Recent Posts

2026

Living Room / Re: Funny Animal Videos

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 25, 2013, 07:16 PM »

One of my cats pees on my stuff.

-TaoPhoenix (August 25, 2013, 05:20 PM)

So?  What did you do to piss that kitty off  .  That's usually a tip that said feline is unhappy with management, or at least management's actions of late  .

Hint:  you might try a food alternative - that's worked for me in the past  .

-barney (August 25, 2013, 06:41 PM)

Nah, it's systemic - kitty was abused as a kitten. So if you leave a suitcase open he pees in it!

I know! I can give him to Microsoft! He can't be as bad as Steve Ballmer, right? : )

2027

General Software Discussion / Re: Remember Delights

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 25, 2013, 07:15 PM »

I use skickies.
But that is not the idea.
I don't know if is possible. Make notes everywhere in the pc and the program associated the written in someplace. So when you go to a determinated window or screen in the pc appear the note or mark.
It not the same that stickie notes.
 

-Contro (August 25, 2013, 05:51 PM)

Oh shoot, I think I remember something like this.

It might have been one of Anand's Note programs.

2028

Living Room / Re: Funny Animal Videos

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 25, 2013, 05:20 PM »

I consider myself very sensitive to possibilities of animal cruelty, and as a cat owner i would never post anything that i felt was cruelty to a cat or any other animal.

-mouser (August 25, 2013, 04:12 PM)

What if the kitty has been bad? One of my cats pees on my stuff. Maybe he deserves some dubstep!!

2029

Living Room / Re: Are Creative Commons Licenses Even Enforceable?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 25, 2013, 05:18 PM »

I agree that CC "sits on top of copyright", but I don't think it can be revoked after the fact because otherwise that sounds like a breach of contract for the original license.

-TaoPhoenix (August 25, 2013, 04:05 PM)

But that's only if you can even prove it was CC licensed, in the first place, and licensed that way by the actual copyright holder.

-app103 (August 25, 2013, 04:52 PM)

Well not counting "swiping" people's work, that's the same problem with regular copyright. But "proof" could be some kind of crypto-signed certificate. You could even make an audio format where the "cert travels with the song". That's why I was saying "assume the documentation is there" - aka there's lots of work to do, but let's examine the raw legal status of the license itself.

2030

Living Room / Re: Ballmer Stepping Down

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 25, 2013, 05:17 PM »

I am kinda interested in who they pick. Ballmer's been around "as long as I can sorta remember", so snarks aside, I have NO idea who is in the running and what "vision" they could bring.

What if we got a Back to Basics person who told the Metro Marketing team to take a hike, give us back a start menu, fix some other stuff, and more?

2031

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 25, 2013, 05:15 PM »

That looks epic!

That's good enough for the Non-Silly thread!

2032

Living Room / Re: Ballmer Stepping Down

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 25, 2013, 04:13 PM »

Yeah, that sounds about like what I remembered reading.

But my "favorite" (though tragic!) moment of MS history is a figurative random meeting where some poor engineer looked at that week's test printouts, and had the *awful* job of informing Steve Ballmer that they had to chuck out *all* of "Longhorn" and start over from scratch! Say what you want about MS as a whole, but for that one/group of engineers, that's up there as the Worst Day Ever!

2033

Living Room / Re: Are Creative Commons Licenses Even Enforceable?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 25, 2013, 04:05 PM »

I'm daydreaming of a business model where some collection of entities (X group, plus a retainer'ed law firm) specifically creates lawsuits with the point of trying to force court decisions on open areas of the law.

Is that legal!? For example, it's not hard to find example plaintiffs and defendants to all those points, so "what are we waiting for"?

I agree that CC "sits on top of copyright", but I don't think it can be revoked after the fact because otherwise that sounds like a breach of contract for the original license. Assuming documentation is in order, it sounds just like a standardized framework for permission rights that would otherwise have to be hand drafted each time.

The reason it's all so murky is just because of how powerful Copyright got to be in the first place.

2034

Living Room / Re: Nineteen Eighty-Four (Orwell) vs. Brave New World (Huxley)

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 25, 2013, 01:34 PM »

Well, in a battle of the "scariness", we're seeing parts of both, but we can and are surviving the Huxley "noise" concern better. Because while it's an easy mistake to make, Huxley missed the "sanity of (certain) crowds" aggregating and filtering good stuff just like this thread here.

So yes, I like my TV as much as anyone, but then when I "feel like being smart" it only takes five minutes to find something important to look at. Whereas Censorship is tougher because it's being actively hidden, and takes much more work to get at.

2035

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 24, 2013, 11:03 PM »

Heh Renny - if you lie hard enough, it becomes true!

2036

Living Room / Re: Are Creative Commons Licenses Even Enforceable?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 24, 2013, 02:54 PM »

...
It doesn't matter where we are - you and I *can* contract outside of any court. What matters is the contract between us - not whether or not a court recognises it or enforces it.
...
No - our ability to MAKE a contract with each other doesn't rest in the hands of a criminal gang of thugs.
...
That is - the contract and that someone or some entity will enforce it are 2 distinct things.
...
What does the court do? They often simply throw out portions of a contract as "unenforceable" or something.

-Renegade (August 24, 2013, 04:13 AM)

No Ren, from my feeble understanding of business law, this is not correct. If you have one weakness, it's that once in a while your affinity for rhetoric takes over your discussions. So we have to put away the "let's call the courts a gang of thugs" for a minute.

(At least in the US) you truly cannot make a contract that knowingly violates law. By the definition of Contract itself, it ceases to exist.

Meanwhile, they don't automatically throw out random clauses without a "severability" (spelling?) clause. Otherwise the whole contract risks imploding. They do it sometimes, but it's more of a desperation move by the courts who are basically saying "the contract lawyer was sloppy so we shouldn't do this, but Bad Things happen if we don't".

2037

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 24, 2013, 02:41 PM »

Here's a comment on "support the troops".

http://cdn.iwastesom...om/8162013230556.jpg

2038

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 24, 2013, 02:38 PM »

Here's an AI enhanced game of Snake.

http://cdn.iwastesom...om/8172013114147.gif

2039

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 24, 2013, 02:48 AM »

Well, IANAL, but I see no reason why you and I can't make an agreement and for both of us to explicitly deny the courts any jurisdiction. We *can* do that. Now, how much any court would respect that, I don't know. They tend to like meddling in people's business. But the point above was that the Copyheart license hasn't been tested.

-Renegade (August 24, 2013, 02:23 AM)

Unless the law is cooler in Aussieland, you *can't* do that - you can't make a contract that is literally unenforceable by law. That's what that last term means.

So no matter how much dear ol' Renny says he wants to, Some Contracts Cannot Be Made. They basically cease to "legally" exist about 0.000000314159236 milliseconds after they are made.

A more silly exaggerated example is "I promise to shoot myself in the head if Microsoft Stock doesn't rise 17 points with Ballmer's departure".

p.s. please take the "anal" out of not being a lawyer. It's the worst tragedy of acronyms ever created!

2040

Site/Forum Features / Re: Can I make a application request?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 24, 2013, 01:19 AM »

Depends how big. If it's a cute little thing, try the "Coding Snacks" section. If it's bigger, it gets a bit tougher.

2041

Living Room / Re: Ballmer Stepping Down

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 24, 2013, 01:19 AM »

That's why Microsoft fell off the map in smartphones and eventually had to cobble together the first Windows Phone OS in just a few months from retread software they had lying around.

-Vurbal (August 23, 2013, 09:25 PM)

Just a quibble, but I think I recall that Windows Phone wasn't "lying around" - it was an entire second attempt at a phone OS built from scratch. Cobbled together to be sure, but just a different version of the MS demise in phones - "Windows Mobile" was getting stuck and Windows Phone was desperation.

I'm no fanboy of Apple, but my iPhone *is* better than the Win Mobile 6.1 phone brick I had.

2042

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 24, 2013, 12:32 AM »

Actually Renny, it doesn't fall under contract law.

Since the elements of a contract are
Offer - Acceptance - Consideration - Capacity - Legality, you get stuck because you can't sign a contract that says "no court may make a ruling on this".

2043

Living Room / Re: Ballmer Stepping Down

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 23, 2013, 10:50 AM »

This thread wouldn't be complete without this piece of musical genius:

http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=KMU0tzLwhbE

"Developers Developers Developers Developers" (Starring Steve Ballmer)
Catchy as **** too! Everyone join me in a round!

But it feels weird, there have only been two chief honchos of MS, so I dunno what the "mood" will be with a third CEO when he moves on.

2044

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 23, 2013, 10:48 AM »

No I'm serious Tomos,
Specifically because they chose to lampoon copyright, but then their site says "copy out of love", that's too vague.

Hence I was making a meta-comment. Because that means I could borrow stuff all over their site and do random things, and one day they'd get grumpy, and then you get back to how nothing is ever as simple as "copy out of love" - that's what Creative Commons was supposed to be.

2045

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 23, 2013, 08:54 AM »

This is just too damn good. I debated putting it in its own thread, but, well, it's here:

Fuck Copyright

Enjoy! And feel free to copy it if you like.

-Renegade (August 22, 2013, 11:23 AM)

There's some really good ones there.

Too bad the "license" is a little strange. I'm sure someone would make a ruckus about it. : (

2046

Living Room / Re: German Government Warns Key Entities Not To Use Windows 8

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 23, 2013, 08:49 AM »

It certainly changes my plans to show people how to make Windows 8 more user friendly. Leaving it as-is would seem to make this a self correcting problem. Good thing I was starting with Windows 7 anyway.

-Vurbal (August 23, 2013, 07:53 AM)

Bingo. If it was *just* a stupid interface, whatever. But if there's TPM junk in there, then it has active reasons not to adopt it.

Does anyone know for sure if Win7 had the same module, or if Win8 is the first one?

2047

Living Room / Re: German Government Warns Key Entities Not To Use Windows 8

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 23, 2013, 07:40 AM »

I've followed the Trusted Computing angle for years now, though they managed to keep it out of the limelight for quite a while now!
(Remember, we're already discussing Windows 8.1 Blue!)

This is just becoming another reason to box in users still on XP.

2048

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 23, 2013, 06:31 AM »

New ODNI press release:

http://www.odni.gov/...ational-intelligence

Press reports based on an article published in today’s Wall Street Journal mischaracterize aspects of NSA’s data collection activities conducted under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The NSA does not sift through and have unfettered access to 75% of the United States’ online communications.

The following are the facts:

--Media reports based upon the recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article regarding NSA’s foreign intelligence activities provide an inaccurate and misleading picture of NSA’s collection programs, but especially with respect to NSA’s use of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

--The reports leave readers with the impression that NSA is sifting through as much as 75% of the United States’ online communications, which is simply not true.

--In its foreign intelligence mission, and using all its authorities, NSA "touches" about 1.6%, and analysts only look at 0.00004%, of the world’s internet traffic.

...
My guess is that is a statement about just how understaffed they are and how they need more funding to make up for the slack.
...

-Renegade (August 22, 2013, 10:11 PM)

Hehe! Renny, you're so sweet! You believed their "facts"!

However, in response to that "damage control move" in this game, I reply with:

"NZ police affidavits show use of PRISM for surveillance
Live traffic capture.

Police affidavits related to the raid on Kim Dotcom's Mega mansion appear to show that New Zealand police and spy agencies are able to tap directly into United States surveillance systems such as PRISM to capture email and other traffic.

The discovery was made by blogger Keith Ng who wrote on his On Point blog that the Organised and Financial Crime Agency New Zealand (OFCANZ) requested assistance from the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), the country's signals intelligence unit, which is charge of surveilling the Pacific region under the Five-Eyes agreement."
http://www.itnews.co...or-surveillance.aspx

So see? 75% might be closer to the mark! Otherwise they would have "wasted" their 1.6% & 0.00004% on Kim Dotcom, and none of the 400 other more important topics!

2049

Living Room / Re: Anti-Tracking Smartphone Pouch

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 23, 2013, 06:22 AM »

"Nothing to hide? What'd you say? Nothing to hide? I'll... Stop resisting. I said STOP RESISTING!" <thud> <whack> <k-pow> <oomph> "STOP RESISTING!" <bang> <bzzzt> "How's it now resisting the tase? Huh?" <bzzt> <aarrrgghhh!> "Hey, this one stopped resisting." "Is he breathing?" "Like I said, he stopped resisting." "Ok. I'll call the morgue to pick 'em up."

Great site - Photography Is Not A Crime:

http://photographyisnotacrime.com/

It's just bizarre how it's ok for the state to have this massive surveillance of people's public and private lives, and yet if regular people take a picture or video in public, somehow they're criminals?

-Renegade (August 13, 2013, 11:59 AM)

Yep.

I'll also give you the topic of "Bait Car". Not that it's a good thing, but let's say in the old days you have an auto theft charge, you do six months, and then move to a new area - except employment hiring, no one really knows you have a past. But look! Now you have yourself emblazoned on a TV show made to be laughed at! (And copyrighted to them!) Now you can't go anywhere without being pegged.

But check out the front notice of the show: "All people in this show are innocent until proven guilty"!

Yep, like you said, do some civilian recording of the law in action, and no, that's "endangering the officer".

However, the real innovations in tech haven't quite percolated yet. If you do the "guy recording with phone pose", stuff happens. But get a cheap baseball hat and Chinese non-Google video glasses maybe with an "angle tilter", then you can sit in a cafe reading a book but the actual recording angle is the traffic stop outside your window!  You're not facing them, so you must be a good little citizen, right?

2050

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 22, 2013, 03:52 PM »

...Since the constitution is out the window...

-Stoic Joker (August 22, 2013, 12:45 PM)

See, that's another finesse I was trying to grasp at. It's like we're wandering around Dante's 7 circles of hell. To be sure, the constitution was made into a paper airplane and sent sailing into the rotunda pit in the middle of the circles of hell, but had not in fact landed. (My kingdom for an art work representation editorial cartoon!! Artists?)

See, "Da C Document" was being *ignored*. Pretty badly. But I really am emphasizing that uttering the actual word of "Unconstitutional" brings it out of "Pshaw & hand waving wink-nudge space" into "Dialog space". The first is maybe a 4th circle of hell. Pretty bad. But once the U-Word shows up in an official ruling, only top level courts can use that, and *that* is *very hard* to hand wave away. (They did it last month with the Voting Rights thing, but you see how long that takes). To forcibly override a legit ruling that uses the word "Unconstitutional" is like holding a gun to a mathematician and asking him to divide by zero.

And yes, the Internet is on Snowden's side. Look how fast a random fella like me found this news through one typical news aggregator system. Before even about 2009 this wouldn't have been possible zeitgeist-wise because the Main Media could have squashed it. But the Internet doesn't *quite* get squashed, not at this level.

So now that "We know that they know that we know that they know that we know" etc, the U-Word is here, so they could still be nasty enough to nuts-kick it like Renny likes to say, but they *can't un-do it*.