Hacker News: ToastOpt

New comment by ToastOpt in "Zero and forget -- caveats of zeroing memory in C"

ToastOpt — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 22:55:53 +0000

> IMHO GCC's special handling of memset() is broken

I appreciate how you've distinguished your opinion from objective facts. E.g. according to spec, it's not broken, but it's a perfectly valid opinion to hold that the spec is broken too. :-)

New comment by ToastOpt in "Zero and forget -- caveats of zeroing memory in C"

ToastOpt — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 22:51:12 +0000

> bad compilers

Good compilers. Compilers are, most commonly, judged on their ability to optimize code.

> since the compiler does not know how it is used

That's not what the programming language specification says. See the "as if" rule in C.

New comment by ToastOpt in "Should UTF-16 be considered harmful?"

ToastOpt — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:33:02 +0000

I think the most amusing case of UTF-16 considered harmful would possibly be the choice, in WPF/Xaml, to use UTF-16 code point offsets to reference positions in XML strings -- while supporting UTF-8 XML encoding. It can create the situation where, even if the input and output are both UTF-8, you'll nonetheless need to transcode into then out of UTF-16 in order to perform the proper string splitting.

Fun.

New comment by ToastOpt in "YouTube Flags Democrats’ Convention Video on Copyright Grounds"

ToastOpt — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:28:10 +0000

What has me confused is how these automated take downs, without automated appeals, don't constitute fraud. I can't go down to the local county courthouse, spamming it with grossly erroneous and frivolous claims documents, and expect to just walk away. There are laws against that sort of thing.

Why would we tolerate this of digital media?

New comment by ToastOpt in "How a Tick Bite Made Me Allergic to Meat"

ToastOpt — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 04:39:17 +0000

Midwesterners consider those vegetables. Not kidding. Ask for a "vegetarian option" and they might hand you chicken.

New comment by ToastOpt in ""Third Hand" Languages"

ToastOpt — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 05:06:58 +0000

Which is a good thing, because just about every language sucks, but some languages realize it less than others. :-)

New comment by ToastOpt in "Am I Doing it Wrong?"

ToastOpt — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 06:00:27 +0000

Yup, I've seen this as well, way too often. Rather than a function, you get a class, rather than arguments you get constructor parameters, and then the get stuck at what to name the method that actually does anything.

New comment by ToastOpt in "Internet Archive Sues to Stop New Washington State Law "

ToastOpt — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 08:27:48 +0000

I suspect it depends on the rationality of the parent you're speaking to. As a parent, that wording sounds fine to me.

New comment by ToastOpt in "Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors."

ToastOpt — Sat, 19 May 2012 06:29:04 +0000

Yeah, there's also "an excellent opportunity arose," and "time for a new challenge," or "looking for a bigger/smaller, riskier/stable team/company/toaster/product.

New comment by ToastOpt in "Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors."

ToastOpt — Sat, 19 May 2012 06:25:59 +0000

Ditto. Also, from previous managers they may have learned that criticism, even constructive criticism, is a great way to bag a negative performance review. Such effects need to be accounted for.

New comment by ToastOpt in "The Last Question - Isaac Asimov"

ToastOpt — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 21:28:57 +0000

Not really; it's clear from Asimov's story that the question is about a closed system. The abstract for the paper you cited implies the led was externally heated, acting as a thermo-couple. The closed-system efficiency was still <100%.

New comment by ToastOpt in "Ebooks, you’re doing it wrong "

ToastOpt — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 07:00:51 +0000

Publishers are keenly aware of these effects in print media.

It's chicken and egg. Until there's a large enough market, they won't care. Low quality negatively influences market growth.

New comment by ToastOpt in "Ebooks, you’re doing it wrong "

ToastOpt — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 06:58:08 +0000

As others have already pointed out, you don't need to compile from Latex on the device. The formats already have support for passable typography. Publishers aren't making an effort to use it.

New comment by ToastOpt in "Ebooks, you’re doing it wrong "

ToastOpt — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 06:55:45 +0000

Yeah, the publishers are mourning the loss of "hardcover edition" in the ebook format. That's where they make their mint.

I'm hoping that they will try (and catch on) a ebook+hardcover release model. After all, people buy hardcover either (a) because they need the product now and can't wait for paperback (or there isn't one), or (b) because they also want to show it off in their personal library. The ebook+paperback could offer that experience. Hardcover $30, Hardcover+ebook $33. That's $3 for free. Oh, hmm, looks like O'Reilly is already is doing this bit :-)

A month after each new release, you make paperback and ebook available simultaneously, offering the ebook at minus publishing and shipping costs. ($5 paperback, $3 ebook?)

New comment by ToastOpt in "Ebooks, you’re doing it wrong "

ToastOpt — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 06:45:42 +0000

The paperback managed to put the hyphen in the right place. At least it's making an effort. When was the last time you saw paperback had an out of place hyphen just because that's where the hardcover placed it?

New comment by ToastOpt in ""No matter what price we choose, we always make the same revenue""

ToastOpt — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:12:23 +0000

This is especially true when "iSomething" is free. A lot of folks will want to 'buy in' to the software, out of guilt or gratitude, so will pay for "iSomething+" even if the delta is trivial.

New comment by ToastOpt in "A little game to demonstrate timing attacks."

ToastOpt — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 03:30:32 +0000

Yes, it is.

New comment by ToastOpt in "A little game to demonstrate timing attacks."

ToastOpt — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 03:29:40 +0000

Clever and confusing are not necessarily mutual exclusive.

New comment by ToastOpt in "The Volkswagen Group is using IE6 as standard for displaying web pages"

ToastOpt — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 19:13:24 +0000

"using the current version and the updates provided by Microsoft"

If you have a current, up to date version of IE, it's not version 6. We've been trolled by what is clearly some sort of prank.

New comment by ToastOpt in "No TV for children under 2, urge doctors"

ToastOpt — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 04:56:42 +0000

This! We started baby sign and could communicate these basics with our daughter before she was a year old. It might not sound like much to start communicating 6 months earlier, but I can only describe it thusly: awesome.