Chris Blume
@programmax.net
150 followers 69 following 300 posts
Retired software engineer. Volunteering as chair for the W3C PNG Working Group. Formerly Google & Twitch.
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programmax.net
I tried but couldn't get into D&D.
I noticed Critical Role is starting their 4th campaign. So I gave it a listen.

Omg, this is so good.
Is it Thursday yet?
programmax.net
Friends,
Any hotel / area of Tokyo you suggest I check out?
I have 3 days.
programmax.net
Man, USB is neato.

I'm already in love with differential pairs--such an elegant and simple solution to the complex problem of interference.

A separate clock line would be vulnerable to interference. Could pair two clock lines. Ooor..

USB recovers the clock from the data lines.
programmax.net
Very cool.
The Tron Ares CD sound track is styled to look like a 5¼-inch floppy disk.
BUT this styling is a Japan-exclusive.

Time to ship!
programmax.net
Programmers,

Hit me with your links for fast data read from storage.
Whitepapers, blog posts, ...
programmax.net
Is there something like the Steam Hardware Survey but for storage devices?

Device type ([NVMe] SSD, HDD),
interface (SATA, NVMe, USB-to-SATA),
make & model
programmax.net
You posted some helpful 3D modelling tips.
I'm a programmer who wants to understand that world better.
It helped me a bunch. So much so I hit up your ko-fi.
programmax.net
Whoa. 1d window?
*checks and confirms*

Okay, now I need to figure out what happened today.
Earnings calls? New US regulation announced??
programmax.net
aaaAAARG C enum namespace polution.

winnt.h has an enum POWER_INFORMATION_LEVEL with a value ProcessorInformation.

The errors I was getting...
programmax.net
Nor did I.
I always wondered a good way to at a glance know if it was a res or cap.
Sick. Thanks Kate!
programmax.net
I might be filing my first Final Fantasy Tactics bug.

'Faith' is a double-edged sword. High faith means enemy magick spells hit you harder. But this text says the opposite.
programmax.net
You might already know this. But just in case you don't, it is fascinating:

In the US, fonts cannot be copyrighted. Apple worked hard on making nice fonts and didn't want people taking them.

So they added code to the font, which CAN be copyrighted.
programmax.net
Programming question:
Windows on x86 has 64kb allocation granularity.
This is because of behavior on non-x86 chips: devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/...

Should each platform only have oddities for its own platform? Or should behavior be the same across platforms, so no surprises?
Why is address space allocation granularity 64KB? - The Old New Thing
You have RISC processors like the Alpha AXP to thank for that.
devblogs.microsoft.com
programmax.net
Someone is about to get FAAAARMED
programmax.net
Wait, I thought this was an April Fools thing.
programmax.net
Oooohhh I did not know ASIO was an option for game dev.

I need to look into this.
(Also, I still think we need audio shaders.)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=okIp...
Why PC Gaming Audio is Broken (and how it’s holding you back)
YouTube video by techless
www.youtube.com
programmax.net
WELP I just did something super dumb that is preserved forever and publicly visible.

Time to go to bed.

(Nothing too terrible. Just made a claim on the PNG work and put in considerable effort for something that is easily disproven.)
programmax.net
GOOD NEWS maybe.
When I go around the OS's buffering, it is much slower like I expected.

However, even on a fresh boot the OS buffering is smart. So circumventing it would be a bad decision anyway?

My hope is the OS starts the read when I open the file, not when reads are issued. More measuring
programmax.net
My gut reaction was "SURELY we can process data faster than it arrives. Storage is slow. Even NVMe drives are slow."

Turns out, I need to process about a byte every 10 cycles.
That's...not so magically easy.
programmax.net
Somehow, I never picked up on this comedy gem before.

In the original Star Wars, "...and these blast points. Too accurate for sand people. Only imperial storm troopers are so precise."
programmax.net
There has to be a better UI element for scrolling a large list than a scroll bar.

Think scrolling back in chat history. Or an infinite scroll like this site.

But I don't know what it is.
programmax.net
Oh, nice! Thank you
programmax.net
Additionally, software developers are part of R&D (makes sense, "development"). And R&D was previously tax deductible.

Now, it is amortized over 5 years.

To a company, the effective cost of developers is skyrocketing.
programmax.net
There is SO MUCH good, free content out there.

I am pretty sure a teacher could just curate some YouTube videos and blog posts instead of teaching the content themselves.

And then, that teacher could focus on assisting students & refining the curation based on feedback.