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cas

156 karma · joined May 21, 2010

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cas··on PiCore - Raspberry Pi Port of Tiny Core Linux
A very clever immutable Linux distro, and is the basis for the excellent PiCorePlayer, a favourite of mine to run Squeezebox clients (and/or Lyrion music server) on any Pi

https://picoreplayer.org/

cas··on Tombi TOML Formatter / Linter / LSP
After finding Even Better TOML was eating all the memory in VS Code and that it is no longer maintained, I found an improved linter and formatter in Tombi.

It integrates with lots of editors and as a standalone tool with useful schema auto-complete and validation. I've found it fits in well with a Python ecosystem.

Best of all the author is really quick to respond to issues.

cas··on Python Flask NSA Backdoor
An OS security architecture for the Linux kernel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLASK
cas··on Python.org Redesign Preview
It's worse than that because the PEP 8 sytle guide specifically mentions to avoid using l as a name!

http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#names-to-avoid

cas··on Maybe this help porting TextMate to Linux
I agree however you forgot to mention the excellent Geany, which looks more comparable, and I think it be better for a developer to spend time improving that rather than porting a heavily MacOS based editor.
cas··on Poll: Do you touch-type?
I have learned to touch type properly using http://www.typingweb.com and I think it's fantastic but I don't know how it compares to Mavis Beacon.
cas··on Legal streams are less available for rentals than a year ago
You can actually watch torrents while they download, its called sequential downloading and many clients support it.
cas··on A 14-year-old could build 1998's Google using her Dad's credit card
Since he has already written about it (88%), I don't think many people will take that wager :D

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/01/trouble-in-the-hous...

cas··on Bill Gates Gives Away More Money Than The Entire US Foreign Aid Budget
Reading your post reminded me of this interesting TED talk that echo's some of the problems you raise:

http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_mwenda_takes_a_new_look_at_a...

cas··on This Photograph Is Not Free
I find it strange that more people have not brought up the 'lost-sale' fallacy. By saying 'no' he actually loses out in the end because if the magazine is only looking for free photos, say to the keep costs down, it will just go elsewhere and the readership of that magazine will probably never know about that amazing photograph nor the photographer himself.
cas··on Feynman on explanations
Don't bother going to the Microsoft site, where you have to install Silverlight to watch a video, just use Youtube to watch the 7 part series:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+character+of...

I am actually half-way through watching them and as with all Feynman lectures they are a real joy to watch.

cas··on Feynman on explanations
The comment on the youtube video links to the entire series on the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/feynman/

Not sure if available to watch outside UK but they are the same as on Youtube, just better quality.

cas··on History of Programming Languages
Thanks. That should really be the link instead of a 5 year old O'Reilly advertisement...
cas··on Which tech companies back SOPA? Microsoft, Apple, and 27 others
I fail to see what the problem is being 'stuck' with AMD, Linux, and Gimp. We we would no longer have the abuse of patents, propriety standards and DRM which in the end would benefit consumers.
cas··on How dangerous is a wet server room floor
I can imagine next week someone will be posting 'How dangerous is a small smouldering fire in the corner of a server room?'
cas··on In honor of Dennis Ritchie, 50% off all C/C++ ebooks
You can easily remove the Kindle DRM using Calibre and some plugins.
cas··on In honor of Dennis Ritchie, 50% off all C/C++ ebooks
Especially that the offer does not seem particularly good since they are only ebooks and seem overpriced in the first place. The physical books are already cheaper on Amazon and kindle versions cheaper still.

Edit: Just had a thought that any profit on these sales should really go to a charity or foundation.

cas··on Amazon's Profit Plunges 73%
This piece gives a run down of all the analysts claims, with some calculating a $50 profit instead but as you can imagine none of it is substantiated.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20114722-93/amazon-kindle-f...

cas··on Amazon's Profit Plunges 73%
AFAIK there is no substantial evidence that the Kindle Fire is being sold as a loss leader however I can imagine the profit margins are slim.
cas··on What it's like to skydive through a thunderstorm
Really interesting yet scary account, not what I was expecting!

Google Cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KLIEiKs...

cas··on How audiophiles lost out to audio files
Articles I used read about B&O products were always rated as mediocre by audiophiles. Basically looks good but sound was nothing special.

This article is way to long and seems to contain nothing of note, other than history of B&O.

cas··on Unity is the end of Ubuntu
Which, as I said, would be at least another year away.

My response was to you bringing up the topic of security so I simply addressed that with details of Ubuntus LTS. Other than that there would be no reason to upgrade however even then you could update any software package found to have security issues on an individual basis through PPA, debs or source. That is the flexibility of opensource.

No operating system can be supported forever but funnily enough Ubuntu have just announced an extension to 5 years for 12.04 LTS.

cas··on Unity is the end of Ubuntu
Why do that when 11.04 is supported until the end of 2012 and 10.04 would only extend that by 6 months.

A lot can happen in a year and I'm sure someone will create a flavour of Ubuntu to you liking based on 12.04 LTS.

cas··on Unity is the end of Ubuntu
Security fixes are back-ported regularly for Ubuntu releases and if you are really concerned then use the LTS version that will have 3 years of support.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS

cas··on Unity is the end of Ubuntu
1. Personally I click on the launcher more that use alt-tab these days. However there is a new key combo Alt-` as shown here: http://youtu.be/XHFNnygpvcM

2. You could set the Launcher to Autohide

3. Middle mouse on the launcher icon for another window.

cas··on Unity is the end of Ubuntu
Err what? Try Disk Utility in Ubuntu.
cas··on Kindle Fire estimated cost to manufacture about $10 above retail
If you look at the estimates for each item they seem relatively high so I was not surprised when I read that they could easily be making a $50 profit instead:

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4228505/Kindle-Fire-...

cas··on The 10 Biggest Surprises about Amazon’s New Kindles
Totally agree and most of these are not surprises as they were discussed in the presentation about the Kindle.

I think the lack of power adapter is a good thing since it uses the same micro-usb that has been standardised for phones so I already own a power adapter. In fact I could even do without another usb cable.

Also the Kindle Fire being sold at a loss is only based on analyst estimates and last time I checked about this it was only a $10 difference. So doesn't seem to take into account any discounts Amazon could negotiate with suppliers for large volumes.

Edit: Just to reinforce my previous comment I just found an EETimes article reporting that Amazon could be making $50 profit for the BoM on each Kindle Fire. http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4228505/Kindle-Fire-...

cas··on Fukushima accident assessment raised to level 7
The important thing to note is the 'considering' part and also that this is based on total radioactive material release since the tsunami and not on any new events.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/84721.html

cas··on Putting on the Brakes: Mankind Nears the End of the Age of Speed
Bit odd that the article doesn't mention the current research into scramjets (Mach 5+) or the Bloodhound SSC land speed record project (~1000mph).

Edit: Forgot to add the continued advancement of high speed trains (~360mph) and the Vactrain concept.

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