Recent Posts

2276

Living Room / Re: Patch your Flash! Version 19.0.0.226 (October 16, 2015)

« Last post by tomos on October 17, 2015, 05:10 PM »

A bit off topic, but it looks like it must be an interesting job!  The example you posted reads a bit like a map from a Tolkein book (probably because I don't know a lick of Gaelic):

-mwb1100 (October 17, 2015, 04:11 PM)

:-)
I'm no expert, but can say that the Irish language has less in common with middle English (Tolkien's speciality) than, for example, Icelandic, or even modern English for that matter. Irish (Gaeilge/Gaelic) and Scottish Gaelic are very closely related. They are in turn related to other Celtic languages -- Welsh, Breton, etc., but you have to go back much further for their relationship to other European languages.

partial translations

  - Bóthar Mór = (the) Big Road
  - Lin Mór = (the) Big Pool
  - Lough Atalia = anglicisation of Lough an tSáile = Lake of the Willows
  - Suckeen Bogs = Suckeen is an anglicisation of something, but I dont know what. The '-een' suffix was originally a diminutive: '-ín' as in 'Coleen' (wee girl), 'Bóthairín' / 'Boreen' (little road), or 'Tomáisín' [Tomawsheen] (little Tom), etc.
  - Struthán Muire = Mary's Stream

2277

Living Room / Re: Patch your Flash! Version 19.0.0.226 (October 16, 2015)

« Last post by tomos on October 17, 2015, 12:34 PM »

What do you do at work? Review old-fashioned non-HTML5 porn sites? 

-Tuxman (October 17, 2015, 10:27 AM)

eh, no :p :-)
This year I had to do a share of work using an interactive flash-based mapping site (has various layers that can be interchanged e.g. mapping from various times, etc. and shows location of archaeological sites). I mainly do archaeological illustration -- including some maps, with site locations, etc. (here's an older example).

2278

Living Room / Re: Patch your Flash! Version 19.0.0.226 (October 16, 2015)

« Last post by tomos on October 17, 2015, 10:25 AM »

Maybe people should generally abandon Flash.

-Tuxman (October 17, 2015, 09:21 AM)

I look forward to the day!
Flash + Firefox has been a disaster for years now. I ran without it for a while on my desktop lately, but found I did need it for a couple of sites (at least one of them work related), so, back with it now.

2279

General Software Discussion / Re: WinAntiRansom lifetime key from WinPatrol: $15

« Last post by tomos on October 17, 2015, 04:37 AM »

[ Invalid Attachment ]

-Curt (October 17, 2015, 03:20 AM)

I got offered 39,95 (but didnt go for it)
Curt, I see your image says sale ends November 17th (?)

2280

General Software Discussion / Re: WinAntiRansom lifetime key from WinPatrol: $15

« Last post by tomos on October 17, 2015, 04:35 AM »

Buy NOW! Pre-Beta Sale ENDS FOREVER in 3½ hours from "now"! "Pre-beta sale ends October 17th 2015!"

-Curt (October 17, 2015, 03:20 AM)

note: if you scroll down the page you can buy lifetime licenses for each software for $14.94
(It appears to be just for existing customers - I added the key I have for WinPatrol plus and it verified it.)

2281

Living Room / Re: Patch your Flash! Version 19.0.0.226 (October 16, 2015)

« Last post by tomos on October 17, 2015, 04:09 AM »

Thanks lanux

2282

Living Room / Re: Any photoshoppers feel like trying to hauntify a house photo

« Last post by tomos on October 15, 2015, 04:30 PM »

when you get that far, I'd love to see photo of framed print on the wall

i will absolutely take and post such a photo.

i'll also report any emails i receive from building residents asking me how this happened (i'm not going to tell anyone ahead of time just quietly swap out one of the existing paintings).

-mouser (October 15, 2015, 03:16 PM)

ahhh, okay ... that sounds great

2283

Living Room / Re: Any photoshoppers feel like trying to hauntify a house photo

« Last post by tomos on October 15, 2015, 03:13 PM »

Just picked up a 13x19 frame for the print at the thrift store.. My plan is to frame and put it up next week.

-mouser (October 15, 2015, 11:22 AM)

when you get that far, I'd love to see photo of framed print on the wall

2284

Screenshot Captor / Re: SC: Discussion of Scanning Functions

« Last post by tomos on October 14, 2015, 09:52 AM »

mouser, you wrote elsewhere you might be looking at SC scanning functionality --
any chance you could have a look at this one?

   1) I scan something, say a letter - text fits easily in A4 page
   2) tidy & crop it in SC
   3) when it is saved as PDF, SC enlarges the scanned image so as it fills the (A4) page to the very edge

I was hoping that step #3 could be stopped/removed ?

-tomos (January 15, 2010, 06:28 AM)

I notice when I save a screenshot using "save as", there is drop-down-options "Fit" where I can set percentage between 25% and 400%. I thought this could be a good workaround when saving a scan as PDF - but unfortunately it doesnt work when I save as PDF - the image always fills the page (no margin even)

So, I guess there is an invisible setting somewhere that defaults to "Fit" when saving as PDF. Is there a reason for this? - if it's just accidental would you be able to change it to 100% [i.e. actual scan-image size doesnt get changed - unless I change it manually] ?

-tomos (June 08, 2010, 08:08 AM)

[quote edited slightly for clarity]

2285

Developer's Corner / Re: Ethics in Technology

« Last post by tomos on October 14, 2015, 07:14 AM »

Now, if only I were better at following that life-advice myself :-)

-tomos (October 14, 2015, 07:09 AM)

Now now.  Please don't lapse into unethical behavior yourself.  We all know life would be too easy if we all acted on the advice we give others.  Plus I am pretty sure it's against the Geneva Accords. 

-MilesAhead (October 14, 2015, 07:12 AM)

 

2286

Developer's Corner / Re: Ethics in Technology

« Last post by tomos on October 14, 2015, 07:09 AM »

I've had that in real life- where we're coding a new state-of-the-art system upgrade, and all of a sudden realize that it's not as performant as it should be.  It wasn't related to safety or anything, but the chills that go down your spine are pretty bad.  In our case, we did investigation into the solutions, said, "Hey, these are the numbers.  We can make them better, and have user stories on the backlog to do so.  But they will push back the release.  Or we can do it after." We left it at that with the higher ups, and they chose option C- not to do anything.  Then when there were complaints, we pointed to that- and said we knew areas to increase performance.  The fact that we'd done it the way that we did sort of covered us- but not really, though we were able to shuffle it off and get it fixed.

What do you do when confronted with those types of situations?  Especially when everyone around you wants to circumvent them?

-wraith808 (October 13, 2015, 03:34 PM)

all I can do is sympathise, because I have no idea how I would react until confronted directly with such a situation.

Corporate systems seem to be largely dysfunctional. It would be lovely to work in an environment like Iain suggests, i.e. where leadership *leads*, rather than crushes.

In general, I would say to stay true to [what you think is right / gut feeling / yourself / **]. One has to do that, at least to a certain extent, but each situation is going to be different. Negative thinking / expectations in such a situation would weaken your position / conviction / expression. (No, I'm not saying to think naively, nor even to 'think positively' -- rather to be open to possibilities -- also where you would normally least expect them.)
Now,
if only I were better at following that life-advice myself :-)


** all of the above would be my approach, but that's another one that each person has to figure out for themselves.

2287

Living Room / Re: Show us a picture of your.. CAR!!!

« Last post by tomos on October 14, 2015, 03:59 AM »

OK, I'll join the game.
[ Invalid Attachment ]
It's a '13 Hyundai Genesis Coupe, Grand Touring Edition.

The specs are ridiculous, with a 3.8 V6 liter engine making 340+ hp. With a 8-speed transmission and paddle shifters, it does 0-60 in less than 5.5 seconds.
[..]
But man, is this car fast. It doesn't matter how fast you're already going, there's always plenty more power to accelerate further. And it's the first car I've ever had in which I have to actually be careful leaving a stoplight so I don't spin the tires.

-CWuestefeld (October 13, 2015, 03:17 PM)

I wish you long clear stretches of road, without speed-traps

2288

Developer's Corner / Re: Ethics in Technology

« Last post by tomos on October 13, 2015, 11:50 AM »

I have heard the idea on German radio that in order to pass the tests IRL, performance would have suffered unacceptable levels -- this apparently not the case:

To add to the shocks, Consumer Reports tested the car in low-emissions cheat mode and the differences were less than you would expect.
    # Acceleration dropped 0.5 seconds (0-60) on older cars and not much on the latest models.
    # Fuel economy dropped from 53 to 50mpg on the 2015, and from 50 to 46mpg on the 2011 models.

^ VW may have considered these levels unacceptable due to competition or whatever, but they dont come across as a company/product struggling because of the emissions regulations.

-tomos (October 13, 2015, 08:09 AM)

While it is interesting to see the performance/economy impact of the "cheat". The numbers are almost meaningless without the corresponding emissions numbers for both street and cheat modes.

-Stoic Joker (October 13, 2015, 11:24 AM)

They invalidate the idea that the regulations were too stringent to be workable.

Whether the regulations make sense or not is another issue. There are the elements Ren point out: mpg vs. emissions, etc. I guess that does have some influence of the ethics of the situation, but is really a different topic I think.

The problem here is that VW lied -- to everyone -- and they got caught. They had other options (that they may or may not have tried -- I dont know). It is an unfortunate situation -- and I really hope they dont get screwed, or destroyed, for a (possible) minor difference in emissions. Using the regulations as an excuse though, is coming at this issue backwards. Again, that doesnt make the regulations correct or reasonable. I dont know enough about them myself to comment.

2289

Developer's Corner / Re: Ethics in Technology

« Last post by tomos on October 13, 2015, 08:09 AM »

New elements to the VW story shed interesting light (ideas.4brad.com

Makes some interesting points:

more on the initial topic i.e. the POV of the employee: the pressure from the top to succeed (or be fired) -- what do you do in this situation, what does a group (e.g. of engineers) do in this situation?
Which initially seems to be blaming the engineers as the source of the idea, but says this could have been at any level.

I have heard the idea on German radio that in order to pass the tests IRL, performance would have suffered unacceptable levels -- this apparently not the case:

To add to the shocks, Consumer Reports tested the car in low-emissions cheat mode and the differences were less than you would expect.
    # Acceleration dropped 0.5 seconds (0-60) on older cars and not much on the latest models.
    # Fuel economy dropped from 53 to 50mpg on the 2015, and from 50 to 46mpg on the 2011 models.

^ VW may have considered these levels unacceptable due to competition or whatever, but they dont come across as a company/product struggling because of the emissions regulations.
   
Apparently the testing system in Europe is easier to fool:

European emissions standards are much more lax, and their official test is very different from real world driving. So cars which pass the Euro test get out on the roads and emit 10x or more NOx pollutants than they do on the test. This is a result not of cheating, but of “designing to the benchmark” — another common problem in the computer industry. They make cars which do decently in the very non-real-world euro-test, and don’t care very much what they do in real driving.

So,
they wanted to sell the same car in the US where tests more stringent, so they created a 'workaround'.

I dont get the impression here that the low emissions regulations were the big problem -- especially if you take into account the relatively small difference in performance between the car in low-emissions mode and in 'normal' mode.

2290

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by tomos on October 13, 2015, 05:39 AM »

Currently I am too lazy too look it up, but I think it was here on this forum where I read that even if a Windows 7 user indicated that an update to Windows 10 is not desired, MS still pushes out the files for that upgrade (?), because in their mind your 'NO!' means 'maybe later' and still pushes it onto your system, so you can start immediately when you change your mind...

-Shades (October 12, 2015, 08:27 PM)

there were options discussed in a Windows 10 Privacy thread -- how to block certain updates using a script. This post was about Windows 7 -- following posts may also be helpful!

2291

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by tomos on October 12, 2015, 08:55 AM »

Price has been fairly stable also since mid-january this year, so for the last 9 months.

2292

Living Room / Re: strong micro usb cable

« Last post by tomos on October 10, 2015, 11:58 AM »

My first stop when looking for hardware recommendations (in Europe) is somewhere like Amazon -- look at number of stars and read reviews for various products. I generally look at the 1/2/3 star reviews, but keep in mind that these days most products are shipped with a certain percentage of duds which usually get a one star review.

2293

Living Room / Re: Time lapse video (thread)

« Last post by tomos on October 10, 2015, 05:06 AM »

A lovely storm one from the 'Interesting' thread:

Timelapse of Insane Storm at the Grand Canyon - YouTube

-Arizona Hot (October 07, 2015, 07:04 PM)

2294

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by tomos on October 10, 2015, 05:05 AM »

Timelapse of Insane Storm at the Grand Canyon - YouTube

-Arizona Hot (October 07, 2015, 07:04 PM)

that was a good one -- looks like they had to move on because of the weather :-)

2295

N.A.N.Y. 2016 / Re: NANY2016 idea - [non-runner] Caret Control

« Last post by tomos on October 10, 2015, 04:31 AM »

first, is it even possible ?

-tomos (October 09, 2015, 01:35 PM)

The problem that's going to be run into is that there are so many edit controls, across various programs, each with their own caret handling, that I think any attempt at a universal solution is tantamount to madness.

-skwire (October 10, 2015, 12:23 AM)

thanks Skwire,
I was thinking that could be a possibility --
also considering it's a relatively minor annoyance, I think we can safely drop the idea.


EDIT// changed thread title to "NANY2016 idea - [non-runner] Caret Control"

2296

Living Room / Re: YouTube finally forces creation of google+ A/C to comment

« Last post by tomos on October 09, 2015, 05:55 PM »

I'm just posting to note:
it looks like one can no longer paste text in a YouTube comment box -- I presume this is to protect against people pasting aything (especially anti-google?).

Workaround:

• type anything at all
• post
• edit your post -- you can now paste

via computerforum.com


PS I have resigned myself to the YT/G+ situation.

2297

N.A.N.Y. 2016 / Re: NANY2016 idea - Cursor Control

« Last post by tomos on October 09, 2015, 05:05 PM »

And presumably you'd want this to affect every place text is not only editable, but even "highlight-able" as ctrl-shift-right arrow works in practically every application.

-ayryq (October 09, 2015, 04:23 PM)

Ctrl+Shift+Arrow -- yeah, I was thinking of that too.
Then there's Ctrl+[Shift]+End/Home, but that behaviour is very standard.
There's well possibly other variations I dont know about...

Actually, the biggest culprit is Thunderbird with the example given above, but also e.g. explorer when renaming files (but I suspect that's even more difficult behaviour to modify (I'll look at it over the weekend to get examples).

I'm wondering though if this whole thing is just a minor annoyance? Anyone else have thoughts on the idea?


PS ayryq, I'm not qualified to answer your first question. I'm just the ideas man

2298

N.A.N.Y. 2016 / NANY2016 idea - [non-runner] Caret Control

« Last post by tomos on October 09, 2015, 01:35 PM »

[EDIT// see reply #4 below -- I changed title to "non-runner", and the more accurate "Caret Control" ]

If this idea takes off, it'll require a thread of it's own, so I'll start it already ;-)

Idea is to control the cursor via the keyboard, no matter where it is --
the cursor can normally be controlled via keyboard in most apps, but I would like to be able to standardise behaviour across all software.


Here's an example of non-standard and variable behaviour:

Ctrl+RightArrow will bring the cursor to end of the next word, but if the next word is the last in the sentence, and is followed by multiple carriage-returns (blank lines), the cursor will go to the very end of the blank lines in some software (e.g. Thunderbird);
in intelligent software/fields, it will simply go to the end of the sentence -- which is also the end of the word. Then behaviour varies -- sometimes it will go to each following line, sometimes it will treat all blank lines as one block and go directly to the end of these.

Other factors are stopping the cursor within a 'solid' block of text at certain symbols e.g. various brackets or symbols.
asrgags]dsht\sghdh)srthr'rsdhdj
and should it stop either side of that symbol ? or just on one side of it (similarly with blank spaces and words) ?

Different people would want different behaviour which might require options :-/
So, I think the big questions here are:

• first, is it even possible ?
• if so, is it worth it?
  I dont know how much work it would involve -- trying to define all behaviours in all circumstances could be too much work for the return (:p) ?

2299

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite movies?

« Last post by tomos on October 08, 2015, 05:04 PM »

Seven Samurai (inspiration for The Magnificent Seven)

-bit (October 03, 2015, 03:48 AM)

One of my favorite movies of all time.  I saw this as a young kid with my father and was blown away.

-mouser (October 03, 2015, 09:19 AM)

a very different film, but that sparked a memory for me of The Inn of the Sixth Happiness that I saw as a kid.
I just accidentally came across it today, and am watching it at the moment -- surprised to see it's in colour (we were late to get colour TV, but still showing my age...)

2300

Post New Requests Here / Re: TV schedule software

« Last post by tomos on October 08, 2015, 02:57 PM »

That URL doesn't seem to lead to a site where one can download mc2xml.  Some further cursory searches just led to a lot of dead ends.

-skwire (October 08, 2015, 02:10 PM)

it works here atm, if you scroll down the page -- here's the download link for windows --
http://phatic.tk/?h=906pduy