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Programming

Donald Knuth Rips On Unit Tests and More 567

Posted by CmdrTaco from the all-hail-knuth dept.
eldavojohn writes "You may be familiar with Donald Knuth from his famous Art of Computer Programming books but he's also the father of TeX and, arguably, one of the founders of open source. There's an interesting interview where he says a lot of stuff I wouldn't have predicted. One of the first surprises to me was that he didn't seem to be a huge proponent of unit tests. I use JUnit to test parts of my projects maybe 200 times a day but Knuth calls that kind of practice a 'waste of time' and claims 'nothing needs to be "mocked up."' He also states that methods to write software to take advantage of parallel programming hardware (like multi-core systems that we've discussed) are too difficult for him to tackle due to ever-changing hardware. He even goes so far as to vent about his unhappiness toward chipmakers for forcing us into the multicore realm. He pitches his idea of 'literate programming' which I must admit I've never heard of but find it intriguing. At the end, he even remarks on his adage that young people shouldn't do things just because they're trendy. Whether you love him or hate him, he sure has some interesting/flame-bait things to say."
XBox (Games)

Five Days Locked in a Room With GTA IV 220

Posted by CmdrTaco from the looking-forwrad-to-this-one dept.
bippy writes "Five days, one game. The Rocky Mountain News has a write up of five days spent playing Grand Theft Auto IV recently in a San Francisco hotel. It ends: 'In Grand Theft Auto IV the story isn't just an amalgam of cut scenes and cleverly written dialogue, it's the experiences I create, too. It's now, watching Niko stand, his shoulders slumped, that the depth of this game finally hits me. Niko's journey, the one crafted by Rockstar, may have ended, but Niko's adventures in the story I am creating have just begun.'" The most anticipated game in a while, to be sure. I'm certainly looking forward to busting some heads and jumping ramps.

Feed HiPe intros K-Tana 2.0 gaming rig, two-in-one Daisho 2.0 Dual PC (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Desktops

HiPe PC is no stranger to the land of excessive power and unorthodox construction, and the firm's latest two gaming rigs are no exception to either. The K-Tana 2.0 can come stocked with your choice of an overclocked 3.2GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme or dual liquid-cooled AMD Athlon FX-72 / FX-74 processors, an overclocked NVIDIA 8800 SLI graphics setup, 1,200-watt power supply, up to 8GB of DDR2 RAM, up to 4TB of HDD storage, acoustical dampening, colored neon lighting systems, and the ability to order up a customized paint scheme if the early 90s vibe isn't really workin' for you. The real head-scratcher is the Daish 2.0 Dual PC (shown after the jump), which as the name implies, sports a duo of networked PCs within a single vertical chassis. The primary PC is a GeForce 8800-equipped gaming rig with up to 4GB of RAM and 4TB of HDD space, while the secondary computer is a "personal media center or server" powered by either VIA's Epia C7 or Intel's Merom processor. Additionally, the secondary unit is connected to a motorized touchscreen LCD and responds to your voice thanks to the included speech recognition software. Notably, both machines can be configured to include a Blu-ray writer, and while both systems manage to start around $2,600, the sky really is the limit when adding in luxurious extras.

Continue reading HiPe intros K-Tana 2.0 gaming rig, two-in-one Daisho 2.0 Dual PC

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Feed Man Charged With Putting TV Show He Found On The Web... On The Web? (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
Apparently federal authorities are charging a man in Chicago with copyright violations for uploading copies of Fox's TV show "24" to the web. There are a few things that don't make sense here. First, the article claims that the guy downloaded the shows off of a website before loading them onto a different website. While that still is copyright infringement, it's not clear why that's such a big catch for federal authorities that they're trumpeting it. The fact that he got the videos from another website also suggests that the "damage" done by this particular guy was probably negligible since the content was already available online elsewhere. On top of that, one could argue that it's unlikely the guy did much to damage the commercial viability of the show, since the show was eventually broadcast for free on TV. Yes, you could claim that people could watch the downloaded version without commercials -- but the same is true of anyone who watched the same show via their DVRs. However, now, the guy is facing three years in jail, which seems like quite an overreaction.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Goatse on the BBC! 2

Journal by Alioth

ROTFL! (It got pulled rather quickly, but not before being shown on national TV. The background - people were asked to submit alternative logos for the 2012 London Olympics, given the actual design chosen has come in for quite a lot of criticism)
User Journal

Journal Journal: [Z80] Infra red 2

Journal by Alioth


Now the world has gone to bed,
Darkness won't engulf my head,
I can see by infra-red,
How I hate the night

-- Marvin the Paranoid Android

So, for the wind vane I want to make, I need some method of measuring the angular deflection of the vane within 10 degrees, so to turn it into a wind direction.

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"The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, preserved their neutrality." -- Dante

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