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Comment Re:suggestion (Score 1) 283

Plus no mucking about with iTunes or Apple networking protocols to transfer files to the thing.

The only time that I've run iTunes in the past 2 years that I got my current iPad was when I bought a new iPad and I wanted to transfer my stuff from the old one. I read books (PDF) on it, comics, watch media... . The same for my iPhone.

The whole iTunes thing may be an argument a couple of years ago but it is certainly not an argument today.

Comment Re:Belgian Science gone wrong? (Score 1) 58

Americans and their "geographical" knowledge. We now all seem to live in Germany suddenly... . Mendel was german that big country - how the hell can you mis it ? - next to Belgium.

He speaks perhaps of the infamous Congo Troubles?

These weren't medical from nature but had everything to do with the greed of King Leopold II and his rubber plantages. If you need to make a list of colonial crimes you will need to have a lot of time at your hands.

It is also extremely cynical to bring the Flemish government in relation with the stuff somebody from the royal family did. The flemish government is not particularly Belgium or the Royal Family minded. Flemish government is to Belgium as the Catalan government is to Spain, also wanting to get their independence.

Comment Re:This is a big troll (Score 2) 311

Browser specific prefixes are a nuisance - which can easily be overcome by using sass/less - but you can't compare it with what I remembered from the IE6 era.

People who are making that comparison clearly haven't witnessed that period as a web developer. There were other problems than CSS prefixes. You had the IE way and then the rest. You had progress and then you had Microsoft dragging its feet with IE.

Yes Apple is not as fast as picking up new stuff as their competitors, but it is a whole other league then deliberately trying to take the web as a hostage. They catch up eventually and at a faster pace then what Microsoft was doing in the web's dark ages.

Comment Re: PC gaming is dead (Score 1) 225

I game on both And I really don't see the point

1> Gameplay > graphics . I have a beefy PC but since I get the most gameplay out of indie games that aren't visual that great, I seriously doubt that graphics are the key in what makes games great.
2> Your ultraresolution / gazillion of shaders doesn't change the fact that games these days are shoddy console ports that sometimes even run great. That isn't the fault of the owners of those machines or the machines them-self but the economic motives behind the reasoning to use them as a primary platform.

The only big thing that PC gaming has over consoles is price and is the reason that play mainly exclusives on consoles. But I get as even much of fun out of a for "PC master race" - which for me tells a lot of somebody mental state - ugly game as The last of us as any other game

When the roles where reversed btw I even had the feeling that gameplay seriously lacked when the focus was mainly graphics. I'm even convinced that it contributed to the uprising of Indie games as a whole.

Granted this is an EA game we are talking about, not the company that creates a grand cru selection of video games.

Comment LDA != All text analysis (Score 1) 60

I was a bit surprised reading the headline as this would also mean that text analysis like a bayesian classifier or using a linear svm for classifying text would also be inconsistent or inaccurate. I personally have good experience with the latter and the former.

But after reading the article - yes I know - it seems to focus on the LDA model but that is only of technique that is available for doing textual analysis or categorising documents.

Comment Re:(European) left-wing = "red fascism"! (Score 1) 319


Which doesn't make any sense because like in a lot of religions you have different views. In Christianity you have Catholicism, Anglican, Coptic Christians, ... that is the same for Islam and the interpretation of their scriptures. You have salafism, shia Islam, sunni's,... why do you think they hate each-other guts? You should put somebody from Iran with somebody from IS and see what happens, I think you will have quickly a different view that that "All muslims believe what muslims believe"...

I have Muslim friends who are practicing their religion and for the most part - with the exception of the Ramadan that is the only time I am confronted with their religion - aren't that different. The girls don't wear a hijab and go out and drink like my "western" friends. I even have western friends who are married with a muslim and they are as free as before.

Granted that wouldn't be the case for those who practice salafisme, but fortunately - because that is a believe that develops terrorists - these are the minority.

Criticizing the press is also a form of free speech, don't you think?

Yes of course but unfortunately in Belgium it becomes less about the argumentation but more about automatic shrugging it of as left and even trying to silence those who have an opposing view. If a TV personality say somethings that opposes the view of right the whole social sphere explodes and a barrage of mails starts to the point somebody needs to apology. Why the hell is that ?

When a cartoonist post a cartoon that is negative for a popular right wing politician it is just the same. Like some cartoonist reacted after the Charlie Hebdo attack, people doesn't seem to accept opposing views.

You too seem to see the world in black and white: a world where every right-wing 'nut' sees the world in b&w.

I live in a society that shifted from a left-central view to a more right wing view, that introduced a lot of more black and white thinking. And not only about the press but also about those who are weaker in our society or are different, like for example Muslims but not only them. I have a disability and have been battling my whole life with PTSD (suffered from a lot of physical abuse as a child) and I can tell you for a fact - and really in all honesty - that I had it a lot harder since the right became more popular.

And it is not about the social benefits as I still work as a developer, but the the constant mantra that every "weakling" lives on the head - I don't know the English equivalent - of the "hardworking middle class" doesn't do a lot of good for those who aren't a member of that group. The hateful and stupid things you hear on the street these days... . Sometimes it is like everyone that is unemployed or is disabled is trying to abuse the system or faking it which is ridiculous.

But you can't hear any of those kind of politicians talking without creating any new form of enemy: first it was the french, then the socialist (although they call them-self "social") , the trade unions, the unemployed and those who live on a disability income... . And when I confront some of them it is always about those who abuse the system, but they - for some bizarre reason - never seem to make that distinction in their speeches or interviews.

Comment Re:(European) left-wing = "red fascism"! (Score 4, Informative) 319

Funny here in Belgium we have a right wing government and they where one of the first to and I quote "to give up a bit of our freedom of speech". The N-VA for example a couple of weeks ago was attacking the local press - so much that journalistic organisations needed to intervene - so it taste a bit bad if they are now portraying them-self as the fighters of freedom of speech.

It isn't a problem of right or left but the problem is the politician as a whole and people who always see the things in black and white. And it is not even the problem of religion but the small minority that uses violence.

Did you know that - even if the right is abusing this drama - that Charlie Hebdo was seen as a left wing magazine that combated any form of (religious) extremism? Tell that to some right-wing nuts and their head explodes because they can compute it in their black and white world where everybody "left" is Islam loving or whatever they call it.

The world is a bit more complex then the simplistic views that a lot of sides seems to hold.

Comment What the hell is wrong with the RPI community ? (Score 2) 140

When I heard about the RPI I was very enthusiastic. The premise of cheap computers, give kids a possibility to tinker, maybe spark a whole industry of these kind of things. Maybe even ending in cheaper and more faster RPI'like systems kicking the boundaries away.

But every f*cking time somebody comes up with a cheaper, faster, ... board they take a very aggressive stance and everyone that comes up with an ARM board is trying to steal their customers away. It is as ridiculous of complaining about holes and a 40 pin connector, you can bet this board will be branded as a rippoff.

I thought the whole idea was of giving children a cheap way to tinker with hardware, so what is the problem with cheaper / faster boards that come on the market ? The whole premise seems to be a lie and I have the feeling the whole RPI thing has more to do with personal ego's than al the fluffy spin... .

Comment Re: Design flaws (Score 2) 88

assumed that they could land the probe on a comet just like they land a probe the size of the Moon or Mars

Which is factually incorrect. Saw a documentary about this project yesterday and they were fully aware of the difference hence the harpoon and screws to try to keep the lander intact.

They even described the "what if" scenario if the harpoons would fail, but it doesn't help if the lander rest in a place where there isn't enough sunlight. That is just plain unfortunate.

Comment Re:Say what? (Score 3, Informative) 161

They only use the RealSpeak TTS (text to speech) engine... . This is really a non story because they can easily switch to another TTS vendor. The only possible impact is that siri would sound different... .

Disclaimer: I'm a developer that worked for Lernout and Hauspie that originally developed the ASR/TTS engine that have been sold to Scansoft/Nuance.

PS: Good luck for Samsung because when we bought certain American companies that also did Pentagon contract work, some Americans weren't that happy about it. I'm even personally convinced that they had some hands in the rapid downfall of Lernout and Hauspie.

Comment Re:news for nerds? (Score 3, Insightful) 215

Maybe because news in those countries regarding the Palestian-Israeli war is not one sided ? Even as a non muslim I sometimes have questions how that state operates. Like this week annexing >400km of land for settlers as a form of punishment or a documentary that I saw about a 6 years old boy that needed to go to a military court because a settler saying he threw a rock to him. The story about a brave Israeli that escort palestian children on certain routes so they don't get attacked by settlers.

And the reality is that there are hundred of those kind of stories and it is just completely nuts and a good breeding ground for terrorists... .

I have the feeling that 80% of the hatred for the "west' is targeted to the US and the UK. For the US that has a lot to do with the fact that is some kind of lapdog for Israel. The Uk's problem is that it is the lapdop of the US.

You can believe all the fluffy stories that is because of the "hatred for freedom" or that we in Europe are all anti-semitic, but the reality is that for 9/10 homegrown terrorist the US position is the enemy because it is mainly driven because of a wealthy influential lobby from the us.

Comment Re:Yep. (Score 1) 649

"You do realize that most Christian congregations in the US are decedents of the Church of England. It's not like they have a foreign doctrine"

There is a saying "Holier than the pope" and I think this is a good description of religion in the US. Here in Belgium we even have a catholic university doing a lot of research regarding stem-cells. Even embryonic !

To be honest the most relaxed teacher that I had was my Catholic teacher where in his classes we mostly learned about poverty, other religions and more philosophical stuff about being good to others. Don't had a lot of Jezus, God or bible studies. Let alone no "you shall not do X, Y or Z". I found those classes refreshing.

I think the extreme religious stuff is more an American thing. I don't have the feeling that people who have a religion are my enemies. The only group ranting here against abortion or gay rights are mostly the far right political parties and that has nothing to do with religion but plain bigotry.

Comment Re:Sorry.. (Score 2) 184

I haven't seen MS distributing rootkits with its hardware products. So definitely less hostile.

But remember kids when Sony opens their bootloaders for Android it is the Ericsson part. But when Sony BMG does something stupid it is the whole company that is at fault.

But yeah trying to strip consumer rights to the bare minimum, wanting to have a system that is 24/24 connected and knowing that you are part of PRISM (but I forgot its OK because it only invades the privacy of us non-Americans/Untermenschen) isn't really the signs of a company that is hostile. The whole f*cking box was original planted as one big ROOTkit.

I swore to never buy anything from Sont again since the rootkit fiasco, and have kept to that.

So you don't have any products with for example a camera sensor ?

Comment Google is becoming less and less open (Score 1) 629

We already have switched to the use of OSM/Mapbox/Cloudmade for mapping services and seeing you can't use the results of the Google Directions API on for example to plot on a OSM map, we are also in the process of looking for an alternative for a routing api.

It's not even the case of getting a free ride, because we absolutely don't mind to pay for the service but nowadays Google is really all about restrictions. The only thing that speaks in their advantage is that the limitations are very clear, not like the Bing REST services TOS that is plain lawyer speak.

There is also no transparency in Google offerings. Alternative providers are very upfront in what you can get for the money, Google commercial offerings is behind a big wall of mist.
