gulpahum

Exactly! That's why I think we should keep building better AI. It'll be AI, which will be traveling out to the stars, not humans.

We could send a probe to a star and once it reaches it, we could simply beam the AI using a transmitter to the probe. Once AI has done its work there, it can be beamed back to Earth (it there is need for that). Build a network of probes and AI can travel between stars at light speed!

You should be able to get Intex Aqua Fish phone (a manufacturer in India). It runs Sailfish 2.0 created by Jolla. (I haven't actually ordered Aqua Fish, so I can't say much about it). Here's one seller in eBay:

http://www.ebay.in/itm/Intex-Aqua-Fish-4G-LTE-with-Qualcomm-...

Some monkeys are also flossing their teeth and teaching it to their children. Smart animals.

http://www.allaboutwildlife.com/2009-10/monkeys-teach-their-...

Interesting that he mentions Bret Victor. He was actually one of the designers of the much criticised touch bar [1][2]. He is also working on some other changes for Apple.

[1] https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/791767756928462848

[2] https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/793501918790242304

I got an update to 10.11 El Capitan yesterday, which probably fixes the vulnerability. You can see the fix in Apple's support page, have a look at the bottom of the page about "System Boot":

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207275

It looks like even 10.10 Yosemite got a fix. Here's a full list of security fixes Apple has made to its software:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222

Nice explanation.

However, it didn't explain how the debugger can stop again at the breakpoint after the last step? The interrupt command has been replaced with the original command, so the process won't stop again..

What would be the purpose of such a simpler vector format?

Several formats already exist for various use cases: PDF for printing, SVG for web graphics (simple content and icons), OpenType fonts for vector based text and SVG as an exchange format between vector graphics apps.

The only use case I can think of is for standalone vector graphics images, but PDF or SVG is often good enough for that.

You're right. SVG2 requires full CSS support. CSS brings lots of complexity, like calc(), CSS variables and so on. All that is needed, because web developers use SVG2 inline in HTML documents. It is also becoming more common to embed HTML in SVG. It's going to be one big tag soup. All that is better for the web, but worse as a stable image format.

There are also plans to create SVG-in-OpenType fonts, which would embed SVG inside web fonts. I have very mixed feelings about that. It is nice to have fonts with multiple colors, gradients and animations. On the other hand, do I want to have the same compatibility problems with fonts as I already have with HTML/SVG? I'm almost hoping that SVG-in-OT fails and Microsoft's simpler multi-color font format wins.

Laws about making copies for private use differ from EU country to another. The author is only talking about UK, which has strict laws about copying for private use. For instance, it is illegal to copy CDs [1] or entire books [2] for private use in UK.

In Finland, it is legal to copy CDs (even the ones in public libraries!) [3] and entire books [4] for private use. So, I don't think that 3D printing of furniture is affected in Finland. I can happily continue printing my Ikea chairs.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/12021607/Why-in-2...

[2] https://www.reading.ac.uk/library/finding-info/copyright/lib...

[3] http://www.kysy.fi/en/kysymys/it-helsinki-city-library-legal...

[4] http://blogs.helsinki.fi/copyright-within-teaching/exception...

What about minimum of a non-differentiable function? I've been using something like Nelder–Mead method (downhill simplex method / amoeba method) [1], but it gets slow near the minimum.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelder–Mead_method

There are studies which show that flossing isn't effective. Here's an older article mentioning three studies:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rosspomeroy/2013/10/17/dentists-...

I read the conclusion so that flossing is useless, because it isn't done correctly or it is just a wrong way to clean teeth.

I've had a similar personal experience. My dentist asked me to floss because my gums were bleeding. I flossed for few years, but it didn't cure my bleeding gums. Then my dentist suggested using interdental brushes. I did it for a while and it helped. My gums are no more bleeding.

So, I say no to flossing, yes to cleaning teeth with better means.

The new Vulkan C++ API from Khronos is based on vkcpp. Here's examples for vkcpp to give an idea how code with the C++ API looks like:

https://github.com/jherico/Vulkan

Here's a basic tutorial with comments for the Vulkan C API. Vulkan is a very low level API, so there's a lot of code. It should be straightforward to port the C tutorial to use the C++ API.

http://av.dfki.de/~jhenriques/development.html

The repository should really mention the origin of the source code and the license. I'm always a bit skeptical about the legality of ancient source code suddenly popping up.

The origin is mentioned in their blog post. Very nice that Fujitsu has given the rights to release the source code. There are still parts missing, so let's hope that AOL will be as generous.

https://themade.org/posts/1701

libui [1] is a promising new cross platform GUI toolkit. If I need a GUI for a small cross platform desktop app, I will definitely try it.

It uses MIT license, which means there is less headache for commercial applications. It is also more lightweight. I have always felt that Qt has a lot of unnecessary classes. libui has C api, but it would be easy to write a nice c++11 wrapper around it.

[1] https://github.com/andlabs/libui

They have an SDK built on top of Qt Creator and it runs on OS X, Windows and Linux [1].

Linux may offer some advantages, such as access to the phone file system. OSX has a bit cumbersome ways to access it [2].

If you want to write programs for it, you can use Qt C++, QML or Python. It also has a terminal with the usual bash commands. And, of course, you can always write Android apps with tools given by Google and run those apps on Jolla.

As a niche hardware feature, the original Jolla phone has a hackable i2c bus under its back cover. Some people have tried to build keyboards, e-ink screens etc. connected to it. The specs for the bus are public [3].

I'm not sure if the new Jolla C is really meant for casual users, because you need to participate in their community device program to get one.

EDIT: removed some speculations about the community program

EDIT2: looks like the original Jolla phone isn't sold anymore

[1] https://sailfishos.org/wiki/Application_SDK_Installation

[2] https://jolla.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201440867-How-do...

[3] http://jolla.com/the-other-half-developer-kit/

It has a bit unusual user interface. They designed it to be usable by one hand, but I think they just ended up with a bit messy UI. It takes some time to get used to and some features are not easy to discover (like the top sliding menu or the context menu on list items).

It runs its own native Sailfish apps (there's few hundred of them) and Android apps (you can install Google Play, if you follow a bit cumbersome instructions). However, the UI logic in native apps is different than in Android apps. Native apps use a lot of wiping gestures, while Android apps use more tapping and the back button.

There is also a native web browser (built on top of Gecko) and it has its own UI logic (the usual web browser logic with a back button, no gestures).

So, all together, it has three way to navigate, which makes the whole experience a bit fragmented.

But, if you want to escape the surveillance riddled Android and iPhone, Jolla is a good basic phone. It offers a lot for hackers, because its built on top of Linux and you have access to almost everything without rooting. I got my phone three years ago and I'm still getting OS updates regularly, which is also nice. I just wish the UI was better.

Just few weeks ago, Nokia announced that Nokia branded smart phones and tablets will be entering market soon. This time they are based on Android OS. It'll be interesting to see how well they'll sell (compared to Windows Phone).

http://company.nokia.com/en/our-businesses/nokia-technologie...

http://company.nokia.com/en/news/press-releases/2016/05/18/n...

I had a look at a Metal tutorial [1], which does the same initialization as the Vulkan tutorial. Indeed, it has similar concept, but is also simpler (partly because it is written in Swift, not C++).

I wonder if anyone has written a wrapper, which would be at the same level as Metal, but run on top of Metal and Vulkan. That would be something I'd like to use!

I still think Vulkan is great. Now, we need to start building libraries on top of it. The nice thing about very low-level APIs is that it is possible to write higher-level APIs on top of them. The opposite isn't really possible.

[1] https://www.raywenderlich.com/77488/ios-8-metal-tutorial-swi...

I've always wondered how Vulkan is bootstrapped and its drawing surface attached to a window. Now I know.

I would assume that the code for Linux and Android is similar.

Looks like the EU will only get the standards from the US:

"The US insisted on its request for the commission to “require” in its standardization request, CEN and CENELEC to involve US experts in its standards development process (with no guarantee of reciprocity) as a condition for referencing harmonized standards."

https://twitter.com/jwildeboer/status/727086878621634560

And they are also planning a new Star Wreck short film!

http://www.starwreck.com

I didn't know that Adobe RGB has a straight 2.2 gamma. :)

I don't know the details about the Apple's gamma curve, but these guys have measured it. Perhaps it gives some answers. (I'm not sure how to read that graph..)

http://www.displaymate.com/Gamma_35.html

Apple is bringing P3 support to Safari. There is already media query to check for P3 screen, which is useful to switch between P3 and sRGB images.

https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-4/#color-gamut

They might also add support for css colors in P3 color space. (css colors are currently always sRGB).

Apple doesn't use the exact DCI-P3, they use "Display P3". DCI-P3 has gamma 2.6, while Display P3 has gamma 2.2 (the same as sRGB).

I wonder why they didn't go with the correct gamma? Does sRGB gamma compatibility help here so that they can easily display sRGB images on the screen? Or is gamma 2.6 bad on lcd displays?

Finland shouldn't be at the top of the list. There is still self-censorship going on, especially related to opinions about Russia. It's called "Finlandization": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandization

I agree. I used to compose small pieces with soundtrackers [1] and it was a lot of fun. However, I've never been able to learn staff notation system.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Soundtracker

Richard Branson is one of my favourite entrepreneurs. Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia are still his, right?