[-] Redkey@programming.dev 1 points 3 days ago

Swap the positions of Minish Cap and Link to the Past, then play them from the bottom up.

I'm not sure if that's the actual release order, but it feels like the right "progression" to me.

[-] Redkey@programming.dev 5 points 3 days ago

When the Wii launched, a few pundits called it "two GameCubes taped together", which I thought was a bit rude and overly dismissive.

Years later, I started really looking into the technical side of things, and oh my goodness it really is almost two GameCubes taped together. I mean, it works wonderfully and I'm not knocking it, but IIRC the majority of what's under the hood is either an upgraded version of what was in the GCN, or a doubling of the capacity (in some cases literally two) of the same component.

[-] Redkey@programming.dev 3 points 4 days ago

It's not a really big thing, but it is a pet peeve of mine (and some others); the name of the series isn't "Dues Ex" but "Deus Ex" (day-us ex), as in "deus ex machina" (day-us ex mack-in-a).

"Deus ex machina" literally translates as "God from (the) machine", and originally referred to a type of stage prop used in ancient plays, then in more modern times the term came to refer more generally to the sort of plot device that used that prop, which is a previously unmentioned person or thing that suddenly appears to save the heroes from an otherwise inescapable threat. At some time in the 60s or 70s it started to become popular to use it in a more literal sense in sci-fi stories about machine intelligence or cyborgs.

[-] Redkey@programming.dev 3 points 6 days ago

Ah, that makes much more sense. Thanks!

[-] Redkey@programming.dev 36 points 1 month ago

Yeah, I'm sure that almost all of us have felt this way at one time or another. But the thing is, every team behind every moronic, bone-headed interface "update" that you've ever hated also sees themselves in the programmer's position in this meme.

[-] Redkey@programming.dev 39 points 4 months ago

Unfortunately we all know what happens when you tell hackers that something's going to be very hard to break into.

I understand that they were excited about the idea and wanted to share it with gamers, but if they actually wanted to give the system the best chance of success, they should've kept their mouth shut.

[-] Redkey@programming.dev 26 points 5 months ago

Thr34dN3cr0 wrote (14:12 5/17/2019):

Does anyone have a way to fix this in the latest version? I've been looking all day but none of the answers I've found work.

Thr34dN3cr0 wrote (14:48 5/17/2019):

nvm figured it out.

[-] Redkey@programming.dev 38 points 5 months ago

"If you wish to be a writer, write."

Epictetus delivered this burn over 1900 years ago.

[-] Redkey@programming.dev 25 points 5 months ago

Re: the Acceptance stage.

Years ago I worked at a family-run business with a good working environment. The staff were once told a story of how, earlier in the company's history, a manager made a mistake that caused the company a substantial monetary loss.

The manager immediately offered their resignation, but the owner said to them, "Why would I let you go now? I've just spent all this money so you could learn a valuable lesson!"

So yeah, generally, most managers' reaction to accidentally deleting vital data from production is going to be to fire the developer as a knee-jerk "retaliation", but if you think about it, the best response is to keep that developer; your data isn't coming back either way, but this developer has just learned to be a lot more careful in the future. Why would you send them to a potential competitor?

[-] Redkey@programming.dev 30 points 6 months ago

It's a persistent dynamic memory allocation that's accessed by multiple processes! :)

[-] Redkey@programming.dev 46 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

This is a short, interesting video, but there's really nothing here for any competent programmer, even a fresh graduate. It turns out they they update the software by sending the update by radio (/s). The video hardly goes any deeper than that, and also makes a couple of very minor layman-level flubs.

There is a preservation effort for the old NASA computing hardware from the missions in the 50s and 60s, and you can find videos about it on YouTube. They go into much more detail without requiring much prior knowledge about specific technologies from the period. Here's one I watched recently about the ROM and RAM used in some Apollo missions: https://youtu.be/hckwxq8rnr0?si=EKiLO-ZpQnJa-TQn

One thing that struck me about the video was how the writers expressed surprise that it was still working and also so adaptable. And my thought was, "Well, yeah, it was designed by people who knew what they were doing, with a good budget, lead by managers whose goal was to make excellent equipment, rather than maximize short-term profits."

[-] Redkey@programming.dev 76 points 11 months ago

I once had a manager hand me a project brief and ask me how quickly I thought I could complete it. I was managing my own workload (it was a bad situation), but it was a very small project and I felt that I had time to put everything else on hold and focus on it. So, I said that I might be able to get it done in four days, but I wouldn't commit to less than a week just to be sure.

The manger started off on this half-threatening, half-disappointed rant about how the project had a deadline set in stone (in four days' time), and how the head of the company had committed to it in public (which in hindsight was absolute rot). I was young and nervous, but fortunately for me every project brief had a timeline of who had seen it, and more importantly, when they had received it. I noticed that this brief had originated over three months prior, and had been sitting on this manager's desk for almost a month. I was the first developer in the chain. That gave me the guts to say that my estimate was firm, and that if anyone actually came down the ladder looking for heads to set rolling (one of the manager's threats), they could come to me and I would explain.

In the end nothing ever came of it because I managed to get the job done in three days. They tried to put the screws to me over that small of a project.

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Redkey

joined 1 year ago