The Old New Thing

Maybe that's how you do it, but around here, we have a different convention for indicating which things are broken

April 2, 2008 Apr 2, 2008 04/2/08
Raymond Chen
One of the reactions to my story of investigating a dead computer struck me as rather strange. Commenter Steve wrote, "Usually video cards left on a table don't works well (the one inside a computer have a better probability)." While it's true that the ones inside a computer are more likely to work, it's not the case, at least around here, ...

Pranksters breathe a sigh of relief: There will never be a Building 7

April 1, 2008 Apr 1, 2008 04/1/08
Raymond Chen
It is a longstanding prank at Microsoft's main Redmond campus to send an unsuspecting new employee to building 7 under the pretense of having a meeting or needing to pick up something. There is no such building on the main Microsoft campus. This nonexistent building has also been used as a sort of inside joke. For example, if somebody ...

You can drag multiple virtual objects, you know

March 31, 2008 Mar 31, 2008 03/31/08
Raymond Chen
A customer wanted to know how they could find out the directory that the user dropped a file onto. As we already noted, users can drop files onto things other than directories, so the question itself comes with incorrect hidden assumptions. This is another one of those cases where you have to ask the customer, "What are you really trying to ...

The most academically elite team in college basketball, in quest for their first conference win in 21 years

March 28, 2008 Mar 28, 2008 03/28/08
Raymond Chen
Quantum Hoops is a new documentary which follows the college basketball program at the California Institute of Technology through its 2007–2008 season. The school is regularly honored as one of the finest academic colleges in the United States. Their basketball team, on the other hand, is not as well-honored. It has won two conference ...

Microspeak: Newplacement

March 28, 2008 Mar 28, 2008 03/28/08
Raymond Chen
When talking about why people buy computers, there are two broad categories, "replacement computers" (those which replace an older machine being retired) and "new placement computers" (those which do not). Now, sure, you have to call them something, but "new placements" sounds kind of markety. Then again, I felt the same way about using "...

Meet Deltalina, the star of Delta's new in-flight safety video

March 27, 2008 Mar 27, 2008 03/27/08
Raymond Chen
Who knew that in-flight safety videos could be so popular? Introduced to the world on the Delta blog, the latest Delta in-flight safety video has generated quite a buzz around the Internet. Well, more accurately, the buzz surrounds the video's star, flight attendant Katherine Lee, known to her drooling fans as Deltalina, with secondary ...

Why do structures get tag names even if there is a typedef?

March 27, 2008 Mar 27, 2008 03/27/08
Raymond Chen
As we noted last time, structure tags are different from the typedef name as a historical artifact of earlier versions of the C language. But what about just leaving out the name entirely? One problem with this approach is that it becomes impossible to make a forward reference to this structure because it has no name. For example, if you ...

Why are structure names different from their typedef names?

March 26, 2008 Mar 26, 2008 03/26/08
Raymond Chen
In Windows header files, many structures are declared like this: Why is the structure name different from typedef name? This is a holdover from very early versions of the C language where structure tags, union tags, and typedefs were kept in the same namespace. Consequently, you couldn't say . At the open brace, the compiler registers ...