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Thursday, Nov 09, 2006 - 00:51 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

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Clearly Improved

The Computer Graphics module for which I thought I had flunked the midterm turned out okay after all... whatever got into me to try to calculate pixel-by-pixel positions and display them individually rather than just slap down one nice square and GL_ROTATE it? A bit too much Perl perhaps - TMTOWTDI.

Perl's by far and away my favourite computer language, and after being totally spoilt by it, Java and C++ particularly strike me as overly disciplinarian. Why predeclare variables/define variable types/use classes/compile when you don't have to for so many practical tasks (like this very blog)? Bruce Lee once said, "Whatever works"; No point training the perfect punch when a kick to the shin or groin suffices.

Perl also taught me the three great virtues of a programmer: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris (in that order). Come to think of it, laziness and not necessity may be the true mother of invention. Hardworking people could just plug away at a task, while it takes the sloths to think of ways to escape that. Did you really think that the first caveman to roll stuff on logs would have came up with the idea if he spent all his time straining against huge boulders like a Communist Model Worker? Why bother with a Bunny Letter Opener (兔肉開信機!!) if one is willing to just reach for a pair of scissors?


Sad. (Despair.com Demotivationer)

Analogies don't start with anal without a reason. They sound good, but for many of them they work just as well if you plug different words in - one bird's meat is another worm's poison. In the Oct 26 GDilbert strip, irreproducible here without unlikely express permission, the ever-insightful Ratbert worries that all his wisdom is derived from bad analogies.

Dogbert: "Ratbert, sometimes a good wine has to age before it is perfect."

Ratbert: "So... I'll get smarter over time?"

Dogbert: "To the extent that you are like a grape."

Juicy.


Beware the quotes too. (Uncyclopedia)

Ah yes, I also got Windows Internet Explorer 7 off Automatic Updates. Took about half an hour to get used to the new look, but given the extra screen real estate, that wasn't hard. As expected, the hugely innovative IE team put in tabs (killer feature!). And integrated a search field next to the address field (now where did that come from?). And kicked out the ability to browse local directories (well, I'll miss that). One nice suggestion I read about was to combine the refresh and stop buttons and save another couple hundred pixels.

Getting used to tabs (okay, I'm no Firefox user, I'm pragmatic - IE worked for me, so that was the end of it), but what really hit me was the aesthetics of the text. No more (tiny) jagged edges! It looked... just like my seldom-used Linux distro on my dual-bootable computer. Or a Mac. ClearType it was, and apparently it's a hidden feature of Windows XP. To turn it on, right click your desktop, Properties -> Appearance -> Effects -> Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts -> ClearType. Only really works on LCD screens tho. Some find it blurry, but I love it.

Strangely text on MSN Messenger from non-ClearType users appears in the old way. Can't think of a reason why it is so.

IE7 also (slightly) changed the look of the blog, prompting an emergency patch:

changelog v1.04b
---------------
* Textboxes now are grey instead of yellow due to smart AutoForms which highlight them yellow, of all colours. I spit on this impingement of designer rights.

* Any word(s) may be used as a tag now. If not one of the "standard" category tags, it'll be grey (rather than red) and also link to Technorati, since it's likely a one-off. See top of post for demonstration.

* RSS feed items now include date and time.

* Favicon added.

* Bug with javascript alerts also opening a new window fixed.

IE7 has disabled script access to the Status bar by default, unfortunately. No more scamming that way, but also no more useful messages. Moving on with the times...



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