ec429

5 ms·

1.
by ec429 15y ago
Non-emphatic letter-spacing changes are susceptible to automation, thus should be automated. If, for instance, uppercase text requires wider spacing, the browser — or better still, the font renderer — should work that out; the designer shou
2.
by ec429 15y ago
That's not gopher. Gopher doesn't have semantic markup. In fact, gopher doesn't define a document format at all (unless you count the format of the menus); it's a transport protocol. I'm not advocating regression to non-design; merely the
3.
by ec429 15y ago
I disagree: increased letter spacing is a form of emphasis. Perhaps you are confusing it with kerning, which does make text easier to read, and which absolutely should at all times be automated (no exceptions, not even for 'display' text).
4.
by ec429 15y ago
Well, I'm a bit autistic myself, so it's no surprise. But in fact I do care about typography (in particular, I obsessed over bad kerning /before/ xkcd mentioned it); I just think that typography /is not the job/ of the creator of the page.
5.
by ec429 15y ago
Hmm, I disagree. In my opinion, 'clean' web design means the now sadly old-fashioned approach of: have some text, marked up to indicate emphasis, headings etc., then let the damn browser decide what it should look like. CSS to change colou
6.
by ec429 15y ago
Three shall be the version of the Python, and the version of the Python shall be three. Version four shalt thou not use, nor shalt thou use version two, excepting that thou then upgrade to three. Perl 5 is right out.
7.
by ec429 15y ago
"For that matter, you'd think there would be a better service out there that would research anything like that." You're asking for the Semantic Web. No, really: if everyone's data were available as data, so you didn't have to scrape human-r
8.
by ec429 15y ago
Yes: that's exactly my point (b).
9.
by ec429 15y ago
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: _the US cannot be trusted with stewardship of the global Internet_. Wired suggests that some want to move this stewardship to the UN. This is not a solution. A still more decentralised approach
10.
by ec429 15y ago
I strongly suspect that this will prove to be limited by the RF path; it relies (as far as I can tell) on coherent properties of the wavefront. This means it will break as soon as the signal passes through heterogeneous material (such as a
11.
by ec429 15y ago
Try R. It's a powerful open source statistical language, also fairly good at linear algebra.
12.
by ec429 15y ago
Solution: don't use monolithic applications with bloated GUIs. Instead, use small, simple tools, driven from the command line where possible. If the problem domain is naturally graphical, have a lightweight graphical frontend driving the
13.
by ec429 15y ago
According to the article, the interference is 86dB above the GPS signal (400mn.×). Wikipedia gives figures of 60-80dB. The LightSquared band is from 50MHz to 16MHz below the GPS L1 band, which as a percentage of 1.5GHz is from 1% to 3%.
14.
by ec429 15y ago
What about nonstandard analysis? Or, to put it another way, Infinity is a hyperreal number.
15.
by ec429 15y ago
I was thinking the same, and found it particularly amusing that "design" types are only now finally realising the virtues of the command line. What'll the next Ubuntu UI revolution be? No X11, just a 'screen' session in a tty? (I'd actua
16.
by ec429 15y ago
If some airmail stages through a US airport, does the US have the right to rifle through the mailbags on the plane?
17.
by ec429 15y ago
Moreover, it's a foreign post office and much of the mail is foreign - since when does the FBI have jurisdiction over the entire world?
18.
by ec429 15y ago
I quite agree (and it's sickening how 'elitism' has become an insult). However, I would add that she does have a point about Oxford not being up to scratch (she should have applied to Cambridge instead ;)
19.
by ec429 15y ago
I think the /real/ abuse of power here isn't the RIAA/MPAA at all... it's the US (or rather, govt and certain corporations thereof) thinking that because key Internet infrastructure is located on their territory, they have a right to screw
20.
by ec429 15y ago
Oh I agree that the previous govt were dreadful. But I can understand /Labour/ being bereft of clue. I expect better from the Tories. Then again, I suppose they've been a bit busy dealing with economic and european issues.
21.
by ec429 15y ago
Open source (decentralised Linux style) seems to have compensated for the network effect of large teams. Hence why Linux is 3.0 and HURD still hasn't shipped ;) points at CatB http://catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/ I think par
22.
by ec429 15y ago
They could let those people become teachers without having to go through the rigmarole of largely useless training. The next academic year is nearly eight months away; that's /bags/ of time. The barriers to entry to teaching are just anoth
23.
by ec429 15y ago
Most of what you say is spot on, but I take issue with your suggestion that "a good curriculum" will solve the problem. What is needed is /no/ set curriculum; it is in the nature of prescriptive documents to become fussier and more prescri
24.
by ec429 15y ago
I suspect that there are plenty of people qualified to teach programming, it's just that most people currently teaching ICT are not qualified to teach anything (if the idiots I was taught ICT by are at all representative). If the government
25.
by ec429 15y ago
To be still more pedantic, there are two kinds of definition of an interface: definition-within-the-type-system and definition-within-the-documentation. The string library is specified in the ISO C standard (I use C99, but you can be all h
26.
by ec429 15y ago
All I can say is, why has it taken them so long? Both the problem and the solution have been obvious for /years/. However, I'm glad the gov't have finally obtained some clue on this issue.
27.
by ec429 15y ago
It seems to me that what Bjarne likes about C++ over C is its provision of copious quantities of syntactic sugar - turning things that are perfectly expressible in C into supposedly more 'natural' formulations. I suppose if you like canc
28.
by ec429 15y ago
"MS-DOS—the original "weak OS." Every version of the software is retailored and rebranded by its manufacturer. Even some software has to be rewritten to conform to different machines and their varied specs." Interesting definition of 'origi
29.
by ec429 15y ago
From those same guidelines: "If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did." Being new here means (in my case) that I re-read the guidelines each time I think they might impinge on a decision to post, because I'm aware that
30.
by ec429 15y ago
Reading the comment thread on the linked post, I am struck by the sheer pervasiveness of kafkatraps. I see people literally saying "Your opinion does not matter, you are a Straight White Male". Seeing kafkatrapping used by a community of s

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