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2176

Living Room / Re: How Google is Killing Honest (Organic) Search

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 10, 2013, 11:00 AM »

I've experienced what cyberdiva has and am now back to Google.  As for TaoPhoenix's advanced search, I'm glad I'm a "computer novice" because "regular search" has worked perfectly for me.  I have no need to spend my time going to the advanced search options.  Thank goodness for being a novice.  Between Google and Facebook (those who use Google and Facebook) there's not such thing as privacy.  It's going to be interesting where we end up as a society.

-wrbird (July 10, 2013, 09:08 AM)

Hi wrbird!

What searches do you do "regular" that actually work for you? Because I use Advanced so much I just made a click away on my jump-page and then it's "automatic". It just has more lines, but when you type in the words "awesome birds" it is forced to give you any page with *both* results!

2177

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 10, 2013, 10:57 AM »

If this were true though, then why doesn't the US let Snowden leave Moscow, so he could be more easily apprehended in Latin America?

-dr_andus (July 09, 2013, 12:41 PM)

Some of us on Slashdot used to call this the "Microsoft Effect" where there was such a confusing mix of brilliant malice and mind-twisting incompetence that, to (just now) paraphrase Orwell, you could no longer tell which was which.

So the fact that they are even "playing" this Snowden Game (and didn't sniper him on the spot and put a Kill Order to the media), means at least a few really scary people are involved. But then the specific handling of it all is mighty confusing as well. Wouldn't China and Russia working together really want to make USA grumpy? So why are they "semi-caving"?

For me, I have to just let it drift by, because I can't afford the medical fees to unwrap my mind from becoming  pretzel.

2178

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 10, 2013, 10:49 AM »

...

-Renegade (July 10, 2013, 10:12 AM)

In other words, screw what he said! The Renninator is Baack!

2179

Living Room / Re: Geek fun: If famous authors wrote JavaScript

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 10, 2013, 10:36 AM »

So if you stuck them all in a room, Seven Writers In Search of an Algorithm, you'd get something like this?

---

"So whence it came that it became time to teach the maths, and no Russian Farmer's Child Methods would work, then if you honor, nay worship the Mouser, and have recorded all his fabulossical writings, you would have discerned and divined, the post whereupon he gave his approximate age by elucidating the facts of how long it had been, oh so very long, since ...

Since he was in that tortuous Kafka-esque prison called college, and within that factoid was a number. So if you take that number, which he thus had provided for good and earnest measure, and cross reference it with the square root of your own forum post number, you will have ...

Aw hell with it. We are going to factorial something. But since Fermat was busy and the only known professional Fermat Contacting Medium was busy, the method to factorial is too long to fit into this post, for it is filled with tigers instead, and only the lord and dead Colosseum victims know that Tygers burn bright, and fill the room ...

The end.

2180

Living Room / Re: The DonationCoder.com 30-Day Healthy Eating and Exercise Challenge!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 09, 2013, 07:51 AM »

it's french fries and potato chips I long for . . .

-allen (June 09, 2013, 11:36 AM)

Actually, one interesting tip is that if you have to have something, do potato chips (sparingly!) instead of the french fries. That's because an order of fries gets big, fast. It feels like part of meal entry.

As long as you carefully have your main meal first, a few potato chips deals with that "oily-salty" craving without quite as bad of a pound gain-age. I can get two-three servings out of a small can of Pringles!

2181

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 07, 2013, 01:03 AM »

Well this one is inspired by the Recipe thread but it belongs here:

"Recipe for Cooked Rat."

It was from a SciFi Dystopia story. (Recipe Paraphrased)

Ingredients:
1 Rat
tablespoon of salt

1. Cook rat twice, to ensure all parts are free of bacteria.
2. Add salt.

Serves three.

2182

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 06, 2013, 06:08 PM »

Why don't they follow the plot of a third rate tv movie and give a hundred grand to a sniper team and pick him off?

-TaoPhoenix (July 06, 2013, 11:03 AM)

There's a reason why those are third rate tv movies.

-wraith808 (July 06, 2013, 01:32 PM)

Maybe, but I get the feeling that it would play out like that if it were a Russian whistle-blower. Just look at Alexander Solzhenitsyn's remarks about the bad old Gulag days. One tiny comment could get you "disappeared".

Instead it looks like we're tip-toeing all around this.

2183

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 06, 2013, 11:03 AM »

There's still something wrong with this whole story. All of it. It's something to do with "too much noise". Why don't they follow the plot of a third rate tv movie and give a hundred grand to a sniper team and pick him off? Who cares if he's in another country? A lot of us are cynical - these guys perjure to Congress, but now they're acting like the rules matter?!

2184

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 06, 2013, 07:54 AM »

Here's an interesting article which lists several countries that Snowden applied to for asylum. A lot of them are using a nasty trick where "you must be inside our border to apply for Asylum". (Aka haha, we'll deport you first!)

http://edition.cnn.c.../nsa-leak/index.html

2185

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 03, 2013, 11:18 PM »

...
You're probably right ... But it just infuriates me that people can't get together and behind this thing and force the government to blink. WTF is it gonna take to get people off their asses?!? Christ we had more outrage expressed in the MSM when Janet Jackson's titty popped out FFS.

If the overlords can't be made to blink now, with something this mind-blowingly blatant...they're never going to. We might as well pack up the flag -- I'm sure they'll be making a new one soon anyhow ... Something with more red, and a scepter. -- and leave.

-Stoic Joker (July 03, 2013, 01:48 PM)

But exactly how do we make them blink? They're pretty close to a lockdown.

2186

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 03, 2013, 11:17 PM »

I wonder who he's got advising him? Surely he can't just be doing this all alone and guessing.

But it's interesting if you rule out Russia and China and most of the Euro bloc the options get a bit thin.

2187

Living Room / Re: 10 signs you may have OCD

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 03, 2013, 01:19 AM »

There's also a "chart" where "obsessive" is on one axis, but on the other is "importance". You don't hear people complain that bridge engineers are "OCD"!! No, if they study a design prototype-mockup in great, lavish detail, first doing some math, then measuring structural angles, simulating wind, and tons more, you basically leave them alone/help if needed and say "great job!"

And then on the recreational side, when a finished result is presented, and it's *good*, everyone cheers. "Dabbling" is notoriously slammed in recreational projects.

It's only when it's external stuff that gets "super-managed" that people think it's a problem. But the little quirks are all wrapped up in the rest of you.

So what do they want? Chuck the TV show did a great ongoing parody of all this - Ryan McPartlin's "Captain Awesome". Never a line mis-spoken, in near perfect physical shape, etc.

2188

Living Room / Re: How Google is Killing Honest (Organic) Search

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 03, 2013, 01:09 AM »

Well, I never use "regular seach" anymore, ever. But let's narrow down that vague phrase "good results". What exactly is a good result?

1. Wikipedia and IMDB
If I am having a TV/Movie night, then these two sites are all I want to mix and match "name that actor" and "tell me some of the production backstory and the budget vs. revenue ratio". So why bother using Google at all? I have them both as engines in Firefox.

The rest of the points revolve around Advanced Search. If I want to look up a "red box", I don't want "(other) boxes and (other) red things". In my worst grouchy days I consider "regular search" as the inside joke for computer novices.

2. "Include all these words and/or Exact Phrase". So what is a "good result"? You have to spend a minute with yourself and ask "what category of result am I looking for?" If you just put "Japanese" into a search, you get everything from the language to people to electronics. So if what you really mean is a Japanese food restaurant, then put that in and your location.

If you're looking for high grade computer advice, then put in a phrase for Exact Phrase as well as some other words. That's because sales pages can't (normally!) have sane ad copy that includes something like "your settings" in a restaurant review.

3. "Do Not Include". So the SEO guys are made sure that H I J K and L show up first when you really want A B and C. But you don't want to spend all day writing search queries. So look at the junk results and find a word common to the worst offender. So if I want to put a search for "Phoenix" into the web, I'd stick "Do Not Include Arizona" into there.

2189

Living Room / Re: 52K-word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in September

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 02, 2013, 12:11 PM »

Me = 7.  : )

2190

General Software Discussion / Re: Wave? Good-bye!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 02, 2013, 12:08 PM »

Getting serious for a min,

We're uncovering an unstated principle of "innovative". Apparently it's NOT enough to be "innovative". But that the innovation must also be "useful".

It's a variant on the old "Pure vs Applied Sciences" argument. I *totally* bet that Google invented some new "technologies" to make Wave.

But we *didn't like it*, so "who cares what they invented, it died in the marketplace".

In some ways, that's a problem.

2191

Living Room / Re: 52K-word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in September

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 02, 2013, 07:38 AM »

Actually I think what I'm gonna do is slow down and just release every three chapters. At that rate, we'll have about 4 or 5 more uploads, probably spaced at least a week apart.

-kyrathaba (July 02, 2013, 07:06 AM)

So, about 6 chapters every two weeks!? That's a pretty fast clip! "Optimistically speaking" that's about the schedule I'd review it at if I can focus. : )

2192

Living Room / Re: 52K-word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in September

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 02, 2013, 06:56 AM »

Yeah, I've been thinking this too. I'm gonna start releasing whenever two chapters are written, instead of one.

-kyrathaba (July 02, 2013, 06:50 AM)

Make sure you bump the version number!

2193

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 02, 2013, 06:55 AM »

State of Education in Florida:
http://www.firstcoas....aspx?storyid=318442

2194

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows "Blue"

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 02, 2013, 06:19 AM »

Fix Windows 8 and remove most of the unnecessary annoyances = Windows 7 (for a desktop PC without touch screen)

-dr_andus (November 28, 2012, 08:01 PM)

Well, another article has come out about Blue, and they're doing ... uh... Stuff to it.

http://hothardware.c...et-Windows-81-Right/

It look like they keep fiddling with those Program Tiles. Except why can no one realize how incredibly much space that those take up? And look at the categories:
"Health and Fitness"? "Chat and Browse"?

Granted I am due for a cleanup again, but I have 120 items in my start menu and another 30 in an "App Links" folder. So No Tiles for me.

2195

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 02, 2013, 05:51 AM »

The next move has been made: WikiLeaks: Snowden requests asylum

-wraith808 (July 01, 2013, 11:24 PM)

Is that a geo-locked site?

I just get this: http://hosted.ap.org...ecials/bluepage.html

-4wd (July 01, 2013, 11:47 PM)

I don't think so, I couldn't get it either. I'm betting they moved it!

Try this copy from the Wisconsin Journal Sentinel:

http://hosted.ap.org...amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

2196

Living Room / Re: Microsoft ending TechNet subscription activations effective august 2013

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 02, 2013, 05:44 AM »

(Cue I'm Not Worthy) Who's the picture of?

2197

Living Room / Re: 52K-word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in September

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 02, 2013, 05:41 AM »

And please, some other readers join in the discussion - if it's just Perry and I then before long you'll have koalas swinging from stalactites and platypus foraging in the river, (trust me, it will happen - just look what happened when I mentioned anus) 

-4wd (July 01, 2013, 11:29 PM)

I'll try to jump into this sometime in the next ice age! I happened to notice the word count is going up!

With the incidental passage of time it looks like some progress has been made already, so I'll put it on my things to grind into getting done!

2198

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 02, 2013, 05:39 AM »

And please, some other readers join in the discussion - if it's just Perry and I then before long you'll have koalas swinging from stalactites and platypus foraging in the river, (trust me, it will happen - just look what happened when I mentioned anus) 

-4wd (July 01, 2013, 11:29 PM)

Obligatory:
http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=9BoVSGj_aO0

2199

Living Room / Re: Prism Break

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 30, 2013, 03:16 PM »

Speaking of Breaking Prism, someone broke it some more:

From Slashdot's summary:
"Lots of new program names, flowcharts, and detail in four previously unreleased PRISM slides published by the WA Post today."
http://www.washingto...ollection-documents/

(Sarcasm) "This continues to be complete photoshopped lies" and/or "this is not important enough for Pres. Obama to care about." - Spin team.

2200

Living Room / Re: How to choose email address without using your name?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 29, 2013, 05:30 PM »

I was wondering what you guys would do if you had to choose an email address without using your name?  But you also want it to be business friendly, adult friendly, resume friendly, etc.  I've been using my superboy thing since a teenager, and i want a new one.  I don't want to use my name, so I was just wondering how you guys think through it.  

-superboyac (June 29, 2013, 05:17 PM)

A big problem is it's not easy to be "Resume Friendly" without using your name. But I created a *different version* of my name for an email that is only used for job networking, so it's cordoned off from the regular family emails. All the job websites create a whole lot of spam of their own!!

The problem is darn near anything else looks like spam no-thanks to spammers

It's not unrelated to the LinkedIn problem of names.

What I ended up doing was that my regular name pulls almost nothing on a web search, and all my hobby posts like this are under screen handles, and it's a "small barrier" so that a bored HR rep doesn't get 5000 web posts on a web search for my name!!