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If they were young, would they be littering?
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Talk about solar [lack of] energy!
Software Zen: delete this;
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Serial communication without a UART, all in bit banged software, is fun. But it can also get a little frustrating at times. By now I have reached 19200 baud with variable timing constants and even 38400 baud if I throw out the timing loops and replace them by a few carefully calculated NOPs. If I can squeeze a few more bus cycles out of the processor, even 76800 baud may be possible. Really not so bad for a processor from 1976.
That works like a charm with normal terminal emulation, but a simple XMODEM upload can get hairy. On one side you have some PC that sends one byte after with its UART and without any notable delay. And on the other side you have a tiny 8 bit processor without a UART, flow control or any such luxuries.
The problem is that you have to do something with the bytes you have received and be ready in time to catch the next start bit, or else the whole timing will be thrown off and the upload will fail.
So where can we buy ourselves the time to calculate memory addresses or checksums when the bytes come in without delay? It's the stop bits. They are not relevant data, nor do they add any noteworthy security or error detection. One serial clock pulse is not much time, but it will have to do. 52 microseconds at 19200 baud. AT my current clock frequency, that gives me time for about 20 instructions before I have to be ready to receive the next byte. No more, no less.
So, I optimized the hell out of my code and ... it got worse. Especially at lower baud rates (where I should actually have more time) I got more errors than before. I was too fast and that led to the still incoming stop bit to be mistaken for the next start bit. A single additional instruction in the serial input routine to detect this and the problems went away. Victory!
Still, I could now go for 38400 baud. Maybe 10 instructions between incoming bytes are also enough...
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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Ah, those were the days. In many ways. UART's. Having to code in assembly with an without UART's. Serial I/O. Start/stop bits. Byte width. And to think I got paid for solving those problems. How times have changed.
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Times have not changed so much. There are more jobs than ever for those of us who have not yet been turned into a homogenized, pasteurized and brain washed code monkey.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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CodeWraith wrote: ...homogenized, pasteurized and brain washed code monkey
How can I be of service? 
I've got JavaScript, React, Vue and/or NodeJS. 
I mean, all code is JavaScript now, right?
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I still have PISD (Post Interrupt Service Disorder) from writing bimodal interrupt handling. One of my MS-DOS projects ran under the DOS4GW DOS extender (same as DOOM), which let the body of the application run in protected mode. The extender would automatically switch from protected mode to real mode to handle an interrupt, and then back again. Unfortunately that was slow, so you could be bimodal instead. You installed both a real-mode and a protected mode interrupt service, and could therefore omit the expensive mode switched. Sharing data between the two was left up to the developer. My solution was to create the data areas in the real-mode code, and pass the address to them in the command line when the real-mode started up the protected mode code. I was handling three RS-232 ports running at 56K, along with three parallel ports outputting 100KB per second, on a 16 MHz 386SX processor.
The really neat trick was using the same C source code for both the real and protected mode interrupt services.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Those were the days; assembly, optimizing, tight loops and lots of coffee and pizza.
How times have changed, now just get an inexpensive MCU and everything you need is there with little fuss.
The less you need, the more you have.
Even a blind squirrel gets a nut...occasionally.
JaxCoder.com
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Of Mice and Men...
Good book, though I hated reading it in High School for some reason.
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So what? As long as we can worry about that, we obviously are not extinct yet. If that really happens, we also don't need to worry anymore and every living thing on the planet would praise us for this noble sacrifice. If they could.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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H. G. Wells was right about the Eloi and the Morlocks after all.
I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated.
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Mice aren't men. On the other hand, too many people are lemmings.
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That's an insult to the lemmings.
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It's why the first Matrix failed, everyone was too comfortable...
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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Got an email this morning, my child adoption form was received and being processed.
Thought it was spam at first, but it seemed to be genuine.
My memory isn't always a 100%, but I think I'd remember filling out an adoption form, or in my case I should even remember I actually like and want kids (I'm like the anti-child) 
Replied to the mail and told the lady that the next time she wants to adopt a child with someone maybe she should at least meet the guy and go on a couple of dates first...
It turned out to be for someone with the same name + an extra letter.
Wished them all the best and deleted the email as it's a slight invasion of privacy (and a data leak).
So that was interesting 
Now what do I do with this kid that was just delivered by mail, how many stamps to send it back?
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Assuming that the Royal Netherlands post (or whatever it's official name is...) allows the shipment of livestock at all, even a baby is likely to exceed the maximum mass limit for a parcel. I'm afraid that you'd have to use a private courier. 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Well, that dealt with the misdirected email, but I bet it doesn't do anything for the application form. You'll have to prove you're the person on the form to do that. Which you're not.
I must say as a way of getting revenge on a total stranger (or maybe not?) filling in such a form on their behalf is a really clever approach; shame about the collateral damage to the kid(s). (The form did tick the box for twins/triplets, right?)
  CONGRATULATIONS ![Rose | [Rose]](https://codeproject.freetls.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
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DerekT-P wrote: I must say as a way of getting revenge on a total stranger (or maybe not?) filling in such a form on their behalf is a really clever approach; shame about the collateral damage
A half dozen(?) years ago when a Smogwagon Stealership repeatedly ignored requests (both via email and unsubscribe links) to stop emailing me receipts/etc every time one of their customers took his vehicle in for service I eventually started doing that. It was in the middle of the diesel gate scandal, so I was doubly unconcerned about collateral damage if the surveys were only processed by an automated system that looked at the 0/10's I was filling in while ignoring the "I'm not your customer but you won't stop spamming me when I try to unsubscribe via normal means" and "Smogwagon is the most terrible company on the planet and you all should be in jail" style rants I put in all the free form text slots.
After about a year or so of doing that they eventually stopped spamming me. If that was because they finally fixed their data, the customer sold his car and bought a replacement elsewhere, or all the 0's I gave resulted in a mindless corporate overlord bot shutting the location down I neither know nor particularly care.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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That was only level 1. Next time it will probably not be that easy to dodge that bullet.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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Nope, next thing will happen is the kid coming knocking at the door... "Mum says that you're my father!"
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
Mark Twain
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Light saber (red): 200000 $
Star Destroyer: 4000000000000 $
The look on the faces of your estranged children when they hear that you are their father: Priceless.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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I have been seriously worried that some little asian kid(Phillipino, or Chinese) would do exactly that.
That's one reason I kept moving around after leaving the Navy in 1973.
If it hasn't happened by now, I guess I can stop worrying. But, stranger things have happened.
ed
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Sander Rossel wrote: how many stamps to send it back?
It depends what size boots you're wearing.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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