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I had a few crazy, fresh thoughts as this popped back to top of mind tonight.
Make sure I get my 10 million+ usd if you follow through on this.
2 billionaires are currently fighting to be first to launch global WiFi/ satellite networks.
They might consider an ultra cheap e reader that they can give away for free in third world remote areas if it breaks even through micropayments. Heck, they might be willing to take losses for years just to build the user base. Look at how simple SMS based currency/banking apps have dominated in emerging markets.
Sell/license your stack to one of them. Hopefully, you can instigate a bidding war.
One billionaire would LOVE to rollout the kindle killer.
The other might buy you out just to save the kindle.
Since there is no browser, figure out how to leverage the ePub to turn it into THE browser. A book is just a single tome version of a website. A SaaS adapter could be written to present websites as books.
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I'm taking a lot of liberties with HTML and CSS - as in not supporting most of it - in order to do this.
I'm not sure it could function as a regular browser. Maybe as you say, with an adapter but as it is, it's just not capable enough. For starters, the screen doesn't refresh very well which makes input less than great. It's fine once in awhile but using the web requires a lot of typing. That's part of the issue. The other issue is there's no way this thing runs javascript unless that's literally all it's doing, and maybe not even then. There's absolutely no way I can keep an in memory DOM on this thing, even with 4MB of PSRAM that would put a damper on things.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Agreed. Focus first on the e reader.
If you can create hyperlinks between 2 e books with a single level “back” stack, that would suffice for a lot of use cases. I suspect that should be part of the e book specs.
Don’t even try to build web/html/css/JavaScript.
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Yeah, I mean I do have to support those technologies (HTML/CSS/XML) to a degree but I'm trying to see what I can get away with leaving out.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Why do we call goods sent by ship cargo, and something sent by car a shipment?
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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[sigh]. I'd have thought it was quite plain, Griff.
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Neither word carries the full freight.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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I was lading for that one.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Sorry Griff but this one just didn’t deliver.
Cargo jokes are gross. You should tare this one up!
If you can't laugh at yourself - ask me and I will do it for you.
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Same reason we park on driveways but drive on parkways, perhaps.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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Wow, I see that one going all the way back to 2003. 
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That's part and parcel for the richness of language. Some people tend to give it a bad wrap.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I've been working on a feature to generate completion certificates by programmatically filling out PDF forms. The certificate form itself came from the client. Testing went well on my system so I pushed it out for QA.
Since then we've discovered that the customer managed to create a PDF that renders differently in Chrome, Firefox, and Acrobat Reader. It only renders the way the customer wants in Chrome. Two of the three fields I'm madlibbing text in work as expected in all three renderers. The third correctly shows a 2 digit number in Chrome. In Firefox the field is treated as slightly narrower or the number slightly larger and only the leading digit shows. In Arcobat Reader - which as Adobe's product I presume is following the spec correctly - both digits show left-right but they're shifted up half a character height and the tops are cut off as a result.
This happens if the blank form is opened and manually filled out in the different pdf viewers; it's not something I/PdfSharp are doing wrong.
I kinda wish I had a PDF editor so I could strip out everything customer identifying and create a boilerplate file reproducing the problem to submit as bugs to Google and Mozilla.
Of all the code I've written for all the applications I've created, I never expected to find bugs in software from big name companies this way.  
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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Dan Neely wrote: never expected to find bugs in software from big name companies
Find them? No. 
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: Dan Neely wrote: never expected to find bugs in software from big name companies
Find them? No.
You cut off the key part of my comment "... this way". I've found "normal" bugs in their code, and even managed to unlock the Made MS Fix Their Stuff achievement last year. But a simple rendering bug that could be reached by any non-technical user is in another category entirely.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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Dan Neely wrote: I kinda wish I had a PDF editor
pdftk
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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cutePDF.
To err is human to really elephant it up you need a computer
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I would also check the PDF for errors using Ghostscript, or any other way, like online PDF checker tools ...
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The "P" in PDF seems to be missing, no?
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Quote: the customer managed to create a PDF that renders differently in Chrome, Firefox, and Acrobat Reader
My poor joke: The "P" is meant to mean Portable. That doc doesn't sound particularly portable.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Chris Maunder wrote: My poor joke:
As was I. What Adobe wants PDF to stand for and what it actually is are two different things. 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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Worth watching then?
I have been meaning to check it out, but it's on a list with many other things...
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