pin marks" would probably know.

That chart is misleading because it shows consumption of all sources of energy, not just electricity. We don't use 28% of our electricity for transportation (yet!). Listings of electricity consumption by sector [1] show that the residential sector consumes the biggest share of electricity in the US. And the residential sector also has the highest seasonal variability in power consumption [2]. So better demand control for consumers might actually pay off pretty well.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_energy_consumption#Ele... [2] http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=10211

I think it has something to do with the power relationship: they can see you, but you can't see them. You might be able to see a camera pointed at you, but the phone locator operates over a passive mechanism that you can't see. Not unfair when you're on their turf--or much different from the online reality, as some have stated--but I could see how it might be disconcerting nonetheless.

Perhaps they've gotten their cost issues under control now, but this 2010 report from the Philly comptroller points out a whole bunch of problems: http://www.philadelphiacontroller.org/publications/other%20r...

The report shows all sorts of maintenance issues that weren't accounted for. It takes longer to empty the bags on these units, for example.

I helped write a proposal to buy some of these units (albeit for a university campus, not streetside in cities), and we didn't find any significant cost savings. The appeal is the PR/image boost of having solar panels on every trash can. It looks like you're doing something sustainable, even if the numbers don't add up.