Oddly enough the ctrl key in the home row is a Unix thing (I think it's a Sun invention, but I don't recall). On the original space cadet keyboard (and all the Symbolics keyboards), Rub Out is located where modern day Caps Lock is found (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-cadet_keyboard). Ctrl is still located on the bottom row.
Has anyone tried remapping a delete key to where the Caps Lock key is found? Is there anyone with a real space cadet keyboard or symbolics keyboard that can comment on using it with vim or emacs?
CTRL next to A was, I believe, its original location. That's where it was on the Teletype Model 33, which dates back to 1963, and I'm not aware of an earlier keyboard that had a CTRL key.
In the 1970s, most terminals continued with this placement. I believe the modern practice of putting Caps Lock there came in with the first IBM PC -- copied, of course, from their typewriter keyboards.
Being a longtime Lisp Machine user, I had that key mapped to Backspace on my Unix workstations into the late 1990s, but I couldn't do that remapping on my PowerBook, so I gave up -- it was too confusing to have Backspace in different places on different machines. (I think the remapping is actually possible with OS X, but I've never bothered. It's certainly possible with Linux.)
I didn't know that about the ASR-33 (haven't actually seen one), all my experience has been with unix and PC keyboards (plus some WYSE terminals).
I agree with it being confusing to have the same key jump around while you type, which is why I gave up re-mapping altogether (at my last job I was using 5 different systems that each would have required a remap, and I wasn't able to remap on each system). To much dissonance when trying to figure out why a key is not doing what you think it should be doing.
I've been playing with KR4MB and set Control_L to Control_L (+ When you type Control_L only, send Delete) + [KeyRepeat]
This is causing some angst, as I've discovered I sometimes tend to hold down the CapsLock key
before hitting another key. It's long enough for multiple deletes to be sent to an application (eg using Vrome in Chrome).
It doesn't work with the Colemak input method that comes with OS X though. I don't think there's any way to change caps lock to delete in a keylayout file, but you can always use PCKeyboardHack.
I'm not sure if they changed anything, but Youtube has been the first search result for me since I upgraded my iPhone. It's not in the search results for the iPad since Google hasn't released Youtube for the iPad yet (or at least last time I searched).
I wonder if there's saved state in the app store that's modifying the search results.
This seems to be based on an upgrade to the EFI firmware, in addition to the 10.8.2 update. While I've got verified backups for the OS, I'm not in the habit of regularly backing up the EFI firmware, nor do I know how I would restore it on my MBP.
Anyone got advice for backing up firmware on laptops to allow for roll-backs on breaking changes?
I'm not sure there is a way for an end-user to revert to a previous version once a firmware update has been successfully applied.
If it wasn't successful, you could use the firmware restore CD that came with the box, or create the CD to do that, but again, that only works for failed upgrade attempts.
I've had to do this once in the past, and the easiest way I could find was to just take it to the local Apple Support shop and get them to do it. They did it for me while I waited, and it didn't cost me anything but time. YMMV.
But good point... I'm not in the habit of backing up firmware.
FYI, tracking items on water with a land (or sea) based radar is very difficult due to atmospheric effects (mainly ducting) and can cause unacceptable levels of false detections. Combine this with the lack of computer processing at the time means that you have a human operator trying to determine from a scope which targets to attack. I think that this makes detecting and tracking u-boats with early radar very unlikely. If you ever make it to Pearl Harbor on Oahu you can see some examples of the radar scope technology from the Pearl Harbor attacks, it was not very easy to use.
Does the UK have any regulation of the 38ghz band? Based on the FCC info here in the US (http://transition.fcc.gov/oet/spectrum/table/fcctable.pdf) the 38ghz area of the spectrum seems to have only a small subset of bands that qualify for this use. Do you know the exact frequency the DragonWave kit uses?
Does any browser actually rely on WebKit's JS Core? I know Safari has Nitro and Chrome has v8, so I'm not sure what would use this code except maybe konqueror.
If that's the case, then why does UIWebView under-perform Mobile Safari? (I know Mobile Safari uses nitro, but I have no idea what UIWebView uses under the covers). Also, Apple's known for being a bit slow to contribute some things back to WebKit. I wouldn't be surprised to see them not contributing nitro back.
JavaScriptCore (like other js engines) has an interpreter and a JIT. The JIT requires memory that's both writable and executable. iOS doesn't allow memory that's both writable and executable for security reasons, so normal apps can't use the JIT parts of jsc. Safari gets an exception from the "no writable and executable memory" rule.
(That's the technical reason; if you're wearing a tinfoil hat, you could argue that Apple wants to make sure native apps work a lot better than thin UIWebView shims, for lock-in and whatnot.)
My questions about the data center are what kind-of climate controls they're using (not listed in the article) and how they're making sure that the generator and UPS are always in good condition. At my previous job we were able to correlate many component failures to poor climate conditions (too hot, too cold, too little humidity, too much humidity).
I also recall back in college setting up a 110 node linux cluster. Before they upgraded the HVAC system in the server room the cluster generated so much heat you the power cables started to shows signs of heat damage (we had to shut the cluster down until the HVAC was beefed up).
I've also had a bunch UPS where the batteries fail, and need to be replaced periodically. I also wonder how that figures into the cost of their data center (it's an issue at a big data center as well).
Ya, we faced battery failure problems. We are using standard cooling via Air conditioners.
I think we will face more problems as we scale in this aspect, need to work out.
If you had wind and enough control of the building, you could funnel wind over water to cool, no power required. That was a method to make ice, a thousand years ago.
