From the Jargon File: Traditionally, the first program a C coder is supposed to write in a new environment is one that just prints “hello, world” to standard output.
C is an ancient language. The first documented appearance of “Hello, World!” is in the 1972 training manual for C’s predecessor language B, written by Brian Kernighan (source).
I use it, whenever I’m writing a new program in any language. Perhaps you do too. It’s half habit, half being connected with the lineage, and half a proof that everything deeper in the stack is working as expected… the terminal is outputting text so I can see it; the language interpreter was compiled properly; the OS has enough memory; the electrons are still doing their electronic thing – all these things have to be tested once, they can’t be assumed.
2.
Ich bin ein Paradigm Shifter, Karlheinz Brandenburg, the inventor of the MP3 and his muse: Suzanne Vega.
MP3 is remarkable not just because it makes music into a very small digital file format, but because that file format was the lynchpin of an entire industry. Files can be played, bought, and sold. A multiplayer economy! The power of the file!
To create MP3, Brandenburg had to appreciate how the human ear perceives sound.
He heard Suzanne Vega’s wonderful acappella song Tom’s Diner playing down a corridor and adopted it.
Because the song depends on very subtle nuances of Vega’s inflection, the algorithm would have to be very, very good to select the most important parts of the sound file and discard the rest. So Brandenburg tested each refinement of his system with “Tom’s Diner.” He wound up listening to the song thousands of times, and the result was a code that was heard around the world. When an MP3 player compresses music by anyone from Courtney Love to Kenny G, it is replicating the way that Brandenburg heard Suzanne Vega.
3.
In 1974, Martin Newell made important contributions to the rendering of 3D graphics as part of his PhD at the University of Utah.
But he needed a sufficiently complex object for his demos.
One day over tea, Newell told his wife Sandra that he needed more interesting models. Sandra suggested that he digitize the shapes of the tea service they were using, a simple Melitta set from a local department store. It was an auspicious choice: The curves, handle, lid, and spout of the teapot all conspired to make it an ideal object for graphical experiment. Unlike other objects, the teapot could, for instance, cast a shadow on itself in several places. Newell grabbed some graph paper and a pencil, and sketched it.
The Utah teapot.
These days, the Utah teapot has achieved legendary status. It’s a built-in shape in many 3D graphics software packages used for testing, benchmarking, and demonstration. Graphics geeks like to sneak it into scenes and games as an in-joke, an homage to their countless hours of rendering teapots; hence its appearances in Windows, Toy Story, and The Simpsons.
The traditional test that you run through the pipeline to check everything’s working. I guess every specialism has something like this – testing, testing, 1, 2, 1, 2. I wonder if they have a generic name. It would be fun to collect them.
4.
The Forgotten ‘China Girls’ Hidden at the Beginning of Old Films (Atlas Obscura):Used as quality control, these haunting images were never meant to be public.
Faces of people (typically women, almost always white) at the beginning of a film reel, to help the projectionist check that everything is functioning as expected.
The image carries bias with it. Colour film was terrible at depicting people of colour for years and years and years, with the issue being addressed only in the 1970s in response to advertisers: wood furniture and chocolate makers began complaining that Kodak film wasn’t capturing the difference in wood grains and chocolate types. Shocking.
TANGENTIALLY:
Beagle 2 was the ESA lander dispatched to the surface of Mars in 2003… and lost. Cameras on landers have calibration images for colour correction etc, checking against a known image, and Beagle 2 used a custom Damien Hirst spot painting.
Here it is: “Beagle 2 Calibration Target”, 2002, natural pigments on aluminium, .35 x 3 x 3 in.
When we get people to Mars, if we settle the surface, they should go to where the lander was eventually found (it was found by satellite in 2015) and build a gallery around it. Leave the art in situ.
‘Yes, we’ll see them together some Saturday afternoon then,’ she said. ‘I won’t have any hand in your not going to Cathedral on Sunday morning. I suppose we must be getting back. What time was it when you looked at your watch just now?’ "In China and some other countries it is not considered necessary to give the girls any education; but in Japan it is not so. The girls are educated here, though not so much as the boys; and of late years they have established schools where they receive what we call the higher branches of instruction. Every year new schools for girls are opened; and a great many of the Japanese who formerly would not be seen in public with their wives have adopted the Western idea, and bring their wives into society. The marriage laws have been arranged so as to allow the different classes to marry among[Pg 258] each other, and the government is doing all it can to improve the condition of the women. They were better off before than the women of any other Eastern country; and if things go on as they are now going, they will be still better in a few years. The world moves. "Frank and Fred." She whispered something to herself in horrified dismay; but then she looked at me with her eyes very blue and said "You'll see him about it, won't you? You must help unravel this tangle, Richard; and if you do I'll--I'll dance at your wedding; yours and--somebody's we know!" Her eyes began forewith. Lawrence laughed silently. He seemed to be intensely amused about something. He took a flat brown paper parcel from his pocket. making a notable addition to American literature. I did truly. "Surely," said the minister, "surely." There might have been men who would have remembered that Mrs. Lawton was a tough woman, even for a mining town, and who would in the names of their own wives have refused to let her cross the threshold of their homes. But he saw that she was ill, and he did not so much as hesitate. "I feel awful sorry for you sir," said the Lieutenant, much moved. "And if I had it in my power you should go. But I have got my orders, and I must obey them. I musn't allow anybody not actually be longing to the army to pass on across the river on the train." "Throw a piece o' that fat pine on the fire. Shorty," said the Deacon, "and let's see what I've got." "Further admonitions," continued the Lieutenant, "had the same result, and I was about to call a guard to put him under arrest, when I happened to notice a pair of field-glasses that the prisoner had picked up, and was evidently intending to appropriate to his own use, and not account for them. This was confirmed by his approaching me in a menacing manner, insolently demanding their return, and threatening me in a loud voice if I did not give them up, which I properly refused to do, and ordered a Sergeant who had come up to seize and buck-and-gag him. The Sergeant, against whom I shall appear later, did not obey my orders, but seemed to abet his companion's gross insubordination. The scene finally culminated, in the presence of a number of enlisted men, in the prisoner's wrenching the field-glasses away from me by main force, and would have struck me had not the Sergeant prevented this. It was such an act as in any other army in the world would have subjected the offender to instant execution. It was only possible in—" "Don't soft-soap me," the old woman snapped. "I'm too old for it and I'm too tough for it. I want to look at some facts, and I want you to look at them, too." She paused, and nobody said a word. "I want to start with a simple statement. We're in trouble." RE: Fruyling's World "MACDONALD'S GATE" "Read me some of it." "Well, I want something better than that." HoME大香蕉第一时间
ENTER NUMBET 0016www.gb8news.com.cn idrwig.com.cn hskhdzsw.com.cn www.okfchjk.net.cn www.shuyisc.com.cn pawallet.com.cn www.sjzrcfz.com.cn www.thchain.com.cn qynytech.com.cn www.xgchain.com.cn
1.
Hello, World!
From the Jargon File:
C is an ancient language. The first documented appearance of “Hello, World!” is in the 1972 training manual for C’s predecessor language B, written by Brian Kernighan (source).
I use it, whenever I’m writing a new program in any language. Perhaps you do too. It’s half habit, half being connected with the lineage, and half a proof that everything deeper in the stack is working as expected… the terminal is outputting text so I can see it; the language interpreter was compiled properly; the OS has enough memory; the electrons are still doing their electronic thing – all these things have to be tested once, they can’t be assumed.
2.
Ich bin ein Paradigm Shifter,
MP3 is remarkable not just because it makes music into a very small digital file format, but because that file format was the lynchpin of an entire industry. Files can be played, bought, and sold. A multiplayer economy! The power of the file!
He heard Suzanne Vega’s wonderful acappella song Tom’s Diner playing down a corridor and adopted it.
3.
In 1974, Martin Newell made important contributions to the rendering of 3D graphics as part of his PhD at the University of Utah.
But he needed a sufficiently complex object for his demos.
The Utah teapot.
The traditional test that you run through the pipeline to check everything’s working. I guess every specialism has something like this – testing, testing, 1, 2, 1, 2. I wonder if they have a generic name. It would be fun to collect them.
4.
The Forgotten ‘China Girls’ Hidden at the Beginning of Old Films (Atlas Obscura):
Faces of people (typically women, almost always white) at the beginning of a film reel, to help the projectionist check that everything is functioning as expected.
The image carries bias with it. Colour film was terrible at depicting people of colour for years and years and years, with the issue being addressed only in the 1970s in response to advertisers: Shocking.
TANGENTIALLY:
Beagle 2 was the ESA lander dispatched to the surface of Mars in 2003… and lost. Cameras on landers have calibration images for colour correction etc, checking against a known image, and Beagle 2 used a custom Damien Hirst spot painting.
Here it is: “Beagle 2 Calibration Target”, 2002, natural pigments on aluminium, .35 x 3 x 3 in.
When we get people to Mars, if we settle the surface, they should go to where the lander was eventually found (it was found by satellite in 2015) and build a gallery around it. Leave the art in situ.