Author: Dag-Erling Smørgrav

Nilges v. the World

Herbert Schildt is the author of a series of books on computer programming, including about a dozen about C, which are widely considered by the C community to be, to put it bluntly, shit. Two of them, C: A Complete Reference and The Annotated C Standard have been roundly criticized by Peter Seebach and Clive Feather, respectively, and inspired a number of scathing reviews on the Association of C and C++ Users website. Even Steve Summit’s C FAQ includes a warning about The Annotated C Standard.

Recently, a certain Edward Nilges has been waging a highly entertaining crusade against Schildt’s critics on comp.lang.c (C as a Platonic pathology) and comp.lang.c.moderated (Statement on Schildt submitted to wikipedia today)).

The whole point of this entry is to share with you some exquisite gems from the latter thread: Continue reading “Nilges v. the World”

VirtualWoes

I find myself in a position where I have to run Windows on my laptop, and use it on a daily basis. This does not make me a happy moggie, as I have run Ubuntu exclusively (except for gaming) for several years. I finally decided that the best solution would be to run Ubuntu in VirtualBox on top of Windows.

(Yes, I still run Hardy, as I still haven’t recovered from trying out the unmitigated disaster that was Intrepid. I may give Jaunty a spin some day; VirtualBox makes this so much easier… but in the meantime, Hardy it is. Besides, it’s an LTS release.)

Why not the other way around? Three reasons: Windows is a PITA to virtualize (not least from a licensing POV); I never do anything really performance-sensitive in Linux, but I do in Windows; and doing it this way around means I can suspend and hibernate, something Linux still can’t do. (Cue angry comments from Linux fanboys insisting that suspend and hibernate work just fine and I’m an idiot; sorry, but no, it has never worked for me on any of the laptops I have owned or managed—even those manufactured by companies that spend millions of dollars every year on Linux development.)

Running Ubuntu in VirtualBox is not as easy as it sounds, though. You can’t just create a new VM, pop in the CD, and install. There are several issues that took me quite a while to resolve, and the VirtualBox web forum was no help at all: the moderators arrogantly shut down any thread touching on issues covered by the FAQ, even when the answer given in the FAQ is incorrect and / or insufficient. Continue reading “VirtualWoes”

Dagbladets lemfeldige omgang med fakta

Andre august i år kunne Dagbladet ved Jonas Sverrisson Rasch melde, under overskriften «Nye iPhone på billigsalg i Sverige», at iPhone 3GS var mer enn dobbelt så dyr i Norge som i Sverige.

I følge Dagbladet er minimumsprisen det første året for en iPhone 3GS 16 GB med ubegrenset datatrafikk SEK 5 554 (ca. NOK 4 700) i Sverige, og NOK 13 189 i Norge. Etter to år (svenskene har nemlig 24 måneders bindingstid, mot 12 måneder i Norge) blir regnestykket hhv. SEK 11 108 (ca. NOK 9 400) i Sverige og NOK 23 137 i Norge.

Dette ledsages av intervjuer med beklemte pressetalsmenn som forklarer at prisnivået er jo høyere i Norge, skjønner du, og da kan man jo ta mer betalt enn i Sverige, skjønner du, samt bilder av lettkledde smårips på Jernbanetorget som synes det er så urettferdig, asså, mens de på fotografens oppfordring later som om de snakker i mobilen.

I tillegg har de snakket med «teleanalytiker Tore Aarønæs, daglig leder i Norsk Telekom» (Dagbladet har selvfølgelig klart å stave navnet feil – det heter Norsk Telecom), som forteller at «prisen kommer til å falle, men ikke så langt ned som i Sverige» fordi Norge har «i praksis to operatører» og «priskrigen utvikler seg relativt tregt».

Saken er at det er løgn fra ende til annen. Continue reading “Dagbladets lemfeldige omgang med fakta”

The brave ones

K is away, so I stave off the loneliness and boredom* by playing Morrowind and spending some quality time with the idiot box. Yesterday was Madagascar 2 (not as good as the first one), today was The Brave One.

I didn’t expect much of a film I found in the DVD discount bin barely more than a year after its release, but I thought it was pretty good, although I agree with the critics that its artistic pretensions came off as, well, pretentious, and did more harm than good. The rolling camera angles in some of the scenes (such as immediately before the attack where David is killed) made me seasick, and the sitting-in-the-diner-talking-not-looking-at-each-other-except-they-are-actually-looking-at-each-other-in-the-mirror-behind-the-bar trick passed me (and probably 99% of the audience) by until it was pointed out in the behind-the-scenes featurette, and even then it just seemed… lame.

Still, I’m never one to turn down a Jodie Foster flick. She’s one of my favorite “strong woman” actors, along with Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton. Continue reading “The brave ones”