There was a lot of hype and momentum around Silverlight back in the day, until their wasn't. You got a cross-platform (Mac/Windows) WPF-like UI and C# programming environment, which was powerful.
I had the fortune to be involved developing the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 programming software. Under the hood, it was a small web browser shell (using Mono on Mac and WPF on Windows) around a Silverlight Out-of-Browser app. Anything beyond the permissions of the Silverlight app (e.g. bluetooth/USB comms) was an RPC from Silverlight to the shell.
After completing the Mac/Windows app, LEGO wanted to deliver a similar experience on iPad. There was no Silverlight there, and it was clear there never would be. But we were able to leverage Xamarin stuff to reuse most of the same codebase, just with an iOS UI on top.
By chance, do you happen to know if the Mindstorms NXT (the old one, before EV3) software was based on the same toolkit? I always wondered what UI framework it used, it had an unusual look.
It was not... it actually was, IIRC, a LabVIEW program with some tweaks here and there. The UI was basically a LabVIEW VI front panel with a LabVIEW 2D Picture Control. Most of the program logic and the compiler to the NXT was LabVIEW G code.
I wonder if the same kind of thing is at play when I ask my Google Home Mini to play a song (on Spotify) and it plays a version by a cover band instead of the real thing, despite my stating the song and band name.
For example, I'll say: "OK Google, Play 'Hey Jude' by 'The Beatles'". Sometimes I'll get that song. But many others I'll get "Hey Jude" by a Beatles tribute band... I wouldn't be surprised if the version by the tribute band is cheaper to play.
I think this is just Google Assistant being Google Assistant - It's awful at playing music, I've had Google Assistant play remixes, cover versions, or the right song but playing out of a 'Top Hits of x Year' or whatever compilation album instead of the original album.
However, whenever I used Spotify's own voice control via my Spotify Car Thing before they bricked it, it got me the exact song I wanted every single time, so I doubt there's some nefarious scheme on Spotify's part.
Someone in another comment said that artists don't even get paid if they have <1000 streams. I wonder if Spotify does anything to spread things around to try to keep as many artists as possible under that 1000 streams cap so that they don't have to pay for them.
Indeed! I just came back to post the exact same adjective after purchasing one as a Christmas gift for my teenage son. I think he'll love it, and I'm excited to get him such a cool present that he doesn't even know exists! (Though as spiffy as this is, there's a good chance that's not true by Christmas.)
Congrats on the launch and bravo on such a well-polished everything - product, UI, website, etc. Very impressive.
The one degree angle, while a little unusual, isn't what blows my mind. It's the disappearance after a small scroll. That's enough to make you think you were imagining things, might need to go to the eye doctor, etc...
Agreed. Spent a couple minutes trying to figure out how I was reading it wrong for several of the categories - sometimes it is correct, but often it is not.
My favorite FedEx facepalm was when they kept trying and failing to deliver a package to themselves...
They have an option to have your package held at a FedEx store. It's great for when the package requires signature and you're not able to wait at home all day for it.
Recently I used it. Unbeknownst to me, the FedEx store changed its physical location while the package was in transit, to a different strip mall across the highway. So for several days in a row, I was notified that FedEx attempted to deliver, but that the business was closed. Every call to customer service yielded understanding and sympathetic employees who had no idea how to fix the issue.
After about 5 days, something clicked, and my package showed up at the new FedEx location.
"Don't worry, though... Regardless of your browser choice, we'll still hijack 'alt+back_arrow' to show you supported browsers instead of navigating to the previous page."
That'll teach me to try to eat leftover bbq with my primary hand while using the other to browse HN over lunch.
> Regardless of your browser choice, we'll still hijack 'alt+back_arrow' to show you supported browsers instead of navigating to the previous page.
Frustrating. I'm using Mac, so the corresponding shortcut for returning to the previous page is command + left arrow (back arrow), now hijacked. command + [ does the same thing and isn't hijacked yet. If you're on Windows, backspace might work in Firefox, but you'll first need to change to change a flag in about:config [1]. I'd be reluctant to give backspace that behavior, since I've accidentally lost progress on online forms by accidentally navigating to another page.
I love iGPUs too, but they are great until they're not...
In my recent experience on an Intel z790/i7-14700K system, getting a signal during boot (e.g., when you want to go into BIOS) was not reliable (usually worked, but sometimes not). When connected to a portable 1280x720 monitor I use when setting up systems, parts of the BIOS screens were a garbled mess. Plugging in a discrete GPU fixed that.
I've also encountered weirdness on the same system where I couldn't disable secure boot until I booted from a discrete GPU (and then after that, on iGPU, I could enable/disable at will). Plus CSM is not an option when booting from certain Intel iGPUs: https://www.asus.com/me-en/support/FAQ/1045467/
I had the fortune to be involved developing the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 programming software. Under the hood, it was a small web browser shell (using Mono on Mac and WPF on Windows) around a Silverlight Out-of-Browser app. Anything beyond the permissions of the Silverlight app (e.g. bluetooth/USB comms) was an RPC from Silverlight to the shell.
After completing the Mac/Windows app, LEGO wanted to deliver a similar experience on iPad. There was no Silverlight there, and it was clear there never would be. But we were able to leverage Xamarin stuff to reuse most of the same codebase, just with an iOS UI on top.