I do some 8-bit coding and only last month realized logarithms allow dirt-cheap multiplication and division. I had never used them in a context where floating-point wasn’t readily available. Took a function I’d painstakingly optimized in 6502 assembly, requiring only two hundred cycles, and instantly replaced it with sixty cycles of sloppy C. More assembly got it down to about thirty-five… and more accurate than before. All from doing exp[ log[ n ] - log[ d ] ].
Still pull my hair out doing anything with tangents. I understand it conceptually. I know how it goddamn well ought to work. But it is somehow the fiddliest goddamn thing to handle, despite being basically friggin’ linear for the first forty-five degrees. Which is why my code also now cheats by doing a (dirt cheap!) division and pretending that’s an octant angle.
I was watching Band of Brother and wondering how those paratroopers got letters from home. Did their family need to know their nearest base? Or could they simply write their name and battallion? If I want to mail a package to a sailor do I just the ship’s name? Or a port? I’m not actually mailing anything I’m just curious...
For WWII specifically, anything written might not actually be sent. V-Mail services photographed letters, reduced them onto microfilm, and reprinted them overseas. A lot of people were sending a lot of mail and paper is fucking heavy.
AFAIK, addressing worked about the same way it works now: you’re given an address for a specific person, at a somewhat-abstract location. Sometimes it’s a very concrete place - no pun intended - like a permanent airbase or an actual city. Sometimes it’s a boat. Sometimes it’s a “forward operating base,” which falls somewhere between no-fun-allowed paintball facility and Burning Man with more grabassing.
APO – Army/Air Force Post Office. The Military Post Office for Army and Air Force personnel
FPO – Fleet Post Office. The Military Post Office for Navy and Marine personnel
DPO – Diplomatic Post Office. The preferred designation for mail addressed to Department of State overseas post offices.
MOM – Military Ordinary Mail. Mail originating from the Department of Defense.
MPO – Military Post Office. Provides postal services for military personnel.
PAL – Parcel Air Lift. An expedited service for Package Services is available for an additional fee.
Anyway you can also send “unit boxes” for a whole group, but I think you’re still supposed to address them a specific individual.
Sorry, it just sounds like it was leading to some “ah-HA!” reversal, being so brief and general in response to normative statements about a complex topic.
Removing DRM is generally somewhere between outright illegal and getting attacked by flesh-eating lawyers.
Blizzard killed an independent Warcraft / Starcraft server called BNetD.
Nintendo’s whole attitude toward emulation is infuriating nonsense pushing for digital art to slowly rot.
You want open source treated well? Remove IP protections from closed-source projects.
It’s like patents versus trade secrets. If you show your work and agree to let anyone play with it, there are incentives provided. If you rely on secrecy… and people figure it out anyway… tough shit.
When you’re talking to an open source dev, just remember that they are literally giving you their time for free, and they are people who don’t like to be treated poorly....
Copyright is only an incentive to create new works for the public. For us. Once you’ve sold it, it’s ours. That’s what the money is for. If thirty years isn’t enough then it’s just not gonna happen.
People have a right to culture. Anything you grew up with is yours to build on.
Copyright’s explicit purpose is to encourage new works.
Any form of “unpublishing” is theft from the public. You wanna say a guy can’t make money on a thing? Great, fine, go nuts. But nothing any human being put effort into deserves to be lost forever.
Porn sites Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat face stricter requirements to verify the ages of their users after being officially designated as “Very Large Online Platforms” (VLOPs) under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA)....
But I also feel that any random kid shouldn’t be able to just go to these sites and see porn freely.
At some point, you have to ask - why?
If that’s the alternative to spying on everyone, I’m still opposed to spying on everyone. Unsupervised internet access leading kids to pornography certainly would not be new. It’s not the end of the world.
Just throw your warnings and have a click-through. It’ll be just as effective, much cheaper, and not leave bastard politicians salivating about their social control fetish.
Apple is bringing sideloading and alternate app stores to the iPhone (www.theverge.com)
Put me in the trash can at the park. (lemmy.world)
Reddit API blew up and now I run Linux? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
I feel like I’ve been gaslit into running FOSS but every success only brings me closer to fighting god
I love those path (lemm.ee)
How do you address a letter to an army soldier or even a navy sailor on a ship?
I was watching Band of Brother and wondering how those paratroopers got letters from home. Did their family need to know their nearest base? Or could they simply write their name and battallion? If I want to mail a package to a sailor do I just the ship’s name? Or a port? I’m not actually mailing anything I’m just curious...
Don't read classical philosophers, they're cringe (sh.itjust.works)
I will take no questions, thank you.
18 January 2024 (sh.itjust.works)
19 January 2024 (sh.itjust.works)
Light is light 🤷 (sh.itjust.works)
Hate when it happens (lemmy.kde.social)
16 January 2024 (sh.itjust.works)
Film studios demand IP addresses of people who discussed piracy on Reddit (arstechnica.com)
What comes after open source? Bruce Perens is working on it (www.theregister.com)
Perens says there are several pressing problems that the open source community needs to address....
Don't be that guy. (lemmy.world)
When you’re talking to an open source dev, just remember that they are literally giving you their time for free, and they are people who don’t like to be treated poorly....
add finger guns for max coolness (lemmy.ml)
The "Steamboat Willie" debacle or: Why IP does us more harm than good (lemmy.world)
Hello frens,...
Amazon and Tolkein Estate force author to destroy all copies of his work. Only pirated copies will survive. (variety.com)
Trig (lemmy.world)
[Discussion] How do you feel about age verification on Porn sites? (lemmings.world)
Porn sites Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat face stricter requirements to verify the ages of their users after being officially designated as “Very Large Online Platforms” (VLOPs) under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA)....