From Buzzfeed via Gruber:

Cars are giant, inefficient, planet-and-people-killing death machines. Self-driving cars — especially if they are operated as fleets and you only use one when you need it, summoning it Uber-style — would mean we could have fewer vehicles per person, less traffic congestion, less pollution, far fewer vehicles produced per year (thus lowering the environmental impact of production), and, best of all, safer streets. The blind, people with epilepsy, quadriplegics, and all manner of others who today have difficulty ferrying themselves around as they go through the mundanities of an average day will be liberated. Eliminating the automobile’s need for a human pilot will be a positive thing for society.

I can't quite figure out why the tech media thinks self-driving cars are quite as inevitable as they make out. Even if I pretend that the engineering hurdles for self-driving cars are all solved, I can still think of a fair number of reasons they wouldn't catch on.

• You're going to have a hard time "convincing" each state legislature that they should be legal.
  • Why? Because driverless means fewer, and car companies are going to lobby like crazy against them. From the article:

  • Self-driving cars — especially if they are operated as fleets and you only use one when you need it, summoning it Uber-style — would mean we could have fewer vehicles per person...

• At the start, they'll be new, higher-end vehicles.
  • Folks that buy used cars will be waiting... a long time.
• Not everyone lives in an urban area, and the more rural, the longer you're waiting for Uber et al to show up.
• How long before we're brave enough for cars to take our kids to school for us while we stay at home or work?

I can't tell how big a deal folks liking to drive will be. I mean, I love to drive, but I also love the time riding the train buys me back to get some work done. I've got to guess the first several generations will have steering wheels in most models as well, just like the one in Demolition Man -- and don't forget that Stallone exhibits ye olde machismo by driving manually later.

Doesn't the movie end with him in a '70 442 W-30? (Why yes, yes it does.)

Labels: cars, Google

Labels: noteToSelf

Castro and Unread provide variable height rows for episodes and article summaries respectively. This approach feels true to what Apple intends for iOS. Twitter clients like Tweetbot and Twitterrific do a great job here but unfortunately it's rare to see podcast or reader apps take this approach.

Have you ever noticed how many apps show their content in fixed-height rows? In these apps, text and images are cut off at the exact same interval, regardless of their intrinsic sizes. [sic on the lack o' question mark]
...

For our apps, instead of imposing a single cell height, we want to defer to the content by letting it tell us what size it needs. In Castro, episode cells include up to 4 lines of text if we have them, otherwise the cell collapses down to show the number of lines we do have.

Labels: app dev, design, indie, podcast app

So my JSLint plugin of choice for Sublime Text got a bee in its bonnet and updated JSLint.js today. Apparently, Sublime Text 2 package control automatically updates plugins by default, because my code went crazy after a reboot.

And this is why I say "bee in the bonnet"; it's not like the plugin has been particularly good about updating JSLint as it's updated. Out of the blue, WHAM.

There's a setting to turn autoupdate off, even one (auto_upgrade_ignore) to just ignore nasty, GOT YA!! plugins like this one. ;^D

So my settings got blown away today (okay, fine, the edits should've been in my user pref file, but sometimes that file doesn't seem to take for some plugins), and JSLint got upgraded to Crockford's ES6 "friendly" version that hates this and for. Most folks I work with aren't ready for all that just yet, and I don't have the fortitude to argue they should go bleeding edge and use it. I mean, it's fighting just to get the old version of JSLint used on projects...

Luckily there's a good backup of the plugins sitting in a folder (for me, it's C:\Users\YourUserNameHere\AppData\Roaming\Sublime Text 2) waiting on me, so I'm a auto_upgrade_ignore setting and copy and paste away from being back at work.

UPDATE: I did a better job explaining this over on the plugin's Github Issues page, though the issue title is admittedly a little over the top. ;^) Luckily, I seem to have captured the feeling of a few other users... I'll paste that here.

A few important tips, I guess, if you want to do this without bothering with gitting...

• See the auto_upgrade_ignore option for the Sublime Text package manager.
• Add JSLint to auto_upgrade_ignore in Preferences >>> Settings -- User (see below, though I haven't tested it yet).
• Quit Sublime Text 2
• Blast (delete) your current JSLint package folder.
  • (on Windows, that's likely C:\Users\YourUserNameHere\AppData\Roaming\Sublime Text 2\Packages)
• Head to your ST backups folder to get the old plugin
  • (on Windows, that's likely C:\Users\YourUserNameHere\AppData\Roaming\Sublime Text 2\Backup)
• Grab the one with the JSLint folder in it that's closest to the date of the change.
• Copy and paste the JSLint folder from your backups folder into your packages folder.

So, for instance, my Preferences.sublime-settings file currently has:

{
    "auto_upgrade_ignore":
    [
        "JSLint"
    ],
    "color_scheme": "Packages/Color Scheme - Default/Mac Classic.tmTheme",
    "draw_white_space": "all",
    "font_face": "ProFontWindows",
    "font_size": 9,
    "ignored_packages":
    [
    ],
    "translate_tabs_to_spaces": true,
    "trim_trailing_white_space_on_save": true
}

If I fall into a lot of spare time, maybe I'll fork this and let you chose a specific jslint file, though I had some trouble dropping an old jslint.js file directly into C:\Users\YourUserNameHere\AppData\Roaming\Sublime Text 2\Packages\JSLint for some reason, iirc.

Labels: JSLint, sublime text

So I wasn't imagining it Tuesday night when I was on the iBooks store. The Apple Store was having trouble.:

Problems began around 12:30 p.m. Eastern time and are still ongoing as of this writing, according to the company official system status page. Affected people are unable to access the storefronts and/or prevented from downloading content, such as app updates, even though just the iTunes Store is listed as being down.

That wasn't much fun. Course I kept hitting `Get` (<<< strange; DeskMD didn't notice the `'s for code there) for Apple's book on Swift because it acted slightly differently with each press, so I thought I might just have to find the proper sequence of events to get it to pop out. Shake the machine!

Not exactly an Apple Fail, but I don't know that Amazon's done this to me, and I've hit a few downtimes with Apple (and, to be fair, Gmail).

Still getting used to what I can and can't do in DeskMD. Looks like the font scales to the window size, so though I can't see much now, at least it's not billboard-sized on my iMac screen. File a few bugs. We'll see. Very mvp-y, as I said before, but I'd already gotten to the point that I was using a Markdown editor to edit, export, hack out `body` and `head` tags, and post via blogger.com, so this cuts out lots of middlemen.

In other news, I've been listening to Jason White's appearance on the Gone Mobile podcast, and he was serious enough to make me take another look. I think I'm finally over the tipping point, thanks for a confluence of events...

• I got a year's free subscription to Xamarin for Android and iOS for being a Windows Phone app developer that'd released an app.
  • (Talk about lucky. If I'd made my first test app in iOS or Android, even using Xamarin, I would've lost out.)
• Visual Studio 2015's free version now allows for extensions, and developing for Xamarin is handily baked in.
• I learned enough XAML in my Windows Phone app that I've Stockholmed myself into liking it.
• I bumped back into the Xamarin Android Player, which is very fast, relatively speaking.

So full use of Xamarin Forms is now "free for me", I'm much more used to the technologies than the last time I checked, and it seems to be fairly mature. And Xamarin Forms does work very well for that first 70% of what you'd like to do. Great for puking out quick apps, which I supposed I should do next. I like it. Maybe I will build a crappy podcast app after all. At the very least, I could have much more complex rules for playlists than what I get now, and maybe even sync where I'm at in 'casts across different app platforms.

What I might like best is that I can stop pining away for a new MacBook. If I can use XamForms for lots of what I want to do, well, I can keep up my development on my Lenovo using the Android Player. Nice.

But man, in this episode, Greg and Jonathan aren't scared to ask the tough questions, pretty consistently asking for your worst mistakes and decisions where you'd like to take a mulligan. I don't remember them being so pointed before. But it's clear it's not personal, and makes for a much more interesting listen.

Argh. I'd already forgotten about DeskMD's p-tag around li-tags bug. Guess I'll just start doing those in raw html again.

Labels: apple, xamarin

Why did Apple give away three months of free Apple Music? I think, sure, those that stick around and pay their subscription price will give Apple a nice bump, but the real win is finding out what's in everybody's "library".

If you thought iTunes Match gave them some info, now they have not just libraries but favorite streaming artists from nearly everyone with an iPhone. Hello, data scrape.

I don't think it's any wonder that the iTunes Music Store's recommendations for me have gotten tons better -- probably finally passing Pandora -- for discovery in the last several months. Honestly, iTuens recommendations are noticeably better.

I wonder if this increase in recommend-fu will continue after the majority of everyone who was on the 3 month trial of Apple Music opts back out.

In the meanwhile, stock up for Apple.

Labels: apple, Apple Music, iTunes

Castro's developer on Overcast going free-as-in-beer-but-guilt-payments-as-in-German (or so I've heard):

Of course, Overcast developer Marco Arment is himself is an independent one man shop, but he's also a multi-millionaire off the back of the Tumblr deal. That personal wealth allows him to make decisions others can't. If he never made a single penny from Overcast he probably wouldn't continue development, but he certainly wouldn't starve.
...
When Marco first unveiled Overcast, he made clear that one of his prime objectives was to safeguard the third-party podcast app market from proprietary takeover by the likes of Stitcher. But this latest pricing move will surely have nothing but a deleterious effect on the viability of potential competitors, putting at risk the very kind of apps he sought to protect.

Emphasis mine.

Look, I'm envious of Marco too. And boy howdy, can he get on his high horse sometimes and give some not wholly earned, living in the ivory tower sounding comments. I even tend to agree with Anderson's claim that Marco takes risks that someone without his Most Favored Geek status might not be willing to try.

But Anderson's completely missing Marco's goal here. Marco's not trying to protect podcast apps. He's trying to protect open web platforms.

That make sense? He doesn't want Stitcher to close the doors on podcasts, putting them behind some creepy, stat-collecting paywall. He wants to use normal, open web conventions to put out podcasts. RSS feeds with podcast info, mp3 files that you download -- these mean that anyone that can parse UTF-8 and play an audio file has a chance to make the player they want.

It doesn't mean they get a guaranteed income in a crowded field.

Marco gets to do that. He has WARNING: LINKED VIDEO CONTAINS EXPLICIT LANGAUGE forget you money. That means he can say that he's going to create software that keeps the platform open. He doesn't have to make a living with Overcast to keep up his living standards. He can make political ends his primary motivation.

A predatory Overcast doesn't mean you can't make money off of a podcast app, and you're in a much better world than if podcasts were 80% behind the Stitcher wall. But look, just like Marco says happened to him with Instapaper, if you don't have the resources, you may very well "lose" the podcast market.

And finally, Anderson needs to know the only person who asked him to spend his career "working on Castro 2 for the last year, betting the company on a big launch and a sustainable income" was himself. Making an iOS app for an already crowded market is a heck of a gamble. Sometimes the market drinks your milkshake.

If that happens, that sucks, I agree. And I really wish them both luck. But before we get all crazypants, lets see what Overcast 2: The Predatory Pricer does to Castro's numbers first. It may not drink as much milkshake as Anderson thinks.

Labels: apps, business, indie

ME: "Welll, if you skip the VC, and figure out a way to get only 500 people across THE ENTIRE INTERNET to pay you $30 a month, that's $180,000 a year. Pre-tax, sure, but that's a pretty nice salary, no?"

Desk MD Fimp

• Even the "XS" font size is GIANT.
• I just had the cursor screw up when I added a line at the bottom of the screen, and now with each addition, the whole danged draft jumps. (It's hard to tell that jumping isn't from hand-holding the iPad taking the video, but it isn't.)
• I also don't think I'm going to be able to upload YouTube very easily here...
• No onboarding on initial open.
• I'm not sure how to edit the title of my post.
• There's a place for tags, but I think that's OS X tags, not Blogger tags.
• I can't access existing blog posts on Blogger to edit, etc, I don't think. So Desk MD seems to be a one-way poster... ??
• There doesn't seem to be a way to get to existing post tags either in the posting process.
• Some of the toolbar buttons are actions, and some are drop-down menus. Possible actions don't excourage exploration. "Hrm, wonder what this button does..." (self-destruct!!)
• I'm not sure how I add an image without uploading it somewhere myself, though part of the permissions Desk MD asked for from my Google account was for "View and manage your Google photos and videos", which already made me feel squeamish.
  
  
  
  Now it's got permissions, but I can't use images?
• Did I mention no onboarding, not even a good video on the Desk PM site?
• It also put <p> tags around every list item. That looked horrible, and, um, isn't how Markdown should be translated to html, I don't think.
  
  
  
  
  (I've fixed it manually, and also added images and YouTube manually)
• Wow. It also translated URLs as if they were Markdown. Major fail. So my link, below, to MVP on Wikipedia went from

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product

  
  to
  

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum<em>viable</em>product

  
  
  
  
  That's simply invalid html. Wow. Wait, is the underscore for em valid MD? I thought that was [only] an asterisk? Perhaps it's both...

Labels: fimp, indie, review

2. What is the maximum resolution available for use with the Apple Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter?

The resolution available with the Apple Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter is 1920 x 1200. VGA displays that use higher refresh rates (such as 85 Hz) at resolutions of 1600 x 1200 or greater may not generate video properly until you lower the refresh rate.

Labels: applefail, monitor, vga

Why Why WHY doesn't TFS's get latest work consistently?

You would have thought that feature would have been tested thoroughly.

What I have to do is, get specific version, then check both overwrite writetable files + overwrite all files.

Is my local setup messed up or you do this also?

TFS redefined what "Get Latest" does. In TFS terms, Get Latest means get the latest version of the files, but ignore the ones that the server thinks is already in your workspace. Which to me and just about everyone else on the planet is wrong.

See this link: http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/srlteam/archive/2009/04/13/how-get-latest-version-really-works.aspx

The only way to get it to do what you want is to Get Specific Version, then check both of the "Overwrite ..." boxes.

My gut tells me that this is Apple’s “simplicity” ethos at work here: you never have to think about which credit card you’re using, which streamlines the checkout process of buying apps. But for those of us who do need to bounce back and forth between multiple cards, it would certainly be a boon.

Labels: apple fail, iTunes