I know it's late, but I might imagine something like this put in because the checking actually ran so fast that people doubted that it was checked sufficiently.
Sanzath · 154 points · Posted at 16:00:06 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
This is a good tip! I'll surely implement this for my company's upcoming anti-virus software.
[deleted] · 118 points · Posted at 16:18:43 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Antivirus is tricky stuff. Make sure the gif isn't set on repeat, or just add 1000 copies of the end frame on the end.
The Azure VMs have those McAfee antivirus by default. It looks like it scans for viruses, but then it just says "Haven't found any anti-virus software. Better buy McAfee!"
c3534l · 15 points · Posted at 02:08:49 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
I was rather surprised when I found that splines really are something that need reticulating. I thought it was just fancy-sounding nonsense Maxis put in their game loading screens.
Log2 · 9 points · Posted at 03:05:09 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
The idea behind splines is older than computers. They were made using wood in order to make smooth curves for manufacturing needs.
Reminds me of a program my buddy did in high school in the late 1990s. We were constantly harassed for hanging out on the school library computers, so he whipped up a DOS program which had some cool progress bars and a neat "password cracking" display straight out of WarGames. We asked the ass clowns their name and then typed it into the box and away it went. A "bank acct" was hacked, "money" was transferred and the kids never talked to us again.
It's impressive how a few graphical displays can have such a profound affect on people.
Yeah, GUI's are particularly useful for tracking IP addresses in Visual Basic.
[deleted] · 52 points · Posted at 19:13:08 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
I wrote this great backtrace net 2.0 wormburner in PHP once. Man it was so great. I could backtrace any worm through a backbone splice in the level 3 mainframe.
jrkatz · 54 points · Posted at 18:07:01 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
As part of some research I did at university, I found myself writing a some software to do a particularly complex data visualization. On a set with just a few thousand points, layout could take thirty or forty seconds. It was also impossible to tell how far along we were progress-wise, due to the algorithm being an optimization function -- it would just go along until it hit a local max and call it square. As such when the professor asked for a progress bar we popped open a thread to feed random numbers between 1 and 100 to a progress bar every few ms.
Now that I'm a professional and have worked with designers, I can confidently say we should have just used a spinner.
The problem with many spinners is that too often they run entirely divorced from the process they are supposedly monitoring. This leads to the situation where you can't work out if a process has actually stalled or not. Edit: of course, this decision is independent from deciding to use a spinner, the just happen to correlate far more regularly than with progress bars.
aruen · 2 points · Posted at 19:55:15 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
A throbber is an animatedgraphical control element that visualizes that the program is performing an action in the background (such as downloading content, conducting intensive calculations or communicating with an external device). In contrast to a progress bar, a throbber does not convey how much of the action has been completed.
Imagei - A typical throbber animation, as seen on many websites when performing a blocking action.
[deleted] · 19 points · Posted at 04:00:24 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
The image pops up when you complete a section of taxes (e.g. federal, state). The page waits for the animation to finish before redirecting to the next section.
I know for sure it does. There is no way a computer nowadays will chug slow enough on simple addition and subtraction math problems to warrant a progress bar.
[deleted] · 23 points · Posted at 01:47:03 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
It's not doing addition, it's checking for accuracy and omissions and confirming your entries! It's got what taxes crave!
outadoc · 27 points · Posted at 16:16:10 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Did they really trademark Accuracy Review™?
Mayyay · 13 points · Posted at 16:46:30 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Does this mean they technically trademarked a gif?
I read somewhere that they found with something like this people didn't trust the results because it was too fast, so they added a fake progress bar much like this to give the illusion of doing really complex math. With it people trusted it more
[deleted] · 10 points · Posted at 23:12:33 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Wow, they generate gifs on the fly? That's amazing.
I'm stuck displaying .PNGs with a timed redirect.
vemacs · 13 points · Posted at 14:34:15 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
The font rendering isn't even right...
[deleted] · 6 points · Posted at 23:44:04 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
what font rendering? :P
vemacs · 7 points · Posted at 23:47:31 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
It doesn't match ClearType on Windows or OS X rendering. It's not subpixel, which would have made it look more native.
[deleted] · 4 points · Posted at 23:53:42 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
I meant; it's a bitmap, of course there's no font rendering :)
Also, you should realize ClearType comes in many configurations, depending on the monitor it's configured for. (i.e. horizontal or vertical subpixels, RGB or BGR, etc.)
vemacs · 7 points · Posted at 23:59:32 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
The fonts are antialiased with what appears to be the default Photoshop AA. Either way, it doesn't change the fact that the designers didn't even try to fake sub pixel rendering.
thomar · 4 points · Posted at 19:40:42 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
I've found that when making long procedurally generated levels, pushing long operations into coroutines so that a draw update can happen once per frame makes sitting through the long process much more enjoyable for me. Might integrate it into the level loading screen.
[deleted] · 236 points · Posted at 15:29:44 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
It has progress bars, so it has to be legit.
triangle60 · 21 points · Posted at 17:35:44 on August 2, 2015 · (Permalink)
I know it's late, but I might imagine something like this put in because the checking actually ran so fast that people doubted that it was checked sufficiently.
Sanzath · 154 points · Posted at 16:00:06 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
This is a good tip! I'll surely implement this for my company's upcoming anti-virus software.
[deleted] · 118 points · Posted at 16:18:43 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Antivirus is tricky stuff. Make sure the gif isn't set on repeat, or just add 1000 copies of the end frame on the end.
housemans · 51 points · Posted at 23:41:51 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Or add metadata to the last frame to say it has to stay on that frame for 999999 seconds. Wayyyy less data that way.
[deleted] · 26 points · Posted at 23:43:36 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
/r/shittyprogramming
housemans · 14 points · Posted at 00:03:45 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
GIF belongs in the grave, of course it's shitty programming.
[deleted] · 7 points · Posted at 00:08:01 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
Any attempt to correct shitty "code" here is frowned upon :P
housemans · 23 points · Posted at 00:27:15 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
Oh damn we're IN /r/shittyprogramming! I forgot, sorry!
[deleted] · 3 points · Posted at 12:38:46 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
lol
LeSpatula · 1 points · Posted at 09:48:25 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
The Azure VMs have those McAfee antivirus by default. It looks like it scans for viruses, but then it just says "Haven't found any anti-virus software. Better buy McAfee!"
AttainedAndDestroyed · 100 points · Posted at 16:18:53 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Reticulating Splines.
c3534l · 15 points · Posted at 02:08:49 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
I was rather surprised when I found that splines really are something that need reticulating. I thought it was just fancy-sounding nonsense Maxis put in their game loading screens.
Log2 · 9 points · Posted at 03:05:09 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
The idea behind splines is older than computers. They were made using wood in order to make smooth curves for manufacturing needs.
mach_kernel · 68 points · Posted at 16:07:24 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
The good old placebo bar.
oursland · 121 points · Posted at 16:44:52 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Reminds me of a program my buddy did in high school in the late 1990s. We were constantly harassed for hanging out on the school library computers, so he whipped up a DOS program which had some cool progress bars and a neat "password cracking" display straight out of WarGames. We asked the ass clowns their name and then typed it into the box and away it went. A "bank acct" was hacked, "money" was transferred and the kids never talked to us again.
It's impressive how a few graphical displays can have such a profound affect on people.
hiyou102 · 139 points · Posted at 17:57:52 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Yeah, GUI's are particularly useful for tracking IP addresses in Visual Basic.
[deleted] · 52 points · Posted at 19:13:08 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
I wrote this great backtrace net 2.0 wormburner in PHP once. Man it was so great. I could backtrace any worm through a backbone splice in the level 3 mainframe.
Sohcahtoa82 · 31 points · Posted at 19:43:13 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
But could it do it in real time?
[deleted] · 31 points · Posted at 19:59:52 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
It actually had a spaceTime() method I could call to bend reality and backtrace the net before the net was even operational
Windexglow · 19 points · Posted at 22:44:57 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Lol this script kiddie
jrkatz · 54 points · Posted at 18:07:01 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
As part of some research I did at university, I found myself writing a some software to do a particularly complex data visualization. On a set with just a few thousand points, layout could take thirty or forty seconds. It was also impossible to tell how far along we were progress-wise, due to the algorithm being an optimization function -- it would just go along until it hit a local max and call it square. As such when the professor asked for a progress bar we popped open a thread to feed random numbers between 1 and 100 to a progress bar every few ms.
Now that I'm a professional and have worked with designers, I can confidently say we should have just used a spinner.
Ark_Tane · 26 points · Posted at 18:45:22 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
The problem with many spinners is that too often they run entirely divorced from the process they are supposedly monitoring. This leads to the situation where you can't work out if a process has actually stalled or not. Edit: of course, this decision is independent from deciding to use a spinner, the just happen to correlate far more regularly than with progress bars.
aruen · 2 points · Posted at 19:55:15 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Isn't that the halting problem?
EsperSpirit · 4 points · Posted at 21:39:19 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Not really. But error-handling is often an afterthought and it's also not always easy to implement in a concurrent program, so most devs don't bother.
alecbenzer · 4 points · Posted at 23:03:15 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
No, as long as you're okay with the spinner going on forever if your process goes on forever, it's not the halting problem.
PublicSealedClass · 8 points · Posted at 07:53:43 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
Wanna feel 14 again? Then have a giggle at the fact the term "Throbber" is used for spinner.
autowikibot · 4 points · Posted at 07:53:55 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
Throbber:
Interesting: Throbbing Gristle | Spinner (computing) | Discipline (Throbbing Gristle song) | Throbbing Gristle discography
Parent commenter can toggle NSFW or delete. Will also delete on comment score of -1 or less. | FAQs | Mods | Magic Words
Daniel15 · 39 points · Posted at 19:37:03 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
I thought this was a parody, then I looked at the domain. Haha.
Ragnagord · 34 points · Posted at 19:47:40 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Oh wow this literally is the gif they put on their site?
Daniel15 · 29 points · Posted at 19:54:12 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
https://taxes.hrblock.com/HRBlock/Templates/premium/Images/animationAccuracyReview.gif
Yep. Wonderful.
[deleted] · 19 points · Posted at 04:00:24 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
The image pops up when you complete a section of taxes (e.g. federal, state). The page waits for the animation to finish before redirecting to the next section.
Polantaris · 17 points · Posted at 15:28:35 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Not even remotely surprised. Turbo Tax most likely does the same thing.
Coding_Bad · 35 points · Posted at 16:33:21 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
I know for sure it does. There is no way a computer nowadays will chug slow enough on simple addition and subtraction math problems to warrant a progress bar.
[deleted] · 23 points · Posted at 01:47:03 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
It's not doing addition, it's checking for accuracy and omissions and confirming your entries! It's got what taxes crave!
outadoc · 27 points · Posted at 16:16:10 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Did they really trademark Accuracy Review™?
Mayyay · 13 points · Posted at 16:46:30 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Does this mean they technically trademarked a gif?
moose51789 · 10 points · Posted at 02:15:09 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
I read somewhere that they found with something like this people didn't trust the results because it was too fast, so they added a fake progress bar much like this to give the illusion of doing really complex math. With it people trusted it more
[deleted] · 10 points · Posted at 23:12:33 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Wow, they generate gifs on the fly? That's amazing.
I'm stuck displaying .PNGs with a timed redirect.
vemacs · 13 points · Posted at 14:34:15 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
The font rendering isn't even right...
[deleted] · 6 points · Posted at 23:44:04 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
what font rendering? :P
vemacs · 7 points · Posted at 23:47:31 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
It doesn't match ClearType on Windows or OS X rendering. It's not subpixel, which would have made it look more native.
[deleted] · 4 points · Posted at 23:53:42 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
I meant; it's a bitmap, of course there's no font rendering :)
Also, you should realize ClearType comes in many configurations, depending on the monitor it's configured for. (i.e. horizontal or vertical subpixels, RGB or BGR, etc.)
vemacs · 7 points · Posted at 23:59:32 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
The fonts are antialiased with what appears to be the default Photoshop AA. Either way, it doesn't change the fact that the designers didn't even try to fake sub pixel rendering.
thomar · 4 points · Posted at 19:40:42 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
I've found that when making long procedurally generated levels, pushing long operations into coroutines so that a draw update can happen once per frame makes sitting through the long process much more enjoyable for me. Might integrate it into the level loading screen.
mcilrain · 3 points · Posted at 19:51:14 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
Don't underestimate how stupid users can be.
TommiHPunkt · 4 points · Posted at 16:10:01 on March 22, 2015 · (Permalink)
This surely is a lazy way to do it
akira_hiro · 2 points · Posted at 09:37:46 on March 23, 2015 · (Permalink)
SimCity did that. It shown some random statuses when loading data, like "creating rivers", "rasterizing clouds" etc. They were fake, but fun to read.
[deleted] · 2 points · Posted at 04:16:57 on June 19, 2015 · (Permalink)
Lots of games do this. One that comes to mind immediately is Kerbal Space Program, although I know there are others.