Messages

1

Living Room / Re: Is this funny

« on: September 17, 2008, 07:26 AM »

It's a good thing men can ignore things like the lack of a sense of humor in a relationship, there are other attributes we can appreciate like their... ugh... eyes! 

-nosh (August 30, 2008, 06:35 PM)

We live in a wacky world.   CoverGirl Cosmetics' new model is . . . . .  Ellen Degeneres.
Only funny thing about her is that waddle she calls a "dance".   

2

Site/Forum Features / Re: New Member Map Mod for the Forum -- Configure Your Profile Location!

« on: September 17, 2008, 06:42 AM »

Pin #417 placed.

Hard to see my green pin since it is hidden by many other nearby pins.
(Probably nothing can be done about it . . . just thought you might wanna know)

No Japanese pins??!?!     

3

Living Room / Re: Favorite part of the Beijing Olympics so far?

« on: August 26, 2008, 02:26 AM »

Beijing 2008 -- Final impressions

10 ) The horrible system used to score boxing matches.
The system (where 3 of 5 judges must tap a touch pad within one second of each other to register a scoring blow) has been used for at least three Olympics. It has never worked properly.  It works worse now than when it was introduced and needs to be scrapped ASAP.


9 ) Matthew Mitcham, AUS
with the most perfect 10-meter dive I've ever seen.
It is moments like these that makes having the Olympics worthwhile.


8 ) The US Men's Vollyball team
They faced and defeated almost all the other top-rated teams including  World #1 Brazil in the gold medal match.


7 ) Vasyl Lomachenko, UKR
His complete domination in the featherweight boxing gold medal match left the inept boxing judges with nothing to do. 
Three standing eight-counts in 1:51 of the first round.  End of contest.  Wow!


6 ) Usain Bolt, JAM
I saw it and am still a bit in disbelief.  In the middle of the 100, he kicks it into another gear.  Never saw an olympian win this short race by such a large margin.  Fastest dude on the planet.


5 ) The scandal of underage female Chinese gymnasts.
This story gets bigger every day as more evidence is uncovered.
New documents have been found that indicate FIVE of the 6 girls are under the required age.  The age limit is in place to protect the long-term health of young still-developing girls, whose bodies can not handle the stress of gymnastics.  The gals on the olympic team are elite and have shown they can handle it, but God only knows how many legions of others sacrificed their feet, ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, etc to uncover these precious few.


4 ) Kenenisa Bekele, ETH
Winner of the 5,000 and 10,000 meter races.  You know his acceleration on the bell lap and closing kick are coming . . . and there's nothing you can do about it.  The world's best runner.


3 ) Michael Phelps, USA
What can be said about him that hasn't been said 100 times already?
His turns are the best.  So many times he went into a turn tied with a competitor only to resurface with a half-length body lead. 
   His next-to-last race is the 100 meter butterfly final which he wins by an eyelast 50.58 seconds to Milorad Cavic's 50.59.  His hard charge at the very end of the race proving to be the difference.  That huge effort must have tapped what little reserves he had left, right?  Wiith 16 races and 7 gold medals in 7 (or 8 ) days there must be a fresher swimmer on the squad that can give the United States a better chance at winning what looks like, on paper, to be a very close race.
   His last event is the butterfly leg of the 4x100 medley relay.  Even after all his other races, his leg sets the record for fastest fly leg in the history of the event and beats his nearest rival by 0.7 seconds.  USA goes on to win the race by 0.7 seconds.  That kind of effort after all he'd done is just mind-blowing.  His endurance and recovery are at a level no other swimmer has ever achieved..


2) The Chinese winning 51 gold medals
They won more gold in these games than in the last 2 (maybe 3) Olympics combined.  They're only going to get better as their country continues to grow and prosper.


1) Jason Lezak hauls in Alain Bernard
The Frenchman had boasted pre-race they were going to "smash the Americans" in the 4x100 freestyle relay.  During the final leg Bernard makes a huge tactical mistake by swimming right next to the lane line allowing the American to draft off his wave and overtake him in the last few meters. 

4

Living Room / Re: Favorite part of the Beijing Olympics so far?

« on: August 25, 2008, 08:38 AM »

Thus far (out of four events) gold in the women's road race and silver in the time trial. They are expected to do even better in the the track events

The Spanish didn't win everything - it just seems that way sometimes! 

-JennyB (August 13, 2008, 12:08 PM)

The Brits dominated on the velodrome.  Really impressive.

Samuel Sanchez did win the men's road race.  Overall this has been a great year in sports for Spain. 

5

Living Room / Re: Favorite part of the Beijing Olympics so far?

« on: August 25, 2008, 07:46 AM »

The opening ceremony was certainly impressive, that's true. I wonder which was the cost...

-Lashiec (August 13, 2008, 11:07 AM)

30 million US dollars

6

Living Room / Re: What May Happen in the Next 100 Years (Predictions from 1901)

« on: August 25, 2008, 06:58 AM »

Well, since I don't have a clue about the meaning behind C, X and Q...

-Shades (August 24, 2008, 11:10 PM)

"A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling"

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g
j" anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud
hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

- Mark Twain

7

Living Room / Re: Is this funny

« on: August 25, 2008, 06:00 AM »

I was talking to someone on Windows Live Messenger and made the following joke. . . .

After another dropped message I said:
I want Bill Gate's head, on a silver platter.....
.....with an Apple in his mouth.

-Fred Nerd (August 24, 2008, 07:23 AM)

Why waste a perfectly good Apple?!?
I vote for shoving the Linux Penguin in his pie hole.   

8

Developer's Corner / Re: Source code colors: Contrast / Readability / Ergonomics

« on: February 12, 2008, 04:50 AM »

http://hubel.sfasu.e...research/AHNCUR.html
"Readability Of Websites With Various Foreground/Background Color Combinations, Font Types And Word Styles"

The above link is from a readability study done in 1997 at Stephen F. Austin State University.

9

Living Room / Re: How many germs are living on your keyboard?

« on: February 12, 2008, 03:02 AM »

This thread reminds me of the news story from a couple years ago.
A junior high school student compared the amount of germs from an soda dispensing machine at a 7-11 store (they never clean those things) to the water in her toilet.

7-11 was not happy when the story was picked up by the major news outlets.

10

Developer's Corner / Re: 18 Monospace fonts comparison screenshot

« on: February 09, 2008, 12:36 PM »

I found the problem -- Idiot Operator Error  In NP++ i had Settings > Styler Config > Brace Highlight Style > Font Size = 12.  Reseting it to blank was the cure.
Had a look at Andale Mono again -- very similar to Dina but puts a couple more lines on screen.

11

Developer's Corner / Re: 18 Monospace fonts comparison screenshot

« on: February 09, 2008, 09:31 AM »

Humm, playing a bit with Inconsolatas. It gets way too smudgy when any kind of font smoothing is on (cleartype or not). At 12pt, the l (lowercase L) is too big/fat/wide compared to the rest of the characters, and 10pt it's a bit too small. Other sizes don't work very well (it scales like crap, although font smoothing makes that less appearant). And for some reason, Incosolatas doesn't show up in Notepad++, so I was forced to test it in notepad :-s

Droid Sans Mono seems to be okay, but at 10pt and a 768px-height Notepad++ window, I lose 6 lines of text compared to 10pt Dina. Also, Italic text with Droid is a bit smudgy compared to Dina's �ber-crispness.

Same with Envy Code R, it doesn't work very well at 10pt, some characters are a bit too thin and some a bit too heavy, and I again lose around 6 lines of text.

It should be noted that I use "standard" font smoothing and not cleartype, cleartype is so smudgy and I simply can't stand it, means more strain on my wacko eyes, which is kinda the opposite as to what cleartype is supposed to do? . And I work at 10pt not 8pt, I guess my eyesight is going bad...

Simply haven't found any font that works as well as Dina for coding and other monospace use.

Thanks for the links, though

-f0dder (February 08, 2008, 08:28 AM)

Re: Envy Code R
It is not strictly a ClearType font but without CT turned on, the diagonal lines look fat and fuzzy.

RE: Inconsolata and Notepad++
It shows up in Notepad++ just fine for me.  It is a ClearType only font.   MS-Consolas looks awful too with CT off.  ClearType is really only for LCD screens. 
While changing font sizes in Notepad++ just now with Inconsolata I noticed the line spacing doesn't change for sizes 12 and below... which creates a lot of vertical whitespace.

With Dina, I have the opposite problem as you.  The editors i've tried won't recognize Dina's old .FON format.  (MS) Notepad sees it and -- whoa -- it its huge compared to 8-pt truetype fonts.  (That solves one curiosity -- I was beginning to wonder if Mouser _was_ that cat with telescoping vision from Disney's "Lady and the Tramp".  I *think* that's the right flick.)

Hmm.  Ok.  After quitting Notepad++ and reset font smoothing from ClearType to standard.  Then fired up Notepad++ again.  It now lists Dina and (old) Courier (.FON files) but the linespacing problem I talked about with Inconsolata is affecting these fonts too. 
Is this a Notepad++ problem or a font rendering gotcha or perhaps the lack of information in the .FON file itself.?

12

Living Room / Re: How many germs are living on your keyboard?

« on: February 08, 2008, 07:56 AM »

Hi harmonv!

The .jpg isn't stored for long on their servers (if you try the URL now, it doesn't work).
That's why the forum has the "attach file to post" feature, so that you can download the image and then upload it with your post, and it'll be stored on DC

-jgpaiva (February 03, 2008, 07:26 AM)

Thank you -- just what i needed to know. 
Congratz on reaching 3000 posts! (said the guy reaching double digits.  hah)

13

Developer's Corner / Re: 18 Monospace fonts comparison screenshot

« on: February 08, 2008, 07:51 AM »

Sorry for the delay fodder.  Here ya go...

Inconsolata. 
http://www.ghostscri...nts/inconsolata.html
This one my even seduce Mouser away from Dina as it packs a lot of text on screen.

Droid Sans Mono.
http://damieng.com/b...no-great-coding-font
Damien's blog has a great screen shot and link to the font.

Envy Code R
http://damieng.com/b...isual-studio-italics
Check out his Humane theme for visual studio.  The color scheme is very easy to look at for hours.
I've been using very similar colors after doing some digging into what colors enhance readability.

Again my apology for take 4 days to reply.
Take care,
  -- Harmon

14

General Software Discussion / Re: Word processors, wikis and other tools for writing business reports

« on: February 07, 2008, 09:59 AM »

I use Jarte (www.jarte.com) for initial text entry and layout.  then for the finished product, I'll use Open Office.  Jarte is a free Wordpad replacement with more power and a bunch of thoughtful features.  It has a very clean interface with features far beyond wordpad (spell checker, etc.)

15

Living Room / Re: Find names for old games...

« on: February 07, 2008, 09:29 AM »

Try this webriing.
l.webring.com/hub?ring=dosgamesring

Here are some of the best DOS games sites i've found.
www.dosgames.com/
www.dosgamesarchive.com/
www.dosgamesonline.com/
www.gamingdepot.com/
www.classic-pc-games.com/
www.download-full-games.com/
dosgamer.com/
www.classicdosgames.com/
www.oldschooldos.com/
www.bestoldgames.net/eng/action.php
www.dosgamesdownload.com/

www.abandonia.com/index.php
www.xtcabandonware.com/
www.wirural.net/
www.alex-soft.net/
www.dosgames.nl/
www.80sdos.com/
www.dmoz.org/Games/Video_Games/Computer_Platforms/DOS/
www.experts-exchange.com/Gamers/Computer_Games/DOS/
www.kaser.com/msdos.html
www.soleau.com/dosgame.html
www.faqs.org/faqs/os2-faq/dos-games/part1/
www.tripletsandus.com/80s/80s_games/pcgames.htm


Good luck with your search!

16

General Software Discussion / Re: Apple software recommendations?

« on: February 04, 2008, 03:53 AM »

Something else to keep in mind -- There are several graphics file formats and some are more efficient than others.
Try saving a few files in different formats and see which offers the best combination of image quality and small filesize.
Among Windows users the .PNG format seems to be the preferred choice.  Best of luck. 

17

General Software Discussion / Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?

« on: February 03, 2008, 07:39 AM »

I used to think I was completely intolerant to bugs but then came along X2 which invariably crashes a few times a day (the author blames shell extensions and one assumes he knows what he's talking about) but the fact remains, if I stopped using it, the crashes would stop too. It has however ended up becoming a very essential part of my system and it'd take a lot for me to dump it. Mind you, this is a category where there are several good replacements... the pros can sometimes outweigh the cons.

-nosh (February 03, 2008, 04:30 AM)

I wonder if anyone would write a program to convert all your work in X2 over to another file manager.  Maybe DC's "Request a program" might be a good solution.  Who knows, perhaps someone has already done it and figured no-one else would need/want it.
<just wondering>

18

Living Room / Re: How many germs are living on your keyboard?

« on: February 03, 2008, 07:06 AM »

<a href="http://www.justsayhi.com/bb/keyboard" style="color: #99CC00; text-decoration: none; display: block; width: 303px; height: 128px; padding-top: 50px; background: url(http://assets.justsa...board.h6osxchgdg.jpg) no-repeat; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 33px; text-align: center;"><strong>943,740</strong><span style="display: none;">How Many Germs Live On Your Keyboard?</span></a><p></p>

Hmmm, why is the .jpg not displayed? 

19

Developer's Corner / Re: 18 Monospace fonts comparison screenshot

« on: February 02, 2008, 08:59 AM »

@Kalos
If you are still looking for a Greek monospaced font for your programming needs check out the open source DejaVu fonts.  They've extended the Bitstream family of fonts with Unicode characters for Latin, Greek and Cyrillic.

As for me, i've been using Lucida Console for a while now and been happy with it since the letter forms are so well done.  Lately i've been looking at fonts and have downloaded quite a few  -- the Bitsteam Vera Sans, DejaVu, and Liberation families (Serif, Sans & Mono) plus Proggy clean, Crisp, Dina, ProFont, Monaco, Anonymous, Inconsolata, Envy Code R, and Droid Sans Mono. 

For anyone looking for a new font, those last three fonts mentioned should draw some serious consideration. 
* Inconsolata is a free knockoff of MS's Consolas ClearType font.
* Droid was released only a couple months ago, but its one of the best mono fonts you'll find anywhere.
* Envy Code R is Damian Guard's first scalable font and looks like a Pragmata Killer.  If you want a good-looking scalable font that lets you pack more characters per line onto the screen AND the idea of saving 108 bucks appeals to you, check it out.

After viewing at the screenshot of Lucida Sans Typewriter I may have to get that one for comparison.

20

Basic / Re: What flavors of basic?

« on: January 22, 2008, 08:25 AM »

I've used JustBASIC (a free Windows BASIC) and it's more powerful sibling, Liberty BASIC for a while.  The help file is very well done and the support forums are well run too.
It has short learning curve and it allows you to create real Windows GUI applications very easily.