Recent Posts

3376

Living Room / Re: First compelling reason to switch to Windows 7

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 12, 2010, 06:02 PM »

This is the first really compelling reason I have seen for switching from XP to Windows 7:

http://arstechnica.c...fun-for-xp-users.ars

-xtabber (March 12, 2010, 05:44 PM)

Solution: Buy older HDD's =]

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Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 11, 2010, 05:19 PM »

If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us (bandwidth being only one of them), but provide us with no revenue

This shows no sign of being bothered that their ads consume our bandwidth, distract our attention and give us nothing we want in return.

If you never click on the ads, even when you see them, there's absolutely no point in wasting bandwidth (both ways) by having them onscreen. So the argument isn't really about whether the ads are blocked but whether they produce enough revenue, and there's an assumption that adblockers will be clickers if only they could see the ads. I suppose the next stage, if there isn't enough ad revenue after eliminating adblockers, is to make bigger more intrusive ads or to ration pageviews to users who click often enough.

-Dormouse (March 11, 2010, 05:15 PM)

"Please click on 5 of the links below to get to the section you originally wanted to see"

I can see, and feel it coming...it's already a fundamental piece of some websites I have had the misfortune of stumbling across.

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Living Room / Re: is there CHINESE in this form??

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 06:48 PM »

Wow... I can't imagine what kind of crap will show up if you translate a forum to Chinese?? I've tried in French before... You might as well not have a translation.

-patrinac (March 10, 2010, 05:27 PM)

Works fine in greek

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Living Room / Scalpel + Pen + Excess Food + Bordom = Some funny end results

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 06:38 PM »

Now, I must stress, none of this work is mine.

I got them from a chain mail letter (my mother insists on sending me useless stuff every single day, and for once, she finally sent something of interest!)

So, here are the end results lol

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Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 05:55 PM »

Flattr? Saw it, wasn't impressed. It's interesting but not what I'm looking for. The concept is unique, but it's too different and difficult to grasp to see wide adoption.

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (March 10, 2010, 05:39 PM)

How about one like here on DC? (I can see Lashiec's post going completely off topic now lol)

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Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 05:09 PM »

When oh when will a good micropayments system come around?

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (March 10, 2010, 05:05 PM)

Flattr

3382

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 04:18 PM »

In any case, to me the whole situation is simple. Like the site? Get on with the program. You don't like the site or the program? You're free to do what you want. Making things more complex would only throw everyone into a rat race, and I think we already have enough with music, films and now books and videogames. You can extract several lessons from those fields to know how to improve your current business and make your readers happy at the same time.

-Lashiec (March 10, 2010, 04:14 PM)

Agreed...If people block, let them, if they dont, oh well, but dont punish those who like ad-free experiences.  If you don't like that, then put your premium content locked behind paid membership areas.

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Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 04:04 PM »

My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content. It can also put sites into a real advertising death spin. As ad revenues go down, many sites are lured into running advertising of a truly questionable nature. We've all seen it happen. I am very proud of the fact that we routinely talk to you guys in our feedback forum about the quality of our ads. I have proven over 12 years that we will fight on the behalf of readers whenever we can. Does that mean that there are the occasional intrusive ads, expanding this way and that? Yes, sometimes we have to accept those ads. But any of you reading this site for any significant period of time know that these are few and far between. We turn down offers every month for advertising like that out of respect for you guys. We simply ask that you return the favor and not block ads.

His argument is simple, yet completely wrong.

How can a website, not having advertisements affect its quality?  I personally know plenty who do not run ad's and it doesn't affect them, sometimes ads are highly irritating (like: Watch this video, but we are going to FORCE you to watch a 5 minute clip about kids in Africa), Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for giving third world country's money, but, just like the comments in the quote, its completely irrelevant and not a good argument.

He seriously needs to get a grip on reality.

Advertisements do not make a place good, and can only ever make a place bad (not ALWAYS, only usually)

DC has NO ads, is completely VOLUNTARY DONATION driven, and has some of the best content (IMO) on the Internet.

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Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 03:52 PM »

This has been a long time coming.  Sites are getting annoyed that they get paid on a 'per view' basis, and nobody is viewing their popups.

Personally I dont have any addon software to block popup's for me, but Opera does a pretty sweet job (hence me not having external software to do it).

Seemingly, we are going to get punished for not viewing the ads...

If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us (bandwidth being only one of them), but provide us with no revenue

Nobody ASKED you, nor FORCED you to provide us with information, so stfu moaning and get on with your life.  You wont be missed by me if I get blocked from using your website ^_^

Whats next?  We going to get an electric shock when we go make a coffee during TV show Ad Breaks?

3385

Living Room / Re: Stephen's Weekly Tech News - Edition 4

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 11:48 AM »

Thank you for this compilation!

-housetier (March 07, 2010, 10:40 AM)

Always a pleasure

3386

Living Room / Re: This Car Runs on Code

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 11:46 AM »

The F-22 is an absolutely AWESOME piece of technology.
Unfortunately, it has proven to be too expensive to build.  So the program will be shutdown.   

-parkint (March 09, 2010, 09:03 PM)

(see attachment in previous post)
Sorry, it was the first thing I thought of. 

-app103 (March 10, 2010, 10:35 AM)

LMFAO, Could you imagine the look on the pilots face, if he looked down to see THAT on the monitor! 

3387

Living Room / Re: Will you miss newspapers when they're gone?

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 11:45 AM »

Some kid in the future is going to end up with anarchy t-shirts, stuff decorated with Miley Cyrus, a bunch of bad punk CD's, and a heap of zombie & vampire related books.

What the heck is going to go through their mind when they see that stuff for the first time?

-app103 (March 10, 2010, 09:26 AM)

Possibly something along the lines of "WTF???" 

-40hz (March 10, 2010, 10:44 AM)

Well, depending on how de-sensitized they are

3388

Living Room / Re: Speaking Of: Torrent Sites

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 11:40 AM »

Might it work for companies, which need to transfer different files and stuff all the day?
Please note, that this doesn`t happend only inside the company, so network-drives wont work.
If we leave out Ftp-servers, how would it work with torrents then?

-RedPillow (March 09, 2010, 03:44 PM)

Companies that use BitTorrent? You may want to ask Blizzard. They've got a little side-project going right now that uses BitTorrent to deliver updates. It's called World Of Warcraft. Don't know if everyone's heard of that program yet, though. 

-Innuendo (March 10, 2010, 09:42 AM)

 

What an interesting fact, I have never thought that! :O

How about those japanese mmorpg-copies?

-RedPillow (March 10, 2010, 09:48 AM)

I know of at least 12 different games companies, who offer their download via BT, and also offer every update to be downloaded in BT format.

Asides from this, there are also multiple audio and software vendors who choose to do the same thing.  Bandwidth is saved, money is saved, and this reflects (sometimes) on the end price of a product, because the community is gathering together to provide the vendor, its downloads.

3389

Living Room / Re: Pirate vs. Paying Customer illustrated

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 11:35 AM »

Actually I used to "pirate" my legally bought DVDs

-CheckUserFirst (March 10, 2010, 11:25 AM)

I still do, and my PC games as well, mainly because I like to have a digital copy on my computer, but I own DVD versions for a few reasons:

1: Piracy is against the law, but there are no laws about having an illegal version of a game when you own a legit copy, so long as the legit copy the same version as the copy you have downloaded.

2: I don't want to, now, or ever, go fully digital with my game and DVD purchases.  I would much rather have a huge collection of Games/DVD's/CD's that friends and family can browse through at their leisure if they wish to borrow something.  Also, not wanting to go digital is also about having a hard copy of the game, and its contents (Booklet, Instruction Manual etc...) because I feel this brings 'owning it' more to life.

3. Going fully digital stops my ability to be able to just install a game at my leisure, play it, and uninstall, without ever having to go online.  Some people are on limited connections (I am on mobile broadband with only allows me 500mb of data transfer a day) and that stops us from downloading games at 4-8GB each.

4. I don't like companies such as steam, who offer single-player, offline only games, yet FORCE you to be online while playing.  They also (I don't know about the latest version of steam, I now refuse to ever own it again) punish you for losing internet connection.  What I mean by this, is, if you unexpectedly lose your connection for any reason, while steam is in ONLINE mode, you CANNOT get to your games.  You have to be ONLINE to turn the damn thing to OFFLINE.

I could go on, but I think I would just be ranting if I did! 

3390

Living Room / Re: Watch a game instead of playing it - NextgenWalkthroughs.com and others?

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 11:26 AM »

Pretty awesome website, but I have had to stay away from a few of the game videos on there because i am determined to try the games out first hand.  But I can say, the videos for COD and BF:BC are brilliant, I have played both these games and they are totally represented in what the videos show 

3391

Living Room / Re: Browser Wars: Why did you choose yours?

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 11:24 AM »

I've tried Safari and: "Dude, I'm like totally unimpressed."

-40hz (March 05, 2010, 03:13 PM)

I could not agree with anything more.  Last time I installed Chrome it was purely for testing ONE website, within 3 minutes of installing it, I had a complete system crash (Windows 7) which, when I looked in to it, was caused by a huge memory leak coming from Chrome.  Now, I cannot specifically say that Google Chrome is a bad egg, but I can certainly say, you would be better off without it, and if you do use it, make sure you keep an eye on its memory usage.

3392

Official Announcements / Re: March 2010 Discounts and Giveaway Drawing

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 09, 2010, 12:21 PM »

Mouse, if you want, ill compile a list and contact all the companies to ask if the discounts are still available, if they are/or not in some cases I will let you know which to remove/keep.

3393

Living Room / Re: MMORPG Players - What Games do you play + Plug for Myth of Soma Server

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 08, 2010, 07:55 PM »

I swore I would never play another MMORPG again. The amount of time I have spent on those things gives me the shivers thinking about it. A few years ago I decided I wanted to learn to play the guitar. I haven't spent much time on it, so I am not very good. If I spent a fraction of the time I spent playing MMORPGs practicing the guitar, my god, I would be awesome.

-Tekzel (March 08, 2010, 06:26 PM)

I understand, I Sympathize, I feel the exact same, apart from one thing...Im not that bad @ guitar, but if i focused more, id prob be 1000x better haha

3394

DonationCoder.com Newsletters / Re: Newsletter for March 8th, 2010 - "March Madness"

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 08, 2010, 03:46 PM »

Nice 1 Darwin    

3395

Living Room / Re: Anyone playing Mass Effect 2 game yet?

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 07, 2010, 03:44 PM »

I think 'lol' and 'haha' are appropriate right now. 

3396

Living Room / Re: is there CHINESE in this form??

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 07, 2010, 11:35 AM »

Ah, so there is, never needed it, so never looked...

Meh...the link I gave works anyway

3397

Living Room / Re: video: monkey on a goat on a rope. yes, insane.

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 06, 2010, 08:53 PM »

lmfao, thats mental

3398

Living Room / Re: is there CHINESE in this form??

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 06, 2010, 08:49 PM »

Since nobody else will say it, I will...

...

...

...

...

Pardon?!

...

I assume you mean can you view this forum in Chinese...if so, I don't think so unless you use an external translation website such as google:

http://uk.babelfish....p;btnTrUrl=Translate

3399

Official Announcements / Re: March 2010 Discounts and Giveaway Drawing

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 06, 2010, 08:26 PM »

   Happy to help in any way I can

3400

Living Room / Stephen's Weekly Tech News - Edition 4

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 06, 2010, 08:06 PM »

Welcome to this weeks edition of 'Stephen's Tech News' - By now, you all know that this is a selection of my favorite news stories from across the globe, and are placed in no particular order.  Anyway, I hope you are all as interested in them as I am!

-Stephen


A week off the grid and in touch with energy

There's nothing like living off-grid for a while to make you aware of your environmental and energy footprint. During a family vacation to Belize last week, I got a flavor for what's needed to function, albeit at a leisurely pace, when you're far beyond the reach of power lines.

This was a special trip, mostly paid for by....Read More...


Microsoft demos game across PC, mobile, and console platforms

Whoa. During the keynote presentation at TechEd Middle East in Dubai, Microsoft's Eric Rudder played the same Indiana Jones-ish game on a Windows computer, a Windows Phone 7 phone, and an Xbox 360. Gaming is about to get really ubiquitous.


Not only is the game itself playable on all three platforms, but the...Read More...


Robot avatar MeBot gives you wriggling bug body

In the future, all business meetings will be conducted by telepresence robots--on-site avatar machines that will take care of the boring business of earning a living while we sit back at home sipping lattes and generally enjoying our 300-year lifespans.
 (Credit: Sigurdur Orn)

Even if you don't believe telepresence robots are going to eliminate the need to get out of bed in the morning, it's hard to...Read More...


Some Newegg Customers Received Fake Intel Core i7s

Several readers have mentioned the strange goods that some customers received from Newegg in place of the Intel Core i7 920 processor they ordered. Word on the problem first surfaced on TribalWar on Thursday evening. Newegg still hasn't...Read More...


Steve Jobs: The Agony and the Ecstasy

A new play about tight-ship-running Apple CEO Steve Jobs is set to be staged at California's Berkeley Theatre early next year, penned by one of America's leading playwrights.

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs is to...Read More...


10 high tech cars to tear up the tarmac

Car technology is advancing quickly - partly to save the auto industry from imminent collapse, but also because tech innovations can help save lives on the road.

Besides, why not make your morning commute just a notch easier? These ten vehicles offer something new and innovative...Read More


Chile Earthquake May Have Shortened Days on Earth

he massive 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile may have changed the entire Earth's rotation and shortened the length of days on our planet, a NASA scientist said Monday.


The quake, the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history, hit Chile Saturday and should have...Read More...


UK next-gen broadband gets funding body

Two major upgrades to the UK's broadband infrastructure have moved closer with the creation of an organisation which will allocate funding for the work.

On Thursday, the government launched Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), which will allocate funds for the two major schemes: the universal service commitment and next-generation broadband. The universal service commitment will ensure...Read More...


Spamhaus: Microsoft's botnet cull had little effect

Microsoft's takedown of the Waledac botnet has not been effective, according to some security researchers.

The throttling of Waledac, which Microsoft claimed to have achieved by means of legal action last week, has led to no appreciable reduction of junk mail coming from the botnet, anti-spam organisation Spamhaus told ZDNet UK on Tuesday.

"The amount of spam coming from...Read More...


ISPs attack 'misguided' site-blocking plan

The ISP Association has said it is outraged at an amendment to the Digital Economy Bill that would let copyright holders force ISPs to block websites accused of unlawfully giving access to copyrighted material.

In a statement on Thursday, ISPA said Amendment 120a, passed in the House of Lords on Tuesday, was "hastily constructed and...Read More...

Video of The Week

Seeing as nobody responded to my Video of The Week Competition I have decided to annoy you all with this: