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Old Trafford diary

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Bellevue Park, Wrexham

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Just another regular afternoon

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Liverpool Snaps

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The warden said,"Hey, buddy, don't you be no square

If you can't find a partner, use a wooden chair

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Content Restriction: Are we loosing the ground?

Back in 2001 with the fall of Napster, online content delivery in a legal way became a new necessity. Artists deserve their credit and audience want competitive price. Conventional per album or per movie DVD pricing was not a great option to reach more audience. Rental service like blockbuster could never reach in such electrifying manner like netflix, hulu, amazon prime or disney plus. A vast market shift just happened on the grave of Napster. With the rise of different competitors, people were offered with real competitive price. Eventually, it created a new consumer base. Audience like me from a third world country might never get an opportunity to buy a Metallica album legally from my local shop. This new market creation has created a significant gain in content streaming industry. It has become a multi billion dollar industry where tech giants like Google, Amazon or Apple is fighting with fresh faces like Spotify or old school Disney. In economic point of view, this competition ensures win win situation for both the consumers and producers (includes content creators and deliverers). Sounds like a strong blow on the face of piracy, right? Studies show that online content piracy is still a great deal. {1}

I am a big admirer of heavy metal bands. A couple of years ago, I found out an excellent piece of work named “In the End” done by Anthrax in respect of Ronnie James Dio and Dimebag Darrell. I used to love this song and had it set as my ringtone for couple of months. Initially, I listened to the song on youtube. Yesterday, while I was scrolling through Anthrax’s song list, I was surprised to figure out the stated song is unavailable for my country. The entire album except one song was unavailable for me. This is not something new for me. I have faced similar situation in netflix as well. So what is the way to get out of it? Either find the same content from other platforms (sometimes illegal) or buy a VPN to bypass country restriction.

Either of the options have deep rooted problem. The former includes content piracy while later has a threat of identity theft. I know content restriction is not a welcomed option for the content providers. In many cases, content producers distribute their contents in different parts of world with different vendors. Therefore, content delivery companies have to comply with it knowing that their subscribers will be pissed off with it. But the most disturbing things happen when the platform itself or the artists flag a particular country or a region as a non-eligible one and decide not to distribute contents. The variety of distribution channels is understandable but the later issue is a modern face of racism in my point of view. I do recognise countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, China or Cuba have strict content censorship laws. Neither every muslim majority country share the same value like Saudi Arabia, or Iran nor every weak democracies share the same ideology like China or Cuba.

Content creators and delivery platforms must not forget the basic rules of demand and supply. When the contents are made more affordable to the consumers, the will less likely go and visit shady websites to freely stream them. When legal platforms create a vacuum, piracy platforms comes to fill in. Affordability and availability plays a big role here. In this age of information, it is really difficult to stop someone from obtaining a copy of his favourite movie through censorship or restriction. As both the content creators and delivery platforms tend to make more money out of audience’s pocket they should think carefully before imposing useless censorship of contents.

Reference:

https://itif.org/publications/2020/02/07/22-years-after-dmca-online-piracy-still-widespread-problem

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[Win10] ELAN Touchpad scrolling issues in Visual Studio

In my new Lenovo IP 310, I have faced scrolling issue while using Visual Studio. In Visual Studio I cannot scroll down or up using my touchpad and I have searched in so many places for the solution. I brief, what I have come to know is that the latest driver for the touchpad produced by Elan Microelectronics  has some issues that prevents Windows 10 users from scrolling in several application including Visual Studio. So, this is how you can solve it:

Open regedit.exe using run [windows button + r]

Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> SOFTWARE -> Elantech -> Smartpad

Change ScrollControl_Mode from 0 to 1

Open the elan software and click apply just to make sure the settings get applied

I found this solution from the following thread and it worked fine for me. Thanks to u/nakedprince for the solution.

Source: reddit

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Quick guide to C++ destructors

like constructors, destructors have no return type

they can’t have parameters

they are named ~Foo

destructors are automatically called once the object goes out of scope

C++ provides default destructors that delete many things automatically

destructors are called with the keyword delete (e.g. delete foo)

only objects constructed with new can be deleted via delete (i.e. objects on the heap, not on the stack)

a class’s destructor should delete its members, if they were constructed with new

classes from the STL automatically call their elements’ destructors when they are removed from the container (e.g. by std::list.remove())

this only works if the actual objects are placed inside the container - not if it’s a container of pointers!

delete [] deletes arrays (e.g. delete [] myArray)

destructors can be used to perform last actions, like writing to a log

destructors will not be called if the scope ends by an exit() call! (keep in mind when doing critical work in the destructor)

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Preventing console window from closing on Visual Studio C/C++ Console application

While working with C++ Console application in Visual Studio 2015, I came across this problem. First of all, let’s see why this thing happens.

Why?

In visual studio, when an console application is executed, the DOS screen no longer stays. The .NET automatically terminates the console after successful execution of the application. Basically, it’s a debugging feature at Visual Studio as far as I have known. So, the way would be either skip the debugging while you run the application or make the console prompt somehow for you.

Solution 1: Run without debugging

Press Ctrl+F5 to run without debugging or you can to debug menu and press start without debugging. It will then prompt until you press return(enter key) to close the window. 

In this case, no default debugging will be available for you. If you still want to use the debugger while running all you have to do is simply put a breakpoint on the last line.

Solution 2: Make it prompt in old style

It’s the classical procedure that veteran programmers have been using for so long in different developing environment. The solution is pretty simple, put a blank input at the end of the program that will wait till you enter anything. In C, using getchar() is pretty familiar, while in C++ you are always welcome to use cin. You can put any of these solutions at the end of your code.

//for both C & C++ getchar(); //or int x; scanf(”%d”, &x); //For C++ only int x; cin>>x;

Solution 3: Pause using the DOS Command

You can use the DOS command to pause your program at what point you want it. To do so, you need to add the following lines at the top of your program:

#include <stdlib.h> #ifdef _WIN32    #define WINPAUSE system("pause") #endif

These lines of codes will create a macro called WINPAUSE if win32 system is detected. So whenever you need a pause in your program just call WINPAUSE. This is a windows processing solution. For UNIX/LINUX this solution wont work.

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I have agreed once and for all to submit to my inferiority. And yet I am not stupid. I realize that it may be necessary to think further than I do, and perhaps otherwise. I am waiting only for my brain to change, for its upper drawers to open. In an hour, and perhaps tomorrow, my thinking will have changed, but this present thought exists. I won’t let my thoughts be lost.

Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), French poet and playwright, in a 1924 letter. 

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“ There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow. ”

— Orison S. Marden

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PaperFold: Foldable Smartphone Shows Shape-Shifting Future for Google Maps

PaperFold is a shape-changing smartphone allows users to fold open up to three flexible electrophoretic displays to provide extra screen real estate when needed. Displays are detachable such that users can fold the device into various shapes that can range from an ultra notebook shape to a foldout map. "In PaperFold, each display tile can act independently or as part of a single system," says Dr. Vertegaal, a professor in the School of Computing and Director of the Human Media Lab at Queen’s. "It allows multiple device form factors, providing support for mobile tasks that require large screen real estate or keyboards on demand, while retaining an ultra-compact, ultra-thin and lightweight form factor." Note that this is a first prototype: e.g., cables would not be present in future versions. For more info, see http://www.hml.queensu.ca/paperfold

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Drone inspectors: UK airline easyJet looks to tech to cut costs

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Old French soldier standing before Les Invalides, Paris, 1910’s

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Edison’s vote recorder, his first patented invention, filed on June 1st, 1869.

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One cannot be betrayed if one has no people.

The Usual Suspects

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Prediction or Influence?