Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with OReilly

History of Programming Languages Poster

Who_Am_I — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 05:24:40 -0800

Where can I buy the O'Reilly 'History of Programming Languages' poster? I checked ebay and googled around a bit, but couldn't find any for sale. I don't have plans to attend any of their conferences, is that really the only way to get one?

AI programming terminology

grumblebee — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 21:20:51 -0800

I'm trying to read O'reilly's "AI for Game Developers," and it's a bit over my head. On page 17, there's an algorithm that moves a preditor towards a pray. There's a constant (or variable?) in the code called _TOL which isn't explained anywhere in the text. What is _TOL? Also, there's a variable (called v) that's defined buy never used. What gives? Here's the code:

void DoLineOfSightChase (void)
{
Vector u, v;
bool left = false;
bool right = false;

u = VRotate(-Preditor.fOrientation, Prey.vPosition - Preditor.vPosition));

u.Normalize();

if (u.x < _tol) left=true;
else if (u.x > _TOL) right = true;

Preditor.setThruster(left,right);
}

What are your (especially non-obvious and/or free) life hacks?

mecran01 — Sat, 08 May 2004 06:29:39 -0800

Danny O'Brien's bid for an O'Reilly book deal, Life Hacks (more here is a list of "Tech Secrets of Overprolific Alpha Geeks." There's lots of text-editor usage to track tasks, little scripts, and all kinds of nifty thingies.

What are your life hacks? You get extra points if they are non-obvious and incorporate free software. Best hack gets a prize

The private blog -- a secret blog, using a tool:

Brad Fitzpatrick of LiveJournal: 8 entries every 10 min are
private. Closed off from everyone.

Announce stuff is moving into RSS -- email announcements to
something that syndicates over RSS

And yes, I realize that ask.metafilter is kinda one giant answer to this question. Sorry the post is so mis-formatted. When I hit "back" to edit it, the text didn't magically reappear in the browser form.