Recent Posts

1626

Living Room / Re: 3D Printing Under Attack

« Last post by app103 on December 13, 2012, 10:57 AM »

Interesting knee-jerk reaction to nothing:

http://boingboing.ne...ls-for-ban-on-3.html

Congressman calls for ban on 3D printed guns

Well, that was predictable: days after a 3D printed gun fired a few rounds, Rep Steve Israel has called for a ban on of Wiki Weapons. The congressman points out (correctly) that all-plastic 3D printed weapons would not be easy to spot using traditional methods, such as metal detectors.

 However, what Rep Israel doesn't say is how he hopes to accomplish his goal. Firmware locks for 3D printers? A DMCA-like takedown regime for 3D shapefiles that can be used to generate plastic firearms (or parts of plastic firearms?). A mandate on 3D printer manufacturers to somehow magically make it impossible for their products to print out gun-parts?

 Every one of those measures is a nonsense and worse: unworkable combinations of authoritarianism, censorship, and wishful thinking. Importantly, none of these would prevent people from manufacturing plastic guns. And all of these measures would grossly interfere with the lawful operation of 3D printers.

-Renegade (December 10, 2012, 05:56 PM)

Oh well, there goes my idea of starting a company to print giant realistic guns made of chocolate. 

1627

Developer's Corner / Re: What is the COOLEST language?

« Last post by app103 on December 13, 2012, 10:36 AM »

As a commentary on the whole Dilbert PHB thing, I'd die in laughter if "that IT guy in the corner" that Mgt loves to kick around decides to code their enterprise mission critical app in something like LolCode. (That's my pick for the most insulting.)

Then I can see it when that coder gets a nice lucky break and moves on, and his successor stares in disbelief at 100,000 likes of Lolcat code that the entire business runs on and goes "Oh ... My ... Gawd..." and then tries to get out as fast as possible without screwing up his references list. (Having guessed what management culture led to it at all!)

 

-TaoPhoenix (December 13, 2012, 08:44 AM)

1628

Living Room / Re: Happy 12-12-12~!

« Last post by app103 on December 13, 2012, 08:46 AM »

I am waiting for January 3, 2013. Besides being my birthday, it's 1-3-13. 

1629

Living Room / Re: Poll: Is donationcoder an iOS unfriendly environment?

« Last post by app103 on December 13, 2012, 08:37 AM »

The DonationCoder community has a reputation of being rather obsessed with finding the best tool for the job. This obsession leads us to sometimes be rather critical of the flaws of software that doesn't meet the requirements to be the best of the best.

Our honesty is a good thing, if you are a developer looking to improve your software. If you receive a less than stellar review, pay careful attention to it and the discussion that follows, and dedicate yourself to fixing the issues that were brought up, you'll be well on the path to having your software among the best of the best.

I am pretty sure if Apple paid attention to what the community here had to say about iOS and made the necessary changes, iOS would be the best of the best and this community wouldn't be afraid to admit it. But the changes they would have to make are massive, and would also require them to change their business model...something they are not likely to want to do.

1630

Living Room / Re: Poll: Is donationcoder an iOS unfriendly environment?

« Last post by app103 on December 13, 2012, 08:25 AM »

I have an HP Windows PDA, and man... sucky just doesn't begin to describe it. It's a bit older though, and I suppose that I'm being a bit harsh there.

-Renegade (December 13, 2012, 04:22 AM)

Not harsh at all if it is as old as my PDA. While most of it is ok, pIE 3.0 really sucked. No support for CSS at all! I can remember when I was developing a website for my dad and he kept viewing it on his Pocket PC and complaining how it looked like crap compared to viewing on the desktop, and he demanded that I fix that. Could not figure out what the issue was till I did some research on designing pages for pIE and found out it lacked CSS support. It had none at all, which is why the pages I wrote had no color when viewed on my dad's Pocket PC. I had to do it old-school with HTML colors and fonts coded into the page and use CSS only for positioning elements. (yuck!)

1631

Living Room / Re: Why did it never occur to me.. You can wash a keyboard in water.

« Last post by app103 on December 13, 2012, 08:12 AM »

I once used a brand new air brush to clean inside a PC case (one that had not touched paint yet). 

Also considered using a bicycle pump, but I don't have the third hand that would be necessary to do that.

1632

Living Room / Re: I need your help...

« Last post by app103 on December 10, 2012, 07:01 AM »

Thank you, kyrathaba. 

1633

Living Room / Re: I need your help...

« Last post by app103 on December 09, 2012, 12:04 PM »

Thank you J-Mac. 

1634

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: DC Mug/TShirt Designs that would be nice to have an artist for..

« Last post by app103 on December 08, 2012, 07:11 AM »

not-members will not have a chance to understand what a bird of a kind is doing there.

-Curt (December 08, 2012, 06:34 AM)

Non-members probably wouldn't be interested in owning a t-shirt or mug from here. And if you own one, it can be a good conversation starter, especially if they don't get it and you have to explain. 

1635

Living Room / Re: Be Careful What You Download - Or Go To Jail...

« Last post by app103 on December 08, 2012, 03:27 AM »

But, said the judge, the material could have aided a terrorist and such serious offences would always carry a prison sentence.

-Renegade (December 07, 2012, 07:33 AM)

Or how about a knife, any knife, including that one in the kitchen you use for cutting vegetables. We are all murderers based on this logic, because those knives can be used to kill people, which is a serious offense and would always carry a prison sentence. And technically, it is possible to kill someone with a spoon, too, so everyone with a spoon should also be locked up.

1636

Finished Programs / Re: SOLVED: Automatically create a site link list

« Last post by app103 on December 08, 2012, 02:42 AM »

I used to use dirhtml on Windows for the same purpose and run it on a schedule to regenerate the pages, daily. (this was back in the days when I ran a webserver from my home pc)

While the standard output templates included were kind of look ugly and crude, with a bit of effort, you can rewrite the template it will insert the listings into, styling it with CSS, and use it to build quite an attractive directory.

What I ended up doing was letting the application generate a main menu.php from the folders and then generate pages with item listings within each folder., then assembled it all from the main page with a bunch of php includes written into the main template.

Since I was running it multiple times, with different configurations to generate each part, I ran the whole thing with a batch file to do the full regeneration. Might not still need to do something like that, as I was using a much older version and it may have been improved in more recent versions to not need to use a batch file.

1637

Living Room / Re: I need your help...

« Last post by app103 on December 07, 2012, 02:01 PM »

Thank you, Jim. 

1638

Living Room / Re: I need your help...

« Last post by app103 on December 05, 2012, 09:36 PM »

App did you make rent?

-TaoPhoenix (December 05, 2012, 07:38 PM)

Yes, I did. 

1639

Living Room / Re: I need your help...

« Last post by app103 on December 05, 2012, 07:27 PM »

Thank you, cchian.

1640

Living Room / Re: Anti-Addiction Drug

« Last post by app103 on December 05, 2012, 07:26 PM »

The nice thing about pharmaceutical patents is that they DO expire in 12 years, and then the market can be flooded with cheaper generics, at about a 30% to 80% reduction in cost to the patient. 

1641

General Software Discussion / Re: Cool Planetarium Software

« Last post by app103 on December 05, 2012, 06:54 PM »

Was it Celestia that you could create your own orbiting objects and track them?  I'd like to see Superman orbiting reverse the Earth orbit at 10x the speed, or perhaps a randomly appearing sperm whale and bowl of petunias... 

-Edvard (December 05, 2012, 05:53 PM)

OMG! You can have the Enterprise! http://www.celestiam...log/fic_startrek.php

1642

General Software Discussion / Re: Cool Planetarium Software

« Last post by app103 on December 05, 2012, 12:51 AM »

I haven't run Stellarium in a long time, so I don't know for sure if it is still lacking a screensaver option (couldn't see it listed as a feature on the current website). But if it still is, there is sort of a work around for that often requested feature, that would get it to launch like one. It involves using a coding snack I did a long time ago as a helper app.

Instructions here: https://www.donation...12.msg56567#msg56567

1643

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life

« Last post by app103 on December 03, 2012, 04:30 AM »

You can also tell the bar how to repeat when it reaches the end

-mouser (December 03, 2012, 03:45 AM)

Cool! An app that provides immortality through reincarnation! 

The lifespan bar is perhaps a bit ominous?

-Jibz (December 03, 2012, 04:14 AM)

Not if mouser is making it possible to repeat it.  

1644

Living Room / Re: clever google: httpS <--ok ad blockers, you have your hands full now

« Last post by app103 on December 02, 2012, 12:49 AM »

Can't help with the youtube ads, but the ads in search can easily be hidden if you are a Firefox or K-Meleon user, with the userContent.css file.

I posted how here, about a year ago: https://www.donation....msg271805#msg271805

1645

Living Room / Re: Inadvertent Social Engineering - It's that easy?!?

« Last post by app103 on November 30, 2012, 02:24 AM »

So what are you saying, you married him for his looks?     You are very correct about diabetes, when my blood sugar level gets too high or too low, I can't think any better than a 2 year old.  (Now just wait for the jokes to start flowing.)

-Tinman57 (November 29, 2012, 05:59 PM)

I am not referring to the temporary stupid that you get with the occasional spikes & dips, where as soon as your blood sugar returns to normal, you return to normal. I am talking about what happens when it goes untreated and your blood sugar is chronically too high. It causes permanent non-reversible damage to your memory and cognitive abilities, which in my husband's case, kind of mimics a cross between the very early stage of Alzheimer's (which some scientists now nickname Diabetes type 3) and ADD.

1646

Living Room / Re: Inadvertent Social Engineering - It's that easy?!?

« Last post by app103 on November 29, 2012, 05:53 AM »

I am the wife of a clueless idiot who couldn't remember the pin number for his debit card, has no clue who the beneficiary of his life insurance policy is (we still don't know if it is me, his ex-wife, or his sister because he still refuses to pay $20 to find out), needs someone else to navigate phone menus for him, needs someone else to fill out job applications for him, etc. And the call to the lawyer after the car accident was almost funny enough to make the lawyer cry, till I took the phone out of his hand and talked to the lawyer myself. That lawyer must think he suffered brain trauma in the accident.

By the way, if you have been feeling tired, thirsty, and forgetful lately, have any sort of tingling in your hands or feet, and people you know are beginning to think you lost half your brain cells in the last few years, get checked for Type 2 Diabetes. High blood sugar really can do a number on your brain if you don't take care of it.

1647

Living Room / Re: Inadvertent Social Engineering - It's that easy?!?

« Last post by app103 on November 29, 2012, 05:20 AM »

Never underestimate the social engineering power of a hysterical, crying girl.

Awhile back, when my daughter was having a rather bad day, anxiety level quite high, she needed to pay her cell phone bill online. Navigating the company's website to view the balance due, without submitting payment, was a nightmare for her, in her already stressed out condition. Once she knew the balance, she tried to log into her bank's site to check if she had enough in her account to cover it. For whatever reason, she couldn't seem to remember her username/password combo and tried everything she could think of. Finally, she called the bank and almost in tears asked what she was supposed to do. They asked her a few simple to answer questions that anyone possessing a copy of one of her bank statements could have answered, then moved on to the tough one...her user name on her online account. When she got it wrong, repeatedly, and broke down in tears, telling the guy that all she wanted to do is pay her cell phone bill and go to sleep, the guy on the other end just told her what it was...and the password.

And I know from experience that a "wife" with a handful of info about any guy can gain access to just about anything related to him, if she explains to the person she is talking to that her "husband" can not handle these things for himself because he's a clueless idiot. In fact, it works even better as a team, if the call begins with a guy that seems like a complete idiot, rambling on about something that doesn't make any sense, and a woman rips the phone out of his hand and takes over. Medical info, financial info, information about debts owed, just about anything can be had, except the identity of the beneficiary of his insurance policy (that will cost you $20 for a copy of the policy and has to be done through the mail).

1648

Living Room / Re: What about Skrommel?

« Last post by app103 on November 28, 2012, 08:34 PM »

Now I wonder if it would be possible to change that program without being unfair to his author, considering that he's absent. (I think no, it's not possible...)

-Giampy (November 28, 2012, 08:03 PM)

I think there are some of his scripts that have been changed by others, here on the forum, of course crediting him as the original developer. He did release the source to all his ahk scripts so you can modify them to suit your needs. I don't think he would mind if another member did the changes you want. Post it as a coding snack.

1649

Living Room / Re: What about Skrommel?

« Last post by app103 on November 28, 2012, 02:16 PM »

Skrommel is a whole lot like Clippy. He pops up unexpectedly, when he thinks you need help. And while Clippy may not pop up in the most recent version of MS Word, he's not gone for good. You might see him pop up to help, again. So I am pretty sure the DC version (Skrommel) will pop up, too.

1650

Living Room / Re: Why did it never occur to me.. You can wash a keyboard in water.

« Last post by app103 on November 28, 2012, 02:02 PM »

If your vinegar bottle is try pop open a can of Coke Classic and give it a try.  Your keyboard will be clean, but very sticky.

-MilesAhead (November 28, 2012, 09:45 AM)

Diet Coke?