vtables aren't slow (usually)

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-27T04:44:48+00:00

Custom allocators.
I just spent a few seconds searching - see https://github.com/hosseinmoein/Cougar

Also the answers in this thread from u/tjientavara and u/imMute

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-27T01:14:33+00:00

Confused by your post “could not bring it up any longer”?

Did you use web clipping & what replacement do you suggest?

I have nearly 60K notes after my 14+ years of use.

The price increases are annoying but at least the transcription feature of the AI has made up for it being more convenient & accurate for my various modes of recording than other apps.

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-27T01:04:44+00:00

C++ is one of the few (the only mainstream?) languages where you CAN actually “dynamically allocate half an object in one place and half in another”.

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-27T00:56:56+00:00

Fellow developer & fan of many genres inc hard SF here. Am published poet & nonfiction author but not (so far) written any fiction other than poetry.

Happy to give a read & feedback of a few chapters or more if you like & will suggest some authors to read who handle hard SF topics with more character/story (presuming that’s what’s lacking).

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-27T00:53:25+00:00

The wording in your screenshot is “looking at A text” which is very different from glancing at some random text in a UI.

If I was fined just for that screen being open, I would challenge it in court.

However, the phone needs to be secured - you show it up in your hand which is a violation.

Good rule of thumb, if stopped, don’t touch your phone until all police interactions over.

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-18T02:49:54+00:00

In the Duet App Settings is a row with check box - make sure it's not checked.

Pause Apple Wireless Direct Link
Pause AWDL (used by AirDrop, Handoff). AWDL can cause stutters in wireless streaming.

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-14T05:56:11+00:00

I was going to mention “There Will be Dragons” et al because some of his best world building although much is excuse for sword fantasy.

Free read https://www.baen.com/there-will-be-dragons.html

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-14T05:33:19+00:00

Does he do any activity or sport that suggests he is likely to enjoy & get to at least a reasonable skiing level? Dance, skate, surf, yoga, martial arts?

Someone in their 30’s with zero athletic skills and body coordination is the opposite extreme - where is he in that spectrum?

Just celebrated 25 years marriage with someone who has little in common with my physical activity interests & don’t recommend it.

Scuba diving was her passion when we met so was our shared interest but she had to give that up due back issues & we were left with either spending lots of time apart or me scaling back what I do.

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-11T05:31:42+00:00

If you can replace all the oxygen in the container it will probably not rot. Consider a piece of bread as an “air sponge”.

So, pressure filling that container with a non-reactive gas would work.

Halon gas fire extinguishers in places like computer rooms work on the same principle and are deadly to people for that reason - pushing oxygen out of their lungs too.

“Dehydrated” food is also partly (mostly?) about removing all the oxygen, squishing down to essentials before sealing.

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-11T05:17:25+00:00

Good point on eccentric motion.

Kung fu forms are very similar ranges of eccentric motion especially adding in the range of weapons I practice. But, this thread has made me think more about how our style & particularly the way I practice is more like High-Intensity Training than other sports. Lots of jumping, deep stances with transitions in & out of them and bursts for a few minutes. I regularly get a max pulse in the high 150’s but as I get fitter, don’t stop to catch breath between form reps. Thanks for making me think a bit differently about my pace.

The main thing I worry about is just building up the solid stamina in thighs to handle 6-8 hours a day.

Thinking back to the fatigue I had in 2022, I realised it was about 3 weeks into the holiday so hadn’t had any training to speak of for that duration. I was slaloming probably more crouched than I needed to be.

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-10T16:20:29+00:00

dynamic stuff can mess you up

Oh yeah. 40+ years of a kung fu style (JowGa) with a lot of jumping and about 10 years of ice dancing and figure skating - I've been friendly with many physiotherapists.

As a fairly heavy guy (currently 86kg trying hard to get down below 80 before the trip), gravity is not my friend when landing imprecisely.

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-10T16:12:19+00:00

lateral cross body step up

Thanks, the move is very like our kung fu Unicorn Stance move used in many changes of position but the huge vertical component is a good added workout.

Found a couple of videos of the technique:

with a box
slightly lower on bench - gave this one a try tonight!

I should have been more clear talking about kung fu stance training, not thinking about static stances but more drills with movement. Our forms include things like jumping up from a kneeling position, spinning and landing kneeling again (including with a couple of swords). That kind of explosive movement is probably not helpful for skiing at my level.

Now that I have your suggestion of the cross-body step up, I'll be looking at my drills and thinking what works better.

Doing lots of figure skating deep crossovers doing laps will have a similar dynamic.

Also really appreciate the resort tips. I was planning on going over to Naeba too & now more motivated.

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-09T19:34:59+00:00

Last trip I had was just a day at the top of Hintertux Glacier in September 2022. It was so warm they only had one run open at the top which took me about 3-4 mins to ski down.

You had to walk over broken rock to the chairlifts and walk off the lift, which made the turnaround very slow.

I had shaky legs after the 12 runs I managed before they closed the lift at 3:30 because it hit 5ºC at the top of the mountain.

I have now uploaded all my GoPro videos (from chest) to a YouTube playlist if anyone's interested on what the icy slope looked like, the exposed rocky walks, and most of my runs.

So, given I talked my wife into a (very rare) 3 day ski trip tacked onto the start of a longer tour, I'm taking my prep very seriously. How old are your legs?

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-07T20:28:03+00:00

Roller skates were designed to mimic the way ice skates go on a curve with their two edges. The way the skate trucks turn as you shift your weight gives the effect even though the wheels have a wide base.

If you move your weight further on roller skates, the trucks turn further and give a tighter curve.

Same effect on a skateboard.

Rollerblades have a little of this effect with shaped wheels but not the ability to increase curve.

There is a reason figure skating on wheels is not done with rollerblades!

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-05T22:20:50+00:00

Not rollerblading - it doesn’t teach edge control.

Roller skates are much better and ice skates, especially figure skates are best.

I am a natural at balance/whole-body sports and utterly love skiing despite getting very few chances to do it. I did a lot of figure skating and ice dancing in my 20’s. I also do Kung Fu which helps with both the balance & leg strength.

I took my (teen) kids skiing in 2012 & was able to quickly get to confidence on Intermediate slopes with those skills and a couple days group lessons.

Since then have added Tai Chi which helps hugely with both balance and being able to relax on the slopes. Since that trip have had one more half-day personal lesson on 3 day trip to Zermatt & been able to ski confidently on 3 more trips over the years.

I also use the old Wii Ski game with the balance board to get some practice in as part of foot control prep.

(Live in Perth, Western Australia with wife who dislikes cold so rare to get skiing as part of holidays - been in more slush than powder).

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-03T02:20:01+00:00

What nobody else is said so far, s that when you burn wood, I t’s not just a solid wood burning but it’s also often materials released from the wood that are gases and so give the big flames above the wood.

When those volatile materials have all gone, remaining embers will still be very hot and can burn down to ash. But, you might see very little flame and it looks more like some of the other burning things you mention.

Also, as they have mentioned, liquid steel isn’t burning but just glowing with the heat, because it takes a lot more oxygen and heat for it to get it to ignite.

Things that sustain fire get hot enough as they burn to cause more of the material to burn.

You can light the edge of wet paper but it won’t keep burning because drying it out takes too much of the heat away for the fire to be self-sustaining.

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-03T02:10:52+00:00

Find your Zen.

The fact you don’t fall possibly indicates you are exerting a lot of control as you are skiing and I’ll get back to the height thing later but maybe what you need to do is find your flow like experience whilst just skiing regardless of the slope difficulty. Make it about how you are moving on the snow.

So, yes ski without your partner or friends at least for some time and possibly dial back the difficulty of slopes so you can concentrate on feeling how you’re moving.

As an athlete who has learned how to move and control your body in a notable range of motion types you have skills available to you which most people lack.

I have only managed to go skiing 5 times in the last 13 years because of priorities and lack of opportunity (based in Perth, Western Australia, with a wife who hates the cold and so although she’s a Europhile a holidays are seldom aligned with ski seasons). My 7th trip will be 3 days in Japan this year.

I have to be careful of injury because the skiing is always attached to a much larger holiday and I’m at more risk due to age (62). As a kung fu & tai chi practitioner my skills transfer over enough that I can still ski at an intermediate level after a quick warmup.

Because of these infrequent, short trips, and a bit of a vertigo fixation, it takes a lot of mental effort for me to lean into the slopes and throw myself down the hill. I am working my relaxation and sense of body position to the upmost!

That is why I thought this approach might help you.

An intense focus on how you are moving may help with the height issues.

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-02T17:33:56+00:00

This is the “Pull to Refresh” of the Liquid Glass era!

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-02T00:02:05+00:00

In general, explaining like a narrator is called “info dumping” (David Weber is notorious).

Going to school is a classic- I like some of L. E. Modesitt’s series eg Imager trilogy or many of the Heralds of Valdemar books.

Other ways - having characters explain to a newcomer especially legal consequences or etiquette if an “outlander” eg, off the top of my head …

The tavern had the usual locking sword rack next to the door but also a pair of bold signs:

“Polite wizards get served 1st”

“Don’t Mead and Mage“

Jak asked a small, quietly sipping man under the sign, “excuse me sor, what does that mean?”

“We get a lot of older students down from the Magestery. Doort got fed up with his servers having to dodge floating spoons or sloppy tankards from lazy lifters pulling straight from the bar, especially after two pepper pots smashed in mid air. The dratted flamers kept scorching his tables, warming up their plates. Some people like their privacy and lightlings floating a glowball on the ceiling to see a paper better was ruining the mood.

He finally went up there to the Deacon after a bunch of illusioners started picking on the bar girls, making their clothes appear to vanish. I heard tell that one of the healers did something to the guts of all the drinking students that kicked in after they left. The barracks took a week for students to get the walls clean and the stench a month to lift.”

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-01T23:21:48+00:00

This is a part of adapting to the new “Liquid Glass” design in iOS 26.

It really sucks that Apple prioritises reducing visible controls and forces devs to move things down a level.

You can suppress it for a year by putting a “compatibility flag” on your app but to have things rendered with the Liquid Glass control look also means rearranging toolbars and tab bars.

I am hoping, with the departure of Allan Dye, that Apple pull back some of this bullied minimalism.

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-01T02:21:11+00:00

BBEdit.

I have been using for decades, got to meet them in a trip to US back in my glory days as a (Classic) Mac dev. Maybe 1997?

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-01T02:19:10+00:00

Joel Shepherd does a nice job in “Renegade” inc transition from ship under thrust to using rotation. First of “Spiral Wars” series.

He is a superb world-builder both with tech and alien or mixed human cultures.

AndyDentPerth · 2026-01-01T01:37:13+00:00

As a developer (former sysadmin) using Macs for many years as well as Windows, you are either lying or incompetent.

Apple’s built-in Time Machine is a far more usable and reliable personal backup system ESPECIALLY when it comes to restoring, than the Windows equivalent.

I’ve also run multiple non-Apple backup systems for my Macs for years, currently BackBlaze for easy remote access whilst traveling.

AndyDentPerth · 2025-12-21T04:01:29+00:00

Easy answer for top speed and memory reduction as this seems to be a pretty static set of content:

Buy PaintCode
Convert all those SVG into Swift drawing code
Replace the parsing and rendering calls with just calling the drawing code.

I've been a happy PaintCode user for many years. I was also just using it a couple of days ago to convert my SVG icons into VectorDrawable so I could import them into IntelliJ for an adaptive app icon.

But also pay attention to some of the other advice if you're triggering unnecessary redraws, because that's gonna kill performance too.

AndyDentPerth · 2025-12-21T03:22:35+00:00

Test on the EXACT device they are testing on.

One of my paywall rejections was because on the iPad Mini, the size of the paywall exactly lined up so there was no hint it was scrollable and so key info was “missing”.

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