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Hardly. Any 8 year old who attends a school in the develped world that isn't a complete dump sees and uses smart boards on a daily basis that support some combination of mouse, multi-touch and accurate multipen. The lucky ones get all these at once and that's what they're going to expect from everything else they ever use without a second thought, tablets and laptops are just struggling to keep up.
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage."
Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
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Even if you don’t use an RSS reader, you still use RSS. If you subscribe to any podcasts, you use RSS. Flipboard and Twitter are RSS readers, even if it’s not obvious and they do other things besides. Lots of apps on the various app stores use RSS in at least some way. They just don’t tell you — because why should they? ... One way or another, directly or indirectly, you use RSS. Without RSS all we’d have is pictures of cats and breakfast. RSS is just plumbing. But here’s why it’s great plumbing...
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I am fairly sure I don't use RSS at all. Not that I am opposed to it but I just don't think I need it. Love (or the lack of) has nothing to do with it.
- Life in the fast lane is only fun if you live in a country with no speed limits.
- Of all the things I have lost, it is my mind that I miss the most.
- I vaguely remember having a good memory...
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Really, it does. Honest.[^]
From The Verge:
Quote: RSS is built so deeply into the bones of so many websites and web services that we take it for granted.
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TTFN - Kent
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If you are like me and build projects with Arduino, you must have felt the frustration with ripping your project apart, because you wanted to build something else with that Arduino. I have had the same issue many times, so I decided to find a way to solve this once and for all. Hence, how to build an Arduino clone for less than 5$. Breadboard not included.
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You can do it for even less than that if your program is small enough to fit on an ATTiny85 (8k of memory for programs a.k.a 'sketches'), here's how:
How to Program an ATTiny85[^]
You can buy an ATTiny85 microcontroller at Dip Micro for $1.39 Cdn[^]
...or if you want to get fancy you can get an AVRISP programmer shield [^]for your Arduino...makes it easier than jury rigging your own programmer.
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Need to reformat data for use in another application? Plot it on a map? Use it for an interactive Web graphic? These open-source JavaScript libraries can help turn your data into a suitable format for analysis or a compelling online presentation. Venn diagram of this article: (Useful links((Read this))Makes you look smart)
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So why are there so few Windows 8 apps? I will tell you my (and only my) opinion and experience. I developed a few Windows 8 apps, some of them fairly complex. I tried to develop a few really great apps but many of those projects never got done. The reason is the API (WinRT). Let’s start with something (that should be) trivial. Imagine you want to display HTML files with images, CSS, JS in a WebView.... It can be done on Android, iOS and even on Windows Phone by copying the data to isolated storage and pointing the WebView there. This scenario is impossible in WinRT. What's your experience with developing for WinRT so far?
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I'm writing a game, and have encountered a few nasties along the way.
I started off in WinForms and C#, but that was too slow so I replaced GDI+ DeviceContext with WPFs DrawingContext. All it does is draw lots of bitmaps and I thought (probably stupidly) that'd work fine. Then, when I got Windows 8 I discovered that DrawingContext didn't exist any longer.
So, it has to be DirectX which implies having to use C++, but in fact there's an open-source interop layer called SharpDX which takes that away, so now it's C#/DirectX through SharpDX.
That, actually wasn't too hard once I got my head around how DirectX works, sadly the thing which has caused me the most difficulty is something which should be easy.
The bitmaps and config sit in loose files next to the .exe, and I load them in when the game starts. All the normal FileStream/BinaryReader stuff I would normally use for this had either gone, or was unusable (I can't remember). Instead I have to use StorageFile, StorageFolder etc. which all use the new async/await pattern.
This is supposed to make asynchronous programming 'easy', but I found it to be anything but. Indeed your async method gets turned into some sort of hideous state machine and it's very hard to understand the execution flow. That and you can't call an async method from a synchronous method at all easily.
I have a Surface, and just on this device the sound breaks up, like the machine isn't getting there in time to fill the buffers properly. I've spent ages trying to fix this or work around it but no luck so-far. I'm hoping a firmware release might fix it one day.
Still, all that said it's going pretty smoothly and I've abstracted all the horror into a single assembly so that the actual game logic is just the usual C# stuff.
Interestingly, any concerns I had about the performance of C# have gone away. About 90% of the cycles are spent in DirectX so that's just fine. But I am alarmed by the ease of reverse engineering by unlocking the WindowsApps folder and using something like Reflector. I've heard rumours that obfuscating can get you into trouble in terms of certification, but that's unverified.
I also understand that if you offer your product as a "try it free" item a simple hack can convert it into the full featured app without paying for it which is pretty poor.
A lot of effort has gone into it, so I hope it doesn't tank when it comes out. If so, that'll be my app writing days over.
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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Today, I'd like to talk about a different behavior that seems irrational to me. There is a view that when you write software it should be designed around your database, simply because that is where you are storing your data. It sounds harmless, but the effects are quite negative over time. The first offense that always happens is your code starts to be structured the same as your database. Databases use a relational model, object oriented code uses an object-oriented model. These are not the same thing at all. Before doing something with your database, ask yourself: Would I do this on the filesystem?
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Can't view this at work, WebSense blocks it as category "Sex"
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I like that article: it describes the problems encountered with a database-centric design very well.
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It’s been more than half a year since my last comparison of the C++11 support across different compilers. This time I’d like to see how different compilers stack up based on the documentation for the pre-release versions of these compilers.... I’ve also thrown in v.13.0 of Intel’s C++ compiler out of curiosity, although it isn’t pre-release and there were a few features I couldn’t find information about. I didn’t find any information about the upcoming version of this compiler. GCC and Clang are in the lead... which will come out on top?
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From eConsultancy:
14 lousy web design trends that are making a comeback[^]
Quote: It’s a case of déjà vu. A decade ago the rise in popularity of Flash steered many web designers down the wrong path. It wasn’t the fault of the technology, but of the people using the technology. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. I'm all for innovation, but innovation should not be regressive.
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TTFN - Kent
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I remember back when RSS was amazing and something you paid for. I also remember when Google Reader showed up and very quickly started taking over. It was free. It was Google (back before we were all scared of Google) and it wrecked the market for all of the paid RSS services. We all wondered how Google monetized its Reader expense but we wonder that about most Google services so we all cancelled our paid services and lept. Now Google is yanking the cord. The end of Reader is bad for readers, but is it even worse for online writers?
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I am a regular user of Google Reader.
Now searching for good web alternative.
Any sites please?
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Yes bitterskittles. The Old Reader is good.
But the thing with NewsBlur is it is a paid service. 
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Look, we’re not going to really make any profound changes happen at Microsoft, I get that. Pragmatically, I’ve been recommending that users of the firm’s platforms learn the new way of doing things because this is indeed the future. And to that end, I’ve written over 60 Windows 8 tips and over a dozen Windows 8 feature focus articles, with more to come in each series. NT’s not coming back, I know. But you can get closer to the NT ideal by using ModernMix and, if you’re really hardcore, Start8. There are huge benefits to being on Windows 8 even if you’re not touching the screen. Don’t let Microsoft’s ham-handed design decisions get in the way of a good experience.
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Terrence Dorsey wrote: this is indeed the future
No it's not, taking a dumbed down interface and shoving it down the throats of users is, if anything, going to make them stick to what they already know.
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It is possible to play SimCity offline indefinitely, according to a video of a modded version of the game posted to YouTube. Modder UKAzzer uploaded the video which shows him disabling the game's disconnection timer. Previous tests confirmed that SimCity will kick a user from the game after roughly 20 minutes of offline play; however, while its impact on a number of features in the game means this offline mode is still not ideal, the video demonstrates some form of unlimited offline play is indeed possible. Sharks with frikin lasers attached to their heads add-on can't be far behind.
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Everybody knows the value of pi is 3.14… er, something, but how many people know where the ratio came from? Actually, the ratio came from nature—it’s the ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter, and it was always there, just waiting to be discovered. But who discovered it? In honor of Pi Day, here’s a semi-brief history of how pi came to be known as 3.14(1592653589793238462643383279502884197169…and so on). Irrational, but fun.
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Terrence Dorsey wrote: Everybody knows the value of pi is 3.14… er, something, but how many people know where the ratio came from?
Not a promising start that, anyone with half a brain knows that one of the most notable things about pi is that it not a ratio.
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Rob Grainger wrote: Not a promising start that, anyone with half a brain knows that one of the most
notable things about pi is that it not a ratio.
pi (π) is Irrational which doesn't mean that it is not a ratio, BUT that it is not the ratio of two integers.
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