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Messages - steeladept [ switch to compact view ]

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151
Living Room / Re: Anyone Using Bitcoins Yet?
« on: June 25, 2011, 01:53 PM »
I don't agree with every(most- even)thing that has been done financially, but this I will say... getting off the gold standard was the best thing that has been done in concept, and going back to it is pretty much a no-go, even talking fiscal responsibility.  Basing your economy on a limited resource limits your economic growth.

An article on why we shouldn't go to the Gold standard, and an alternative standard to replace the USD.

That is a horrible and bogus article that doesn't even understand the concept of money.  It is precisely BECAUSE it is scarce that it is a good source to base the monetary system on.  The reason everything fluctuates so much is because it is being debased by the controllers of the system.  Gold's price fluctuations are not the effect of the value of gold, but rather the relative value of gold.  In other words, the reason the price of gold changes so much is because of the amount of fiat currency people are willing to take in it's place.  When there is more currency, we call it inflation, and it takes many more dollars/pounds/whatever to buy it.  When there is less, or when it is based on a solid relatively fixed quantity commodity, it takes less to buy it.

Think of it this way.  In 1950, just for example, it took approximately 20 oz of Gold to buy an average car.  That same car cost about $400.   (As a side note, in 1950 the dollar was on a gold standard pegged at $20/oz IIRC).  Today, it is still about 20 oz. of Gold to buy an average car that cost - what?  About $30,000?  That, to me means that the price of gold has stayed the same, but the value of the dollar has dropped (not gold going up!).  Something to think about...  

152
I never have had access to an OS copy to work with, however, with the advent of the VT-technologies things have gotten a lot better for VM's in general.  I have heard of many useable implimentations of OSX on VMware ESXi, and Citrix has even claimed to have a valid working copy running on their XenDesktop desktop hypervisor which runs on XenServer.  I have not heard of any good useable copies running on a type 2 hypervisor, however (or type 1, whichever it is that runs on the OS instead of AS the OS).  I would think your best bet if you have a copy of OSX to install would be to download a test copy of VMware Workstation and load it on there.  Because of their broader corporate support over VirtualBox, you are likely going to have better chances of it working well in VMware.  Another piece to consider is Parallels Virtuosso.  Parallels came to Windows from the Mac world, so they may be better poised to help with getting it properly installed and running in a virtual machine.  Please note, however, since licensing issues exist that are suspect, they may not be WILLING to help you get it running.

153
Living Room / Re: Geocities Returns!
« on: June 25, 2011, 10:59 AM »
Took three times before I got the half-naked elf warrior-maiden animations :P

Talk about gouging your eyes out, the first one was the dancing baby with neon yellow, and the second one was devil-bill on a PC-chip green background and stabbing pain inducing neon green & white foreground.  Guess it was like the pokimon craze of the same time - got to see them all (drive you blind, but stilllll.......).

154
I'm loathe to change the Wheel Of Fortune themes, even though I am sympathetic to your arguments, because they're so entrenched in the format of the default puzzle file, and so much time and effort was spent coding around those themes.  But I agree that for people not familiar with WOF, it's more difficult.  Still, it is a variant of hangman, rather than sticking strictly to the historical game.  I appreciate your allowances in that direction.

I too found his comments useful and persuasive.  What I think is the correct way of dealing with this part of it though, would be to add a help that explained what is meant by those categories.  It doesn't take much to add (I don't think anyway) and it can leave everything else as is without detracting from it in any way. 

155
Didn't capture the original result, but here are the numbers -
 
SpeedWave Speedtest.png

Okay, I cheated - I did this from work (my internet is down at home at the moment)....Still, it is pretty good

156
Living Room / Re: War Veterans-Free Flights to DC and More
« on: June 22, 2011, 04:07 AM »
That is kind of cool.  If I didn't live so close to DC as to make it cheaper to drive there (even with free flights given the cost of rental car/tour bus/whatever) I might take advantage of it.  But it only takes me about a tank of fuel and 3-4 hours drive time to get there with the added flexibility of being able to drive where/when I want.  For those not as fortunate as I in this respect, however, this is a great thing.

157
Living Room / Re: Why ebooks are bad for you
« on: June 14, 2011, 09:13 PM »
Take one example - the publisher SitePoint.
-Carol Haynes (June 14, 2011, 08:44 PM)

Excellent example, and incidentally excellent site.  I checked it out when you mentioned it elsewhere and ended up getting the new HTML5 and CSS3 book they are currently touting.

158
I am personally a big fan of "personal" databases such as Access.  Way too often, the likes of Oracle, et. al. are just too big and too cost prohibitive, not to mention too difficult for untrained people to bother.  MySQL is better in some respects, but still takes way too long to create a small database.  On the other hand, I do hate the SQL Query structure they use, simply because it is non-standard.  It is close, but doesn't work with anything else (well maybe T-SQL based systems, never tried those...).  If that were addressed in Access (or a competing product that was otherwise equal), I would find it ideal. 

Even so, my biggest problem with getting rid of Access is the simple fact that if you do, the already proliferate use of Excel as a database would multiply.  Even users who should know better (read DBA's) will create impossibly complex spreadsheets because it is still infinitely easier than creating a small database in their current structure.  They ignore that a simple small database solution already exists in Access. 

Getting back to the OP: If (and with VBA that is a BIG IF) you find Access does almost everything but can't, for some reason, do something that would otherwise make it perfect, you may want to check out a similar small database I have been playing around with lately.  It is Alpha Five.  I can't speak to if it is any good or not, I only started playing around with it, but it may do what you want.

159
General Software Discussion / Re: Overlap Wallpaper
« on: June 14, 2011, 07:58 PM »
Didn't see this till today.  Brilliant.  Simply brilliant.

160
As it stands, I have Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (7.84GB) on the SSD
-wreckedcarzz (June 14, 2011, 12:35 PM)
How appropriate.  :P

Re OP:
I haven't looked recently, but given the price difference and the reliability, why not look at 10k RPM disk drives if the speed is that important?  More reliable, very fast, and about the same price IIRC (at work so I can't check actual pricing).  I find 7200RPM drives with lots of size options perfectly fine and very cheap for my desktop, but I have been thinking of going with either SSD or 10k RPM drives on my next build.  Currently leaning toward the 10k drives, but since the build isn't that near yet, things may change.

161
Living Room / Re: Why ebooks are bad for you
« on: June 14, 2011, 07:34 PM »
Any time these forums discuss the marketing of books/music/tech there is a general tendency to kick the big companies involved who want to make money. Add to that a general loathing of DRM without offering any idea as to how content creators are supposed to make any money.
Okay, I have issue with several things you say and at the end I will provide my solution which I think is obvious but overlooked.  Taking a page from your book - Not true.  Many have offered solutions, just none that have been accepted by the proponents of DRM.

Book authors face a serious problem making money from ebooks. No DRM, no income.
Again false. See above.


I'm sure the good folk here will happily sponsor their favourite authors by sending them a few dollars a month direct.
Further proof damning your previous argument.  While DC'ers are great people in general (I am sure some are like me and merely average), this is not the only group of good people willing to pay for their consumption.

I used to be a local newspaper journalist and editor. The industry's income has vanished. Few people will pay for online news. The paper I worked for employed 35 journalists in its heyday. It now employs a handful. The story is repeated in countless papers across the UK. More importantly, the news they used to provide has vanished. Detailed analysis of local government spending, for example, or the performance of local schools and hospitals. And no-one has stepped in to do the same thing. Sure, all this information is out there, somewhere, if you know how to dig, and how to make Freedom of Information requests to government/official bodies, and how to analyse the data. But the average punter doesn't have the time or the inclination. Many local government officials and politicians are delighted to see local newspapers vanishing. And at its essence it's the same debate as books. If no-one will pay for the information, the writers and skills will simply disappear. And our lives will be the poorer for it.
This gets at the crux of your argument and misses the biggest point of the issue.  Just because the data is there and can be gotten more efficiently by analysts doesn't mean anyone is willing to pay for that content.  As they say, content is king, and if you don't create content the people want you won't make money.  It isn't that this service isn't valuable to someone, it is that people (masses) are not willing to pay the price for content they can get themselves or are not willing to pay that high a price for information that is only marginally valuable to them.  

In your example, the paper industry died not because there wasn't news or that people didn't want the news, what they wanted was the news in an easier fashion to consume.  It had very little to do with the internet if truth be told (though that hastened it a lot!).  The industry was dying long before due to television getting in on the action.  The internet did a one-up on TV by making it available anytime the user wanted it.    Industry players that had the foresight and wherewithal to move with the changing market instead of fighting against it are still thriving and, indeed growing, today.  Just as an example, take the Wall Street Journal.  Like other papers, their print division has taken a beating and the subscription rate is only a fraction of what it used to be.  But they moved to the Wall Street Journal Online in conjunction with the paper, and are growing steadily.  You can argue that it is because they are a niche reporting group, but I argue that makes them MORE susceptible to loss due to the changing tide instead of less susceptible due to the significantly smaller user base.

The "simple" way to make money is to create content people want and sell it at a price they are willing to pay.  Are people going to steal it and/or copy it or otherwise devalue the full amount due?  Sure - they always have and always will.  But do authors stop writing?  Nope.  Looking for proof?  Do you see people still writing games?  Are they selling them, or giving them away for free?  They are authors who have created content and are able to sell it - most often without some form of DRM.  They often employ copy protection (NOT ALWAYS), but this is a far cry from the intrusiveness of DRM.  The key is that people (read corporations and producers) MUST change with the times.  Many times people don't want to or are unable.  Sorry - that is the price of competition.  Are companies going to go bankrupt because of it?  Well not with the current political environment around most of the world (at least not large companies.  Small companies are on their own - unfortunately); but they should.  That is what competition is all about.  Is it necessarily painful?  Maybe, but you can argue necessity - it will definitely be painful and many innocent people will get hurt.  Again it is the nature of a changing world.  

DRM is an old methodology view of dealing with new circumstances.  It works, sometimes, for a while; but people don't like beholden to other people.  It will change.  Solutions will come and go until someone can find a solution equitable to all involved - and that doesn't mean the consumer will change.

162
Living Room / Re: Backup Strategy: "The Threes"
« on: June 14, 2011, 04:49 PM »
RAID 5 (striping with parody (my favorite))

I think you meant parity. :P ;D

Thanks for the explanation.

So here's another question: If you have a RAID setup, would Windows show the individual drives in My Computer, or would they all appear as a single drive?

I don't know, depends on your setup I suppose.   ;D

163
I didn't mean to imply any large sum of monies, but something significant enough to warrant their time.  The bulk of the monies does, indeed, go to the publishers.  I know from experience in the printing industry that printing itself is expensive.  Probably 50% of the publisher's take goes to printing, the rest divided between advertising and profits.  For a typical 200 page math book going for say $80, it is probably something like $40 to the publisher, $5 for the distributor, $25 for the reseller, and $10 for the author(s).  (Numbers VERY hypothetical).  Of the $40, the book probably costs between $20 - $25 in materials and printing costs.  Most of that in the paper and binding costs.  For the reseller, it is broken up into more advertising and stocking costs (and of course profits all along the way).  I don't think anywhere on that route that anyone is truly GOUGING the end user, but there certainly is a lot of padded profits all along the way (typically 30-50% on most durable goods - don't know what it is for books specifically though).

164
My guess - and this is purely a guess - is it is because the volume sold is so low.  To cover the cost of production plus a reasonable income for the author's time, it is very high.  And because they are often written by the instructors themselves (or their friends), they can guarantee a certain amount of sales.  On top of that, the school bookstore puts a larger markup on the books above and beyond the typical markup.  I know this is a fact, because I used to go to the downtown Barnes & Noble to buy the exact same book our campus bookstore sold (which was also a Barnes & Noble store).  The price difference was typically about $5-$20.  Lastly, especially with technical books, the data becomes outdated so quickly, the lifespan of the book is relatively small.  Therefore, you can not hit a critical mass to lower the cost as easily.

One solution I used as of my sophomore year in undergrad, is www.addall.com.  If it is published by a normal publisher (i.e. not internally published); they will tell you where the cheapest source is after shipping.  It doesn't make it that much cheaper in some cases, but it is almost always significantly cheaper than the school bookstore.  Moreover, if you have several books to buy, you can often save even more by consolidating the order to one vendor and save on shipping too.

165
Edvard - Your experiences mirror my own.  I too am a fan of Xbuntu over the others and have pretty much settled on Mint Xfce as my preferred distro.  I know many who prefer Gnome and hence Ubuntu or even the main Mint, but it just isn't me.

166
Well a coworker of mine uses the exact same job-flow but instead of CintaNotes, he uses TextPad (we have a site license for it at work).  From there, he pastes it into TiddlyWiki and uses that.  I know you already tried that and said you got lost getting into it, but I can tell you if you put the time in to learn it, it will do what you want.  That was what I was going to suggest until I saw you already tried it, but if you end up having to go back to it, I can try to hook you up with him to ask any questions you might have via email.  I understand, of course, that your first choice would be one that works and is understandable out of the box though.  Unfortunately, I can't help beyond what I already offered.

167
I was thinking more like for Mom & Dad who would probably be doing some gaming, but probably nothing like your typical gamer would consider gaming.  Games that were perhaps popular 5 years ago or more, perhaps.  And of course doing quick photo editing via the stock programs that come with their camera, web browsing, maybe even video conferencing.  Do you consider those types of activities as business/productivity?  My gut says that on-board would work fine, but I just don't know anymore.

168
I don't know.  I have to disagree with superboyac on this one.  Newegg usually bends over backwards to keep people happy and generally does a good job.  However, if you bought this as a combo pack, they state everywhere that they do not verify compatibility and that they will not be held responsible for any incompatibilities.

Newegg.com cannot guarantee the compatibility of Combo items.

Moreover, if this was not a combo and was purchased based on a user suggestion, that is even less within their control other than to eliminate the comments entirely (which would be a great loss in my opinion, even if many of them are not correct/invalid).

I would say that you might be able to talk them into it as long as you offer to purchase the replacements on the spot so they don't really loose out on any money and perhaps even make some (if the new drives are more expensive).  If that doesn't work out, perhaps you can resell them yourself at cost and save the restocking fees.

169
A small storage device that has the OS and everything on it and plugs into generic hardware / terminals? It could be the size of a credit card with today's technology. But it doesn't excite me much.
I can understand that, sort of, but if that generic hardware was a tablet sized device (and I don't see why it couldn't be) then we would be where I am talking about.  The software is stored on removable storage and links up with any standard form factor hardware (whatever those standards evolve into).  Probably won't happen though.  Too much money to be made by differentiation.  Standardization is a good thing, as long as the standard is the one that company is proposing e.g. proprietary.  Standard devices?  Pah, any commodity item can fit that - ours does THIS.  Whatever....

170
I would want it as a phone instead of a USB due to the convergence.  I want to be able to communicate, play, work, whatever, with just that one device.  I want all my apps and data stored independent of the device, like your USB stick idea would allow, but I would also want it to be an always available communication device which it would not allow.  Since the communication circuitry is already there, there is no reason to have someone else provide the connection, just use the device.  As for the input and output devices (mouse, video, keyboard, etc.) I would have those provided independently not unlike a docking station is used for laptops today.  You use it to make the input and display/output easier.  Not necessary, just easier.

171

First of all, your assumption is wrong. I'm a gamer.  :D


Sorry to imply the assumption applied to you.  I was pretty sure you are a gamer, though I didn't know how cutting edge the games you played were.  I was asking more about the quality of the onboard video given an assumption that someone was not a hard-core, cutting edge gamer.  Guess I should have made that more clear.   :-[

Given the rest of the specs, I didn't figure you even would have that as an option, but I threw that out there because I was being too lazy to look up the specs of what you had on your list.

NOTE:  Doh!  Just notice the last line in your post.  Well it is out there twice now for other readers  :P

172
I would love to have a tablet that has the power of a desktop. With ports for external monitors (4), a keyboard, mouse, printer, speakers, etc.

I agree! I'd love to be able to carry my computer around with me wherever I go and then connect it to a public (or private) docking station for bigger monitor, keyboard and mouse.

If computers were the size of mobile phones, or rather, if mobile phones were as powerful as desktop PCs, with a docking station port, it would be awesome! Imagine all the places that would most likely provide keyboard, video (monitor), mouse, and internet. You could have your PC anywhere you wanted, no need for cloud.
That is sort of where I think we are going rather quickly if truth be told.  I can imagine a future where there are screens everywhere (even internet cafe type places with screens) that are just phone docking stations.  These screens have a keyboard, and maybe a mouse or touch screen (a new KVM?), but that the phone is the brains, storage, network connection (why not since it is already built in - no need to have that at the KVM), and applauncher.  Each person would have their PC with them always (more or less), and the docputer is nothing more than an interface to the phone so you don't have to deal with the miniscule screen for long periods of time.  If I am right and we are going there, I will be on the front edge.  I think that would be awesome.  My fear, though, is they will try to move the apps and the storage to the "cloud" and that, in my opinion, would be BAD!  

Ideally I would want to be able to use it from removable storage (only thing on the phone would be the OS and the network stack) where I keep both apps and data on something like a smart card so they can be used regardless of if I am in network range or not.  I mean what happens if I don't pay my bill one month?  Or switch carriers, or just even go out to the woods?  Do I loose everything?  Probably the way they are going now.  To me, that is not acceptable and I would want to be able to use the phone as my computer regardless of any of these conditions.  However, if that were to be accomplished - I am there!

173
Here is a related question for those of you who know....Assuming you are not gaming or doing any high-quality artwork, is there any reason not to use onboard video?  From what I have seen, the onboard video cards are quite capable, even for gaming (as long as it isn't cutting edge games).  Is this true or do you still suggest a separate card...If it is not true, I would really like to hear the reasons you would suggest sticking to a separate card.  If it is true, perhaps Deo would like to consider that for another cost cutting area.

Oh, and just for the sake of argument, let's assume it is a single monitor.  That right there is the main reason I am considering a separate card, but if there are options there, I am interested to hear about them as well.

174
We are not all going to jump to using tablets, forsaking our desktop computers. We are not all going to move all our data to the cloud. We are not all going to live in our browsers. We are not all going to stop being productive producers and switch to being happy little idiot consumers that just need a few icons we can select with our chubby fingers to view what someone else has created (most likely created on a different OS designed for productivity).

I wish (and hope) that that were true.  However, if industry pushes in that direction by making apps that only work in that area, then tablets are going to become prevalent.  As they become prevalent, traditional machines will become stagnant and slowly fade away.  People will stop programming them, electronic manufacturers will stop producing the parts, and they will just slowly become a relic of the past.  It won't be soon, but it will happen if the majority of "the masses" do. 

You can already see the decline of the desktop PC as laptops become as powerful.  There are fewer available, and they have fewer options.  The parts are becoming more expensive such that laptops are quickly becoming the preferred alternative for equal pricing (not there yet, but very close).  If tablets become the new "laptop", I can see laptops quickly taking place of desktops for the occasionally mobile.  That will drive prices lower for the laptops which will then make desktops even less desirable for most people.  This, in turn, will actually drive the prices up for desktop equipment (the manufacturers will generally just leave the market for niche players that will be the custom makers of today) and make it the enthusiast piece of equipment.  As it becomes more antiquated, mainstream manufacturers will start to drop these lines as marginally profitable and so components will become scarcer and the updates will be fewer and less innovative.  This will mean enthusiasts will have to come up with solutions or abandon the market for more mainstream alternatives.  As that occurs it will only be the richest enthusiasts, niche market players, or the corporations that absolutely REQUIRE the equipment that will pay the big dollars for the custom equipment that will then be required.  Soon after that, the companies will migrate to new platforms as it becomes cheaper to replace than to maintain the legacy at which point even the niche players will move on because there is no business left to maintain.  At that point the richest enthusiasts will have moved on because that is the way it goes.

Will this occur in our lifetime?  Probably not, but the drop-off of the general enthusiast to something else probably will, and that is when you will be living in your browser with touchscreen everything even if you don't want to.  Well that or give up on computing altogether.

175
Developer's Corner / Re: Looking for Component to Fill Boxes
« on: June 02, 2011, 11:30 PM »
I don't know of anything off hand, but it really should be quite simple to code.  I did something similar already with a transform to boot.  I can't find the code right now, but nesting squares within a square goes something like this:

Code: Text [Select]
  1. square[][] = AddRectangle[10][10]                           //creates the field array 10 squares across in size
  2.  
  3. xloc = 0                                                    //initializes starting x position
  4. yloc = 0                                                    //initializes starting y position
  5.  
  6. for (x = 0, x <= <xarraysize>, x++){                        //where <xarraysize> is the actual array size defined      
  7.      for (y = 0, y <= <xarraysize>, y++) {                  
  8.             square[x][y] = AddRectangle(10,10,xloc,yloc)    //where x & y are the array positions & (10,10,xloc,yloc) are the
  9.                                                             //size of the individual squares and their position.
  10.             xloc = xloc + 10                                //increments the xloc variable by the pixel size of the rectangle
  11.             yloc = yloc +10                                 //increments the xloc variable by the pixel size of the rectangle
  12.      }
  13. }

At least I think that is about what I did.  I will post it if I can find it.  It was originally written in SmallBasic just to prototype the logical concept.  I will be implementing it in Java, eventually for a personal project I have been working on for about 4 years now off and on (more off than on) to learn the language.

Note, if you want variable size internal squares, you can put a variable in in place of the 10's listed above and then just subtract the number of pixels left in the array.  It would, of course, require another variable or two to track the array size in pixels, but that should be trivial to add.

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