VueScan Developer here. We have a subscription option - but that's really intended for customers who have short term scanning needs (ie. scan all of your slides). If you purchase a one-time VueScan license, you can use it indefinitely.
Cool to see you here - I purchased a license for an old Nikon scanner and haven't circled back to benefit from it but I trust VueScan will serve me wonderfully. Thank you!
My impression was that the previous "Professional Edition, Single User" license included upgrades in perpetuity (which no longer seems to be the case). Am I misremembering on this point?
Yes, back in 2004 we did offer lifetime free updates for Professional Edition customers. We changed it to 1 year of updates a number of years ago, but indefinite access for the versions released during your free update period. But of course, we grandfathered in all licenses that came with lifetime free updates. I think when we started offering lifetime free updates back in 1998, we didn't expect to still be working on VueScan 27 years later!
Not a ton has changed for the better - but a few things have:
1. Ticket prices have come down in real terms (especially with the advent of low cost airlines)
2. Fuel economy on newer jets has improved
3. Increased number of routes and frequencies
4. Lie flat seats in business and above on long haul
5. WiFi on planes
6. In-flight entertainment - both seatback units and video over WiFi
And you don't need to basically go into a travel agent and get a piece of paper that is incredibly hard to replace if lost.
In general, travel information is a lot more frictionless. Flight cancelled, bags lost? There's an app for that. And in general, clothing expectations mean I have to check bags a lot fewer times.
As you say, seating is better if you're willing to pay for it but I've never bought WiFi on a flight. It's one of the few opportunities I have to really read anyway.
Flight information online is huge. Just yesterday[1], we had to pick someone up at the airport when their flight was 10 hours late. We got to do our waiting not at the airport. That's a game changer.
[1] Well, we were supposed to pick them up yesterday. They actually arrived today. 10 hours late on an afternoon flight is like that.
Airplanes no long crash into the earth at an alarmingly frequent rate.
Like they used to sell life insurance at the airport because of both the perception of how unsafe things were and the reality of it - per Wikipedia, in 1969 there were 21 air crashes or incidents - the vast majority of which had fatalities, in 2019, there were 12, the vast majority of which had none - this on top of an order of magnitude more flights in 2019 vs 1969 - the disparity grows even further when you look back into the 50's.
Thanks for the pointer, but the passages in this piece still make no sense even in that context. (If you want to reply, let's merge this thread with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13725124)
Spreadsheets and word processors are good examples. Visicalc was overtaken by Lotus 1-2-3 which was overtaken by Excel. WordPerfect was overtaken by Microsoft Word.
This is great. I continue to use bitbucket for all of my personal repos since they provide unlimited private repos for free. I would use github for my private repos but I have lot's of small repos that make private github cost prohibitive.
In-App purchases are for digital goods only (Content, Functionality, Services, Subscriptions). You are completely free to sell real/physical goods (ie. a train ticket) via your own payment system.
It amazes me how many people continue to misunderstand App Store rules and quote bullshit on a daily basis.
In-App Purchasing rules apply to purchasing books in an e-reader, levels in a video game, or music in a player, etc.
It doesn't apply at all to real-world items. (This includes something like train tickets via Passbook because they are not consumed in the app, they are consumed by the train conductor scanning your phone.)
I think that all of that can be supported by file formats. There is no rule that an image file format can only hold the pixel information. The issue is that it's hard for all vendors to agree on a standard, and once it's agreed upon, people want to add more information to it. We have EXIF for images, but what happens when iPhoto and Picasa both add face tags?
I don't believe files are the issue, it's agreeing on the interchange format that is.
The person who invented the original traffic signal patented it in 1923 (http://www.google.com/patents?id=EHJoAAAAEBAJ&printsec=f...). The idea was unique, novel, and non-obvious at the time. It's easy to see an invention now that is ubiquitous and say that it's obvious.
