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andrewmu

Re:5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens on Thursday April 23, 2026 @11:30AM (#47876937)
I haven't got round to publicising it yet, but I made a web application for designing small pixel fonts: https://microfonts.com/

The smallest legible one I've come up with is 4x6 (with inter-character spacing).

Re:PS5 Teardown [video] on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @10:00AM (#24708269)
In the video at 2:31 the presenter says it has two dust catchers.
Re:Why plants don’t die from cancer on Monday July 01, 2019 @10:25AM (#20325520)
That's not usually true. A large proportion of pet rats die from tumours. Furthermore although e.g. in mice, there's Oncomouse, bred with a susceptibility to cancer, rats have been resistant to similar techniques (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knockout_rat#Production_challe...)
Re:The 3dfx Voodoo1 on Friday April 05, 2019 @05:38AM (#19581021)
The problem is that VR performance is tightly coupled to GPU performance. Currently, adding more pixels requires an equivalent increase in GPU performance to maintain quality.

I'm prepared to believe that e.g. foveal rendering will give step-wise improvements without more GPU power, but it's not the same as the years of continual process improvements were for GPUs.

Re:Bitcoin Spreads Like a Virus on Thursday March 21, 2019 @11:53AM (#19453805)
It's true that Bitcoin can't be used legally in fractional-reserve banking, but given the behaviour of exchanges to continue trading despite a proportion of their holdings having been hacked or embezzled, there was an element of de-facto fractional reserve going on.
I wouldn't say that that allowing fringe voices has been occasional. Nigel Farage has had a very disproportionate number of appearances on Question Time alone.

More recently the BBC allowed Arron Banks to defend himself publicly against legal charges of election interference in a way which might well bias a trial.

The BBC might not be "government funded state propaganda" but BBC governors are chosen by the government.

This is not a valid argument for the BBC being an objective broadcasting organisation. One side can rightfully claim bias and then the other side can over-sensitively claim bias the other way because the BBC isn't 100% presenting it's view. The BBC could still be much more biased towards one side.
Re:Why we needed Redux in the past, and don’t any more on Friday September 07, 2018 @04:55AM (#17932804)
Next.js (https://nextjs.org/) lets you render pages on the server but have your React app behave normally after that. It's potentially useful for SEO and reducing latency for final page display.
To be fair, some English speakers will say baby to mean a particular unnamed infant. For example, a midwife or childcare adviser will talk about what to do "when baby gets home" or "If baby is hungry.." etc.
Re:Virtual Memory Tricks on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @06:55AM (#15642620)
One use is tagged pointers, using the top unused address bits for e.g. type information (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagged_pointer)
Re:Node.js has forked into Ayo on Wednesday August 23, 2017 @11:43AM (#15082400)
The late Pieter Hintjens had some thoughtful criticisms of CoCs: http://hintjens.com/blog:108

From my understanding, he's concerned about harmful assumptions sometimes made in them and also how the policing of them can be abusive.

I won't say governments are perfect, but at least buying votes values each individual equally (in theory, there's various issues of how democracy is actually implemented).
Re:Yad Vashem's database of Holocaust victims' names on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @05:50AM (#14192040)
Perceived excessive reparations for World War 1 were one of the grievances used by the Nazi party to gain power. It was possibly a good idea not to repeat those circumstances.
Re:Solar-powered UK schools face an 800% tax increase on Thursday March 09, 2017 @09:04AM (#13829282)
One of the further absurdities is that the tax applies to state schools but not private fee-paying schools.
Re:How the Web Became Unreadable on Wednesday October 19, 2016 @11:54AM (#12744908)
High resolution screens have lots of pixels and high DPI screens have many pixels per inch.

If you look at an Ultra HD (3840x2180) 40" TV close up versus a 5" phone screen (say 1334x750) viewed from the same distance you'll notice the phone screen is sharper despite having fewer pixels.

Re:You Are Not a Commodity [audio] on Monday September 26, 2016 @04:17PM (#12585176)
There's a bit of irony between the title and the wording in the EU cookie warning:

"We use cookies to personalise content and ads [..]. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners."

I think it should be named "UBoatyMcUBoatface"
Re:The A.I. Anxiety on Tuesday December 29, 2015 @01:09PM (#10808068)
I'm imagining a self-aware AI doing good all day then retiring to it's private realm to watch videos of paper-clip manufacturing.
Java only allows signed 32-bit integers as array indices. It 's a compile time error to access an array with a long index (http://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jls/se8/html/jls-10.html...).
Ugh, the clumsy/non-standard naming of the 64-bit variant irritates me. AMD64, x86_64, x64, EM64, "Intel 64" (not Intel Architecture 64, although x86 is Intel Architecture 32), etc. And ARM have now done something similar for "AArch64".
Re:My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon on Wednesday August 19, 2015 @05:15AM (#10084402)
Unemployment?
Re:University Students are Afraid of Everything on Tuesday August 11, 2015 @11:41AM (#10041874)
I was once voted class representative because I happened to fall asleep at the front while it was being decided.
Re:Supercomputers: Obama orders world's fastest computer on Thursday July 30, 2015 @05:15PM (#9978184)
He didn't report it, he gave an estimate. And as for "wouldn't trust a Brit", I'd trust anyone directly involved in it, regardless of nationality.
Re:Pragmatic physically based rendering: Intro on Monday July 13, 2015 @02:29PM (#9879983)
This is really nice. I like the lighting model but also the attention to detail, e.g. scratches on the Chrome material. One thing, that might be specific to my renderer implementation - the specular reflection seems to be point sampled. Is this to do with a float texture limitation?
From Florian Miller's bio on that page: "He is now developing a game app for smartphones and tablet computers." I wonder if that includes Android.
Re:Show HN: CSS Filter Effects on Thursday May 07, 2015 @10:52AM (#9505452)
I'm wondering why the greyscale and saturation filters were both necessary. greyscale(0) == saturation(1.0) and greyscale(1.0) == saturation(0.0), with afaik a linear scaling between either.
Re:Pixel Perfect: Fingerprinting Canvas in HTML5 on Wednesday July 23, 2014 @05:34AM (#8073496)
And Canvas 2D.
Re:Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009) on Thursday March 27, 2014 @07:56AM (#7479766)
Yes, criticising the current popular models is valid, but doesn't suggesting that strong AI is impossible in theory allow a dualist or mystical view?
Re:Oculus Joins Facebook on Wednesday March 26, 2014 @10:11AM (#7473426)
I too am instinctively repelled by this acquisition. I did prefer the idea of the technology remaining independent and supported on multiple platforms.

MS, Apple, Google, Sony all have their own closed(* Android is arguable, I know) devices that they would prefer to limit the technology to. The benefit to Facebook is to have a primary interface perhaps hosted on another platform but not completely dependent on it.

I can think of three obvious negatives:

Carmack's apparently successful work using mobile graphics hardware to generate acceptable output for the Rift could allow a much wider adoption among the casual users who don't have a hardcore gaming PC/latest generation console. Facebook might focus on producing a low-cost version that lacks the resolution/low latency which would be preferable to gamers / professional 3D users. An extensive patent portfolio could inhibit higher-end competitors from easily addressing that market.

The second concern is that Facebook would in political superpower-like ways abuse the power to grant access to a popular VR platform and demand concessions such as mandatory Facebook accounts for gaming, an egregious cut of royalties, banning of anything that "replicates Facebook functionality" etc.

Thirdly, is the probably the most common knee-jerk consumer issue; ultra creepy Facebook, logging and mining everything that you foveate on, from the ad logos in virtual environments to the facial/bodily features of your friends' avatars. They build a more detailed model of your own desires and motivations than you consciously have of yourself.

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