C++ defines a bunch of aliases for operators. These are kind of cool, and they can make code more readable at times – for example you can write things like: if ((dest bitor netmask) == bcdest and protocol == udp) But in typical C++ fashion, they chose to specify it in a completely brain-dead way. […]
Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
Naked
As of yesterday, my Internet connection has finally started working. It’s been unbelievably frustrating, and I cannot in good conscience recommend naked ADSL Internet – I honestly thing it would be a better experience to get Telstra or Optus cable. There are too many levels of indirection between you and the people who actually get […]
Tiger
Technology is definitely very good for making people lazy. I’m now too lazy too cook rice in a pot on a stove, so I need an automatic rice cooker. Now that I’m getting my Sydney pad set up, I need one to use up here. Having experienced how bad a Kambrook rice cooker is, I […]
Internal Conflict
(Just some background – at work we use DVCS with a one-branch-per-feature policy.) You know when you’ve got a few source control branches on the go, because you’ve been splitting time between a few features, but you’ve kind of been neglecting one, because it doesn’t feel like the most important thing to do? Don’t you […]
Not how it works
Goldman Sachs and UBS both seem to have had algorithmic trading code stolen and/or leaked recently. I haven’t seen an official statement from UBS, but a PR person from Goldman said something to the effect of, “Since the algorithms integrate with a large, proprietary system, we aren’t worried about this.” I realise that this person […]
Maybe next year
It still isn’t the year of Desktop Linux. People may be ready to move away from Windows, but Linux still isn’t ready for them. Let me tell you about my recent operating system experiences. It all started when my venerable Pentium III died. (Well it didn’t quite die outright, but the power supply became unreliable.) The […]
Generated Copy Constructors Considered Evil
Sometimes I really hate C++. Not just dislike it, but really, really hate it. This week, one of the most horrible language “features” got me again: the generated copy constructor. I understand why they exist — they’re necessary to allow C structures to be passed by value no extra effort. However, their behaviour causes a […]
Spam for Spam
My comment spam filter has picked up a couple of spam comments of a new breed recently: spam comments advertising comment spamming services. It’s a bit odd on a number of fronts. First of all, why waste resources you could be using to push out spam for your clients? Or has the economic downturn affected […]
Unlimited but Useless
Mobile data was one of the coolest things that came with GSM: I could connect a serial cable to my Nokia 5110 and get ISDN connectivity everywhere. It was billed at one cent per second and ran at about 9600 bits per second. Now most GSM and UMTS handsets can run a PPP server to […]
On Spaghetti
Most programming languages have flow control features of some kind. Yeah, I know there are some languages that lack them, for example early programmable shader languages, some macro languages, and I think some programmable calculators just run a program straight through from beginning to end. But by and large, programming languages provide ways to jump […]