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Thank you -- with this comment I finally realized that I have no need to read HN.


How's that, exactly?


Because comments are like chain links: the strength of the best is limited by the worst.

(Facetious, obviously; while I disagree with your parent comment because Google has far too little influence in China to effect any change, a response declaring the whole of HN rotten is nothing more than a non sequitur; "Good riddance!" I say.)


while I disagree with your parent comment because Google has far too little influence in China to effect any change

Ah, now that's a good argument! That's the argument I'll probably make against myself when I'm less caught up in libertarian fervour. A sober cost-benefit analysis may reveal that google can't possibly do enough to hasten the downfall of the Chinese regime to make it worthwhile. Still, we have yet to consider the question of what they could actually do. Email every Chinese citizen? Fly the Goo-Jet over Chinese airspace dragging a banner? Radio transmissions across the border? Who knows? Can't do a cost-benefit analysis until you've thought through strategy. What is the best way to spend, say, a billion dollars in order to bring down a regime?


How on earth can you be libertarian and propose aggressive intervention in other people's affairs?

A libertarian wants freedom to be his own adult, what you are proposing is saving the 'children' by bringing in some tough nanny.


> If your are not making money on a movie it's your own fault - not bittorrent

Are you implying that theft is not wrong as long as you're still making a profit?


> It's their own fault for being idiots and not actually screening it in cinemas

Do you think they really just forgot to screen it?

Or could it instead just be that it's difficult to get broad distribution without a gigantic budget and/or sequel to a safe franchise? Somehow I imagine it was harder for them to get screenings than it was for Iron Man 2.


This film was talked about as a prime Oscar candidate for months before the Oscars.

They really can't get distribution for an Oscar film? I doubt that. I think they just miscalculated the timing.

Or they could have sold DVDs before the Oscars. People would have bought them once they won.


> Making sure every "new" was matched by a "delete" was tedious but absolutely necessary

Anyone who thinks this is necessary should check out boost::shared_ptr, weak_ptr, and scoped_ptr:

http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_42_0/libs/smart_ptr/smart_pt...

C++ has been around long enough to have had several distinct epochs of style and best practice. It's not necessary to do much manual heap management in modern C++.

And the subtle upside of using ref-counting is that the ownership and lifetime of your data becomes self-evident in the types. It takes awhile to appreciate that, but it makes garbage collection feel a bit like dynamic typing: yes, it requires you to think less, and there are heroic, inspiring optimizations behind it, but ultimately makes it harder to understand the runtime behavior based on just looking at the code.

This post is interesting because he's identifying those limitations of GC: he's ending up having to add reference management to his GC code, by making sure to null out references, etc. It's nice to have the type system do that for you.


1. The videos show these flying pixels in a grid using variable output to form images like the Mona Lisa -- but a perhaps more interesting possibility is using them for non-uniform sampling of an image.

Imagine all of them emitting max light output, and having none of them fly in the black areas of the image, and the highest concentration in the brightest areas.

2. This could be a basis for free-floating advertisements or information. Imagine walking around a giant outdoor mall (like the labyrinthine Irvine Spectrum) and having pixels appear above you announcing that the next IMAX 3D showing of Avatar is coming up, forming into a giant floating arrow saying RIGHT THIS WAY and floating towards the theater at walking pace.


Aren't you working with them because you have something they want?


> the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur

Hmm. You might want to check the etymology of the word.


< the etymology points where you suggest :) but the fact is that in France if you can align a "good" school name in your CV you can be a moron you get the job!


You are surprised that a webpage from 1996 has dead links? I am more surprised that any of the off-site ones work.


The download client is pleasantly lightweight and unobtrusive.

It's a far cry from the standard Windows crapware that sits uselessly in your tray, wants to be always running, and bothers you to ask about downloading inconsequential 0.0.1 incremental updates every week.


You are completely correct.

Amazon's client, as clients go, is fantastic.


> Startup: Rogue Wave Software

not to disappoint you but:

"Rogue Wave® Software has been serving the needs of the developer community for almost two decades" http://www.roguewave.com/company/history-milestones.php


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