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Meetupcall | Software engineering, product and marketing roles | Remote (UK) | https://www.meetupcall.com

Want to work on a meaningful problem and receive meaningful equity as part of a founding team?

At Meetupcall we're working to reduce loneliness and isolation by delivering services that empower our customers to provide community, connection and belonging to those that need it the most.

We're developing a remote communications platform that is used by care providers to reduce loneliness, facilitate social interaction and establish communities by connecting people remotely, using simple to use and familiar technology.

Our stack is Rails, Elixir, WebRTC and Asterisk running on Amazon Web Services.

E-mail me at simon.moxon@meetupcall.com if that sounds interesting.


I'm founder of Meetupcall, a startup working to help care organisations reduce loneliness and isolation for those most in need. We're currently looking for a senior Rails engineer on these terms.

If that sounds like something you might be interested in, let's have a conversation, my e-mail address is in my profile.


It doesn't seem viable that they won't support it. I think they have potentially mis-understood the wide reaching impact of this legislation.

I'd be surprised if there is not a follow up to their email fairly soon.


It appears under UK law the Prime Minister could denounce the embassy as no longer Ecuadorian territory.

The UK government has 'reminded' Ecuador of this fact in an attempt to influence their decision.


It isn't Ecuadorian territory, it's still British territory. UK law allows the UK to declare that it won't abide by the convention that embassies enjoy special legal status in law.


Presumably Ecuador could respond in kind.

It may well be that the wonderful British police or SAS could smoothly extract Assange, however, what happens if the not so wonderful Ecuadorian authorities decided to lay some sort of siege to the British Embassy in Ecuador? Are British authorities really prepared to risk that?


If Ecuador did that, the British would simply leave peaceably. I'm not understanding the risk you refer to -- would not Ecuadorians be equally hindered by the lack of a British Embassy as the British?


Well then, if that was the case then Assange could just as well peacefully with the rest of the Ecuadorian delegation.

Don't forget that Assange is not and asylum "seeker" anymore, but that he has in fact been granted asylum. In other words, under international law, he is and Ecuadorian Citizen and unless Britain decides to transgress International Law and effectively declare war on Ecuador, no amount of sabre rattling will amount to anything at all.


I'd love to HN's feedback on our attempt at making hosting and joining conference calls that little bit better.


Is their filtering on a per TCP port basis? Or more advanced packet inspection?


How do people deal with remote files? I love Sublime, but always end up reverting back to VIM as it is so slow when accessing files over a network connection.

I've tried the SFTP plug-in, but find it really clumsy. Ideally I'd just love to be able to add a remote folder over SFTP the same way you do local ones.


try something like WebDrive, NetDrive, ExpanDrive or Dokan SSH http://dokan-dev.net/en/

they create a mapped drive to a location of your choosing and you edit files as if they were local.

i stopped worrying about the remote editing functionality in editors since. before that i used winscp, which detects changes and re-uploads automatically, but it's not as convenient.


Macfusion is sometimes finicky, but works for me most of the time. And it's free (unlike Expandrive).


See elsewhere my post about ExpanDrive and SSH tunnels..


Copy the files to your computer, make the changes, and copy them back?


That's one annoyance out of the way. Is there a decent way to work with remote files yet?

This is always the killer for me.


On OS X, I highly recommend Dripbox. It automatically SCP's files that change on your local filesystem to a remote location.

https://github.com/epall/dripbox

I use it every day, editing files locally in Sublime Text 2, and then cmd-tabbing to Terminal to run tests. It's fast enough that I never even think about the delay.


Try this out: http://wbond.net/sublime_packages/sftp I haven't used it, but I'll probably end up taking a look at it soon. Please report back if you end up using it.


Been using this package for some time now and can say that it's been great. It's super-fast, and is integral to my work flow.


OK, this isn't "decent". But: On a Mac, with a good connection to the remote machine, I've found the combination of

- ExpanDrive, which uses MacFUSE to mount remote volumes over SSH, but with lots of metadata caching smarts to make it fast and reliable

- My hacky remote textmate script, which gives you a "mate" command on the remote machine via ssh tunneling (https://github.com/jaylevitt/textmate_remote)

to work well with TextMate. I've been meaning to try it on ST2 but haven't yet; as long as ST2 doesn't do the horrible thing TextMate used to do and continuously rescan the project directory in a blocking thread, you'll be cool.


TextMate 2 has `rmate` which lets you edit a remote file from a terminal session: http://blog.macromates.com/2011/mate-and-rmate/


I just use Transmit to mount remote file systems. Works like a charm.


Considering how many incidents there seems to be due to the loss of these airspeed sensors it seems crazy not to have an additional, different method of calculating airspeed.

Is there a reason GPS is not suitable here?


GPS gives you speed relative to the ground, not speed relative to the air, which is what's important for aerodynamics.


Yes, but when groundspeed with a slight lag is all that's available is it really that much worse than nothing, which seems to be the failure mode at present?

I stress I'm not a pilot and I'm sure you'd want to have a Big Flashing Warning Light telling you that ground speed <> air speed, but there'd seem to be some benefit over nothing at all.


The ground speed is not useful information. You can be moving backwards relative to the ground and still be overspeed. The only thing that matters to the airframe is the airspeed, and the only way to know the airspeed is to sample the air around the plane.


> You can be moving backwards relative to the ground and still be overspeed

Only in a simulator.

A Cessna 152 is a slow, low-powered trainer. It has a never-exceed speed of 141 knots. So for that aircraft to be going backwards AND be overspeed, you'd have to going into a headwind that exceeded 141 knots.

These windspeeds only occur a) during hurricanes/tornados or b) the high flight levels. You're not going to get a 152 out of the hanger during a hurricane and with a service ceiling around 14,000 feet, you're not getting close to the flight levels, which start at 18,000 feet. I supposed you might see some 100+ knot winds on occasion between 14,000 feet, but again, you're not probably going to be alive to attain the necessary altitude.


You can be moving backwards relative to the ground and still be overspeed.

That's not true. The wind even at altitude won't be more than ~100knots. It's true you can't land using GPS speed, but if your GPS tells you 90 knots ground speed at 37000ft, you know something's not right regardless of wind.


The margin between stall and overspeed is something like 20 knots at that altitude. You're not going to be able to calculate your airspeed from the groundspeed within that margin. (FWIW, I'm pretty sure this GPS speed information is available in the cockpit already. If not, you can get it off your iPhone if you really care.)

Finally, the flaps-down speed range of a Cessna 152 is 35-85 kts. So if you're facing into 85kt winds with the flaps down, you're flying backwards and are overspeed. (This can happen with the flaps up too, of course, but winds of 149 kts are a little hard to believe :)


149 kts occurs daily -- at altitude.

For example the current winds aloft forecast for BML shows 155 kts at 30,000 feet:

http://aviationweather.gov/products/nws/fdwinds/dynamic/bost...

While 149 kts at the 2,000 ft to 12,000 ft typical of Cessna 172 flight is rare, we had it in Seattle last week (wind speeds on the ground were 20 - 3 kts, at 3,000 feet we had 60 kt winds at 12,000 feet we had 100+ kts, can't remember exactly).

I'd guesstimate in the Seattle area it occurs once every 2 months below 20,000 feet. Above 20,000 feet, it's a regular occurrence.

Flying into 85kt winds will not put you overspeed, flaps down or up (assuming you're airborne, and not on the ground). Wind speed has no effect on aircraft air speed.

If you're flaps-up, engine at 2300 RPM, flying straight-and-level you're going to be cruising around 120kts airspeed in a C172 regardless of a 100kt headwind or 100kt tailwind.

Groundspeed is another story all together (and your fuel consumption getting to your destination).


True about the small margin between stall and overspeed, I didn't mean you could regularly fly like that. But according to the article, their air speed decreased from > 220knots to 90knots. What I meant was that regardless of wind, 90knots air speed should give you a ground speed so low that it should leave no doubt that you are stalled.

Apparently the PF was even thinking they were in overspeed at that point. So a ground speed should have told them that they weren't. But on the other hand, positive pitch angle and -10,000 ft/min vertical speed should also tell you beyond a doubt that you are stalled, so the problem here was not that the pilots didn't have the information they needed to figure out what was going on. They did, but failed to process it. It seems this is a classical case of "getting behind the airplane", they were just not processing events at the speed they were happening.


That's an interesting point. But if you're so panicked that you're ignoring the voice saying "stall", are you really going to check your GPS and then do a back-of-the-envelope to verify? Probably not. Because if you weren't panicked, you'd be out of the stall by following the stall recovery procedure.


(asking here because your other reply is nested too deeply)

> The margin between stall and overspeed is something like 20 knots at that altitude.

Whaaa? I thought aircraft have a much wider margin.

How does it change with altitude?

If the margin is so low, then wouldn't a sudden wind gust simply knock the plane off the sky?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffin_corner_%28aviation%29

(Perhaps a better explanation than the article: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:CoffinCorner.png)

And to answer your question about wind gusts: yes. That is why you don't fly into thunderstorms.


> I'm sure you'd want to have a Big Flashing Warning Light telling you that ground speed <> air speed

That light would never stop flashing. :)

Once you get up a couple of thousand feet, even if the flag is hanging flush against the pole on the ground, you're going to have some type of air movement. The higher you go, the higher the windspeed (in general).


GPS can only tell you how fast you're moving over the ground. It can't tell you how fast you're moving through an airmass that might be moving with or against you, this is far more important to keeping a plane in the air than how fast you're moving between point a and point b.


I wonder if GPS could be used to estimate the air speed by means of a permanently refining mathematical model? E.g. If I know I have heading X, ground speed Y, weight Z, thrust A, you should be able to work out your predicted ground speed. Any variation in real ground speed and estimated ground speed is got to me made up of wind direction and velocity right??? Just a thought.

(Disclaimer: I know nothing about aerodynamics so this may be nonsense)


GPS gives you ground speed. Airspeed is a different thing -- imagine if you're flying into a strong headwind.


It can't give you the relative speed of the air around the aircraft.


Given the speed at which the readings in my android phone update while driving a car, I'd say yes.


Am I missing something? The physical size of a 16px font will surely vary based on resolution and screen size.

So claims such as '16px is the same as most books' are clearly nonsense.


Note that the author means "fonts/sizes that are 16 pixels tall" NOT "16 point fonts" (which is what you get when you pick 16 in MS Word or whatever).

The difference in terminology is subtle to look at, but huge in practice.


* for common pixel densities.


He means "for the most common monitor DPIs", duh.

The problem is: due to the need to mix and align with bitmap graphics, web design is most convenient when specifying font sizes in pixels (except for simple pages, like HN and such, fluid designs cannot cover most cases in a mainstream enough fashion).

So, given that, he had to mention a specific pixel setting. But he took into account most common DPIs. For the majority of users they do not vary that much, around 100-120 dpi.

(Btw, have you read the article? He is aware of that, and he even gives examples of 16px in different DPI screens).


Can we get over specifying text size by pixels already? You don't know what DPI monitor I will have when I look at your pages.


What’s the alternative? I know of no PPI-aware way of specifying font size.


Display PostScript - circa 1987 (thanks, Steve Jobs).

I know there isn't a good current alternative in the web world, but shouldn't it be a goal to not have to specify pixels anymore? Obviously mobile browsers already largely ignore/change pixel font sizes.


It’s a valuable goal but just that. A goal. It’s necessary to be pragmatic in the meantime. No point in dreaming.

(If you didn’t notice, we are talking about the web here.)


I understand the difference between pragmatism and dreaming.

In the short term, that pragmatism should include web devs not trying to lay everything out pixel-perfect so it breaks if the user hits "zoom". The diversity of screen sizes and browsers and DPIs is greater than it has ever been, and will only increase.


> The diversity of screen sizes and browsers and DPIs is greater than it has ever been, and will only increase.

That may be true, but beyond a certain point, it doesn't matter.

In terms of physical size, it makes sense to have a single-column layout for small devices, where layout techniques like using multiple columns are never going to be very useful no matter how high the resolution gets. You might prioritise some content more highly and reduce or eliminate less valuable material to go with this. It also makes sense to allow for layouts that do have wider areas and/or multiple columns if the content can benefit and the display medium can support it. I doubt anyone is going to want to render most web pages with dozens of columns any time soon, though, no matter what physical size a screen might reach. Most content isn't going to benefit from that, because the human eye and brain can only take in so much at once anyway. So the big question here is how many discrete layouts are useful in practice, with a whole load of secondary questions about the balance between showing more content at once vs. allowing user interaction to navigate content in different ways.

In terms of resolution, the consideration is different, but there is still a general case. At low resolutions, it is worth having specific, pixel-perfect designs. At somewhat higher resolutions, it is worth having different pixel-perfect designs, to give sharper results at a similar physical size. Sometimes it is best if pixel-based designs don't try to copy all the detail of the "true" designs as they get smaller, but present simpler, cleaner versions of the same basic idea instead. At some point, your resolution gets high enough that scaling vectors representing the "true" designs by default and using techniques like antialiasing and font hinting becomes a viable alternative. Somewhere beyond that, vectors alone would be sufficient, as the eye isn't powerful enough to see any more detail anyway. The big questions are where on this scale you change from one pixel-perfect format to another, and how many such formats you produce before you switch to using scalable vectors.

In the real world, of course, these two ideas interact at times, and there is a cost/benefit trade-off as well. Perhaps you would prefer to have three sizes of pixel-perfect versions of all your custom graphics plus a vector, but in reality you might have only one or two and accept that content will appear at significantly different physical sizes on different devices. Perhaps you would like to have a responsive design with four different layouts, but in reality a mobile-friendly version and a regular site will do. You'll still be able to cater well to many different devices with only a small number of combinations if they are well thought-out, though.


CSS3 media queries can help with this:

http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-mediaqueries/

A realistic strategy today is to assume a typical desktop monitor by default, since not all popular desktop browsers implement media queries to a useful extent. Then you can add specific CSS sections for hardware with very different parameters, such as screens on mobile devices. Usually being both newer and more in need, mobile OSes and the browsers running on them typically support media queries better, so while not always ideal, this approach works fairly well in practice.


Unfortunately we can't.

Maybe for copy text it's ok, but not for other page elements, ones that we want to align in a specific way to bitmap images, no.

The page-zoom style resizing is our best bet --it's the "resolution independent" way to have your pixels and eat them too.

Now, if we could provide bitmap assets that could be zoomed in the same way, instead of just showing bigger but more pixelated (as we can in application icons in OS X), we would be done.


Now, if we could provide bitmap assets that could be zoomed in the same way

The most common way (used for icons) is to provide multiple bitmaps and load the right one depending on screen DPI. You can do this on your site too.

And there's of course vector graphics (SVG), if you don't mind some extra processing on the client for rendering...


Yes, you could provide multiple bitmaps in a website now, but in a convoluted way (with some custom javascript checking for resize events etc). In the icons case, it happens automatically.

As for SVG, client rendering time would be insignificant for most case (for a desktop machine at least, they have CPU to spare). But currently used IE version (> 6) for one don't support SVG. And the main problem are bitmap assets such as photographs. Those cannot be done as vectors.


Sure... I didn't say that it would happen automatically, just that it could be done. Everything done on the web is convoluted.

Btw: why would you have to watch resize events? Changing the size of the browser window (even rotating the screen/phone) doesn't change the DPI.


My bad, I meant resize as in zoom-in out (Ctrl +-) of the page in general, not the $(window).resize().


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