ToastOpt

> IMHO GCC's special handling of memset() is broken

I appreciate how you've distinguished your opinion from objective facts. E.g. according to spec, it's not broken, but it's a perfectly valid opinion to hold that the spec is broken too. :-)

> bad compilers

Good compilers. Compilers are, most commonly, judged on their ability to optimize code.

> since the compiler does not know how it is used

That's not what the programming language specification says. See the "as if" rule in C.

I think the most amusing case of UTF-16 considered harmful would possibly be the choice, in WPF/Xaml, to use UTF-16 code point offsets to reference positions in XML strings -- while supporting UTF-8 XML encoding. It can create the situation where, even if the input and output are both UTF-8, you'll nonetheless need to transcode into then out of UTF-16 in order to perform the proper string splitting.

Fun.

What has me confused is how these automated take downs, without automated appeals, don't constitute fraud. I can't go down to the local county courthouse, spamming it with grossly erroneous and frivolous claims documents, and expect to just walk away. There are laws against that sort of thing.

Why would we tolerate this of digital media?

Midwesterners consider those vegetables. Not kidding. Ask for a "vegetarian option" and they might hand you chicken.

Which is a good thing, because just about every language sucks, but some languages realize it less than others. :-)

Yup, I've seen this as well, way too often. Rather than a function, you get a class, rather than arguments you get constructor parameters, and then the get stuck at what to name the method that actually does anything.

I suspect it depends on the rationality of the parent you're speaking to. As a parent, that wording sounds fine to me.

Yeah, there's also "an excellent opportunity arose," and "time for a new challenge," or "looking for a bigger/smaller, riskier/stable team/company/toaster/product.

Ditto. Also, from previous managers they may have learned that criticism, even constructive criticism, is a great way to bag a negative performance review. Such effects need to be accounted for.

Not really; it's clear from Asimov's story that the question is about a closed system. The abstract for the paper you cited implies the led was externally heated, acting as a thermo-couple. The closed-system efficiency was still <100%.

Publishers are keenly aware of these effects in print media.

It's chicken and egg. Until there's a large enough market, they won't care. Low quality negatively influences market growth.

As others have already pointed out, you don't need to compile from Latex on the device. The formats already have support for passable typography. Publishers aren't making an effort to use it.

Yeah, the publishers are mourning the loss of "hardcover edition" in the ebook format. That's where they make their mint.

I'm hoping that they will try (and catch on) a ebook+hardcover release model. After all, people buy hardcover either (a) because they need the product now and can't wait for paperback (or there isn't one), or (b) because they also want to show it off in their personal library. The ebook+paperback could offer that experience. Hardcover $30, Hardcover+ebook $33. That's $3 for free. Oh, hmm, looks like O'Reilly is already is doing this bit :-)

A month after each new release, you make paperback and ebook available simultaneously, offering the ebook at minus publishing and shipping costs. ($5 paperback, $3 ebook?)

The paperback managed to put the hyphen in the right place. At least it's making an effort. When was the last time you saw paperback had an out of place hyphen just because that's where the hardcover placed it?

This is especially true when "iSomething" is free. A lot of folks will want to 'buy in' to the software, out of guilt or gratitude, so will pay for "iSomething+" even if the delta is trivial.

Yes, it is.

Clever and confusing are not necessarily mutual exclusive.

"using the current version and the updates provided by Microsoft"

If you have a current, up to date version of IE, it's not version 6. We've been trolled by what is clearly some sort of prank.

This! We started baby sign and could communicate these basics with our daughter before she was a year old. It might not sound like much to start communicating 6 months earlier, but I can only describe it thusly: awesome.

So long as the motion blur is a small enough angle/translation, the difference is only in the shape of the blurring kernel. The kernel will be circular or gaussian for out of focus, while a line or arc for motion.

In one dimension, you'll be looking at a slice (more accurately, a summed projection) of the kernel. Focus = guassian, motion = square wavelet (line) or irregular (arc)

> context menu that's difficult to access with the keyboard

Hmm, I guess you're right. Without the dedicated context menu key, you have to use SHIFT+F10. That's a pain.

Or, more accurately, the IP address it resolves to. The ISP is primarily in the business of moving IP packets; domain names do not appear at the IP layer.

(they also provide DNS services; they could disable resolution of blogspot.com, is that what you meant?)

Pardon, I don't know Clojure inside and out: are namespace significantly better than packages for the purpose of macro hygiene?

My personal favorite is the "at least one capital". I've taken mnemonics with a large subset of the asciibet, but I can't memorize case well. So what happens? Every password begins with one capital. "Ehsiwvky" instead of "ehsiwvky", right?

I enjoy the juxtaposition of following the letter of the rule, violating the intent of the rule, but nonetheless honoring the spirit of the rule.

Taken to the extreme, one could claim "unlimited" service permitting one http connection a day -- open a second connection, and zero bytes go through until midnight.

You'd say "that's absurd; it's not high speed internet. You've effectively limited my speed." They advertise _unlimited_ and _high speed_. If they throttle, then one may have a case depending on the reasonable expectations one might have about how fast (total throughput) a service labeled as "high speed" should be.

(IANAL - this is not legal advice)

Anyone considered the possibility that github doesn't have the tooling to charge by disk usage? That would practically require them to add quotas, and tracing information so you could determine (read: audit) where space is used in your repositories.

And by running the story, the rightful owner might become aware of the situation and take action.

I think that's what Sidnic meant by templating -- that you have precisely one well tested encoding step in the system, near the end. This reduces the number of failure modes you need to test for.

In a previous project, we didn't even have an effective means of counting all the potential points of failure; you really don't want that, because it takes a lot of effort to fix.

I have to admit, I've personally clicked through a couple ads for precisely this reason, only to immediately hit the back button upon realizing it was just an ad.

And the next time I see the ad, I do it again.

It may be effective at getting click throughs, but the retention rate likely leaves something to be desired.