Recent Posts

2776

Living Room / Re: The Rant Thread!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 30, 2012, 11:47 AM »

Okay here's one.

I like Advanced Search because if I want to look up Red Hats I don't want 1,966,354 results about Red Houses and Top Hats.

But sometimes it's astounding what slips through the great morass of results. First, a negative-shout to the semi-automated junk content sites. I got a whim, and decided I want to find the shortest piece of US legislation ever passed. Maybe it's like 3 sentences making something a national flower.

So some site called ChaCha (the name already tells you it's like 9th tier quality). Question: "What was the shortest bill in history?" Answer: "The recent health care was the longest bill ever passed."

REALLY??!

So then I went to Advanced Search on both Yahoo and Google. "shortest US bill".
No Results.

REALLY??!

If I had gratuitous funding to do that kind of thing all day, I'd make a site consisting of phrases that produced no results, and then being the only page. But ever notice it's never 1 page? It seems to go from "no results" to about 100 in a flash.

P.S. I should do a page, to test the theory. So as of this moment, not sure if these links will stay put, but let's mark this point in time:
http://search.yahoo....-orig-top&norw=1
Yahoo's copy:
We did not find results for: +"shortest US bill". Try the suggestions below or type a new query above.

http://www.google.co...type=&as_rights=
Google's Copy:
Information No results found for "shortest US bill".
Stay tuned when I quit being lazy and make a site to test this stuff. And PS. it's pretty easy to bust them on some of the more NSFW stuff too.

Yay Rants!

2777

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 30, 2012, 10:54 AM »

New Oatmeal state of the web:

http://theoatmeal.co...tate_web_winter_2012

-Renegade (December 30, 2012, 04:32 AM)

The Oatmeal is incredible. And his posts are almost as long as Iain's and Paul Keith's!  

And now I have to go look at the last three of them!

2778

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 30, 2012, 10:27 AM »

It's good that we have the fact checking, mainstream media to help us prepare for winter roads:
 (see attachment in previous post)

-IainB (December 29, 2012, 06:17 AM)

Is driving on Snot part of the usual winter routine?!

2779

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: N.A.N.Y. 2013- PDF Batch Saver

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 30, 2012, 10:26 AM »

I am trying to get an updated copy of a simpler version of this app with only one processing mode and a little bit of finish polish on it. I should have it later today so that will be nice.

2780

Living Room / Re: GoOgle Blocks 51. Million Links

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 29, 2012, 10:57 PM »

Then I love how they can say stuff like this with a straight face:

"For example, an online storage service called Hotfile sued Warner Bros. Entertainment after that company's automated system flooded Hotfile with thousands of DCMA takedown requests for material Warner had no rights to.

Under the DMCA, any person making bad takedown requests can be penalized with monetary damages. Warner's defense in the Hotfile case is a person didn't make the bogus requests. A computer did. "

2781

General Software Discussion / Monster.com is a heavy site

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 29, 2012, 10:50 PM »

Ghostery reported it was trying to block some 15 items. Monster wasn't happy with admuncher and/or Ghostery active.  Damn tracking cookies etc.

2782

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: N.A.N.Y. 2013- PDF Batch Saver

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 29, 2012, 10:44 PM »

Hmm, with holidays and Fiscal Cliffs and general federal silliness I might not be able to fun the bug fixes on my app, so it might just have to live as a proof of concept alpha, maybe not go into the official writeups. :  (

I want a jerrrrb now! 

2783

Living Room / Chinese Laborer pleads for help in Halloween Decorations

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 29, 2012, 01:57 PM »

This is kinda scary!

http://shine.yahoo.c...tions-202400773.html

2784

Living Room / Re: The Rant Thread!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 29, 2012, 01:36 PM »

China forces EVERY internet user to register their real name in new free speech crackdown
http://www.dailymail...peech-crackdown.html


This is turning a corner in my opinion. I know large parts of corporate america would like this too, "to keep everyone safe blah blah " (and monetize us!) They just can't quite pull it off that fast yet - they would have to do it in steps.

2785

Living Room / Re: Companies Keep Us Buying New Stuff

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 29, 2012, 12:29 PM »

In some senses some of the nasty Zynga games do that digitally by making you have to upkeep your farms and whatever - you can't just have a nice little farm, you have to keep maintaining it. Then you get sucked into a grind because of all the previous time you spent, so you can't bear to "have that part of your life go to waste".

2786

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 28, 2012, 11:48 PM »

The original Gerber baby then and now:

http://s3-ec.buzzfed...401-1356717209-0.jpg

2787

General Software Discussion / Re: The first rule of kernel maintenance: YOU DO NOT BREAK USER SPACE!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 28, 2012, 11:19 PM »

Slashdot and Google reader

-Josh (December 28, 2012, 09:55 PM)

Yeah I got wind of it from Slashdot too. So semi-suddenly it has become tech news.

2788

Living Room / Re: The Rant Thread!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 28, 2012, 12:25 AM »

Generic Universal Non Purpose Rant. To reset the thread. All similarities to GURPS implied. GUNPR. Way less sexy.

2789

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Beet Box

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 28, 2012, 12:23 AM »

I feel like explaining this defeats part of the purpose.

2790

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 27, 2012, 09:25 AM »

Renegade's next post will be his 7500th. 

2791

Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 27, 2012, 09:22 AM »

More of a snort as some animals are more equal than others.

-Renegade (December 27, 2012, 05:06 AM)

Once upon a time, there were two people who made a torrent of George Orwell's Animal Farm. One was fined $150,000 for copyright infringement. The other worked for a publishing company and got a Christmas card from Orwell's estate as a thank you when Christmas sales of the book went up.

2792

Living Room / Re: The Rant Thread!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 27, 2012, 04:42 AM »

My dad decided to give me a little help...a giant eraser, which I got in trouble for when I brought it to school.
 (see attachment in previous post)

-app103 (December 27, 2012, 01:05 AM)

"Terrorist Prosecution begins when you are young" - modified Ferengi Proverb.

2793

Living Room / Re: The Rant Thread!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 26, 2012, 07:01 PM »

Can anyone explain why it is that yellow colored pencils always seem to come out of the pencil sharpener with a broken point? They could be a brand new pack of pencils and that yellow one will always have issues, always end up all stubby, and you pretty much only get to use it twice.

I think it's a conspiracy in the pencil industry. They have all collaborated and come up with a scheme to make people buy more packs of colored pencils. And by all of them agreeing on making the same color inferior to the rest, they trap the consumer. There is no way out. You can't buy a pack of one brand and a pack of another to get a full, good quality set. That yellow one will always be the bane of your existence. You will end up with shoe boxes full of every color of every brand, but yellow.

-app103 (December 25, 2012, 03:46 AM)

  And why does all the pencils have all that pencil and just a little eraser?  Shouldn't the eraser be at least 1/4 the size of the entire pencil?  lol  At least for us that make a lot of writing mistakes.  My handwriting is horrible, but I can type like there's no tomorrow.  hehehe

-Tinman57 (December 26, 2012, 06:49 PM)

Because it's an Upsell method for you to get that $1.57 big eraser!

2794

Living Room / Re: Flash Mob - Beethoven's 9th

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 26, 2012, 07:00 PM »

Yay flashmobs!

IMO though the pacing on this was a bit too slow. But who am I to quibble!

2795

Living Room / Re: Facebook floating the idea of charging $1 per "prioritized message"

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 26, 2012, 12:37 PM »

Without an actual link to something newsworthy (like the privacy policy in the other row), I'm not sure this isn't anything other than something to get people up in arms.  Is there a link to some smoking gun from facebook?

-wraith808 (December 26, 2012, 10:14 AM)

Well, if you mean you would like something directly from Facebook and not (potentially) inflammatory analysis blogs, let's see...

http://newsroom.fb.c...Messaging-and-a-Test
Though it's a little vague on the $1 per message part per se - they dressed it up  bit more in PR language.

2796

Living Room / Re: Merry Christmas From The UK!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 24, 2012, 07:43 PM »

Heh that's a slightly creepy dancing Giraffe : )

2797

General Software Discussion / Re: XYplorer ends Lifetime License

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 24, 2012, 10:02 AM »

There's a very loose usage of lifetime that consumers really cannot interpret:

• lifetime of the product
• lifetime of the purchaser
• lifetime of the company/corporation (the producer)
• lifetime of the software platform, e.g. the OS
• lifetime of the beach/coast where you bought your condo

and there's no clear definition of which applies when you make the purchase.  And, should the provider be purchased by another entity, that can all go out the door.  Happened to me with WinZip:  had a lifetime license from Nico Mak, but that was ignored when he was bought out by the current (?) vendors ... so I quit using it.

-barney (December 23, 2012, 10:50 PM)

If anything I'd call it the lifetime of the company, since I'd think the license would be valid even if your product break. Such as if you somehow restored it, or maybe even bought a new copy, seems to me the license is usually legit. It could sink into oblivion, and become obsolete, but probably still valid. It's when the company croaks that cross-buyouts of IP begin to get silly when the new owner can decide not to honor the previous license.

2798

Living Room / Re: My random doodles for you to see and give feedback if you want.

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 24, 2012, 09:33 AM »

Am I the only one that thinks Hally needs a nice scanner?  I'd be willing to kick in a donation.  =]

-skwire (December 24, 2012, 06:32 AM)

No No No Skwire! Donations are all old hat! Kickstarter all the way! 

2799

Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 24, 2012, 08:09 AM »

(Null Post - I miscounted threads. Either an admin can delete this or I'll eventually find something to post here.)

Edit: Didn't take too long, which is depressing.

Network World has a puff piece on "you win, we won't do another SOPA".

http://www.networkwo...not-have-265351.html

Slashdot is calling the bluff on it, so start your clocks here.

One AC over there posted a snip about shenanigans with the NDAA bill.
"This is exactly what happened with the NDAA. Harry Ried broke into proceedings a couple weeks ago and very quickly (almost too fast to understand) said a bunch of mumbo jumbo about amendments and extensions being added to some bill and then motioned for it to be accepted, it was, and then left and they went back to the former proceedings he had interrupted. In all, it took about 30 seconds. What was this bill he was so weirdly inserting something into? Bill 4310. The NDAA.

Nobody knows about it (unless they were watching CSPAN in the middle of the night during those 30 seconds and thought enough to ask what 4310 was). Nobody is accountable for it. And nobody has made a big deal about it."

2800

Living Room / Re: Lifetime access to up-to-date info -- is this the future of the textbook?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on December 24, 2012, 07:57 AM »

Like the old saying goes: speed, price, quality - pick any two.

This is something I get into with my clients and people I do business startup counseling with: Not every great idea is a good idea for a business. I often get told something is a "terrific idea" for something that addresses a "real need." Then they throw the dumbest justification in the world at me: Nobody else is doing this!

To which I reply: Maybe you'd better look into why nobody else is doing it before you go any further.

I know it's a real buzzkill. But about 90% of the time you identify something that's not being done, there's a very good reason (or reasons) why not. This isn't to say you should automatically rule it out. (Because that remaining 10% of previously unaddressed opportunity is what most million dollar commercial empires are founded on.) But you should at least do some 'diligence' and find out why.

-40hz (June 27, 2011, 09:22 AM)

Some good points, though I think maybe in the "Post Mayan Era" (            ) there's room for a couple of new spins on that. The big name web services seem to be doing all three, because it's not a manufacturing paradigm, it's a "sell user info" paradigm. Gmail is probably the best case of this, followed whether I like it or not, Facebook. (I know, "quality" is debatable but absolutely "everyone" is on it!)

But I also think Apple is the thundering exception to Things That Were Not Being Done. Except maybe some demos sitting at Xerox labs for the Mac, then later some early smartphone and tablets, Apple pulled a couple of world class design geniuses and discovered that "too much open pasture is scary, the animals LIKE nice little walls to keep them from walking into the ravine. Plus look at the pretty flowers on the walls!" They took three product categories - Mp3 music player, phone, and tablet, and did them like no one else was doing them.