This is great. BASIC was my first programming language on a TI-92 calculator. It provides an invitation to new would-be programmers to explore writing code. Having it available on Android just opens the door for more people to try.
No, the TI-8x series used in high schools use TI-BASIC, a version of BASIC that makes most other BASIC dialects look good by comparison. Seriously, it's rubbish.
You clearly haven't tried the BASIC on the TI-89, which is capable of symbolic math. Not only does BASIC get full access to the CAS, it also has some really powerful features I've not seen anywhere else - for example, #("some_string") will return the value of the variable named some_string (they call this "indirection").
...So, you've never used LISP, or played with a language with eval in it? In either, the above isn't exactly built in, but it is trivial to create.
But yes, being unaware of the 89, I was talking about the Z80 calculators that make up the rest of the TI-8x range, which are still used in schools to this day, which are programmed in a rubbish version of BASIC called TI-BASIC. It sucks. The 68k calculators, like the 89 and the nspire are programmed in a completely different and much better version of BASIC. This is also called TI-BASIC. This leads to much confusion, and to make it worse, there is a third TI-BASIC, which is also completely different, and was used in the computers made by TI.
Relevant to this topic, Youtube channel "The School of Life" talks about this issue where people are reluctant to build, causing the housing price to go up. One Reason Homes Cost So Much: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcbjWGj3jBk
Speaking with Lyft/Uber drivers myself, I hear there is a difference in culture between riders who choose between the two companies. Uber riders treat their drivers like taxis or "robots," while Lyft riders often converse with a fellow human being, who happens to be driving them around. It just sounds like this guy needs to switch companies.
Pass (http://www.passwordstore.org/) is password manager based on GPG that's been around for longer. It has some more tools available that are built around it and helps organize passwords as well.
In a context where there is an assumption that conversation is a debate, "No, totally" means "no I am not disagreeing with you, you are totally right."
And what's a real shame is that they could still make money off of private users. It's possible to offer targeted ads based on unencrypted metadata and hashed keywords (c.f. some of the interested work GNUnet has done on search); they could also offer 100% private (client-side encrypted) accounts for an upcharge. Google's revenue per user is reputed to be roughly $10 per annum; I'd be willing to pay $50/year for client-side encrypted everything.
Yes, it'd cost money to maintain that infrastructure, but I bet there are enough people who'd want to do it, and would be willing to pay enough to do it, that it'd be profitable.
The revenue-per-user number (supposedly) reflects the revenue they're getting from that data. If they're making $X/user from data+payments, and Z users propose paying $XY, where $XYZ is more than sufficient to pay for the infrastructure and yield a tidy profit, why not do it?
