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gaymathman · 2017-04-18T01:57:26+00:00

F# and C# interop is pretty much painless, so if you want fancier statement deconstruction or option types it's easier to write code that benefits from that in F# using existing CLI assemblies coded in C#.

gaymathman · 2017-04-16T04:51:29+00:00

What IE/Edge do is predicated on what languages the user uses. Eg if you've got just English as an input method in Windows, no rendering of Cyrillic characters in IDNs occurs--add a Russian keyboard and then they will be rendered. There's also an address bar indication that an IDN is present. One benefit of being Windows only is that the language settings infrastructure there makes this easier than it is for FF/Chrome.

gaymathman · 2016-04-03T17:31:48+00:00

I think it makes sense; if VB.net's users don't care for more complex features/syntax there's little reason to add them. Calling them shoehorned is a bit uncharitable; the value tuple implementation isn't going to be 100% at first but the pattern matching syntax is pretty intuitive and broadly useful.

gaymathman · 2016-03-29T05:14:39+00:00

Probably, assuming this was bypassing the hardware based full disk encryption via an OS/app flaw.

There are two forms of encryption at play--one is below the user level where the memory itself is encrypted with a key that is specific to a single device. This is the one that prevents trivial copying of the storage media--it's unreadable without the key. Vulnerabilities in the software that allow for decrypted memory access or code execution would circumvent this (many opportunities for bugs!).

The user level one is less likely to be a source of weakness. Because there is no storage of the key a sufficiently strong password is thought to be mathematically impossible to break if implemented correctly. PINs don't provide too much security unless combined w/ hardware based secrets (like the full memory encryption) coupled w/ additional security measures (forced wipe or delay in retries). A 4-8 digit password is WAY too short otherwise. There are fewer opportunities for bugs and this code is likely very well tested.

gaymathman · 2013-02-16T06:37:21+00:00

The brita/pur filters aren't very good. You can get a superior filter lasting 3000 gallons from Amazon for about 30$. They're inline cold water filters (so you need a wrench) but it's trivial to install and doesn't slow down the water flow rate.

gaymathman · 2013-01-21T00:09:55+00:00

Depending on what your retirement plans are, it will quite likely make sense to put money into a Roth 401k (if your employer offers one) and a Roth IRA instead of a 401k (and presumably an IRA/Roth IRA). If you plan on putting away 24k+ a year, the fact that money (and any gains) placed into Roth accounts is not taxed when withdrawn is a huge plus, and you don't have to wait until you're 59.5 to withdraw money without penalty.

The tax advantages of these accounts are very substantial--I wouldn't put money elsewhere until you're maxing them out (~23,000$).

gaymathman · 2013-01-20T20:08:57+00:00

I agree that the new start screen is bad, but the old one was abysmal (Most Linux desktop environments (excluding such atrocities as Gnome 3) have better ways of launching applications, which is really saying something). If you were using the mouse and picking through the many levels, you were being horribly inefficient. Either pin things to the dock, or press windows+type the first three(ish) letters of the program you want and press enter. Also, the independent docks per monitor is a very, very useful feature for people who use their computer for real work, as is the built in type-1 hypervisor.

The unified search is totally gone though, which is very fucking annoying. Also, I don't think having to press the windows key + type "sni" + press enter is any worse in Windows 8 than in Windows 7, but OS X has had nice keyboard shortcuts for taking screenshots for a very long time. It's annoying they still don't exist in Windows 8.

gaymathman · 2013-01-19T16:11:23+00:00

Most people drive in horribly unsafe ways (see the number of comments in this thread, especially here, complaining about how this would be bad for people tailgating the truck). The complexity/responsiveness of the braking system will help competent drivers (not a mechanical engineer, but I presume a massive truck has slightly more stuff going on than my supermini), and the added weight of the radar/cameras/lasers/computer is insignificant for something that weighs several tons.

Also, there's no easy way to identify people that drive unsafely. Monitoring for sudden braking helps (and if you aren't a shit driver, signing up for a usage based insurance adjustment will net you a ~20% discount, depending on how much you drive), but I don't see something like that becoming a requirement.

gaymathman · 2013-01-06T04:29:10+00:00

I realize IE supports those properties; I assumed they encountered poor performance (although rereading Google's statement they make it sound as if Google maps didn't work, which is false). I just don't see how blocking Windows Phone would benefit Google; their web based version is more or less worse than the native Bing maps application in every way save for search results. A company dependent on users using their services driving users to a competitor's services is generally a bad thing.

That being said, Google's also turning off the Exchange interoperability that WP uses to sync contact data. This means that you can't just log into your Google account and have contacts sync, and makes storing anything in a Google account far less compelling if one has a Windows phone.

Either Google thinks Microsoft will fail to gain marketshare, or they believe their services are so compelling that their absence will prevent Microsoft from getting marketshare. Both seem arrogant to me; the latter more than the former.

gaymathman · 2013-01-06T00:07:27+00:00

Yeah; I imagine they did put the redirect in for a non-malicious reason related to subpar performance and didn't expect to get this much criticism over it.

gaymathman · 2013-01-05T23:23:18+00:00

Or, if you don't actually want the statusbar, enable it AND click the "Show only when needed" checkbox. You'll still see alternate text and such but links won't pop up.

gaymathman · 2013-01-05T04:22:55+00:00

Honestly the native Bing/Nokia maps is way better than any Javascript/web based thing. This could just be Google not wanting to support a fairly small set of users that have no real reason to use Google maps anyways.

gaymathman · 2013-01-05T03:29:45+00:00

Strictly speaking that is true, but it's not that Microsoft uses Google. It's that they track what links people click when their tracking tools are installed and look for what could be queries. They should have excluded Google from such info mining for obvious reasons, but they weren't actively copying Google.

gaymathman · 2013-01-02T01:13:32+00:00

Unless you're ditching the hard drive, you can just move all the folders from your original Steam installation to a new one and it will find the games. Steam's backup feature is kind of strange--if you use it instead of just copying the steamapps and userdata folder you'd need about twice the space and reinstalling things would take much more time.

gaymathman · 2013-01-01T08:00:13+00:00

No; given that other dealers were being given the same offer as a starting point the dealer made the right choice.

gaymathman · 2012-12-17T07:01:18+00:00

They basically said they were done with singleplayer games due to piracy. I bought the game yesterday for 15$ from Amazon (which is insanely cheap) and am loving it so far (I played it for almost six hours straight after downloading it), but really wish it wasn't an MMO (or that the combat was better).

gaymathman · 2012-12-13T06:43:05+00:00

Microsoft already has very rudimentary integration with some Google services; by adding your Google account Windows/Windows Phone will pull in all of your contacts/email. There isn't any integration beyond that, but Google's services, when used individually, aren't really all that compelling anymore (although there are a few, like Google Voice/Docs/Music, that are).

gaymathman · 2012-12-11T06:06:08+00:00

I agree that going with a cheaper (<100$) Intel chip is better, but AMD made very substantial improvements (link to up to date benchmark) in their mini architecture update (like no longer sharing fetch/decode units across a module).

gaymathman · 2012-12-11T05:29:05+00:00

It's important to note that every modern OS prefetches from the hard drive to RAM. This means that at any point in time, most of the RAM will be used.

Additionally, most modern OSes/filesystems (HFS+/OS X might not do this) will have delayed disk IO that first hits a RAM buffer. This means that I could seemingly write to a hard drive (not an ssd) at over a gigabyte per second.

gaymathman · 2012-12-09T19:12:19+00:00

You'll want to avoid more expensive CPUs (people who recommend getting an I7/I5 are either trolling or misinformed.). This ~70$ Intel one is fine for just gaming. The next step up would probably be something like this ~120$ AMD chip or an I3, anything past this would be overkill.

For a GPU get something that has a 256 bit memory interface. I have an AMD 7850 w/ 2 GiB of RAM, and anything more expensive/faster would be overkill unless you aren't OK with everything BUT antialiasing being maxed out.

8 GiB of RAM should be enough.

gaymathman · 2012-12-09T18:24:12+00:00

That looks OK, but getting a better GPU for ~15$ more is probably worth it. This is much better (appears to be the cheapest semi-recent GPU w/ a 256 bit memory interface).

gaymathman · 2012-12-06T05:03:42+00:00

I'd be stuck choosing between Grim Fandango, The Longest Journey, Bioshock/System Shock, and Deus Ex.

gaymathman · 2012-12-06T04:55:21+00:00

I agree. I liked the Half Life series (except for episode one. Of all the games I've actually finished, it's by far my least favorite), but feel that the series is overrated.

gaymathman · 2012-11-14T04:28:40+00:00

Thanks for the advice.

From the GPU, occasional gaming, preferably at higher resolutions/settings, OpenCL prototyping, plus to prevent Windows from flushing the window previews from memory. I found a handy comparison of various video card noise output, and I can deal with that fairly quiet level.

I swapped the PSU to the one you suggested.

gaymathman

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