Recent Posts

2701

Living Room / Re: Rocket Science 101

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 16, 2012, 10:29 AM »

Anyone here ever build a bazooka with model rockets and pipes when they were kids? Or am I the only one?

-Renegade (September 16, 2012, 10:02 AM)

While gunpowder was regulated and not something they sold to children even back then, rocket engines were easy to get in any hobie store... Granted the (Um...) "extraction" process was insanely dangerous in retrospect...but the results were quite entertaining. However I'll not be detailing them here to avoid having dark sedans appear in my driveway...

2702

Living Room / Re: Rocket Science 101

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 16, 2012, 10:01 AM »

I still build model rockets and go shoot them off with my daughters.  I even built my own launcher box from a fishing tackle box.  Does that count for squat?

-skwire (September 16, 2012, 12:36 AM)

do you have to clear the area first? I mean, do they crash land?

-tomos (September 16, 2012, 09:36 AM)

IIRC (it's been over 30 years since I did it) the lase stage of the rocket's engine blows backward up the body/tube to dislodge the cone/tip to release a parachute that it "lands" with.

(skwire beat me to it)

2703

Living Room / Re: Shit Apple Fanatics Say

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 14, 2012, 07:56 AM »

Email access while out of the office has become imperative so I'm tied to the Smart Phone class devices. I've also had occasion to need web access while in the field.

What I don't want is to have to think about how to extract information from the device (simple, concise, done) and that is what I get from the Windows Phone.

2704

General Software Discussion / Re: Roboform, crippling the export function and Bits Du Jour censorship

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 14, 2012, 07:49 AM »

I'm sticking with f0dder's Fsekrit (small, fast, portable, done).

2705

Living Room / Re: Shit Apple Fanatics Say

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 14, 2012, 06:52 AM »

For my next phone I'm seriously considering going for the smallest, lightest device available that lets me make and receive calls, that's it.
~hipster-nosh

-nosh (September 14, 2012, 03:35 AM)

I presume you've seen {hipster?}superboyac's thread about wanting a small phone
I want a Sony Xperia SX, but I think it's stupid to buy one

-tomos (September 14, 2012, 04:39 AM)

I've got no use for a pocket TV either...and if super goes for the new Win8 Nokia Lumia (from one of his other threads), there's a very good chance we'll both have one.

2706

Living Room / Re: Shit Apple Fanatics Say

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 13, 2012, 01:47 PM »

Apple fans, preprogrammed to worship on demand.

2707

Living Room / Re: No Duty to Secure Wi-Fi from BitTorrent Pirates, Judge Rules

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 13, 2012, 11:40 AM »

You have the right to share your WiFi ... You have also have the right to wave hello to the SWAT team as you pass them in your hallway on the way to the bathroom in the middle on the night.

2708

Living Room / Re: Write until you pass out!?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 12, 2012, 01:28 PM »

Last time I looked into the abyss, it blinked.

-Stoic Joker (September 12, 2012, 01:25 PM)

That's 'cause it liked you!

-TaoPhoenix (September 12, 2012, 01:26 PM)

I said blinked...not winked. (Not that I haven't courted disaster more than once...)

2709

Living Room / Re: Write until you pass out!?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 12, 2012, 01:25 PM »

Last time I looked into the abyss, it blinked.

2710

Living Room / Re: Modern and creative electrical outlets, power strips, sockets and switches

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 12, 2012, 11:07 AM »

The modular (E-Rope) powerstrips would be great for eliminating the 2nd strip with one thing plugged into it that always seems to arise with either warts or lots of peripherals. I may look into getting some of those.


I can't figure out where to buy these things

2711

Living Room / Re: Initials That Meant More Than They Realized

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 12, 2012, 10:49 AM »

^ sometimes I really wish there was a thumbs-up option here on dc

-tomos (September 10, 2012, 04:53 PM)

Tomos: For rjbull or me?

-Arizona Hot (September 12, 2012, 10:44 AM)

hehe, I'll give you both one:

 

2712

Developer's Corner / Re: Amazon Allows Eliminating Ads on Kindle - Is this idiotic?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 11, 2012, 11:31 AM »

Then again, maybe I'm missing something?

-Renegade (September 11, 2012, 10:49 AM)

It's an exercise to see if people really are cheaper than they are annoyed by - Holly Crap!! You just gotta buy one of these way kewl widgets - interruptions.

2713

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: A program to make Column Graphs

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 11, 2012, 07:12 AM »

84 reads, 18 downloads, and zero responses ... Come on guy, we gotta do better than that.

I could not get it to run on Win7 x86, but didn't have much time to play with it. Looks like it was written with MSVS6, has it been tested on 7?

2714

Living Room / Re: 1080p playback: hardware discussion

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 11, 2012, 06:54 AM »

GPU: A decent GPU with good drivers that offload the decoding, (and possibly encoding), from the CPU will enable you to use a CPU that would otherwise be under-powered for the job.  Enables the CPU to just idle along, running cooler and thus quieter.

CPU: A sufficiently beefy CPU will compensate for an under-powered GPU but at the cost of heat and noise.

-4wd (September 11, 2012, 05:32 AM)

Granted I haven't had time to stay up on hardware tech, but wouldn't the GPU also need to be cooled? The work is what the work is, so it seems (to me) that it would just shift the heat created by the processing required to a different chip. Much of this assertion is based on the size of the fans they're putting on graphics cards these days...and I could be completely off my nut (it has happened before (hehe)), but I thought I'd ask because it sounds a wee bit like a something for nothing (unpaid piper) scenario.

2715

Living Room / Re: Perhaps About the Coolest Book EVER~! =D

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 10, 2012, 11:39 AM »

(Besides, doesn't the Necronomicon already work like that? You trace the diagrams with your index finger and read certain words in the text and...things...happen.)

-40hz (September 10, 2012, 11:12 AM)

Damn it! That's what I'm doing wrong ... I keep forgetting to trace the diagram before reciting the incantation.

Thanks!

2716

General Software Discussion / Re: Steal Windows 8 and Microsoft probably won't mind?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 10, 2012, 09:35 AM »

How about "I am Sick and ****ing tired of a Tablet OS on my **********ing Desktop PC!"

(Samuel J. Jackson dramatization of seeing Windows 8 for the first time.)

-TaoPhoenix (September 10, 2012, 09:22 AM)

I'm thinking his middle initial is actually 'L' ... But either way you just gotta like the guy. I love that line from Snakes on a Plane.

2717

Living Room / Re: Cyber Attack on Nutrition Site?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 07, 2012, 02:46 PM »

Brave new world folks! Push the big guys a little too hard and you can expect them to push right back.

-40hz (September 07, 2012, 10:13 AM)

...And that's why Anonymous had (has?) a fan base.

2718

Living Room / Re: Kiss Your Keyboard and Mouse Goodbye With The Leap

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 07, 2012, 02:44 PM »

Stoic Joker: Isn't that just a later version of AOL's "Me too".

-Arizona Hot (September 07, 2012, 11:22 AM)

Beats me, I haven't gone near AOL since 1997.

But it is a forum standard for I 2nd that.

2719

Living Room / Re: It's Not Privacy vs Security, it's Freedom vs Control...

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 07, 2012, 07:08 AM »

However, I'd separate that from shows like "The Shield" where there's no pretense of the cops being "good guys".

-Renegade (September 06, 2012, 11:43 PM)

I loved that show! But yeah, I'm in about the same place these days regarding the rest.

2720

General Software Discussion / Re: What went wrong with Linux on the Desktop

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 07, 2012, 07:01 AM »

@Stoic joker, AFAIK, netsh fix was not told to me and I never found any written stuff on MS KB for that. I take that it was from SP 2 onwards? I guess that breaking of WINSOCK could be because of the AV (I am not sure what you mean by orphaned entries).

-mahesh2k (September 07, 2012, 02:19 AM)

Actually it's mentioned in the Vista section of the article you posted above. I've been using it for so long I forget when I started. But I do believe it was back before XP's first SP. AV apps (and viruses) tend to inject an LSP (Layer Service Provider) shim (for lack of a better term) into the stack so they can analyze what is coming over the wire. However during the uninstall these LSPs tend to get forgotten and therefore are "orphand" leaving a big hole in communications. Simplest way I found to rip them loose is to do the netsh winsock reset (and sometimes a tcp/ip reset) to get things back to normal quickly.

2721

General Software Discussion / Re: What went wrong with Linux on the Desktop

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 06, 2012, 03:32 PM »

For some reason installers for .NET applications have a tendency to (occasionally) replace key .NET framework files as part of the install routine. There is an XML patch that I've had to reinstall over 30 times in the past year ... Simply because the EMR software that several of our clients use insists on "updating" (e.g. borking) this particular patch every time they do an update.

-Stoic Joker (September 06, 2012, 11:47 AM)

Annoying. "xcopy" installs, or custom installers? MSI based installers are at least supposed to make sure that doesn't happen (but I still loathe their insanely slow speed).

-f0dder (September 06, 2012, 12:10 PM)

Hm... Maybe I'm off in the weeds on the .NET aspect, but I do seem to recall reading about the behavior while researching this (apparently other) issue with KB954430/ AmazingCharts causing the XML patch to fall off constantly.

2722

Living Room / Re: Most BitTorrent users being monitored by copyright agencies, study finds

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 06, 2012, 02:09 PM »

To be in the swarm monitoring they must be downloading illegal material too

-Carol Haynes (September 06, 2012, 01:10 PM)

Is it still illegal to DL something if you own it, or are authorized by the legal owner to ascertain its availability?

Hacking is illegal ... Unless it is being done at the request of the targeted networks owner.

2723

General Software Discussion / Re: What went wrong with Linux on the Desktop

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 06, 2012, 02:03 PM »

I had BSODs on my nforce4 motherboard when trying to use nvidia's "hardware" firewall (which was a retarted piece of crap, requiring a full install of an apache httpd in order to manage settings locally... :rolleyes: ), and I've had BSODs from third-party firewall, VPN and antivirus products. Some of these seem to show winsock as the problem, but that's only if you look just at the top-level driver in the BSOD, not if you study the actual minidump with WinDbg. Also, I've never had filesystme or registry corruption from any of these "normal" BSODs. Got more information on the issue?

-f0dder (September 06, 2012, 12:10 PM)

Not BSOD due to reg but was because of the theme patching and shell related changes. In case of reg issues, most of them were related to the WINSOCK and other network related issues. I can't specifically point to the issue because I used to patch that using the reg fix for Winsock. Without that fix, It was hard to connect to the net. I am not sure if it was because of driver issue or say some malware? For some reason system was not usable without those reg fixes (most of them were released by MVPs), I hope you remember XP days with regular fixing of broken stuff.

-mahesh2k (September 06, 2012, 01:41 PM)

Only time I ever saw WINSOCK get borked was usually due to an orphaned LSP from either a virus or babysitter security suite (mostly the 2nd one). Either way the fix has always been the same netsh reset winsock ... I don't ever recall using a reg patch for it.

2724

Living Room / Re: Kiss Your Keyboard and Mouse Goodbye With The Leap

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 06, 2012, 11:57 AM »

Re: the OP --> very cool. Watch the video at that link...

-kyrathaba (September 06, 2012, 07:28 AM)

+1

2725

General Software Discussion / Re: What went wrong with Linux on the Desktop

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 06, 2012, 11:47 AM »

For some reason installers for .NET applications have a tendency to (occasionally) replace key .NET framework files as part of the install routine. There is an XML patch that I've had to reinstall over 30 times in the past year ... Simply because the EMR software that several of our clients use insists on "updating" (e.g. borking) this perticular patch every time they do an update.