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Keith Bourgoin › Likes
TimOnSoftware.com -- I borrowed the pattern from JoelOnSoftware.com which is a fantastic blog and I hope he doesn't mind the imitation.
Benjamin Golub and Keith Bourgoin liked this
Megen got me a Boba Fett USB flash drive :)
Felicia Yue, Kol Tregaskes, Alfredo and 18 other people liked this
Nice! Although kinda creepy that you have to decapitate him to use him. =)
- ronin
this is full of usb awesomesauce!
- Morgan Haley
To ronin's point, it'd be more appropriate if it were a Jango Fett one. :P
- Dan Hsiao
The headless dude is major creepy. Megen rocks for finding that!
- Marci Golub
from Android
Thank you, Amazon Prime :-)
- Megen Vo
I want one! So Cool!
- Bluesun 2600
FCC May Pry Open the Cable Set-Top Box - http://yro.slashdot.org/story...
Keith Bourgoin liked this
The set top devices provided by cable companies are really rubish... I would love to see the content opened up and allow for device competition. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening anytime soon... Anyone want to start a new cable company based off of open standards?
- Tim Costantino
I don't like it when the TiVo just turns itself on (by automatically starting to play TV after having been in the TiVo menus for a while). If I'm in the other room, I want TiVo to stay quiet!
Morton Fox, Keith Bourgoin, Paul Buchheit and 3 other people liked this
If anyone knows how to hack TiVo to lengthen this time or the pause time, please DM me. If you happen to work for TiVo, please relay the message that people who buy their HD XL boxes with lifetime subscriptions would like more control over the experience. :)
- Cristo
Also, are there better DVRs for high-end installations? Moxi or something else maybe? I might be trying to do too much with a mid-range DVR targeted at novice consumers.
- Cristo
Cristo, I'll pass on your comments. Right now there's no way to change the menu timeouts. Most of our customers prefer that to prevent burn-in. But note that if you pause a program that's in your Now Playing list, it will stay paused forever, no timeout.
- Stephen Mack
Stephen, most technology prevents screen wear-and-tear with something called a screen saver. Also, as soon as TiVo provides a Record Channel function, I'll be good to go on the pausing programs in my Now Playing list. Until then, I still tend to want to see the value of the stock market in relatively real time. It makes it easier to make trading decisions. :)
- Cristo
My local ISP (Time Warner) DNS server is consistently faster than both Google and OpenDNS. All three are very fast though: ~20ms (local) vs ~30ms (Google and OpenDNS) for google.com, twitter.com, facebook.com, and friendfeed.com. I wonder where the closest Google data center is to me.
Adriano, Mona Nomura, Imabug and 6 other people liked this
Of the 3 Google is the only one that doesn't hijack though.
- Benjamin Golub
Speed isn't the only concern of course. Reliability and security are important. And I trust Google above the other companies in those departments.
- Benjamin Golub
What do you mean by hijack?
- Chris Heath
and what is your opinion of OpenDNS?
- Chris Heath
also, I didn't know that Google had DNS servers...http://code.google.com/speed... for those interested
- Chris Heath
Chris: Visit something like fdnksalfndkslafnkea.com after setting up OpenDNS. They redirect you to a branded page with ads that earn OpenDNS money. Time Warner does the same thing. Google does not.
- Benjamin Golub
thanks, yeah i should have known... my time warner doesn't do that (that i know) i've been on opendns for about a year
- Chris Heath
guess i'll give google a try... do you know when they started the public dns?? must be new... i just saw a digg.com submission hit their front page pointing to that same google code link
- Chris Heath
So I won't be using Google or OpenDNS instead of my ISP DNS. But I will use Google DNS when I travel. I've found that most wifi hotspots are slow because of DNS and switching to OpenDNS in the past has helped a lot. The only reason I see to use Google instead is the IP address is way easier to remember :)
- Benjamin Golub
Yeah, over the last couple years i've committed the opendns server ips to memory, but the google ips are super duper easy to remember - I assume you're staying with your isp because they're faster, right?
- Chris Heath
Confirmation: 209.18.47.61 is my local DNS http://chart.apis.google.com/chart.... via http://code.google.com/p...
- Benjamin Golub
Well uh, yeah... Your local isp is physically WAY closer and thus able to receive your dns queries and send back a response in less time... Unless the dns server itself is overloaded, or it's implementation of dns is less efficient than google's or opendns- (in which case processing your request might take longer), there is almost NO chance that a more distant dns server will ever resolve queries to common domains like the ones you tried.
- LarchOye
Larch: http://code.google.com/p... tries a lot more than jus those common domains. Anyway the reason I tested this is a lot of people changed to Google or OpenDNS just because it's supposed to be faster. I'll be in SF later this week; I'm guessing it will do much better :)
- Benjamin Golub
'Are you telling your computer to be quiet?' 'Huh?' 'You typed ssh' 'oh... no.'
Keith Bourgoin liked this
I think it may be time to get a blog. Only so much can be said with 140 characters...
Keith Bourgoin, Mike Nencetti, Louis Gray and Benjamin Golub liked this
Square - email receipts and moving the point of sale to the payer? Sounds great to me. - http://squareup.com/
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Anne Bouey, Daniel Rowley, Jordi Rivero and 14 other people liked this
When we visited Paris I really liked how they brought the card reader to you, so your credit card is never taken to some back room for 5 minutes like it is here. Square solves that. Also email receipts? Sign me up.
- Benjamin Golub
from Bookmarklet
This is oddly similar to what I hear PayPal started as. It was before smartphones, and it never really caught on, but I think their original business model was around a mobile payment device of sorts.
- Keith Bourgoin
I want email receipts to be done at a lower level, by visa/mastercard/amex. Start offering vendors new card readers that optionally allow you to receive an email receipt but without ever providing your email address to the vendor. For example Citi knows my email address already so it shouldn't be difficult.
- Benjamin Golub
On second thought, I absolutely would not let somebody swipe my card through their iPhone. It seems like somebody stealing my information to me. I don't care about receipts via email or any other method. It would be nice to be able to accept credit card payments from other people easily, but Paypal has that working pretty much direct from iPhone to iPhone at this point, if only they could get their fees problem worked out.
- Otto
Something tells me this is not as simple as the Square site would lead one to believe. No fees for payers or payees? How is the data secured? What, if any, restrictions are there on use of the data? Square is probably not subject to the same regulations as banks or credit card companies. Photo ID required as a buyer? That's an additional requirement over traditional credit card...
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- LogEx
I was also skeptical - the only requirement is an audio jack? I'm assuming there needs to be some net capability - unless they're transferring data over a phone call...? and why will you need to swipe the card when so many cc companies are switching to RFIDs?
- Hilary
This is also likely to make oh so common cell phone theft suddenly a major data privacy concern. My card was cancelled 3 times in the past year alone due to breaches at unnamed retailers, which was a huge pain.
- Hilary
Hilary, you're right about the dangers of increasing the already significant concentration of personal information/power contained in a cell phone. RFID credit cards are, thankfully, not ubiquitous yet. I'll stop using them if that ever becomes the only choice. I assume that he audio jack links up to some kind of audio band digitizer... weird.
- LogEx
Will the receipts be able to contain more transaction information : i.e. items purchased for return/exchange purposes?
- Bryce Roney
I needed a rot13 encoder over the weekend (don't ask :P). Attached in case anyone else needs command line rot13 encoder/decoder
rot13.txt 504 bytes
Sam Harmon, Tyson Key, Keith Bourgoin and 2 other people liked this
This time attached as a txt file so it's viewable in the browser.
- Benjamin Golub
Maybe for hiding *SPOILERS*? :)
- AJ Batac
Huh, I never used OptionParser before. Damn does that look nice. I had only used sys.argv before. Well, this makes my life better. Thanks! :)
- Keith Bourgoin
And before someone says "encoding and decoding rot13 is the same, you don't need that option": I know :)
- Benjamin Golub
You should add an option so you can double rot13 encode. (That joke never gets old!)
- Joe Beda ()
Thanksgiving weekend = Catan marathon
Evan Parker, Mona Nomura, Penguin It's Cold Outside and 20 other people liked this
Who wants some Sheep?! *throws Sheep*
- Kamilah Gill
I first read this as catatonic marathon.
- Mark Krynsky
Artie (Kevin McHale http://www.imdb.com/name...) has the best male voice on Glee. It's a shame he doesn't have the male lead but Finn (Cory Monteith) has the look
Keith Bourgoin liked this
How Bad Could Obama Screw Up and Still Beat Sarah Palin? - http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009...
Louis Gray, Tim Costantino, ·[▪_▪]· and 2 other people liked this
"So, one way to look at this is that Palin gives Obama an approval rating bonus of about 3 points: if Obama can defeat a Generic Republican with an approval rating of X, he can defeat Palin with an approval rating of X-3."
- Benjamin Golub
Every once in a long while Dilbert hist a home run. - http://dilbert.com/strips...
Michael R. Bernstein, Diego Barros , Jérôme Flipo and 39 other people liked this
I found a pair of never worn socks tucked into the corner of my dresser. I love the feeling of new socks. Every year Megen asks what I want for Hanukkah and the answer is always socks
Anne Bouey, Keith Bourgoin, Admiral Anika and 4 other people liked this
Chrome OS will help kill Silverlight and other non-open tech, preventing msft and others from recapturing the web. (though I expect that it will support Flash by necessity)
ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,, Charles Frith, Vladimir Yashnikov and 149 other people liked this
Good point.
- Robert Scoble
I hope it doesn't. After all we need good media delivery platforms.
- Swaroop
Including GNASH - the open source alternative - would solve that problem
- Bogdan Costea
yeah, nobody really needs flash. kill it.
- Zio Bonino
Chrome OS might be a compelling case for SVG/<canvas> + <audio> tag replacements for flash. Dunno what SVG's perf is like on WebKit tho.
- Matt Mastracci
Microsoft will port it. It's all about codecs & DRM. Ogg Theora isn't all that great.
- Rodfather
Is that Steve Jobs disguised as Zio ?
- Swaroop
@Swaroop Yes, we do. Like HTML5.
- Benjamin Dobson
@Swaroop eh eh, I've got flash disabled on all my systems :)
- Zio Bonino
@Benjamin I'd prefer HTML web apps over native apps anyday. But it'll take time for it to mature
- Swaroop
Rodfather, I don't think that will be an option for msft :). If Chrome is built the way I would do it, there is no installation per-se -- everything runs in the browser and the config in stored in the cloud (and cached locally). The computer is a pure appliance.
- Paul Buchheit
@Zio You're the real Steve Jobs
- Swaroop
Microsoft moves much too slow to force new standards these days.
- Louis Gray
@Louis: IE8 flunking ACID test :)
- Swaroop
What about more standard codecs like h.264? That isn't open and is in hardware already.
- Rodfather
h.264 is established and must be in there, but it's not a platform like Silverlight is.
- Paul Buchheit
I know some of the guys behind silverlight. It is some great technology. Too bad it's from Microsoft and is closed.
- Joe Beda ()
from iPhone
A world with no Flash and Silverlight. I can't wait.
- Paul Grav
Yeah, it's too bad they didn't open-source it. This stuff with Mono is silly -- if you want to make a real standard you need to make the real implementation be open.
- Paul Buchheit
MS are about 10 years too late with Silverlight. And they'll most likely be dragged kicking and screaming into supporting HTML5.
- Paul Grav
Zio sez (hopefully humorously): "yeah, nobody really needs flash. kill it" -- have you ever watched a single YouTube video in your life? Like seventeen gazillion other people across the wired world. yeah, you're right, nobody needs Flash. ha!
- .LAG liked that
Remember Dave Clark in 1992, "We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code."
- Guy Vander Heyden
.LAG: most YouTube videos are playable without Flash now. My iPhone plays most of them and it doesn't have Flash. Certainly by the time the Google OS came out YouTube would be converted completely to non-Flash capability.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: The youtube flash application helps read the flv files on Youtube's servers and provides a UI (decoder too).
- Swaroop
Even Google admits they're not sure I'd bit for bit html5 video is less bandwitj consuming than flash. And flash isn't just media delivery, also interesting games and apps like tonepad, splicemusic.com's online sequencer, etc (I'm musically inclined, so most of my examples will be along that line) and please don't suggest we redo it all in java
- Ed F
from Nambu
Does this mean the next Silverlight release is codename Seppuku?
- Jay Cuthrell
Maybe we'll see commercials encoded in movies if everything is open.
- Rodfather
Flash is too established to kill off right now, so I'd be surprised if Chrome didn't include flash support. It will take many years to get rid of that thing. First they need to fix the standard browser to not be so broken (lack of video, multi-file upload, etc), then they need everyone to switch to the new html5 solutions.
- Paul Buchheit
Scoble ...that may be true, and YouTube plays on my Pre without Flash (yet)...but that doesn't mean that "nobody needs Flash." really? what would replace it?
- .LAG liked that
So Google's NaCl http://code.google.com/p... (now integrated within Chrome/Chromium) was just a temporary workaround, right?
- Jérôme Flipo
Use HTML 5 instead!
- Minh Bui
Is it just me or does Native Client (NaCl) remind you of the Microsoft Active X approach?
- Daniel Chow
But who prevents Google from taking over the net?
- Andreas
youtube videos play on iPhone/iPod Touch as they are higher res mp4 files NOT flv files. It was a big deal when Steve negotiated that deal with youtube.
- vijay
You have Moonlight to run Silverlight applications in Linux. Not perfect, but then an application made on Silverlight is "not perfect" by definition
- Marcos Marado
The point here is that Google has no motivation to include Silverlight on these machines, and installing software likely won't be an option (it's a web appliance), so it will be absent from a lot of netbooks, just as it is absent from iPhones. That cuts into market share, which is a bad thing for a platform that is trying to compete with more universal tech like Flash and HTML....
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- Paul Buchheit
@DanielChow: NaCl has very little overlap with ActiveX, apart from running native code. It runs in a provably safe way, and explicitly does *not* allow it to access arbitrary host APIs. But it can be quite useful when you need to run code that would be too slow in Javascript (even on v8): e.g., heavy encryption/decryption, possibly codecs, definitely game physics, and so forth.
- Joel Webber
There is a time and a place for Flash and Silverlight so I hope it will run it. There are simply some things you can do which aren't possible, or practical in html/css/javascript.
- Steve Temple
Paul: why wouldn't Chrome OS come with Moonlight? And if not, why wouldn't you be able to just install it? And third, why the hell would people want Moonlight for? I never installed it and not even once felt the need to!
- Marcos Marado
from fftogo
because of moonlight http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlig... the potential userbase of silverlight is greatly improved, agree that projects which don't consider compatibility are limiting their potential
- Mike Chelen
@mindboosternoori Ryanair site uses silverlight: http://www.ryanair.com/site... that's the only website I know that uses it - for this you would need moonlight :)
- Ihar Mahaniok
Flash is needed for the google os to be useful in education. Many education based websites are flash based.
- Willowdale
@Paul "Google is probably paying OEMs to ship with this OS, so instead of paying $x/machine to include windows XP, they will get paid $y/machine to include Chrome." - paying present tense, already? Isn't it enough for OEMs not to have to pay hefty licenses to Redmond, etc., while being able to ship with a free, stable OS+browser combo; they need to be paid to do that as well?
- ianf ⌘
I sure hope so. I think the wide array of JavaScript libraries have been killing Flash for years. Silverlight was never really a player. The only think keeping Flash afloat is video
- Scott Radcliff
I don't know what's under the hood of Silverlight (nobody knows), but Flash is basically a sprite engine controlled by Actionscript, which is basically an adapted version of Javascript anyway. It's nicely packaged though, and has an army of developers, so it won't go away that easily, at least not until there are Flash-to-Canvas/ HTML5 porting tools/ translators and the like.
- ianf ⌘
to follow that logic...photoshop is needed as well
- Chris Hofmann
somebody call me when http://playboyarchive.com is working in Chrome OS (it's currently implemented in Silverlight)
- Karim
If it gains any traction at all, MS will just make Silverlight version that will run on Google OS. Sure google could block it, but they haven't done so with the Chrome browser.
- Jeff Weber
Interesting. I doubt the Google OS will get that big anytime soon though.
- Scott Radcliff
from email
Silverlight doesn't have a chance now...I wonder what would Adobe Air do.
- Saad Kamal
not really, if google want to be open then they will need a plugin architecture for it and then MS could just port for it. I really don't see this troubling mainstream users any time soon.
- Darren Stuart
Though I agree with the view that MS monopoly may erode as alternative devices get adoption over PC/Notebook, and these devices will mostly run on open source OS, but it may take years to create a significant change in every day usage of normal users. In the end, OS choice is mostly done by manufacturers, and they would be happy to get paid by open source vendors for putting their OS on...
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- Kaan Bingol
People want media. Hulu, Netflix, Kindle, iTunes, etc. They need to address that or they are DOA.
- Hayes Haugen
Hayes, what makes you think it will lack media support?
- Paul Buchheit
I don't think it will lack licensed media support but what deals they are able to make will be crucial.
- Hayes Haugen
Hayes, i thought you were going to say that Netflix was using Silverlight. ;-)
- Karim
Yes, they are, what is their deal with MSFT? Can they do non Silverlight distribution?
- Hayes Haugen
i believe the Netflix non-Silverlight distribution is a format called "DVD" that works over the "Snail Mail" protocol. ;-) but clearly if Google is paying OEMs to install Chrome OS, they can pay Netflix to go back to Flash which Chrome OS will probably support "by necessity" ;-)
- Karim
How can Google make money from Chrome OS? Or does it want to make money from it except through advertisement? I still can not imagine that all software and service are free and sponsored by advertisements.
- Derek Wei
All Chrome OS questions are answered by today's Fake Steve Jobs ;)
- Hayes Haugen
Is there a need to make money? If more and more people eschew desktop offline applications in favor of online web based apps, it means more pageviews, more eyeballs, more advertising inventory, plus has the side effect of undermining a big competitor's cash cow.
- Ray Cromwell
That's the key, Google wants everything online. They figure the more people online, the stronger they become, and the more money they make. At least that what was said at the Chrome launch.
- Scott Radcliff
from email
I'm amused that the "backwards compatibility" argument against alternative operating systems has slowly turned into "does it support flash", and when you unpack that it really means "does it play YouTube". I suspect Google will make sure ChromeOS cna play YouTube and they don't need Flash to make sure of it.
- Nick Lothian
Is it possible that Microsoft will write Office for the Web using Volta instead of Silverlight? Could be a showcase announcement for their attack on GWT
- Ray Cromwell
I think Microsoft is going to focus less on the front-end of the web and more on the back-end, middle tier and database sides. Azure is a big deal that consumers aren't talking about because it's not flashy but will be pretty important to developers (and especially enterprise-level applications) when it's finally ready because everything becomes an interface to the cloud. Microsoft is...
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- Fa La La La Lindsay
Azure looks really cool. Hint: so did Blackbird.
- Michael R. Bernstein
lol blackbird (scary redmond flashback) - a good example of azure platform utilization can be seen via jon udell's elmcity project - http://blog.jonudell.net/elmcity...
- mike "glemak" dunn
Nosense, I want silverlight, flash, html and any other technology in my desktop & mobile phone. Silverlight? yes, there you can develop under Python, Ruby et al, instead of the outdated javascript.
- Sebastian Wain
It looks like with Native Client, you should be able to write your Chrome OS app in any language you feel like. So far, they have some examples in C/C++, but one of the things they ported is a Lua interpreter. If Adobe isn't going to invest heavily in fixing the show-stopping bugs on non-Windows versions of Flash, it's inevitably going to die, and there's really nothing either Google or Apple can do even if they wanted to support Flash better.
- Victor Ganata
...ActionScript3 is ECMASCript-compliant. I know nothing about standards bodies, and shii like that, but what if Adobe dropped ActionScript and said, "You can now use pure Javascript to build Flash applications..." It wouldn't be a big leap. I'm pretty sure that would shut-up all the Flash haters. And to the folks who say Flash is hanging around just because of video...well, video is...
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- .LAG liked that
Actionscript is just the glue for the more advanced what-iffy graphic functionality of Flash. They can not drop it for Javascript, because it contains additional graphic primitives that JS lacks. But it's not the JS-or-Actionscript that makes it a target for hate, it's other things. Nobody denies that it's pretty capable, but it is also badly written, eats up memory like no other, makes...
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- ianf ⌘
I like this post!
- Mohammad Abdurraafay
from iPhone
I honestly don't know how necessary Flash is. Apple seems to be doing fine without supporting it. But certainly Gnash and Swfdec should be implementable on Chrome OS. The fact is that without Adobe's full support on a given platform, Flash apps will always be second class citizens on alternate platforms, and so far, there's no indication that Adobe is interested in fully supporting any platform other than Windows.
- Victor Ganata
ianf ...you bring up great points about Flash's detriments, as does Victor, but until there's a better way to bring video to the Web, I can't see it disappearing. Adobe seems to keep improving the Flash VM, hopefully they'll address those CPU-hogging issues and make a more efficent runtime. Yeah, I hate hearing the fans kick-in when visiting a Flash-heavy site too. <sigh>
- .LAG liked that
alternative to flash video such as ... html5 :) (requires ff3.5) http://www.dailymotion.com/openvid...
- Mike Chelen
from IM
Ed, only??? thats one of the main reasons cited for the continued requirement of flash on popular sites like youtube
- Mike Chelen
Ed, those other uses can be accomplished through pure Javascript, video was the last remaining stumbling block
- Mike Chelen
Still waiting on non-Flash recreations of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch... or this: http://www.youtube.com/watch... Well aware of how someone mentioned higher up how you can combine javascript and svg to get nifty flash-like effects. I want apps like that though ^ Only real alternatives I've seen are Java-based ones, and those runs even slower than Flash.
- Ed F
Pardon me, but the OP is a ridiculous conclusion. For that to be the case, Chrome OS would have to kill Windows, OS X, etc altogether. Paul, I understand your viewpoint as being an ex-Google person, but that's just NOT going to happen. Right now the video specification from HTML5 has been dropped because of an impasse, meaning that we may be transitioning from 1 closed-source boss - Flash - to another - H264. Good luck.
- LANjackal
But why do these type of apps have to be written in Flash at all? You can easily do the same thing in C, C++, ObjC, Python, Ruby, etc., with the Native Client API that they're building for Chrome. http://code.google.com/p...
- Victor Ganata
I'm just saying, it's not like Flash is the end-all/be-all. As Apple well demonstrates, some people can live quite well without it.
- Victor Ganata
Victor ...i think the answer to the 'why do these have to be written in Flash at all' question is because Flash is installed on such a significant portion of Web browsers. But I recall that Adobe Flex had a competitor, Laszlo/OpenLaszlo, which compiled apps to SWF or to Javascript. Who's to say that Adobe doesn't have the same capability of making SWF apps into JS ones? On one hand, it...
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- .LAG liked that
Ed, such apps are possible with Javascript and HTML5 multimedia features, the question will be how difficult developers find it, and whether the performance is fast enough
- Mike Chelen
LANjackal, there is a question of degree in that Flash + H264 uses proprietary software and codec, while HTML5 + H264 requires only the codec. while OGV is no longer part of the spec, it can certainly still be used to have completely open video formats, and recent comparisons have shown it performs well http://people.xiph.org/~maikme...
- Mike Chelen
Silverlight's 3 is looking pretty impressive today but tend to agree
- Charlie Anzman
What everybody seems to be missing about Flash is that it works because there is one implementation which is mostly backwards-compatible and the same across platforms. It beat Java because, among other reasons, Java just didn't work the same across JVMs and platforms. The problem with HTML5 is that it will have a different implementation for every browser, and that means your app/game...
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- Gabe
Paul, don't you prefer brutal competition SL vs. Flash vs. standards bring to the table by definition? Or are you more into http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - 2020 Google Union - type of ideology?
- Kari Honkanen
Kari, I don't understand your question. Competition is good, but with open-source we get that -- no need for flash or SL.
- Paul Buchheit
Paul, no, we don't get the same level of competition with open-source only. As long as there's an opportunity for big gains (like in this case to bridge the gap before html 5 era...to satisfy demand), there will be innovations driven by that. I believe we all benefit from a free market economy that includes commercial, closed source, innovations. I am more scared of the possible future...
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- Kari Honkanen
I wouldn't worry too much amount multimedia. By exposing WebGL, (and hopefully OpenCL), you can offload a lot of compute intensive stuff onto the GPU via GPGPU techniques, and NativeClient is there to take up the rest of the slack, but the for the vast majority of iPhone-like games, I'm willing to bet V8 Javascript on a modern processor is more than enough. That leaves licensing issues...
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- Ray Cromwell
Paul, so are you saying that Google will block both Flash and Silverlight from ChromeOS? That's a new take on 'open.'
- Cliff Gerrish
MSFT next smart move: get Chrome OS (it's BSD licensed), inject IE9 and Silverlight into it and go benchmark against Chrome :)
- Claudio Cicali ♋
MSFT sucks Claudio :)
- Orlando Pozo
Something feels contradictory about a system touted to 'kill' competitors being 'open'. Sounds almost predatory to me.
- Karoli
I'm not opposed to non-open software, but for OS, browser, etc I prefer that it be open. Cliff, Google isn't going to "block" anything, but they can certainly choose what to include, and my guess is that they won't include SL. As Claudio points out, MSFT can make their own version of ChromeOS that includes SL, which is why open source software is nice (it can't be crippled too much or else someone will fork it).
- Paul Buchheit
I have heard somewhere that Fash uses it's own port where Silverlight works over the HTTP port. That's why Netflix works so well. To that, Flash costs more on a sever side because providers can charge more for that port traffic. Could it come down to who is cheaper? (I am fully prepared to be wrong).
- Johnny Worthington
Johnny, they both use HTTP -- there's no difference there.
- Paul Buchheit
Is Chrome OS BSD-licensed? I thought it was using a Linux kernel.
- Victor Ganata
@Paul - well, Flash can do P2P stuff over non-HTTP posts, but that is very new (Flash 10 I think). The cost isn't affected anyway.
- Nick Lothian
My understanding is that netbooks would have to be absurdly popular for Chrome OS to make a dent in the popularity of Flash or SL.
- Gabe
it is possible to have smaller groups for open source software, such as google's own gears api http://code.google.com/apis...
- Mike Chelen
How is HTML 5 going to defeat Flash and SL? I haven't used it, but I don't see anything in the spec that looks like it could compare.
- Gabe
@Gabe - what do you think HTML5 is missing? It does video, drawing, local storage, "threading" via WebWorkers. The biggest hole I'm aware of is the lack of access to webcams & microphones. What have I missed?
- Nick Lothian
Nick: When you say HTML 5 has "drawing", are you refering to the Canvas element? I would not consider an immediate-mode procedural raster drawing library to be much of a competitor to retained-mode declarative vector libraries like SVG or Silverlight. Programming with the Canvas tag is sort of the equivalent of programming in assembly language for bitmaps.
- Gabe
@Gabe: I think you've got it upside-down. A Canvas-style API is the fundamental basis on which you can build a retained mode structure like SVG, et al. If a platform includes a retained-mode library as a convenience, so be it. You can build SVG on Canvas, but not the other way around (hacks like IECanvas notwithstanding -- they have horrible performance characteristics and are a nasty abstraction inversion).
- Joel Webber
So, if Moonlight (Mono) runs on linux -- Will google make sure it doesn't work on Chrome OS?
- Cliff Gerrish
Joel: I don't think you said anything contrary to what I said. I just don't understand why any programmer would want to waste time writing an app using a low-level library when I could use a high-level library that implements everything for me.
- Gabe
@Gabe - I agree, and people are implementing those libraries now. See http://raphaeljs.com/ for example. Also, don't underestimate the convenience factor. I don't own any Flash development tools, but my text editor works pretty well for Canvas+JS based stuff.
- Nick Lothian
Nick: Didn't the author of raphael have some massive rant about how bad the Canvas element is? And I don't have any Flash dev tools either, but I use a text editor for most of my Silverlight development. It is incredibly convenient to be able to type something like <DataGrid ItemsSource="{Binding tabledata}"/> into a text editor and not have to create the data grid myself.
- Gabe
Why is Flash a "necessity" for an OS? I enjoy what flash can do, but it is like putting pimped out leather Oldsmobile seats in a Ferrari. It would definitely be nice, but certainly not a necessity.
- Dan Douglass
Early post goof up. To your original point, I agree. I like how Google is approaching the internet space with web apps that can be run with out a bloated browser.
- Dan Douglass
Dan Douglass: Flash is necessary because so many web sites rely on it. How many people would want to get a netbook that couldn't play FaceBook games or watch YouTube videos? Of course Google is in the unique position of being able to make YouTube work on ChromeOS without Flash, but they probably can't do anything about Hulu, Vimeo, or any of the other video sites out there that require Flash.
- Gabe
Anyone else think Joy is Spam?
- Chris Myles
already reported it yesterday :)
- Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ
from IM
I'm new to PHP but feel like this *should* fatal: function stupid($foo) { echo $foo; } stupid("bar", "this extra arg should cause a fatal");
John Wang, Roberto Bonini, Mo Kargas and 15 other people liked this
The problem is what happens when someone is incorrectly using a function that you then add an extra arg to? Bad things. Example say we have: function happy() { make_everyone_happy(); }. But someone goes and calls it like this: happy(true);. That is completely valid. Then I go and change the function to be function happy($sad=false) { if ($sad) blow_up() else make_everyone_happy(); }. Since it was never erroring before you are likely not to notice that you've just blown things up.
- Benjamin Golub
Basically, it's a good and a bad thing :). I'm just used to languages where you don't have to check all the calls of your function when you add an arg. Now I know you have to be extra careful doing that with PHP.
- Benjamin Golub
Yeah, I just realized I'm thinking of C, not PHP, where you have to explicitly state that you want to use variable arguments. It's like that in PHP for legacy reasons (and it will not throw any warning/notice/error regardless of how you have error reporting set up). I guess it's always assumed with PHP that before calling a function, you'd check to see what the function is going to do...
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- Mark Trapp
It's not considered an error on PHP, I've tried it in the past in our codebase and there was no notice we were doing it
- Jorge Escobar
Just like Javascript. Lovely, isn't it?
- Joel Webber
My thoughts exactly...
- Tarmo Aidantausta
Hahahaha. This is just the beginning. Maybe you should have looked into this stuff *before* getting acquired. :-) (I'm taunting now while Ben can laugh too. A few more discoveries like this and it won't be funny anymore.)
- Bruce Lewis
Benjamin you are my idol from the time of friendfeed. i'm sure you can have a look to php source code and hack something to improve php
- Fabrizio
Of course, if it's that big of an issue for you, you could always build the error handling into each of your functions. Basically, check to see if any arguments are being passed to the function, check to see if each of those arguments makes sense in the context of the function, then throw an error if they don't belong. That way, you would catch the happy(true) issue before changing the function to function happy($sad=false)
- Curtiss Grymala
Curtiss: we both know that doesn't scale (both with the size of the project and the team) especially with an already established code base. This is just the way PHP works and now I know :)
- Benjamin Golub
document.getElementById('boobs').src = 'http://www.explosionsandboobs.com/boobs...'; #BestCodeEver
- Mona Nomura
I'm going to write my first ever technical book review. RESTful .Net from O'Reilly. Very excited about it.
Keith Bourgoin, Micah Wittman and Benjamin Golub liked this
Thank you - http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007...
Fabrizio, Keith Bourgoin, Anne Bouey and 10 other people liked this
so well said.
- metalerik
Support for Same-Sex Marriage by Age and State » Sociological Images - http://contexts.org/socimag...
EBrewer, Jessie, Matt Snoulten and 24 other people liked this
"The data supports the notion that younger people are more supportive of gay marriage than older people. I also think it’s interesting that, even in states that we normally consider quite hostile to gay rights (the ones at the bottom of the table), there is still a significant age difference: 18-29 year-olds in Alabama, for example, are more supportive of gay marriage than people 65 and older in Massachusetts. So, while we like to think about states as “liberal” or “conservative,” spreading out the data by age tells a much more complicated story."
- Jim Norris
from Bookmarklet
It'd be interesting to find out if preferences for the *same set* of people change as they age. If no, then all we have to do to improve same-sex rights is wait for a generation or two to snuff it. If yes, then it's a little harder.
- Aaron D'Souza
Would like to see a graph with "has internet" (do younger people more frequently use/ more regularly access the internet?)
- Philipp Lenssen
Where's the graph for polygamist marriage?
- Gus
Waiting a "generation or two" isn't going to do a whole lot for the gay community now. This is particularly true for elderly gay and lesbian individuals who are facing mortality and unable to secure inheritances etc for their partners.
- Soup
My guess is that open-mindedness comes with actually knowing people who are gay/lesbian/etc. and realizing that it's an inescapable part of who they are and just a different manifestation of the same powerful feelings of love and commitment that everyone feels. It also probably has to do with marriage being defined as a romantic notion these days rather than a more economic and social framework in the past. As evidence for this, I have nothing.
- Jim Norris
And I may not be the strongest gay-marriage supporter out there by any means... I mean, I'm ok with it and think it should be allowed, but only as long as I don't have to get gay married myself.
- Jim Norris
Nice, Jim, nice.
- Kelly
I concur, Jim Norris. :)
- Mona Nomura
from iPhone
Ah, so Jim, you support "weak" gay marriage, not "strong" gay marriage.
- Stephen Mack
Interesting. So even if attitudes by age remain constant, in 20 years, the 18 states from Pennsylvania up will be strongly pro gay-marriage, but the 22 states from Wyoming on down will remain opposed, even 40 years hence.
- j1m
And of course, the prediction is that attitudes by age will be far from remaining constant. Indeed attitudes toward gays seem to have made almost all of their progress in the last 15 years, afaict.
- j1m
The Go Programming Language Promo - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Рыло из нержавеющей стали, Jeethu Karthik, Sean O'Connor and 15 other people liked this
PEP 3003 -- Python Language Moratorium - http://python.org/dev...
NaHi, Artem K, Keith Bourgoin and 3 other people liked this
"This PEP proposes a temporary moratorium (suspension) of all changes to the Python language syntax, semantics, and built-ins for a period of at least two years from the release of Python 3.1. In particular, the moratorium would include Python 3.2 (to be released 18-24 months after 3.1) but allow Python 3.3 (assuming it is not released prematurely) to once again include language changes. This suspension of features is designed to allow non-CPython implementations to "catch up" to the core implementation of the language, help ease adoption of Python 3.x, and provide a more stable base for the community."
- Benjamin Golub
from Bookmarklet
This is exciting. I hope this means Python adoption will be much more widespread -- I'm convinced it's going to be the successor to Java.
- Adam Derewecki
DROOOoooooID.
Cem Ozkaynak, Noah F, Amit Patel and 23 other people liked this
how is it? i totally want one.
- Jenna Bilotta
Great! Significantly faster than the G1. Better screen. The keyboard will take a bit of getting used to. The default notification sound is a robotic voice saying "DROOOoooooID", thankfully easily changed.
- Tudor Bosman
What, why would you change that ? :D
- Mo Kargas
*spock eyebrow* LOL
- Derrick
The screen is absolutely beautiful. YouTube videos over wifi (bandwidth detection?) are sharp and clear.
- Bill Strathearn
Also, it's the first phone I had that does email right; it can easily handle multiple email accounts (two Gmail accounts, both using the Android Gmail client; one IMAP account, and one Exchange account). It seamlessly merges the contacts from the different accounts (and also my Facebook friends) and allows me to configure different notifications for the different accounts.
- Tudor Bosman
from Android
What about the keyboard - heard it was kinda janky. Though my number one concern is Twitter (need to demo Twittdroid) then UX of 1. mail and 2. SMS
- Mona Nomura
The keyboard isn't great. It's not bad, but I think the one on my old G1 was *slightly* better. It's no Blackberry, it's no Sidekick (the Sidekick had the best keyboard, but it was also huge and clunky). There are two different email clients -- one for Gmail (which is awesome, and supports all Gmail features in a very Gmail-y way), and one for other accounts (IMAP/POP, Exchange) which I...
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- Tudor Bosman
I'm actually excited to play with one tomorrow - it sounds a lot more promising than the Pre.
- Mona Nomura
Contact integration is really great. You get an address book (which is automatically synced with your Gmail, Facebook, Exchange accounts), and, once you select a contact, you get a list of options (based on where the contact was imported from) -- call / SMS the phone numbers on the account, send an email, chat with them in Google Talk (it shows the Google Talk status right there in the...
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- Tudor Bosman
The wall charger is a generic USB charger, with a USB charging port, which is nice: you can use it to charge any USB-chargeable accessories. The phone comes with a standard USB-to-microUSB cable that can be used for either charging or data transfer. This cable is only 3ft long, which is a pain; come on, Motorola, bundling a 6ft cable would have cost you, what, 15 cents more?
- Tudor Bosman
Ooo I have the Retweet Beta
Keith Bourgoin, Brandon Titus, NaHi and 2 other people liked this
Me too. Let's create a loop!
- joey
I had a thread in my email inbox with the subject "Windows 2003 64 Bit memory utilization". The email client on my phone shortened that to "Windows 2003 64 Bit me"
Keith Bourgoin, Ashwin Bharambe, Private Sanjeev and 5 other people liked this
Our costumes
Megen Vo, Paul Buchheit, Baard @ Pixum and 21 other people liked this
TOO FLIPPIN' CUTE.
- Mona Nomura
Trekers!! woo hoo!
- Susan Beebe
Is there something on your ear Ben?
- Ozkan Altuner
Ozkan: Spock ears :)
- Benjamin Golub
Cool :) Don't forget posting party pics
- Ozkan Altuner
What cute costumes!!
- Marci Golub
Obama lifts ban on US entry for those with HIV - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin...
Keith Bourgoin, Anne Bouey, Eren Emre Kanal and 4 other people liked this
"President Barack Obama said Friday the U.S. will overturn a 22-year-old travel and immigration ban against people with HIV early next year. The order will be finalized on Monday, Obama said, completing a process begun during the Bush administration."
- Tudor Bosman
from Bookmarklet
I didn't even know there was a ban.
- Mark Trapp
Mark: as part of the immigration process, you need to have blood and urine tests to check for certain communicable diseases (such as syphilis). All other diseases on the blacklist can be cured, so you get treated, retake the blood test, and you're good to go. Except HIV - if your HIV test comes back positive, you are barred for life from entering the US, and if you are in the US at the time, you get deported.
- Tudor Bosman
from Android
Interesting start for an immigration reform.
- Ozgur Demir
Hormesis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
ashish, Keith Bourgoin, Dani Radu and 8 other people liked this
"Hormesis is the term for generally-favorable biological responses to low exposures to toxins and other stressors. A pollutant or toxin showing hormesis thus has the opposite effect in small doses as in large doses. ... The biochemical mechanisms by which hormesis works are not well understood. It is conjectured that a low dose challenge with a toxin may trigger certain repair mechanisms in the body, and these mechanisms, having been initiated, are efficient enough that they not only neutralize the toxin's effect, but even repair other defects not caused by the toxin."
- Paul Buchheit
from Bookmarklet
Learned a new thing today.
- AJ Batac
Where would you say the 3 martini challenge falls on that graph? :)
- Benjamin Golub
Heh, tech rockstars and heroin...
- directeur
thanks for sharing - eustress! ;)
- Harscoat
This is very vigorously debated and generally hormesis is not widely accepted.
- Chris Brinkerhoff
Not exactly but sounds like a vaccine effect which are viral particles at low concentration.
- ashish
Think big. Code small.
John μller, Itachi, Laura Norvig and 89 other people liked this
How small?
- τorƍue
10 CLS
- Mattb4rd
Excellent advise K.I.S.S. :)
- Susan Beebe
How Big?
- John D Reasor
+ John
- τorƍue
Big enough to change the world, and small enough to get done right now.
- Paul Buchheit
Amen - release early, release often, especially as an entrepreneur
- Jesse Stay
Please provide a list of projects that we can get done right now that'll change the world. kthxbye
- Ken Sheppardson
Ken, I think the saying is, "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"
- Paul Buchheit
Yeah, I figured you'd say something like that ;-)
- Ken Sheppardson
Paul, when you said "code small", was that just the first step? :)
- τorƍue
It's also the second step.
- Paul Buchheit
The next trick is taking all those steps in one direction, otherwise you can end up dancing around in one place like a madman, not actually getting anywhere. :-)
- Ken Sheppardson
20 ? "Shall we play a game?"
- Mattb4rd
Yes, good point Ken, though sometimes we must navigate around obstacles such as mountains and oceans.
- Paul Buchheit
And sometimes you have to head downhill to get to the top of that peak off in the distance.
- Ken Sheppardson
Don't forget time itself
- Jesse Stay
booo yaaa!
- Bill Heslin
On average, how much of a code project's big success could be significantly attributed to luck? Luck alone never gets it there, but still. I code because of the small rewards, so whatever the answer is, I'm fine with it. :)
- Micah Wittman
This is a more likely result, but keep swinging: http://friendfeed.com/funny-p...
- Mattb4rd
Think BIG. Code SMALL. Maintain ZERO! (Ideal conditions!)
- Nishant
Think small. Code big. http://ws.apache.org/xmlrpc...
- Kelly Norton
lol @Kelly
- Nick Lothian
I'm currently coding for a machine that has 12 bytes of variable memory and 256 bytes of program memory. In a language with 32 commands. Am I coding small enough?
- Kevin Fox
Now wonders what Kevin is working on for Facebook ;-)
- Jesse Stay
Sounds like a remote control.
- Cristo
I've been coding a few of these for Halloween: http://efx-tek.com/topics...
- Kevin Fox
Cool. What's the application?
- Cristo
Light and sound effects with a few triggers.
- Kevin Fox
I must admit to being baffled by systems shipping with many gigabytes of code now that have similar functionality to systems with a few megabytes of code 15 years ago.
- Cristo
Kevin, nice! Now I want one. I remember writing a BASIC program in High School that controlled some AND gates via parallel cable on a circuit board we created in my electronics class. The purpose was to control 4 step motors. Awesome that you can just pre-program a chip now on a device like this that will do similar things. Need to look into that.
- Jesse Stay
Check out Revision3's podcasts. There are some with Patrick Norton doing this on System (I think that's the right one)
- Mattb4rd
@Paul: Which font size do you recommend for the code editor? 14pt? or is 10pt even better? ;)
- Jemm
Like jquery
- ★ Soner Gönül
Soner - that's a great example, actually. jQuery has been transformative, IMO, even in the face of alternative JS frameworks which aren't bad, just not greatness in a small package.
- Micah Wittman
Paul isn't it time for another sip of the premature optimization is the root of all evil kool-aide? You just aren't getting it :-)
- Todd Hoff
Paul Buchheit - Been at your job too long? QUIT! - Startup School 2009 - http://vimeo.com/7240218
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Felicia Yue, Alexander Arsky, Sachin and 88 other people liked this
couldnt agree more
- sean percival
I wonder how long he means when he says that. 5 years? 3? Less?
- Diego Barros
I don't know, I was with my first company for 4.5 years. That still made me kinda the new guy, as a lot of employees were there 20 to 30 years. I guess it depends on industry. That was the insurance industry, and as long as there was a way up I was happy with that company. Now working in dot coms, working at a place more that two years is impressive. In some ways I don't necessarily...
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- Dario Gomez
I was at my last job 8 1/2 years. In that time, Facebook and Twitter were started, Google grew up, and Bush started two wars. Maybe I stayed too long.
- Louis Gray
I'd rather my longevity at a company be determined in terms of achieving some goal. If it does not look like I will be able to accomplish something interesting, novel, or useful then I'll bail. Idiotic politics usually short circuits that game plan though.
- scott anderson
I've never worked a job for more than 2 years. I like finding new levels of experience. If they kept it a learning experience I would stay longer, but never found a company that did that.
- Jesse Stay
Scott, your reasoning led to my longevity there. I wanted to reach an end, be it M&A, IPO or something else. But it eventually became time.
- Louis Gray
Louis: The goals I set are more personal and typically are not dependent on what the company and/or my division achieves. I have been fortunate in that I have always been able to drive the projects or sub-projects that I have worked on. That said, politics and the agendas of other individuals still find a way to mess up the best of intentions.
- scott anderson
++ scott. I agree with, "If you’ve been in your job for awhile, you should quit. Google was really comfortable. I knew all the people. It’s important to do things that will make you uncomfortable." with the caveat that it is important to find a place where you can accomplish something and stay there long enough to give it legs or cut it loose. I hear overnight success takes a long time. Otherwise you are just uncomfortable for no good reason.
- Clare Dibble
Bold advice in hard times.
- Tim Tyler
great advice for people who don't have a mortgage or a family
- Terris Linenbach
+1 Terris
- Bill Hooker
Terris, I have a family of 4 kids and a mortgage. As I said I've never had a job longer than 2 years. As for going out on your own, it's difficult, but very possible. It involves a lot of sacrifice though.
- Jesse Stay
Going out on my own was the one of the best decisions I ever made in my life (even with a mortgage, family and a new baby at the time). I ended up back at a company, but this time I had founded it. There are many ways to make your life work on your own. If you really want to do it, just step off the cliff. You'll figure out a way to make it work.
- Matt Mastracci
Matt, funny how that happens - my wife was pregnant when I went out on my own as well. I still don't know how we managed all that. :-) I agree though - it was the best decision of my life. I may end up at a job again at some point, but as Paul said, at the time it "sounded like the right thing to do". I've learned so much from being on my own, and the freedom is priceless. (Paycheck, much of the time is not so priceless) :-)
- Jesse Stay
Actually it's a great advice for people who have mortgage and family and are taking it responsibly rather then being complacent in hope their current employer is here forever.
- ǝuǝƃnǝ
eugene, yeah - one thing I've learned more than anything is that control is a good thing. Even if I work for someone else I always want to be sure I've got my own thing of some sort going that I could resort to at any time (a book, side-business, blog, investments, advisory roles, etc). Of course you have to be careful about that at the same time in that your employer knows of such things and is okay of you owning that IP.
- Jesse Stay
To be clear, if you have kids, etc, find a new job before quitting your current one :)
- Paul Buchheit
It was such a pleasure to be in the audience for this!
- Jay
Paul, how long do you think is too long?
- Diego Barros
Whenever you get "too comfortable" :o)
- Susan Beebe
Yeah, the correct answer obviously depends on your situation (how much you will learn at the new job vs the old), but in general I'd guess that "too long" falls in the 5-10 year period, though if your job is bad, "too long" may happen much sooner :)
- Paul Buchheit
Totally agree with this, esp the quote at the end "It's important to do things that make you uncomfortable". IMO, people grow the most when they are forced out of their comfort zone
- Dave Hodson
It's important to do things that will make you uncomfortable because.......???
- τorƍue
Growth and flexibility. Obviously not all uncomfortable things are good though.
- Paul Buchheit
Paul Buchheit is Sarah Palin?
- Jim Norris
One of my friends has been at Apple for 10 years. She's a brilliant engineer (I've known her since college). Her reason for staying: "I've got 3 kids. They need lots of care and nurture, and they're providing plenty of challenge in my life. I don't need more." My mom sacrificed her career for her 3 kids. Her sister continued pursuing her career, since she only had one. When looking at...
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- Piaw Na
That's very reasonable Piaw -- I agree that good parents are more important than good toys or schools. The "quit your job" advice was more for people looking to start a company or something.
- Paul Buchheit
Paul agreed - entrepreneurship isn't for everyone. My dad tried it, decided it wasn't for him, and he'll be retiring in about 10 years or so after years and years of building a very successful career in the professional world. If it's for you, there are ways to make it work and provide for a family - it involves a lot of work though, and make sure you're prepared when you do it. (I sold...
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- Jesse Stay
@Scott Anderson - absolutely - I'll leave when the job is done or the politics make finishing what I need to do impossible.
- Dan Morrill AKA Techwag
@Jesse It's not about providing for the family. I'm sure entrepreneurs manage to do that or they go out of business very quickly. It's investing time in the family that's usually the missing ingredient. I know, since I did have a largely absent entrepreneurial father.
- Piaw Na
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