maggit

I was so happy to be able to see through the keynote without the presence of these two guys or anybody like them. They were always more focused on wowing the crowd than actually saying anything, always begging for more applause with ridiculous statements such as "It's basically 16 cores!!!" to describe a device with a four-core CPU and a twelve-core GPU. (Hugo Barra, 2012, http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406363,00.asp) For a developer conference, they should respect the audience enough to know that we understand the real specs and adding two unrelated numbers to make a bigger number does not make it more impressive, or even any sense.

Vic Gundotra and Hugo Barra are among the all time worst speakers at Google I/O. This year it again feels like developers talking to developers. Delightful! :)

The entire premise of the linked article is that doing it the way you suggest is too expensive for the common case, where no overflow happens. Further, it implicitly asserts that the cost of a hardware trap/exception, while great, will be offset by the savings from the common case.

Now, it doesn't back these assertions with much data, but neither do you :)

> wrapped integer types

A google search for "wrapped integer types" gives me the Wikipedia article on Integer Overflow as its first result. The other hits seem to be related.

What else do you mean by "wrapped integer types" if not arithmetic modulo 2^n?

Another alternative, which doesn't need media queries, svg: http://jsfiddle.net/pJt4N/1/

SVG for the arrow:

    <svg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewbox='0 0 10 10' width='10' height='10'><path d='M0.5,10L5,1,9.5,10' fill='#999'></svg>

As a data-URI:

    data:image/svg+xml;utf8,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg'%20viewbox%3D'0%200%2010%2010'%20width%3D'10'%20height%3D'10'%3E%3Cpath%20d%3D'M0.5%2C10L5%2C1%2C9.5%2C10'%20fill%3D'%23999'%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E

Use `min-resolution: 2ddpx` media query for high-resolution graphics rather than/in addition to `-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2`, to allow non-webkit browsers to display high-resolution graphics.

I have tested this fiddle and found it to work in both Chrome and Firefox: http://jsfiddle.net/LRaJj/

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Alternatively, and perhaps even better, use unicode ▲ as up arrow instead of gif, as suggested earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4238956

You might like the assembly tutorial I am writing: https://plus.google.com/111794994501300143213/posts/9gxSUZMJ...

It's focused on actually doing rather than how stuff works. In order to succinctly be able to present this, I had to choose a target platform, which unfortunately seems not to be the one that you prefer.

My tutorial targets OS X, and there is great similarity between coding assembly on OS X and Linux. The tutorial does not spend much time pointing out these similarities, and you unfortunately don't get sensible error messages if you make mistakes. Never the less, you might want to try :)

I'm experimenting with xrandr's --scale option for this problem. For my external monitor with a native resolution of 2560x1600, I can run "xrandr --output DP3 --panning 5120x3200 --scale 2.0x2.0" to have it act as a 5120x3200 pixel display which is then downscaled to fit the screen. This makes the hidpi-rendered stuff appear at normal sizes on that screen.

I'm using a 13" retina MBP with Kubuntu, and I wouldn't describe the hidpi support as awful.

You need to make sure that X has the right DPI setting and additionally make some explicit adjustments like resizing the mouse cursor and choosing big icons for everything. Once that is set right, KDE programs work nicely. Some non-KDE programs (such as Spotify) are rendered pixel by pixel the same as on a regular/low dpi screen.

So there are some glitches, but for day to day use it is absolutely workable :)

This is not in any way meant as a refutation to your point, but merely as a "for your interest" piece of information:

From working in the TV industry, I can tell you that real money comes from sports broadcasts, which also means that the sports people are the ones with money to burn. Apparently, ESPN made an attempt at a TV channel dedicated to 3D broadcasts of sports events. It was discontinued in September last year not for lack of content, but because of the reasons that you dismiss :) (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESPN_3D ) Similarly, I expect early 4k TV content to be sports and news.

So, movies isn't the only kind of content and 3D TV channels have failed because of lack of adoption. This, however, doesn't mean that lack of (even more) content still isn't the cause of lack of adoption.

"Show HN: Kurikku -- Source code with annotations, like Rap Genius"?

That at least gives me an idea of what's going on.

"Rap Genius for Code" might be an amazing pitch for avid users of Rap Genius. I wouldn't know. I don't know or care exactly what Rap Genius is, even though I remember there was a recent controversy involving Rap Genius. (It's got something to do with rap music and lyrics? Not my interest.)

If you can explain your site in words that don't require very specific domain knowledge, I think that might broaden appeal.

I think this way of pitching is dangerous for two reasons:

1. Many potential users of the product (Kurikku) will not know about the thing it's being defined in relation to (Rap Genius), and will not understand that they should check it out

2. Those that do know might make a different comparison than you. I might say "It's like Github for music!" and you will think "Oh, so you put in scores and people can collaborate -- just like with code on Github!", but I was thinking "You store your personal music library in the cloud and you can clone it to all your machines -- just like with code on Github!" While you intend the comparison to be a way to explain a lot with just a few words, in reality it might be interpreted all wrong, giving users entirely unsuitable expectations when checking it out.

So, please try to communicate clearly about the thing you have made using every day words. Good luck :)

I'm writing a tutorial in x86-64 assembly on OS X that you might enjoy: https://plus.google.com/+MagnusHoff/posts/9gxSUZMJUF2

Its focus is actually writing assembly on an acutal computer, with the goal of implementing a snake game.

I can't make up my mind about which of the following is better:

> A Chinese spy manages to steal the last 50MB of the program governing U.S. missile launches. Fortunately, it was all closing parentheses.

or

> A Chinese spy manages to steal the last 50MB of the program governing U.S. missile launches. Fortunately, it was Lisp.

I get incredible value out of Stack Overflow. Do you not?

Does the fact that this question is locked diminish its value or the value of Stack Overflow in any way?

Of course, Stack Overflow is not made for interesting questions. Notice that I am not defending this descision, I am merely stating it. You know this, which is why you were accurately able to predict that this question would be closed. Why is this interesting enough to warrant commenting that this is the case also today?

> Those commands aren't available by default because the culture doesn't encourage that workflow

That's not the reason. The reason is that they want to keep the standard interface to hg minimal. Unfortunately, I cannot find a citation for that right now.

That said, I, too, would appreciate having more standard extensions enabled by default. But direct your disagreement to the idea that hg should have a minimal standard interface instead of making up reasons :)

For interest, the method of literally emulating light bouncing around seems to be called Photon tracing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon_tracing). It creates realistic renderings of just about anything if you can afford the time to render it. Rendering times are prohibitively high, though, because this rendering method emulates lots of photons that never hit the sensor.

Ray tracing, although very powerful, has some limitations because it goes the other way: It casts rays from the sensor into the scene.

Well, I can't speak to your personal experience, but the "click-click-clicking" is in my experience a perfect example that most people try to do what the flight attendants tell them to.

As soon as the plane lands, there is a tricke of clicks until the plane is parked. And when the "fasten your seatbelts"-sign is switched off, the rest of the passengers go "click". From my experience, this sounds like most of the passengers.

(My experience is mostly from Norway and Europe in general)

In the case of the baseband processor, the company that put code into it is not the company that put the phone together.

It is a complex trust situation. In this case, you can reduce the number of agents you have to trust by using the security plug. This is good for security.

The handset manufacturer could still be spying on you, but if the security plug actually works as advertised it would disable all attacks that would listen in on your mic. These attacks could be deliberate by any of the companies that have code in your handset, or it could be via an accidental weakness in any of this code that is exploited by a third party. This last kind of attack is what the linked article talks about, and a security plug would actually reduce the severity of such an attack.

At this point it is just a definition question:

- A compiler takes some input, does some specific stuff to it (like lexical analysis and parsing), and writes some output ("code generation")

- An interpreter takes some input, does some specific stuff to it (like lexical analysis and parsing) and executes it

- A JIT compiler is a compiler, like above, but it does its thing on the fly, as you go. This means it has to tie into the execution model on some level, to know which parts of the program need translation.

A component that takes a program and executes it could correctly be described as an interpreter, but it might also be correctly separated into a JIT compiler (that spits out an intermediate representation) and an interpreter (for the intermediate representation, not the original source).

I have no example of such a beast, but it is concievable, no? :)

Can anyone elaborate on "prepares the ground for future developments using Wayland and Qt 5."?

Does it have any impact on this release? On the face of it, it looks like justification for not being able to list more user visible features. Does anybody know any different?

"Social democracy" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy) is a more correct term, though on Wikipedia there seems to be an even more specific article on the "Nordic model" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model)

"Socialism" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism) isn't really applicable.

DRM-free is the way to go, and has been the way for music on iTunes since March 2009 (http://www.macworld.com/article/1137946/itunestore.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes_Store#Movement_against_D...)

I seem to remember reports that iTunes sales increased quite a bit as they removed the DRM, indicating that removing DRM does indeed make the most business sense, not just the most moral sense or whatever. The best source I've been able to come up with quickly is this: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1022890/emi-drm-fre...

What makes you think DRM has worked up to now? Which content is unavailable for pirating because of DRM?

As far as I can tell DRM has only ever punished, and still only punishes, legitimate users.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64 says "Prior to launch, "x86-64" and "x86_64" were used to refer to the instruction set. Upon release, AMD named it AMD64." and refers to https://wiki.debian.org/DebianAMD64Faq which says ""AMD64" is the name chosen by AMD for their 64-bit extension to the Intel x86 instruction set. Before release, it was called "x86-64" or "x86_64", and some distributions still use these names."

I, myself, had an AMD Opteron machine on which I ran an x86-64 build, with that name for the architecture, of SUSE Linux before Intel released their EM64T.

Are you on an experimental version of Chrome? I mean, are you using Chrome, but a variant other than the stable one?

I've sometimes found that they roll out crazy experiments in the non-stable Chrome builds that integrate with crazy features on Google's web sites, such as the "remove the search box from the web page"-feature. I've since come to prefer the stable variant of Chrome :)

Disabling JavaScript lets me read the site without enabling the social stuff. I noticed that the content seems to be there, but then gets removed, presumably by JavaScript.

(Ghostery+Chrome here)

A USB stick could be anything, but if it is simply a proper USB mass storage device, it, by itself, can not execute code on the host machine.

To execute code on the host machine, either the host machine has to be stupid (like many Windows versions that try to automatically execute code from plugged-in devices without user interaction) or the device has to be malicious, trying to exploit weaknesses in the host machine.

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Now, for the files being put on these sticks, there are probably many opportunities to inject a trojan.

I've similarly had poor experiences with the Humble ports of games. Off the top of my head I can think of Super Meat Boy, which usually crashes within the first minute, and Psychonauts, which is so broken that it ruins all the fun. Both of these on OSX, by the way, but I've had similar problems on Linux.

This is why I have stopped buying the bundles, even though this one contains games I have wanted to play for a long time.

I have also told the Humble guys this, but I have gotten no response.

> The road signs in the US are _well established_ in the US.

Of course they are! I am not trying to say that US signage is unclear. I am trying to illustrate that it does not automatically make things clearer if you use text instead of pictograms. Using text might make things clearer, but "SLIDES" is only clear if you already are familiar with it. Agree? :) (The same thing goes for the text "PED XING", but this example is less important since, as you say, it is usually accompanied by a pictogram)

In my experience, road signs in the US rely much more on text than road signs in Europe. This is why I brought this up as an illustrative example that text is not a magic bullet :)

I'd just like to add that well established icons are much more readable than text.

The prime example that makes me believe this is road signs. In Europe it is pretty easy to drive a car in any country and be able to do it correctly, IF you are used to European road signage. Driving a car in USA when used to European signage is difficult. The signs in USA more often have text, but it is not always more understandable than an icon. What does "PED XING" mean, and how much time and energy do you have to dechiffer it while driving? (It took me days to realize that it is probably a contraction of "pedestrian crossing") Another example; it takes much more effort to understand what "SLIDES" might mean than it takes to recognize a pictogram of sliding rocks. When the text is not immediately understandable, you have to recognize it from earlier. This is similar to icons that are not immediately understandable.

My take-away here is that it takes lots of effort to make good descriptive text. Using text instead of icons is not a simple solution for the problem described in the article. It takes effort to communicate clearly anyway :)