Recent Posts

3026

Living Room / Re: Custom dice for board games, etc.

« Last post by wraith808 on April 29, 2016, 08:43 AM »

I've got the PDF all ready to go for the printer:

[ Invalid Attachment ]

That's at 12.5% zoom (when you click it to view it "full-size"). I've got enough for 3 sets of 13 different dice in that image, with spare room for more. I'm really going to hate myself when I have to cut all these out and apply them one by one.

Paint.

-Edvard (April 28, 2016, 07:37 PM)

That would be a decent suggestion if not for the fact that I'm not very artistic and as you can see above, the designs are a bit more complex than a simple sharpie can handle. Or at least more complex than what I can pull off with sharpies.

-Deozaan (April 29, 2016, 12:46 AM)

Could you paint the colors, and then layer the stickers?

3027

DC Gamer Club / Re: DC Board Game Night

« Last post by wraith808 on April 27, 2016, 11:26 PM »

There is also: https://tabletopia.com/

-mouser (April 27, 2016, 11:04 PM)

Steam link here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/402560

The front page seems very confusing.  Is it subscription-based?  I can't find the terms or what the subscription gives you, and what's the difference between gold and silver.  Am I just missing it?

3028

DC Gamer Club / DC Board Game Night

« Last post by wraith808 on April 27, 2016, 09:50 PM »

So, mouser talks about board games a lot, and other people do too.  So I figured why not try to organize a DC Boardgame night?  Especially as Tabletop Simulator is on sale again.  For like the 100th time in the last few months.

https://www.bundlest...e/tabletop-simulator

Some easy to follow rules I cribbed from somewhere else.

Find board games you are interested in playing here: https://boardgamegeek.com/
Then look them up here: http://steamcommunit...app/286160/workshop/
And finally add them here!: https://goo.gl/kppGnj

We'll prioritize them by order in the doc- or by some other method we decide.  All we need to do is decide on a date and time to start...

Anyone game for this?  Want to find out how many we have before we start organizing...

3029

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 26, 2016, 05:16 PM »

^ the difference is in panzer's embedded quote

-tomos (April 26, 2016, 04:35 PM)

Ah... Ok.  I didn't get that from the quoting in the post.  Thanks for clarifying!

3030

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 26, 2016, 04:27 PM »

Own Your Self: Master Your Character, Rise To Any Challenge, Find True Inner Peace (free until April 28th)

The Maiden Voyage of the Destiny Unknown (free until the end of the week)

Car Buying on a shoestring budget: for college kids and single parents who need reliable transportation (Auto Tips Book 1)

-panzer (April 25, 2016, 08:06 AM)

It would be really helpful if you'd include the titles of the books at the very least, if not a short description of what they're about so we can tell if we're interested or not. Just because a book is free doesn't mean we're interested.

And clicking links can be "dangerous" due to trackers. I don't want to click a mystery link to a product and then start seeing ads or other "you might be interested in this" links everywhere on the internet related to a product/subject that I have no interest in.

-Deozaan (April 25, 2016, 02:58 PM)

Very much this.  Which in turn leads to me ignoring the post, which might actually be a good recommendation.

-wraith808 (April 25, 2016, 05:58 PM)

Fixed it for you... 

-Shades (April 26, 2016, 03:05 PM)

Fixed what?  There doesn't seem to be any difference?

3031

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 25, 2016, 05:58 PM »

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EKNN4LE (free until April 28th)

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01C2334GO (free until the end of the week)

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X2G2JCQ

-panzer (April 25, 2016, 08:06 AM)

It would be really helpful if you'd include the titles of the books at the very least, if not a short description of what they're about so we can tell if we're interested or not. Just because a book is free doesn't mean we're interested.

And clicking links can be "dangerous" due to trackers. I don't want to click a mystery link to a product and then start seeing ads or other "you might be interested in this" links everywhere on the internet related to a product/subject that I have no interest in.

-Deozaan (April 25, 2016, 02:58 PM)

Very much this.  Which in turn leads to me ignoring the post, which might actually be a good recommendation.

3032

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: New C# FARR Plugin: FARRAltTab

« Last post by wraith808 on April 25, 2016, 04:53 PM »

I see the code is linked above- I'll try to dig in and see if I can figure it out.  Been wanting to get into FARR plugins in any case.

3033

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 25, 2016, 04:52 PM »

Regardless of how talented you may be, music is still a group effort more often than not. And while it's good to stand on your aesthetic sensibilities, "vision," and your principles, it's still no excuse for being utterly insensitive to other creatives, or difficult to work with.

While I hesitate to pass judgement on any musician I haven't personally worked with (except for Jeff Beck! I have no qualms about dissing Jeff Beck!!!  ) based on most of what I've seen and read about the man over the course of his career (including his own words from several interviews), I can't help but conclude he was a royal horse's ass - and a royal pain in the ass to work with at even the best of times. And while talented and obviously an accomplished musician, I don't see anything in his career that justifies elevating him to the status of a minor deity that the popular press seems so intent on making him. He was a very good pop musician. And an accomplished stage performer. And that's about all he was. Shouldn't that be enough?

-40hz (April 25, 2016, 02:58 PM)

I think everyone has their days that they are hard to get along with.  Especially when you are performing at a high level.  But I'd personally put him at very much more than a very good pop musician and an accomplished stage performer.  And I wouldn't say that assessment was him all the time- especially looking at the sum of people that knew him  And I think he affected music and lot beside on the same level that Bowie did.

But, everyone will have their own perceptions of what a person leaves when they depart this existence.  I think that's what legacy is about.  And along those lines, I was talking more about his affect on the music industry and the reasons behind his tight control of his music.

3034

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 25, 2016, 01:02 PM »

Interesting thing from the comments on an article that led me to two great artists that I'd not even heard about.

Well, as others have pointed out (and I've experienced this as a bit of a creative myself--I'm a photographer) you would like to make enough off your skills, vision and effort that you can continue to afford to do what you love, and be able to focus on it instead of having to take other work just to pay the bills.

Speaking to music, the world has been sadly deprived of two fantastically talented artists, Mark Linkous and Vic Chesnutt, both of who killed themselves and in both cases, friends have said, financial struggles contributed to their depression and may have led to some extent to their deaths. Both had physical problems that likely made touring somewhat onerous, and they did not seem emotionally equipped for the rigours of life on the road. It's a shame that they couldn't make enough off their recorded output--even though they were never huge sellers, both had a fanatically loyal fanbase and vast critical acclaim--to sustain them financially.

3035

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 25, 2016, 12:28 PM »

Interesting articles on Prince's fight with technology and the impetus of the "I want it now" generation.

Prince vs The Internet: Why His Fight For Art Mattered

Prince Makes King Move with Tidal [INTERVIEW]

Prince: ‘Transcendence. That’s what you want. When that happens – Oh, boy'

I'd never heard this stuff before.  Any thoughts on it?  Especially on album track order?

3036

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 25, 2016, 11:59 AM »

And for some odd reason, I get the feeling that the bad news for 'this year in music' isn't over yet.

-40hz (April 21, 2016, 01:37 PM)

"Me and Mrs. Jones" singer Billy Paul dies at age 81

Pop music fans may have only known Billy Paul for a single song, but what a song it was. And soul music fans will remember the much deeper catalog of soul and jazz recordings and live performances that kept Billy in our minds right until this sad day. He will be missed and remembered.

3037

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by wraith808 on April 25, 2016, 11:57 AM »

Ryan Reynolds donates $5,000 to Brewvies’ ‘Deadpool’ defense

It takes 3 cops to find out if Deadpool has nudity?  Hmmm... there's a joke in there somewhere.  I'm sure Deadpool would find it.

3038

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 25, 2016, 11:08 AM »

Prince... and Miles Davis?  I'd never seen this before... circa 1987.

3039

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 24, 2016, 01:34 PM »

Man... more bad news for music.

Lonnie Mack, Blues-Rock Guitar Great, Dead at 74

http://www.rollingst...-dead-at-74-20160423

3040

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 22, 2016, 02:54 PM »

I'm old, but I'm not old ... and I've no interest in getting stuck on a bunch of pills by some quack that is "Practicing" medicine because they think I should be on something...for some reason...that's probably insurance billing related.

-Stoic Joker (April 22, 2016, 01:13 PM)

Yeah... I thought that way too.  But seeing the progression of deaths in the 40s made me rethink that, though I do scrutinize what they tell me.

3041

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 22, 2016, 12:04 PM »

I didn't really mean anything by my comment about 50 being the new 35. I guess I was just surprised at 57 being considered "older" because to me it doesn't seem to fit my idea of an "older" person. Time for me to adjust my perspective.

-Deozaan (April 21, 2016, 07:25 PM)

Oh bullshit...there is nothing wrong with your perspective. 57 is older than 35 true...but it isn't older like people think of their grandparents being "older".

...Even if I am a grandfather at 51, that's different..

-Stoic Joker (April 22, 2016, 11:16 AM)

Once you get into the older middle age, you have to start thinking about it not as middle aged, but as older for certain medical things.  I wish I'd thought about it as such, and I'm not yet to the half-century mark.  It was a lot harder for me to get over a full fledged blowout of the flu last year, so I make sure I get the vaccine.  I got shingles (though I'd asked my stupid doctor about the vaccine a little before, and she said they don't give it to people my age), and now have post-herpetic neuralgia chronically because of it... when I could have just paid the money for the vaccine.  My brother in law (50-something) lost a good part of his vision because of it. 

It's that "I'm not old syndrome" that kills a lot of people younger than they need to be dead.  Especially in regards to going to the doctor regularly.

3042

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 21, 2016, 07:54 PM »

Science has made it so that people can live longer, healthier lives. So, considering the improvements in science and medicine, is 57 still considered "older" these days?

-Deozaan (April 21, 2016, 07:25 PM)

In terms of the Flu?  Yes.

http://www.cdc.gov/f...t/disease/65over.htm

They say 65, but I've seen for quite a few that it starts getting bad in the late 50s.

3043

Living Room / Re: Surface Pro 4 (etc); observations from long term use?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 21, 2016, 06:16 PM »

I just bought two vcomputers from Dell after doing comparisons on MicrosoftStore.com  and was going to but from MS until Dell offered to price match. No reps tried to talk to me about perhaps I wanted to look at the surface.  And the site itself didn't convince me that maybe the time to look at it was now.

That's a fail no matter how you look at it.

3044

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 21, 2016, 06:13 PM »

Flu kills older people, so it makes sense.

-wraith808 (April 21, 2016, 04:37 PM)

Is 57 considered "older" these days? I thought 50 was the new 35. Or all the marketing departments just lying in an attempt to appeal to the baby boomer generation?

-Deozaan (April 21, 2016, 06:04 PM)

Biology and Physiology don't subscribe to anything but science.

3045

General Software Discussion / Re: What Android Apps Do You Use?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 21, 2016, 06:12 PM »

Ema Personal Wiki
Moonreadr+
Pocket Informant
Yana do
Xodo
Office Lens
Bookwriter
Jotterpad
IA Writer
Campaign Logger
Story Planner
Character Planner
Quoda
Source Code Viewer

3046

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 21, 2016, 04:37 PM »

A bad year for music.  First Bowie, and now Prince.  Two innovators in music in the same year.   

-wraith808 (April 21, 2016, 12:26 PM)

wow, that was a surprise 

EDIT// realised that might have sounded a bit flippant. I really was stunned by that one, I guess because of his age, and not having heard of any illness etc.

-tomos (April 21, 2016, 03:31 PM)

He apparently had shown signs- but without a cause of death, they aren't really conclusive.

On April 14th, he was supposed to do a concert in Atlanta.  Canceled it, but then did a little set to make up for it.  It was low key for him.  Flew home, and made an emergency stop in Chicago at the hospital.  It was apparently the flu, from his publicist.  Headed home, and was recovering.  The police found him in the elevator in his residence, so people are presuming it was complications from that.  Flu kills older people, so it makes sense.  But still sad.

3047

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 21, 2016, 12:26 PM »

A bad year for music.  First Bowie, and now Prince.  Two innovators in music in the same year.   

3048

Living Room / Re: Android - Observations from Long Term Use

« Last post by wraith808 on April 20, 2016, 08:13 PM »

Same as cranioscopical, root the device as soon as you get it and remove everything that's not required, (or flash a ROM that does what you want, not what the manufacturer thinks you want) - makes for a much more pleasant experience.

-4wd (April 20, 2016, 07:49 PM)

But I want (some of) the other things.  Just not everything.

A couple more pros- the ability to put widgets on the home screen that do varied things, and the ability to position anything anywhere.  I also love having the mini-usb port and the SD card.  I have this cool USB device that has a mini on one end, and a standard on the other end.  Transferring and using files between the tablet and my computer is a breeze!  I had to get a wireless USB device to enable that on my iPad, and the fact that you have to be on its network makes it not as useful.  I can also program for it using Xamarin in C# without having to jump through hoops to get the applications onto it.

So, I told my pros.  My cons.

Battery Life.  Not sure if this is just the battery in general, or some of the settings (I'm thinking it's battery life after a few experiments- I thought it might be gmail being open, but it syncs when I bring it to focus, so not sure that's the case).  I leave my ipad for a week, and do nothing to it... and come back to it with the battery near full.  Do the same with the android device, and it's dead.  That's my use case for the device- I don't use my tablet everyday.  So that's the major complaint I have.

Resolution and responsiveness on the screen.  The screen is very high resolution and looks great.  But what I've found is that unless I zoom in on a standard web page, I can't select elements.  It's always off by a measure (up or down).  Same resolution on the iPad, and it just works.  Also, when I touch next to the edge of the screen (for instance to turn a page, or swipe) it seems to only recognize it sometimes.  This isn't a particular app- it seems that all behave in the same way.

Fingerprints suck.  I enabled it on my iDevice, and though it has its downsides, not having to put in my long password for some things is worth that.  I can't get the bloody device to recognize my fingerprints, no matter how many times I set it up.  It works... at times.  But other times, even putting my finger fully over the sensor, it doesn't get it.

SD Cards.  You have this great facility to add storage- and only some things are able to be put there.  And there seems to be no rhyme or reason to what is able to be put there.  I now only use my SD card for long term storage of items and content.  It's 4 times larger than my internal memory, and I can't put my apps there and have to have them on my 32GB internal using space.

More Pros/Cons as I think of them.

3049

Living Room / Re: Surface Pro 4 (etc); observations from long term use?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 20, 2016, 03:33 PM »

http://www.ebay.com/...797258441?rmvSB=true

Don't have the funds to grab it, currently... and I couldn't go with 128GB, nor 4GB RAM.  But a decent deal if the specs work for you.

3050

Living Room / Re: Android - Observations from Long Term Use

« Last post by wraith808 on April 20, 2016, 11:25 AM »

First the pros of what I like.  I got a Galaxy S2 Nook Edition, so my observations will be based on that.

The hardware is nicely made- sleek, but sturdy.  The display is awesome- on the level of (or exceeding) my iPad mini and iPad air.  The price was cheaper, though a lot of that was because they had a trade-in event at Barnes and Noble, and a sale going at the same time, so I was able to get it for a little over $300.  I have the iPad mini 3, so the Galaxy s2 actually feels a bit lighter.  It has a bit less space (32GB vs 64GB), but the SD card (sort of) makes up for it.  I do like being able to purchase from the B&N store directly from the device rather than opening up a browser window to do so.  IMO, Apple is killing themselves with their insistence that they want to be a part of everyone's infrastructure on the device.