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1830
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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Re: All your base are belong to us
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on: June 20, 2006, 11:58:04 AM
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maybe i should have put NSFW in red flashing neon letters, as well as provide a definition...
Not Safe For Work
Also not my normal fare. I had heard that there were some funny parodies of this ad and typed "priceless" in google and just about fell off my chair. Never went there again until this thread. Thanks.
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1837
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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Up and coming photosharing site
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on: June 19, 2006, 04:28:21 PM
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Yourep http://www.yourep.comLook out flickr! This site is run by one of the guys I've been yakking with on Gabbly. Yourep is in active development and a full API is currently in the works. He's a hard-working coder as well as a nice guy in need of some testers/users/feedback. No transfer limits and there's more coming down the pipe as more users get on. I've invited Flo (yourep.com dev) to check in and let us know more details. Check it out... |
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1841
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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Re: Mosquito tones
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on: June 15, 2006, 01:04:31 PM
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Yes this could be the mp3/cd encoding. There are a lot of complicating things going on in the upper end of digital music which is where DVD audio wins. That is 24 bit and 96 kHz sample rate which is high enough to translate the upper range of audible material accurately. (human hearing in the extreme tops out at around 20 kHz) standard cd audio is 16 bit 44.1 kHz, so in the upper range, you get artifacts especially with mp3's you start hearing artifacts.
That's also why all the serious audio guys I know don't use Sound Blasters. They are tuned for mp3 playback. Waaaay lowpassed. My guess is the Mosquito ringtone is a pure signal (square wave at 17 kHz) so all the more annoying and no audio processing in the way...
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1842
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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Re: SPAM reaching epidemic proportions
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on: June 14, 2006, 12:24:47 PM
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I sympathize heavily Carol. I get 300+ spam emails over the weekends and about 50 or so during the day. It doesn't seem like the future of spam is going to change anytime soon and for every spam fighting technique there is a matching anti-spam-fighting technique. For personal webmail use, I have gone with Bluebottle and Cashette. They both work with an "allowed" list and Challenge/Response filtering. Bluebottle can even act as a filter with their forwarding service, and Cashette has a pay scale for receiving advertising email (get paid for spam!). So far, for work, K9 has done a very good job at dumping the garbage and gleaning the gold, even though some of the commercial solutions appear to be better. I'm either too poor or miserly to try them out. One feature I use a lot is the "WhiteList" where I can put in emails that will be classed good all the time. Too bad it isn't automatic, it's a text file where you can define good addresses, subjects, regex's and stuff. Also for some reason it bogs my CPU at random intervals. Ah, the price you pay for a little peace of mind. |
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1845
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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Re: Structured Procrastination - hahaha
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on: June 01, 2006, 12:40:40 PM
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Aargh!! You have discovered the secret to my power and now hold the key to unravel my plans to take over the world (sometime after lunch next Tuesday...)!! Curses!!
Seriously, I read so much about Me in that article I must now forward it to my boss because I could never explain my Modus Operandi so elegantly. Thank you. I can now sharpen pencils in peace and confidence of my ability to crack that looming deadline over there...
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1846
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Main Area and Open Discussion / General Software Discussion / Re: Why is so much software cracked?
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on: May 31, 2006, 10:00:02 AM
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I don't think anybody's debating whether the programmer should make money from their efforts or not. What is being debated is that a smart programmer should look for the best sales strategy in order to, indeed, be paid and paid well especially if their effort is useful and ongoing. The authors of large commercial packages have done quite a bit to enhance the lives and work of many who use their products, of course they should be paid.
But...
we are talking about 'Software'.
Most of which is not a static thing that can come off the shelf at a store and used by a certain number of individuals at a time (licenses notwithstanding). Only one person at a time can feasibly use, say, a vacuum cleaner last time I checked. No, we have these wonderful things called computers which are not only the medium for consumption of the product, but the means by which it magically gets reproduced, often en masse to the detriment of the software authors pocketbook. If I could purchase one vacuum cleaner which I could then reproduce at will either to use in different rooms in my house or give away to a neighbor or charity, the manufacturer has lost those as sales. Because we can't reproduce a vacuum at our convenience and destroy the copies as we see fit, nor can we demand a lower price for an "upgrade", but we can with Software, we have such sticky things as EULAs and Dongles and Product Activation to ensure that Software, in it's consumption, behaves at least a little bit like a vacuum cleaner or toaster or other essential appliance than a trifle that can be thrown in the Star Trek replicator to be popped out as we please.
The point is Software, as a product, needs some sort of sales strategy that will ensure the author gets paid without inspiring the less scrupled among us to make copies distribute them simply because they can.
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1847
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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Re: Is Your Son a Computer Hacker?
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on: May 30, 2006, 04:28:36 PM
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They have, and they do and it happens every day. This is almost a disturbing trend. Someone writes up something that is funny, satirical, etc. and 98% of the audience thinks it's real. The other two percent are split. 1% "gets it" and has a good laugh, next link please... 1% "gets it" and leaves a comment in the same vein of satire as the original, further adding to the fray. An undeterminded percentage takes it hook line and sinker and says "OMG I didn't know that... I'd better alert my friends neighbors and relations and unplug the computer while I'm at it!!" Another undetermined percentage sees it for the drivel it is but thinks the author is honestly a complete imbecile and leaves comments like "I can't believe what a dumb@$$ you are... " and attempts to correct the intelligence deficiencies perceived. The last undetermined percentage sees it for the drivel it is but then moves on with a deprecated opinion of the social group the author of the satirical piece appears to represent. Lets see here... lemme find a few: http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/http://www.shelleytherepublican.com/http://humorix.org/ (actually that one's pretty transparent, you must admit...) http://landoverbaptist.org (careful, this one's a doozie...) Got any to share? On the bright side, sites like these have served to sharpen my BS detector quite handily. |
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1850
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Main Area and Open Discussion / General Software Discussion / Re: Why is so much software cracked?
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on: May 30, 2006, 01:10:54 PM
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And you might want to go with GimpShop- The gimp but hacked so it looks and behaves more like PhotoShop. I used to work at a shop where the head IT guys were on two ends of the spectrum- one was a Perl dev and so any small solution that was needed he whipped up in Perl and passed it around. Done. The other guy was the model case for just enough piracy. He was constantly on the hunt for the latest and greatest app for any given task, and frequently used cracks as trialware. Get it? If it worked, and worked well, he had the "proof in the pudding" (no missing functions, disabled saves, etc.) for the financial department to shell out the cash for a legit copy of said killer app. If not, he would uninstall and never be heard from again. Done. |
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Indeed.