vilya

10 ms·

61.
by vilya 13y ago
If only we could get spammers to encrypt everything they send...
62.
by vilya 13y ago
You don't really have to understand its data structures to use it but, as with anything, having a more accurate mental model of the tool is a great help in figuring out how to achieve your specific aims.
63.
by vilya 13y ago
> Of course, how would the patent office know that the idea is non-obvious to an engineer trained in the state of the art, unless they employ engineers who are trained in the state of the art in every engineering discipline? By using a
64.
by vilya 13y ago
So the reason you can't make it faster than JavaScript by multi-threading it is... because of JavaScript? :-) I had a look at your profile and it looks like you're doing some very valuable work. I was rather hoping for some examples which d
65.
by vilya 13y ago
Your comment has made me curious. I tried to think of some examples of performance sensitive apps that aren't amenable to multi-threading and I couldn't, but it seems like they could offer interesting areas for R&D. Can you share some e
66.
by vilya 13y ago
This is one way to run CUDA on your Radeon card: https://code.google.com/p/gpuocelot/ Although there's a note on that page saying that they're actively seeking developers for the AMD back-end, so I don't know how solid the support is.
67.
by vilya 13y ago
Intel have had support for OpenCL on Linux for a while now. For example this page, which describes how to install it for Ubuntu, dates from May 2012: http://intel-opencl-sdk-for-ubuntu.blogspot.co.uk/ The official download page with links
68.
by vilya 13y ago
When you say "on a lowly iPad", bear in mind that the latest (4th-gen) iPad has a dual core 1.4 GHz chip plus a GPU capable of 14.4 GFLOPs. It's actually a pretty powerful machine.
69.
by vilya 13y ago
The wikipedia page about the non-obviousness test [1] says: "The purpose of the inventive step, or non-obviousness, requirement is to avoid granting patents for inventions which only follow from "normal product design and development", ..."
70.
by vilya 13y ago
If just knowing that it's possible is all it takes to be able to independently reproduce an invention, then it shouldn't have been patentable in the first place. That's pretty close to being the exact definition of the "non-obviousness" cri
71.
by vilya 14y ago
One thing I'd add is that Haskell has by far the best tutorial I've ever encountered for any programming language in the form of Learn You A Haskell For Great Good: http://learnyouahaskell.com/ That alone is a good enough reason to try ou
72.
by vilya 14y ago
> One of these days I need to write a series of posts about some of the "big C++ app design" lessons we've learned as a team over the past few years. Please do! I would love to read that.
73.
by vilya 14y ago
The actual Microsoft Research page this is here: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/illumiroom/
74.
by vilya 14y ago
IllumiRoom already uses a Kinect. That's how it captures the geometry of the room.
75.
Wiki.python.org compromised(lwn.net)
2 points by vilya 14y ago|0 comments
76.
by vilya 14y ago
Just to provide a counterexample: for me, the hard deadlines are really helpful. That, along with the near-instant feedback, are what make the experience so much better than just watching a series of lecture videos. They act as a motivating
77.
by vilya 14y ago
Exactly what I was after - thanks a lot!
78.
by vilya 14y ago
Thanks, I think you're probably right - the modules would have to have enough information in their compiled form that your compiler could introspect them without needing the source. The proposal wouldn't be much use if that weren't true. Re
79.
by vilya 14y ago
Anyone know where I can read more detail about this proposal? It looks really interesting, but there are a couple of things I'm not clear on from the pdf: How do you get away from creating a header file for a closed source module? Without a
80.
by vilya 14y ago
The c++ standard library is pretty sparse if you compare it to python's or java's, say. Good point about reflection; personally I don't miss it though. Where I would have used it in java, for example, I often find I can get a better resul
81.
by vilya 14y ago
The title is a bit sensationalist. The real conclusion, as the author admits towards the end, is that smartly written & optimised javascript can beat lazily written c++ on this particular test.
82.
by vilya 14y ago
GPUs are SIMD machines, so they're executing the same instruction simultaneously on all the active cores. That means if you have code which branches, it has to mask out the cores which follow branch B while it executes branch A; then has to
83.
by vilya 14y ago
With well over $100 billion in the bank, their problem isn't one of resources.
84.
by vilya 14y ago
There are a few online backup services which let you mail them a disk if uploading would take too long. A quick bit of googling found Mosaic Archive ( http://www.mosaicarchive.com/online-photo-backup/ ), for example. I haven't used them &#3
85.
by vilya 14y ago
"Michael Murphy" may actually be a fictional identity though. Companies sometimes do that to give people the feeling of dealing with a real person while in reality it's just whoever is free in the department that deals with it. Certainly if
86.
by vilya 14y ago
I find it harder to read. In particular, it's a lot harder to distinguish icons for useful things like train/tube stations from icons I don't care about like wine bars.
87.
by vilya 14y ago
I'd say it's much worse than 1/3rd the quality. It's absolutely terrible! The data for London, where I live, is full of misspellings; at least one tube station is missing (Monument, in the heart of the financial district); and it fairly oft
88.
by vilya 14y ago
There are a LOT of companies monetising their efforts at making realistic computer graphics - including the one I work for. It's not just Pixar. :-)
89.
by vilya 14y ago
Re: raytracing stars, the obvious answer is to use a lower detail representation when the stars are far away. In this case all the photons from the faraway galaxy will be arriving from almost exactly the same direction, so there won't be an
90.
by vilya 14y ago
The entire article seems to be founded on misconceptions about raytracing and a wilful misunderstanding of what is meant by photorealism. Don't waste your time.

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