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User: YGingras

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Comments · 171

  1. Re:You know... on Science's 125 Big Questions · · Score: 1

    According to the Plouffe Inverter, 125 ~= Bernoulli(42,x). Draw your own conclusions.

  2. spam on Writing with a Nanoscale Fountain Pen · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    This story is definitely spam. Please don't click on the links. The solution to spam is education.

  3. Conquer them with music on Open Source Advocacy The Right Way · · Score: 1

    Jono Bacon is also the author of an excellent death metal remix of the Free Software Song.

  4. What a scam! on Ubisoft and Quebec to Create GameDev Courses · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The current government just chopped 103 M$ in the student
    loan program an now they take that money from public education
    and give it to the private sector. Free access to public
    education is in danger here. I fear that the next generation
    will leave many brilliant people to sell burgers because they
    couldn't afford to go to the state sponsored private
    universities.

    : (

  5. Re:EA disease is spreading on EA Trying to Buy Ubisoft Shares · · Score: 1

    Ubi is no better than EA. Do you think the people who left Ubi to join EA did it because they were so well treated at Ubi ?

  6. Re:Maxima on Open Source Math Software For Education? · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'd like to add that Maxima support formated output when run inside GNU TeXmacs. You get top quality homeworks with really little effort.

  7. Re:In other news... on Gunshot Tracking Cameras to be Deployed in LA · · Score: 1
    Would be funny, except silencers are extremely expensive and nearly impossible to legally obtain.
    You can make a silencer with a drill, a 15 cm pipe and epoxy glue. Just drill the pipe and glue it to the weapon. No need for fancy filling and threading. The only hard part is getting subsonic ammunitions. Trust me, it works.
  8. need more coffee on CertMag Salary Survey Shows Where IT Money Is · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one to have read that "CertMag Slavery Survey Shows Where IT Money Is" ?

  9. Re:Roundup Ready Movies on MPAA Sues Movie-Swappers · · Score: 1
    won't this have the effect of creating a population of p2p shared movies which are "safe" - that is, just porn?
    Gentlemen, start your downloads!
  10. Re:This begs the question on Fun with Prime Numbers · · Score: 5, Informative
    What's the 1,716,050,470th prime?
    The 1,716,050,470th prime is 40,100,000,093.

    Find out more on the Nth Prime Page.
  11. Re:Cable Weight on Nissan Exhibits IEEE 1394-Compatible Car · · Score: 2, Insightful
    the typical weight of an automotive wiring harness is around 50 lbs which absolutely does impact your milage
    A typical sedan weight more than 2500 lb, a typical SUV more than 4000. So half of 50 lb is less than one percent improvement. I think there is lot of places where they could trim the weight down more cost effectively.
  12. C++ makes it hard on Printf Debugging Revisited · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It's hard to do a good printing debugger in C++. The lack of introspection throws most of the work in the hands of the pre-processor/developper.

    When I learned Common Lisp, the first macro I did was for printing debugging. It reads the expresions it is debugging, prints it (and shortens it with "..." if needed), evaluates it, prints the results and returns the results.

    What a monster you might say. Lets fist see an example of it's use:
    CL-USER> (+ 16 34 (- 6 7 8) (/ (* 3 (expt 4 1/2)) 2 3))
    42.0
    CL-USER> (dbg (+ 16 34 (dbg (- 6 7 8)) (dbg (/ (* 3 (dbg (expt 4 (/ 1 2)))) 2 3))))
    (- 6 7 8): -9
    (EXPT 4 (/ 1 2)): 2.0
    (/ (* 3 (DBG (EXPT 4 (/ 1 2)))) 2 3): 1.0
    (+ 16 34 (DBG (- 6 7 [...] 4 (/ 1 2)))) 2 3))): 42.0
    42.0
    It's done like that (and it's actually readable when indented properly):
    (defmacro dbg (expr)
    `(let ((val ,expr)
    (repr (format nil "~A" ',expr)))
    (if (> (length repr) 50)
    (format t "~A [...] ~A: ~A~%"
    (subseq repr 0 20)
    (subseq repr (- (length repr) 20))
    val)
    (format t "~A: ~A~%" repr val))
    val))
    Most of the hard work is taken away by the ability of the program to read itself, by dynamic typing and by the notion that there are no statements, only expressions. That being said, I don't claim that you should never use C++, just that it lacks introspection and that it makes printing debuging a lot harder.
  13. Re:Another spam posting. on Cold Sugar Cloud Found in Space · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If moderation of submissions works like for the moderation of comments, the newest say 5% of users can't moderate and only people with positive karma receive mod points so we rule out the possibility that someone creates a gigazillions accounts just to moderate his own submissions.

    A scheme where the editor aprove a post and then the post must receive say 5 mod points might delay the flow too much but if each submission stay a few hours in the moderation bin it has a chance to be marked "-1 spam" before an editor checks it, saving the editor some work and saving us a lotsa spam.

    : )

  14. Re:Another spam posting. on Cold Sugar Cloud Found in Space · · Score: 1

    What we need is some form of meta-moderation for the accepted submissions.

  15. Re:Printable / 1 page link on AMD vs Intel: A Linux Bout · · Score: 1
    Hold your mouse over for the 64-bit graph.
    In the "printer friendly" version. Humm...
  16. OBB on Music Related Free and Open Source Software? · · Score: 1

    You might want to check OBB for an impressive looking drum machine. The developers are a bit lazy *ahem* so it's less usable than Hydrogen but I heard that they were planing some major release in a not so distant future.

    ; )

  17. hard games are rewarding on Tough Love - Can A Game Be Too Hard? · · Score: 1
    what games have you played that are insanely tricky to master?

    NetHack !
  18. Learn to draw on Improving Terrible Handwriting? · · Score: 1

    It's more fun and it will provide you a better control of the pen that will instantly show up in writing. Drawing, with a pencil, not painting, though it probably wouldn't hurt.

  19. The Mocha Pot on Which Instant Coffee? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sure French press brew the 2nd best coffee on earth but I can't get my French to brew the same kind of delicacy that I get with my mocha pot.

  20. Re:Linux support.. on UT2003 Gone Gold, Ships with Linux Support · · Score: 1
    Too bad the game feels like a UT expansion pack [...] you still got the same voice taunts, the same feel, the same sounds and the same game.

    Yup ! It is so nice that a great game can be revived with better graphics and better physics !
    UT was GOTY which mean that UT2K3 should not thrash what was a success.
  21. Re:Linux Games on UT2003 LiveCD · · Score: 1

    Anyone who ever played 3d games on Linux know this is not true. The only way I know to crash my Linux box is to play a 3d shooter on it. Tribes 2 being the worst but anyone will do given enough coffee to let the system warm up a bit.

    Those games are closed source and their Linux version has the same bugs that make them crash Windows. When they crash, they have all your ressources locked and you recall how you fix this on Windows : the good old resset button. Try it for yourself and stop saying nonsenses.