Recent Posts

1526

Living Room / Re: The Declaration of Independance- some scholars say we've been reading it wrong.

« Last post by 40hz on July 10, 2014, 09:39 AM »

And it's especially harmful when such posts drown out the conversations that otherwise could be taking place.

-mouser (July 10, 2014, 07:37 AM)

@M - Not that I'm disagreeing...but exactly which conversations are those that "could be taking place" that are being crowded out?

From what I've seemed to notice, about the only time an active and robust discussion starts taking place around here is when some legal or political consideration becomes part of the dialog. Which makes sense since you can only say so much amount about a tech topic before it's either exhausted or you start splitting hairs over details or arguing over brands.

Have you been getting complaints?

1527

Living Room / Re: Animal Friends thread

« Last post by 40hz on July 10, 2014, 09:14 AM »

The european robin will hang out if you're doing any gardening or pretty much up to anything outside. I've fond memories of messing around in the garden as a kid while my dad did the serious gardening and a robin hanging out nearby with it's head cocked waiting for a worm to appear.
But I've never seen or heard of one trying to teach someone how to catch a worm

-tomos (July 06, 2014, 05:29 PM)

My GF has a brown-headed cowbird that recognizes and hangs with her any time she's messing with the garden, running the lawnmower, or doing stuff outside that stirs up bugs. It will even stand right next to her digging hand (she's actually had to gently shoo it aside or shrug it off her shoulder a few times) when she's weeding or planting in the two raised-beds we have out in back.  

Now that it's figured out she lives inside the house, it goes to the den window and pecks and chatters until she comes out if it thinks she's been absent for too long.

They look like this in case anybody isn't familiar with the species:



 

1528

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by 40hz on July 08, 2014, 12:28 PM »

Having gone through several iphones between myself, my wife, and my son... I haven't had a reason to replace the battery in any of them, unlike my other phones.  So there is that...

-wraith808 (July 08, 2014, 12:10 PM)

My experience is you get about 3 years out of them under fairly heavy use (at least the 3 & 4s) before the battery starts to have trouble holding a charge. And though I can't speak for everyone, I have yet to get through a full and busy workday without needing to plug my iPhone in sometime in the course of the day. And that's even when it's brand new. But this is probably another one of those YMMV situations.

My GF handles it with her usual "don't screw with me" approach. She refuses to service any of her consumer-level technology. The minute her iPhone starts acting up, she trades it in for a new one. Her feeling is a smartphone is too important a factor in her daily routine to bother fooling around with an unreliable unit.

(Note: as an iPhone user I land somewhere between The Hacker and the Whiner in the spectrum of iPhone owners.)

1529

Living Room / Re: The Declaration of Independance- some scholars say we've been reading it wrong.

« Last post by 40hz on July 08, 2014, 12:09 PM »

but the body of writing from these guys is pretty clear,

-CWuestefeld (July 08, 2014, 11:57 AM)

Excellent point.

We have library shelves of original writing, and large collections of personal letters, from several of these gentlemen. So it's not as if much imagination or scholarly debate is needed to grasp where they were coming from.

1530

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by 40hz on July 08, 2014, 11:44 AM »

Ahaha! Not being particularly interested in iphones, I had not realised that they were effectively unserviceable.

Is that really true?     :tellme

-IainB (July 08, 2014, 11:34 AM)

Judge for yourself. Not unserviceable per se. But what a PITA! And needing a proprietary (i.e. TS1-Pentalobe) screwdriver to open some models...seriously?  

(Note: the iP4s are considerably easier to work on than the 3 series was.)

I could almost completely assemble a small server in the same amount of time - and only require a single standard #2 Phillips screwdriver to do it.

1531

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by 40hz on July 08, 2014, 11:08 AM »

what's wrong with simply removing the battery from the iphone?

-IainB (July 08, 2014, 09:35 AM)

1532

Post New Requests Here / Re: Recursively replace characters in all file and folder names Sharepoint restrict

« Last post by 40hz on July 08, 2014, 05:39 AM »

I was thinking through the logic on the program and wondered what would happen if two different people made different modifications to the same file and then BTsync got ahold of them both.

-questorfla (July 07, 2014, 02:00 AM)

Whatever rules you set up for the sync priority would apply. Usually the last time/date modified prevails by default. Otherwise it would be whichever source folder was given priority if both copies were modified since the last sync.

If multiple users updating the "same" file in two different locations becomes a concern, the only real way to deal with that problem is to go with a version control (i.e. Git et al.) approach. If you were to go that route, a separate sync wouldn't be necessary because the VC software would handle replication and synchronization automatically. With version control all your users would effectively be working off the same copy of the file.

It would, however, create some additional steps for the users when accessing or writing a file. And using version control is something many people have trouble getting their head around. So unless the scenario you described is actually occurring, it's probably not wise to employ VC.

1533

Living Room / Re: Animal Friends thread

« Last post by 40hz on July 07, 2014, 04:18 PM »

1534

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by 40hz on July 07, 2014, 07:30 AM »

^^ Can surveillance be addictive? I hadn't known that.

-PabloSaulw (July 05, 2014, 12:10 AM)

I think it's probably more along the lines of being addicted to power, and surveillance just being a tool of power.

And then a little splash of voyeurism to boot!

-Renegade (July 06, 2014, 01:46 AM)

Or perhaps you have quoted someone addicted to forum spamming, who had nothing of real value to add to this conversation.

-app103 (July 07, 2014, 04:14 AM)

I think I missed something here...

1535

Living Room / Re: The Declaration of Independance- some scholars say we've been reading it wrong.

« Last post by 40hz on July 06, 2014, 01:42 PM »

The thing I really find amazing about the Declaration of Independence is how it still resonates today.

The language in that document is a masterpiece of writing style. And the topics it discusses are still as important today as they were back then.

Like I said, it's a good read.

1536

Living Room / Re: The Declaration of Independance- some scholars say we've been reading it wrong.

« Last post by 40hz on July 06, 2014, 12:32 PM »

Tinfoil hats, but its straight out of 1984. Make a little tweak to history, and suddenly the implications mean that you can do this much more that previously wasn't allowed.

-SeraphimLabs (July 06, 2014, 10:24 AM)

+1 it being Tinfoil Hat.

It wouldn't fly here. Which is why any attempt at a power grab goes out of its way to avoid any mention of the Constitution or similar documents. All such power grabs (to date) have been justified using 'technical' legal arguments or very narrow and "nuanced" interpretations of provisions in the US Code.

The absolute last thing any of the endorsers of our current 'security' rules want to raise is a constitutional debate on the absolute legality of such measures. Because that is an argument they cannot win, no matter how hard they try to twist the Constitution to allow what they're doing.

And furthermore, they know it - as does everyone else.

1537

Living Room / Re: The Declaration of Independance- some scholars say we've been reading it wrong.

« Last post by 40hz on July 06, 2014, 12:20 PM »

It's just the old declaration of war that lead to the founding of the US. Nothing more, nothing less.

-app103 (July 06, 2014, 11:26 AM)

This.

(And a helluva good read too!)

1538

Living Room / Re: By 2045 'The Top Species Will No Longer Be Humans,' And That Could Be A Problem

« Last post by 40hz on July 06, 2014, 07:21 AM »

But that book is very accessible. It's very much worth a read if you're interested in consciousness, computing, AI and all the good stuff surrounding that.

-Renegade (July 06, 2014, 02:34 AM)

+1. It's on my "favorites" bookshelf.

1539

Living Room / Re: The Declaration of Independance- some scholars say we've been reading it wrong.

« Last post by 40hz on July 06, 2014, 07:11 AM »

On closer inspection, however, it looks like just that -- a cool idea that's too tempting to pass up, even if it doesn't amount to anything.

-mouser (July 06, 2014, 04:12 AM)

Yeah...I had a "Bircher" neighbor (his characterization, not mine) that could go on and on about that one. He had a bunch of other "proof" things aren't all that they seem to be with the Declaration or Constitution. Or the Bible either for that matter. Too bad he passed away before the National Treasure movies came out. He would have loved those.

And since we're on the subject, I can't wait from someone to rediscover and reopen the "unalienable" vs "inalienable rights" debate.

Why did Jefferson say "inalienable" whereas others referred to these rights as "unalienable?"

This one comes up every ten or so years in conspiracy and self-taught 'expert' historical 'research' circles.

Those who have done genuine research have long ago concluded that the two spellings were commonplace and interchangeable during the times in question, with writers of the period often switching arbitrarily between the two. Sometimes within the same document or letter.

That doesn't stop some people from reading a whole bit of drama into it despite the overwhelming evidence that clearly establishes either spelling meant the same thing to the framers of the Declaration and Constitution - and that "correct" American-English spelling and punctuation was still very far from being standardized in the 1700s.

It wasn't until well after Webster that word spellings finally started to settle down in the late 1800s. And most scholars of the American language will agree that punctuation usage varied widely until the advent of The Chicago Manual of Style was published in 1906.

1540

Living Room / Re: Linux User Are Evil TERRORISTS! Shame on you all! :P

« Last post by 40hz on July 06, 2014, 02:19 AM »

Did you know we also kill kittens - and don't believe in unicorns?

1541

Living Room / Re: The Declaration of Independance- some scholars say we've been reading it wrong.

« Last post by 40hz on July 06, 2014, 02:16 AM »

The Founding Fathers probably wouldn't have been overly concerned about something that tiny. They would have had sufficient faith in each other and the citizenry to understand the intent behind the document and interpret it in that light.

But they weren't actively seeking ways to get around it like later manifestations of the US government apparently are.

1542

Living Room / Re: By 2045 'The Top Species Will No Longer Be Humans,' And That Could Be A Problem

« Last post by 40hz on July 06, 2014, 02:08 AM »

^I'm a big fan of Penrose. Insofar as I understand him. (Definitely out of my league when it comes to mathematics.)

1543

Living Room / Re: By 2045 'The Top Species Will No Longer Be Humans,' And That Could Be A Problem

« Last post by 40hz on July 06, 2014, 02:04 AM »

@Ren: Dunno...I thought the Borg Queen was pretty elegant:



Even if she does look (and did act) uncomfortably like one of Clive Barker's Cenobites at times.

But I think I'd still prefer Alice Kreige as a human:



 

1544

Living Room / Re: By 2045 'The Top Species Will No Longer Be Humans,' And That Could Be A Problem

« Last post by 40hz on July 06, 2014, 01:45 AM »

The first few generations of machine life will be just as bad, but once they start to reliably exceed human intelligence they may very well see right through the flaws in our society and proceed to fix it for us. Over time they will lose their incentive to care for the remaining human beings- we'd be dumb and inefficient compared to them...

-SeraphimLabs (July 06, 2014, 12:59 AM)

Wish I had your faith in the potential of machine intelligence.

1545

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by 40hz on July 06, 2014, 01:31 AM »

Hey! Get your own schtick! Resident conspiracy theorist is mine~!

-Renegade (July 06, 2014, 01:23 AM)

It's all yours.

Resident "chronically depressed student of history" however, is MINE! It's my precious...

BTW...I don't think it's a conspiracy. Crypto-currencies attempt to function as a system of exchange outside the sphere of government. I don't think you'll find any government willing going along with that idea. And national governments certainly have the 'resources' to put some teeth behind their...umm...lack of enthusiasm for it, shall we say?

1546

General Software Discussion / Re: rtf documents to the web for no-bureaucracy sharing

« Last post by 40hz on July 06, 2014, 01:25 AM »

For simple publishing to the web I'd suggest using Markdown rather than RTF. Markdown is as easy as it gets.

There are a number of ultra-simple blog/CMSs (ex: Pico CMS, Anchor CMS, etc.) that use Markdown formatting. With most of these you just upload your file and it's done. Some of these use a flat-file system so no database is required.

For no-frills article composition (under Windows at least) I like WriteMonkey. It has support for Markdown built in. If you'd prefer an editor that has a realtime preview feature, take a look at MarkdownPad. Screenshot below:



Don't know if this is the sort of input you're looking for but that's my on the topic.

1547

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by 40hz on July 05, 2014, 11:19 PM »

The US govt. stealing funds is a separate issue, though it did contribute to it.

-Renegade (July 05, 2014, 09:10 PM)

Much like shooting someone in the head a dozen times is a separate issue even if it did, in some measure, contribute to that same someone's demise? Or cleaning out a store's entire inventory and padlocking the doors had some bearing on it going out of business?

While I'm sure there's some desire to save face over the whole Gox affaire, the simple fact is: the US government wanted Gox gone, found a legal argument to torpedo it - and lo and behold - it was gone! It's being in Japan didn't matter. Which raises an interesting question...why did they really want it gone, and why did Japan do zilch (in real terms) to intervene. Could it be that no government anywhere is very welcoming of crypto-currencies to begin with - unless it's to put a cramp in somebody else's monetary system or policy?

Mt. Gox is in Japan, and the DHS has no authority there and can't force Japanese courts to be their thugs. (Theoretically... )

-Renegade (July 05, 2014, 09:10 PM)

About all I can say to that is: In addition to politics there is something called realpolitik.

If I had to place a bet (even in Bitcoins) I'd be inclined to give odds on the second rather than the first. "Ultima ratio regum" as the old saying (and present reality) goes.
 

1548

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by 40hz on July 05, 2014, 05:15 PM »

Mt. Gox, AFAIK was shut down because DHS filed for "probable cause" that Mt. Gox was transferring money illegally.

-40hz (July 01, 2014, 12:26 PM)

Your information is bad.

-Renegade (July 01, 2014, 01:39 PM)

Just a follow up on the above: these sections are taken directly from the warrant issued to the DHS authorizing them to seize Mt. Gox's funds:

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

This:


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

and this:


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

A copy of the full 7-page warrant can be downloaded here.

I knew I hadn't imagined it.

1549

General Software Discussion / Re: Tizen OS declared 'dead in the water'

« Last post by 40hz on July 05, 2014, 12:15 PM »

Having a (potentially) superior product, or being backed by a few big players is no guarantee you will have a chance against something that is already out there and works, or even just something cheaper or easier (think of VHS).

-Jibz (June 16, 2014, 04:45 AM)

This.

Never underestimate the gravity well generated by "good enough."

I forgot who said it (George Ade maybe?), but it still rings true in most manufacturing: "Half a loaf is better than one if there is much else."
 

1550

Living Room / Re: Linux User Are Evil TERRORISTS! Shame on you all! :P

« Last post by 40hz on July 05, 2014, 10:59 AM »

What would be really cool is for massive numbers of web sites to include an iframe of the Linux Journal (and others) to spam the NSA and create massively larger data storage requirements for them - just drown them in data!

-Renegade (July 04, 2014, 11:16 PM)

Too easy to filter. I doubt it would slow them down at all.

And if you ever did drown them with data, they'd just get another appropriation and build a bigger data center.

This is not the sort of problem where you can efficiently fight technology with more technology.

What's needed is a change in the infrastructure and the people that are behind it. Because as long as things like Prism and the NSA and FISA exist, there will be ongoing abuses of civil liberties. A complete disregard for legal process is intrinsic to the attitude and mindset that created such things in the first place.