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  1. 3

    Fall Event #2: "Unleashed" [Livestream discussion begins on Page 7]

    This makes perfect sense. Then the area below the menu bar would always be 16:10, and changing the menu bar size via display scaling causes its top to move up or down. Fullscreen mode by default would black out the top 74 pixels (again giving 16:10), and there could be an API for notch-aware...
  2. 3

    ARMageddon

    When I say that IAPs are bad I'm being selfish, not paternalistic. I have no interest in preventing people from spending their money on whatever they want. But the problem with IAPs is that just by existing, they create an irresistible incentive for publishers to intentionally make their games...
  3. 3

    ARMageddon

    Absolutely. If Apple or Google wanted to instantly gain a ton of goodwill, they could update their requirements to say that IAPs can only be for permanent additional content like expansions or level packs, no gems or energy or pay-to-win BS. Of course that would probably cost them billions in...
  4. 3

    What was/is Mac nirvana for you?

    Power Mac 7500. Started with a 100 MHz PPC 601, 500MB HD, and 16MB RAM. Ended with a 375MHz G3 (with a couple of 604s along the way), 20GB HD, and 384MB RAM. Learned Mac programming with CodeWarrior and Java with MRJ. It ran BeOS, MkLinux, and Mac OS X Server 1.x flawlessly.
  5. 3

    What's the oldest Apple hardware that you use regularly?

    I have a NeXT cube that my cat uses regularly as a step so she can jump on top of the refrigerator.
  6. 3

    In blow to inmates’ families, court halts new prison phone rate caps

    Read the previous Ars article, specifically the "commissions" that the phone providers have to pay to the prisons. This is basically state governments outsourcing the abuse of prisoners and their families to private companies.
  7. 3

    The App-ocalypse: can Web standards make mobile apps obsolete?

    Admittedly weak evidence that Apple originally planned a console model: - The certificate signing process for local development was very convoluted and non-user-friendly. It would have been fine for a few hand-picked partners, but it really didn't look like something that Apple planned to scale...
  8. 3

    Instacart contractors-turned-part-time employees still won’t get health care

    Insurance is a way for people to pay slightly more than the expected costs of their future health care in exchange for being protected against huge expenses. Your girlfriend doesn't need insurance, she needs subsidized medical care for her known expenses. You can try to force insurance companies...
  9. 3

    Instacart contractors-turned-part-time employees still won’t get health care

    How do people get cars or homes or food if their jobs don't provide it?
  10. 3

    iMac vs. iMac 5K

    Unigine Heaven benchmarks. The displayed GPU temperature got up to 99C fairly quickly during the benchmarks and stayed there, so it was probably throttling. The app doesn't seem to be retina-aware, I didn't see options for resolutions above 2560x1440. 1600x900 "Extreme" preset: FPS: 28.5 Score...
  11. 3

    iMac vs. iMac 5K

    I don't know if Borderlands 2 counts, but it runs perfectly at 2560x1440 max quality on my 5k with the CPU and GPU upgrades. Same with Batman: Arkham City; that seemed fine at 3200x1800 as well, but due to the non-integer scaling it looks about the same subjective quality as 1440. XCOM: Enemy...
  12. 3

    An infinite multiverse: a bad idea or inescapable?

    Right. And Cophenhagen has exactly the same branching; it just also postulates ill-defined "collapse" events that cause most of the branches to cease to exist. These collapses have no impact on our expected obsevations, so by Occam's Razor we should be disinclined to believe in them.
  13. 3

    Smartphone display wars go to ludicrous speed: 2560×1440 in 5.5 inches

    And less than 1680x1050, which used to be common in midrange laptops and displays. And even Apple dropped iMacs from 1200 to 1080. That's just silly. Overly wide being bad does not translate to overly tall being good.
  14. 3

    Smartphone display wars go to ludicrous speed: 2560×1440 in 5.5 inches

    That doesn't have to be the case. Take 9 1280x800 7" displays, like from the original Nexus 7, and you can make a 3840x2400 21" display that DPI-unaware apps can treat as 1920x1200. Sadly true, and it doesn't help that manufacturers deliberately hide pixel counts now. "15-inch HD display" can...
  15. 3

    MacMini G4 as a fileserver?

    That seems excessive. According to Apple's numbers at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3468, the G4 mini idles at 32W compared to 11W for the 2012 mini. Taking power consumption into account is smart though; that's why I consider the mini to be the only PPC Mac possibly still worth using.
  16. 3

    Sine wave instrument for GarageBand?

    Exactly what I was looking for, thanks!
  17. 3

    Sine wave instrument for GarageBand?

    I have a MIDI keyboard hooked up to GarageBand, and I'd like to use it to generate pure sine wave tones using the standard piano frequencies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_key_frequencies). For example, if I hit the A below middle C I should get a 220Hz sine wave exactly like the audio...
  18. 3

    Difference in noise between 2.3 GHz and 2.6 GHz quad-core 2012 Mac Minis?

    My 2.6 quad mini is almost always silent. The only time I can hear the fan at all is when I'm playing Windows games in Parallels, or doing something contrived like running several Python benchmarks concurrently.
  19. 3

    How big does my project have to be to unit test?

    That's overstating it. I have a bunch of non-trivial projects spanning several years with few or no unit tests, and I've been able to maintain them without great hardship. (Admittedly, it's much easier when you're the original author). Tests are certainly helpful, but people really have created...
  20. 3

    Profits over your dead body

    Exactly. Even that isn't clear: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall ... ems-money/. A healthy lifestyle will increase your life expectancy, but you're still going to get old and probably develop expensive conditions. My non-mainstream opinion is that we should be seriously investigating...