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dpearson

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Re:JavaScript right on the hardware on Wednesday August 14, 2013 @10:22PM (#6215821)
Any sort of compiler for JavaScript could only support a subset of the language, unless you shipped an interpreter alongside the compiled code. This subset might be unfamiliar enough to the point that moving to a new language wouldn't be that much harder for some programmers.

I also see nothing on the site to suggest that C/C++ (at least) couldn't be supported, although I have no clue how much work you would have to do yourself (likely too much).

Re:Stop Allowing App Reviews From Beta iOS Versions on Thursday August 08, 2013 @01:10PM (#6180270)
It would be one thing if the iOS 7 reviews only showed up for other developers running the beta, but these reviews only (in the best case scenario) dilute and obscure actual, legitimate reviews.

In the former case, the reviews might provide a benefit. Now, however, they hurt sales to customers who haven't updated and won't until after Apple's deadline for compatability (that is, release day).

EDIT: Not to mention that the new APIs are still changing, so even if a fix was allowable, it might just end up breaking again.

This subpoena has nothing to do with PRISM; it's really more of an effort to link the White House to the IRS targetting of conservative groups (which was apparently just an agent running amok).

Ultimately, though, there's the classic adage about the president: "The buck stops here." If Obama was aware of PRISM (which I have to believe he did), then he also had the choice of stopping it. The same is true of the IRS scandal. Even if he did not (unlike Nixon) direct the programs, knowing about them and not stopping them (again, if true; I really don't know) is tantamount to running them.

Re:Petition to Pardon Edward Snowden on Sunday June 09, 2013 @10:03PM (#5851859)
However, when the president of the United States issues a pardon, even one that is of questionable legality, it's still a powerful statement: Ford placed the power and influence of the Oval Office in between Nixon and any prosecutor.

This petition suggests a similar maneuver with Obama and Snowden.

Re:Petition to Pardon Edward Snowden on Sunday June 09, 2013 @05:44PM (#5850787)
Nixon received a "full, free, and absolute pardon" from Gerald Ford [0], despite not actually having even stood trial, let alone having been convicted.

[0]: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/26847.html

Whenever I see someone downvoted for an unpopular (on HN, anyway) opinion, I always upvote the comment, even if I don't believe that the comment otherwise merits an upvote. It's my way of striking back at the practice.
Re:Addicted to Twitter on Saturday May 25, 2013 @04:41PM (#5768754)
The ideal for me would be to maintain the accounts, but use them less. I'm worried that being completely without any social networking presence could hurt me down the road with companies being reluctant to hire someone who seems like they might have something to hide. In my opinion, at least, this attitude is ridiculous, but I've already had people look at me strangely about it.
Re:Addicted to Twitter on Saturday May 25, 2013 @04:38PM (#5768735)
I've noticed the same pattern as my access to technology has expanded. Initially, I was completely unconcerned with my online presence, but, as the years wore on, it became less of a relief to be away from everything and more of an impatience to get back and check Twitter, email, news, etc. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that there's a way to go back, either for myself or for society as a whole.
This is assuming that the fixes are necessarily designed to save time. That's not always the case, however: I have some tasks that are fairly quick, but it's far easier to automate them (even though, in time savings, the automation is worthless compared to the effort expended) than to just do them by hand. With manual tasks, there is a certain annoyance factor, and, if you're anything like me, you will forget to do it once or twice and figure out only when someone complains.
Re:Countries Statistics API on Wednesday May 08, 2013 @05:05PM (#5676945)
You could try scraping the CIA World Factbook, which should have all of that information. There's no formal API, but someone has written a scraper[0] that you could rerun to get newer data (or, for that matter, you could write your own scraper).

[0]: https://github.com/twigkit/worldfactbook-dataset

Re:Web Scraping 101 with Python on Sunday March 10, 2013 @06:49PM (#5353888)
> Scraping online content is so simple these days, if a website doesn't offer an API you still have alternatives ;)

Having written code to both leverage a site's (private) API and to scrape that same site (when the private API stopped existing), I would much, much rather use an API. Yes, the scraper works, but the scraper's code is much messier, and JSON keys, for example, provide some documentation in their own right. Looking at the scraper months later, there's a lot more headscratching. Scraping will work, but it also will leave you searching for many little pieces of information that would be exposed by an API but aren't by a static site.

Still, I will agree that scraping is much easier; I've used jsdom (Node.js) extensively, and, for my use cases, it feels like working in a browser (full DOM, scripts, etc.).

Re:Ubuntu Rolling Release Proposal on Thursday February 28, 2013 @07:52PM (#5302130)
I used to use Debian, and I'm not sure I'd go back. On one hand, the stability was wonderful (Debian was pretty much bulletproof for me), but packages were, for stable, quite old. Hardware compatibility isn't quite as good: hardware (including a USB Wi-Fi dongle) that Ubuntu autodetects and has no trouble with became an adventure to get working.

I tracked stable, so maybe testing would be better in terms of package outdating, but hardware compatibility is Debian's achilles heel right now.

Re:Apple's upgrade dilemma on Sunday February 10, 2013 @04:38PM (#5198027)
Apple is already killing off device support, sometimes (seemingly) for marketing reasons. With iOS 6, Apple dropped support for the first-generation iPad, but continued to support the iPhone 3GS (which I cannot imagine being much faster [edit: see Xuzz's reply to this comment]). The obvious reason, from my layman's perspective, is sales: the iPhone 3GS was on the market more recently, so the (newer) iPad got the ax.

Apple also tied app support for the iPhone 5, and future iPhones, to ending support for the iPhone 3G and its ilk; I understand that long build times are far from desirable, but this move seems like a great way to encourage upgrades.

Then again, maybe I'm just a cynic.

Edit: I've not used an iPhone 3GS on a day-to-day basis, but I've seen better performance out of my first gen iPad (and maybe it's just me) just before it was EOL'd than I ever saw with the iPhone 3G/iPod touch 2G family, both of which were truly awful performance-wise before Apple pulled the plug. I'm guessing the real reason for keeping support for the iPhone 3GS but not the iPad 1G was, as coob mentioned, the fact that it was on sale when iOS 6 was released.

Compare that to other DC-area counties, though. Per the Washington Post [1], Fairfax, Loudoun, and Arlington all have median household incomes over $100,000. Montgomery sits at almost $93,000. So in comparison, $71,000 per year is low.

[1]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/local/highest-i...

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