Messages

76

General Software Discussion / Re: How to make a local copy of an ancient Web forum?

« on: May 01, 2017, 02:18 PM »

Had very good luck with the HTTrack spidering website copier.

Free for download under GPL/Libre. Website here.

77

Living Room / Re: Get legal access to paywalled research and science papers free with Unpaywall

« on: April 17, 2017, 02:54 PM »

Excellent.  It's a crime that we fund these universities with our tax dollars and then the research results get put behind paywalls.

-mouser (April 17, 2017, 12:09 PM)

Yep. Thank the greed of universities and institutions and the cleverness of the Dutch company Elsevier in convincing them "there's gold in that there paper" and starting the "hostage research" thing which others have since gotten in on.

Funny part is it's in direct violation of a lot of funding organizations rules to do that. But the universities and Elsevier have been clever in stonewalling and only backing down where somebody knew the rules and was pushing the issue hard. But they only comply on a case by case basis rather than stop the practice.

Pretty sad. But don't expect any legal relief. They get off the hook by releasing whatever they're required to release prior to going to court, so any lawsuit over them not releasing something becomes moot. There's no rule that says they have to make the process easy as long as they ultimately comply. And most times they don't. 

Maybe someday the funding people will get a little more involved with the issue.  But they have close ties with the universities and institutes, so they're not looking to rock the boat just because a few scholars know their legal rights.

78

Living Room / Get legal access to paywalled research and science papers free with Unpaywall

« on: April 17, 2017, 08:09 AM »

Good news for those of us who follow research and science but don't have deep pockets.

Details here:  http://www.opencultu...e+%28Open+Culture%29

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Living Room / Re: 1986 dial-up bulletin board system has brought the old Web back to life

« on: April 14, 2017, 07:30 AM »

There's a good 8-part documentary on Youtube. Do a search for BBS The Documentary.

It'll bring a smile of recognition (and maybe sadness) to those of us who had been there in those magical early days of pre-web and FB online communities.


 

80

Non-Windows Software / Re: Ubuntu will be switching back to GNOME for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

« on: April 07, 2017, 07:33 AM »

...I'll probably stick with Mint because the Unity thing just left me with a bad taste for Ubuntu (even though I realize that Mint is based on Ubuntu).

-mwb1100 (April 07, 2017, 02:08 AM)

I agree. And I plan on sticking with Mint too. And for the exact same reasons. Besides, Shuttleworth's "sins" against the spirit of Linux go far beyond trying to force Unity onto everyone's desktop.

Not that Mint is totally without fault. Clement Lefebvre pulled what I considered a very petty and somewhat hypocritical move when he had Mint's remaster/remix utility taken off the boards because some people were basically doing with Mint the same thing Mint had done with Ubuntu. Which is to say making a name for yourself by taking an existing distribution, customizing it, and rebranding it as your own.

In fairness, there's a little more to it than that. But even so, it was a surprising and pretty dick thing for Clem to do.

Either way, I'm still with the Mint camp. I've been excludively Linux for my own stuff about two years now and I couldn't be happier. Last week I had to do some work that required Windows 10 and I felt like I was wearing handcuffs. So I don't think I'm ever going back. At least not willingly.

81

Non-Windows Software / Re: Ubuntu will be switching back to GNOME for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

« on: April 06, 2017, 09:09 PM »

I figured it was only a matter of time, and I think they made the right move in dropping Unity.

It never gained the traction that Cinnamon attained. And with Gnome, KDE, and xfce already established, it's becoming increasingly obvious they lost that bid for desktop supremacy.

Besides, Unity was bone ugly and geared for what Shuttleworth was convinced was "the next big thing" (that didn't come to pass) for the desktop market - the touchscreen.

I don't think Unity will be missed. It was mostly a distraction for Cannonical IMO. With that clunker out of the way maybe Ubuntu will get some of its groove back.

Truth is, all Canonical would need to do to go back to the top distro slot is to embrace Cinnamon. Do that and they could suck the wind right out of Mint's sails. Because all Mint did was take Ubuntu and give the users the desktop experience they actually wanted rather than try to pull a Steve Jobs move and try convince them Cannonical's  corporate "vision" of unity was what they really wanted.

If Cannonical offers a better Cinnamon based interface, Mint becomes superfluous.

82

Living Room / Re: File Encryption - now effectively outlawed in the US?

« on: April 04, 2017, 07:37 PM »

Not only that, but it seems the FBI can arrest and charge you for hacking even if you never hacked anybody:

http://www.thedailyb...o-hacked-no-one.html

-Deozaan (April 02, 2017, 11:25 AM)

Got news... Under existing US laws, you already may be arrested and held indefinitely - without trial or charges, and at the discretion of the executive - if you are deemed a threat to US national security. The determination is solely that of the executive and applies (according to the wording of the law) to any person of any nation, anywhere in the world, and at any time. And such action is not subject to any form of judicial review or oversight in any real sense of either word.

Maybe someday the people will finally wake up and realize they're no longer living in the nation or world they think they are. 

83

Living Room / Re: Movies you've seen lately

« on: April 01, 2017, 02:31 AM »

The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Vanished...

Based on the internationally best-selling novel by Jonas Jonasson, the unlikely story of a 100-year-old man who decides it's not too late to start over. For most people it would be the adventure of a lifetime, but Allan Karlsson's unexpected journey is not his first. For a century he's made the world uncertain, and now he is on the loose again.

It's got explosions, Russians, Einstein, the atomic bomb, skinhead killers, nursing homes...and an elephant. Who could ask for more?


It's currently running on Netflix. One of the best movies I've seen in a long time.

84

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« on: March 07, 2017, 06:26 PM »

Sarah Longfield on an 8-string guitar and self-produced. Her latest works are moving into prog/fusion country. Not sure if I'm completely wild about all of it. It runs the risk of going cliche if she's not careful. But she's certainly capable and inventive. If you like anime or game music, she should be right up your alley.

Makes for good background tracks when you're working or concentrating.

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Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« on: March 07, 2017, 06:19 PM »

@Ren - you'll appreciate this. Yours truly used Bitcoin for the first time just recently. Interesting. 

86

General Software Discussion / Re: alternative bullet-proof ways to print over home (or remote) puters

« on: March 07, 2017, 06:13 PM »

If you want both home and remote with bulletproof reliability, you might want to look into doing your own personal cloud server. They're considerably easier to set up than they used to be. And as long as your ISP isn't blocking dynamic DNS services, you can access its resources from anywhere. There are several FOSS cloud servers that you can get and use free for the download and the bandwidth.

For just within your own LAN, any printer with a built-in or add-on network print capability (wired - or ideally wireless) will work just fine. These have an internal print server that supports all the main protocols so Windows, Linux, and Apple's OSes can all print to it fairly easily.

87

Living Room / Re: Movies you've seen lately

« on: March 07, 2017, 06:03 PM »

The Best Offer

Recently caught this on Netflix.

Enjoyable mystery about an eccentric art expert and auctioneer (played by veteran actor Jeffrey Rush) who is asked by a clinically agoraphobic and enigmatic heiress (Dutch actress Sylvia Hoeks) to arrange for the sale of a large part of her inherited collection of art and antiques. Hard to talk about it without giving the plot away. Suffice to say it was one of the better mystery movies to come out in some time. I figured it out (or more correctly hypothesized three possible endings which included the correct one) before it was over. But that didn't take anything away from the enjoyment, or the rather artistic cinematography in the picture. Recommended. 

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General Software Discussion / Re: placing documents online for download and sharing

« on: March 07, 2017, 05:49 PM »

For pure file sharing, I use Mega (www.mega.nz). I've been very happy with them. They'll give you a 50Gb of storage free for the asking.

89

Living Room / Re: how to learn finance

« on: January 14, 2017, 11:01 PM »

It's long overdue for me to learn some basic personal finance/investing/saving subjects.

For me I need book though.  So if anyone has any amazon.com book recommendations I'd love to hear them.

-mouser (January 12, 2017, 03:22 PM)

The Finish Rich series by David Bach is one good group of personal finance titles you'll want to take a look at.

Another good author is Dave Ramsay. His Total Money Makeover is good. As are Suze Orman's books. They both have similar central tenets but have different approaches so it might not be a bad idea to read one title from each author if you're new to this.

If you need a good simple approach to setting up a personal and home budget, and get in the personal finance/money management mindset, send me a PM and I'll sent you a link for something you'll want to download and read. 

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Living Room / Re: how to learn finance

« on: January 14, 2017, 10:52 PM »

@kalos - Finance is not something you're going to learn by looking up definitions of finance terms any more than you're going to learn how to program merely by looking up a list of keywords in a programming language. Without some background in basic economics and accounting, all those financial terms are going to be largely meaningless no matter where you go for the definitions. IF you drop on over to this page, there's a list of online courses you might want to consider taking to get yourself up to speed. The microeconomics, basic accounting, and intro to corporate finance are the ones you'll want to take a look at.

If you're in a rush, have a business background, and just want a conversational grasp of finance, check out the Corporate Finance and Personal Finance for Dummies titles for a quick & dirty crash overview of the subject. With those under your belt you'll then have the necessary background to begin to explore all the facets of finance you're interested in.

91

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« on: December 23, 2016, 09:18 PM »

Thus, whilst many people reading the request for donations might want to donate to Snowden's fund, I could imagine that many potential $donations might be withheld simply because the donors could have been put off by the political bigotry implicit in that gratuitous line about Trump. Goodness knows how many thousands of dollars in withheld donations that single line could have cost the cause.

Go figure.
Talk about cutting one's nose off to spite one's face. It seems cretinous to me, but then I never could understand the divisive, partisan and antithetical dichotomy apparently created by and seemingly fostered by American political camps, when we are all brothers under the skin.

-IainB (December 23, 2016, 05:58 PM)

Although I think the world of you and enjoy reading your well-reasoned posts, I'm going to have to say you're speaking so far outside the current reality of the United States of America on December 23. 2016 that I'm going to have to respectfully say you're either completely blind to the current political clime within this country - or you're indulging in wishful thinking. Because the United States is a deeply divided country right now, when it comes to our national identity, our politics and our Weltanschauung. And it's gone long past the point where appeals to 'all being brothers under the skin' is going to fall on anything other than deaf ears. Especially in the  halls of power where it might have made a difference if that opinion might be embraced.

Suggestion? Don't hold your breath. It is now officially an "us or them" situation. Our halls of power are not interested in compromise. They've made it abundantly clear with the constant refrain given via tweets and Facebook comments over the last two months: "You lost snowflake. So suck it up, buttercup!"

The U.S. is at one of those pivotal points in its short history. And whichever way it goes is not going to be decided amicably. You cannot reach consensus among "men of goodwill" when such men of goodwill are conspicuously absent from the debate.

What you're seeing in the U.S. is an attempt at an "power grab" that's unprecedented in scope. Some would argue (with justification) that the voiced contempt on the part of the emerging political leadership for legal process, common decency, and even intelligent reasoning or established facts (i.e. the "post-truth" world some in power have publicly stated their admiration for) has more in common with a coup d'état than an orderly transition of political power.

So while it's fine to scold an organization for taking a political swipe while asking for donations, I think it's gone long past the point where that is going to influence anybody who would have considered contributing anyway. And that swipe was far from gratuitous.

Welcome to America! It's going to get very interesting next year. Grab some popcorn and get ready to watch the fur fly.

---------------------

This article might make for some interesting reading for you. It's pretty much maps out what the actual majority in this country are realizing has become a major problem - as well as what needs to be done in order to deal with it.


 

92

Living Room / A couple of fun story podcasts

« on: December 02, 2016, 11:07 AM »

If you're getting bored with the usual "talking book" type story podcast, you might want to take a look at a few shows from Pacific Nortwhest Stories.

They do an interesting hybrid sort of narration that's part blog, part investigative reporting, and part docudrama. Pretty unique in my experience. You get to follow two investigative journalists as they uncover the mysteries behind The Black Tapes and the "un-sound" and an ancient multifaceted mystery that lies hidden beneath the enigmatic name "Tanis."

If you're a fan of all the usual lunatic fringe investigation memes such as: The Elder Gods, Cthulhu, UFOs, the Voynich Manuscript, various secret societies, government cover-ups and big conspiracies, etc. etc. etc. these shows will be right up your alley.



First up is TANIS

Tanis is a serialized bi-weekly podcast from the creators of Pacific Northwest Stories about a fascinating and surprising mystery: the myth of Tanis. Tanis is hosted by Nic Silver.

Tanis is an exploration of the nature of truth, conspiracy, and information.

Tanis is what happens when the lines of science and fiction start to blur...

You can subscribe to Tanis for free on iTunes and other audio platforms, and you can also listen right here on tanispodcast.com

And other is The Black Tapes show. It's tangentially related and features some of the same characters, but it's still its own thing.

The Black Tapes is a bi-weekly podcast from Pacific Northwest Stories and Minnow Beats Whale, and is hosted by Alex Reagan. The Black Tapes is a serialized docudrama about one journalist's search for truth, her enigmatic subject's mysterious past, and the literal and figurative ghosts that haunt them both.

How do you feel about paranormal activity or the Supernatural? Ghosts? Spirits? Demons?

Do you believe?

You can subscribe to The Black Tapes for free on iTunes and other audio platforms, and you can also listen right here on theblacktapespodcast.com.

Good fun for all. Both shows start off a little slowly. But they gradually draw you in and pick up the pace until you're completely hooked. Highly recommended. 

93

Living Room / Re: This time of year I'm reminded how thankful I am for you folks

« on: December 02, 2016, 10:44 AM »

Thank you, mouser, for having created DonationCoder and for helping to shape it into the wonderful community it has become over the years.

-Deozaan (November 29, 2016, 01:55 PM)

+1 

94

Living Room / Re: This time of year I'm reminded how thankful I am for you folks

« on: December 02, 2016, 10:44 AM »

Yuck. He cleaned the toilets, wore grubby-looking clothes and a cloth cap, and walked with a shuffling gait.

-IainB (November 28, 2016, 01:40 AM)

So, you're one of the lucky few who have met mouser face to face.
 

-cranioscopical (November 28, 2016, 05:02 PM)

Yeah really! After all these years I'm starting to suspect Mouser is really a very sophisticated bot programmed by some clever software guy who goes by the nickname Fafhrd.   

95

General Software Discussion / Re: Affinity (Serif) goes head to head with Photoshop & (maybe) Illustrator

« on: December 02, 2016, 10:40 AM »

Deal is apparently over. Price is now back to $49.99 and with no freebies.

Oh well! 

96

Living Room / Re: Trying to remember quote about design and beauty

« on: October 03, 2016, 01:13 PM »

Possibly: "...elegance is defined as the ability to bring simplicity and precision to the accomplishment of a task." ?

97

Found Deals and Discounts / Nice font for free today

« on: August 12, 2016, 12:56 PM »

MyFonts is offering the Hoftype Carrara Light typeface for free today.

Carrara is a highly readable serif font that has twelve very nicely integrated styles suitable for web or print. This family has become one of my favorites since it's a font designed to be read.

Right now you can save about $50 and get the Light style for free. License is for both personal and commercial use - something that's rather unusual in the font freebie world.

Grab a copy here.

You do need to set up an account to get this freebie. And you also need to check out through their shopping cart, which some people may find off-putting. But you don't need to enter a credit card or other financial information to set up an account. And they don't ask for a financial info if the order is for something that's free. The reason they do this is because the license is issued through their checkout system, so they need everything to go through there to handle the compliance paperwork.

FWIW, an account is handy to have since MyFonts regularly offers free fonts, many if which are well worth getting. They have a nice newsletter that will keep you up to date on what they're doing. And they don't spam you. Highly recommended people to get to know if you like fonts..

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General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for Workbench Design SW :: $10 bounty for 1st accepted answer

« on: August 09, 2016, 10:59 PM »

What's the difference between the free and paid versions?  I didn't see a comparison anywhere...

-wraith808 (August 09, 2016, 09:53 PM)

AFAIK the pro version has an API that allows you to program it in LISP, comes with tech support, and some additional enterprise tools such as license management.

You can also download an unrestricted 30-day trial of the pro version if you think you're missing out on anything and try it yourself. For my needs and level of ability with CAD software, the free version is just fine.

99

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for Workbench Design SW :: $10 bounty for 1st accepted answer

« on: August 09, 2016, 09:35 PM »

DraftSight is a pretty straightforward CAD program which I've used in the past for speaker cabinet plans. Basic version is free for the download.

Udemy has a nice little course which is on sale till August 15th for $20 called CAD for woodworkers that uses DraftSight for the course.

100

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« on: August 06, 2016, 01:21 PM »

Fifth-Business by Robertson Davies. Book one of three linked novels forming what's since come to be referred to as: "The Deptford Trilogy." The other two related books are The Manticore and The World of Wonders.

A very different take on the "coming of age" novel. If you enjoyed books like Slaughterhouse-Five, this book should appeal. Davies is a fine wordsmith. There's tons of quotable passages throughout. By example:

I have already said that while our village contained much of what humanity has to show, it did not contain everything, and one of the things it conspicuously lacked was an aesthetic sense; we were all too much descendants of hard-bitten pioneers to wish for or encourage any such thing, and we gave hard names to qualities that, in a more sophisticated society, might have had value.

From the publisher's blurb (which sums it up rather well):

Ramsay is a man twice born, a man who has returned from the hell of the battle-grave at Passchendaele in World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross and destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As Ramsay tells his story, it begins to seem that from boyhood, he has exerted a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious, influence on those around him. His apparently innocent involvement in such innocuous events as the throwing of a snowball or the teaching of card tricks to a small boy in the end prove neither innocent nor innocuous.  Fifth Business stands alone as a remarkable story told by a rational man who discovers that the marvelous is only another aspect of the real.

Recommended!