Recent Posts

5201

Developer's Corner / How To Program Independent Games

« Last post by Deozaan on June 24, 2011, 05:14 PM »

Jonathan Blow, perhaps best known for making Braid, gives an interesting talk on programming.

http://the-witness.net/news/?p=1004

To me, an inexperienced programmer, the things he said generally make a lot of sense but I hadn't realized them before. I think these things can be applied to programming in general and not just to making games.

A few interesting points he makes:

• Optimization is usually bad.
• Using the right data structure(s) is about optimization, therefore it is usually bad.
• One parameter/metric which people generally forget to take into consideration when thinking of optimization is the limited resource known as time. i.e. minimizing the amount of your life you spend implementing a feature or working on a project is more important than saving a few CPU cycles.

5202

Living Room / Re: Anyone Using Bitcoins Yet?

« Last post by Deozaan on June 24, 2011, 03:34 PM »

We just need to get back to the gold standard. I wouldn't mind the dollar being worth an ounce of gold right now. If I understand it correctly, 1 ounce of gold is currently worth about $1,500.

If each dollar bill had the buying power of $1,500 then I would be a very wealthy person, even though I've only got about 40 dollar bills in my wallet right now.

5203

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Bvckup 2

« Last post by Deozaan on June 24, 2011, 01:37 AM »

I encountered a similar situation. I did notice the Info bar at the bottom. I clicked it and it scrolled me down. And then on the "2nd" page there was just enough gap after "Coming this fall" and the description below it, and my browser window was just the right size, that I didn't see anything else below "Coming this fall" so I thought I was at the bottom of the page.

Then I noticed the scrollbar was still more than halfway up the page so I scrolled down to read the rest.

As for me, I didn't attempt to or even realize you could click on the Bvckup logo/text to get the page to scroll down.

5204

General Software Discussion / Re: What is Mozilla trying to do?

« Last post by Deozaan on June 23, 2011, 04:13 PM »

The only difference I see is the way they assign numbers to new versions. Browsers and other applications could be updated quarterly or sooner for years before Chrome started doing it, and we loved it because it meant the software was actively developed, but the software author(s) would (rightly) consider it a minor version upgrade and just go from e.g. 3.6 to 3.7.

Even with Firefox, going from 3.6 to 3.7 could break some of your add-ons, so, again, I don't see any difference between going from 3.6 to 3.7 or from 3.6 to 4.0 or from 4.0 to 5.0 with some add-on compatibility problems. It's all the same to me.

So, to reiterate: As far as I can tell, the only difference I see is that they changed the way the numbers change when they update the browser. Though, to be clear, perhaps I should say that I do think that 3.6 to 4.0 was indeed a major update.

5205

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: Gentlemen (and Ladies), Start Your Engines!!

« Last post by Deozaan on June 22, 2011, 09:47 PM »

Thanks for volunteering, kyrathaba.

As usual, I'm looking forward to NANY this year. (c:

5206

Living Room / Re: Firefox 5 to be released only 5 months after firefox 4 goes gold

« Last post by Deozaan on June 22, 2011, 05:38 PM »

Well, I admit I don't really use the TL;DR thing much (I only fairly recently found out what it meant!) so maybe I don't know how to use it, but I've always been under the impression that the TL;DR label goes before or in reference to the short version.

e.g. TL;DR: [summary]

[Long version here].

Though it seems most people do it more like this:

[Long version here]

TL;DR: [summary]

But as I said, I could be wrong, and if so then it seems you had it right all along and it was just me who was confused. 

5207

Living Room / Re: What's Your Internet Speed/Reliability SATISFACTION?

« Last post by Deozaan on June 22, 2011, 05:31 PM »

At least I beat Nosh... 

-Shades (June 22, 2011, 05:08 PM)

Not by much... 

5208

Living Room / Re: Do it yourself dropbox

« Last post by Deozaan on June 22, 2011, 06:50 AM »

Amahi hit with Cease and Desist order from Apple:

http://blog.amahi.or...nd-desist-wait-what/

5209

Living Room / Re: Firefox 5 to be released only 5 months after firefox 4 goes gold

« Last post by Deozaan on June 22, 2011, 06:25 AM »

http://donottrack.us/

TL;DR
http://www.w3.org/20...-privacy/report.html

-Edvard (June 22, 2011, 05:02 AM)

Thanks for the info! I think you got it backwards though. The top link is the one to read if you don't want to see a wall of text. The bottom one is the one for in depth explanation.

5210

Living Room / Re: What's Your Internet Speed/Reliability SATISFACTION?

« Last post by Deozaan on June 22, 2011, 03:17 AM »

I'm pretty happy with mine. It's not the fastest connection available, but considering I'm paying for 5 Mb down and 0.5 up, I'm happy to getting more than I'm paying for.



I need to stop retesting my speeds though. I keep bringing the average down...  

5211

Living Room / Re: Firefox 5 to be released only 5 months after firefox 4 goes gold

« Last post by Deozaan on June 22, 2011, 03:07 AM »

By the way, is do-not-track feature =scroogle ? or is do not track is only related to cookies ?

-mahesh2k (June 22, 2011, 02:29 AM)

I admit I didn't really read the press release and haven't used Firefox much for several months now (probably over a year!), but I was wondering what do-not-track was, myself. I figured it was equivalent to Chrome's "Incognito" mode, but I really don't know.

5212

Living Room / Re: What's Your Internet Speed/Reliability SATISFACTION?

« Last post by Deozaan on June 22, 2011, 12:56 AM »

Speedtest.net recently overhauled their website. Now you can create an account to track your speed tests over time, and do other things.

Such as Speed Waves.

A speed wave is a gamification of speedtest.net where a bunch of people test their speeds and it compares them and you get "badges" for being fastest or having the biggest improvement, etc. Let's all try out the DC Speed wave I created!

http://www.speedtest...ave/645a30064de33271

5213

Living Room / Re: The Commodore 64 is BACK~!

« Last post by Deozaan on June 21, 2011, 11:04 PM »

That's silly (the pricing). You can get a Wii for $150 and run a Commodore 64 emulator on it.

5214

Living Room / Re: Firefox 5 to be released only 5 months after firefox 4 goes gold

« Last post by Deozaan on June 21, 2011, 10:41 PM »

Firefox 5 is out.

http://www.mozilla.c...m/en-US/firefox/new/

Press Release (?):

http://blog.mozilla....-multiple-platforms/

5215

Living Room / Re: War Veterans-Free Flights to DC and More

« Last post by Deozaan on June 21, 2011, 10:39 PM »

Thanks. I don't know of any but I know people who do. I'll spread the word.

5216

Living Room / Re: Updates to Chrome Webstore?

« Last post by Deozaan on June 21, 2011, 10:13 PM »

Is it because you want to make sure your extensions are up to date or because you want to know when updates have happened?

If it's the former, there's no need to worry since Chrome automatically updates your extensions for you.

If it's the latter, then I don't know. Sorry.

5217

Living Room / Re: Do it yourself dropbox

« Last post by Deozaan on June 19, 2011, 08:16 PM »

I can't even transfer folders with large camera files across my home network because the destination computer will go into sleep and then the transfer times out. And I don't want to have to turn off power save mode or run mouse wiggle programs!

-daddydave (June 19, 2011, 08:50 AM)

Try TeraCopy for transferring files across your home network. One of the features I really like about it is that it can do a checksum hash comparison to verify that files copied accurately.

In your situation, if the transfer fails partway through, just start it over again, and when/if it asks you if you want to overwrite existing files, select the "Older Only" option. Any files that were successfully transferred the first time will not be transferred again. And any files that broke partway through will fail the checksum validation and you can then "Clean Up" the list (remove all successful transfers from the list) and tell it to copy over the files that failed checksum validation, this time telling it to overwrite all of them.

A screenshot and more instructions

In the screenshot above, it lists which files successfully copied and which ones failed validation. It's still testing, but if it were finished, that button in the bottom left corner that says "Skipped: 126" would be the button you press to "Clean Up" the list, which shows only the files that don't have a CRC match. Then the buttons near the top that currently say "Pause" and "Skip" would say "Copy" and "Move" and you could just click Copy and then select overwrite and it would copy the files over and test them to make sure they made it.

5218

Living Room / Re: SSD Drives - something to consider before taking the plunge

« Last post by Deozaan on June 19, 2011, 05:21 PM »

Thanks.

But I still don't get it. He really expects the average person to go out and spend $1,000+ for a 600GB SSD?

-Deozaan (June 18, 2011, 03:43 AM)

I can remember a time when I was thinking about spending 1000$ for a 20 MB hard-drive

-phitsc (June 19, 2011, 04:26 PM)

Yeah, but at that time I'm pretty sure they didn't have 70MB drives that were a bit slower for $100.

Over three times as much storage space at one-tenth the price.

5219

Living Room / Re: Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading List

« Last post by Deozaan on June 19, 2011, 03:54 AM »

I'd like to recommend a pretty decent SciFi trilogy written by Nick Sagan, son of the famous Carl Sagan.

Idlewild
Edenborn
Everfree

5220

Living Room / Re: SSD Drives - something to consider before taking the plunge

« Last post by Deozaan on June 19, 2011, 03:49 AM »

you people are wasting your life posting!!!!

-mouser (June 18, 2011, 08:28 PM)

You heard it straight from the cat's mouth! I guess it's time for us all to give up DC. Just think of the hours you'd save every week!

5221

Living Room / Re: Encouraging Piracy - Piracy as a Tool for Promotion

« Last post by Deozaan on June 19, 2011, 03:34 AM »

I remember reading about an indie movie called The Man From Earth that was pretty obscure. The producer was pretty happy when it hit the torrent sites because after that point it became pretty popular. Well, I found the link, so I'll let him tell you:

My name is Eric D. Wilkinson and I am the producer of a small independent film called “Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth”.

I am sending you this email after realizing that our website has had nearly 23,000 hits in the last 12 days, much of it coming from your website. In addition, our trailer, both on the www.manfromearth.com site and other sites like YouTube, MySpace and AOL has been watched nearly 20,000 times AND what’s most impressive is our ranking on IMDb went from being the 11,235th most popular movie, to the 5th most popular movie in 2 weeks (we are also the #1 independent film on IMDb & the #1 science fiction film on IMDb). How did this all happen? Two words: Torrent / File Sharing sites (well, four words and a slash).

-http://www.rlslog.net/piracy-isnt-that-bad-and-they-know-it/

He goes on to say:

What you guys have done here is nothing short of amazing. In the future, I will not complain about file sharing. YOU HAVE HELPED PUT THIS LITTLE MOVIE ON THE MAP!!!! When I make my next picture, I just may upload the movie on the net myself!

5222

Living Room / Re: XBOX 360 with Kinect or Wii?

« Last post by Deozaan on June 19, 2011, 03:25 AM »

You know, Nintendo has often been ridiculed by the way it handles its online matchmaking stuff with the Wii and DS, but in the case of losing your privacy due to hacking, it's the best of the three. Why? Because there's no central online account. No personal information tied to a login.

They use friend codes, which are unique for each game and basically anonymous.

Or am I missing something?

As for the topic of exercise, I'm not sure which is the best, but you may not want to forget that the PS3 also has Move, which is kind of like a combination between Wii and Kinect, since it has both motion controllers and the camera.

On the other hand, you can get a Wii for $150 these days. It cost me more than that for my mobile phone with a 2-year contract!

5223

Living Room / Re: SSD Drives - something to consider before taking the plunge

« Last post by Deozaan on June 18, 2011, 05:29 PM »

You are wasting your life if you aren't a nudist! Think of those precious seconds wasted lowering your pants every time you have to use the toilet! Think of the seconds wasted getting dressed! Think of how much sooner you could be bathing/showering or having sex if you didn't have to get undressed first! Just imagine how much faster health services would be if you didn't have to remove your clothing and then slip into the hospital gown.

I know it may not seem like much, these few seconds here and there. But consider two things:

1. These seconds add up. If you shower every day and use the toilet two times a day, that's at least two times each day you go through the entire process of adding or removing all your clothes, and at least two times each day you partially go through the process of removing your clothes. Multiply those few seconds by every day of your life and I wouldn't be surprised if entire hours were wasted changing your state of (un)dress!

2. Multiply this time wasted by about 6 billion people on the earth and you begin to see the scale of time wasted on this trivial matter.

It's time for a modern solution to a problem that has plagued humanity for millenia. Take your clothes off and never put them on again. You are just wasting your life otherwise.

5224

Living Room / Re: SSD Drives - something to consider before taking the plunge

« Last post by Deozaan on June 18, 2011, 06:00 AM »

no he's talking to server administrators

-justice (June 18, 2011, 05:24 AM)

So basically everything he said doesn't apply to me. I'm not wasting my life if I don't have an SSD. Got it.

5225

Living Room / Re: SSD Drives - something to consider before taking the plunge

« Last post by Deozaan on June 18, 2011, 03:43 AM »

Thanks.

But I still don't get it. He really expects the average person to go out and spend $1,000+ for a 600GB SSD?