Messages

26

Living Room / Re: How will the Earth end?

« on: December 25, 2008, 11:20 PM »

Just when this thread was seeming to go back on track, I'm back here to help stray it a bit more ... 

Nice trip/cruise, 4wd! 
I hope you and your wife enjoy it. And I'm glad that those officials at the Brazilian Consulate were bored enough to grant you your visa in record time  Hopefully you'll enjoy the visit to the Iguazú Falls more than you think. Yes, it's just "gravity at work"  , but let me warn you that it's gravity at work BIG TIME:

Upon seeing Iguazu, the United States' First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt reportedly exclaimed "Poor Niagara!"

Anyway, from your planned schedule I guess you'll only stay for a few hours at Buenos Aires, mainly transferring between the two airports, on your first stop here:

so it'll possibly end up being: fly in to EZE, transfer to AEP, fly to IGR, stay 2 nights and watch gravity at work, fly to AEP, stay o/n at EZE and then out the next day.

-4wd (December 23, 2008, 09:28 PM)

By the way, sorry about those U$S 100 entrance fee. I didn't know that was applicable to Australians. Apparently they're stating with it on January 2009 

for that privilege I get to pay for a US$100 visa on arrival - you may be able to pick up on the fact I'm not particularly thrilled with that idea

-4wd (December 23, 2008, 09:28 PM)

The Argentine Consulate in Australia has an explanation about it on their website:

Australian citizens, who are going to Argentina for up to 90 days, do not require a visa when they travel for tourism, business or investment purposes.
However, as of 1st January 2009 Australian citizens will need to pay an entry fee upon arrival in Argentina which is equivalent to the amount Argentine citizens have to pay when applying for an Australian visa (roughly USD100).

From your cruise's brochure it seems that you'll be spending a whole day (Feb 8th) in Buenos Aires. I hope you are able (and willing) to get off the ship and do some tourism here. If those end up being your plans, just let me know and I'll be happy to help you. I'm sending you a PM with my info.

Cheers!

Oh, and about that "End of the Earth" thing ...

Fascinating that a thread entitled "How will the Earth end?" becomes a travelogue (and how appropriate;))

-Carol Haynes (December 24, 2008, 03:31 AM)

It is particularly appropriate since Antarctica has been called "The end of the Earth" many times (but maybe that's what you meant and I'm simply "over-explaining" it ...  )

27

Living Room / Re: How will the Earth end?

« on: December 23, 2008, 10:15 AM »

[Going way OT]
We're flying Buenos Aires to Lima on a extreme whistle-stop tour of Peru before catching an Antartic cruise ship at Santiago.
[/Going way OT]

-4wd (December 21, 2008, 04:10 AM)

[Staying way OT]
Hey! How long will you stay in BA? Drop by and say hi while you're here if you want 
[/Staying way OT]

28

Living Room / Re: Greek computer rebuilt

« on: December 21, 2008, 01:48 AM »

Great article, Lashiec! 

I wonder if anyone can build a replica too. If so, *someone* will do it 

... and I'd be first in line to buy one! 

... but they'd probably be more expensive than an SSD drive 

29

Living Room / Re: Comparison of online music services Pandora, Last.fm, and Yahoo Music

« on: December 21, 2008, 12:25 AM »

« Reply #13 on: 06:50:35 AM, 26 October, 2006 »

« Reply #14 on: 07:27:15 PM, 19 December, 2008 »

Wow!

Talk about a Necromancer post! 

30

Living Room / Re: How to tell if your cat is plotting to KILL you

« on: December 20, 2008, 02:28 AM »

I just didn't think we had such sensitive ninnies..  er... members here in the Living Room.

-J-Mac (December 19, 2008, 07:03 PM)

Me too. I usually don't spot many ninnies here in the Living Room forum. I guess they're all in the "Shareware Discounts for Members" or some other section ... 

As for me, I guess you did read the part when I said that I'm neither French nor do I care particularly for that country, didn't you? I mean, you can insult France all you want ... just make sure you do it for the right reasons 


Ok, back to cats it is 

is asking why he would name the nice kitty Persia

-Deozaan (December 19, 2008, 05:31 PM)

I'm obviously not sure, but I guess it's because Persian cats are one of the most common breeds of domestic cats. See: Persian cat^w

By the way, I didn't know there are so many different breeds of cats 

31

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Download only new Podcasts from website

« on: December 19, 2008, 02:14 PM »

I would like a program that will compare the files that I have
in a folder with the ones on the website and download only the ones that I have not downloaded.

-wetsmellydog (December 19, 2008, 10:40 AM)

Juice is one of the best podcasts receivers (if not the best). I don't use it, but it probably does what you want ... and a lot more 

Oh, by the way, it's donationware 

32

Living Room / Re: How to tell if your cat is plotting to KILL you

« on: December 19, 2008, 08:22 AM »

I guess winning is the key... 

Jim

-J-Mac (December 19, 2008, 12:36 AM)

Then I guess you'd rather choose a country which was on the losing side on both World Wars during the twentieth century, like Germany for instance 

But this is getting ridiculous, not to mention increasingly off-topic (mind you, Deozaan introduced the geopolitical subject in this thread). Is a country who refuses to wage wars, like Switzerland, worse than a country that is more war-friendly, like the USA?  Come on!
I just don't think that willingness to wage wars per se is a particularly fine characteristic in a country.
Just my 

I guess I should emphasize that I'm neither French, nor German, Swiss or American. And i don't have particularly close ties with any of those countries.

And also I hope no one from the mentioned nationalities takes any offense from all this 

33

General Software Discussion / Avira gets "Product of the Year" award from AV-Comparatives

« on: December 18, 2008, 09:47 PM »

Avira's Antivir has finally managed to snatch the AV-Comparatives' "Product of the Year" award from ESET's NOD32 / ESS. ESET had won the award in 2006 and 2007 and came a close second this year.

34

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommendations for project/schedule management software (besides MS Project)?

« on: December 18, 2008, 08:56 PM »

This is a very useful site to find the Project Management program that best suits you:

Capterra - Project Management Software Finder

In fact, it's not limited to Project Management, you can find software for a lot of different areas/functions:

Capterra - Main Page

35

Living Room / Re: How to tell if your cat is plotting to KILL you

« on: December 18, 2008, 05:45 PM »

Wouldn't Switzerland or France be a better name for the kitty who doesn't want to fight?

-Deozaan (December 17, 2008, 10:00 PM)

Ouch!

-Darwin (December 17, 2008, 10:07 PM)

France? I don't get it 
Switzerland is known for its neutrality, but France has been involved in many wars in the 20th century alone, and many more along its history

36

General Software Discussion / Re: DVD to iPod Touch in 48 hours

« on: December 18, 2008, 05:26 PM »

Another (recommended) one is HandBrake

37

Living Room / Re: Can you throw a shoe at Bush?

« on: December 18, 2008, 08:56 AM »

the fact that he appears to have wasted a perfectly good pair of shoes

-Darwin (December 17, 2008, 05:07 PM)

Any news on whether he got his shoes back or not ... ?    

38

Living Room / Re: Please help me build my new computer, DC!

« on: December 18, 2008, 08:37 AM »

Power Supply question:
How much watts do I need?  I know I'm an electrical engineer, but I have no idea how much I need.  I currently have a PSU from PC Power & Supply, who make elite-quality units.  I want to get another one from them.

-superboyac (December 16, 2008, 07:06 PM)

I have found this PSU calculator to be very handy for that. Make sure you check it out, especially with the amount of different components you're already considering.
 

39

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

« on: December 16, 2008, 12:34 AM »

Here I go again, with yet some more music from my corner of the world (and you thought it was over already ...  )

But this time it's a VERY different kind of music. Forget Tango, forget Folk music. This is Juana Molina (who?????  )
She's a difficult artist to classify. See what a review of one of her albums at the No Ripcord website says about her:

Juana Molina is hard to put into English terms. Maybe if Elvis Costello's daughter had grown up in exile learning music from Fergal Sharkey and Billy Bragg, been a bit-part musician round London in her teenage years, taken to being a bit-part actress in TV comedies to finance guitar lessons, and then almost accidentally become a kind of young Latin American Tracy Ullman, only then to return to music and start recording the kind of aural balm you'd expect from Mira Calix or Múm, then you'd perhaps be getting there. As it is, and as you'll read elsewhere on this site, JM is uniquely Argentine, while producing beautiful, soothing melodies that cross borders like nomads.

You can read the rest of the review here

Video clips from her are not too numerous, but I found this on YouTube:

Juana Molina - No es tan cierto (Not so true)

This is her website: www.juanamolina.com , where you can listen to (and download!) 8 tracks from three different albums

She's sometimes also compared with Bjork, though she sounds more like Portishead to me (that may be due to my total lack of musical ear, though  ). Anyway, listen to her and decide for yourself.

40

General Software Discussion / Re: Spoiler tag

« on: December 15, 2008, 11:21 PM »

Aaagghhhh! My brain!

-SKesselman (December 15, 2008, 10:30 PM)

 

I know, if that's "very simple", I don't want to see "moderately complicated" 

But please notice that we can actually "cheat" and just download the template that the author has published at the bottom of the webpage, did you see it? It doesn't have great formatting, but both macros are already there, so you can add your text and formatting around it and use the button(s) he made. Just an idea.

41

General Software Discussion / Re: Spoiler tag

« on: December 14, 2008, 02:20 AM »

Sarah,

I found this link: Toggle Data Display
It gives instructions on how to achieve what (I think) you want

42

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

« on: December 13, 2008, 03:30 PM »

City_zen, that was an EXCELLENT post... thank you muchly for all the info and effort you put in to assembling it. Has given me a focus for this evening thanks.

-tsaint (December 13, 2008, 12:39 AM)

Glad you liked it! 

43

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

« on: December 12, 2008, 07:30 PM »

...a little something from my homeland: Tango^w

-city_zen (December 10, 2008, 09:30 AM)

Thank you for that. If you have anything else from Argentina that you'd care to share, I would love to hear it.

I'm very sadly lacking in my knowledge of South American music. What little I know has mostly been filtered through Herbie Mann and Dizzy Gillespie.

But once you go beyond a bass player's knowledge of the various dance structures (and the three types of clave ) I'm totally clueless.

What's good from where you are that we should all be listening to?

-40hz (December 11, 2008, 11:39 AM)

Hi, I'm very glad that you liked that small sample of music from my country 

As for more music ... Of course! Now you'll have to stop me! 

Bear in mind that there are a lot of different types of music being played in Argentina, though obviously most have not originated here. Probably the two best known styles which are typically Argentinian are Tango and a group of styles collectively referred to as Argentinian Folk music (among them Chacarera, Zamba, Chamamé). Other types of music, like Jazz, are played here with a slightly different flavor (more on that later  )

Back to Tango. Oversimplifying a bit (this is a software forum after all  ), Tango has three main genres: Classic, "New Tango" and Tango fusion or electro-tango. The previous clip (Yo-yo Ma playing Piazzolla) was "New Tango". Here's a clip of a couple dancing arguably the best known melody of Classic Tango: "La Cumparsita".
Yes, they actually are dancing on a quay a few feet inches from the water   



Cool, uh?


The newest trend in Tango is to mix it with very modern rhythms (mainly electronica, hence "electro-tango" or "Tango fusion"). A couple of clips of this style:

First, a group named Bajofondo, led by two-time Oscar winner Gustavo Santaolalla (he won in 2006 and 2007 for the music of "Brokeback Mountain" and "Babel" respectively). Name of the song: "Montserrat", performed live in Warsaw, Poland




A somewhat different type of electro-tango is played by the Gotan Project trio. Song: "Diferente"




I'm sure that by now anyone who has watched the tango clips is wondering what the hell that strange accordion-like musical instrument is. Short answer: it's a bandoneón^w

Ok, that's a crash course in tango. Longer courses available on request 


As for Argentinian Folk music, it's hard to choose a single clip/song (I don't want to flood the thread). But eventually I chose a typical song performed by a very talented group who are one of the "new faces" in folk music: Los Nocheros. Song: "La chacarera del rancho", performed live at the Viña del Mar festival in 2003. You'll immediately notice how different this is from tango. (Note: the added text with the "Star Wars effect" is awful, I know, but it was the only clip of this song I could find )




And finally, this post wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention Gato Barbieri, the best jazz player ever to come out of the Pampas^w
Here's Barbieri playing "Last tango in Paris" (from the 1972 movie of the same name):




Phew! Writing this post took longer than I thought, but thoroughly enjoyed it.
I hope you enjoyed it too, and that you could discover new musical styles that you probably never heard before.
If you have any questions about the styles or the performers that I mentioned, just ask me.

44

Site/Forum Features / Re: Forum feature suggestion: Necromancer alert (very old threads resurrected)

« on: December 11, 2008, 07:46 AM »

Actually, I was thinking more about a permanent sign in the thread between two posts that are more than 6 months (or whatever) apart. It would be intended more towards the readers of the thread than the poster who resurrects it. So that when you're reading it (probably some time later) you notice more clearly the gap, without having to check the dates of every post.
It could perhaps be implemented by a script (or something similar) that automatically inserts a line or small warning post as threads reach 6 months of age without a post. The next time someone posts in that thread, the line/small warning post would remain there (between the previous post and the new post). Is it too far-fetched?

45

Living Room / Re: Email etiquette How to Decline Fowards/Junk?

« on: December 11, 2008, 06:39 AM »

I also have a $9.95 Spamex account. That allows my to create up to 500 disposable email addresses per year. I can give out a Spamex address and any replies/spam etc. to that address goes directly to Spamex, who then passes it along to me. The sender has no way of finding out my true email address, and I can also send messages to them again using that same address. It is worth more than the actual cost IMO!

-J-Mac (December 11, 2008, 01:05 AM)

Jim, I didn't know about Spamex, but I have been using Spamgourmet for a few years now (and I'm very happy with it  ). While going over the features of Spamex, I realized they don't seem to be much different than those of Spamgourmet (which is free). I wonder if you have tried SG and, if you have, how does Spamex compare with it.

46

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

« on: December 11, 2008, 12:05 AM »

Here's something to go with your Libertango then, from Richard Galliano, an accordionist with lots of nice albums
http://au.youtube.co...&feature=related

-tsaint (December 10, 2008, 11:29 PM)

Cool, thanks! 

47

Living Room / Re: What the? - the case of the undeletable file...

« on: December 10, 2008, 11:46 PM »

It may be related to a local cache (just a wild guess, but still worth mentioning ...)

These two TechNet threads may also help you in pinpointing the problem:


clearing cache

How to completely turn off excel-addin local cache??

48

Living Room / Re: Recommendations for good sources of astronomy photographs, please?

« on: December 10, 2008, 11:29 PM »

I'm mostly thinking of the outer planets and their moons.

-rjbull (December 10, 2008, 10:50 AM)

Here you go: 9,123 pictures of the outer planets from NASA Images

49

Site/Forum Features / Forum feature suggestion: Necromancer alert (very old threads resurrected)

« on: December 10, 2008, 10:54 PM »

Here's a feature that I think would be useful: show a warning/sign/whatever when a certain post in a thread is published more than 6 months/1 year after the previous post in the thread, i.e. when the thread has been "resurrected" by a(n unwitting?) Necromancer 
So you notice more clearly that there has been a biiiiiig gap in between posts.

I'm not sure if it can be done, but I decided to throw out the idea nonetheless.

What do you think?

50

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

« on: December 10, 2008, 09:30 AM »

Wow! This ended up as a very interesting thread (quite predictably, though). Lots of interesting stuff.

Let me add a coupe more videos,

First, Imogen Heap's beautiful and unmistakable voice:

Headlock - Imogen Heap

And also, a little something from my homeland: Tango^w

Piazzolla^w's Libertango as interpreted by Yo-Yo Ma^w's wonderful cello

Libertango (Piazzolla) - Yo-Yo Ma