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1851

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 18, 2013, 09:51 AM »

Well, good luck anyway.
If I hear a loud BANG!, I won't expect to hear any more from you.    

-IainB (October 18, 2013, 06:25 AM)

Oh not me. More like our country. Witness things like "with hours left, the congress signed a deal that would grant the country the ability to pay bills for three more months while essentially giving the Republicans who started the whole mess, nothing."

Just go look up some YouTube clips on Poker and imagine a Country on the line.

AFTER that, when I die because our country imploded and we are in any of 14000 Apocalypse SciFi landscapes, it's been nice knowing you!

1852

Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 18, 2013, 08:13 AM »

^^ I don't really understand what you wrote there @TaoPhoenix...

-IainB (October 18, 2013, 06:19 AM)

Just that fiery words mean something different from anyone not in the country.

Because it's a not dis-similar brand of fiery words that got us to the shutdown mess.

Someone noticed that there's at least a semi-permanent biological flaw at least in US voters that rewards certain disastrous but "strong" phrasing. So right now we're stuck with a strange version of something like Tragedy of the Commons where these critters keep getting re-elected. That was supposed to be the brilliant innovation of the founding gang, but apparently a billion dollar super-PAC can finally knock out that balance checker.

I still stand by my Political-App thread that no one commented on. We're too slow for both 2014 and 2016. But from 2020 on, it's the future of politics. Aka the day social media stops being Farmville and cats and suddenly 188 politicians find themselves out of a job *on the same day*.

"Shutdown, huh? Oops.  Watch this!"

But it only works once.

1853

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 18, 2013, 08:06 AM »

That's unbelievably clever Giampy!

 

1854

Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 18, 2013, 05:26 AM »

...I only see one reasonable solution to put this to rest.

-Renegade (October 16, 2013, 10:00 AM)

Yeah. Pass the ruddy bill.

-IainB (October 17, 2013, 10:22 PM)

Naw. Neither of these. Just before the basement level, an Aussie and a New Zealeander calling for the US to burn doesn't count. Because y'all don't have anything to lose. That's the same mistake the Republicans made this month - sometimes fiery fun rhetoric just doesn't make sane sense.

1855

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 18, 2013, 05:04 AM »

...
police/SS agencies probably didn't see that they had much option but to do what they have done. In order to fulfil their duty to "protect and serve", or whatever, they have had to override the constitution. It has probably by now been irrevocably broken, and there's not much likelihood of going back to the former status.

-IainB (October 17, 2013, 10:20 PM)

The problem is that the *Constitution* is *supposed* to be the tie breaker document, and end all discussion!

So when agencies "get uppity" and violate the constitution, that's exactly like me holding a gun to your head and making you divide by zero then publishing a result.

(Typical RP)
"No I won't divide by zero! You can't do that!"
"Yes. Yes you will. And you have thirty-eight seconds to do it."

1856

General Software Discussion / Re: What's up with Flash crashing all the time lately?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 17, 2013, 06:14 AM »

Flash's little brother Javascript is climbing up there as a Thing To Avoid too, but much more complex! The signature case is Chessbase, who last week decided to do live pulls from its game server, making me want to block scripts on the news summary page, and then turn it back on to use the game replayer script!

Since I'm no genius with NoScript, I just toggle that QuickJS addon back and forth all day!

Tumblr is up there with the world's most obnoxious slider! if your mouse strays over the "Facebook Icon", the ENTIRE page slides to the right to show a "Like us" ad! But if you totally turn Javascript off, then the auto-pic-loader stops working! At least Element Hiding Helper for AdBlock helps a little there!

1857

Living Room / Re: Razors and Intellectual Property (Patents)

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 17, 2013, 06:10 AM »

I dunno, of all the awful chaos of IntProp, somehow shaving is the least of the fallout that I care about! I treat electric shavers as a total commodity of the type that everyone makes a commodity when a primary patent runs out.

1858

General Software Discussion / Re: What's up with Flash crashing all the time lately?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 16, 2013, 11:36 PM »

but in today's world it's a solution in need of a problem.

-Vurbal (October 16, 2013, 05:07 AM)

Actually, I think that's backwards.

but in today's world it's a solution problem in need of a problem solution.

-Vurbal (October 16, 2013, 05:07 AM)

There... much better.  

-wraith808 (October 16, 2013, 12:40 PM)

(Parody!)
"And then the Solution and the Problem became so indistinguishable that you could no longer tell one from the other..."
"The Other Orwell Book"! (Animal Farm)

Gawdammit why was that man so awfully, horribly right on?

1859

Post New Requests Here / Re: comma remover and name order changer

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 16, 2013, 11:33 PM »

Instead of "Abbott, John B.jpg  I would have "John B. Abbott.jpg"

-questorfla (October 16, 2013, 05:39 PM)

I'll just add some random advice that "John B. Abbott.jpg" is maybe not the best file name, just for cosmetic reasons.

1. A few edge cases get grumpy at dots anywhere else in the filename except the extension
2. Even though you don't use Excel, a trick I found is that "John-B Abbott"  and "Billy Crystal-4th" are exactly two terms, so that programs (including Excel) can count the number of terms in a string, and then so things so for example the next term after that is maybe date taken, and you don't have an "Abott" date just because not all names have middle initials etc.

1860

General Software Discussion / Re: What's up with Flash crashing all the time lately?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 16, 2013, 08:44 AM »

On another site people have reported that the flash based chat site seems to be crashing in Firefox 24.

And I myself have noticed random crashes on misc sites, just without specifically pinning them to Flash.

1861

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 16, 2013, 12:19 AM »

A bit of Navy humour:
 (see attachment in previous post)

-4wd (October 15, 2013, 10:00 PM)

Not only is that good from the Navy angle, but in the descriptions there are some funny "story plots" there as well!

1862

General Software Discussion / Re: Have you played with this type of database?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 16, 2013, 12:15 AM »

Sorry all I can add is a "useless" "moral support" answer but if anyone can, this is the crowd to do it!

Mouser, does any of your new Mewlo experience apply here?

1863

General Software Discussion / Re: What's up with Flash crashing all the time lately?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 16, 2013, 12:11 AM »

Unclear - that's a wide "symptom" spread!

I've sorta been okay - no worse crashes than usual ... but then you said "a year" so my memory doesn't go back enough for the three-odd Flash updates!

What arena do you want to tackle first? Is it Youtube Videos, a Flash chat room, Other?

1864

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 15, 2013, 04:09 PM »

Not exactly Snowden, but def in these lines:

(Lifted heavily from Slashdot)

 DOJ: Defendant Has No Standing To Oppose Use of Phone Records
Posted by Unknown Lamer on Monday October 14, 2013 @08:01PM
from the defense-is-futile dept.
An anonymous reader writes with news of a man caught by the NSA dragnet for donating a small sum of money to an organization that the federal government considered terrorist in nature. The man is having problems mounting an appeal. From the article: "Seven months after his conviction, Basaaly Moalin's defense attorney moved for a new trial, arguing that evidence collected about him under the government's recently disclosed dragnet telephone surveillance program violated his constitutional and statutory rights. ... The government's response (PDF), filed on September 30th, is a heavily redacted opposition arguing that when law enforcement can monitor one person's information without a warrant, it can monitor everyone's information, 'regardless of the collection's expanse.' Notably, the government is also arguing that no one other than the company that provided the information — including the defendant in this case — has the right to challenge this disclosure in court." This goes far beyond the third party doctrine, effectively prosecuting someone and depriving them of the ability to defend themselves by declaring that they have no standing to refute the evidence used against them.


http://cdn.arstechni...13/10/Opposition.pdf

1865

N.A.N.Y. 2014 / Re: Year Planner

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 15, 2013, 02:39 PM »

...
Basically you'd want a simple colour-coded indicator (a dot or a big X) to represent the "chain" of identical daily tasks that have been accomplished. According to this method at least, one would only want to track 3 or 4 big tasks a day (such as "write," "clean," "gym").

-dr_andus (October 15, 2013, 11:36 AM)

Do we get complimentary Anne Robinson sound clips? "If you complete the task, you add a link to your chain. But miss a day and you break the chain!"

 

1866

General Software Discussion / Re: Advice requested: Internet monitoring software

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 14, 2013, 07:24 PM »

Yikes! I didn't mean to walk into that lack of sensitivity! I just never thought to look!

I don't check if programmers are still alive just because a prog isn't updated!

1867

General Software Discussion / Re: LZIP - When you THINK you've seen it all...

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 14, 2013, 07:05 PM »

http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/lzip.html

-Renegade (October 14, 2013, 07:46 AM)

And my hobby is taking people's links, and stripping them back to the top page.

"NonGnu.org"?

http://savannah.nongnu.org/

Something else to look at!

1868

General Software Discussion / Re: Advice requested: Internet monitoring software

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 14, 2013, 07:02 PM »

I had the same need, for the same reason, and wanted to supply my ISP with a log of all the disconnects. When I asked here on the forum, Karenware 'Net Monitor was suggested, and it did exactly what I needed.

-app103 (October 14, 2013, 12:25 PM)

Haha! "Karen" strikes again! I've used her Directory Printer for years and mentioned it a few times here. (Trivia - One day I noticed her Directory Printer can read the drive in some 4 minutes and then once you did that once a text file app can "find" anything in twelve seconds... so what ever takes Microsoft Search so long?!)

I hope she is doing well. It looks like her best apps were created a several years ago.

1869

Living Room / Re: Google lovers, Chrome adapters- Google Chrome`s meticulous caring privacy policy

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 14, 2013, 06:59 PM »

Sorry this is slightly tangential, but it's in the "privacy" arena.

"Element Hiding Helper for Adblock" is interesting. Because sometimes the developers keep "simple names" to their functions, aka good "internal coding", but then it's also in our favor that it's not obfuscated.

So I just found "http://bits.wikimedia.org/geoiplookup" on Wikipedia.

That's right... and surely it's symbolic of tons of other less "reputable" pages. So there's cold hard proof cousin to those "Hi! Hot Dates are in Your_Area"! Ads.

In a way that it's on Wikipedia, it's the sad symbol that "Free" frequently means "priced with non-cash intangibles".

1870

Living Room / Re: Google to Sell User Profiles, Photos in Ads

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 13, 2013, 01:45 PM »

I just thought of something.

"Over on the other side of the fence" someone seems to have made HIPAA stick for med records. The kind of *arrogant* in your face Vader-ian "Pray I do not abuse your data more" would NEVER fly over in the medical world!

But insurance companies are now known to be quietly mining the same info "informally" posted from people's Facebook Walls etc!

I wonder if a 750 billion dollar fine would wake someone up?

1871

Living Room / Re: Programming/Coder humor

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 13, 2013, 11:30 AM »

Just the whole series is epic!

"@Boehner has the wrong user permissions. Can you revise and rerun the code?"

1872

Living Room / Re: Google to Sell User Profiles, Photos in Ads

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 12, 2013, 10:42 PM »

Google has joined Facebook and Instagram.

http://blogs.wsj.com...tos-in-ads/?mod=e2fb

Google updated its terms of service Friday ...

-Renegade (October 12, 2013, 07:47 AM)

Oh! I know this one!

http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=jsW9MlYu31g
"I am altering the Deal. Pray I don't alter it any further!"

1873

Living Room / Re: Switching to StartPage from DuckDuckGo

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 12, 2013, 10:37 PM »

I've used Startpage for years because they at least attempt some privacy protections.

But I do have to say the results list is in fact only second best. Occasionally I have had to go over to Bad Ol' Google for some high grade results!

So that's a little surprising because if it was just a pass through of Google the lists would match. But they're using some kind of blended subset.

1874

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Generic saving reminder

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 11, 2013, 07:42 PM »

Sure!

Not so bad for me, I'm a Control-S fiend. But maybe emails and a couple forums that time out REALLY fast are my bugaboos. But I like it when I can work in layers. I'll post a message here and then a few min later edit it and the third version is finally complete.

1875

Living Room / Re: Going cold turkey on the unholy trinity

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on October 11, 2013, 12:42 PM »

i'm ok with PDF format but not so with Adobe's unnecessarily bulky updating mechanism. i had used Adobe Acrobat before and didn't find it a hog. however nowadays, i am using the same apps as yourself (SumatraPDF and PDF-XChange Viewer).

most of my video browsing is done on my android devices and when i am at home, i just 'cast' them on my tv instead of watching on the PC. since Adobe themselves don't support Flash on Android, it should be a wake-up call for video content providers to get themselves updated. so because of that, i am holding back from using Flash on my PC.

-lanux128 (October 11, 2013, 12:31 AM)

Hmm. A bit of mixed motivations here.

Wanting to watch stuff is a "now" problem. It will take *years* before holistically "everyone" is on html5 or whatever else.

As an example concept, though I'm not sure it quite applies to a PC:
Apple iPhone's famous lack of Flash. However, I would like to be able to use my phone like the small computer it is, without a certain Steve's prefs getting in my way. Specifically, a certain chat site that runs on Flash. "Won't someone ever think of the Chat Apps?"

So I found something called Photon Browser. "Oh look, my iPhone plays Flash apps now. "
(Shock! Horror!) "How did you do that?"

Because Photon Browser takes the end signal, parses it, and sends some kind of data batch to the iPhone, and back.