pmjordan

42 ms·

361.
by pmjordan 14y ago
I suspect the technical reason is because it hasn't been aggressively optimised . The reason for that is probably that it's not widely used in the real world, or at least not in performance-critical code. Especially in very tight code like
362.
Facebook Opens Up Hardware World With Magic Hinge(wired.com)
6 points by pmjordan 14y ago|0 comments
363.
by pmjordan 14y ago
Okay, someone please explain this to me: I thought a few years back we had all this uproar about the EU wanting to introduce patentability of software. They eventually backed down, if I remember correctly. Now a German court rules that Wind
364.
Android Ported to C#(blog.xamarin.com)
516 points by pmjordan 14y ago|165 comments
365.
by pmjordan 14y ago
Does the book really focus on Morse code having 0s and 1s? Isn't it technically a ternary encoding as opposed to a binary (0/1) one? The gaps between letters are pretty significant.
366.
by pmjordan 14y ago
If the Apple story is indeed true, there's a certain irony to it: device drivers in the OS X/iOS kernel are written against a C++ API called I/O Kit. For forward-compatibility with newer kernel versions, all the public classes contain a sig
367.
by pmjordan 14y ago
I learned to program when I was quite young but was talked into studying physics at university by teachers and parents. I've never used the physics I learned there in my work as a programmer - the maths on the other hand has been very usefu
368.
by pmjordan 14y ago
CE and UL certifications get checked on import as far as I know. At $2.79, I doubt the author paid any import duty, so the parcel presumably never even went through the relevant office. I doubt regulation on such parcels could be done cost-
369.
by pmjordan 14y ago
Yes, unless it makes specific demands on the OpenGL implementation which Mesa's software renderer can't meet. By "suffice" I was mainly thinking of performance. I don't know if Mesa is optimised for ARMv6 at all, and how demanding Blender i
370.
by pmjordan 15y ago
There are blender packages in the ARM debian repository, so you should be able to get it to build on Fedora, too. Another issue is whether it'll run: I think Blender uses OpenGL/GLX for rendering, and I don't know if that works on the RPi.
371.
by pmjordan 15y ago
For USB devices, where you have access to both the device and some proprietary software that can drive it, this isn't so difficult: you can intercept the USB commands quite easily, then it's a matter of spotting patterns for each activity.
372.
by pmjordan 15y ago
This is definitely true, though not such a big deal for basic understanding in practice, as the near-homophones usually have only subtly different meanings. I also don't often find myself having to transcribe stuff, and if I do, I can usual
373.
by pmjordan 15y ago
I wouldn't put English and French in the same category of phoneticism. English is all over the place[1], French pronunciation is fairly systematic. [1] Not that that's in any way surprising, considering its messy Saxon-Norman-Viking-... his
374.
by pmjordan 15y ago
Let's check that claim for the 65nm -> 45nm transition of the Core2Duo. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microproce... The fastest 65nm Core2Duo with 65W TDP was the 3.0GHz E6850, released in July 2007. T
375.
by pmjordan 15y ago
The xnu kernel is pretty far from FreeBSD. It's based on CMU Mach 2.5 (mainly virtual memory and IPC), 4.3BSD (mainly networking and VFS) and the Apple/NeXTSTEP-developed device driver framework called I/O Kit (which is written in C++). I d
376.
by pmjordan 15y ago
That's probably an extreme case. Often, knowing someone who will vouch for you will get you straight to the stage of interviewing with a technical person. You still have to go through the motions for their process, but it's a pure formality
377.
by pmjordan 15y ago
I think the point is: don't go through recruiters to find work. Even if the company says "we only accept applications through recruiters" that can be short-circuited if you have an acquaintance who already works there.
378.
by pmjordan 15y ago
I wish the Austrian tax forms were designed so that any intelligent person could fill them out. Most of the labels are unintelligible legalese gibberish plus a reference to the relevant paragraph(s) in the tax code. Which of course is also
379.
by pmjordan 15y ago
It's hard to say from the outside whether the hardware was what killed them. Increasingly, hardware lives and dies by the software that comes with it. If they were building it today, they'd probably be basing it on Android or bits of WebOS
380.
by pmjordan 15y ago
In fairness, I doubt most traditional banks actually design their own 2-factor authentication hardware. But yeah, calling Square a hardware company is nevertheless a stretch. (particularly as the hardware component is a freebie/loss-leade
381.
by pmjordan 15y ago
I've never used one, but Sony's Vaio Z23 has a a 13" 1920x1080 screen, which comes close (and is lighter than a MacBook Air). It's also staggeringly expensive. If the rumours are true, Apple will release a 2560x1440 (2560x1600?) laptop in t
382.
by pmjordan 15y ago
I think it's more that everyone previously had the same helper function/macro in their code base with a different name. If everyone needs the exact same thing, the standard library is a better place for it.
383.
by pmjordan 15y ago
Yeah, that's my takeaway, too. Offer up a variety of things to try, but encourage whatever they happen to be passionate about, not what I'm passionate about. (and know when I'm out of my depth)
384.
by pmjordan 15y ago
I recently thought about how I started programming and to my dismay I probably held myself back by 6 years or so by lack of confidence: 1. not having the confidence to talk to the 3 or 4 older kids at school who clearly knew about this stuf
385.
by pmjordan 15y ago
You'd probably be OK as long as the alpha extremes (0 and 255) were lossless; everything in between could probably cope with being slightly off, especially if you could control the quality of alpha and YUV separately, and the YUV quality wa
386.
by pmjordan 15y ago
Regarding your first point, isn't this already an implementation of an EU directive ? Specifically, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive Or has that already got an existing UK implementation, and this is just another la
387.
by pmjordan 15y ago
A 8.7 quake can still cause a devastating tsunami. In addition to the strength of the shocks, the directionality of the energy release (horizontal or vertical) is crucial.
388.
by pmjordan 15y ago
There is also a history of posting news items for dangerous, large-scale events that don't match the given criteria, but may save some lives in case people in affected areas check HN but haven't heard warnings via other media.
389.
by pmjordan 15y ago
The killer app for getting the elderly online and using computers/tablets/smartphones has been Skype, in my experience. Specifically, video chat. It's revolutionised communication with family who live far away. I suppose these days FaceTime
390.
by pmjordan 15y ago
I was a little surprised when they released the Thunderbolt Display without a built-in optical drive. I fully expected them to make that into a de-facto docking station and drop the drive from all portables and the Mac Mini (they did so on

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