Random snippets of all sorts of code, mixed with a selection of help and advice.
Should I use Blender to make a 2D animation intended for websites?
23 February 2026 @ 8:50 pm
I've seen that Blender is capable of creating animations, obviously in 3D and some in 2D, but what I want to know is that is it recommended, or even possible to create animations meant for websites?
For example, the Grease Pencil tool allows the ability to draw in the 3D editor environment. I haven't used it myself much, but I know it's an already existing feature for that one specifically. If not, I was wondering if it would be worth it to try Rive but I'm unsure on it. I'm only considering it because from what I've read, it seems to be a good way to make animations that are used in websites.
If there's anyone who has experience creating a 2D animation through Blender or Rive this way, (even better, if the animation was done specifically for websites), I'd love to hear how it went
VisualStudio documentation reduce IntelliSense list spacing
23 February 2026 @ 8:48 pm
I like my code documented. But sometimes, visual studio won't show me information the way I want.
The <list> tag is one of the annoying ones. If you have one or more item to display, the tooltip will be huge.
Has anyone found a solution to remove spacing between visual studio list items documentation ?
The hack I found was to use <br/> instead, but it wont resprensent what I want to express with external documentation tools like Doxygen.
Openquery Detecting IP Addresses as Decimal Data Type
23 February 2026 @ 8:39 pm
I created a stored procedure that imports data from a linked server. The linked server uses the MS Office 16.0 Access DB Engine with a provider string of N'Text; IMEX=1; TypeGuessRows=0; ImportMixedTypes=TEXT' and is linked to a directory of CSV files. The source files come from various systems we use and contain device information, including IP addresses.
I cannot control the format of the CSV files from these systems and the IP addresses are not surrounded by quotes. As a result, Openquery is not detecting the addresses at text, but rather decimals. The results are truncated IP addresses such as 108.8914, 206.511, 47.2425, etc. When I manually modify the file and surround the IP addresses with quotes, they appear in my query in the expected format.
Is this just something I just have to live with, or does someone know the trick to getting Openquery to detect this data as text? I can use a PowerShell script to surround that field if necessary, I was just curious if the
Java app classloader not seeing Tomcat JARs
23 February 2026 @ 8:17 pm
I’m running a Java application with Tomcat involved, and I’m confused about class loading.
I expected my application’s class loader AppClassLoader to be able to load classes from Tomcat’s JARs (Especially in parallel stream) like under $CATALINA_HOME, but it can’t. I’m seeing ClassNotFoundException
I have two installers that update the same file , how does windows decide to update or not update a file?
23 February 2026 @ 8:07 pm
Here is the scenario I am looking at -
Install software Av11.0 , this updates a file in installation folder say file X. lets say, This version of X is 10.0.0.0.
Install software Bv8.0 , this was released two years back (say) , and have Xv8.0.
I am seeing that the file X is getting updated ("downgraded actually) to v8.0.0.0 rather than staying the same since the existing version was v10.0.0.0.
I am using installshield and on both the softwares , I have set shared as "yes" and made sure that the GUID Component ID of the folder containing the file is same in both the installers. I have tried toggling Multiple package shared component and that doesn't help.
(Important note :: in my software . X doesn't have any version and I am thinking it should just be used as modified date)..
What options am i setting incorrectly here ?
I am trying to make a PPM file and I am only getting a singular pixel. How do I fix this?
23 February 2026 @ 8:01 pm
I was following along with the "ray tracing in a weekend" e-book and I was attempting to do the first task of making a ppm file to produce an image. I have written some code but it only outputs a single red pixel. Could anyone help me fix it?
# graphics helo world
nx = 200
ny = 100
touch("image.PPM")
open("image.PPM", "w") do image
write(image,"P3\n" , string(nx) , " " , string(ny) , "\n" , string(255) , "\n")
for i in ny
for j in nx
r = i / ny
g = j / (200 - nx)
b = 0.2
ir = string(Integer(round(255.99*r)))
write(image, ir , " ")
ig = string(Integer(round(255.99*g)))
Packaging native DLLs alongside CPP/CLI .NET8 project for consumption in .NET8 C# Project
23 February 2026 @ 7:48 pm
I have:
1. A native dll myNativeLib.dll compiled with MSVC (produced via .vcxproj project)
2. A .NET8 targeting CPP/CLI project which produces myInteropLib.dll (produced via .vcxproj project)
I publish the dlls together using a nuspec file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<package>
<metadata>
<!-- Redacted -->
<version>0.0.1</version>
<frameworkAssemblies />
<dependencies>
<group targetFramework="net8.0-windows7" />
</dependencies>
</metadata>
<files>
<file target="runtimes/win-x64/native" src="../../../bin/win64/Ijwhost.dll" />
<file target="runtimes/win-x64/native" src="../../../bin/win64/myNativeLib.dll" />
<file target="lib/net8.0-windows7" src="../../../bin/win64/myInteropLib.dll" />
</f
Android app freezes when another app runs a timer
23 February 2026 @ 7:40 pm
I'm developing an Android app, which I test on a physical device. Recently, I downloaded a mutli-timer app and I noticed that certain apps (including the app I'm developing) on my phone frequently freeze whenever a timer (of the multi-timer app) is running. I also noticed that some apps (like YouTube) continue working more smoothly than other when a timer is running in the foreground or not. How can I make my app 'immune' and not freeze when there are timers running in the foreground? Why does this even happen?
macOS ignoring hardware single step bit in MDSCR_EL1
23 February 2026 @ 7:33 pm
I am implementing a debugger for aarch64 macOS. I am doing this from scratch (without using lldb as the backend) mainly to explore some low level debugging techniques.
I have implemented instruction step over (equivalent to lldb "ni" command)
Here is the overview of the process:
if the instruction is a branch link (bl or derivatives)
put a breakpoint (brk instruction) right after it
continue execution
when the brk get's hit check if we are at the correct stack depth
if so, we are done.
if we are not at the correct stack depth (we have a recursive function) we need to transparently skip over this breakpoint.
Transparent skip logic:
7. put back the original instruction
8. enable hardware single step
9. continue execution
10. when we get the single step exception put the brk back and then continue normally (waiting for the brk to hit again)
The problem:
In the recur
Google Sheets - 2D Lookup Returning the Associated Column Header Within an Array Formula
23 February 2026 @ 7:32 pm
Here's a basic idea of what I'm trying to do here:
I have a bunch of tokens in a column (let's say range B2:B). These tokens should be present somewhere in a large 2D area (let's say range D2:Z1000), grouped by headers in Row 1.
I'm looking for an array formula that lists the column headers of each token in that B2:B column. I have a few edge cases already covered with an IFS statement.
I came very close with a result from This Google Support Thread, but it doesn't look to be compatible with array formulas, and always returns the first column header:
=ARRAYFORMULA(
IFERROR(
IFS(
ISBLANK(B2:B),
"",
COUNTIF(INDIRECT("D2:Z1000"), B2:B) = 0,
"Invalid",
COUNTIF(INDIRECT("B2:B"), B2:B) > 1,
"Duplicate",
LEN(B2:B),
HLOOKUP(1,{SORTN(SEARCH(B2:B,INDIRECT("D2:Z1000")));INDIRECT(&quo