"Except that the line of code in question was/is not using a variable, but a function call. The way the code was written it was comparing a pointer to the function not the return value of the function."
I apologize for my ignroance, but could you go into a little more detail here? If you're not getting the value the function returns, what are you asking it for? Is this a way of getting to a function faster than simply calling it?
(On a side note, I think this is the sort of thing that helps prove the difference between a programmer and a scripter.)
"How does recommending a standards-compliant, open source browser that is known to work with a web site "break the standards binding the net together"?"
Welp, if you were to go back to my original post and figure out what I meant by 'turning into what you hate', you'd have the answer to this. I'd go into more detail, but it's hard to explain something like this to somebody who intentionally misunderstood my point.
"How do they expect to run these huge physics calculations over the internet in a massive game like say for instance Battlefield 2?"
I can offer an uninformed theory. If an event is passed to the other players such as "barrel at explodes", then the processing is done at the client end for all of the players. If the event is done properly, they should all reach the same conclusion.
Unfortunately, as I'm writing this, I can start to see the problem. Okay, I apologize, but I'm going to do a 180 here. Imagine a car crashes through a brick wall and a hundred bricks go flying away. That alone should work fine. But if another player runs into the path of one of the bricks and it bounces off of him, suddenly it's no longer as predictable. His latency along with everybody else's latency means ONE of the computers has to make the decision of where everything goes. That, in and of itself, is probably okay, but then you have to pass a great deal more data along to let the other clients know what's happening.
"I can see paying $300 for a 3D card - I've done it plenty of times - but $300 more to tweak out some physics effects? Not a chance for a gaming machine."
Depends on what they do with it. The biggest drawback to modern FPS's is that the environment isn't destructable. Supposedly, this type of card will help deal with that. Honestly, I was hoping that the PS3 and the 360 would usher in this new era, but so far it's looking like we're still another generation away from that.
In any event, if a few games capitalize on the use of this sort of processor, it'll become the next big thing to add to your rig. (or it'll become standard on video cards...)
"They should get support for these things written into popular particle effects systems for video editors - $300 for real-time high-quality particles would sell like a charm in the visual effects world."
Probably. Particle, hard body, and soft body calculations are pretty expensive CPU wise. Unfortunately, 3D companies these days don't seem to be taking the sort of advantage of these sorts of cards like they could. I'm still wholy unimpressed with how little they use modern video cards. I imagine there's reasons for it, but it still stinks. I wouldn't expect anything like this to come to fruition any time soon.
" When Firefox uses it, it's a community project trying to get noticed against Microsoft's billion dollar ad budget. I'm sorry you don't understand the difference, but it's a big and important difference nonetheless."
That's all very nice and righteous sounding, but in the end, you're still turning into what you hate. There are reasons why the things Microsoft does pisses them off, and they're not all about the monopoly. They go against the fundamental practices of the internet. You're either saying that it's okay to break the standards binding the net together, or that what Microsoft is doing really isn't all that bad.
That big important difference might be great for rallying the troops, but FF's been successful despite it. Keep doing what you're doing, be patient, they'll come. Turn into Microsoft to make them come, they'll eventually turn against you.
I can't believe nobody here remembers the hooplah surrounding the DC's name. When Sega announced that along with the swirl logo, EVERYBODY bitched about it. The complaints died shortly after launch after the system had proven itself.
"The SNES was woefully underpowered next to the Genesis, TurboGrafx, Jaguar, etc."
Um, no it wasn't. The SNES had a slower CPU than the Genesis, but it had an extra graphics chip that did the dirty work. This is why the SNES mopped the floor with the TG16 and the Genesis, graphically. I'm totally on-board with the rest of your point, but 'woefully underpowered' it was not.
"Huh? This is the same type of bull that makes me hate IE only websites. At least most IE-only problems can be attributed to stupidity instead of malice. If someone tried to deliberately hinder my access to their site because I use Firefox, I'd likely never visit the site again."
Same. I'd feel like they're trying to push their over-zealous point of view too far. However, I'd look at it a bit differently if they suggested more than one alternative. If they suggested FireFox or Opera, that would be a start. It'd feel less like fanboy'ism and more like "get off the fucking IE".
"This story is something like 48 hours old... the one about the centrifuge is just, well, boring..."
Do what I do: Visit Engadget.com. Actually, I'm surprised we don't see more stuff from engadget around here. Right now there's a story going on about Apple's recent patent silliness. Apple and patents are typically hot topics around here...
"Geez, no shit sherlock. I wonder how much G earth gravity is?
I can understand if this bit of info has to be included in say a BBC report but this is supposed to be a place filled with geeks and nerds who could work out for themselves that 20G is 20 times the G force of earths gravity. Even the americans should be able to handle the math involved. The canadians might need help. The dutch? It is sunday morning. To stoned to care. Not that it being sunday morning has anything to do with that."
Within minutes I was on the internet, registerring my disgust throughout the world!
"99% of users will ignore it, and the remaining 1% tends to make a one-off payment of $5. Useful? Yes. But I've not seen enough recurring donations to offset hosting costs."
Are we talking about just adding the butotn, or are we talking about providing a goal? I help run a site that used to do the 'donation goal' method, and actually it worked. "We need $189.23 by the end of July", and we'd consistently hit the goal. What I don't know, however, is whether or not our site was specialized enough to warrant it.
"We receive around 10,000 unique hits a month and are debating whether or not ads will improve our community or ruin it." Ads and donations seem to be the easiest way to drum up money for grassroots websites, however are there other alternatives which could cover the costs?"
That depends on the community, really. Would they be willing to pay a subscription fee? I can tell you I have. I pay $30 a year to a web community pertaining to my career. I do this for two reasons: 1.) That forum landed me 3 seperate jobs. I figure I owe them anyway. 2.) They'll host my on-line portfolio. Admittedly, though, I haven't taken advantage of this yet. Judging from the number of listed subscribers, I'd say they're probably doing okay for themselves.
The question is: Is your site worthy of subscription? Well, you're not asking about that, so I'm guessing probably not. (err I didn't mean that to sound rude. Sorry.) In your position, I'd look into Google's Text Ads. With any luck, you'll recoup most of the expenses regarding hosting. I'd also recommend setting up a Paypal Donate button. If you tell your users "This is how much I spend a month on hosting, and this is my donation goal", you'll probably do okay.
I know my opinion's not going to be too popular around here. But the truth of the matter is that it costs money to run a site. You may have the means to pay for it perpetually, but suppose that dries up? Worst case scenario: You gain a few extra $$$ to keep the site going through the rough times. You're providing a service for people. It's a small thing to ask of them.
"outside of 2001, fewer people have died in America from international terrorism than have drowned in toilets. Hell, if you consider how many people die from eating peanuts each year then it really is them that you should be afraid of..."
Well.. to be fair, people dying from peanuts doesn't have the same economic impact of people dying in a flaming collapsing building. Love the rest of your post, but I'm feeling nitpicky today.
One man's Troll is another man's Insightful. The ads had good concepts (particularly the eskimos one...) but they didn't quite deliever that *punch*. They were all missing something. I think most of them could be saved with some refinement. The "weee" ad, for example, was pretty funny. But would somebody unaware of FF get it? Would they even know what the other icons were about? The soap one made FF look like some version of Norton. None of them showed FF's tabs, which amazes me because that is one of the easiest ways to get somebody to switch from IE.
The point isn't to pick on poor defenseless FireFox here, but rather that it'd be nice to see these ads refined after receiving some critique. You dudes with mod points: Be a little more open minded.
OT Question: Is the BBC's general programming of a higher quality than the US's, or am I just catching good shows? It amazes me with how much more than can do with less.
Slashdot Mirror
"Except that the line of code in question was/is not using a variable, but a function call. The way the code was written it was comparing a pointer to the function not the return value of the function."
I apologize for my ignroance, but could you go into a little more detail here? If you're not getting the value the function returns, what are you asking it for? Is this a way of getting to a function faster than simply calling it?
(On a side note, I think this is the sort of thing that helps prove the difference between a programmer and a scripter.)
"The problem (if there is one) lies with the language, not the compiler, since both of the above lines are legal C code."
Ignorant question: Is this why PHP uses '$' in front of variables?
Note: I'm not a programmer. Rather I've done some scripting here and there and some use it, some don't.
"How does recommending a standards-compliant, open source browser that is known to work with a web site "break the standards binding the net together"?"
Welp, if you were to go back to my original post and figure out what I meant by 'turning into what you hate', you'd have the answer to this. I'd go into more detail, but it's hard to explain something like this to somebody who intentionally misunderstood my point.
Wow, there hasn't been an update in 7 hours. Taco must be testing the dupe-dumper!
Thank you for posting that. I can take some scenes more seriously now. Wish I had something more insightful to say.
I love when people post anonymously to defend themselves. Not to mention the big enormous flaws in their argument.
"have WAAAYY too much time on their hand"
"I just figured I'd wander into the comments area and tell everybody that these people had too much time on their hands."
"How do they expect to run these huge physics calculations over the internet in a massive game like say for instance Battlefield 2?"
I can offer an uninformed theory. If an event is passed to the other players such as "barrel at explodes", then the processing is done at the client end for all of the players. If the event is done properly, they should all reach the same conclusion.
Unfortunately, as I'm writing this, I can start to see the problem. Okay, I apologize, but I'm going to do a 180 here. Imagine a car crashes through a brick wall and a hundred bricks go flying away. That alone should work fine. But if another player runs into the path of one of the bricks and it bounces off of him, suddenly it's no longer as predictable. His latency along with everybody else's latency means ONE of the computers has to make the decision of where everything goes. That, in and of itself, is probably okay, but then you have to pass a great deal more data along to let the other clients know what's happening.
So... yeah, I see your point.
"I can see paying $300 for a 3D card - I've done it plenty of times - but $300 more to tweak out some physics effects? Not a chance for a gaming machine."
Depends on what they do with it. The biggest drawback to modern FPS's is that the environment isn't destructable. Supposedly, this type of card will help deal with that. Honestly, I was hoping that the PS3 and the 360 would usher in this new era, but so far it's looking like we're still another generation away from that.
In any event, if a few games capitalize on the use of this sort of processor, it'll become the next big thing to add to your rig. (or it'll become standard on video cards...)
"They should get support for these things written into popular particle effects systems for video editors - $300 for real-time high-quality particles would sell like a charm in the visual effects world."
Probably. Particle, hard body, and soft body calculations are pretty expensive CPU wise. Unfortunately, 3D companies these days don't seem to be taking the sort of advantage of these sorts of cards like they could. I'm still wholy unimpressed with how little they use modern video cards. I imagine there's reasons for it, but it still stinks. I wouldn't expect anything like this to come to fruition any time soon.
" When Firefox uses it, it's a community project trying to get noticed against Microsoft's billion dollar ad budget. I'm sorry you don't understand the difference, but it's a big and important difference nonetheless."
That's all very nice and righteous sounding, but in the end, you're still turning into what you hate. There are reasons why the things Microsoft does pisses them off, and they're not all about the monopoly. They go against the fundamental practices of the internet. You're either saying that it's okay to break the standards binding the net together, or that what Microsoft is doing really isn't all that bad.
That big important difference might be great for rallying the troops, but FF's been successful despite it. Keep doing what you're doing, be patient, they'll come. Turn into Microsoft to make them come, they'll eventually turn against you.
I can't believe nobody here remembers the hooplah surrounding the DC's name. When Sega announced that along with the swirl logo, EVERYBODY bitched about it. The complaints died shortly after launch after the system had proven itself.
"The SNES was woefully underpowered next to the Genesis, TurboGrafx, Jaguar, etc."
Um, no it wasn't. The SNES had a slower CPU than the Genesis, but it had an extra graphics chip that did the dirty work. This is why the SNES mopped the floor with the TG16 and the Genesis, graphically. I'm totally on-board with the rest of your point, but 'woefully underpowered' it was not.
"Huh? This is the same type of bull that makes me hate IE only websites. At least most IE-only problems can be attributed to stupidity instead of malice. If someone tried to deliberately hinder my access to their site because I use Firefox, I'd likely never visit the site again."
Same. I'd feel like they're trying to push their over-zealous point of view too far. However, I'd look at it a bit differently if they suggested more than one alternative. If they suggested FireFox or Opera, that would be a start. It'd feel less like fanboy'ism and more like "get off the fucking IE".
"This story is something like 48 hours old... the one about the centrifuge is just, well, boring..."
Do what I do: Visit Engadget.com. Actually, I'm surprised we don't see more stuff from engadget around here. Right now there's a story going on about Apple's recent patent silliness. Apple and patents are typically hot topics around here...
"I vote for mob justice. Throw him into a locked room filled with the pissed off masses fed up with too much ludicrous junk mail."
Those who have purchased viagara and penis enlargment pills may go to the front of the line.
Within minutes I was on the internet, registerring my disgust throughout the world!
"I thought this was the best video and people with even a little bit of knowledge about browsers can understand it."
Okay. So why would those people need a FireFox ad?
Preaching to the choir.
"for fucks sake. taps on the bugle is the easiest thing to play. its like chopsticks on the piano. all is lost."
All is lost? I could see that reaction if you were talking about the ice cream cone twirler...
"99% of users will ignore it, and the remaining 1% tends to make a one-off payment of $5. Useful? Yes. But I've not seen enough recurring donations to offset hosting costs."
Are we talking about just adding the butotn, or are we talking about providing a goal? I help run a site that used to do the 'donation goal' method, and actually it worked. "We need $189.23 by the end of July", and we'd consistently hit the goal. What I don't know, however, is whether or not our site was specialized enough to warrant it.
"We receive around 10,000 unique hits a month and are debating whether or not ads will improve our community or ruin it." Ads and donations seem to be the easiest way to drum up money for grassroots websites, however are there other alternatives which could cover the costs?"
That depends on the community, really. Would they be willing to pay a subscription fee? I can tell you I have. I pay $30 a year to a web community pertaining to my career. I do this for two reasons: 1.) That forum landed me 3 seperate jobs. I figure I owe them anyway. 2.) They'll host my on-line portfolio. Admittedly, though, I haven't taken advantage of this yet. Judging from the number of listed subscribers, I'd say they're probably doing okay for themselves.
The question is: Is your site worthy of subscription? Well, you're not asking about that, so I'm guessing probably not. (err I didn't mean that to sound rude. Sorry.) In your position, I'd look into Google's Text Ads. With any luck, you'll recoup most of the expenses regarding hosting. I'd also recommend setting up a Paypal Donate button. If you tell your users "This is how much I spend a month on hosting, and this is my donation goal", you'll probably do okay.
I know my opinion's not going to be too popular around here. But the truth of the matter is that it costs money to run a site. You may have the means to pay for it perpetually, but suppose that dries up? Worst case scenario: You gain a few extra $$$ to keep the site going through the rough times. You're providing a service for people. It's a small thing to ask of them.
"but why is the FOAM on the OUTSIDE when it can be on the INSIDE in a cavity then no more problems with falling foam?"
You'd think Captain Kirk would know more about space travel.
Thanks for replying. :) Have a good weekend.
"outside of 2001, fewer people have died in America from international terrorism than have drowned in toilets. Hell, if you consider how many people die from eating peanuts each year then it really is them that you should be afraid of..."
Well.. to be fair, people dying from peanuts doesn't have the same economic impact of people dying in a flaming collapsing building. Love the rest of your post, but I'm feeling nitpicky today.
One man's Troll is another man's Insightful. The ads had good concepts (particularly the eskimos one...) but they didn't quite deliever that *punch*. They were all missing something. I think most of them could be saved with some refinement. The "weee" ad, for example, was pretty funny. But would somebody unaware of FF get it? Would they even know what the other icons were about? The soap one made FF look like some version of Norton. None of them showed FF's tabs, which amazes me because that is one of the easiest ways to get somebody to switch from IE.
The point isn't to pick on poor defenseless FireFox here, but rather that it'd be nice to see these ads refined after receiving some critique. You dudes with mod points: Be a little more open minded.
OT Question: Is the BBC's general programming of a higher quality than the US's, or am I just catching good shows? It amazes me with how much more than can do with less.