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2601

General Software Discussion / Re: 2013 Version: Browser Wars

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 22, 2013, 09:38 AM »

Today I have read something about Lunascape. It has three rendering engines, so the user can choose the best one for the page he/she is seeing. It also accepts add-ons for Firefox.
Very interesting indeed.
If you have tried it, what is your judgment about Lunascape?

-Giampy (February 22, 2013, 08:08 AM)

I think your sig line is relevant here!

 

2602

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 21, 2013, 09:13 AM »

I was reading this report on a blog about taking photos aboard airplanes (FCC regs. forbid it now, it seems)...

(Thrown Off a United Airlines Flight for Taking Pictures!)

-IainB (February 21, 2013, 04:38 AM)

Though on a grim note, that blog post is pretty ugly because if they couldn't even notice that it was a million miler they were doing that to, then you can be sure they are doing it elsewhere too.

Edit:
Further down in the comments of that blog is quite a mix. A quarter of them are saying "these are the sad times we are in now, just take it", and are remarking that "hot words" are enough to freak out the staff.

I like this comment:
"Do we really think a terrorist would be dumb enough these days to say, "I'm a terrorist", or, "I'm not a terrorist"? Seems like if someone was plotting something they wouldn't want to draw more attention to themselves."

2603

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera to move to webkit/chromium rendering engines

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 19, 2013, 09:36 PM »

Sorry, I'm growing weary of a "+1" which is a Google invention applied to everything.

Did they make it THAT easy?

2604

Living Room / Re: 3000 Days Online: 30th May 2013

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 18, 2013, 11:03 AM »

Something like a Mouser's Day Parade?
(Ducks!)

2605

Living Room / Re: Reader's Corner - The Library of Utopia

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 17, 2013, 06:53 AM »

Nice find Iain. I glanced at it, and it looks like they put some work into that to find some of the small collections. A quick tip, Librivox is quickly/quietly becoming one of the big players in the amateur audio book world, and their copies are beginning to float around in altered form by various packagers. Of course that's the point, "All Librivox recordings are in the public domain", but it's just something to keep in mind when you think you see "43 places to find SciFi" but X percent of them are the same Librivox editions, with or without the disclaimer.

Librivox has a bit of an interesting policy philosophy in which they really do not want any feedback about certain kinds of quality topics. (They'll fix others so it takes a little getting used to their culture.) If any of y'all are "quality oriented" be ready for a few jarring shifts in execution across their catalog.

2606

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 17, 2013, 06:42 AM »

I think it's a play on those eye charts "say the letters you can see E F Q M R d u y b s" etc, but with guns to show the terrorism link. Also something like "if you can correctly see the bottom row you're cleared for a mission".

2607

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 16, 2013, 09:37 PM »

No attribution to xkcd or anything? Also, don't forget the alt text:

If I click 'no', I've probably given up on everything, so don't bother taking me to the page I was trying to go to. Just drop me on the homepage. Thanks.

-Deozaan (February 16, 2013, 08:17 PM)

More like "Independent minds getting grumpy". I think I posted that before I bothered to check the xkcd for the day. But the Alt Text never affected me. I haven't seen that effect.

2608

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 15, 2013, 04:01 PM »

Kyrathaba I'm gonna use your post to go on a mini-rant about "Apps". Basically, they're an excuse to give us less quality than any other shareware ever did. And it's amazing. It's like sinking to the bottom. If everyone pushes the same low quality, users forget that real software exists and that "free" means "disatrous experience until you pay $3-$8 for the real thing".

Eew.

I have seen some cases of the worst quality I have ever seen in any software ever, including the ones I spent 99c on for repackaging Librivox SciFi recordings, as well as others that pop up ads every 12 interactions.

It's like they're trying to make people forget nothing but the App Store ever existed ever. And that "Free" means "Crap".

2609

Living Room / Re: Cute jokes' thread

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 15, 2013, 03:55 PM »

Moore's Law +1   

My addendum to Moore's law: The gadget/feature/price we laugh at now will be standard in 2 years

-Fred Nerd (July 21, 2012, 03:40 AM)

Addendum A:
If we don't get it in 2 years, we don't get it until TWENTY years. This is 2013 remember? Some of this stuff was dreamed up with the advent of the web in 1993. 

2610

Living Room / Re: Scientists Claim They’ve Built a Computer That Never Crashes

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 15, 2013, 03:49 PM »

You know this is ITCHING for hacking.  

Quote:'"Just don't expect it on your desktop any time soon. "

What T.H. good is that if we can't have it?

2611

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite movies?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 15, 2013, 07:59 AM »

A film really doesn't have to be "great", (as proven by some of your lists!), it is more important if it appeals to something in you, I think.

-Curt (February 14, 2013, 05:54 PM)

good point Curt - in the last years I have thoroughly enjoyed some films that are really not so great. I mean the story or acting or something resonates with whatever is going on with me at that particular moment. OTOH a film can be super made or maybe technically brilliant, but not connect with the viewer - or simply not have much of a heart (last Almodovar film comes to mind - but maybe it 'connects' with someone else...)

-tomos (February 15, 2013, 04:14 AM)

I'm seconding this, sometimes my subconscious just wants to be fed stuff, emotionally, even if it has a couple of disastrous plot holes. Superhero movies are the best case example here. My other posts above are the same - they might not score all 5 out of 5, but they address something I want dealt with, even if a bit unevenly.

2612

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: Toggle X-Mouse.

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 15, 2013, 07:54 AM »

I'll call this one done.  Thanks.  

-skwire (September 07, 2012, 04:41 PM)

I'm just shamelessly bumping this thread because I found a neat finesse with it. It seems to give window priority without damaging "selected areas" which is the usual case on a full click. That's important because I am doing a project where I really "sorta need" 2-3 items on the clipboard, but I don't feel like messing with a whole clipboard manager. So a neat hack is to create a microscopic text file (or three) with the selected text at the bottom of the screen, below the main duty windows, and then a mouse rollover activates the window, but the text stays highlighted, so then a simple Control-C copies it again, rather than having to re-select the text each time. Whee!

I love low-level hacks. : )

2613

General Software Discussion / Re: 2013 Version: Browser Wars

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 14, 2013, 06:37 PM »

Polite Request

So we can get this thread back on topic, could further posts related to tne Opera/Webkit move, to https://www.donation...;topicseen#msg318078

Thanks!

-Stephen66515 (February 14, 2013, 06:15 PM)

What in fact IS the topic? The thread opener was from you with:

What browser do you use, and why don't you use the others?

I use Opera (Still), mainly because IE sucks heavily, Firefox and I don't get on very well (Although, it really isn't all that bad of a browser), Chrome just plain fails constantly and isn't worth the time, nor energy.  I don't really care about any of the other browsers out there...

-Stephen66515 (January 28, 2013, 01:36 AM)

So will you STILL be using Opera now?

2614

General Software Discussion / Re: 2013 Version: Browser Wars

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 14, 2013, 05:57 PM »

A guy at Softpedia thinks that Apple's refusal to allow browsers in the App Store is behind this.

-TaoPhoenix (February 14, 2013, 12:05 PM)

Apple does allow browsers (unless something has changed), but (as you mention later) they don't allow access to the JavaScript JIT'er. While they probably don't mind the added monopoly value, the prime reason cited is security - it's very likely that their JS JIT'er could be used to generate pretty much whatever native code you want, thus making it much easier to jailbreak the iOS devices.

Gotta love walled gardens, aye?

-f0dder (February 14, 2013, 05:45 PM)

Hmm, I read those articles as saying that the only browsers they allow are things that use the deep Safari core, and not just any old browser like for example if MS wanted to stick IE on there, or Firefox.

But yes, I hate the new push to the walled gardens, and I only treat my phone as *gasp* a phone, with a few amusing widgets that do save a little time, but nothing for serious work.

2615

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: InstantBoss - For those of us which require motivation to work

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 14, 2013, 03:10 PM »

This drifts a little off topic, but it's thematic.

I have lately begun to imagine the old RISC-CISC fights in computing theory. For years I used my desktop as a visual placeholder for important things. Then I accidentally ran a narrow purpose batch file in the wrong place and trashed my desktop layout! So being forced to clean it up anyway, I made a "bold-for-me" decision and moved almost 50+ items off the desktop and into about 5 folders.

The key ideas were that my life *should* be rather simple right now.
1. Search for jobs.
2. My most important recreational project for a web 'zine.
3. Yes, some web surfing.
4. Resources for future projects - just to batch them for later.
(The fifth folder I called Resources because it's the same 10 utilities I always use, plus a couple of sound files, and a second set of less frequently used items.)

RISC won. To Get Back To Work is about focus. So finally my attention gave out staring at 60 icons worth of visual noise. Plus there's now more desktop space for NSFW wallpapers! 

2616

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera to move to webkit/chromium rendering engines

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 14, 2013, 02:57 PM »

Heh, I said that in the heat of the moment without really looking into it...turns out...not writing my own rendering engine...rather difficult it seems...not impossible, just, would be bloody stupid to try. - I think I will probably just build something in C# using Gecko or something else already built (Engine wise) and ONLY add features I want.  

It won't ever be released so, licensing is no real issue for me

-Stephen66515 (February 14, 2013, 02:16 PM)

Make it a DC special! Then we can bug you for features!  

Though from the tech side I'm interested why merely a plugin won't do what you need, and that it needs to be a full app. And what kinds of things do you need it to do that the vanilla browser even with the plugin-verse doesn't already cover?

2617

General Software Discussion / Re: 2013 Version: Browser Wars

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 14, 2013, 02:06 PM »

Does anyone know of a build of Chromium that has a more "FF-Esque" set of menus? I haven't really decided to love or hate the engine except on the plugin topic, but I despise the UI. 

2618

General Software Discussion / Re: 2013 Version: Browser Wars

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 14, 2013, 12:27 PM »

More notes on Opera:

From an accounting perspective, isn't this a write-off of a huge asset? I have no idea how browser company balance sheets work, but ditching your X years of work on your own browser can't just be smooth sailing.

This article specifically mentions the "Webkit is the new iE6" theme:
http://www.extremete...ndering-engine?print

Edit: A snip from yet another article suggested not to just ditch Presto, but to open the source so that other people can do things with it. I really like that idea!

2619

General Software Discussion / Re: 2013 Version: Browser Wars

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 14, 2013, 12:05 PM »

Hm, what is their Raison d'être going to be, then?

And what about their pretty huge datacenter investment that had the purpose of processing websites to serve in the special (binary html ish) format for their mobile browsers? Lost investment?

While I haven't been fond of Opera in the last many years, it's a bit sad that there's one less browser engine out there, one less team to help influence the html spec. One step closer to WebKit being the new iE6?

Too bad if their old HTML engine is going to be discarded. Probably no chance of them open-sourcing it.

-f0dder (February 13, 2013, 08:51 AM)

Actually we might be several steps closer to that result. A guy at Softpedia thinks that Apple's refusal to allow browsers in the App Store is behind this. Google had to ditch its own version of Chrome to get in with a re-branded version of the Safari render engine. Mozilla demo'ed their version called Junior.

For those of us who followed the whole MS stranglehold with the bundling etc, this is amazing that Apple is apparently managing to pull this off.

But look at this snip:
"That alone is not much of a big deal. The problem is that apps don't also get access to the JavaScript engine used by Safari, Nitro which uses JIT (just-in-time compiling) to speed up processing.

Instead, Chrome and everyone else is forced to use the older JavaScript engine, which is significantly slower, as in several times slower.

In practice, any website that uses a lot of JavaScript, which means all good-looking and app-like mobile websites, will be noticeably slower on Chrome compared to Safari. "

http://news.softpedi...-WebKit-322592.shtml
http://news.softpedi...y-Apple-278246.shtml

I'm gonna keep digging to see if I can find any more good articles on this.

Meanwhile - everybody's copy of the Youtube demo video is gone "removed on copyright grounds".  

2620

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera to move to webkit/chromium rendering engines

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 14, 2013, 11:44 AM »

As many of you know, I have always been nothing but positive about Opera, and would generally mock others (for fun) that don't use it...but now...I just don't know...Maybe it is time to finally knuckle under and work on my own rendering engine...not a simple task...but, there again...I know what I want, I know what I like, I know what I use, and I know I won't release it to the general public.

-Stephen66515 (February 13, 2013, 02:46 PM)

Is writing a rendering engine even possible for one man? I thought it was up there with the hardest code alive.

Does it make sense to just borrow the FF Gecko codebase for the basics and doing your own "Stephen-Moon" spinoff to just tweak the things you want?

2621

General Software Discussion / Re: MS Office 2013 Home/Business - non-transferable (1 PC p.person) - Caveat emptor.

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 14, 2013, 05:08 AM »

I didn't think that there was much difference between LibreOffice and OpenOffice... just two different companies doing it.

-techidave (February 13, 2013, 06:27 PM)

I tried them both recently on a Win7 64-bit system and I kept running into bugs and performance issues in OpenOffice, while LibreOffice worked without a hitch. Just my personal experience...

-dr_andus (February 14, 2013, 04:53 AM)

Last I recall there were various reasons going on, and so LibreOffice is the newer fork of the software suite. I vaguely recall that what's left of Open Office wasn't given good attention and began to stagnate, so the comment above makes perfect sense if LibreOffice took all the "good guys" with them.

This is a nice page describing their ("The Document Foundation") efforts. Note the line about them organizing bug fix hunts. (It's also a nice perspective on the Chrome-FF "version bump mania".These guys are old-school: You save the big numbers for important markers and do point releases when you're just fiddling with stuff.)

http://blog.document...f-in-2012-a-summary/

2622

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite movies?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 13, 2013, 06:17 AM »

Tron is arguably one of the seven-ish signature movies that defined my childhood, as an early example of what later came and passed as "cyber-punk". So much so, that about 7 years ago I got hold of a special rare Text-To-Speech engine that sounded at least "sorta-close" to the MCP. My inside joke was in some alternate timeline the MCP has been repaired with a "patch" and is now a literature professor that reads audio books!  

 

(The quality is far from perfect, but it's parsecs away from every other TTS engine I've heard that's racing to be as nondescript as vanilla pudding. If anyone really wants to have a giggle, maybe start a new thread and I can whip up a few phrases. It's a pity that the engine is discontinued with no plans of future developement though!)

2623

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite movies?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 12, 2013, 07:52 PM »

I second the Truman Show, and also giggled at Howard the Duck back in the day.

Some of my current favorites are Pleasantville, The Negotiator, and The Game.

2624

Living Room / Re: Rapid Information Overlay Technology (Riot) - Tracks Users from SNSes

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 11, 2013, 03:12 PM »

Nifty, eh?

-Renegade (February 11, 2013, 05:36 AM)

"Nice Mrs. Fields Chocolate Chip Cookie you ate from Mrs. Fields (TM) that you ate today. Please Opt-Out of us using it from out next social network surveillance campaign." 

2625

Living Room / Opt-Out Evils starring H&R Block

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on February 11, 2013, 03:02 PM »

Rather than go too offtopic on the other software thread, I'll rant here about Opt-Out evils. It's almost becoming a game!

1. There was some program I installed recently (might be Easy DVD Player but I'm not sure.) I swear the opt-out looked like playing a game of mine sweeper! "Click 0 in all of these 0 and these 0 places to opt out of 0 strange 0 evil 0 weirdware 0 software". I *think* I got them all, but minesweeper?! To install a cheap utility?! Really?!

2. H & R Block Taxes. *Serious* love-hate relationship here. It's one of my best tips for anyone desperately looking for quick emergency cash / career item just out of college / other. The only reason I didn't do it here this year is I was just too burnt out from my move. So I have a piece of cake 1040 EZ, and landed a Second Year Preparer. That means the guy has at least taken a bic marker to cover the green-ness, but don't push them too hard. Fair enough.

Except this year they added a new "digital auto-sign" thing where the client signs once digitally then it gets applied all over the place. Except "all over the place" is almost TEN extra affiliates & services! I actually worked there off and on, so I warned the (NICE GUY) up front that I'd be kinda a bitchy client and off we went. So he was fine on the basic return. Then knowing better from the old days when I saw that "sign once apply everywhere" (!! Didn't we recall that from Java? Almost as many privacy holes here!!) machine, I really put my A game on and forced him to slow down. He made the mistake of blasting through the (admittedly "time wasting") schpiel (that wasn't his fault, he was stuck with it from Corporate), except he made the mistake of auto-*including* me in all the random services.

So being the privacy freak I am, I slowed him down big time and made him do it all over. I've been there, I promised twice that I wasn't going to bitch to his super, but that he just can't auto-include my tax info into random $hit that Corporate dreams up worse every year.  

This might be a unique case where he's on "my side" but because A he just wants to drill out the quickie 1040EZ before his appointment etc, and being sorta-new, it's a semi-legendary mistake in that company. So I bet he felt kinda wiped out after I was done with him, trying to laugh and all but firmly saying that he can't opt me in to all that $hit. (I also put my (leaky! eek!) tax hat on and grilled him medium-hard on some of the next-level tax questions he should have been asking. I deliberately under with-held on my unemployment, hoping that ... well... that I'd be employed by now. But I'm pretty sure that triggers an underpayment penalty, except that I happen to know that 'Block's comp software magically hides it behind the scenes, so it's correct, but a sophomore preparer not really on an A+ game wouldn't know.)

So anyway. Opt-Out. This might be the first case where there is a *third party* involved. The "Real Evil" is H&R Block Corporate designing all this crap. Then because they are a legendary specialist to train newbie preparers (and if you DO stick it out like 5 years you DO become kinda good!) you can get roped into all kinds of weird crap you never heard of and the poor Preparer guy only got one class on it and is just kinda lost.

Whew! Opt-Out Evils 2.0! Rant!