Recent Posts

1226

General Software Discussion / Re: how they create such beautiful graphics?

« Last post by JavaJones on June 20, 2010, 11:35 PM »

The "an artist did it, the tools don't matter" point is true, but only to a point. An artist with a lifetime of experience using paint, colored pencils, and other traditional media A: is likely to not be able to reproduce that clean CG style and B: even if given the CG app that was used to make the examples above, would not necessarily be able to reproduce it, at least not without a whole lot of learning. At the same time, yes you could take a random person, train them to use e.g. Blender, and then show them that scene and they could reproduce it. It's arguably not even "art", it's more "illustration" or even "design", and there is lots of debate over the overlap of art, illustration, and design...

- Oshyan

1227

Living Room / Re: Optimal mp3 quality/filesize for voice recordings?

« Last post by JavaJones on June 20, 2010, 11:32 PM »

What compressors have you tried? LAME should do quite well down to 32kbit/s with voice files. If MP3 is not a requirement,  try AAC. Higher quality for equivalent bitrate.

- Oshyan

1228

General Software Discussion / Re: how they create such beautiful graphics?

« Last post by JavaJones on June 20, 2010, 01:23 AM »

Any major CG app can do that. You could probably use the free Blender, it's becoming surprisingly capable. One of the more well established apps like 3DS Max, Maya, etc. may be better though. For a lot of that kind of stuff you'd want an "array" tool to create lots of copies of an object, and probably do some fancy footwork to get the shapes. A good particle system editor might make it fairly easy. See e.g. Particle Flow: http://forcg.com/tut...cle-flow-animations/

- Oshyan

1229

General Software Discussion / Re: how they create such beautiful graphics?

« Last post by JavaJones on June 19, 2010, 11:11 PM »

The Viral Hairpins graphic is almost certainly a computer rendered image, but the first one at top is hand-drawn (that does not mean it was not done with a computer program, just that it was done "by hand", not automatically calculated by a rendering algorithm).

- Oshyan

1230

Living Room / Re: Why does the computer have to pause when you stick in a blank dvd/cd?

« Last post by JavaJones on June 19, 2010, 11:02 PM »

I'm not so sure this is a file system issue. It may also be either A: storage system drivers or B: storage system fundamental limitations (i.e. inability to perform multiple simultaneous operations in certain cases). I'm not certain of the reason though.

- Oshyan

1231

Living Room / Re: If smartphones keep getting this much better so quickly, I'll reconsider

« Last post by JavaJones on June 16, 2010, 06:48 PM »

Wow, that thing looks huge. But I've been planning to get a new smartphone for ages now, and late summer is my time. I'm taking a big US road trip and I want an Android-based phone for GPS.

- Oshyan

1232

DC Gamer Club / Re: Dinosaurs Didn't Have Keyboards

« Last post by JavaJones on June 16, 2010, 04:18 PM »

There's a downloadable Windows version. I didn't want to install the plugin either!

- Oshyan

1233

General Software Discussion / Re: If you think OpenOffice is a competitor to MS Office 2010, think again

« Last post by JavaJones on June 16, 2010, 03:48 PM »

What's frustrating is that OpenOffice *should* be better, particularly in regards to compatibility. If SoftMaker can do a good deal better than OOo (as seems to be the case from the above descriptions), then there's something wrong. Granted SoftMaker is a commercial app, but I'd wager a lot more development hours and effort have gone into OOo considering the size of its dev community. Yet it's still slow, a bit clunky, and has lots of problems with file formatting.

- Oshyan

1234

Living Room / Re: Microsoft lashes out at Googler for making Windows vulnerability public

« Last post by JavaJones on June 16, 2010, 01:15 PM »

I'm not suggesting that he did nothing wrong by any means. I just felt like the castigation of Google was rather far of the mark, and that the whole situation was being seen in rather black and white terms. Try this on for size:

1: Google may or may not have had any involvement; in the absence of compelling evidence to prove its involvement, let's assume none. It's only sensible.

2: A security researcher whom is an employee of Google found a flaw in Windows, supposedly on his own time and for his own reasons. He contacted MS who reacted slowly so he got frustrated and made an error in judgment by releasing not just word of the exploit, but demo code as well. Perhaps part of the reason he released demo code was out of frustration for not being taken seriously (i.e. "Don't believe me? Well here it is, it's a real problem. Deal with it"), but that's not a good excuse, and he should not have released actionable code.

3: Microsoft is responsible for a bad bug in their code, one which has been reported previously in other variations and incarnations, going years back (if you believe the Slashdot discussions on the issue). They are also notorious douches, and tend not to "play ball" with security researchers unless they're well known or represent big companies. Microsoft needs to act quicker and be less prejudiced when dealing with reported security flaws.

Does that sound like a balanced view? It does to me.

- Oshyan

1235

DC Gamer Club / Re: Dinosaurs Didn't Have Keyboards

« Last post by JavaJones on June 16, 2010, 02:30 AM »

A quick and sloppy run, learning as I went. I imagine I could do a good deal better on another run-through. Wish there was more to the game though, the novel control scheme adds a great element that would be enjoyable to explore further with more levels. Or am I missing something?

- Oshyan

1236

Living Room / Re: Microsoft lashes out at Googler for making Windows vulnerability public

« Last post by JavaJones on June 16, 2010, 02:17 AM »

Boy, you guys sure have a lot of certainty at arm's length (or more). I'm afraid I can't compete with that kind of clarity of vision. But the release of demo exploit code is far from unprecedented...

- Oshyan

1237

Living Room / Re: Microsoft lashes out at Googler for making Windows vulnerability public

« Last post by JavaJones on June 15, 2010, 10:11 PM »

He communicated with them *for 5 days*, and they weren't playing ball, which if you look around is a fairly common story with MS and security researchers, especially smaller/independent ones that don't represent someone like Secunia, Sophos, etc. I'm not saying he's right or MS is wrong, just that it's not so clear cut as you and some others seem to feel. But then I'm completely on the opposite side of the "government secrets" debate too, hehe.

- Oshyan

1238

Living Room / Re: Microsoft lashes out at Googler for making Windows vulnerability public

« Last post by JavaJones on June 15, 2010, 09:47 PM »

Evidently Ormandy was negotiating with MS for a patch release schedule and published only after he felt that negotiations were not being productive. His tweet about this is here: http://twitter.com/t...o/status/16005411316
And an article with a quote confirming this from Microsoft here: http://www.computerw...y_Microsoft_confirms

Microsoft confirmed that its security team had discussed a patch schedule with Ormandy.

"We were in the early phases of the investigation and communicated [to him] on 6/7 that we would not know what our release schedule would be until the end of the week," said Bryant. "We were surprised by the public release of details on the 9th."

My sense that Ormandy was not so clearly "wrong, wrong wrong!" continues...

- Oshyan

1239

General Software Discussion / Re: is there an ultimate file extension manager (to work with windows 7, at least).

« Last post by JavaJones on June 15, 2010, 03:23 PM »

This sounds like it might be an issue with the apps in question, although to be fair I don't think MS has necessarily made it crystal clear how to handle this sort of thing, what with system-managed file type associations, app-managed associations, MS apps (e.g. Windows Media Player) stealing associations, auto-association on startup for some apps, etc, etc. It's a confusing mess for sure, but I think it's partly precipitated by MS not having a really good, clean way to handle it all.

- Oshyan

1240

General Software Discussion / Re: is there an ultimate file extension manager (to work with windows 7, at least).

« Last post by JavaJones on June 15, 2010, 01:17 PM »

I've had .htm, .html, etc. associated with text editors quite often, over many iterations of Windows, and it's never caused problems with the browser or OS in general. There's a difference between a *file* of type and a URL shortcut. Maybe the issue is you're trying to associate URL shortcuts with a non-browser? I know you can associate them with non-MS browsers just fine though...

-JavaJones (June 15, 2010, 12:20 PM)

Perhaps I've misunderstood what you said, but my experience with file associations has been quite different.  I have one .htm file that I use as my browser's homepage, but I also want to be able to edit it easily in my text editor.  Though obviously I can go to it in my file manager, right click, select Open with, and choose UltraEdit (my text editor), I'd rather be able simply to click on it and have it open in UltraEdit.  However, when I set the file associations so that .htm files would open in UltraEdit, that definitely screwed things up, since from then on, clicking on any .htm file opened it in UltraEdit, NOT in my Firefox browser.   It wouldn't open in my browser.  Are you saying that you have had a different experience?  I should add that I'm basing my experience on WinXP Pro 32-bit. 

-cyberdiva (June 15, 2010, 01:06 PM)

No, I'm not suggesting it works any differently from what you say. Specifically, that .htm extensions, when associated with another program that is not a browser (e.g. a text editor) means that *all* .htm files will *always* open with that program. That is presumably what you want when you associate a file type though. I don't see a way you can have e.g. .htm associated with 2 apps at once. It's URL shortcuts that I never wanted to associate with any other program, and which I think are perhaps dangerous to reassociate.

- Oshyan

1241

General Software Discussion / Re: is there an ultimate file extension manager (to work with windows 7, at least).

« Last post by JavaJones on June 15, 2010, 12:20 PM »

Odd behavior you're seeing there. I've had .htm, .html, etc. associated with text editors quite often, over many iterations of Windows, and it's never caused problems with the browser or OS in general. There's a difference between a *file* of type and a URL shortcut. Maybe the issue is you're trying to associate URL shortcuts with a non-browser? I know you can associate them with non-MS browsers just fine though...

- Oshyan

1242

Living Room / Re: Looking for a Decent Contacts Manager

« Last post by JavaJones on June 14, 2010, 04:50 PM »

As it happens, one of the 2011 NANY pledges is a new address book/contacts app. So here's your chance to contribute some ideas and maybe get the contacts management app *you* want.
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=22723.0

- Oshyan

1243

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« Last post by JavaJones on June 14, 2010, 03:33 PM »

InDesign is fully capable of doing books, I know of several major (over 500 pages) publications done in InDesign. And from what I know, from multiple designers, it's *easier* to use than Quark. That's one of the main reasons it gained traction a few years ago when it came out, despite Quark being king of the hill for what seems like decades. Quark was a mess (apparently it's better now that it's redesigned, but still...) and InDesign had a fresh new take and was easier, smoother, and more compatible with the rest of Adobe's suite of products which all complement each other well.

Anyway, InDesign is pretty easy to use, and worth learning if you have access to it. It can handle almost any design task, though it may not be the "best" tool for certain jobs.

- Oshyan

1244

Living Room / Re: Need to Convert .wav to .aac

« Last post by JavaJones on June 14, 2010, 02:05 PM »

Somehow I doubt the phone's speaker will be able to reproduce the nuances in an audio file with enough fidelity that you could hear the difference between WAV->AAC vs. WAV->MP3->AAC. But of course as a general rule it's bad to compress more than once to a lossy format (generational loss).

- Oshyan

1245

Living Room / Re: Microsoft lashes out at Googler for making Windows vulnerability public

« Last post by JavaJones on June 12, 2010, 11:35 PM »

Interesting 40hz how in most of your responses you focus on the reporter himself, as an individual, avoiding the Google focus that everyone else seems to have. That was my first thought too, and in fact Google and the researcher himself both claim it was an independent action:
http://www.networkwo...e-can-wash-hands-win
Not surprisingly of course, but this doesn't mean it's not true. That article tries to paint the picture that it's Google's responsibility anyway, but provides no evidence for the potential falsehood of the claim, and doesn't make a very compelling argument for why Google should be blamed.

I know I'm probably starting to sound like a Google apologist, but when you have multiple people almost literally screaming for Google's blood in this thread, I don't feel so bad.

To those who think this "can't be forgiven", what exactly does that mean to you? What reaction do you suggest?

- Oshyan

1246

Living Room / Re: Has SEO ruined the web?

« Last post by JavaJones on June 11, 2010, 03:35 PM »

I think the definitions are getting kind of muddied up here. Scraping sites (as opposed to "web scraping" in a generic sense, which is just a technique that *scraping sites* use) are pretty much universally bad because they get their content in whole or in large part from other sites, almost exclusively without permission, thus being not only a duplication of other content, but also a copyright issue:
http://en.wikipedia....rg/wiki/Scraper_site
This is different than a content aggregator like Google News which links back to its sources, or a directory system like Open Directory, or a search engine like Bing. Scrapers are pretty much virtueless.

- Oshyan

1247

General Software Discussion / Re: Specs for new pc?

« Last post by JavaJones on June 10, 2010, 03:17 PM »

Careful, I bought a bundle off TigerD about 6 months ago that did *not* work out of the box! And they wouldn't replace the PSU that did not have the right 12V connector for the motherboard unless I paid for the upgrade (reasonable in normal circumstances, but they sold it to me as a "bundle" implying it would work). They were even recommending some significantly more expensive PSUs, which I thought was crappy as there were cheaper ones that would do.

- Oshyan

1248

Living Room / Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

« Last post by JavaJones on June 10, 2010, 03:06 PM »

Right, and the only thing you see on that list is either the whistleblowers themselves dying:
Ramin Pourandarjani, an Iranian physician, reported on the state use of torture on political prisoners. He died of poisoning shortly thereafter.
Satyendra Dubey, who accused employer NHAI of corruption in highway construction projects in India, in letter to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Assassinated on November 27, 2003. Enormous media coverage following his death may lead to Whistleblower Act in India.
S. Manjunath, a formerly manager at Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL), and crusader against adulteration of petrol. He was shot dead on November 19, 2005, allegedly by a petrol pump owner from Uttar Pradesh.
Philip Schneider, a former U.S. geologist who helped constructing various classified military underground bases, who gave public lectures around 1995. He was found dead in his apartment in January 1996.

OR

The whistleblowers doing what they did *because* people were dying (and they wanted to prevent it):
Stewart Menzies, a British intelligence officer, who while serving in France  during World War I, reported that General Douglas Haig, the Commander-in-Chief, was fudging intelligence estimates, leading to the needless death of thousands of British soldiers

- Oshyan

1249

General Software Discussion / Re: Audio editor better than Audacity?

« Last post by JavaJones on June 10, 2010, 12:11 AM »

Not that it will solve all your problems with Audacity, but for the one you mention, go to the Audio Track button with an arrow and drop-down menu (on the left of your audio track). Click and select Split Stereo Track. Adjust levels and whatever else independently. Select your 2 tracks and use Mix and Render from the Tracks menu to make them a stereo track again.

- Oshyan

1250

Living Room / Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

« Last post by JavaJones on June 10, 2010, 12:07 AM »

Let's hear some examples of when a whistleblower's actions have directly resulted in the harm or death of any innocent person. On the counterpoint, let's hear about (the likely small portion that we know of) incidents where we find out later that the depth of secrecy we maintain has likewise resulted in harm or death of innocents. Which is greater? This is the only way to make a fair judgment, by your reasoning. Swearing an alliegance is a red herring. If you swear alliegance to an authority that is corrupt, is it still your moral duty to respect that alliegance? What duties to those who are sworn to maintain, and if they break those, what are the consequences?

- Oshyan