Messages

51

Living Room / Re: Automakers Want to Outlaw Gearheads From Working on Their Own Cars

« on: April 28, 2015, 08:38 AM »

In other words, they're using the DMCA in exactly the way it was intended.

-Vurbal (April 22, 2015, 11:54 AM)

...As a blunt object with which the corporations could beat the common man into subjugation?

-Stoic Joker (April 22, 2015, 02:14 PM)

Generally speaking, yes. More specifically, though, its purpose was always to give copyright holders a veto over innovation that interfered with their business model. I'm sure the automakers are fine with you modding your car's computer, but only so long as they can stick their hands in the pockets of extract licensing fees from the people making the tools.

Of course, even if the elderly history professor with sole responsibility for the decision (ie the Librarian Of Congress) sides with them, they still haven't accomplished anything besides chasing development of the programming software out of the US.

Well, technically, they'll also have angered the people who buy most of their aftermarket performance parts. Car nuts were well organized before the Internet. That has increased exponentially with online communities. This is an attack not only on them, but also on the multitude of small shops that cater to the performance tuning market.

Which reminds me, I'm almost out of popcorn.

52

Living Room / Re: Peer Review and the Scientific Process

« on: April 27, 2015, 06:49 PM »

The thing that puzzles me is - why do we have to make ourselves believe in A versus B in the first place, if A and B are things that we don't have any observable and conclusive evidence of that either of them is true, or more true than the other?
Instead of just preferring which one we would like to be true (like in the book "The Life of Pi"), why can't we just hold belief in abeyance? If one does that, then one can usually look at things with a more open mind and a much less cluttered paradigm.
Whereas Pi had a very good reason for believing in an imagined story rather than the brutal and agonising reality, most people don't usually have to believe in anything. Pi's irrational belief probably saved his sanity - it enabled him to escape reality yet still be able to function as part of this world - whereas we are not usually put in such a predicament.

So why do we seem to persist in living in an illusion - in Ahamkara?

-IainB (April 27, 2015, 01:51 AM)

The simple answer is that our brains lie to us. Despite our significant neurological advantage in complexity and capability, at the end of the day, nearly every judgement we make about anything is guided by the same built in conditioning that caused Pavlov's dogs to salivate when he rang a bell. On one hand, it's an evolutionary advantage. It allows us to make the kind of snap decisions necessary for survival. On the other hand, it is (just as you suggest) the single biggest obstacle to intellectual honesty because it's inherently guided by emotion.

Ironically, even those of us who do tend more toward rationality and self examination are still being guided by emotion. Those thoughts, or, more importantly, the outcomes produced by that view of things, produces positive emotions.

Based on your brief explanation from that link, I'd say the concept of Ahamkara is a good demonstration of why science was treated as an offshoot of philosophy for so much of human history. The phenomenon it identifies are the focus of much neurological and anthropological research today.

53

Living Room / Re: OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

« on: April 25, 2015, 02:42 PM »

Whoa. Jethro Tull has never really been on my radar, but now they are! Thank you!

-wut?! (April 25, 2015, 01:51 PM)

You're welcome! I really got into Tull in my early 20s, and quickly realized they were a lot more interesting than I ever realized. Their studio albums aren't always as good as they could be, mostly due to the way they worked in the studio during the 70s. Of course a lot of bands had that problem. Also, the bassist on that recording was kicked out a couple years later, which is a long and stupid story.

I've been on a huge funk spree lately. Listening to lots of Sly, Herbie Hancock, Isaac Hayes, Commodores, Supertramp, Tower of Power, and of course Parliament/Funkadelic, etc...

I can't seem to get enough.

Here's a couple lesser known favorites of mine.

The Temptations, with original Funkadelic members Eddie Hazel and Billy Nelson on guitar and bass:

Living Colour plays James Brown:

We should definitely take this to the music thread.

54

Living Room / Re: OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

« on: April 25, 2015, 12:34 PM »

Uh, what else? I'm really into music and I love everything from Jazz to Hip-Hop to Metal to Breaks to Classical and everything in-between. I collect headphones and build A/V ICs for friends. Right now, I'm listening to some Fats Domino through my AKG K7XX. Before that it was Biggie, and before that it was some Bach. Next up is a Nina Simone album called To Love Somebody.

-wut?! (April 24, 2015, 10:29 PM)

Funny you should mention Fats Domino and Bach. I play bass, and I've got my son (a drummer) working on learning I'm Walking, although my favorite of his is probably Blue Monday. Some time in the near future we'll be shifting gears to some Bach - well, sort of...

55

Living Room / Re: Interested in doing my own car maintenance.. Advice?

« on: April 25, 2015, 10:29 AM »

^ Are you talking about Goop?

-Vurbal (April 25, 2015, 09:12 AM)

If it looks like solid Crisco then that must be it.  It's been a long time since I had a roll-around toolbox.  I got out of the racket in the 1980s.  I remember it was considered expensive by the management.  So they would substitute this cheap green stuff with abrasive.  Not good during the winter at all. 

-MilesAhead (April 25, 2015, 09:51 AM)

Must have been Goop then. I would imagine the other was one of the soft soap Lava type deals. The abrasive would have been pumicite.

Honestly, when it comes to just straight up grease, it's hard to do better than Dawn dish soap. That whole "takes grease out of your way" ad campaign was surprisingly truthful. Not that there's anything, short of an acid bath, capable of getting all the grime off a mechanic's hands - or under their nails.

56

Living Room / Re: Interested in doing my own car maintenance.. Advice?

« on: April 25, 2015, 09:12 AM »

^ Are you talking about Goop?

57

Living Room / Re: Interested in doing my own car maintenance.. Advice?

« on: April 24, 2015, 07:52 AM »

With a cheater bar over the breaker bar.

-MilesAhead (April 23, 2015, 06:52 AM)

If by cheater bar you mean a piece of pipe then yes, I've done both. Actually motorcycle front fork tubes work wonderfully for that. (Speaking of which...) Did you know that the lug nuts on the passenger side of a 64 Dodge polara are left hand thread?? I didn't ... And I snapped 2 Craftsman 1/2" ratchets and split 3 sockets before I figured it out.

-Stoic Joker (April 23, 2015, 05:05 PM)

Yeah, for a long time Chrysler corp. had this weird idea that if the lugs were Left Hand Thread on one side and Right Hand Thread on the other somehow loose lugs would be less likely to spin all the way off while driving.  A bizarre idea.  It was a real pita because every time you trained a new guy to bust tires you had to watch out for him snapping a couple of lugs off the LHT side of those cars with the impact wrench.  Some of those engineers must have been ahead of the curve when it came to water pipe usage. 

-MilesAhead (April 23, 2015, 05:33 PM)

There's certainly no shortage of incompetent engineers out there. A friend of mine had some great stories about one of his co-workers. They were both chemical engineers who designed pumping stations, mostly for rural water systems. One time this guy (the co-worker) decided that when he replaced the siding on his house, he was going to use sheetrock because it was cheaper and easier, and should insulate pretty well. He figured as long as he used greenboard, it would be fine. 

On the subject of automotive oddities, though, are the old 6V positive ground electrical systems. They weren't unusual in their day, but, aside from International pickups, I haven't seen too many of them that haven't been converted.

58

Living Room / Re: Automakers Want to Outlaw Gearheads From Working on Their Own Cars

« on: April 22, 2015, 11:54 AM »

In other words, they're using the DMCA in exactly the way it was intended.

59

General Software Discussion / Re: So, what pdf reader app is your fav?

« on: April 09, 2015, 09:54 AM »

I didn't realize there was a free version of their editor. I have their free reader on my computer as a second reader, although I haven't used anything but Sumatra for some time now. I'm sure there were a couple things I preferred PDF-XChange for, I just don't remember what they were ATM.

Maybe I should be replacing it with the free editor.

60

Html and CSS School / Re: HTML editor for beginners

« on: April 08, 2015, 02:15 PM »

A decent text editor where you create the concept of the page you like to make and only when finished you'll do preview in the browser of your choice...is the better way to do things. Sure, at first you'll fail, perhaps even fail miserably. But you will proficient with HTML more quickly than when you keep staring at a preview pane to to see the result of each and every change. This is a time-consuming habit.

Same rules apply with CSS...especially when working with tricks to get the same look on different web-engines, you can fall in this trap.

-Shades (April 08, 2015, 09:59 AM)

I think some minimum quality/capability in the text editor has to be the baseline requirement, to be met before any additional features are considered. I'm not sure what that minimum would look like in a beginner oriented product.

61

General Software Discussion / Re: 'create Restore Point' question

« on: April 06, 2015, 06:43 PM »

Also, if you're going to upgrade, at least seriously consider a new PSU. Even the best power supplies degrade and fail. IME a poor (or poorly functioning) PSU is the surest way to kill almost anything in your computer.

62

Living Room / Re: Why are car stereos so flimsy?

« on: March 31, 2015, 01:25 PM »

It's been a long time (as in more than a decade) since I looked seriously at car stereos, but I used to swear by Alpine because they were so tough. In fact, my son (who was 5 or 6 at the time) managed to shove 3 CDs into our last (single disc) Alpine stereo. Once they were removed, it was as good as new.

63

Living Room / Re: Don Cheadle making Miles Ahead film

« on: March 27, 2015, 07:29 AM »

Cheadle was brilliant in Boogie Nights, Traffic, Hotel Rwanda, Devil In A Blue Dress, and, actually, anything else I can remember seeing him in. He even managed to make NFL promos dramatic. I recently also noticed he was in the late 80s gang movie Colors, and he was just as good in that, even though he barely had any dialogue.

64

Living Room / Re: Don Cheadle making Miles Ahead film

« on: March 26, 2015, 05:59 PM »

I'm a huge Don Cheadle fan. I would almost pay to watch him sit and read the phone book. I can't think of anyone else I would rather see playing Miles.

65

Coding Snacks / Re: Is there any way of 'saving' file associations?

« on: March 25, 2015, 02:13 PM »

I would think the simplest and most effective way to do this would be using the command line file association tools - ftype and assoc.

There's a tutorial here for backing them up and restoring them from the command line. I haven't tried it myself, but it seems sound at a glance.

66

General Software Discussion / Re: how can I do this in excel?

« on: March 24, 2015, 08:03 AM »

What are the business requirements please? I might be able to help.

-IainB (March 23, 2015, 08:36 AM)

Exactly!

Particularly in light of the other threads which apparently relate back to this same project, this already sounds less like an Excel problem than a process issue. Specifically, it appears to be a content and/or document management problem, which would be much easier solved by addressing the entire process of document creation, access, modification, storage, metadata, and possibly even version control - all of which points to at least a document management system, if not a more full featured CMS.

I imagine you can kludge together what you're looking for using Excel. You can also steer a car with your feet. That doesn't make it a good idea.  

edit: I should probably mention, I have some experience with document management from the IT side. Setting it up really is so much easier than solving your Excel problem. It would also address the metadata question you posed on another thread.

67

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« on: March 14, 2015, 04:33 PM »

Based on this new ruling, Living Colour would be infringing all over the place. They copy everybody's styles, except mixing it with their own.

I personally think it's as original as you can get to turn an influence like this:

into something like this:

Why yes, I am a big fan. And also jealous because they seem to be able to integrate whatever they happen to be listening to into their own music. After working with Vernon Reid, Jack Bruce actually called him the best guitarist he's ever played with. I'm not a fan of some of his solos, but he's like a walking encyclopedia of guitarists.

68

Living Room / Re: 128GB USB 3.0 Flash price/performance/durability recommendations?

« on: March 14, 2015, 10:53 AM »

You're not likely to do better for flash storage than Lexar. There's a reason most professional photographers swear by their SD cards.

69

Living Room / Re: Interested in doing my own car maintenance.. Advice?

« on: March 12, 2015, 06:37 PM »

One thing I would do once you have your setup for raising the car and pulling wheels, is check the disk brakes.  What happens especially when the calipers have a lot of time since the last service(or they never were serviced) is you push the piston(s) all the way in so that you can fit the new brake pads in.  This pushes the crud clinging to the piston through the seal inside the caliper.  Typically that is when they hang.  Usually after you drive the car for a few days one gets "frozen" so that the brake on that wheel drags.  You used to be able to tell by the car pulling to that side when you jabbed the brakes.  But with the computer controlled systems now you might not notice until stuff on that wheel overheats.

I got around it on an old Chevy Impala because in the shop there was a pile of Chevy disk brake pads we removed waiting to be sent for relining.  I picked out those about 70% worn and slid them in without having to do the caliper rebuild.  Just turning the rotors.  Nice and cheap.  $0 for parts.    The moral of the story being never assume you can just put new pads in.  You may be lucky but more often than not it doesn't last.  You can end up wiping out the other brake and wheel components.

-MilesAhead (March 12, 2015, 05:43 AM)

I had that happen to me on the old ('92) cop car I owned. The one brake job I did turned into a major nightmare before I even got started, when the Napa counter monkey couldn't figure out the rear disc brakes. Fortunately, I had a friend with his own shop who was trading car repairs for computer work.

I left the rear brakes for him because it was pulling badly to the right when I hit the brakes, and I didn't want to open that can of worms in my driveway. I don't remember what all had to be replaced when everything was said and done, but it was extensive. I knew enough about cars to know when I'm in over my head

I miss that car, but it needed too much work to justify keeping it.

70

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« on: March 12, 2015, 05:12 PM »

I think this explains the issue pretty well - except that his examples are actually much closer to the original, compositionally speaking.

71

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« on: March 12, 2015, 02:55 PM »

This is the problem with the way copyright is often applied. The line between idea and expression has been blurred by big corporations to the point it effectively doesn't exist.

Marvin Gaye neither wrote nor copyrighted the instrumental arrangements for any of his songs. He walked into the studio with the words and their melody written (the copyrighted portion) and the session musicians threw together the rest. If copyrighting the feel of other musicians' performances is copyright infringement, there are very few songs ever recorded which aren't infringing.

72

Living Room / Re: Sorry, Ebooks. These 9 Studies Show Why Print Is Better

« on: March 07, 2015, 07:35 PM »

For reading novels, I prefer even my wife's inferior (compared to a dedicated ereader) 7-inch Android tablet to dealing with a book.

-Vurbal (March 03, 2015, 01:27 PM)

Vurbal, what makes it inferior? The hardware or the software experience? Not much you can do about the hardware except lay out money for a new tablet, but if it's software then there are many, many different ereading apps available. It's just a matter of finding the right app that does the things you want.

-Innuendo (March 07, 2015, 11:32 AM)

It's a cheap, older tablet and doesn't have a display that's optimized for reading. That's fine. I need a tablet, and it's available when I need to read a book. I'm quite happy with both of the reader apps I use, which cost me a grand total of $10 between them.

73

Living Room / Re: Sorry, Ebooks. These 9 Studies Show Why Print Is Better

« on: March 04, 2015, 09:00 AM »

That's definitely true, and

The epub format really is a different format when you deal with layout and such, which is probably the reason that they don't have it.  When I was helping Evil Hat test out their epub versions of their books, it was apparent that they had to put real work into making it available in epub.

-wraith808 (March 03, 2015, 07:29 PM)

Definitely true. In fact, the layouts in the Hero System books are particularly unsuitable for direct epub conversion, since they tend to have lots of embedded bits like charts and images, not to mention examples and details provided in a separate sidebar on the page.

What epub really needs IMO is robust javascript support. It wouldn't help in every case, but if you could include content that's normally hidden, but available through some simple interface, it would go a long way. Javascript would also make it relatively easy to add cool features to something like a coding book. For example, you could have selectable code formatting styles, using relatively simple CSS, to customize examples for the reader.

Of course, there's no substitute for having the right size display, or just having a physical book in some cases.

Which brings us back to the original point- there are features available in e-ink, digital formats, dead tree publications... devices, content, and functionality converge to create a unique experience when you switch up any of the variables.  As such, I don't think there's better or worse- especially for every situation.  Just like with the OS wars and the browser wars and all the other tech wars- they're pointless.  Use the tool that is best for the given situation, and don't let anyone dictate which you should use.  And especially with books- it doesn't matter how you read, just *that* you read, IMO.  Live outside the confines of your own mind by reading the thoughts, ideas, imaginings, and information you can only get from that experience.

Exactly right. Ebooks open up the options for reading, which has, in fact, drastically increased the amount of reading many people - especially kids - do today. It's not a substitute for physical books, so much as a supplement. Neither is objectively better than the other, but each has subjective benefits you have to consider for yourself. As long as you're reading, you've got the important bit down.

74

Living Room / Re: Sorry, Ebooks. These 9 Studies Show Why Print Is Better

« on: March 03, 2015, 04:36 PM »

Speaking of RPG books... on DriveThruRPG they watermark the PDFs with the users name/e-mail address.  Some consider this a form of DRM... but is it?  It's not managing digital rights in any way that I can see...

-wraith808 (March 03, 2015, 02:37 PM)

I bought a few watermarked PDFs from them, and I had to give that quite a bit of thought. On balance, it comes down to intrusiveness into the reading experience and tracking - for me anyway. There's no tracking, which is by far the most significant factor, but also no reliance on third party servers or services. If I really wanted the watermarks gone, it's simple enough to do with a free PDF editor. Considering the discount I was getting, and the fact 1 or 2 of them were out of print, the watermark didn't bother me.

The primary company I buy PDFs from (and man I wish they were available in epub) is Hero Games. Their early PDFs were watermarked with the purchaser's name, followed by non-watermarked, but partially feature hobbled editions, until they eventually started working with a layout and authoring guy who refuses to enable any feature that might annoy the consumer/reader.

75

Living Room / Re: Sorry, Ebooks. These 9 Studies Show Why Print Is Better

« on: March 03, 2015, 01:27 PM »

I like ebooks for reference material, although you have to have a larger screen to use some material effectively. I don't mess with DRM on anything I buy, but I don't buy much. Most of my acquisitions have been public domain novels, and what I buy is mostly Oreilly or RPG ebooks.

I put up with DRM infested books from the public library. I've worked my way back through the first several Spenser books, by Robert B. Parker, and caught up on The Dresden Files. For reading novels, I prefer even my wife's inferior (compared to a dedicated ereader) 7-inch Android tablet to dealing with a book. For absorbing mass amounts of technical information, paper and ebooks both have their advantages. I'd prefer a well indexed, annotated, and cross-linked epub to paper, but if given the choice I'd have both.

Of course, when I say absorbing mass amounts, I generally mean reading them cover to cover, or nearly so, in a single sitting. That's usually followed by re-reading individual sections at least once each, and most of them numerous times. I read Managing the Windows NT Registry on the plane to Cleveland and Essential Windows NT System Administration on the way to and back from Alabama. Both are still on my bookshelf, along with the 1995 edition of Aeleen Frisch's original (Unix oriented) Essential System Administration.