Recent Posts

1251

Living Room / Re: On the Synthesis of the Internet

« Last post by Edvard on February 21, 2012, 02:48 PM »

Funny thing is, according to the website, some of the papers actually got published.

Did you watch the video where they presented some of this material at WMSCI 2005?
http://video.google....-4970760454336883347
 

As Yoko Ono^{[citation needed]} once said "We don't get enough Dada"...

1252

Living Room / Re: good Videos [short films] here :)

« Last post by Edvard on February 20, 2012, 03:24 PM »

Black Hole by Phil and Olly:

Either you've seen it before, or you know EXACTLY what's going to happen, but it's cathartic nonetheless.
Wait for it...

1253

Living Room / Re: good Videos [short films] here :)

« Last post by Edvard on February 20, 2012, 03:21 PM »

Let's make this into the short film counterpart of the "Recommend some Music Videos.." thread!

Here's something: Nuit Blanche by Arev Manoukian

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Living Room / Re: On the Synthesis of the Internet

« Last post by Edvard on February 19, 2012, 10:48 PM »

That sir, was an awesome read.

1255

Living Room / Re: Anatomy of a Tear-Jerker: Very cool article on why songs give you chills

« Last post by Edvard on February 17, 2012, 01:54 PM »

Could the same be said of "inspirational" music?
Like some of the old-time hymns, modern "epic" soundtrack tunes, northern European power metal, Greensleeves fer pete's sake...

Hmmm... maybe this explains why, even as a die-hard metal fan, I get bored with much of it unless it has a good melody (vocal or instrumental) somewhere in the midst of all the chaos; I said a good melody.

Good article, could use a few more details, but thought-provoking.

1256

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

« Last post by Edvard on February 16, 2012, 01:27 PM »

Meanwhile, in Ukraine...

Band: Selo I Ludy
Song: It's My Life - Bon Jovi

I've always been a big fan of Eastern Bloc Metal, but... accordians!  

1257

General Software Discussion / Re: Tagging audio files in itunes+ipod is an absolute NIGHTMARE!!

« Last post by Edvard on February 16, 2012, 11:47 AM »

Artist vs. Album Artist always confused me too.
It's not even in the ID3 spec:
http://www.id3.org/id3v2.3.0

Maybe this will help:
http://www.mkoby.com...versus-album-artist/

...and from now on, I'm going to declare embedded images as type '$11' in all my mp3's 

1258

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

« Last post by Edvard on February 14, 2012, 10:48 AM »

This is hilarious!
It's reminiscent of Gary Brolsma's Numa Numa video.
...
And he's got a lot more videos, too.

-Deozaan (February 14, 2012, 02:57 AM)

Yep, he's something of a celebrity now:
http://en.wikipedia....g/wiki/Keenan_Cahill

Pretty cool... and from what I hear, his parents never suspected his clandestine celebrity until 50 cent showed up at their house to do a cameo 

1259

Living Room / Re: May I Have A Download Please?

« Last post by Edvard on February 13, 2012, 07:32 PM »

All this stuff is simply driving me way, way into the GNU camp.

-Renegade (February 13, 2012, 09:53 AM)

Cool! Considering your political leanings and patience with corporate BS, we were wondering when you'd finally show up. 

-40hz (February 13, 2012, 12:10 PM)

Hahahaha~!

Yeah, I suppose it is about time.

-Renegade (February 13, 2012, 07:08 PM)

1260

General Software Discussion / Re: A Siri challenger emerges. Meet Evi.

« Last post by Edvard on February 12, 2012, 01:54 PM »

A ghost was a personal assistant visible only to the person it belonged to. It was the ultimate personal info assistant. It could look things up, find things out, remind you of appointments, make excuses for you...basically the personal secretary every busy person could have ever hoped for.

Hmmm... Evi + Google's new cross-service searching? 

1261

General Software Discussion / Re: Ubuntu's Latest Interface "Brainstorm" - HUD

« Last post by Edvard on February 12, 2012, 01:41 PM »

And now it looks like Mark Shuttleworth is heading down the same road. And dragging Ubuntu along with him.

Exactly why I quit Ubuntu  

As far as tablet implementation, well . . .
*nix is a command-line oriented OS.  Windows/OSX are a bit more GUI oriented.  But there is no OS extant in the public arena that is touch oriented.  Until that is developed, tablets will be naught but high-tech book carriers and entertainment devices with middlin' communication capabilities.

That's exactly what the Unity interface was supposed to do, dumb down the front-end to some big shiny buttons and slinky menus, so everything is accessible with a touch.
...but I'm afraid you're on the right track; Ubuntu (or any other Linux Distro, for that matter...) is still a desktop OS, whether command-line or button driven, and the HUD is still firmly in that world, as far as I can see.

Hence Android and iOS; They ARE touch-operated OSs.
Admittedly, they don't do much beyond work the phone and SMS (with the OSK, of course), store your contacts,  and play some touch-and-swipe games, while the pads remove the phone part and allow you to view  and interact with larger screenfuls of info.
Yes, there is more possible,  but what can you do with a touch-oriented interface beyond what it does already?

I agree, content creation beyond tactile art is never going to be practical on a touch interface... until somebody comes up with a programming language, or at the very least an IDE that is PURELY visual.
Imagine writing programs by connecting Reactable Tangibles that contain program objects instead of sound-generating elements.*

If Mr. Shuttleworth wants to make Ubuntu a pad OS, he's going to have to totally abandon the whole desktop gestalt (something I thought he was trying to do with Unity).
The HUD is so keyboard-centric, it makes me think he actually figured all this out, but I'm doubting...
* After doing some research, it is apparent these kinds of things have been around for a while:
http://en.wikipedia....ory#Visual_languages
All the elements needed for touch-interface programming to be practical are there, but it's going to take the insane audacity of someone like Steve Jobs to make any of these into something slick and shiny and promoted ad nauseum to catch on.

1262

General Software Discussion / Re: Is WinZip still worth updating?

« Last post by Edvard on February 11, 2012, 07:56 PM »

AFAIK, the best reason for owning WinRAR is the ability to create RAR archives.
Un-archiving them can be handled by just about any archiver.

The one problem I have with 7zip, and also with Winrar in the past, is that drag-and-drop tends to unzip to some temporary directory first, and gets moved to the right location afterwards. When dealing with 1gb+ archives, that shit is slow and half the time I need to delete stuff because I run out of diskspace.
...

-worstje (February 10, 2012, 04:06 AM)

Igor deals with that question in the FAQ:

Why does drag-and-drop archive extraction from 7-Zip to Explorer use temp files?

7-Zip doesn't know folder path of drop target. Only Windows Explorer knows exact drop target. And Windows Explorer needs files (drag source) as decompressed files on disk. So 7-Zip extracts files from archive to temp folder and then 7-Zip notifies Windows Explorer about paths of these temp files. Then Windows Explorer copies these files to drop target folder.

To avoid temp file usage, you can use Extract command of 7-Zip or drag-and-drop from 7-Zip to 7-Zip.

1263

Living Room / Re: Another Internet Cafe Death

« Last post by Edvard on February 09, 2012, 04:31 PM »

From what I've been able to gather, it's a combination of susceptibility (pre-disposition to heart attack, stroke, etc.), dehydration, and sedentation (I just made that up; means sitting for long periods of time), and one more element...
What wraps it up in this case is the perceived danger that you get regularly when playing FPS's, MUD's, MORPG's causes stresses that you internalize because even though your eyes tell your brain that you're being shot at, chased, and lit on fire, you know it's not real... but your subconscious doesn't know that.

So take somebody prone to kick early, distract him so forget he needs water to survive, let him sit in a chair for hours on end, and then terrify him subliminally and *snap*... dead customer.

It's a theory, anyways... 

1264

Living Room / Re: A nice bit of profanity from "Apple Scotland and Siri" (video)

« Last post by Edvard on February 09, 2012, 04:10 PM »

Reminds me of the Taysiders in Space:
http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=KoBk8bxU1rs
Ach awae, n dinnae talk pish!

1265

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by Edvard on February 09, 2012, 01:59 PM »

A mind is a wonderful thing to lose...

Dude, you need... Elder Sign!

1266

Living Room / Re: Would you buy me a $0.99 track on Amazon?

« Last post by Edvard on February 06, 2012, 09:34 AM »

Are there any other outlets you can use, like 7Digital?
http://www.7digital.com
Based in the UK, so the chances are better.

-Edvard (February 04, 2012, 10:03 AM)

Yes! Thank you! You sign up, they take cc or PayPal, and let you download an album directly as a zip file with mp3s at 320 kbps. The whole thing took less than a minute, and that includes signing up for an account. The prices are in GBP and way higher than Amazon or other places (0.99 GBP is about $1.5 per track), but at least it works exactly the way it should.

-tranglos (February 05, 2012, 01:57 PM)

Glad to help!  

And props to 4wd for helpin' a brother out. 

1267

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

« Last post by Edvard on February 05, 2012, 11:43 AM »

... a tribute to the Amiga computer.

+1  
I've surprised more than a handful of folks with my links to current Amiga developments.
Yes, the software is still being developed (well, as of 2008...):
http://arstechnica.c.../amigaos41-ars.ars/1
Yes, hardware is still being developed:
http://en.wikipedia..../wiki/AmigaOne_X1000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam460ex
and with Cloud becoming more and more the way folks use their computers, Yes, it still might mean something.

1268

Living Room / Re: Would you buy me a $0.99 track on Amazon?

« Last post by Edvard on February 04, 2012, 10:03 AM »

Are there any other outlets you can use, like 7Digital?
http://www.7digital.com
Based in the UK, so the chances are better.

How about Rhapsody? I don't think you need to be signed up to buy tracks, and it doesn't look like it uses Amazon for the checkout.
http://mp3.rhapsody.com

There are others, but I can't vouch for their catalog or availability.

1269

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by Edvard on February 03, 2012, 01:07 PM »

First!

 

1270

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

« Last post by Edvard on February 03, 2012, 01:00 PM »

And immediately afterwards, in my head I hear "Diamonds!... and rust!".
(I wore that album out probably 3 times in my skateboarding years. Awesome stuff)

P.S. My favorite cover of "All Along the Watchtower":

Tons more soul and attitude than the album version, in fact that whole compilation had some killer tracks from seminal up-and-comers, scene staples, one-hit wonders and forgettables.
This was the soundtrack for my first year out of high school

1271

General Software Discussion / Re: Waterfox has now been accepted as a Mozilla project

« Last post by Edvard on January 26, 2012, 06:57 AM »

Look, I realize this is the beauty of open source. But I don't need 3 separate release channels, nightlies, PaleMoon, Waterfox, the other customized builds on mozillazine. I don't need SrWare Iron, portableapps versions etc.

Just give me one damn install package that works. Give me an option for a portable install. Have an option in the app to accept beta updates, or only stable ones. This browser fragmentation is ridiculous, and no one cares about it.

-MrCrispy (January 24, 2012, 08:26 PM)

I totally agree with you, this is really getting out of hand, and I had enough of it in the Firefox/Iceweasel debacle.
HOWEVER, it's apparently the only way to get a 64-bit version, as Mozilla hasn't gotten their act together enough to do that through the main channels, except for Nightly.
 

* Edvard downloads Swiftfox

1272

Living Room / Re: Looking for password "scheme" suggestions

« Last post by Edvard on January 26, 2012, 06:47 AM »

ok, here's something similar to my scheme:

For a 9-character password with upper/lowercase and numbers/special chars:
Take first 5 letters of the site you're signing up at.
Pick a 4-number combo that you can remember (last 4 digits of phone #, SSN, etc.)

• first letter - first number
• hold down shift key
• second letter - second number
• let go of shift key
• third letter - third number
• hold down shift key
• fourth letter - fourth number
• let go shift key
• fifth letter

That makes it easy to remember and complex at the same time.  

Like I've said before, a password is only as secure as the server it's stored on.
If somebody gets in, it doesn't matter if your password is d1O@n3A$t or mickey mouse.
$0.02

1273

Living Room / Re: Google Ends Privacy

« Last post by Edvard on January 26, 2012, 05:24 AM »

Also one should realise too that you can view the profile Google has built up on you and request that they no longer use targeted ads.

-Eóin (January 25, 2012, 04:57 PM)

Silly question, but how do you view it ?

-4wd (January 26, 2012, 01:17 AM)

https://www.google.com/dashboard/

-Deozaan (January 26, 2012, 01:26 AM)

Wow, they have almost nothing on me.

I read another story on this, and AFAICT, these things only cross-breed when you are logged in to a Google service.

I don’t have a Google Account, but use Google search. Am I affected?:
No. The new policy only applies to people who have a Google Account linked to services such as Gmail, Picasa or YouTube and are signed in.
What if I have account but am not signed in?:
Google can only integrate your information if you are signed in. For example, if you’re signed in to your Gmail account on one tab, and then decide to look up a clip on YouTube on another tab without signing out of your e-mail, the data will be integrated. If you sign out or look up a YouTube clip on a different browser, the data won’t be integrated.

(emphasis mine)

So just to test it a bit, I logged into the dashboard using my Gmail ID (which I am only using for job searches).
Checked a few things and looked at what they reported about my Gmail in a different tab.
Logged out of Gmail.
Back on the Dashboard page, I refreshed; Lo and behold, it went back to the login page, which means logging out of Gmail logged me out of my account's dashboard as well.
So it seems you can opt-out if you log out (though they no doubt track searches to IP addresses...).

RE: Android phones -

I have an Android phone. How does this affect me?: Because you have to sign in to your Google account to do anything except for browse the Web and make phone calls, Google will be able to track practically anything you do on your phone using Google services.

So even on the phones, it's limited to what you do while logged in, and apparently you can browse and call without that happening.
Troubling news, but not unexpected, and seemingly easily circumvented.

1274

General Software Discussion / Re: MIDI pass-through for VMware, how?

« Last post by Edvard on January 26, 2012, 04:31 AM »

Latency might be too much, but what about passing the MIDI signal over LAN?
http://www.resolume....viewtopic.php?t=4632

1275

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by Edvard on January 23, 2012, 08:12 PM »

No pun in ten did.

-Edvard (January 15, 2012, 07:50 PM)

Ten? I think you meant deci, mate!

-cranioscopical (January 23, 2012, 09:36 AM)

But... That's what they taught us back at Deva State!

-Edvard (January 23, 2012, 04:30 PM)

Which was run by Ann I. Hilate

-Stoic Joker (January 23, 2012, 05:23 PM)

Wow, this topic sure has blown up!