deadcyclo

I must admit that I preferred the "old" new one. Really can't put my finger on why.

I'm interested in the impact on users when one changes things several times quickly like this. Anybody here that has knowledge/experience that would like to say a few words about it. Personally I always am annoyed by change, more so when things seem to change "all the time". Anybody have some actual statistics on how people reacted to this type of design changes?

I completely agree with you. On the other hand, good knowledge and understanding of them can be very useful when formulating ones own arguments.

But running around telling people their argument is invalid because it is X, simply makes one look like an ass.

I think you are missing the point. The apple guidelines do not state that a program can only consist of an executable. That would not make any sense. Rather they state that any application can only consist of a single executable in addition to whatever resource files are included. In the case of the Latex distribution in question one would have to convert all 100 executables into one executable, my guess would be perhaps 100 megabytes. In addition one would have to include lots of resource files, mainly sty-files bringing the whole bundle of an executable + resource files up to 4GB.

AFAIK Apple doesn't restrict you from bundling files in your application. That simply wouldn't make any sense.

The point here is that he is talking about an application consisting of a single runnable binary of size X with tons of bundled .sty-files that brings the whole application up to 4GB.

Previously, this would not be allowed, since .sty-files are interpreted (which in turn would make it impossible to implement LaTeX on the iPhone), but that really wasn't the point here. The point is simply that this wouldn't be a single 4GB executable, but a an executable of perhaps 100MB bundled with a whole bunch of .sty (and other) files to a total size of 4 GB.

Edit: Fixed typos. Sorry. HN doesn't work very well on my phone.

Well you obviously weren't careful enough. Nowhere in the article does he talk about a 4 GB binary or binaries. To quote him:"A 4GB Tex distribution dependant on over a 100 binaries" He is talking about the _whole_ distribution not a single or several binaries. So even though you were careful, you still misquoted the article.

Don't think that is the case. It was limited to merchants in a few countries, but it was not limited to US customers. I once purchased a computer from UK using Google checkout, and I live in Norway.

How ironic. They talk about providing the best user experience on the web, yet their site offers a sub par experience on my phone. The text doesn't scale when zooming, so basically it's unreadable on the phone.

This article on its own simply makes no sense. First he talks about the launch of GNNS and apple including support for glonass, without mentioning any of the benefits (if producers include chipsets for multiple location estimation methods end users can expect more reliable, stable, and in some instances, more precise location estimation).

Suddenly, out of the blue, he claims that this will create an arms race to produce disruptive location based services. A claim, that on it's own, simply doesn't make sense. Further he claims that the downside is location based ads, as if this is some kind of new concept.

None of the "conclusions" in this article seem to make any sense.

Yeah. I read that. But I'm mainly into academia. So I'm not really referring to my professional life when I call my self a programmer, though I do program in my professional life as well. Just like I call my self I write when referring to my hobby/side-job as an online journalist.

I have much the same history as you. Started out in basic, but turbo pascal was what really got me going. I must admit that sometimes I really miss those days. But then I remember the horrible feeling when the diskette and the backup diskette with my hard work died, and suddenly I don't miss it that much after all.

Hmm. Nibbles.bas and gorillas.bas are probably the main reason why I'm a programmer today.

AFAIK, based on the last talk by RMS I attended he condoned copyright on works of fiction only, not on works of fact. So no copyright on manuals, textbooks, scientific articles, etc.

I hear you. I too cringe each time I see a post about RMS here. I know I "have" to read it, at the same time as I know I will get angry and extremely disillusioned about mankind doing so.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of RMS. I agree with a lot of what he says, but at the same time I cannot agree with the way he presents it. There are two reasons why I am a member of The Linux Foundation, and not the FSF, and their names are Richard Stallman and Matt Lee. Though I feel very strong about the motives and ideology of FSF, I simply cannot condone their way of presenting them. I personally feel that RMS does as least as much to harm their goal as to aid it, and I find ML to be horribly hypocritical. No matter how much a disagree with how their do tings, I would never disrespect them as human being. But sometimes it feels like I'm alone in the world. Everybody else either adores them, or tries their darndest to disrespect them.

This is in no way unique to HN. I see it everywhere. Even in the media (here in Norway). Last time RMS talked here, all of the important IT-related media where represented. (And I noticed immediately that they were more concerned with their beers than actually listening). The articles the day after were horrible. RMS had talked about some really far out there, fairly absurd stuff, and some really smart, realistic stuff. Every single media gave their best effort to make RMS look like a loon. _None_ of the smart, realistic stuff was mentioned, even with a single word, anywhere. An they had twisted the far out stuff, to look even worse. One of them seemed even to either not have listened to a word, or was simply making stuff up. RMS said at least 6 times specifically: "I'm not talking about Micropayments, I'm talking about making pay what you like/can easier", "Don't confuse this with micropayments", etc. Yet this journalist managed to write a half an article about all of the stuff RMS had "said" about micropayments.

But it has further use as well. You can have your own personal identity on your gmail address and your official corporate identity on apps. Mixing roles is never a good idea and g+ on apps makes it easier to avoid.

Not quite sure about this comparison. AFAIK Ghandi is famous for living by example. I have never heard or read about RMS saying anything about living by his example. I have however, heard him talk about that he lives by his own principles because they matter to him. And he tells you explicitly what he considers you to be, if you have other opinions than him.

Last time I went to one of his lectures he clearly stated that you should do you best to avoid using proprietary software _for your own good_, while he said that creators of proprietary software were evil.

I have a hard time seeing this as hypocritical, unless he actually goes on record stating that «you should not own a mobile phone, and you should never ask to borrow a mobile phone when needed».