Messages

301

Living Room / Re: Should ebook users have any rights?

« on: March 03, 2011, 04:57 AM »

They are not all treating the customer as a criminal and we MUST give our business to the ones who treat us right and walk away from the others, else perhaps one day the ones who treat us better will go "why bother?"

- I buy ebooks without DRM and in fairly standard formats only. no exception.

After all I tend to accumulate computers, and tend to buy open or bargain devices, so I dont want to buy something that limits where I install it, how many times I read it etc.

Thankfully there are too many books I might want to read so if one is not available except with DRM, I skip it - can always buy it on paper (used) or borrow it from the library.

I find that often the version you buy from the portals have single-device formats with DRM added (on some, even to public domain texts, what gives?) but often if you go on the author's or publisher's web site directly you can buy it in other formats

What I currently have ebooks from, all DRM free
- several subscription magazines
- books from baen, subterreanean press, angry robot (yes, well, it's all speculative fiction)
- tech books from manning, pakt and oreilly
- books direct from authors

I read them on the iriver Cover Story, which is a nice device that is fairly open in its format support

It does help if you can have the "too many books too little time" attitude (and similarly in music), the idea that you dont have to have this very specific tome and can just walk away if it is too expensive or too restricted...

302

Screenshot Captor / Re: Great Scanner funtions in ScreenShotCaptor

« on: March 03, 2011, 04:13 AM »

I'd never noticed that - awesome features! 

303

Living Room / Re: The Plot Thickens...

« on: March 03, 2011, 04:02 AM »

The only thing you can take out from this study is that men staring at a women's breasts will affect her performance - at maths, but possibly also in salary negociations, in meetings, interviews etc.

THe conclusion that men are immune certainly is invalid, they would have to find something that is culturally as uncomfortably objectifying to men as staring at breasts is to women. And that is harder to find because our culture doesnt objectify men on obviously visible things the way it does women.

So it is a disadvantage women have - one of many that act cumulatively - one that wont vanish overnight because it needs the culture to change, and that takes a couple generations, each one having grown with less toxic messages and therefore less affected...

304

Living Room / Re: Borders Goes Bankrupt - The Death of Print at Retail?

« on: February 19, 2011, 02:57 PM »

I second the issue about the browsing being necessary -

For a lot of non fiction / reference books (cook books, technical books, travel books, dictionaries, maps, atlases, craft books, art books) there are a lot of similar books - and typically if you looked at all of them and just flipped through, you would clearly decide you like one better than the others. Due to layout, style, feel etc. It it impossible to determine that online. So what happens when there are no bookstores to go to for these? You either have to gamble or just not buy these types of books anymore :S

And I am really really into online commerce - professionally as well - since 1995/6. Buy tons of stuff online. But some things I will so miss. Browsing for books is one of life's pleasures

Maybe I will start a bookshop

305

General Software Discussion / Re: The Web's Most Annoying Apps

« on: September 04, 2010, 03:20 PM »

of these, there's only flash I havent been able to replace with alternatives

306

Living Room / Re: Trend Micro blocking donationcoder.com???

« on: September 03, 2010, 12:39 PM »

I did submit feedback right away, but no idea how fast things like that get handled. It is also a new phenomemon, been on the site from this computer many times before

But the forum seems to get reasonable response, so i supposed paid customer report will too - even though it's the company that pays.

I do get a lot of warning on software download links with trend micro

307

Living Room / Trend Micro blocking donationcoder.com???

« on: September 03, 2010, 07:10 AM »

Hi

I just got this today on my work PC which has a remote "Trend Micro" security module...

Client/Server Security Agent


Page Blocked


URL:   https://www.donationcoder.com/
Rating:    Dangerous

Threat details:

    
Verified fraudulent page or threat source.

I already submitted a report to Trend Micro, and thankfully my config allows me to "allow locally" for links I want to get to, but isnt this strange?
This beats false positives in some of the software...

Iphigenie

308

General Software Discussion / Re: Which archive software are we using in 2010 (and why)?

« on: August 28, 2010, 02:29 AM »

I have almost never given much thought to compression - use what comes with the OS (ususally providing a combo of bz2, gz and zip), or little old peazip. On the servers I still tend to stick with gz - files are bigger, but the time and CPU load compressing large log files with the other formats is too disruptive

Although watching people with different priorities in the time vs cpu use vs size debate trying to argue the best product out (nicely) is rather entertaining

309

DC Gamer Club / Re: Worms Reloaded on Steam on Aug 26, 2010 - multiplayer dc

« on: August 25, 2010, 03:46 PM »

I'm soo tempted but I have so many unplayed games...

310

General Software Discussion / Re: Whoa, this gal hates MS Office 2010 -- 5 Reasons Why You Don't Need It

« on: July 27, 2010, 04:03 AM »

i bought outlook 2010 - think they really improved that one. well, i bought outll look 2007 cheap when the "free up to 2010" was offered, but that was for that very reason.

my only issue with the ribbon was the "hmm where did they move *this* to now?" phase, which is slowly over. Still find menus faster from the keyboard, but never investigated keyboard ribbon control...

cant imagine getting the other products though - the ones i really like in Office are Onenote and Outlook - everything else I can use alternatives

311

Living Room / Re: Sleep/hibernate problems in Windows 7

« on: July 27, 2010, 03:57 AM »

it just happened to Robb on his laptop this week - just after we installed Suse linux on the partition, so my thinking was that perhaps the partition resizing had confused something as per where the hiberfil.sys (or whatever it is called on windows 7) should be stored. But if several people just have had it at the same time, it could be something linked to an update?

312

General Software Discussion / Re: IMAP Email hosting

« on: July 18, 2010, 09:28 AM »

Tuffmail is good and i sent several people there, because the pricing is better than fastmail

I'm staying with fastmail, though, because it has worked really well for me, there are some clever niche features (jabber based private im, minimal ftp/http hosting) which come in handy now and then.

I last year switched to a family account for R and I - and and have about 55 domains in it - for some I even use the DNS.
I am also starting to use the address book more, but they dont yet have live sync, only import/export

My main problem is that they dont sent email updates or anything so I have to remember to check their blog and forums to hear of new features and tweaks.

313

Living Room / Re: Google takes a risk - could have finally gotten what makes FB profitable

« on: July 18, 2010, 09:21 AM »

somebody invested in Zynga not long ago... let me find it

http://mashable.com/...-raises-147-million/

I can't see that Zynga would take more investment not so soon after getting so much pumped in. After all, every such deal dilutes what the other stakes are worth, and there's the power balance to deal with.

unless there was some new business plan involved - a JV of some sort, or an IP transaction. But then that wouldnt be an "investement" but a business deal

314

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Mini-Review of JungleDisk and ZumoDrive

« on: July 11, 2010, 03:45 AM »

I really like spideroak, it works fully on windows, mac and linux (I have it on slackware) - not that many do. The command line control has also come in very handy. There's also a nice control over what gets backedup, and over what is in the archive.

I have paid for the 100Gb plan.

I also use syncplicity - for sync of configs and files between home/work/game machines. It's just a lot faster to manage than spideroak for that one use case, although has a tendency to add things to the sync you didnt want (defaults to adding new folders automatically to its profile). I suspect that eventually this will switch to spideroak but haven't taken the time for it.

Will try to find the time to give a more structured pro/con

315

Living Room / Re: The Fallacy of One Thing Leading to Another

« on: July 09, 2010, 11:55 AM »

1. People are not addicted to violence, they are addicted to strong emotions - and horror and violence are the easiest way to achieve strong emotions within visual media, so they are the most common.
2. Most games which depict criminal behaviour as entertaining and cool have been criticised, it is only the war violence that gets almost no criticism.
3. Rape is different because it is more common, and so often excused away. It's a crime that is already too common and glamorous to be encouraged or made sexy in any way

We have a rape culture, where it is often excused, underreported, underpunished and often blamed on the victim. This does not happen with other kinds of crime and violence.

You probably interact on a daily basis with women to which it has happened, and who might never have reported it, or have. Either way, they know to hide it because, after all, society has decreed that rape is not the fault of the rapist but of the victim.

In that context making a game out of it *is* a problem. It contributes to the rape culture around.

And I am totally clear that a game is not likely to make someone buy a gun and blow someone up, it would take a lot more than that, but with rape, there's a lot less inhibition to overcome

We live in a legal system where there is a lot excusing rape (in part simply because it is controlled by men, and all men can imagine being accused of rape), a culture a implying men are entitled to sex, a lot even making rape a cool/powerful thing for a man to do in arts of culture, that I think the barrier to overcome to go from thought to action is much lower - and I am not so sure that in these cases the game cannot give that little bit of unihibition that will make a guy go from "hmm, she's a bit too drunk let's play it safe" to "hey, she's a bit drunk, get her another drink, lucky score!!!" - especially in a group

Honestly if I think about myself I would not want to be alone anywhere with someone who gets their kicks off from a game like this - and even if you are a man, think about your daughter, sister, friends - would you be comfortable letting them get a lift home one evening from someone you know likes playing this? or who has spent 6 months creating that game?

and also

The point is “oh my god, this game is going to make rapists think that people are on their side.”  Which, of course, too many people actually are already, through their rape apologist jokes and excuses.  The premise of the game reinforces the idea of rape as okay and not a big deal.  It reinforces the idea that women exist for the sexual pleasure and abuse of men.  And the preview of the game Boing Boing, which does not include any actual rapes but only attempted rapes, also ends up reinforcing the dangerous and stereotypical idea of your “real” rape victim who always cries, calls out in distress and overall completely breaks down at actual violence or threats of it.

So yes, partly there is a hypocrisy in our society that is more sensitive to sex than violence - but there is also a hypocrisy around rape that blames the victim far too often... and in that context, the game is just about every kind of wrong

316

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend collaboration software (over internet, offline or online)

« on: July 09, 2010, 06:50 AM »

being extemely lazy here, but I have a ton of these kinds of tools bookmarked, from open source to free to commercial, self hosted to desktop to cloud...

could be of use

http://www.diigo.com...n&sort=relevance

317

Developer's Corner / Re: Style guidelines for how to structure helpfiles?

« on: July 09, 2010, 01:59 AM »

Screencasts are good marketing, they get you thinking "oh cool" but they are not good help/reference

In fact they are on the useless side for help:

• screencasts are not searchable
• the pace is slow
• I can't jump to the one bit that I am interested in

All are scenarios where you go to the help section or FAQ

Heck even for image manipulation programs I have rarely seen a screencast be more useful than well annotated screenshots... I'd say never, I can't remember of one, but there must be some cases

318

Living Room / Re: More ammunition why patents are EVIL

« on: July 07, 2010, 02:18 AM »

better buy a nook now

319

Living Room / Re: More ammunition why patents are EVIL

« on: July 07, 2010, 02:17 AM »

Patents certainly do seem to kill competition and innovation - and oddly enough industries without patents seem to do fine...

But the immediate problem here is people getting such broad sweeping patents (in this case it could perhaps also apply to dual screen tablets, the nintendo DS, and some phones) - someone in the patent office should be able to see that these are not specific enough. It also is quite damaging that amazon has no device that uses the patented concept, how can you patent something you dont exploit, just to prevent others from jumping ahead of you?

320

Living Room / Re: Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers

« on: July 07, 2010, 02:04 AM »

ok here's a bit more smart analysis about it

http://www.huffingto...-the-i_b_626754.html

A breakdown of what the PCNAA actually includes does not necessarily reveal a brand new power given to the President to "shut it all down" when it comes to the Internet and a cybersecurity threat. What it does reveal is another bureaucratic mess. The bill establishes, amongst other provisions, a White House Office for Cyberspace Policy and a National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications. Analogies have been made to the same type of authority and response mechanisms that are currently associated with FEMA. FEMA and its record with current disaster response is the exact reason why people are afraid of forming an agency or body to deal with a cyber attack: it will be constructed upon bureaucratic models that have failed to operate effectively in the past.

found via http://www.opencongr...111-s3480/news_blogs

321

Living Room / Re: Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers

« on: July 07, 2010, 01:52 AM »

What puzzles me more is what the rationale behind that idea is?

The only things I can imagine are what Bruce Schneier would call "movie plot threats" - things that cant work but can grab the imagination of the unitiated, such as a general penetration of US systems by ennemi viruses and software agents that requires a cleanup and reboot of everything...

Real scenarios? not so much - i mean if you have to shut down infrastructure the government, business, emergency agencies, health agencies and hospitals etc. rely on, the other guys have kind of already won

322

Living Room / Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

« on: June 12, 2010, 09:00 AM »

My personal interpretation - which I built when I was involved for 18 months with a semantic search project and spent time thinking about how to achieve results that are a)relevant b)diverse c)of the right granularity (i.e. not too general or too specific for the precision of the query) - is that Google results were actually pretty bad on a lot of these measures but rescued by familiarity

i.e. they were mostly perceived as good because people "knew" that Google was the best there is, were familiar with its result sets, and had acquired habits to "correct" for bad results. In a way almost everyone has acquired forms of Google auto-correction...

If you asked people what they wanted of a search engine, and asked them to rate result sets on paper lists, what you would find is that google is pretty poor at what people say they want. But they are used to it, and their way of searching has been moulded by it. Put them in front of a better engine and these habits backfire, as people search in a google way

All these habits don't transfer to another engine if it improves on Google too much and takes it out of "familiarity" and all of which means any new search engine will be perceived as worse compared to Google, even if it is better on paper (clustering,  relevance etc.) if it changes the experience enough.

For one, if you showed results of one search engine in the "look" of another, it affected the reported quality of the results

But this problem also applies to google themselves, as soon as they change too much, the familiarity auto-correction disappears and you notice that the results are noise.

For me, the only way I got good results out of google was the country filtering, but that has been removed. Well, it is still there somewhere but it doesnt work anymore. And I get LOTS of crap especially when searching for a UK source of a product, most of the links are US nonetheless That really has gotten measurably worse with the changes

323

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Burning Studio 10

« on: May 21, 2010, 02:50 PM »

good point. i too have lots of yiggles

324

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Dr.Explain 4.0 -- Rapid Creation of Help Systems to Speed up Software Rollouts

« on: May 20, 2010, 07:36 AM »

Just noticed it's on bits du jour

Now must figure out fast if it adds things that screensteps doesnt have

325

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Steam Sale: 50% off Guild Wars Trilogy

« on: May 15, 2010, 03:08 PM »

I can definitely see the logic in this when it comes to a lot of games, but not Guild Wars. One day, some day, the servers are going to be turned off so when this game is impossible to find there'll be no way to play it anyway.

-Innuendo (May 14, 2010, 07:48 PM)

Guild Wars, so far, is still live several years on, even without subscriptions. Just received a whole bunch of updates, too.

But yes, it's a risk - any online function could disappear one day - that's why I have so few MMOs and I certainly dont buy them "defensively" like  do for other games

And this is a bigger problem than one thinks, not just pure online games. After all nowadays we have games we cannot play without a connection to a policing server. That goes offline (say the company goes bankrupt, the studio closed etc.) then suddenly you can't play. I accept that from a pure online game, but not from an offline game