Recent Posts

1451

Living Room / Re: Patents given away? Elon Musk blazing a different sort of trail.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 13, 2014, 12:31 PM »

Engineers >> Patents
Innovation >> Lawsuits

-wraith808 (June 13, 2014, 12:12 PM)

I'm confused on this one. Are you saying that is what's supposed to happen, or that it is? With all the legal-riffic nonsense in the news these days it seems to me like most things are going back and forth instead of forward. Innovation requires that information be available and shared, not bound in red tape and squirreled away in secret siloes.

1452

Living Room / Re: Patents given away? Elon Musk blazing a different sort of trail.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 13, 2014, 12:24 PM »

Suddenly everybody loves electric cars 

Generally, not on DC, you can't believe the number of times people dismiss electric cars when I talk about it. Casual conversations or otherwise.

-rgdot (June 13, 2014, 12:14 PM)

Most of the electric (/hybrid) cars on the market today have performance numbers that put them in line for a fair fight with a golf cart. The Tesla has performance numbers that put it in line for a fair fight with damn near anything on the street ... I like the Tesla for that, I always have.

1453

Living Room / Re: Patents given away? Elon Musk blazing a different sort of trail.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 13, 2014, 12:20 PM »

So the Toyota Prius - that I dearly love ripping to shreds - has a battery pack that is so expensive to replace that most people just have the thing crushed when it dies.

Tesla OTOH comes out with a battery pack that can be replaced in 90 seconds and creates a chain of "charging stations" where you pull in get the battery swapped for a full one and are on your was in 90 seconds or less. Which defers the battery cost over time so you never get hit with a whopper of a bill (like $3,000+) for a new battery.

Now that to me is freakin' brilliant!

1454

Living Room / Re: Patents given away? Elon Musk blazing a different sort of trail.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 13, 2014, 11:52 AM »

You just gotta love this guy!

The Electric Tesla Roadster 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds (and IIRC the top speed is around 130).

This patent move is a beautiful thing, that speaks back to the days when innovation made this country great. Now if we can just spice up the occasion by getting a few (dozen...) patent trolls to jump out of high-rise windows...we can go ahead and make this a national holiday.

1455

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

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 13, 2014, 11:16 AM »

^Lay's Deliciously small Vietnamese kid. OMFG I almost choked to death on my sandwich when I read that.

1456

General Software Discussion / Re: TrueCrypt alternative

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 12, 2014, 10:08 PM »

So even if the NSA is putting back doors in there, aren't we back to that famous discussion of "security via obscurity"? That the NSA is gambling that the back doors it's putting in there can't be found by anyone else?

-TaoPhoenix (June 12, 2014, 09:41 PM)

Yes.

1457

Living Room / Re: WinXP is officially dead!

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 11, 2014, 05:50 PM »

So be it. I say "Give me the bird!" every time.

-40hz (June 11, 2014, 05:20 PM)

Do we even have a smilie for that?  jk jk

But seriously, this seems like a trend in the industry to me that is being greatly enhanced by cloud subscriptions making it easy to force people's hands. As an example, here's something I ran into just last week.

Customer has a cloud based mission critical business app that stores all of their records in PDF format. The app does not however have any way of viewing/editing/printing said record, it just stores them with status information regarding how complete project X is. The actual document handling bit is done by an external application that I'm sure you've guessed by now.

Now here's the fun part ... The cloud does an "update" that causes the clients local system to start throwing errors all over the place. Nobody bothers to read the errors - they just assume they are really complicated and stuff - so I get called in. I read the below error message:

[document function failed] - Application X cannot find a compatible version of Adobe Acrobat.

So now all of their worked fine just yesterday copies of Adobe Acrobat 9 (which Adobe just dropped support for a recently) are completely and instantly useless ... Will that be cash or charge? Nice and totally pointlessly draconian enforcement of an upgrade policy...Huh?

Mind you all documents involved were generated by a Multi-Function Printer that is still generating v1.1 (embedded image only) PDFs ... Which is the normal workflow for the application so with zero functional reason this really was just flat out mean.

1458

Living Room / Re: Antilock-breaking (ABS) vs Stabilty Control (ESP) vs Traction Control Video

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 11, 2014, 04:31 PM »

^Now I had me a funny feeling about that...

1459

Living Room / Re: Antilock-breaking (ABS) vs Stabilty Control (ESP) vs Traction Control Video

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 11, 2014, 12:53 PM »

After all, we certainly don't want to leave people with the impression that their ABS braking system is so smart that they can just slam on the brakes whenever they want and ABS will save them from danger.

-mouser (June 11, 2014, 10:06 AM)

And that is precisely the problem point that I was going after. Sales monkeys, and many of the tech showcase bits make it sound like magic, giving people the dangerously false impression that they can just wait for the last minute clamp down the binders and the computer will do the rest. The problem here is that the behavior accelerates wear on many components causing them to "drift" out of the spec's that the computers calculations are dependent on.

I'm almost 50 now. So I've had 35 years (actually over) of both performance driving and being a mechanic to test and observe how and when things fail. I tend to break very hard and very late in corners...because I can. I have the years of necessary experience to pull it off safely. The thing that scares my is the number of people in traffic I see that trigger the ABS just because they have once again blasted up to a corner or stop light in the rain way too fast thinking that the magical car stoppie thing will once again save their silly ass. Because someday it wont, if they keep doing that.

As SeraphimLabs mentioned the ABS is simply cycling to release the drivers excess breaking pressure. So depending on pad material, when done repeatedly this will either cause the pads to glaze so they lose grip, or groove the rotors (disks if you like) making it very difficult for the system to release breaking pressure. I've fried brakes both ways racing with different pads, and either malady can get quite interesting really fast. Another fun issue is that with the excess buildup of break dust it can frequently obscure the wheel speed sensors ability to "see" the wheel lock ... Guess what happens then.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@SeraphimLabs - Are you psychic or something? If your posts got any closer to what is going through my head I'd have to start getting paranoid!

1460

Living Room / Re: using OpenDNS or other free dns servers

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 11, 2014, 06:37 AM »

You sign up for a free home user account and then either enter your static IP in the account info, or use their DDNS client to identify your network. Then you can adjust the filtering via the account to your liking.

1461

Living Room / Re: Stuff We Feel Like Bitching About

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 10, 2014, 10:00 PM »

What is with all these new sliding javascript teasers!?

-TaoPhoenix (June 10, 2014, 08:54 PM)

Some jackass learns a new trick, and next thing you know every idiot on the block wants the latest greatest dancing monkey too.

I don't do a lot of blocking either in the interest of trying to play fair. But some of the stuff as you say is just pushing the limits of reason. Mouse over the wrong spot and either a video starts screaming at you, or the whole page disappears as it is shoved down by a banner that flew out of nowhere.

I was on the phone with a client when I managed it inadvertently touch off one of these things and it starts playing the Orbits gum commercial (yeah the one that sounds like a freakin porno) in a window I wasn't even viewing. I'm on speakerphone and the PC speaker is sitting right behind the phone ... So there is no deniability to be had. And I can't find the %&^$# thing to kill it. Fortunately the client had a sense of humor.

So I'm currently debating on changing my fairness policy.

1462

Living Room / Re: Antilock-breaking (ABS) vs Stabilty Control (ESP) vs Traction Control Video

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 10, 2014, 03:04 PM »

In terms of road safety, ABS was arguably one of the most important modern developments for potentially significantly reducing the incidence of accidents. It seems a crime that it is still not fitted as a compulsory standard on all modern road-going vehicles, large and small.

-IainB (June 10, 2014, 09:48 AM)

Agreed, and also one of the biggest problems. Because if some one learns the stomp on it and pray method of ABS breaking, and then gets in a different vehicle that is not equipped with ABS ... Guess what is going to happen if they need to stop quickly. Or if they get into a panic stop situation and the ABS malfunctions. Neither scenario if far fetched, and in reality both are fairly common ... Because with all technology...Shit Happens. Which brings us back to my original point which was to stress the need for both learning and using proper breaking technique.

Not to mention that the brake system is designed to handle a certain peak operation pressure, and while it isn't necessarily possible to exceed that max system pressure in a single incident. Repeatedly subjecting the system to the excess pressure of someone just standing on the brakes until the ABS rattles like a maraca is quite likely to cause some component of the system to fail catastrophically. Because these ultra fancy new fangled systems are still based and dependent on the same $0.48 O-rings as the old systems which frequently blew out when someone nailed the petal with both feet hoping the then drum brakes could haul down a 6,000lb car from 80MPH before they got to the point of impact.

I'm not trying to argue that a skilled driver can stop faster than the ABS. I'm simply stating that a skilled driver will use the ABS to confirm the maximum friction point-of-lockup...and yes that includes panic stops. Having the ABS click a few time under hard breaking is fine, it lets you know that you are either close to the edge or crossing some very slick spots (like the painted lines). Clamping down on them until they rattle the whole car...is foolhardy at best.

1463

Living Room / Re: Antilock-breaking (ABS) vs Stabilty Control (ESP) vs Traction Control Video

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 10, 2014, 07:53 AM »

Tap/pulse (for snow driving) no, then you're just fighting the system for a rhythm ... But if it's rattling like hell you're not going to lose any breaking by backing off it a touch, and it'll help with steering input.

I've heard experts go both ways on this. Generally speaking however only the beginner courses recommend keeping it pinned. Advanced driving courses...not so much. My own experience - having spent a good bit of time on the ragged edge - as well has shown that ABS is not infallible. They are great systems - and having ABS was a big selling point for my current ride - but they are not magical. And as we both know even with the best intended input computers can sometimes get it wrong.

1464

Living Room / Re: Antilock-breaking (ABS) vs Stabilty Control (ESP) vs Traction Control Video

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 10, 2014, 07:07 AM »

While all of these are good systems, it should be mentioned that in the interest of safety they shouldn't be depended on. Because as with all things mechanical, there is always the potential for them to malfunction. I've ripped into salesman on several occasions when they started telling people that all you have to do is clamp down on the breaks and let the ABS handle everything ... Which IMO is a great way to get somebody killed by teaching them bad habits.

When ABS kicks in you can feel the system pulsing. That pulsing is the system's way of telling you that you need to back off the brakes a bit to maintain traction (and steering control). So as a teaching aid they're brilliant...but as a policy they encourage bad driving habits that could easily get one killed. Because if they happen to malfunction when you really need them, it's best to have proper braking technique to fall back on.

Electronic Stability Control I haven't played with, but I would apply the same caution to its usage as well. If you watch the video carefully you will notice that in the first non-ESC run he was jerking the wheel much harder than is prudent on hard and dry asphalt...let alone on ice. Now I'm assuming it was mainly for dramatic effect to help demonstrate the capabilities of the system. But having spent a good deal of time in various vehicles at speed I can assure you that sudden jerky control input is an absolute no-no. Everything should be done smoothly, and in harmony with vehicle attitude ... Assuming of course your intent is to keep it on the wheels..

Traction Control? I love it on my wife's new Dodge Charger. Launching it hard in the rain is almost boringly easy. But I did disable it on my bike because I occasionally need/like/want it to slide a bit ... Just for the entertainment value.

1465

General Software Discussion / Re: Nice blog post on the parasitic software hosting sites bundling junkware

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 09, 2014, 02:39 PM »

...So it's a PSA to remind us all that CNET is still bad.

 

1466

Living Room / Re: Stuff We Feel Like Bitching About

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 09, 2014, 12:07 PM »

I dont know about you all, but if someone approaches me an angry/aggressive/abusive manner, I'm naturally going to take that as an attack, and get defensive or attack back. That's human nature (I think). Their job only allows one option there. I can completely relate to their position.

-tomos (June 09, 2014, 10:28 AM)

I think the truth (as with most things) lies somewhere in the middle.  I'm totally fine usually when I call.  I relate my position and problem in rational terms- it's just better for communication.  But when someone tries to jerk me around with a script, or not wanting to escalate if they can't take care of it, and not even wanting to admit the problem... well, sometimes a less reasoned approach is called for.

-wraith808 (June 09, 2014, 10:41 AM)

 

1467

Living Room / Re: Stuff We Feel Like Bitching About

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 09, 2014, 06:50 AM »

@40hz

I don't actually yell & scream at people, but I'll certainly say when something is f**ked up, and it ticks me off when some rep says, "I don't appreciate that language." (At that point I want to just start screaming. It's extremely difficult not to.) Yeah, well that's that it is -- f**ked up -- if you don't like the language, FIX IT!

-Renegade (June 08, 2014, 09:28 PM)

I believe he is referring more specifically to this particular - really annoying moral high ground - tactic being used to try and shame someone into curbing their aggression when they're complaining about getting bent over by big faceless corporation X. I too have encountered this on occasions when I didn't quite feel up to being tactful about some idiots failure to pry their head out of their ass.  Which oddly enough is almost the exact phrasing used the last time I encountered this passive aggressive nonsense.

1468

Site/Forum Features / Re: Long time members with over 50 posts, report for disbursement duty

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 08, 2014, 05:52 PM »

Should we share who we have/plan to distribute to?

I think I found my first proposed recipient of a MouserBuck.

-TaoPhoenix (June 08, 2014, 03:29 PM)

That might actually be interesting if done after so as not to skew the results

1469

Living Room / Re: Stuff We Feel Like Bitching About

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 08, 2014, 02:30 PM »

People don't have that level of personal connection they had before technology made them 'social'.  And so in the mistaken view that 'we're more social than ever', we equate words with the same sort of level that 'actions' used to be associated with.  While it is true that you can turn harass/stalk people online, I don't see why we don't focus on the actions rather than the words.

-wraith808 (June 08, 2014, 01:30 PM)

  And that rather cleanly cuts to the quick of it!

electronic communication has made it easier for people to react to each other, and completely incapable of interacting with each other. And it's not that it's necessarily bad that body language, expression, and inflection is/has been stripped away from these types encounters. It's that devoid of these handy cues regarding the actual intent of the speaker...people (or at least a general cross section of them) seem to persist in wanting to reflexively assume the worse about the intentions of their fellow man.

The sadly hysterical part of all this is it is generally done under the banner of tolerance ... Which is of course a strictly enforced utopian ideal ... With a zero tolerance policy.

1470

Living Room / Re: Stuff We Feel Like Bitching About

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 08, 2014, 09:13 AM »

PC crap drives me nuts.

The South Park episode "The 'F' Word" is really good. All the kids run around calling a bunch of loud bikers "faggots". I remember when I was a kid before I had any idea what sex was, much less any idea about homosexuality, that everyone said "fag" and it was pretty much the same as "jerk" or "spaz".

-Renegade (June 07, 2014, 09:12 PM)

Yes, but you see that was back in our day when the colloquial wisdom of the time persisted that sticks and stones would break ones bones, but words would never hurt you.

Now however we have the hyper reactive shrinking violet movement's new-think assertion that [affect theatrical crying jag] Words Hurt! [/end theatrical crying jag] ...Which is just flat out retarded on so many levels I can't even begin to try counting them. The whole thing is just devolving into an idiotic witch hunt spearheaded by a bunch of smug completely out of touch with reality assholes that think that they are morally superior simply because they haven't been caught up in their own machine yet.

What I see quite often is a bunch of thin-skinned candy-ass pansies that are just looking for a reason to be "offended".

-Renegade (June 07, 2014, 09:12 PM)

And the really funny part about all this is that ^they^ are the very same people that created the problem in the ****ing first place by forcing the previously established and working system to start persecuting the actual victims. Because back in the day everybody knew who the real bullies were, and when they occasionally ran into someone that had the panache to call their bluff...the then well deserved beating was quietly overlooked as it should be. But then in came the stampede of whine-pants idiots that can't accept the simple fact that their "little angel" just so happens to be a total asshole.

So the environment now is one in which the only "acceptable" form of recourse is to run crying with piss filled knickers to "mommy" - be that a teacher cop or other authority figure - to "protect" you from bad people because of the harsh penalties that are levied against anyone foolish enough to stand up for themselves.

I say screw all the hand holding nonsense, and stiffen the penalties for bothering the police with petty bullshit. Then make it perfectly legal to punch someone in the face (only once) for saying something that is incredibly rude or stupid. I bet it won't take more than 6 months for folks to start falling back into the 1950's era version of polite interaction.

1471

Site/Forum Features / Re: Long time members with over 50 posts, report for disbursement duty

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 08, 2014, 08:25 AM »

I'm in.

1472

Living Room / Re: Our experiences with LED light bulb replacements

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 05, 2014, 08:35 PM »

Been hunting for an LED light that can be used on [covered] front porch.  Needs to be reasonably weather resistant, if not weatherproof.  Also would be nice if it had built in light sensor so I don't have to remember to turn it on - or off! - but I might be reaching a bit there  .  Corpus, while comfortable, is not a shopping metropolis  , and I'm not having a great deal of luck searching online.  Any suggestions?

-barney (June 05, 2014, 07:24 PM)

Lowes has a couple of variations on that theme that screw into the bulb socket, and then the bulb screws into them:
http://www.lowes.com...witch&facetInfo=
http://www.lowes.com...witch&facetInfo=
http://www.lowes.com...witch&facetInfo=
http://www.lowes.com...witch&facetInfo=
http://www.lowes.com...follow&cId=PDIO1
http://www.lowes.com...follow&cId=PDIO1

I've had similar motion sensitive widget on my front porch for the a few years now. Walk up, the light comes on. Walk away the light goes off in about 10 minutes. And the best part is, I do nothing.

1473

Living Room / Re: Trend Micro's Rik Ferguson says ISPs should quarantine infected computers

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 05, 2014, 06:48 PM »

I hope the resources they direct the account owner to, to clean up their machine, is included in that "limited internet resources".

-app103 (June 05, 2014, 06:06 PM)

Of course ... The users will be automatically redirected to whichever vendor is offering the highest kickback for the then hostage traffic being pumped through their gates.

I also hope they are fully prepared to offer phone support to go along with it.

-app103 (June 05, 2014, 06:06 PM)

Can I put in a request to be a fly on the wall for the first time the switchboard explodes with the first wave of undoubtedly extremely hostile customers? Especially in the SMB space where you're likely to run into 500 users behind one IP that just got "quarantined" because one dipstick in accounting opened an attachment.

If our ISP at the office thinks I was unpleasant about being handed an entire block of blacklisted IP addressed for our mail server back when we first switched to them. I'm sure they'll be quite astonished at how much worse I can actually get if this bit of nonsense hit the fan. Especially if it got triggered by a customers machine that had been brought in for decontamination.

Yeah, I'm with Edward...this is an incredibly stupid idea. Even if it would be fun to watch them get lynched by their own support staff for putting them directly in the line of fire.


Here's a thought, how about they use all those snazzy resources to screen out the hosting server source of the hostile code? ...Oh wait, OpenDNS already does that. And they crowd source much of the blocked hostile content from the same people that this asshat thinks don't care.

1474

Living Room / Re: Call to arms on net neutrailty

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 05, 2014, 05:01 PM »

I'm not sure which is scarier, the fox guarding the hen house at the FCC, or the fact that a TV comedian successfully DoS'ed a government website by way of inspirational request.

...Well okay, the second one is funny as hell.

1475

Non-Windows Software / Re: LINUX: Linux Lite - viable 1st Linux alternative for XP and Vista users

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 05, 2014, 02:31 PM »

Okay, so I have LL2.0 x86 running in a Hyper-V VM on Windows 8.1, and have installed all the updates. So Far, so good ... But two things are bugging me:
  1. How do I get rid of the Floppy Disk icon on the desktop.
  2. What are my chances of getting the sound working? The system seems to think it is playing sounds. Youtube video made virtual audio level meter bounce ... But no (noise comes out) sound can be heard.