> Time has proven again and again that humans are really bad at memory management
Well until AI write garbage collectors I'm not sure I see how your comment doesn't also apply to them. And lots of great software manages memory quite fine, like that browser you used to write your comment and the operating system it runs on, so not sure the use of "proven" is appropriate in your comment.
Rust shows that "between having GC pauses and having memory leak continuously (and buffer overflow issues which become security issues) I'll take GC pauses" is a false dichotomy, however.
Rust is one of the coolest things in programming at the moment, but if you have to invent your own programming language to cut this gordian knot, then it's not really a false dichotomy for most practical purposes. And it'll stay a genuine dichomoty until Rust (or something like it) is a mainstream choice.
I'm glad for the advances in Rust. My comment was meant in the context of the current state of the art (Java/C++ like). If we move forward enough the GC questions could be a thing of the past.
From this response, I guess that maybe you were meaning C++ favours RC compared to manual memory management, and were not saying that it is the globally preferred option, but this differs to everything else in your list: the others are the main/preferred strategy in those languages/libraries.
I think we've all used software that suffers from some pretty intense memory leaks ( including older versions of firefox!), and garbage collectors can be "good enough" for a huge amount of applications.
Most applications are _not_ games or web browsers, but enterprise-y CRUD applications.
I'm fine with having the ability to turn that off for specific things, but it should be made as inconvenient as possible to avoid the "Can't have GC pauses in my todo list" usecase.
> And lots of great software manages memory quite fine, like that browser you used to write your comment
Which bit of the browser are you talking about? Garbage collection is used extensively during the execution of JavaScript in a lot of browsers. For example, Chrome [1].
Presumably the humans writing popular garbage collectors are significantly better at memory management than the average programmer. You wouldn't say that humans shouldn't go to doctors until there are AI doctors.
I also encourage people to use evil-leader with evil mode and check out other evil plugins, like the * to select all instances of the word under a cursor. Evil is very good, in some ways even better than vim, for example the live updating search and replace is pretty awesome.
I don't know if they're shutting down, they have to feel the heat somewhat from Microsoft's free IE testing service[1] though. modern.ie still has references to browserstack, but I wonder why.
What an interesting place it used to be. Basically a 1898 agreement between Britain and China created a legal limbo for a military base. Over time the military base became a refuge for squatters. After Japan's surrender in WWII the area grew into a dystopian-like lawless city that was ruled by criminal gangs until police raids from 1970's to 1980's cleaned it up. From 1987 to 1992 everyone was evicted and in 1993 it was demolished.
> In this case Google Maps has been steadily getting worse, so no worries.
Whether the UI changes are worse is a subjective claim, but the data Google has has not gotten worse. I've found all the alternative mapping solutions (Here, Bing, OpenStreet, and Apple maps) to be inferior when it comes to data quality which is the more important factor, unless you think getting directed through non-existing streets is a small concern. I'm not a Google fan, I've given up a lot of Google, but I can't quit maps or google search, although I use ddg quite a bit. Google has the most reliable map data, there is no competition and no good alternative.
Depends where you live and what your use cases are. In many countries OpenStreetMap has road data of equivalent or better quality, and path/trail data of vastly superior quality to Google.
Unfortunately the US is not yet (consistently) one of those countries. But "there is no competition and no good alternative" is an over-generalisation.
About two weeks ago I was unable to switch to Street View in the android app. It simply wasn't accessible through dropping the pin, as it was in the past.
When Google's flagship app on their own platform forces me to find computer and use the web version, something is seriously wrong.
> About two weeks ago I was unable to switch to Street View in the android app. It simply wasn't accessible through dropping the pin, as it was in the past.
The first thing you should have seen after updating and adding an address is a message telling you to pull up to get more detail. It took me 2 seconds to figure out how to get street view in the new UI. So as I said subjective.
It doesn't matter how excellent the data is if the UI and access to that data are undermined to the point where I am now open to an alternatives (even if the map data is not quite as good).
It'll just take one half-decent app or company to take me away. Maybe HERE is the one. I will try it.
At some point in the last few years, for a small town I'm familiar with, the alignment between Google maps and aerial imagery got worse, I assume because they switched data providers (or switched what data they are showing or whatever).
Well, USA was using white phosphorus in "cities filled with civilians" in Iraq in 2004 (Fallujah), which is more like "is using".
So when talking about scary stuff like incendiary weapons it's better to not to try and fool yourself with words like "yeah, past was dark, but now it is 2014, we have all these conventions and stuff, and even in times of war people know limits of humanity, so worry not". Humans are wicked animals.
According to Wikipedia, USA signed part of "Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons" which bans white phosphorus in incendiary weapons in 2009 under Obama administration.
I think the problem is that it's still one of the most effective smokescreen generating compounds out there, so militaries are hesitant to ban it entirely and not have it available for that use.
But, just because it's not marked 'incendiary' on the side of the munition doesn't mean it can be used (both purposefully or accidentally) to horrible effect on people.
I was going to dispute this but found you are correct - late in the war Napalm was used - 1944/5. I had though that incendiary bombing (just as bad really) was what you were talking about. The bit that is most fascinating for me in that article is the bit about the treaty banning use of napalm on civilian targets. Obama signed it with a provision: "America’s ratification, however, is subject to a diplomatic reservation that says it can disregard the treaty at its discretion if doing so would save civilian lives."
You're liable for clawbacks. Madoff investors who pulled out early and received more than they should have at the expense of others were all sued by the trust responsible for recompensing victims. Best to just stay out of it.
I've never used uber or lyft, but I used sidecar yesterday for the first time, and given this was my first experience with this kind of service I have to say this is so much better than having to hail a taxi. It sucks that you have to have a smartphone, (what do you when battery is out) but otherwise it's easy to see how transformational this kind of new service is. You can pick your driver, your driver can accept or reject based on your destination, you can see how much they will charge up front, and you can tip right from your phone making the thing entirely cashless. It's pretty amazing.
Uber sucks. Have you ever taken a cab in a city with decent cab service? You just hold up your hand and an experienced driver takes you where you're going. With Uber, you futz with the app, then the driver circles the block trying to figure out where you are, while three cabs pass by you, and if he doesn't cancel the pick up after giving up, futzes with the GPS and takes you along an inefficient route because he doesn't know better.
I've used Uber and Lyft but have not yet tried Sidecar. Based on your description, Sidecar sounds a lot better than hailing a taxi but a lot worse than Uber/Lyft. I would much rather give up the ability to pick my driver to have the convenience of only having to click one button to hail a car. Plus the idea that the driver can reject you and then you have to start over... what an unnecessary bit of friction.
I like the post and agree with dcurtis about the abysmal phone. However I like my Fire HDX. It works for what I want to use it for: reading books and watching stuff. It isn't the best tablet, but it is not bad. It's the best for buying books and videos from Amazon. Ecosystem is subpar, but that is ok.
That's basically the problem I have with the Kindle. I love how convenient it is to buy books, and just turning from page to page is easy enough with the physical buttons on my model (or hopefully the little touch zones on the new model), but everything else sucks.
Software updates are rare, the menus are convoluted and obtuse, when the newer models you have to know secret touch zones to use different features. Simple options that used to exist have disappeared and new options of questionable utility have taken their place.
Probably my favorite thing about the Kindle is that it syncs my place with my phone, but the app on iOS is gotten much worse over the years. At this point when reading a book the timeline thing at the bottom and all sorts of weird little blue dots on it that I've never been able to figure out. Sometimes if you tap on one it goes away.
The things just smack of strange decisions. Who thought it would be a good idea to remove the page current buttons for two or three years in a row? And when they brought them back or not real buttons, but hopefully they're good enough.
In the meantime the books are still absolutely riddled with typos, terrible formatting, and if a publisher actually makes an update to a book you're unlikely to find out about it. What little I've heard of the authorship side of things is supposed be pretty dreadful too, were even recent kindles don't support some of the newest formatting things because Amazon hasn't bothered to update them.
It's the best e-book reader on the market, and in many ways it's a piece of crap. It's so clear the decision seem to be made by marketing or something else instead of what the readers want.
And sadly this experience seems to match what I've heard about other Amazon hardware. At best they behave like a mediocre hardware company who doesn't understand software. Even their flagship devices like the original Kindle fire have serious issues, which if you're lucky get fixed in a software update later.
Well until AI write garbage collectors I'm not sure I see how your comment doesn't also apply to them. And lots of great software manages memory quite fine, like that browser you used to write your comment and the operating system it runs on, so not sure the use of "proven" is appropriate in your comment.