Recent submissions

Comment · 1 year ago
Yeah, definitely some tradeoffs there. I do like that it makes the common use cases easy. And yeah, I did make quite the "turduckin" as you put it .

A more concrete criticism: suppose you wanted to embed some markdown, where all of the content consisted of an indented code block.

%markdown: a code block

    fn foo(){

        # do stuff

    }
%%

My understanding is the leading spaces would be removed, breaking the formatting and making it normal text instead of a code block.

Comment · 1 year ago
I'm not the biggest fan of the embed block syntax, for two reasons. 1. Having `%\\\%` escape to `%\\%` is confusing. Assuming you want to embed kson inside kson it would look like this:

```

%kson: level 1

  %kson: level 2

    %kson: level 3

      - "a list"

      - "of values"

    %\\%

  %\%
%%

```

Note that for each level of nesting, the delimiters inside the block have to increase, instead of the ones outside. In a long embedded block you probably copied from elsewhere, you have to check every escaped delimiter to make sure it has the correct number of back slashes and update it. It would have made more sense to have a varying number of % correspond to a matching set to close it. e.g. %%%kson: foo matches %%% and closes it.

2. It's impossible to represent strings where every line has at least some leading indent, because they "always strip their minimum indent".

I think both these issues are solved by using zig's style of raw string literals. An embed block could start with %tag and each following line with % continues the block. No closing delimiter or delimiter escapes needed.

```

%kson: level 1

  %%kson: level 2

  %  %%kson: level 3

  %  %  %  - "a list"

  %  %  %  - "of values"

  %  %  %  - "indented"
```

Granted, this also kind of looks ugly with percent signs. But the upside is you could paste in each sub level, and a text editor could insert the symbols for you before each line, just like they already do when highlighting text and commenting it out.

Comment · 2 years ago
That's sort of the point. The EU is requiring Apple to allow alternative app stores with all the same features as the main one. Originally Apple decided to remove these features from Safari rather than allow actual alternative browsers not based on webkit to have access.
Comment · 2 years ago
A PWA usually makes use of a few features, most commonly push notifications, local storage, and install to home screen. The last one allows a web app to open as if it's a standalone native app, basically only a web view with no nav bar.

It's these features that Apple is restricting to webkit.

Comment · 2 years ago
I've been looking through the repository on GitHub and I for the life of me can't figure out where the SQL code is. How is the database created? What do the tables look like? I've never looked at a php codebase before, I'm quite lost. I'm guessing this is using some ORM provided by Laravel?
Comment · 3 years ago
Yeah, the article certainly goes a bit over the top. As far as drm goes though, the lock analogy doesn't hold. You can't lockpick a house and then distribute unlimited unlocked free copies of it. DRM only needs to be broken once and can be widely distributed, but makes the experience worse for regular customers. There are tons of examples of this all over. Netflix only streams in 720p to browsers (except for edge). Video games with drm can be impossible to run on computers with unusual setups (Sure, I get cheating can be a problem, but this even happens for some single player games). Sometimes software will refuse to work because it is trying to "phone home" to verify a license while some servers are down.

But yeah, generally I think this article isn't the best on the subject. Just hadn't been posted on this site, so I thought it would be good to discuss.

Comment · 3 years ago
Rockets fall under some pretty big restrictions government wise. You know, guided missiles and all that. While SpaceX is a private company, the people allowed to work on their rockets are very much restricted. I believe they can employ Americans and Canadians, but anyone else is not allowed to work there.
Comment · 3 years ago
Even then, I don't believe they stream 4k to browsers. They only stream to devices like smart tvs or official Netflix apps with high quality. Your average browser is limited to 720p. This is the quintessential "pirating is better" example.
Comment · 3 years ago
"friction from the atmosphere" = drag. The previous commenter explains the effect friction has.
Comment · 3 years ago
I don't know exactly in this case, but congressmen have always been making NASA rockets more expensive. They often made it so that at least a part of the rockets were built in their respective states, making things more expensive than needed.
Comment · 3 years ago
Usually there is a defined "flight envelope" and if it deviates from that, they detonate. I'm guessing they simply waited as long as possible, and once it left the designated buffer is when they finally detonated it.
Comment · 3 years ago
Not really. How would you test a rocket engine at low atmospheric pressure? You can't exactly stick a rocket engine in a vacuum chamber and light it. Then once you're launching something into space, you may as well have a first stage to go along with it. Are you saying they should have launched the booster stage by itself? Why? What would they learn from that? Would you ever expect them to launch a booster on it's own in practice?
Comment · 3 years ago
Well, it did successfully lift off the pad. I honestly didn't think it would make it that far.

"The ... Failure happens ... Before anything flies the first time" I'm no aerospace engineer, but I doubt this was the case in the early days of jet engines(if that is the case, then I stand corrected). The new raptor engines are full flow staged combustion, only the second of their kind. Having this many light right next to each other and burn for that long at high altitude is a huge milestone.

Comment · 3 years ago
You're right, Mexico would be a better place to launch rockets from. You want to be close to the equator, and on an east coast so you can launch rockets over the water and avoid dropping boosters on people. Rockets generally are launched to the east to take advantage of Earth's rotation (we're all moving about 1,000 mph to the east, so launching west requires about 2,000mph extra Delta v). SpaceX is a USA company, and I believe their rocket technology is considered a government secret and must stay in the USA. So that's why SpaceX themselves aren't putting launch pads in Mexico.

Also I believe equatorial orbits are still possible to achieve from USA launch sites, it just means more fuel/ reduced payload.

Interestingly, the James Webb telescope was launched from French Guiana, which is almost right on the equator.

Also Israel is one of the few countries that regularly launches their rockets to the west, as they only have a West Coast.

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