Messages

126

Point Motivator / Beyond Points

« on: November 30, 2012, 12:09 AM »

Not really a suggestion, not really a true counter theory debunking the effectiveness/lack of effectives of old school points:

Achievements vs. Shop - Shop plays nice with rewards, achievements plays nice with placement.

Example: Eat ice cream = get reward = Shop. Place money for ice cream in front of you next time you use Point Motivator = add reward = Achievement. Different receiving point of reward, different effect on the brain.

Mechanic difference: Achievements are auto-spent but then are told. Shops are spent.

Point of No Return vs. Immortality - Point of No Return is good for pressure/reminder. Immortality is good for creativity.

Example: Do homework adds points vs. manage to insert extra homework in-between tough schedule flattens graph/resets points.

Mechanic difference: Point of No Return is what Point Motivator currently is. Immortality is:

One of the paper’s authors, Ferdinando Boero, likened the Turritopsis to a butterfly that, instead of dying, turns back into a caterpillar. Another metaphor is a chicken that transforms into an egg, which gives birth to another chicken.

http://www.nytimes.c...mmortality.html?_r=0

Race vs. Rounds: Races need good starts regardless of sprints or marathons. Good for checking off lists. Rounds need upheaval. Not quite failure vs. success or maintenance but tempo setting. Often works well for training and reducing crashes.

Example: Lift weights works well for a regular gym visitor. (Someone with regular salary and stable location) Maintain fitness standard works better for a lesser disciplined constantly stressed out user.

Mechanic Difference: Races add points. More points = more mileage. Rounds can be everything from board game/card game game by game strategy to colored priorities to intensity. Using only numbers but keeping with value rather than time, points are based on sets or stages. You don't get a point for lifting weights if you don't completely complete the sub-tasks underneath the master list but the entry disappears.

Log vs. Locks Log is good for safety. Lock is good for stress.

Example: Reading that you ate a cookie helps regulate your next few days of eating habits but not being able to access the log unless you regularly "logged back in" helps make you want to read the logs.

Mechanic difference: Logs show. Locks show only when unlocked.

127

Living Room / Re: Mysteries

« on: November 21, 2012, 07:15 AM »

http://www.slate.com...re_class.single.html

First, man does not live by bread alone. Our happiness depends partly on our incomes, but also on the time we spend with our friends, our hobbies, and our favorite TV shows. So, it's a good exercise in perspective to remember that by and large, the big winners in the income derby have been the small winners in the leisure derby, and vice versa.

...extending from that quote, the thing that mystify me is how as a species we went from a "no income" species to an "income dependent" species.

Even in communism, agriculture-reliant, socialist concept for humanity...it's all about "in" "come" fueling our life.

Where as if you look at animals, early human years, pre-Industrial Revolution years, spiritual tribes...it's more "out" "come" based.

The Native Americans (using the most popular tribal culture to Americans) had a society that was based on the outcome of what disease resistance and advanced invaders they had to deal with.

The average pack animals form packs because their livelihood depended on the outcome of food.

Even in later trade cultures, the outcome of wars were more important. We still see these in many videogames. There is no game to my knowledge where something like Vietnam or the Cold War occurs. In popular media, the only time there was a successful war of truce remain the final ending of the Matrix. Everything else, there was a winner and loser and the outcome of those were crucial to the life of the human species.

Of course some of these are fiction but consider this: How fictional are the world of the top tiers of rich people that it must impact the entire economic destiny of a country? How fictional are the living conditions of ants, bees and spiders that live in a more "in" "come" based world to the average animal?

In all those, humanity have been the sole species that have paradigm shifted several times upon several times that when the internet became a tool for the masses, we who have lived in houses and jobs and legal borders and government, and yet we still shuffle away from those income behaviour modification structures and today things like anarchy, capitalism, corporations, freedom, libertarian freedom etc. continue to be debated.

The only other species that  I know to have done that rapid of a change in their life is the theory that a dog used to be a wolf which when compared to the pet lifestyle of today is rapidly different from the domestic dog lifestyle of the past but at least the structures of income such as food/dog treats are fundamentally the same to the domestic dog of today and that of the past.

Humanity doesn't have that. The income structure of the rich and very rich are vastly different. (hence you have the Wall Street problem) The income habits of the well educated hoarder are vastly different from the non-hoarder. (hence you have the bitCoin problem even in virtual worlds.) The income expectations and understanding of the middle class are different from the poor. (hence you have the healthcare justification problem) The income structure and income acquisition of a person who didn't get lucky to be born in one of the richer countries is different from those born in poor or corrupt countries (hence you have the immigrant's American dream and outsourcing as some forms of long distance wage slavery/job destruction paradox.)

The only real outcome for our species today is what and who will get us off this planet and what will happen when we do. Even factoring in technological changes, the average man who's willing to argue for liberty over security unless their employment is in danger is a recent phenomenon. There's just so many things we've taken for granted. PHDs, drugs, voting outside of the winning team when little to no risks are involved, lotteries vs. stock markets, hardware creators vs. coders vs. non-coders classes, the people without the internet being literally the disabled 2.0 when it comes to being able to see the opportunities presented to them. It's a rube goldberg of mysteries especially when we step out of our own history. Where did every other species including people earlier in our time got it wrong/got it right?

128

Living Room / Re: A secret society uncovered 250 years later

« on: November 21, 2012, 04:32 AM »

In one sense, the only things secret cabals can do is use money to get power and use power to make more money, so they can have at it.

-TaoPhoenix

Incorrect.

Just limiting it to this statement instead of questions about any specific cabals or conspiracies:

If you follow this sense, you'll see money works first and foremost not to be spent but to be hoarded. Once it's hoarded, the only part about using money and getting power that deals with make more money is the part about make more people believe you make more money so they think their investments/salaries/economy is legitimate and safer to be acquired.

Even with public legal cabals...say corporations, it gets to the point where it's not about making money (that's a given) but preventing people from making choices besides ones that support them including setting up dangerous alternatives.

It's safe to predict then that a secret cabal would be more interested in your food, your milk, your capability to make torrenting more socially acceptable, your ability to block out news about US drone attacks, your ability to be on TV than your employment.

Follow that sense and you'll end up at the pump of low level corruption. Yes the root is different but can't fix "cabal genes" modified low level corruption if high level intervention exists and is invested more in maintaining modified low level corruption than you are at being grumpy of your employment.

Of course I'm not one to believe in secret cabals much less wasting time on them. 

129

Living Room / Re: Your Smart Device Predictions?

« on: November 19, 2012, 10:55 PM »

Well that goes back to the very beginning of the PC story. The PC was always a lesser device and it always left behind a segment in favor of the "personal" (which is the version of portable back then) and then when it got the PC brand off, only then did it return to it's segment of cheaper utility for schools, powerful videogame console, new age typewriter.

130

Living Room / Re: A secret society uncovered 250 years later

« on: November 19, 2012, 10:50 PM »

it has to take something pretty powerful for an ugly dude like him to score!!

-MilesAhead (November 19, 2012, 06:14 PM)

Yeah, but I wonder who's Kissinger now.

-cranioscopical (November 19, 2012, 06:57 PM)

In terms of just mileage and immediate similarity:

http://www.thedailyb...f-the-diplomats.html

Btw the evidence for this theory has been debunked and there have never been any evidnence so far as I know but visiting masonic lodges are useless though I've never been into one.

It's one of the more famous Illuminati-style premise to the origins of the Federal Reserve.

Basically if the Federal Reserve was private disguised as gov or gov disguised as private entity...i.e. your typical oligarchy, the philosophy of the all-seeing Eye is supposed to be the metacrypto-guideline behind the execution.

They're like the CIA to the CIA or the CIA to the oligarchs but in an "all-seeing manner".

They create plants/spies inside every institute and then they create events and then they sever the events from themselves so that any important link never comes back to them and they set up this events through your typical socially engineered higher rank (disguised as a member of a different organization) leader telling a lower rank member to set up an event which they then set up with someone else. Not necesssarily an ally.

For example, the eye on money thing. The famous general idea is that this Masons/Illuminati would tattoo the eye there for a specific need using a patsy on patsy on patsy model but once the intent is over, the tip of the pyramid. The All-seeing Eye is separate from the pyramid scheme below. i.e. it's a pyramid scheme with a disconnected pyramid like an all anon top tier secret society. It doesn't matter if you have a higher ranking representative, they're cut off. The eye only cares to see in the same manner that American institutions inside only care to monitor the policing of the world. There's no real trail. There's no real Illuminati White House. There's not even a real CIA or a secret group of elites as it's leader. That's all on the lower tier of the pyramid. The actual eye (top level group) is an anon group all united/living in an agreed upon rule of seeing rather than manipulating the world. In the most absurd analogy, it's me seeing that you will become a serial killer so I walk past you and telling another person, "Gee I hear blondes are much safer to approach than brunettes. I hope your girlfriend is carrying the commonly used pepper spray brand and I hope they don't encounter a criminal who knows how to defend from it using the most common methods." and when approached reveals myself to be a crime novelist and admits to you that it's fiction and in the real world, some facts show these realistic elements won't work in fiction so as a writer or a media reporter, you should opt for these more exciting parts when portraying your story in order to make it sell.

131

Living Room / Re: Your Smart Device Predictions?

« on: November 19, 2012, 09:44 PM »

I think smart device are finally going to push the success rate of the Apocalypse  

It has all the signs of being the worst bubble in the entire history of humanity. It's the equivalent of the first successful car being a factory on wheels like a trailer the size of a mansion. Yes the cities could have even been more efficient but besides the environmental damage, humanity would be more accepting of harsher conditions and smokes billowing through their houses in order to make way for the juggernaut on wheels society that would take place. Where those houses would have ushered in squatters 2.0, these smart devices would usher in maintenance sweatshops 2.0.

It will destroy the cloud: Further segmenting the e-bay sellers/blind affiliates/mass marketing district of the web with that of the information highway but now at a mass social level. The greeting cards people who was able to reform the tradition of gift giving would be reforming our social lives to be more like this (minus the satire and over the top environmental head bashing):

With the cloud destroyed, the post-apocalyptic era of the internet will arise It won't be like a nuclear fallout or any bleak setting outside of our houses but the internet will have their own real cyberpunk, nuclear fallout, jungle low tech division. It would be like what the stereotype for 4chan is or the stereotype for Facebook and Facebook's fallout is but this time it's real. The glory days of a startup competitor replacing a previous service would all but disappear and be replaced with the post-smart device society of it's version. Much like television changed with the advertising in-between every show phenomenon, the internet would redefine the internet in a form of tradition. Not just with increased appearance of ads or with increased pop-ups and spam that used to plague the early days of the internet. This time the change would be internet exclusive (much as the ad model for TV where TV exclusive despite ads existing in radios).

For example the crap with the internet today in mass society is commonly found in TV shows. News reporters acting like they're twitter users. TV serials using the still stale Timmy Turner found his wished up toy from the internet but with more CSI, NCIS, Government Mindmaps and Text to Text cellphone tricks.

In the future, this would be the average (non-parody version) of our kid's cartoons and what TV will pick up, the internet will drop and it will be a future depleted of the special youtube of the week/month, twitter news of the week/month and be an entirely different sub-breed altogether.

If DRM was for videogames, Smart Device would be for web sites. Not even the draconian laws promoted right now to capture torrent users would hurt the internet as much as Smart Devices would if the laws were passed today.

Complex OS-wise, it will come but not in the geographic convenience that came with the appearance of the mass available TV set, mass available refrigerator, mass installed air conditioner

Life would become more like a labryinth, becoming closer to this (even the exaggerated parts)

It would be a weird transformation that no one would see coming. Households would become closer to dark internet cafes. The neon tech cities like Tokyo would become brighter airport style/expo event style hubs. The average street corruption would be turned into a stewardess themed haven rather than the ghetto style stereotype plaguing today. Dark would be the new safe haven. Bright and clean would be the new ghetto. Smart device usage would be like labryinth to shop navigation devices. The fancy parties would be more like Steve Jobs type tech presentations. The raves would be more like cyberpunk depictions of plugged-in/plugged-out movements minus any cyborg/android implants.

Finally the cherry on top of this Brave New World would be an inverse/reverse Cold War. A state where we all think the end of the world is no longer coming or have been staved off because tech redefined the problem. The first major solution, the first true experiential leap to believing that the 2000 rocket space age in fiction would be truly forthcoming but then the next unlikely to succeed World War. The Invisible World War would finally succeed. The signs will literally be there but we will wait on our doorsteps because it's not a plague, a typical doomsday scenario or even a major disaster. It would just fall apart. No sudden Rapture style bright light. No Great Depression surprise. We'd all just wake up and find out, life sucks. We're screwed. We've overlooked something about the war.

132

General Software Discussion / Re: Thoughts on this sort of UI styling?

« on: November 19, 2012, 08:56 PM »

Not a designer but the design in an earlier era would have fitted in a traditional good but now it's all about speed/ergonomics creating the allure for the design. (although I'm inclined to agree with fodder)

In this case, a couple of nitpicks that irk me:

All gray Even if they show color on hover or is just one button beneath, it isn't clear what's the primary 1st priority of this program. I.E. in prolonged usage, you're forcing me to remember the text position rather than just hit an icon-ish button or a quick test menu.

Self-serving text I'm often at fault for verbosity but I definitely don't want to read it in directly on the software choices. I don't care how basic it is or how complex it is. That's what help files are for. Just bring me to the task. If it's really complicated, use the design to give a red label or warning subtitle: not recommended for 1st time users/advanced users. Anything. Just get me off reading this menu and let me start clicking something.

Small text Yes big text tends to make the window unnecessarily big and ruin the native feel of an application but I'm sick of these smaller texts in software pretending to be more office suite when really they have the option level of a browser's native nav bar. Even some Linux gui has improved on this slightly.

Lack of stats If it's a test, I would like to know how many times I've tested a certain option. If numbers are too complicated for insufficient reward, I would still like an rss reader type of "hint" where I have already tried a previous choice already. When even this is too complicated, I would like some clearer traffic signs. Yes, these are test icons but instead of 1/2/3/4 for example why not learn from browsers and use the back arrow for going back. The back arrow with a lock for switch to limited user and place them on the left side where the numbers used to be? This may be a bad designer choice but I hate the trend of going for symmetry over practicality. Designers have had ages to fix the remote control problem of PCs and they still put format over clarity except for Tablet apps that have shinier interfaces but then they mess up the ease of clicking a button.

Redundancy Instead of a quit button where the x button was oh so conveniently given the red color already, why not some option to remind me to rerun the test after X days or some other option like checkbox/drop down box like "run for every day of the week" or "default option" when nothing is selected and you click run some tests. It sounds like a feature suggestion but I believe in a post-gamification fad era/current tablet era, the button text menu is gone. Everything should at the basic level be written from the perspective of off/on -> start. Yes, "ok, let's run some tests is comforting" but only for the first time. It's a minor nitpick from a coding standpoint but for design, I believe something like this is the equivalent of quick scan/advanced scan for AV programs. It just confuses the customer. It just confuses the person trying to teach another person. It makes you hesitate to run tests but the program does not have any useful labels like before you start the car, do you have your seatbelts on. It's just redundancy over redundancy. Hit the play button already!

Bad Billboards If the window frame/border can't be changed, then the content inside should change. For coding, I believe this is overthinking it. For design, ignoring it, is the equivalent of ignoring where the entrance of a door comes out. You don't make the main entrance in front of a smelly alley for example. Ok, so the frame's providing an optical illusion...even with ugly design use that optical illusion for something important. Don't put the one text you can't click as the largest header-ish spot that the reader has to read. It would be like opening a document and being told that you are opening the document right now. No one cares. It was one of the main reasons why people got infected with ActiveX in the early days of IE. Get that thing away from that spot. Even in the current design, Elevate would have sent a better optical illusion. It's like when some software asks Start game and then later down, start in window mode. It doesn't matter what that lower option says. It can say start in fullscreen mode but because it's in the right spot even the most savvy coder who knows everything about the different fullscreen/windowed mode problems plaguing most software would instinctly have a sense that made the "start in windowed/fullscreen" is not intended by the designer to be the main form of starting the game even when it's a basic option that every average software user is familiar wtih already. It's all about instinct just like keyboard shortcuts. Yes there's no muscle memory but at least give users eye expectations so that they can move on and think less of the app.

133

Living Room / Re: How Much Do You Trust Wikipedia?

« on: November 18, 2012, 07:50 PM »

Even the noblest attempts at providing accurate and unbiased information can easily be corrupted by carelessness, deliberate deception, or somebody in a positon of authority who is pursuing a personal agenda or "higher truth."

-40hz

I think two things need to be distinguish here:

Wikipedia as an entity has never been a noble attempt much less the noblest attempt.

Accurate and unbiased information is in my opinion a red herring to a "higher truth". It would be like saying only left brain info is important. Wikipedia will never be as fast as Wikileaks and Wikileaks is also touted as a "higher truth" but even combined, the finishes product does not provide an attempt of accuracy and unbiased information that isn't tailored to information presented eventually to it's prime culture then it's sub-mass culture (the internet). It can and will not compromise on that limitation and the influential culture doesn't want it to either. (hence the ask model has also eluded Wikipedia and been transferred to things like Yahoo answers or Metafilter or Quora.)

If I have site that I only edit and it happened to rank high on search engines, I fill it with wrong info. That's bad right? At least Wikipedia can be corrected, checked and edited.

-rgdot

That's pre-social media though. It's very possible to have a collaborative Google Docs page. Forums tend to correct each other which is why it's flameworthy but also why the top mass forums can have more link worthy collections of context than Wikipedia.

More importantly the first need for any place where anything can be corrected, checked and edited is that it should be able to admit it is wrong.

That's where Wikipedia beat authoritative encyclopedias. By being able to wrong, it was able to be faster at accepting and promoting change and it had less agenda because wiki pages still had to compete with other authoritative pages. Google didn't just simply raised it as an immediate link and at the same time, it also competed with spiders. It was the first social curation site.

We're way pass that now. Nowadays even on just mainstream meta topics, we have redditors who would create subreddit of value instead of sticking around something that has reached the mass high point of bad such as the main reddit politics, we have pay club style forums such as Metafilter and SomethingAwful, we have twitter that amasses every G+ circle, friendfeed, vacuum events. That's not including past models such as forums administrated by mouser where polarizing opinions are more allowed or geographic news site that don't rely on a US-first bias like Wikipedia or Amazon/IMDB style reviews. The one page thing is such a micro-argument nowadays. Even those one page sites rely on publishing books to create traction for their blog and blogs that require linkback for their blog articles.

Even the statement for information overload is pass the point of notability now. Information came and for a while it was nice but media didn't leave and we are plenty brainwashed not just by media but by our own self-biases that it doesn't matter whether it's one biased site or one fully unbiased wiki. The net forgot to factor in "the read what we want to get out of this" nature of humanity and when it remembered the community site makers were ok with dumbing down our attitude into votes, discussion pages, Google top links, heated visitors...because that's what generates return visits and Wikipedia is not just the same victim to that, it was one of the prime proponents of that degeneration.

134

General Software Discussion / Re: Two classes of membership here?

« on: November 18, 2012, 07:23 PM »

I was never here and there are always cops just as there are always cups. 

135

Living Room / Re: How Much Do You Trust Wikipedia?

« on: November 18, 2012, 06:48 AM »

I voted 0 but not because I distrust Wikipedia but rather wikis are a mirror to the internet.

In the ideal setting of the internet, wikis are great at bypassing the tl;dr creep that plagues many internet discussions. If every forum thread started out as a wiki first before that wiki then becomes a neutral group blog/google doc article that is then discussed by the internet, discussions would actually bear more information to the average internet reader. A true paradigm shift to the classic method of how footnotes should be used if you may and presented in a manner more addicting to click and research and less academically imposing and more casual friendly to comment.

...but it's not. Wiki became more of a reference/falling point and because Wiki's roots and boom came from Wikipedia, it kept many of the bad stuff of encyclopedia. The authoritarian end-text for introductionary subjects. The right pseudo-authoritative subject for Google to boost it's links up in searches (which ultimately was it's demise). For that it becomes a non-sequitur except to be 0% trusted for that is the simplest way to call for critical thinking.

The actual ratings don't matter above that. Even if you voted 1, what if a physics info is wrong? The ignorant can never tell, only those who regularly monitor Wikipedia can spot it so it becomes another forum even in the best of times and once that mistake is corrected, it's a praise for the Wiki while ignoring that it goes both ways for an Encyclopedia. If an Encyclopedia is consistantly mistaken, then it's bad as an end reference link, but it's great as the beginning point of a forum level type of discussion.

...and that's just one floor below the sad but already established belief in wikis. Going deeper could fill up an entire forum because it goes to the heart of everything. Questions such as:

Why do encyclopedias have to be authoritative in the modern era anyway?

Why and how casual should simple wiki-encyclopedias be presented as?

How should wikis reduce their rules to reduce their bureaucratic hive mind as well as to make it easier for someone to just jump in without being bombarded by acronyms?

What can be done with a problematic wiki site once it has become an established website to debunk it's flaws?

It's not just a deep and shallow subject. It is seeing a zit in the mirror. Should you trust yourself into thinking it's harmless? Should you trust yourself into thinking it's harmless enough because it's common? Should you trust the 1st doctor? Should you distrust every zit as harmless because you were once unlucky to get a life threatening zit? ...and how much knowledge/information with your own zit should you pass along as authoritative statements for the zits of others especially on web level general info? Like how true is it that your grandparents are stressing you out to the point of suicide because of the existence of a single zit or a link showing evidence that one guy who committed suicide had a zit in the same spot and documented it's notability which then existed in a wiki article which then gets put on a pedestal when used as a link?

136

General Software Discussion / Re: Two classes of membership here?

« on: November 18, 2012, 06:25 AM »

@PaulKeith - quick question. Did you read this entire thread and the one that this one emerged out of?

-40hz (November 18, 2012, 01:14 AM)

I read this entire thread but am unsure of which thread emerged out of this thread so probably not.

I think worstje demonstrated that either is unnecessary and it can be confined into a general statement.

As for the puzzling aspect: it can be easily distinguished into, I'm not overtly praising nor overtly against what mouser is doing. Doing so would be counter to my statement that if there's any notable moral merit to why clean is reacting with the lap dog statement, it would be because we are not above the general characteristics of what a forum is and the general characteristics of most forum are bad: new comers who don't know group rules if not blamed outright are being told to excuse their emotions because these are the so and so limits of forums, mods/admins not only throwing their weight around and inserting bias between admitted mistakes/calls for decorum on both sides, calls for brotherhood in cases where there might be a singular enemy found but then individual as individual when the idea of a group is no longer beneficial to establish a defense against newcomers.

Essentially we're the same breed as most forums. Just a milder and less biased extreme that at times can forget that and step closer to the average forum attitude expressed in most forums across the internet. As a consequence, certain new comers who find themselves receiving that treatment can easily assume we're no better than the forums and we can't blame them since they don't have much experience or information to serve as reference for mouser's attitude/ our experiences/beliefs with mouser. It doesn't even matter if it turns out this time the poster was a troll or this time the poster was extremely rude or this time it's some other exception to the rule. The principle of the statement remains true that any new comer exposed to a hint of a nice senior cop-bad subcop can't be blamed for calling out an observation whose hints are common all across forums.

137

General Software Discussion / Re: Two classes of membership here?

« on: November 18, 2012, 12:25 AM »

That's what the lapdogs are for: nice senior cop, bad sub-cops: the work is done, and that's what counts.

-clean (November 17, 2012, 01:07 PM)

Actually... not.  I actually totally agree with a lot of the bad sub-cops and think that certain things should be regulated.  In every case (not just a few that come to light because of dissenters), Mouser chimes in on the side of let it slide, no matter what happens.  That's why everyone jumped in on mouser's side- no matter if you agree or disagree on his policies, etc., he won't censor nor jump in, except in the case of spam, and won't even really defend, other than the most passive of ways.  People that lead by example like that, and don't take offense tend to garner support as they don't cross the line even to defend themselves.

Sorry if your experience has made you assume otherwise, but he's very much always been the voice of reason.  I've found myself on the other side of some of his opinions, and found myself less for that- mostly because in the end, reason used well is more than a match for any sort of righteous indignation.

-wraith808 (November 17, 2012, 02:39 PM)

Can't blame him. It's common in the internet and if he felt passionate about his posts being removed, even more so.

I think one thing to keep in mind for the future is the idea two posts hurts more than one.

Everyone keeps bringing up first post but someone who was banned for their 1st post is more likely to be pissed and contact mouser or leave forever with no comment.

Someone who has one of their post enter circulation and then get banned after their 2nd post would much more likelier feel corruption/censorship was afoot.

I think another flaw with this being a public topic is that it can cross the line between explaining the situation and defending the admin as more personality enters the thread.

It's not like we're acting any better.

Without getting into specifics (of details I don't know of)

The whole established community is typical of a sub-cop behaviour and it's typical of many forums. There used to be a time when this card isn't pulled here/and there were less mouser defenders. We let mouser do his job and we share our personal stake. Nowadays, we're more groupthinky but then we don't get enough troubles to really be a "we" but anyone who sees us saying something nice about mouser is likely to think that we're a "we" since they don't have any idea of who the troublesome posters are. They have to rely on certain established usernames they follow until they actually post.

The only position we're slightly above of is that we don't gangbang on users but that still doesn't change the times we may make a joke inside a topic where the thread maker may be feeling the strains of serious drama.

Equally, mouser is not really as reasonable as many of us are depicting him with our words. This is typical behaviour for forum admins:

can't say I get the warmest feeling from the posts you have made recently

It's a common boss admin power statement and mouser's not above this.

The only difference is that mouser is really a reasonable admin who can admit his mistakes and is willing to converse with us beyond the normal levels of reasonable admin. That doesn't change the reality that any newcomer who hears words like this wouldn't immediately expect forum admin corruption or at least expect that only forum sycophants can get away with saying anything controversial.

It doesn't mean mouser should never use these words nor was he wrong/I'm morally against him stating these words. It's just the bare reality, we're not a 100% rational forum community. This is still one of the best forums out there and mouser is a reason for that but we're not a group of people that is above hypocrisy such as the Bartelsmedia statement may have applied back when DC didn't have a The Basement section but not anymore or the idea of group of friends when many of us argue within our community all the time and it was these heated arguments that made us respect mouser's way of being an admin. Not the fact that we're posters that are similar to many forums where we get along because we always share the same ideas or we're smart enough to avoid being banned everytime we say something controversial. Even the first post rule, the mere suggestion of it, shows given a chance we'd rather abide by the same hypocritical and irrational idea of raising a rule as events were forecoming rather than let this situation play out and only after do we establish a rule in order to avoid making the victim sound like it's their fault for being dumb at not being a rule/forum veteran when they first signed up.

138

General Software Discussion / Re: Does the browser Opera suck?

« on: November 16, 2012, 11:33 PM »

I would leave Internet Explorer as many people blame it for security reasons. In fact in the last months I have been sometimes victim of redirections towards unwanted website.
Some days ago I began to use Opera with Ghostery and AdBlock. First of all I disabled the "Automatic Redirection". I was happy!
But I soon found out severe drawbacks.

1) when I click on a link, when I want to go in that website, Opera often asks me the permission. That is just annoying and useless as my operation is not a redirection by an intruder website: it's a direct operation by the user, it's the will of the user.
It's still more deplorable when the destination address is similar to the starting address. For example, if I am in http://www.microsoft.com/x and I want to go in http://www.microsoft.com/y it's obvious it's not a redirection by an intruder website

2) if I choose certain websites from the address bar (like http://www.winpenpack.com and http://www.vipreantivirus.com) Opera brings me to that website. It's right. But I see nothing. I see a white empty page

Moreover:

3) setting the fonts of the characters for the websites is a great confusion. I haven't found a help page

4) characters are badly readable as their stroke is very thin, thinner than the characters we usually see in all the other programs (note: the stroke is thin, while the height is normal)

5) from the address bar it's possible to see the list of the recent websites (just like in Internet Explorer). They are badly readable as they are pale blue on a white background. Besides I can't delete the useless ones

Is there a solution for those drawbacks? Or must I come back to the "dangerous" but relaxing Internet Explorer?

-Giampy (October 10, 2012, 05:18 PM)

#2 - Both links load fine to my Opera 12.10

#3 - Font settings is tricky but try clicking shift+g. It would remove certain elements and go to the font you set in CTRL + F12 preference

#5 - Shfit + F12, Toolbars, check start bar, click address bar space ...minibar opens to top 10 buton

139

General Software Discussion / Re: Sign of the times for OpenSource software?

« on: November 14, 2012, 02:33 PM »

I don't really think it's a corporatist nor capitalist issue. FOSS is a rep for the communist utopian by-product in a vacuum.

I don't mean to use communism as a bad label but more like, thanks to software's role and model, all the horrible stuff about resources that befalls communism is removed and all the strength of communism shows: wide availability, eternal backups, initial fad bazaars, allowance for a business model possible thus giving the illusion that capitalism can be dropped/minimalized (when in socialism).

This is as close as it is to it's ideal form but this is what happens when you don't suck people dry. The proverbial common missing shoe that both socialist and communist don't realize is the subtle long term reason why despite all it's good, something that doesn't suck things to be dried will always stagnate when it comes time to do more than just start/continue a project in stable times. I consider it the phenomena of "the people with houses are ones who end up rarely maximizing the space for those houses" phenomena because the security/perceived current stability of the house makes for a good justification why enough is enough and only trinkets like wallpapers or furnitures need to be modified until times of constant disasters where the recreation of multiple geo-/politico-/type of emergency bunkers is more important than the recreation of similar houses.

Not sucking things dry goes both ways. Yes, you don't overwork people but the society/culture doesn't feel like training people too. What happens is both copycat mentality at it's strongest for a competitive already released product but there's no desire by the same fans to ensure you're sucking dry the passion to train a future improver with a specific target for your specific app other than volunteers maintaining a software and when you go that route, there can only be enough symbols for the people to rally behind on without the hierarchy falling back down to popular gets most attention/a savant saviour eventually adding something that is in long need of due being a justification for why the system work/is better than the failures of capitalism and everything else below that tier is "mass psychologically" treating everyone (end users/devs/volunteers) to perceive the product as the "penultimate" finished product at it's best times that is good for now and on pace for the future and one that can be slowly worked on and barely needs improvements over other software because of the chance of breaking something else.

As a basic example as to why I disagree that in comes down to basic resources of time and money, many peak open source projects garner fans that are hostile towards a passionate introduction for new features when time and money are at a high and in many mass FOSS projects, the project fosters a religious identity of "people who already have or may have the skills" working together voluntarily. In an ideal free capitalist system, this wouldn't work. Businesses fall apart so often that makers understand the necessity of training beyond the mere recruiting of skilled workers. Free/cheap stuff that needs to be improved require more and more manpower but lack more and more "properly synchronized with school graduates" that in-house training and external contracts is so much a desperate need that in the worse of times, something unforeseen, like the need to hire a maid to clean your office or to ensure marketing your spot as a regular place for work even cheap menial work becomes just as much part of the software maintenance project as the nitty gritty of the actual software that the awareness is different and the direction becomes more specific beyond specific.

Even in it's most basic corporate structure, an employer in a corporate state would want to ensure his reputation for his next job/or so that his legacy would be remembered for the safe being of his family which is something a total fascist state or a socialist prepared for a communist era would rarely care about beyond the basic small standard of being seen as a good person and the byproduct of that is something like software would rarely be on the list of things that a developer would want to "leave behind in good hands" compared to an executive job or their family or the software that made their names on par with a Linus.

140

General Software Discussion / Re: create local webpage for archiving and organizing data

« on: November 14, 2012, 01:58 PM »

I think what kalos is looking for is a PIM that acts like a webpage but is in reality a notetaker with TreeSheets support.

Say a Tiddlywiki with a specific tooltip or a variation of Knowsy Notes where instead of Knowsy Notes just clicking and opening a text note in a single editor, it's an MDI that can be clicked to set to a new window.

ConnectedText + Vue would be very close but they don't necessarily need a software that can mimic a wiki webpage but a software that can mimic another version of a webpage (designed with the intention of it not being a wiki) but as a desktop app/local webpage.

Might still want to check out ConnectedText kalos. It might not be a local webpage but it might be good enough.  A reverse of the wiki process is Scrivener. You can try it's step by step tutorial. It's more of a novel writing word processor but what it does is that it uses the corkboard as a personal wiki so you don't get a pop-up (except tooltip) but you get an inspector sidebar for your text synopsis that can have pictures too where you normally need a full blown diagram Mindmap in certain programs like ConnectedText.

If you're going full HTML, there are outliners boasting these types of in-built HTML Editors but they are nowhere close to an archiver or organizer of local webpages: http://www.foliaro.com/screenshots.html

141

General Software Discussion / Re: create local webpage for archiving and organizing data

« on: November 14, 2012, 06:01 AM »

I can't speak for platforms but I've been wondering if anyone here has experience with this software: http://www.lianja.co...ets-in-visual-FoxPro

It's not a site creator though from the sound of it.

Just throwing out impressions from a non-coder perspective:

• syntax/mark-up self interpreter appears to be the new WYSIWYG backed up by a button for a help file (think writemonkey/workflowy.com)
• I'm still impressed by how the software Knowsy Notes can elegantly create tables using the | symbol. Can't find many apps that can do that while also insta-create text/.csv files
• Scrivener and Lyx uses corkboards and while not diagrams, have very powerful tweaks to personal wiki clicking

142

Living Room / Our Mind at War (Old Ian McGilchrist Youtube Video)

« on: November 13, 2012, 10:50 PM »

Just saw:

00:20 - Gerard Manley Hopkins poetic quote
2:30 - Fuzzy Mental Illness
3:47 - Not the best way to do surveys
4:08 - Operationalization
4:56 - PTSD/Asperger's recently invented
6:24 - Immigrant generation
10:58 - Betrayal of Trust in an Institution/Operationalized People Losing Trust
11:39 - Selfish Gene anecdote
11:59 - Algorithmns and targets in Education and Medicine
12:24 - The Not Good Things We Ask of People
12:59 - It's not just the Ill that need Therapy
13:48 - What does this all got to do with the Brain?
14:30 - Nowadays We Believe the World is Built like a Machine
15:49 - Metaphor is the Base of Language not Decoration to Words
16:29 - Even Logic is an Intuition
16:50 - Rationalizing as a Computer
18:00 - We have an Unstable Vision of the World as though we were Geiger Counters or Cameras or Post-Modernists
18:57 - Attention Alters the World
19:30 - Context is Everything
22:00 - How, Not What when it Comes to Left/Right Brain
22:44 - It's not about Thinking vs. Feeling but about Attention
27:14 - The Machiavellian Brain
28:24 - Your only Hope when withdrawing from the World
29:09 - Left/Virtual Offline World; Right/To Relate
29:52 - Hierarchy of Attention
32:23 - Individuals are just Gestault
34:30 - Connotation vs. Dennotation
36:50 - The Porcupine is a Monkey
38: 28 - Left Hemisphere as Polisher/Right Hemisphere as Tarnisher
39:55 - We need Division and we need Union

143

General Software Discussion / Re: Two classes of membership here?

« on: November 13, 2012, 09:58 PM »

I have no idea but I would extend it beyond what TinMan is saying.

Because of who mouser is, he has developed a community where laundry airing is more helpful rather than troublesome as would normally happen.

This is because

1) the community is more united at clearing things up rather than looking to "lure" someone to be moderated as this is the true "no need for PR/mouser praising" fruit that has been cultivated in this forum.

and

2) the community's version of censorship (if any exist) here leads to more discussion and clarification until users get tired of listening to each other so a topic such as this gets more users going into inquisitive and detailed personal views about why they are doubtful that a certain censorship happen almost to the point of making us all seem like mouser nuthuggers than objective users willing to simply help you because we're all used to giving our "heart" to any subject thanks to how mouser and the mods handle the forum that we don't see you as another victim by the internet ghetto but a particular specific individual user who has somehow been legitimately ran over by a person whom we sincerely believed may have just ran over you without seeing you and all the posters replying here are willing to immediately clear things up not only for the forum rep's benefit but to legitimately be able to leave no stone unturned in helping you resolve such a serious matter even when you try to be vague.

144

Living Room / Re: What web sites would deserve more attention?

« on: September 30, 2012, 10:38 PM »

The big 3 of the DonationCoder blog sounds apt:

App's Cranial Soup
http://cranialsoup.blogspot.com/

Skwire's Blog
http://skwire.dcmemb...om/fp/?page=software

and I forgot the other. Could be used to reserve mouser's kickstarter page.

I also think not many people know that Yandex is the new no hassle e-mail account registration service.

DuckDuckGo still has a long way to go.

Ifttt.com is always an underrated service.

145

DC Gamer Club / Old List of Text Based Sims via Face Punch

« on: September 20, 2012, 08:42 AM »

I've only seen this thread now but even if you know most of these games, you're bound to find some games you haven't heard of:

http://facepunch.com...1194115#post36543875

If the page seems blank initially, you might need Opera's fit to width settings or just use the horizontal scroll bars in any browser.

Speaking only of the name of the games I've played, almost all of them are worthwhile. Even the ones without screenshots.

Sadly each entry has no specific guide so certain games that might have mods/might have editors aren't given their proper due with one exception: There's an incomplete English patch for Game Dev Story 2 for the PC.

146

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: September 20, 2012, 03:45 AM »

Copy pasted from my OutlinerSoftware.com reply: http://www.outliners...om/topics/viewt/4354

It's sad that no one mentioned the multi-bar in this thread and you had to actually click on the demo. It's actually an exclusive feature of the software.

There's only like one or two notetaking services that do that and only this software and Remember the Milk comes to mind at the moment.

RTM can auto-format to-do lists and this one can create date logs, titles and csv from the bar.

For the price though, I would have at least wanted a direct Dropbox support/direct portable installation and native cross-platform software but the fact that I'm talking about price at all when I'm not usually a buyer shows how excited I was of hearing this.

Where are the people who make this threads? I bet they would be more excited:

http://www.outliners...e-bones-spread-sheet

It also has a basic right click filter view which puts this thing in the category of a barebone file explorer albeit with the caveat that it only filters through a limited set of folders and only have 3 bookmark buttons. (Which for this kind of software is a good thing.)

If there's one criticism for this program, it's that it uses slow double click to rename instead of the F2 button which doesn't work really well and the focus keyboard shortcuts are too far apart. You need to click Ctrl+Alt+N/R/F/D/M. These shortcuts also don't appear to work in Virtualbox.

147

DC Gamer Club / Re: The story of Origin/Ultima/EA

« on: September 19, 2012, 02:07 PM »

You want necro-posting? Someone find me the Trip Hawkins quote for High Heat Baseball. I can't find that in Google anywhere.

-Paul Keith (September 18, 2012, 09:52 PM)

This one?
http://www.ign.com/a...at-2004-is-up-to-bat
High Heat 2004 is Up to Bat
"Since its debut on the PC in 1998, High Heat Baseball has garnered critical acclaim and an enthusiastic fan base," said Trip Hawkins, chief executive officer of The 3DO Company. "By recreating the foundation of High Heat for the PC, we intend to reward those fans by continuing to take the game to new heights."

-TaoPhoenix (September 19, 2012, 12:44 AM)

Nah. It's as outlandish as the cover quote in the official box cover on Gamefaqs.

It went something like... 5/5 or best baseball game or something like that.

This from a PSX videogame who was going 3d for the first time and looked like a 3do baseball game on the PSX (meaning it was not only the ugliest baseball game, it was also one of the ugliest game of any genre for the console)

148

General Software Discussion / Looking for help on how this works for someone who doesn't know Windows Surface

« on: September 19, 2012, 09:06 AM »

This was recently posted in HN and it sounds cool but I don't know how to make the setup work especially as I don't have the hardware and I don't understand what Windows 8 had to do with this:

http://yieldthought....-linode-1-year-later

For a while now I’ve been telling people that Microsoft will become the new cool, the inventive underdog, and I still believe that. Windows 8 may be a huge gamble for Microsoft, but Windows 8 RT is a clear win for me.

Microsoft understands the keyboard. I can start, switch and control apps without leaving the keyboard. The device even comes with one.

Sometimes it’s really nice to have two windows open, especially when using video output to a larger monitor. I think the Windows 8 side-dock idea will suit me very well.

Love or hate Internet Explorer 10, I have every expectation that we’ll see the real rendering engine on Windows RT. I don’t care what they call it, if I can run LightTable and Google Docs without gouging my eyes out, I’ll be happy.

Last but not least, the Metro vibe feels fresh and new and I’m intrigued by Microsoft’s choice to make Javascript + HTML5 a first-class way to develop for the system. I’m already looking forward to hacking my own tiles together to smooth my workflow and simplify my day.

Perhaps in a year’s time I’ll be switching to another client. It doesn’t matter, and that’s the beauty of this setup - its flexibility. For me, though, this coming year will be the year of the Surface.

149

DC Gamer Club / Re: The story of Origin/Ultima/EA

« on: September 18, 2012, 09:52 PM »

Complimentary post: http://asia.gamespot...rip-hawkins-6314337/

You want necro-posting? Someone find me the Trip Hawkins quote for High Heat Baseball. I can't find that in Google anywhere.

Never has a bad game had that high of a testimonial pasted everywhere in it's ad.

150

Living Room / Re: In Search Of Good Web Based RSS Reader

« on: September 18, 2012, 05:45 AM »

The auto mark as read off feature has been there for awhile. (At least as old as the previous version of Google Reader.)

Sadly there's no clear alternative. Bloglovin has a shorter tolerance for read messages but it has a clearer mark as read button. Newsblur is the only other new web rss reader that isn't based on Google Reader.

If you want better Google Reader lay-outs that doesn't implode on itself, you're still stuck with installing something like Feedly on your browser which uses Google Reader on top of it.

My personal preference for implosion handling though is Feedsquare which again is an interface built on top of Google Reader feeds https://chrome.googl...ogkkeedfnjkldecloidi. There's a much more powerful version called Newsquare but I don't use that because it puts me on notification hell.

All those require split minute installations sadly.