Recent Posts

1201

Living Room / Re: Beyond The Basement

« Last post by 40hz on September 02, 2014, 12:29 PM »

HA! More danger! But only to the police state.

Activist apps!

I saw this a while back, but didn't want to post it because it would most likely get sent to the Basement. However, there's a new interview out with the app creator that justifies it being sent upstairs here. But... again... in its own thread might be a bit too much. So, thanks 40! You've given me the opportunity to actually get this out into the daylight!

-Renegade (September 02, 2014, 10:47 AM)

Hmm...looks like 40hz's thread has just become Renegade's human shield...  

Hmm...

1202

Living Room / Re: Beyond The Basement

« Last post by 40hz on September 02, 2014, 06:13 AM »

^ C'mon April! We don't put Zen thinkers like you up against the FODI kiddies. (You have to let the kids win every once in a while or they won't play.)

1203

Living Room / Re: Microsoft Update MS14-045 (KB 2993651) problems - Win8.1

« Last post by 40hz on September 01, 2014, 09:17 PM »

So much for auto-updates.

-IainB (September 01, 2014, 05:56 PM)

I've found it's generally wiser if a little less convenient to allow them to notify you updates are available, but let you handle it from there.

FWIW I almost always wait a few days before I'll install the latest Microsoft updates. I'd rather let somebody else have the pleasure of being Redmond's guinea pig. At my age, the thrill is gone,

1204

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: AdGuard: the better Ad Muncher?

« Last post by 40hz on September 01, 2014, 09:13 PM »

I understand, AdGuard does it by installing its own certificate and doing a man in the middle on all your https connections, and I don't know how I feel about that.

-Jibz (September 01, 2014, 12:03 PM)

This.

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" still applies.

1205

Living Room / Re: Interesting study comparing reading on paper vs tablets

« Last post by 40hz on September 01, 2014, 09:08 PM »

@IainB - Don't jump to conclusions too quickly regarding Ms. Mangen...

The lack of quotation marks around the statement [The study might still provide fodder for those who insist that reading a novel on a screen just isn’t the same.] leads me to believe that sentence may likely have been inserted by the reporter or editor rather than the researcher. Especially since the statements on either side of it do display quotation marks - and do not draw the semi-conclusion the non-quotation does. (Reporters like a conclusion or sound bite. They hate leaving it with a "this opens up several interesting areas for further investigation - but much more data and study is needed before any real conclusions can be drawn" ending.)

That's the problem with so much of what passes for science reporting. You never quite know what's a legitimate summary of something the researcher actually said, and what's an aside, misinterpretation, or editorial gloss by the reporter or the newspaper.

Remember the "God Particle" and all the fun the press and pulpit had with that - despite the fact the researchers never once called it that -  or made half the claims about it the press seemed to think they did?
 

1206

Living Room / Re: The Movie and Book Writing Thread

« Last post by 40hz on September 01, 2014, 08:51 PM »

@Ren - The Brain is one of those very cool looking apps I've played with but could never really find a good use for in the past.

I suppose if I were writing a mystery novel. or a thriller revolving around nested conspiracies over a long historic period - y'know, one of those "wheels within wheels" things that start back in 1776 and progress through Area-51 on the way to the official last Apollo moon mission with stops along the way for the Bavarian Illuminati, Majestic-12, and The New World Order...?



To me it's almost like an electronic version of "the board" allegedly used by police and intelligence agencies when they're investigating something. Except without the need for thumbtacks and colored string 'jump connectors' since the software's 3-D rotation capability handles that much more elegantly. Easier to pack up and/or archive than the physical equivalent too!

If you figure out something interesting and non-trivial to use The Brain for, be sure to let me know?

1207

General Software Discussion / Re: collaborative software, note strong, for small biz

« Last post by 40hz on September 01, 2014, 04:42 PM »

Wiznotes is a sleeper, discovered here. Maybe the best, putting aside the China Syndrome.

-Steven Avery (September 01, 2014, 03:56 PM)

Not exactly an inconsequential consideration these days. Having something written and hosted in Communist China is almost as dangerous as parking it in the USA.

Onenote, again dunno, how is the cloud implemenation.

I personally think OneNote is vastly overrated. But it's a paradigm thing with me. How a big sloppy freeform notebook helps people keep organized is beyond me. For creative use, brainstorming, a junk box for rough notes and snippets...possibly. But for keeping a complex project on track? Not my idea of how to do it.

That said, the web implementation actually isn't bad. OneNote is one of those things (like Outlook) that seems to make a lot more sense with a big web-enabled server standing behind it. I use OneNote (reluctantly) because some of my clients use it. They're real diehards who put the time in to master all it's little nuances and quirks. (Of which there are far too many AFAIC.) But these same people are pulling down solid 6 and 7-digit salaries most of 'em (they run a private hedge fund) ...so what do I know?

Microsoft will give you a free 30 day on Office365 complete with all the fixin's. Best bet is to check it out and pound on it. For a certain class of business requirements, O365 is pretty hard to beat. If you don't fit the model of the user Microsoft went into it with, it's another story. (You really can't customize it easily. And some parts you just can't. Period)  But if you're one of the business cases Microsoft designed Office 365 for, rest assured it will serve you very well indeed. If you do subscribe, pay the extra to get the plan that lets you install the actual Office software on your PC. That way you have on and offline capabilities. And it really doesn't cost that much more. It's $12.50 a month with a 12-month subscription. You can pay up front or month-to-month . But month-to-month cost $15/user if you do.

1208

Living Room / Re: The Movie and Book Writing Thread

« Last post by 40hz on September 01, 2014, 01:57 PM »

There's a new Suse Studio compilation called the Wallstone Creativity Desktop.

Description

Are you a writer? Do you do heavy blogging? Do you edit other people's works? Are you a (self-) publisher? Do you need the ability to write, edit, or publish works on-the-go? Are you sick of paying Microsoft hundreds of dollars for software that doesn't work right?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then the Wallstone Creativity Desktop was made for you. This (mostly) complete system, Powered by OpenSUSE, has plenty of tools for writing, editing, converting documents, scanning documents, handling images and photos, planning, and much more.

In addition, if you work on audio or video projects, we're working on making your lives better as well, with programs like OpenShot and Cinelrella, Mixxx, and Audacity. The Wallstone Creativity Desktop wants to be YOUR favorite Linux distribution, so tell us what you'd like to see!

This effort takes a kitchen sink approach by bundling all the wordsmithing tools the dev distro creator could find and putting them into one convenient collection.

I have mixed feelings about doing a distro like this. First, because this approach leads to a bloated installation that sometimes develops dependencies issues or experiences slowness down the road. Second, because there's a huge amount of functional overlap since so many similar apps are included. Seriously, do you really think you'll need over a dozen separate wordprocessors and text editors for your daily work?

That said, "kitchen sinking" can be a handy thing if you are new to Linux and don't have much experience with what software is available. This distro helps out with that by the simple expedient of taking a large amount of what’s out there and including it by default. (see below)

What's included...

MAJOR PROGRAMS (by Category)

Word Processors

    LibreOffice
    AbiWord
    Blogilo
    LyX
    Gnome Blog
    Scribus

Editors

    Bluefish
    Cherry Tree
    Gedit
    Nano
    Red Notebook
    Tomboy
    Markdown
        Multimarkdown
        Discount
        Retext

Dictionaries

    Aspell
    Myspell
    Golden Dictionary
    Gnome Dictionary
    Ispell
    Star Dict

Thesaurus

    Artha
    LibreOffice English Thesaurus

OCR

    Cuneiform
    Tesseract
    Gocr
    OCRad
    GimageReader

Document Conversion

    Calibre
    Pandoc
    HTML to Postscript
    PDFChain
    Sigil

Typesetting

    LaTeX
    TexMaker
    TexStudio
    TexWorks
    Texlive
    Lilypond

Photography

    Darktable
    Digikam
    Fotoxx
    Shotwell

Video Editors

    OpenShot
    Cinelrella

Graphics & Animation

    Blender
    Img2DVJU
    GIMP
    Inkscape
    Uniconverter
    XML Graphics Batik
    Synfig Studio
    Sweet Home 3D
    Librecad

Scanning

    Scan Tailor (Featured)
    Xsane

Audio Editing

    Audacity
    Rosegarden

Audio DJ/Broadcast

    Mixxx

Financial

    Gnu Cash
    LibreOffice Calc

Planning

    Dia
    Planner
    Freeplane
    Project Libre
    + Getting Things GNOME

Internet

    Firefox
    Thunderbird
    PidGin
    Skype
    Leechcraft

Windows

    Wine
    Swine
    Mono
    Gecko
    PlayOnLinux

Utilities

    Printing
        Glabels
        Gutenprint

    File Managers
        PcManFm
        Nautilus

    Boot
        Grub2
        Grub Customizer

    Disk Image & Tools
        Gparted
        Suse Studio Image Writer
        Kiwi

   CD/DVD Burner
        Brasero

    Archiver
        Ark

   Font Management
        Font Forge
        Font Manager

IMO the smart way to use a distro like this is to run it straight off the live DVD (it's 2.74Gb in the 64-bit version) and explore the various pieces of software included. When you find the apps you really like - make a list. Then get a more basic distro and use the package manager to grab and install the list of apps you made earlier. Or alternatively, install it to your hard disk and then let the package manager remove all the stuff you aren't using. You can always easily reinstall something if you find you need it.



Anyway, there it is, the Wallstone Creativity Desktop. Get it here.

1209

General Software Discussion / Re: collaborative software, note strong, for small biz

« Last post by 40hz on September 01, 2014, 11:42 AM »

I don't know if Zoho would work for you. They have a very comprehensive collection of 25 apps that cover most business, productivity and collaboration requirements. I have two clients  heavily vested in it. The only problem is the completely à la carte pricing schedule. While one or two apps are generally affordable for small groups, the monthy per-user fee adds up pretty quickly if you're not careful. But you can add and drop products and users as needed. So if not everybody in the group needs something, there's money to be saved by only buying what you need for whoever needs it when it's needed. A good example is the Meetings app. Some of my client's customers like to web conference - so when they have a big project in from one of them, they add the meeting module for their employees and the client's reps that will be participating. When the project is finished, they drop it till next time they need it.

Zoho offers free trails (2 weeks if IIRC) of all their products. So it's easy to see if it will work for you. All said, it's a very nice suite of offerings.

I personally don't care for it. But my two clients love it. YMMV.

1210

Living Room / Re: Beyond The Basement

« Last post by 40hz on September 01, 2014, 11:17 AM »

My feeling is that one good thing about publicly discussing "dangerous" ideas is it gets them out in the open where you can often see the clear difference between "bad dangerous" and "good dangerous." And it's not just dangerous ideas. Look how many "good" ideas turned out to be "not very" once we uncovered the hidden agendas behind them and suddenly realized just how ugly and batshit crazy their chief proponents really are. (ref: The Patriot Act, FISA, Libertarianism, etc.)

Everything benefits from a healthy dose of sunlight IMHO. And talk is cheap - so let's talk about everything. In public. And in a well-lighted forum.

Risk always needs to be assessed against the potential benefit(s) to be gained. Almost everything worth having comes at a price. The question is how much risk and how high a price you're willing to pay to attempt to gain something. That's where common sense, economic reality, and ethics come in. And those are much harder criteria to apply in a rational manner.

But we can save those for a separate discussion. The one where the word "let's" replaces the phrase "what if we..."
 

1211

Living Room / Re: Beyond The Basement

« Last post by 40hz on September 01, 2014, 09:51 AM »

^The degree of "tameness" (is that an actual word?) varies from year to year. And it's not just confined to their big annual soirée. They have a year round program.

Not for everybody. But since I'm most comfortable, and my brain seems to function best whenever I'm outside my 'comfort' zone, I think FODI has a role in the world of ideas.
 

1212

Living Room / Beyond The Basement

« Last post by 40hz on September 01, 2014, 07:07 AM »

Think the Basement can get a little over the top at times?

Well...there's a festival, now in its 6th year that takes it (by design) to the absolute limit. The Atlantic recently did an article on the Festival of Dangerous Ideas (FODI) to be held in (no surprise) that strangest of all self-styled democracies: Australia. And at their iconic Sydney Opera House no less.


The article in The Atlantic says it all:

Can an Idea Be Dangerous?
An Australian festival aims to shock and provoke its audience. Does it go too far?
Kathy Gilsinan Aug 31 2014, 12:08 PM ET
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What does the notion that “cat videos will save journalism” have in common with the claim that “women are sexual predators?”

According to the organizers of this weekend's Festival of Dangerous Ideas (FODI) at the Sydney Opera House in Australia, these ideas are both dangerous. The festival, which just wrapped up its sixth installment, offers a roster of speakers on topics that could alternately be described as gently counterintuitive or, in the words of co-curator Simon Longstaff, “offensive, obnoxious, fearsome, [or] dangerously stupid.”

And while even journalists don't tend to seek shelter at the sight of a cat video, what makes all of these ideas “dangerous” to the festival’s organizers is their potential to challenge. “The original intention was to look at things that are difficult to discuss and are not discussed, that go against mainstream thought and opinion,” co-curator Ann Mossop tells me from Sydney. These can include big ideas about freedom, life, and death, or ideas that challenge everyday behavior by arguing, for example, that recycling is basically a waste of time. An idea could pose danger to any number of targets, be they a set of beliefs, an industry, or the very structure of society.

Interesting read. Find the full article here.

You can find the Festival of Dangerous Ideas webpage here.

And their YouTube channel called Ideas at the House here.

 

1213

General Software Discussion / Re: collaborative software, note strong, for small biz

« Last post by 40hz on August 31, 2014, 05:02 PM »

@SA - Q: Just to clarify - the client piece wants to be running under Windows - but the backend not be a Microsoft solution?

1214

Living Room / Re: The Movie and Book Writing Thread

« Last post by 40hz on August 31, 2014, 01:01 PM »

@Stephen66515 - here's some food for thought courtesy of Raymond Chandler:

By the way, would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will remain split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of barroom vernacular, this is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed and attentive. The method may not be perfect, but it is all I have.

Raymond Chandler

 

1215

General Software Discussion / Re: method of network drive-mapping regulated by location

« Last post by 40hz on August 31, 2014, 12:17 PM »

The real big technical differences are that the pro version allows you to configure Microsoft domain and proxy settings. That and store as many profiles as you want. If you're a roving tech, those are all 'must have' features. For home or small workgroup use, the free version should have everything you need.

Hopefully we're also all the decent type of downloader who abides by that "not for commercial use" clause in their license. Because this dev operates purely on the honor system. There's no "phone home" checks built into their software.

1216

Living Room / Re: Get ready to be unemployed - "Humans Need Not Apply" - CGP Grey

« Last post by 40hz on August 31, 2014, 08:35 AM »

^Chalk it up to someone who has set up many home aquariums.

You can easily increase the number of fish beyond what a natural body of water can support. But only up to a point. Push the number up too high and sooner or later you end up with a tank of dead or very ill and dying fish. Despite all the fancy water cleaning and oxygenating technology along with carefully selected food and preventative medications.

If our technology can't prevent a massive die off in 100 gallons of water and a relatively simple ecosystem we fully control, how is going to he possible with an entire planet we have so little control over?

Pessimistic? More like 'lacking in hubris' I think.  

Pray for miracles if you must. But try not to put yourself in a position where you have to rely on one.
 

1217

Living Room / Re: Get ready to be unemployed - "Humans Need Not Apply" - CGP Grey

« Last post by 40hz on August 30, 2014, 11:11 PM »

There are many critics of Malthus out there, and he's been pretty much laid to rest.

-Renegade (August 30, 2014, 09:09 PM)

Not really. 

Systems tend towards some kind of equilibrium. For AIs, robots, and human (un)employment, we'll likely see the same kind of thing.

-Renegade (August 30, 2014, 09:09 PM)

Systems also tend towards extinction - extinction being the ultimate state of equilibrium.

1218

Living Room / Re: Ice Bucket Challenge...You all got nominated!

« Last post by 40hz on August 30, 2014, 11:01 PM »

(I find the complete absence of any provision for readers to comment back both telling and oddly familiar. Dialogue was never the extreme Left's strong point. They always preferred the soapbox or lecture rather than a discussion or debate conducted in good-faith.)

-40hz (August 30, 2014, 02:29 PM)

The discussions are on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook...osts/931983790161656

-app103 (August 30, 2014, 07:05 PM)

Better than nothing I suppose. But IMHO a FB membership is a pretty high price to pay just to comment on something.

1219

Living Room / Re: Get ready to be unemployed - "Humans Need Not Apply" - CGP Grey

« Last post by 40hz on August 30, 2014, 06:36 PM »

You can't escape Malthus. There's only so far something can push a system before the ability of that something to survive in spite of itself is exhausted.

Unfortunately, with unchecked and geometrically expanding population growth, it isn't a matter of if. It's a matter of when.

But most people don't want to consider this. There's a feeling that the human race is somehow exempt from the ultimate limits of any closed system - as opposed to every other life form in this universe. We keep waiting for the arrival of a miracle. And that's gonna be "a long wait for a train that don't come" as Malcolm Reynolds said to Reverend Book.

 

1220

Living Room / Re: Ice Bucket Challenge...You all got nominated!

« Last post by 40hz on August 30, 2014, 02:29 PM »

@App - interesting magazine this Jacobin. Refreshingly leftist for a change. But sometimes marred by that same old wilful blindsidedness we remember from the counterculture rhetoric of the 60-70s. (I find the complete absence of any provision for readers to comment back both telling and oddly familiar. Dialogue was never the extreme Left's strong point. They always preferred the soapbox or lecture rather than a discussion or debate conducted in good-faith.)

But still...talk about a blast from the past! Thx for finding and sharing that.

1221

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

« Last post by 40hz on August 30, 2014, 01:12 PM »

^@Mouser - what an enjoyable little group! That's how it all begins. Thx for sharing!

1222

Living Room / Re: Ice Bucket Challenge...You all got nominated!

« Last post by 40hz on August 29, 2014, 10:40 PM »

UPDATE: the ALS Foundation has since withdrawn its trademark application.

1223

Living Room / Re: Did you know DonationCoder has a Facebook Page?

« Last post by 40hz on August 29, 2014, 10:33 PM »

DoCo on FB?

So much wickedness in the world!

1224

Living Room / Re: Ice Bucket Challenge...You all got nominated!

« Last post by 40hz on August 29, 2014, 08:04 PM »

In fairness to the ALS Foundation, they do have a provision (according to their FAQ) where you can direct that 100% of your donation goes towards research with nothing taken out for administrative or other purposes.

That makes me much happier.

1225

Living Room / Re: The Movie and Book Writing Thread

« Last post by 40hz on August 29, 2014, 06:06 PM »

^ never having laid claim to grammatical powers - I'm enjoying the slagging Ren is getting, but dont understand why...
Should we be saying 'our pets the peeves' maybe ?
or what?

-tomos (August 29, 2014, 05:47 PM)

S/B - ...just how many of these pets do you have? There must be hundreds.