I don’t have anything profound to say about it — just a few random notes…
There’s no developer bit in anyone’s DNA. I don’t have that bit — nobody does. There’s no such thing, and there’s no collection of genes that make you a real developer, either.
You don’t have to have a CS degree. (I didn’t even own a computer when I was in college. And I didn’t graduate.)
If you’re working on an app, you’re a developer. Period. Even if it’s not a stand-alone app; even if it’s some scripts. You’re solving a problem on a computer with logic and code — that makes you a developer. That’s all it takes!
Impostor syndrome goes away eventually. You just forget about it. The fastest way to get past it is probably to help other people.
It’s okay to admit that you have it. It’s been many years, but I had it too. :)
Induction has been hailed as the next big thing in cooking tech for decades. Using the power of electromagnetism, these cooktops can boil water in nearly half the time (video) of a gas or conventional-electric burner yet also hold such low temperatures that it’s almost impossible to scorch a sauce or burn melted chocolate. They’re also safer than other types of cooktops, with no open flame and little residual heat after you’ve turned them off.
And it’s not some far-off appliance of the future. Induction cooktops have been widely available since the mid-2000s, and many appliance dealers sell several models from multiple brands. Most people who own an induction cooktop love it, and many chefs approve (video) of the tech, too.
That all sounds great. But as of 2019, only 1 percent of stoves in the US have induction cooktops, according to a report by the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers. That number climbs to 15 percent among built-in cooktops, but that’s still a tiny share of all major cooking appliances in the country. Portable, single-element induction cookers aren’t that popular, either, despite their small footprints and low prices.
If this is such a great technology, why is it still so uncommon?
It works only with certain (though very common) cookware. Your pots and pans need to contain enough iron to generate a magnetic field. Copper, aluminum, and ceramic wares don’t work. Every manufacturer I contacted (GE, LG, Samsung) confirmed that the concern over compatibility is a major reason for the slow growth.
Tim Calvert, a marketing director at GE Appliances, told me that, because replacing an appliance is usually an unplanned expense, potential buyers are often turned off by the need for all-new cookware: “It creates an added expense to an already unplanned purchase.”
But there’s a misconception that you’ll have to throw out all your cookware, and that’s almost certainly not true. Most stainless steel and all cast-iron pots and pans will work, and those are among the most-common materials used for cooking. If a magnet sticks to the bottom of a pot, it’s induction-ready. (For what it’s worth, Wirecutter’s picks for saucepans, skillets, cast-iron pans, cookware sets, and Dutch ovens all work with induction, as does one of our picks for nonstick pans.)
It’s expensive (but not wildly so). Although induction appliances are, on average, a bit pricier than gas or electric stoves, they’re not some Veblen good meant for image-conscious elites. The cheapest induction ranges start at $1,000, which is only a couple hundred dollars more than a midtier gas or electric freestanding range. Higher-end models, such as the Bosch induction slide-in range, cost around $3,500—which is a lot, but still nothing next to the price tags of some high-end gas-powered ranges. When it comes to cooktops, it’s easy to find a great induction model for hundreds less than a gas-powered model. And great single-element induction cookers cost only around $70 (though they aren’t as capable as a full-on cooktop).
It hasn’t been marketed very well. This is perhaps the biggest barrier to induction’s adoption so far. A lot of designers and remodelers still don’t even know what induction is. Elle H-Millard, industry relations manager at the National Kitchen and Bath Association, said there is a serious knowledge gap. “We do many trainings and it is surprising to see so many designers asking questions about induction,” she said. Most big-box retailers don’t even display induction appliances in their showrooms.
Induction cooktops look like conventional electric cooktops. And those basic electric models aren’t especially well liked. H-Millard explained how this can lead to some confusion among potential buyers: Shoppers associate the design with slow heat-up times and uneven temperatures, and they automatically assume that, because it has a glass surface, it must not be as good as gas.
Americans tend to be hesitant to adopt new cooking tech. Or so a representative from LG told us. Induction is different enough to feel unfamiliar, and it makes some potential owners hesitant to switch. The LG rep compared it to the situation with convection ovens, which help cook food faster and more evenly. But it’s not what most people are used to, so “even though they may pay slightly more for the feature, they end up using the regular bake mode more frequently.” The same could hold true for induction: “People don’t fully understand induction, or are not sure how the new tech could impact their cooking, so they stick with what they know,” the LG rep said. Plus, if your kitchen is set up for gas appliances, you’ll need to pay an electrician to set it up for electric appliances before you can switch to induction.
It could just be a victim of bad timing. Induction appliances first became somewhat common and affordable in the late 2000s, right before the housing market collapsed and the economy fell into recession. People who may have been willing to splurge on a new range or cooktop instead opted to buy something cheaper and more familiar. Recessions have a way of inspiring a more minimalist approach to life, and that includes the things people buy to fit their lifestyles. Induction, with its strange underlying technology and the (potential) need for special cookware, is far from the spartan ideal some people may be looking for when tightening their belts.
But now, 10 years later, the economy is stronger, budgets are bigger, and, as H-Millard pointed out, there’s a new generation of homeowners finding their financial footing. Combine that with a greater interest in greener, more efficient appliances, and you have what could be the perfect conditions for induction to blow up. Jon Guiffre, owner of Allied Building Contractors in Vermont, agreed: “As [high-performance, airtight homes] become more commonplace, you will see more homes going electric—with induction being the better choice” because they create less indoor air pollution than gas cooktops and work better than conventional electric.
And in its most recent survey of kitchen design trends, the National Kitchen and Bath Association found a trend that bodes well for induction: Among designers planning to work with separate cooktops and wall ovens on future projects, induction was the single most preferred type of cooktop, beating out both gas and conventional electric. Among ranges, induction lost only narrowly to gas.
But then again, maybe this is just another false dawn for the new American kitchen. We’ll have to wait and see.
The wonderful thing about editing is that every day you discover a new pet peeve. My latest are the Latin-derived etc., i.e., and e.g. They annoy readers, they’re lazy, and you don’t need them. What they all have in common is that, since they’re Latin, they’re supposed to make the writer sound more sophisticated, but … Continued
Hypernomicon is aimed at philosophers. However, having looked at the video tutorial I think the developer may be unintentionally limiting the potential market for this software. I think, on first take, it can be applied to any field where ideas, concepts, and theories are involved, or in the context of specific issues or problems.
Calling all members of the Mozilla Philippines Community (MozillaPH)
— both old and new — to participate on this Doodle to determine the
date and time of our next community meeting (online via Slack).
Please plot your availability (all slots) via https://doodle.com/poll/9qak6sazrhsm3i6m
(Deadline: 12NN of Sun 30 Jun 2019)
Maraming salamat po!… Read the rest
You’d think the habit would have died out in the last millennium, but apparently not. An Italian business’ platform at which I registered just sent me a friendly email confirmation that contains my name, username and password in plaintext. What better way to start a relationship with a new client than with a security breach, eh?
Just a few more thoughts about CintaNotes, which has been discussed here occasionally:
The usual comment about CN (which I too have made from time to time) is that it's suitable only for small, uncomplicated lists, but I've now come to the conclusion that its stripped-down UI is actually misleading. I'm in the midst of using it for a much larger project, and so far it's working very well.
Of course the individual notes are relatively brief, and CN's handling of illustrations continues to be awkward, but aside from those obvious limitations, it actually handles material on a larger scale than I thought possible. I'm working on a digital bibliography of the poet George Mackay Brown
https://gmbbibliography.wordpress.com/
and so far in my notes I have approximately approximately 1250 entries for the bibliography (not counting some miscellaneous background material). CN, I find, is able to deal easily with information on this scale, though of course it helps to split the notebook into several sections and to use common sense about images.
Here is a sample entry in CintaNotes, just to show how I am using it:
I have added quite a few tags (at the bottom) for this entry, because CN — more than any other note-taking program I've ever used — is built around tags. The line below it ("1987-05-21") is the remarks field, which I am using for the date, where it becomes easily sortable.
I began by trying to do this project in Evernote, which is in many ways a much more powerful program, but EN is also awkward to use, whereas CN has a simple interface, has a tagging system even better than EN's, and is rock-solid. At the moment it seems like the best solution to my problem (though I'm keeping a careful eye on the changes in Evernote that have been promised for later this year).
The topic of 'agency' was the last of nine topics in the E-Learning 3.0 course and the one that has given me the most pause for thought recently. I won't say that this article is the final word on the subject - not even close - but it's helpful in framing some thinking. A lot of the time things like freedom and agency are defined in terms of choice. But I don't find this very satisfying (as anyone considering the choices on TV, or in the election booth, can attest). This article defines agency (in part) not as choice but as 'initiating action' - this "invokes existential concepts such as voice, choice, free will, freedom, individual volition, self-influence, and self-initiation." There are some useful links here giving us at least some starting points.
We are excited to share Charla's Blix rider story. While she used to find bike riding as purely a form of exercise, with her Blix Aveny, Charla has discovered a new love for adding biking to her daily activities. This includes spending more time outdoors, commuting less in her car, and exploring her neighborhood trails. Check out her story below!
Charla loves her Aveny because of its "townie style" and "the way it looks," especially,"the cream color with the leather seat and adorable basket." Plus, she was able to work with the "awesome team at Best E-bikes USA in Denver,"which is a local Blix dealer in her state. Charla even drove three hours to Denver to find her perfect Blix match! She says "the entire drive back over the mountains, I had the windows down and the music blaring, and my sweet little bike strapped to the back. I was SO happy!"
After Charla picked up her Blix Aveny and started riding, she realized how easy and enjoyable it was to use her electric bike to commute to work. She said before owning a Blix she wouldn't "ride to work or the grocery store because it's so much work." However, with an "e-bike [she] cruises!" Charla regained a love for riding from place to place because it no longer felt like a chore or something that she could only do as her exercise routine.
The best part about her Blix is how she "absolutely feels like a kid again" and that by riding more often, she "also gets to spread the joy." Charla even wrote an article about the happiness biking has brought her and how it can help others as well. One day, Charla hopes to ride her Blix in Amsterdam, one of the top bike cities in the world.
A big thank you to Charla for sharing her Blix story!
Learn how an ebike adds freedom to your life here!
For more information on our Blix lineup click here!
City Council voted down a 21-unit rental townhome project for Shaughnessy by a 7-4 vote. The ostensible controversy was the adjacency of a hospice, which threatened to close if the project was built – a dubious outcome, given that many hospices exist in much less pleasant prospects. The reality: Shaughnessy was threatened with higher density, and with rentals – unpleasant prospects for a community that is synonymous with exclusivity. And they spoke up.
There was a lot of debate, a lot of angst, a lot of rationalizations. But the most important message coming out of council, whether deliberate or not, is this: ‘No matter what we as councillors say, no matter what policies we pass, no matter what support you get from staff, no matter how great the need we acknowledge, none of that really matters. If enough of the residents complain, we will protect the status quo.’
North Vancouver District sent a similar message to the development community and housing advocates with their rejection of the Delbrook affordable-rental project – a more egregious case to be sure, but similar in outcome. ‘Nothing is good enough if the neighbours object.’
The message is devastating for developers who believed council was sincere in wanting to encourage secure market-rental projects and more choice of housing in existing neighbourhoods. But the impact is more significant when considering the upcoming city-wide planning process. Council just clarified that they are shifting to the conservationist end of the Bushfield-Prest chart.
Regardless of their rhetoric, desires, intents or instructions with respect to the goals of the plan, in the face of opposition to the outcomes the majority will likely side with status quo. Those in threatened neighbourhoods can now breathe more easily, knowing that regardless of process, they need only prepare for battle when intent is translated into proposal.
When Jean Swanson votes against rental unless it is social housing, when Adriane Carr votes against new housing unless it is ‘affordable’, when Pete Fry, Michael Wiebe and Sarah Kirby-Yung say they’re for denser development but not today, when Colleen Hardwick wants to give communities a de facto veto, when Rebecca Bligh favours the comfort of the dying over the needs of the living, they’re sending the same message as the conservationists in North Vancouver: ‘We don’t believe the housing crisis is all that serious.’
Necssary acknowledgement, then, to Melissa De Genova, Christine Boyle, Lisa Dominato and Mayor Kennedy Stewart who struggled with the issue and in the end voted in favour.
After my post on the stellar data rates that can theoretically be achieved by combining 60 MHz of bandwidth of 4G LTE with 100 MHz 5G NR in the 3.5 GHz range, I think it is also necessary to look at real life and have a look at how much capacity is actually offered by a live network cell when it is fully loaded.
So let’s say there’s an LTE cell out there that uses 20 MHz of spectrum. With 256QAM and 4×4 MIMO the theoretical peak data rate is around 375 Mbit/s, minus 15% of overhead for the control and reference channels, so around 320 Mbit/s. But that’s under super ideal radio conditions and only a single user in the cell. A typical cell site has 3 sectors so you can triple that value.
But that’s not real life. In real life, there are dozens of users in a cell that transfer data simultaneously. And quite many of those have marginal radio conditions and would only get a 3-4 Mbit/s even if they had the whole 20 MHz channel for themselves. So the fully loaded capacity of a cell is somewhere between 320 Mbit/s and 3-4 Mbit/s. But exactly where? Here’s an interesting slidedeck by Huawei that gives an answer to this question. According to this, a fully loaded cell in an urban environment runs at a datarate of around 35 Mbit/s in the downlink, which is 11% of the theoretical maximum.
That’s not very much if you compare it to the theoretical maximum. At least one can aggregate several carriers to, let’s say 60 MHz, which would triple that value to around 100 Mbit/s. And then, a cell site typically has 3 sectors so the total throughput of the cell site when all sectors are fully loaded is 300 Mbit/s. Sounds much, but that’s what around 1000 users have to share.
Not every photo you take comes out perfectly, and not every photo needs to. But sometimes you want to put effort into having an image look exactly like you imagined, whether that’s recovering a photo of your friends in a dark bar or subtly tweaking a stunning landscape. After testing seven mobile photo editing apps over a month, we’re sure Adobe Lightroom (Android, iPhone, iPad) is the best option for photographers of all skill levels.
To the lady swerving her Nissan Micra all over the M25, eating her dinner with a fork from a bowl *behind the steering wheel* I hope they teach you to drive in hell.
Posted by
ottocrat
on Wednesday, June 26th, 2019 6:33pm
Amazon’s new 5.5-inch smart display, the Echo Show 5, is now available to order in Canada.
The compact device comes in at $99 CAD and offers most of the major features from its larger sibling, the Echo Show.
First of all, the new device has a physical shutter that covers the camera, in addition to a switch that disconnects both the camera and the microphone digitally.
Amazon is also adding voice commands that allow users to delete their conversation history with Alexa.
So far, in the time we’ve spent with the Show 5, which is equipped with a decent little speaker and sports a design that’s compact and perfect for a desk or a bedside table.
Follow along with MobileSyrup for the full review in the coming weeks.
The device comes in both ‘Charcoal’ and ‘Sandstone.’ You can also order them in bundles with various Ring Doorbells.
So far, the arrangement — which is intended to improve “tax fairness” for all British Columbians — has proven to be nearly twice as lucrative than expected.
According to numbers Airbnb provided to Global News, the home rentals platform has handed over $14 million CAD in PST to the B.C. government in the first six months since it began collecting taxes on October 1st, 2018. The government says money generated from the PST will go towards creating affordable housing.
Further, Airbnb says it remitted an additional $4 million in municipal tax to the government. Each municipality will receive a portion of this tax to be used on tourism promotion funding.
When the agreement was signed last year, Airbnb estimated it would remit $16 million in its first year of tax collection. In just half that time, the company has already collected nearly half that amount, putting it on track to hit almost double the original estimated sum within the next six months.
The B.C. government is the only jurisdiction in Canada to require Airbnb to remit PST. Altogether, the tax works out to about 11 percent of the rental fee that would have gone to Airbnb prior to the deal.
Airbnb lists more than 31,000 B.C. homes on its platform.
Google will offer a new feature that will automatically wipe out your location history after three or 18 months. Users can still manually wipe their slates clean, but Google is making it less of a chore.
The tech giant also stated that the new privacy protection mechanism is set to go live on Wednesday, June 26th, for Google users. However, Google also pointed out it will take some time for the new feature to reach all users’ Google account settings pages. For the time being, at least one Google account at MobileSyrup does not see the option.
Back at I/O 2019, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that the Mountain View search giant would roll out a slew of tools for its users to keep track and protect their data privacy. Starting May 8th, users could also let Google to routinely erase their web and app activity data in a three or 18 months interval.
Here is how to activate the new feature (Web&App Activity + Location History):
Click or tap “Data and Personalization” on the left panel.
Click or tap “Location History” or “Web&App Activity” in the “Activity controls” card depending on what you want to do next.
Click or tap “Manage Activity.” You should see the option that authorizes Google to delete your data periodically. There might be a button that reads “Choose to delete automatically.” If you don’t see the option, come back in a few days.
Canada has partnered with the U.S. state of California to tackle vehicle climate pollution.
As part of the new cooperation agreement, Canada and California will work together on their respective regulations to reduce greenhouse gas pollution from all kinds of cars, SUVs and trucks.
Instead, Canada and California will collectively push electric vehicles, which will help both parties meet their zero emission vehicle targets. Further, Canada and California will share best practices and technical information about regulating cleaner fuels.
As the fifth-largest economy in the world, California has become a pioneer in the battle to cut down vehicle emissions, making the state a notable partner for Canada. As of now, one in ten new cars sold in California is a plug-in car, while half of all plug-in cars sales in the U.S. to date (nearly 600,000) were made in California.
Canada is also looking to draw inspiration from California’s Low-Carbon Fuel Standard, has displaced 3.3 billion gallons (about 12.5 billion litres) of petroleum-based fuels with low-carbon alternatives such as renewable electricity, diesel and natural gas.
For its part, Canada is developing a Clean Fuel Standard that looks to cut emissions by 30 million tonnes (30 billion kg) in 2030, which works out to taking seven million cars off the road.
Additionally, Canada is working towards having 100 percent of light-duty vehicles sold in the country be emission-free by 2040. To help with that, this year’s federal budget offers Canadians a rebate of up to $5,000 for qualifying zero-emission vehicles. As well, other tax incentives will be offered to businesses looking to upgrade to zero-emission fleets.
Meanwhile, California is looking to have five million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2030. As part of that, all automakers in the state are required to have zero-emission vehicles make up a portion of their sales.
Apple has purchased self-driving technology startup Drive.ai for an undisclosed amount of money.
The Cupertino tech giant is reportedly hiring the startup’s engineers, product design staff, buying its assets and using its self-driving vehicles.
Drive.ai is reported to be worth around $77 million USD (roughly, $101 million CAD) by Axios. That said, Apple was likely able to purchase the company for less than that amount. Two years ago the Drive.ai’s value was at $200 million USD (roughly, $262 million CAD).
The was using its autonomous vehicles to shuttle workers around a business park in Frisco, Texas and to ferry people from Arlington, Texas to Dallas Cowboys games.
The Drive.ai deal is an ‘acqui-hire,’ meaning that Apple purchased the company mainly for its employees rather than its tech, according MacRumors.
Apple is working with Volkswagen to build self-driving vans to move its employees around Apple Park.
Apple’s Titan self-driving project has been all over the place in the last few years. While the company has confirmed almost no information about the project, Apple has reportedly changed the focus of its self-driving efforts a few times.
LG is on its way to expand webOS, which usually appears on LG smart TVs and fridges, by bringing it to vehicles, robots, and other smart home products.
On June 26th, the South Korean electronics giant said it has partnered with Qt, a Finnish software development company, to make webOS a better platform for developers to swiftly integrate into their products.
LG tried to drive up webOS’ adoption by launching an open source version in 2018. In many ways, the partnership shows that the company is taking another step to make webOS more appealing to a broader audience.
Some also see the collaboration as LG’s answer to Samsung’s growing operating system called Tizen. After all, the two companies now share a similar ambition of dominating the software aspect of smart home appliances, cars, wearables, and other potential markets.
The Linux-based webOS also went through a few hands over the past decade. Launched in 2009, it is the brainchild of the now-defunct smartphone company Palm. HP bought Palm and webOS in 2010 but largely failed to revive the operating system in the consumer market. Three years later, LG acquired most of the webOS from HP, save for the patents, for use on its own smart TVs.
The automaker’s vice president of production at the Fremont factory has quit for an undisclosed reason.
The executive’s name is Peter Hochholdinger and before spending three years with Tesla, he worked as a production executive at the Volkswagen Auto Group.
When Hochholdinger first joined the EV company he was tasked with building a cost-effective production method for the Model 3.
The Model 3 is currently Tesla’s most important car and the company has had issues ramping up its production to meet consumer demand.
Enjoyable though the distractions have been, on tomorrow’s show we will invite Conservative members to explain their continued support for Johnson. I’m particularly interested in the suspension of belief in all the ‘values’ they’ve spent their lives claiming to consider crucial.
Posted by
mrjamesob
on Tuesday, June 25th, 2019 8:25pm
I'm a huge fan of feature flags as a way of managing feature releases and keeping incomplete code in master as opposed to maintaining long-running branches. Recently I've found myself pointing people to this essay by Pete Hodgson - it's a great overview of feature flags (here called toggles) and I particularly like how it splits them into four categories: Release Toggles, Experiment Toggles, Ops Toggles and Permissioning Toggles.
Free and Open Source
Multi-Platform (Mac, Windows, and Linux) (but not mobile)
Hypernomicon is a personal productivity/database application for researchers that combines structured note-taking, mind-mapping, management of files (e.g., PDFs) and folders, and reference management into an integrated environment that organizes all of the above into semantic networks or hierarchies in terms of debates, positions, arguments, labels, terminology/concepts, and user-defined keywords by means of database relations and automatically generated hyperlinks (hence ‘Hyper’ in the name).
Michael and Jack got married long before same-sex marriage was legal in the U.S. — 48 years later, they're sharing their heartwarming story pic.twitter.com/PoqDU5kfdD
Posted by
nowthisnews
on Tuesday, June 25th, 2019 6:03pm
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