Comment On Color Me Stupid

Steve The Cynic:

I think you'll find that "BST" is abbreviationese for "British Summer Time". And the UNIX epoch is normally quoted as 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, even if that isn't necessarily the right time zone/standard.

And the British don't use BST in the middle of January, even if it is sometimes hard to tell British summer and winter apart.

Tristram:

Damien:

Umm:

This was written in the early nineties but the code is in SVN???

OK maybe you meant nineteen-nineties but still...

I'm puzzled by what distinction you're trying to draw by introducing the nineteen- prefix. If someone says nineties to you, what year, decade or time period do you assume, if it's not the nineteen-nineties?

In ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue...

lmm:

Steve The Cynic:

I think you'll find that "BST" is abbreviationese for "British Summer Time". And the UNIX epoch is normally quoted as 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, even if that isn't necessarily the right time zone/standard.

And the British don't use BST in the middle of January, even if it is sometimes hard to tell British summer and winter apart.

You've fallen for one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: British January is indeed usually UTC, but that particular January was on British Standard Time.

Maltz:

Overly Attentive Gizzard:

"The fuck?" is all I could muster at this one.

Maybe at some point it did translate to a proper color and that was factored out when a stupid intern tried to "fix" something he didn't understand?

This.

If this was written in the early 90's, the clients probably couldn't even display more than 256 colors, and maybe less depending on how new the hardware was at the time. It's hard to imagine the original program used 24bit values for color.

F:

Dates were frequently cited as (e.g.) "... the first year of the reign of King Xyzzy ...". So the first year after the birth of Jesus would naturally be labelled year 1.

F:

the first year of the reign of King Xyzzy

Soviut:

24bit colour wasn't invented after 2000.

Joey:

Oh, and "colour"? Get with the tens already. The two thousand tens.

lmm:

Steve The Cynic:

I think you'll find that "BST" is abbreviationese for "British Summer Time". And the UNIX epoch is normally quoted as 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, even if that isn't necessarily the right time zone/standard.

And the British don't use BST in the middle of January, even if it is sometimes hard to tell British summer and winter apart.

You've fallen for one of the classic blunders. British January is indeed usually UTC, but that particular January was on British Standard Time.

Arnold Judas Rimmer:

eVil:

The thought of that code just made me turn #1AC898

What, purple?

Mister Slowcoach:

Is it not the case that 65535 and FFFF return different colours? I'm also a little confused at the -2147483633 and &H80000005 and &H8000000F ...

urza9814:

....in what frame of reference? As soon as you have motion, you lose any hope of a universal, non-arbitrary time standard.

Overly Attentive Gizzard:

"The fuck?" is all I could muster at this one.

Ben Jammin:

Zach:

Did I miss something or is the color just in BGR format with leading zeroes? So "FF" is parsed as hex 0x000000FF and so is (1,0,0) in the 0..1 RGB color space. "FF00" is 0x0000FF00 and so is (0,1,0): green (or "lime"). Orange then seems to be high red, medium-high green, and high blue, which makes sense.

Admittedly, there are still a few WTFs in there. The dark vs. light grey values seem to have been reversed. It also seems that "8000000F" is treated as light grey, although I'm guessing the value is in aBGR format and the "80" refers to transparency (which we're going to quietly call grey 'cause argh).

Then again: if this is how the color management works, I can't wait to see the widget layout system.

I believe what you missed is that the colors are serializable, and don't really need to be strings.

Damien:

If someone says nineties to you, what year, decade or time period do you assume, if it's not the nineteen-nineties?

Zach:

Admittedly, there are still a few WTFs in there. The dark vs. light grey values seem to have been reversed. It also seems that "8000000F" is treated as light grey, although I'm guessing the value is in aBGR format and the "80" refers to transparency (which we're going to quietly call grey 'cause argh).

Bill C.:

Zach:

Admittedly, there are still a few WTFs in there. The dark vs. light grey values seem to have been reversed. It also seems that "8000000F" is treated as light grey, although I'm guessing the value is in aBGR format and the "80" refers to transparency (which we're going to quietly call grey 'cause argh).

This, and this, and where are the other 48 shades?

RichP:

Damien:

Umm:

This was written in the early nineties but the code is in SVN???

OK maybe you meant nineteen-nineties but still...

I'm puzzled by what distinction you're trying to draw by introducing the nineteen- prefix. If someone says nineties to you, what year, decade or time period do you assume, if it's not the nineteen-nineties?

Groan. Here we go again... It's exactly that kind of thinking that created the Y2K mess. Please think of the poor slobs wasting time by trolling dailyWTF archives in 2099 and fully qualify your dates, people!

pezpunk:

i fail to see a viable case for the term "90s" referring to any decade other than the one spanning AD 90 to AD 99, at least by default. any other interpretation would be unnecessarily arbitrary and unintuitive. of course, prefacing all comments with a set of default assumptions, in xml format for human readability, would clear up these kinds of misunderstandings and allow greater flexibility in the long run.

Soviut:

Joey:

Oh, and "colour"? Get with the tens already. The two thousand tens.

As I recall, from 2010 to present, we Canadians still spell it with a U.

Matt Westwood:

lmm:

Steve The Cynic:

I think you'll find that "BST" is abbreviationese for "British Summer Time". And the UNIX epoch is normally quoted as 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, even if that isn't necessarily the right time zone/standard.

And the British don't use BST in the middle of January, even if it is sometimes hard to tell British summer and winter apart.

You've fallen for one of the classic blunders. British January is indeed usually UTC, but that particular January was on British Standard Time.

"British Standard Time" - no, no, no - British Summer Time. It was an experiment to see whether it was better to have darker mornings and lighter evenings. It was just about getting light by 9 a.m. It was great.

Tom:

And what about the year of this alleged birth? The zeroth year would naturally be labeled year zero, would it not?

mog:

pezpunk:

i fail to see a viable case for the term "90s" referring to any decade other than the one spanning AD 90 to AD 99, at least by default. any other interpretation would be unnecessarily arbitrary and unintuitive. of course, prefacing all comments with a set of default assumptions, in xml format for human readability, would clear up these kinds of misunderstandings and allow greater flexibility in the long run.

Yes, because when everyone talks about the sixties (only decade worth a damn) their talking about 60AD to 69AD.....

Language is always vague and fucksticks misinterpret things (usually deliberately) while pedants pick holes in the factuality of possible interpretations.
If anyone reading this site was unable to decipher that nineties referred to the years between 1990 and 1999 (inclusive)....<insert finish to the sentence>

jones:

Soviut:

Joey:

Oh, and "colour"? Get with the tens already. The two thousand tens.

As I recall, from 2010 to present, we Canadians still spell it with a U.

I think all of the English speaking world does. Sadly, the United States is not part of the world.

Aussie:

Matt Westwood:

lmm:

Steve The Cynic:

I think you'll find that "BST" is abbreviationese for "British Summer Time". And the UNIX epoch is normally quoted as 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, even if that isn't necessarily the right time zone/standard.

And the British don't use BST in the middle of January, even if it is sometimes hard to tell British summer and winter apart.

You've fallen for one of the classic blunders. British January is indeed usually UTC, but that particular January was on British Standard Time.

"British Standard Time" - no, no, no - British Summer Time. It was an experiment to see whether it was better to have darker mornings and lighter evenings. It was just about getting light by 9 a.m. It was great.

That would be great - in the middle of summer here it gets light around 5AM and we're lucky if it's dark by 9PM. When I was a kid it was GREAT - long days to go swimming. Now that I have kids, it SUCKS. Try getting a one year old to go to sleep at 7PM when it's still broad daylight!

Average Dickweed:

mog:

pezpunk:

i fail to see a viable case for the term "90s" referring to any decade other than the one spanning AD 90 to AD 99, at least by default. any other interpretation would be unnecessarily arbitrary and unintuitive. of course, prefacing all comments with a set of default assumptions, in xml format for human readability, would clear up these kinds of misunderstandings and allow greater flexibility in the long run.

Yes, because when everyone talks about the sixties (only decade worth a damn) their talking about 60AD to 69AD..... is clearly inferred.

Language is always vague and fucksticks misinterpret things (usually deliberately) while pedants pick holes in the factuality of possible interpretations.
If anyone reading this site was unable to decipher that nineties referred to the years between 1990 and 1999 (inclusive)....<insert finish to the sentence>

...they're talking about 60AD to 69AD...

D'oh:

Aussie:

Matt Westwood:

lmm:

Steve The Cynic:

I think you'll find that "BST" is abbreviationese for "British Summer Time". And the UNIX epoch is normally quoted as 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, even if that isn't necessarily the right time zone/standard.

And the British don't use BST in the middle of January, even if it is sometimes hard to tell British summer and winter apart.

You've fallen for one of the classic blunders. British January is indeed usually UTC, but that particular January was on British Standard Time.

"British Standard Time" - no, no, no - British Summer Time. It was an experiment to see whether it was better to have darker mornings and lighter evenings. It was just about getting light by 9 a.m. It was great.

That would be great - in the middle of summer here it gets light around 5AM and we're lucky if it's dark by 9PM. When I was a kid it was GREAT - long days to go swimming. Now that I have kids, it SUCKS. Try getting a one year old to go to sleep at 7PM when it's still broad daylight!

So you want to turn back the clock 1-2 hours in summer? (Otherwise it's still bright at 7, even without DST.)

Average Dickweed:

mog:

pezpunk:

i fail to see a viable case for the term "90s" referring to any decade other than the one spanning AD 90 to AD 99, at least by default. any other interpretation would be unnecessarily arbitrary and unintuitive. of course, prefacing all comments with a set of default assumptions, in xml format for human readability, would clear up these kinds of misunderstandings and allow greater flexibility in the long run.

Yes, because when everyone talks about the sixties (only decade worth a damn) their talking about 60AD to 69AD.....

Language is always vague and fucksticks misinterpret things (usually deliberately) while pedants pick holes in the factuality of possible interpretations.
If anyone reading this site was unable to decipher that nineties referred to the years between 1990 and 1999 (inclusive)....<insert finish to the sentence>

...they're talking about 60AD to 69AD...

jones:

Soviut:

Joey:

Oh, and "colour"? Get with the tens already. The two thousand tens.

As I recall, from 2010 to present, we Canadians still spell it with a U.

I think all of the English speaking world does. Sadly, the United States is not part of the English-speaking world.

Aussie:

Matt Westwood:

lmm:

Steve The Cynic:

I think you'll find that "BST" is abbreviationese for "British Summer Time". And the UNIX epoch is normally quoted as 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, even if that isn't necessarily the right time zone/standard.

And the British don't use BST in the middle of January, even if it is sometimes hard to tell British summer and winter apart.

You've fallen for one of the classic blunders. British January is indeed usually UTC, but that particular January was on British Standard Time.

"British Standard Time" - no, no, no - British Summer Time. It was an experiment to see whether it was better to have darker mornings and lighter evenings. It was just about getting light by 9 a.m. It was great.

That would be great - in the middle of summer here it gets light around 5AM and we're lucky if it's dark by 9PM. When I was a kid it was GREAT - long days to go swimming. Now that I have kids, it SUCKS. Try getting a one year old to go to sleep at 7PM when it's still broad daylight!

Soviut:

24bit colour wasn't invented after 2000. Given that the client application is written in VB, there's a good chance they are Windows CE devices. Those supported bit depths higher than 8-bit (256 colours) and so did the languages running on them; Even VB.

Soviut:

24bit colour wasn't invented after 2000.

mog:

pezpunk:

i fail to see a viable case for the term "90s" referring to any decade other than the one spanning AD 90 to AD 99, at least by default. any other interpretation would be unnecessarily arbitrary and unintuitive. of course, prefacing all comments with a set of default assumptions, in xml format for human readability, would clear up these kinds of misunderstandings and allow greater flexibility in the long run.

Yes, because when everyone talks about the sixties (only decade worth a damn) their talking about 60AD to 69AD.....

Language is always vague and fucksticks misinterpret things (usually deliberately) while pedants pick holes in the factuality of possible interpretations.
If anyone reading this site was unable to decipher that nineties referred to the years between 1990 and 1999 (inclusive)....<insert finish to the sentence>

Tom:

F:

Dates were frequently cited as (e.g.) "... the first year of the reign of King Xyzzy ...". So the first year after the birth of Jesus would naturally be labelled year 1.

And what about the year of this alleged birth? The zeroth year would naturally be labeled year zero, would it not?

mog:

Yes, because when everyone talks about the sixties (only decade worth a damn) their talking about 60AD to 69AD.....

Cbuttius:

The real WTF (from the comments not the article) is that people think they can get more hours of daylight by adjusting their clocks (rather than setting their alarm clocks in summer time to get up an hour earlier).

I do know though that it is a very psychological thing. When I worked in Belgium for the whole summer of 1998, whenever I returned to England I kept my clocks in Central European Time (1 hour ahead of what it was in England). In particular it made getting up for early flights back much easier as my clock had its time an hour later than it really was. I did have to know to order the cab for the time it really was, not the time my clock said it was.

Warren:

This might seem over-engineered but how else could you implement an "error" case of white at one stage and purple at another....

Return Color.Black 'color

Return Color.Orange 'bright yellow

Return Color.White ' bright black

Gumbull:

I remember seeing a VGA display for the first time (in around 1989 IIRC) - in a university computer lab. We all stood around admiring the quality of rendering of a scantily clad woman (including the professors)...

jay:

mog:

Yes, because when everyone talks about the sixties (only decade worth a damn) their talking about 60AD to 69AD.....

Wow, you must have different memories of the 60s than I do. As I recall the decade started with Nero in power, and he was a terrible emperor! Then we went through Galba, Otho, and Vitellius in rapid succession. They were turbulent and violent times, full of uncertainty. I, for one, was glad when the 60s ended.

Soviut:

24bit colour wasn't invented after 2000.

moz:

jay:

mog:

Yes, because when everyone talks about the sixties (only decade worth a damn) their talking about 60AD to 69AD.....

Wow, you must have different memories of the 60s than I do. As I recall the decade started with Nero in power, and he was a terrible emperor! Then we went through Galba, Otho, and Vitellius in rapid succession. They were turbulent and violent times, full of uncertainty. I, for one, was glad when the 60s ended.

Are you part of one of those seditious cults, by any chance? I can see no other excuse for referring to the reigns of those emperors with such strange numbers.

no laughing matter:

Soviut:

24bit colour wasn't invented after 2000.

24bit colour was invented in 1977:

"1977 Alvy Ray Smith implements first 24-bit red, green, blue (RGB) paint system Paint3 at the NYIT, for three E&S or Genisco frame buffers in parallel."