An iOS Developer Takes on Android
Recently, we released the Android version of Meridian, our platform for building location-based apps.
We didn’t use one of these “Cross Platform!” tools like Titanium. We wrote it, from scratch, in Java, like you do in Android.
We decided it was important to keep the native stuff native, and to respect each platform’s conventions as much as possible. Some conventions are easy to follow, like putting our tabs on the top. Other conventions go deep into the Android Way, like handling
Intents, closing oldActivities, implementing Search Providers, and being strict about references to help the garbage collector.Now, our platform leverages HTML5 (buzzword, sorry) in many places for branding and content display, so we got a fair amount of UI for free. But there was much platform code written in Objective-C that needed translation into Java, such as map navigation, directions, and location switching.
So, we rolled up our sleeves, downloaded the Android SDK, and got to work.
Uncharted 3
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is so far the best game of the whole trilogy. With just enough puzzling, action, cinematics mixed in a very well measured proportion the game keeps player engaged from the first flashback to the last screenful of pixels. There’s love, horror, friendship and betrayals, like in a good novel. Amazing graphics will make you want stay around forever and look at the desert sands, wonderfully formidable ocean waters or pillars and towers of Iram. And once you’ve found all the treasures in the single player campaign, there’s absolutely phenomenal multiplayer - you will have to try each mode at least once, they all are an amazing experience and a lot of fun with friends and foes alike.
Highly recommended.
assocfs note
A little writeup on my assocfs, pretty small but I think I captured a few interesting points there.
Spelt Number to Decimal (Updated)
This post is last updated in 2011-07-11 13:20 UTC.
I certainly like a code obfuscation and golfing: the recent example includes this and this. The today’s project is more like the former, where very short code takes much time to explain. Without further ado, here it is: (Gist)
This little program reads a spelt number from the standard input and writes the corresponding number to the standard output. It supports numbers up to 1015-1 and still weighs only
256243 bytes of C, if you ignore the backslash at the end of line which just wraps the line. (There is also a shorter version that can handle up to 19,999,999 and does not uselong long.) The input should be correct, although it will handle “a” and “and” correctly and ignore some invalid words.It assumes the ASCII character set and 2’s complement representation, and requires
intandlong longto be at least 32 and 64 bits long, but that’s all they expect from the compiler. For example, it does not matter whethercharis signed or unsigned, EOF does not have to be -1, and so on. (Yes, I did keep it in mind while writing this program.)While I left the explanation of the BF interpreter as a reader’s exercise, in this time I’ll give a detailed explanation of the program. Keep in mind that there are two versions of the program; the explanation is primarily for the longer version.
Yippie!
Metta MMU module init
Since tumblr doesn’t properly support importing any texts I’ve done in Pages, I will just link to it here as a PDF: MMU init.
A historical moment
OMAP3 beagleboard.org # mmcinit
OMAP3 beagleboard.org # fatload mmc 0 0x82000000 kernel.bin
reading kernel.bin
640 bytes read
OMAP3 beagleboard.org # go 0x8200024c
## Starting application at 0x8200024C ...
hello, world!
## Application terminated, rc = 0x0
Steven Frank - Disable Flash in Safari 5 the good way
When I heard that the new MacBook Air models were shipping without any Flash plug-in installed, the first thing I did was check to see if one of my long-standing Safari annoyances was fixed. It was.
It used to be that if you completely removed the Flash and Shockwave plug-ins, by deleting or…
the question He had for her was how long could she stay in this position once His mouth took her
Mmmhm.
Jeff Rock: Down the Memory Hole
During the Apple Fourth Quarter Results Conference Call, Steve Jobs made a rather curious redirection:
Audience question: Any updates on your stance on Flash?
Jobs: Flash memory? We love flash memory.
The gentleman that asked that question was obviously referring to Adobe Flash…
Say hello to mechanically separated chicken. It’s what all fast-food chicken is made from—things like chicken nuggets and patties. Also, the processed frozen chicken in the stores is made from it.
Basically, the entire chicken is smashed and pressed through a sieve—bones, eyes, guts, and all. it comes out looking like this.
There’s more: because it’s crawling with bacteria, it will be washed with ammonia, soaked in it, actually. Then, because it tastes gross, it will be reflavored artificially. Then, because it is weirdly pink, it will be dyed with artificial color.
But, hey, at least it tastes good, right?
High five, America!
*smack*
