What about all of us who decided not to purchase the Gameboy Advance, and merely play it with our emulator and roms?
I have VisualBoyAdvance for one reason: homebrew. It's a heck of a lot faster to test software that I just wrote and compiled on an emulator than to wait for a transfer over the MBV2 netboot cable.
then make sequels exclusive to the SonyBoy Advance
There is no mass-produced handheld PlayStation product (this doesn't count), and Sony has not officially released plans to make one. Sony needs to get off its collective @$$ and produce a PSOne Discman. I'm pretty sure that a PSOne Discman would keep the PSOne platform alive, and it may be Sony's ace in the hole to compete with Nintendo's GBA. (I've read that GBA is twice as powerful as Super NES but half as powerful as PSOne.)
[Sony] owes its success to it's hard ass CEO. Do you think Sony's CEO is a creampuff?
"Creampuff" and "hard-ass" are not always mutually exclusive. See also Kirby.
Not in an inner loop, on fixed hardware, in real time signal processing. And yes, I have profiled my code; for some functions that have four separate cases, inlining each case separately improves performance. However, using compiler features to inline a piece of code tends to destroy portability (say if you have one version that runs on PC and another that runs on GBA) if you use anything but GCC-across-the-board.
The worst programmer habit I know of is copy-and-paste coding instead of using subroutines.
Sometimes, you don't want a lot of if-then's or subroutine calls in an inner loop, especially if software is supposed to run in real time (less than 50ms latency from key input to video and audio output) on fixed hardware (such as a game console) with all required features.
You can tell people not to do it, but some always will.
And some never will. I understand that, as a prominent CS scholar has stated, "premature optimization is the root of all evil," but, once we have a working sub-real-time implementation, some corner cases in software that processes digital signals really need code duplication if we expect them to run efficiently on architectures that lack predication. (Predication refers to machine instructions that say "execute this instruction if and only if the given bit of flags is set.")
Then there's the problem of not being able to quickly pass a function's local variables to another function because C, C++, and the Java language do not allow functions to "own" other functions, a construction that was quite handy in Pascal.
Take a look at their HTML/CSS and see it is HUGLY bloated
It's bloated because the webmaster tries to support Netscape 4.x, and doing CSS inheritance (which would unbloat many sites' CSS) will crash Netscape 4.x.
and not gzipped
Is there a Free module for Apache HTTP Server to do this? (In other words, is mod_gzip Free?)
The first answer is that when more than one line is covered by a comment, those lines form a functional group and MUST be a function of their own.
When you scream "must," you seem to claim that "there are no exceptions." What if this new function needs to use a lot of a function's local variables without passing them as parameters (expensive for stack memory bandwidth, especially in the inner loop)?
There is some info that can't be conveyed by code; it's called "requirements". That info can't be conveyed by comments, though, either.
However, you can refer to and briefly quote the use cases in the comments, to give future maintainers a bit of context.
Of course, right now [Final Fantasy publisher Squaresoft] wouldn't [release the source code the Super NES FF6 engine]
The engine is written in assembly language, not C, because C doesn't work well on the Super NES. The Super NES has two 6502-family CPUs, 65C816 and SPC700. The 6502, with its three semi-general-purpose registers (heck, the 8086 had seven), gives compilers great difficulty in generating object code that performs the expected operations (i.e. intense graphics) in real-time (i.e. less than 50ms latency).
as the GBA would most probably run the FF6 engine just fine
The GBA uses a single ARM7TDMI processor, not any of that 6502 garbage; it runs Thumb instructions, not 65C816 or SPC700 instructions.
and they probably have plans to make a couple games for it...
How will they get their plans past Nintendo's hard-@$$ of a CEO? Nintendo's CEO refuses to bring Square on as a GBA software publisher because he hates Square for how Square ditched Nintendo in the FF7 days. Square can only hope that Nintendo's shareholders will recognize that the lack of Square software creates a missed opportunity for building shareholder value and oust the CEO.
No. Valve would have had to give away the changes to the Half-Life engine under copyleft, but the GNU General Public License says nothing about the data that the program uses. Data encompasses everything from sounds to textures to models to behaviors, the very things that make Half-Life different from Quake.
I can see the blocking of P2P systems since TimeWarner DOES own all the content people are trying to share. The problem is they don't actually watch what you do. They figure, port 1214... Kazaa, shut him down. But when is the line drawn for LEGITIMATE USE?
<sarcasm>AOL Time Warner Inc. defines "legitimate use" as HTTP GET and POST requests on port 80 to web sites operated by AOL Time Warner Inc.</sarcasm>
For anyone interested, here is a paper [xerox.com] (in Postscript format, on the parc FTP server) from 1993 by David Goldberg and Cate Richardson of PARC discussing unistrokes.
If Xerox published that paper more than one year before the company applied for the patent, then the paper counts as prior art to invalidate the patent.
If this requires a registry hack, then how is Joe CLI User supposed to know it's even possible? And where's the equivalent for Windows 9x, which many of us are forced to use because we run legacy DOS apps or we don't have fast hardware?
Isn't it Gandalf (with help of course), that overthrows Sauron in his previous guise (which takes place between the Hobbit and LOTR)?
So that's what episodes 2 and 3 are going to be about. If what happened to Star Wars is any indication, then in about 20 years, we'll see special editions of all three parts of LotR, and then The Hobbit (with annoying cartoonish CGI character Gollum), and then two more movies to tell the story between The Hobbit and LotR.
Where did you get the idea that the Tengwar of Feanor were runes? They're just letters, and the script has more inherent structure than Latin-1 does. It's good for writing Quenya, Sindarin, English, Lojban, and Esperanto. For runes, look to Cirth or Futhark.
I don't know why it's so hard for you to understand that it isn't a clock.
I know it's not a clock; it's an icon. But when you look at your analog watch and see the hands pointing to the 3:00 position, do you immediately think "O-L"?
It's the letter "L" inside the letter "O."
"L" inside "O". How do you do that in Hebrew? You show me how to fit inside ע . I'll give you as much clock time as you want.
If people are seeing a clock, then that's their problem.
"If people can't fly, it's their problem." It's Microsoft's problem. If users don't immediately see O-L, then Microsoft has not effectively communicated O-L. Oh well...
Point is, if it looks like a clock, moves like a clock, and ticks like a clock, it's a clock. I know Microsoft's icon designer meant L in O, but that's not what was conveyed. Users expect icons to convey the function of an app, not the name, and the analogy from scheduling makes it more likely that the user will see a clock.
Does L inside O convey "Outlook"? Or is it more like "Look Out" for viruses?
Sorry, but analog (including vinyl) is still superior in terms of sound quality despite it's technical limitations.
Few people can hear much above 19 kHz, and CDs can flawlessly encode any sound containing frequencies as high as 21.9 kHz. The -96 dB noisefloor of 16-bit linear PCM is lower than the Brownian noise of the air molecules in the recording studio. The "warmer" sound of vinyl is actually harmonic distortion caused by friction of the needle against the groove.
Here's the text of 17 USC 1201 (the part of the DMCA that slashdotters care about). Subsections (c)(1) and (c)(2) does not provide that fair use is a defence to "circumvention" but instead establishes that the offence of "circumvention" is completely orthogonal to "infringement." Subsection (c)(3) says "This is not the SSSCA... yet." Subsection (c)(4), which protects free speech/press, makes it clear that the RIAA cannot use the DMCA against Felten.
Our biggest shot at making the DMCA moot may lie with subsection (a)(2)(B): "a technological measure 'effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, prevents, restricts, or otherwise limits the exercise of a right of a copyright owner under this title." The right to restrict fair use is not "a right of a copyright holder under this title" without some heavy circular logic.
Another way is to attack "a work protected under this title" by making a CSS'd DVD containing a film whose copyright has expired. Public domain works are not "work[s] protected under this title." The DMCA is nothing without repeated copyright term extensions to keep copyrighted works copyrighted. Then we can release a device marketed for playing this public-domain DVD that just "happens to work" on copyrighted DVDs and thus satisfy the substantial non-infringing purpose requirement of 1201(a)(2).
Even though the compact disc still costs $17 in the US, the average dollar income of the consumer has risen due to inflation. Therefore, CDs are less expensive relative to the Consumer Price Index now than they were in the mid-1980s when CDs began to become popular.
2. There isn't anything worth listening too anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
What about all of us who decided not to purchase the Gameboy Advance, and merely play it with our emulator and roms?
I have VisualBoyAdvance for one reason: homebrew. It's a heck of a lot faster to test software that I just wrote and compiled on an emulator than to wait for a transfer over the MBV2 netboot cable.
then make sequels exclusive to the SonyBoy Advance
There is no mass-produced handheld PlayStation product (this doesn't count), and Sony has not officially released plans to make one. Sony needs to get off its collective @$$ and produce a PSOne Discman. I'm pretty sure that a PSOne Discman would keep the PSOne platform alive, and it may be Sony's ace in the hole to compete with Nintendo's GBA. (I've read that GBA is twice as powerful as Super NES but half as powerful as PSOne.)
[Sony] owes its success to it's hard ass CEO. Do you think Sony's CEO is a creampuff?
"Creampuff" and "hard-ass" are not always mutually exclusive. See also Kirby.
Function calls are cheap, performance wise.
Not in an inner loop, on fixed hardware, in real time signal processing. And yes, I have profiled my code; for some functions that have four separate cases, inlining each case separately improves performance. However, using compiler features to inline a piece of code tends to destroy portability (say if you have one version that runs on PC and another that runs on GBA) if you use anything but GCC-across-the-board.
The worst programmer habit I know of is copy-and-paste coding instead of using subroutines.
Sometimes, you don't want a lot of if-then's or subroutine calls in an inner loop, especially if software is supposed to run in real time (less than 50ms latency from key input to video and audio output) on fixed hardware (such as a game console) with all required features.
You can tell people not to do it, but some always will.
And some never will. I understand that, as a prominent CS scholar has stated, "premature optimization is the root of all evil," but, once we have a working sub-real-time implementation, some corner cases in software that processes digital signals really need code duplication if we expect them to run efficiently on architectures that lack predication. (Predication refers to machine instructions that say "execute this instruction if and only if the given bit of flags is set.")
Then there's the problem of not being able to quickly pass a function's local variables to another function because C, C++, and the Java language do not allow functions to "own" other functions, a construction that was quite handy in Pascal.
Take a look at their HTML/CSS and see it is HUGLY bloated
It's bloated because the webmaster tries to support Netscape 4.x, and doing CSS inheritance (which would unbloat many sites' CSS) will crash Netscape 4.x.
and not gzipped
Is there a Free module for Apache HTTP Server to do this? (In other words, is mod_gzip Free?)
programmers should care about the macro facilities of a language. Perl and Java have none built in.
Nonsense. Perl's macro system can even translate Latin into Perl at runtime.
The first answer is that when more than one line is covered by a comment, those lines form a functional group and MUST be a function of their own.
When you scream "must," you seem to claim that "there are no exceptions." What if this new function needs to use a lot of a function's local variables without passing them as parameters (expensive for stack memory bandwidth, especially in the inner loop)?
There is some info that can't be conveyed by code; it's called "requirements". That info can't be conveyed by comments, though, either.
However, you can refer to and briefly quote the use cases in the comments, to give future maintainers a bit of context.
Of course, right now [Final Fantasy publisher Squaresoft] wouldn't [release the source code the Super NES FF6 engine]
The engine is written in assembly language, not C, because C doesn't work well on the Super NES. The Super NES has two 6502-family CPUs, 65C816 and SPC700. The 6502, with its three semi-general-purpose registers (heck, the 8086 had seven), gives compilers great difficulty in generating object code that performs the expected operations (i.e. intense graphics) in real-time (i.e. less than 50ms latency).
as the GBA would most probably run the FF6 engine just fine
The GBA uses a single ARM7TDMI processor, not any of that 6502 garbage; it runs Thumb instructions, not 65C816 or SPC700 instructions.
and they probably have plans to make a couple games for it...
How will they get their plans past Nintendo's hard-@$$ of a CEO? Nintendo's CEO refuses to bring Square on as a GBA software publisher because he hates Square for how Square ditched Nintendo in the FF7 days. Square can only hope that Nintendo's shareholders will recognize that the lack of Square software creates a missed opportunity for building shareholder value and oust the CEO.
Then Valve would have had to give away half-life
No. Valve would have had to give away the changes to the Half-Life engine under copyleft, but the GNU General Public License says nothing about the data that the program uses. Data encompasses everything from sounds to textures to models to behaviors, the very things that make Half-Life different from Quake.
I can see the blocking of P2P systems since TimeWarner DOES own all the content people are trying to share. The problem is they don't actually watch what you do. They figure, port 1214... Kazaa, shut him down. But when is the line drawn for LEGITIMATE USE?
<sarcasm>AOL Time Warner Inc. defines "legitimate use" as HTTP GET and POST requests on port 80 to web sites operated by AOL Time Warner Inc.</sarcasm>
touting the advantages of their image format over jpegs. With jpegs of what both formats look like.
Not even a nominal-bitrate JPEG next to a high-bitrate JPEG of a nominal-bitrate image in their format?
For anyone interested, here is a paper [xerox.com] (in Postscript format, on the parc FTP server) from 1993 by David Goldberg and Cate Richardson of PARC discussing unistrokes.
If Xerox published that paper more than one year before the company applied for the patent, then the paper counts as prior art to invalidate the patent.
At one time, Alexey Pajitnov, one of the inventors of Tetris, thought he owned the rights to all video games based on falling blocks. The consensus now seems to be that he and the company he started with Henk Rogers owns only the word "TETRIS". Better use Vadim Gerasimov (the guy who wrote the first PC version of Tetris) instead.
If you - gasp - buy the SuSE package you can just pop in the DVD
But then you must include the opportunity cost of buying the DVD drive. For a student, that's a lot.
Command-line autocompletion under 2k
If this requires a registry hack, then how is Joe CLI User supposed to know it's even possible? And where's the equivalent for Windows 9x, which many of us are forced to use because we run legacy DOS apps or we don't have fast hardware?
Isn't it Gandalf (with help of course), that overthrows Sauron in his previous guise (which takes place between the Hobbit and LOTR)?
So that's what episodes 2 and 3 are going to be about. If what happened to Star Wars is any indication, then in about 20 years, we'll see special editions of all three parts of LotR, and then The Hobbit (with annoying cartoonish CGI character Gollum), and then two more movies to tell the story between The Hobbit and LotR.
Let's use the Tengwar rune that means "Gandalf".
Where did you get the idea that the Tengwar of Feanor were runes? They're just letters, and the script has more inherent structure than Latin-1 does. It's good for writing Quenya, Sindarin, English, Lojban, and Esperanto. For runes, look to Cirth or Futhark.
I don't know why it's so hard for you to understand that it isn't a clock.
I know it's not a clock; it's an icon. But when you look at your analog watch and see the hands pointing to the 3:00 position, do you immediately think "O-L"?
It's the letter "L" inside the letter "O."
"L" inside "O". How do you do that in Hebrew? You show me how to fit inside ע . I'll give you as much clock time as you want.
If people are seeing a clock, then that's their problem.
"If people can't fly, it's their problem." It's Microsoft's problem. If users don't immediately see O-L, then Microsoft has not effectively communicated O-L. Oh well...
Here's a picture of Latin capital letter L inside Latin capital letter O, and here's a clock.
Point is, if it looks like a clock, moves like a clock, and ticks like a clock, it's a clock. I know Microsoft's icon designer meant L in O, but that's not what was conveyed. Users expect icons to convey the function of an app, not the name, and the analogy from scheduling makes it more likely that the user will see a clock.
Does L inside O convey "Outlook"? Or is it more like "Look Out" for viruses?
You sound like those Linux users who struggle with crappy browsers [mozilla.org]
Exactly how is Mozilla crappy?
because there's no good office suite
Ever heard of KOffice 1.1.1?
just so they can "stick it to the man in Redmond."
No, just so I can preserve my freedoms.
*BUT* there is no Word *output* filter, which unfortunately makes it almost totally useless to me.
To output a Word document from KWord:It works.
If basing it arond a page is necessary RTF is probably the best - otherwise I'd stick with XHTML+CSS.
What about XHTML+CSS Paged Media?
It's degraded to the point that our corporate-centric society is practically breeding American youth like cattle
So we should be worrying not about 1984 but instead about 802701?
Sorry, but analog (including vinyl) is still superior in terms of sound quality despite it's technical limitations.
Few people can hear much above 19 kHz, and CDs can flawlessly encode any sound containing frequencies as high as 21.9 kHz. The -96 dB noisefloor of 16-bit linear PCM is lower than the Brownian noise of the air molecules in the recording studio. The "warmer" sound of vinyl is actually harmonic distortion caused by friction of the needle against the groove.
Read more in my article about digital DJing.
Read more on r3mix.net, especially the 'myths' section.
Here's the text of 17 USC 1201 (the part of the DMCA that slashdotters care about). Subsections (c)(1) and (c)(2) does not provide that fair use is a defence to "circumvention" but instead establishes that the offence of "circumvention" is completely orthogonal to "infringement." Subsection (c)(3) says "This is not the SSSCA... yet." Subsection (c)(4), which protects free speech/press, makes it clear that the RIAA cannot use the DMCA against Felten.
Our biggest shot at making the DMCA moot may lie with subsection (a)(2)(B): "a technological measure 'effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, prevents, restricts, or otherwise limits the exercise of a right of a copyright owner under this title." The right to restrict fair use is not "a right of a copyright holder under this title" without some heavy circular logic.
Another way is to attack "a work protected under this title" by making a CSS'd DVD containing a film whose copyright has expired. Public domain works are not "work[s] protected under this title." The DMCA is nothing without repeated copyright term extensions to keep copyrighted works copyrighted. Then we can release a device marketed for playing this public-domain DVD that just "happens to work" on copyrighted DVDs and thus satisfy the substantial non-infringing purpose requirement of 1201(a)(2).
1. The price of CD's are still high.
Even though the compact disc still costs $17 in the US, the average dollar income of the consumer has risen due to inflation. Therefore, CDs are less expensive relative to the Consumer Price Index now than they were in the mid-1980s when CDs began to become popular.
2. There isn't anything worth listening too anymore.
I find this correct for the most part.