The Old New Thing

July 2009 - Page 3 of 5 - The Old New Thing

Separating the metadata from the DIB pixels: Changing the raster operation

July 16, 2009 Jul 16, 2009 07/16/09
Raymond Chen
For a few days now, we've used the function in conjunction with a precomputed to draw a DIB with an alternate color table without modifying the . The function operates like a with raster operation . If you want another raster operation, you can use , which has a final raster operation parameter. Despite its name, you don't have to ...

On gender differences in expectations of thinness, and the impact on guys who live in their parents' basement

July 15, 2009 Jul 15, 2009 07/15/09
Raymond Chen
At dinner a few years ago, one of my friends brought up a study (which I can't find, so who knows if it's actually true, but let's assume it's true for the sake of the story) that examined the effect of gender differences in expectations of thinness. One of the factors that the study considered was sexual orientation, and they found that ...

Separating the metadata from the DIB pixels: Precalculating the BITMAPINFO

July 15, 2009 Jul 15, 2009 07/15/09
Raymond Chen
Last time, we saw that you can use the function to draw a DIB with an alternate color table without having to modify the . In that version of the function, we selected the into a device context in preparation for drawing from it, but in fact that step isn't necessary for drawing. It was merely necessary to get the original color table so ...

What happens to your restaurant tip?

July 14, 2009 Jul 14, 2009 07/14/09
Raymond Chen
Some time ago, the Seattle Times ran an article on how your restaurant tip gets divided up among the staff. A week later, they ran an entire article of responses to the original article, some from customers, but many from restaurant staff (both cooks and servers). And, now on a roll, the next week's food section looked at the sociology of...

Failed follow-up: The case of the dubious dental work

July 13, 2009 Jul 13, 2009 07/13/09
Raymond Chen
I've been waiting for an opportunity to do a follow-up on this story, but the trail appears to have gone cold. Here's the story as we know it so far: In 2004, a woman (who had previously run unsuccessfully for a city council position) files a $6,370 claim for dental work against McDonald's, claiming that she injured her teeth biting into a ...

If dynamic DLL dependencies were tracked, they'd be all backwards

July 10, 2009 Jul 10, 2009 07/10/09
Raymond Chen
Whenever the issue of DLL dependencies arises, I can count on somebody arguing that these dynamic dependencies should be tracked, even if doing so cannot be proven to be reliable. Even if one could walk the call stack reliably, you would still get it wrong. The example I gave originally was the common helper library, where loads via an ...

Film students and The Bicycle Thief

July 9, 2009 Jul 9, 2009 07/9/09
Raymond Chen
The current generation of young people grew up in a very different world from us older folks. There has always been an Internet. Everybody is accessible by mobile phone. Cars have always had power windows. (Which reminds me of a story of a friend of mine who has an older-model car and was giving a ride to an eight-year-old relative. The ...