11 ms·
In the analogtv.c source code, by Trevor Blackwell (part of XScreenSaver) is this comment [1]: A maxim of technology is that failures reveal underlying
by jloughry 11y ago
In the analogtv.c source code, by Trevor Blackwell (part of XScreenSaver) is this comment [1]:
A maxim of technology is that failures reveal underlying
mechanism. A good way to learn how something works is to
push it to failure. The way it fails will usually tell you
a lot about how it works.
To mimic the image on a 1970s-era colour TV, XScreenSaver uses an accurate DSP simulation of all the analogue circuitry, including bandwidth limits, noise, and distortion. A gigahertz processor is just capable of keeping up with this.
[1] In XScreenSaver: a collection of free screen savers for X11 and MacOS by Jamie Zawinski [2].
Edit: if you want to read the source code---highly recommended!---retype the address below by hand or you'll become acquainted with jwz's countermeasures.
[2] https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/xscreensaver-5.34.tar.gz https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/xscreensaver-5.34.tar.gz
- nikanj 11y agoLooks like JWZ didn't like your linking, and it now has a redirect to an offensive(?) picture on imgur
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- zaius 11y agoIronic that JWZ takes offense to the link since the code in question is by Trevor, who is a cofounder of YC. Mirror here: http://web.mit.edu/ghudson/dev/nokrb/third/xscreensaver/hacks/analogtv.c http://web.mit.edu/ghudson/dev/nokrb/third/xscreensaver/hack...
- alayne 11y agoI think he's had that HN redirect for years. He is blocking hotlinking directly to files. Try https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/ https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/
- DanBC 11y agoThat redirects to imgur.
- hellbanner 11y agoCopy and paste the url.
- nitrogen 11y agoNo, he blocks/redirects all traffic with HN as referrer. Kind of a jerk move, which sucks because his site is full of useful stuff.
- mryan 11y agoCorrect. Even / redirects to imgur if the referrer is HN.
- dekhn 11y agojwz is a smart guy, but ultimately ... a bit inflexible and jerkish. I used to argue with him over using C++ in xscreensaver (I wrote a couple savers, glplanet, pulsar and glextrusion). I wanted to write a full scene graph implementation, a physics library, and a bytecode VM to implement screensavers without having to write a ton of low-level C++ code. Unfortunately, jwz's constraints include "Every screensaver must be a single C file" and "no C++", which while possibly wise when he first expressed it, has become a canard.
- espadrine 11y agoTo open jwz links, right click > open in incognito window. He blocks links coming from HN. I believe he always has.
- dekhn 11y agono, it started after a few times people posted jwz links on HN and he didn't like the comments he got from HN users.
- marcolinux 11y agoHopefully is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R_TXVm8jzM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R_TXVm8jzM