Recent Posts

3376

Living Room / Re: Movies you've seen lately

« Last post by wraith808 on October 20, 2015, 11:25 PM »

All 3 films have their own peculiar qualities, but as regards SEPTEMBER CLUES 9/11 - YouTube, I would have to say that amateur films such as that give testament to the fact that Americans are not all a gullible lot and they don't tend to swallow the PC line wholesale without raising some thorny questions, and long may they stay so. That amateur film forms a legitimate part of the nation's cultural history, and to object to it or try suppress it in this forum because it doesn't pass the arbitrary wraith808-Tomas rule or requires the Witchfinder-General to be summoned, or something, would seem to be blunt censorship. However, if @Tomos feels that he has squatter's rights on this thread, or something, and can (say) dictate its contents, then why not get out of his face and start up another thread entitled (say), "Movies you've seen lately (amateur and professional) and why you would recommend them". Not sure whether that would fit in the title line (probably too long) but you get the idea. You could then (say) ask the Admins to move your posts from this thread into that, and thus start it off. I'd be a contributor! I'm all for freedom of speech and no censorship, and love films that discuss what might have been, or currently are, difficult or contentious issues, or which force one to think beyond the narrow confines of one's preconceptions. My first post would probably be about "The Boy With Green Hair" and "My Left Foot", the second "Lady Chatterly's Lover" and "Straw Dogs", as I have been watching these with my 14 y/o daughter (she's studying social justice issues and films/books that have been censored/banned due to not meeting the shifting/arbitrary PC standards of the day).

-IainB (October 20, 2015, 10:04 PM)

The point was missed in all of the text that was thrown at the ill perceived problem.  That stuff is in general basement worthy.  That's my point.  I really don't care about what is posted... just the fact that it was shoehorned in.  And with that, and more ad hominems and general trying to be witticisms that really miss the point, I'm out.

3377

Living Room / Re: Movies you've seen lately

« Last post by wraith808 on October 20, 2015, 10:42 AM »

^ hi Panzer, I started the thread and I meant it to be for movies. Yes, you quote me -- and you would win on a technicality in a court of law but hey, we're just in dc forums. Posting them is fair enough, but this does not seem to me to be the right thread for them...

-tomos (October 20, 2015, 05:46 AM)

And Favorite does tend towards recommendations if we're picking someone's words apart. 

It seems that you are too paranoid. But that's your problem, not mine ...

-panzer (October 20, 2015, 03:18 AM)

But ad hominem attacks are right out of the court, and point towards intent.  Paranoid... come on now.

3378

Living Room / Re: Apple leads the charge: Root access is no longer root access

« Last post by wraith808 on October 20, 2015, 10:15 AM »

But I'm sure that the PC market is salivating over the lock-in and how to apply it to Windows...

-wraith808 (October 20, 2015, 09:29 AM)

That saliva has a name: UEFI

-eleman (October 20, 2015, 09:33 AM)

UEFI isn't exactly the same.  Imagine if you couldn't modify anything in the windows directory.  No installing unsigned assemblies to the GAC.  No installing unsigned drivers at all.

A couple of more articles (and I used TotalFinder when I was on the Mac, so I would be livid with the first link)

http://totalfinder.b...integrity-protection

From the OSX El Capitan release notes:

System Integrity Protection

A new security policy that applies to every running process, including privileged code and code that runs out of the sandbox. The policy extends additional protections to components on disk and at run-time, only allowing system binaries to be modified by the system installer and software updates. Code injection and runtime attachments to system binaries are no longer permitted.

A really good overview of Rootless.

https://derflounder....ples-security-model/

From that article - a list of programs that Rootless disables access to that make ZERO sense.  This means it will no longer be possible to delete the applications which OS X installs, even from the command line when using root privileges.



People are complaining about the adverts when switching from Edge and other apps in Windows 10.  This is 100x worse.

3379

Living Room / Apple leads the charge: Root access is no longer root access

« Last post by wraith808 on October 20, 2015, 09:29 AM »

Not if you're on a Mac, though.  System Integrity Protection has been added into OSX Capitan, making a lot of things impossible without changing the OS and turning the protection off - and not just through a setting.  You have to go to the terminal in recovery mode, and type in a command to disable it.  Rootless, as it's called, is also retroactive.  If you modified anything in one of the protected folder, it is moved to a migration folder when you install.

Now, one might thing this is a good thing.  And on the surface, I couldn't disagree with that assessment.  But remember the walled city of the Apple ecosystem.  This is a trial of that walled city extending to the desktop.  And because the ability to turn it off is in such an obscure place... they can take it out without notice.

Jailbreaking desktops, anyone?

I'm so glad I switched away from Mac.  But I'm sure that the PC market is salivating over the lock-in and how to apply it to Windows...

3380

General Software Discussion / Re: Nirsoft's Antivirus Hall of Shame

« Last post by wraith808 on October 19, 2015, 04:18 PM »

Just do not go throwing up a siren telling the user that malware was found in some program if you aren't damn sure it has been.

-mouser (October 19, 2015, 03:15 PM)

Let me preface this by saying that I totally agree with you... but to play Devil's Advocate, sometimes when new virii are released into the wild, there have been massive outbreaks because they just didn't know.  With this way, I'm sure that some have been caught that wouldn't have otherwise.  So how do you toe that line?

3381

Living Room / Re: Movies you've seen lately

« Last post by wraith808 on October 19, 2015, 10:26 AM »

Battle Royale
12 Angry Men (1957)

-panzer (October 19, 2015, 04:37 AM)

I didn't say anything the first time... but it seems that your "recommendations" are Trojan horses to put in youtube videos of questionable intent.  I could be having an unfavorable reading, but I don't think so...

3382

General Software Discussion / Re: 1Password Leaks Your Data

« Last post by wraith808 on October 19, 2015, 10:21 AM »

People get upset when their government wants ISPs to save a history of every URL visited by each of their customers, to be made available to them upon request, calling that an invasion of their privacy. How would this kind of data about 1Password users, made available to the public in plain text (depending on where you store your keychain file) be any less of a privacy risk?

-app103 (October 19, 2015, 08:59 AM)

Point taken about the passwords.  I read that wrong.  Which, to me, makes it a lot of sturm und drang with no foundation.  The difference in your analogy is that the ISP is not under your control.  This data is.  Just like if you store a list of URLs then post it on the net.  Why would you post this information in a publicly accessible location?  You wouldn't, from my estimation.  And if you do... then that's your fault, isn't it?

3383

General Software Discussion / Re: 1Password Leaks Your Data

« Last post by wraith808 on October 19, 2015, 12:28 AM »

I just checked this with mine.  Everything is correct, up until the last line.  There are no passwords stored in that file.  Just the addresses of the sites.  An example from my file for DonationCoder:

["redacted a guid","webforms.WebForm","DonationCoder","https://www.donation...ex.php?action=login2",redacted an integer,"redacted another guid",0,"N"]

I redacted parts just in case (2 guids and a number), but none of them were passwords.  I might wish that the sites were not stored in this manner- but the passwords are just not there.  I even looked for a couple in the file and the directory that I know are stored in my 1Password, but none of them are in any of the files.

3384

General Software Discussion / Re: Chrome and Printing to PDF

« Last post by wraith808 on October 17, 2015, 02:07 AM »

That Issue is from 4 years ago. (Chrome version 13! 13! Wow. Remember when version numbers meant something? ) Printing to PDF has been a feature in Chrome for years. Why even bother using a 3rd party plugin to print to PDFs anymore?

Just posting this in case anyone else runs afoul of it.  And hoping that someone else might have a workaround.

-wraith808 (October 16, 2015, 10:48 AM)

The Issue also tells you the workaround: Use Chrome's Print to PDF feature instead of the 3rd party plugin.

-Deozaan (October 17, 2015, 12:48 AM)

That's not a workaround, and I said that in the original post.  It's a cop out.  PDF Factory has other features that print to PDF doesn't have.

• Combine multiple documents into one PDF: Even from multiple sources.
• Rearrange pages using thumbnail view
• Instant preview: Without having to save and open in Acrobat.
• Security: Encrypt and control access to PDF files:
• Font embedding: All original fonts are displayed, even if the reader does not have them.
• Page insertion and deletion: Delete unwanted content before the PDF is created.
• Send via email: eMail PDFs with one click. Copy PDF to clipboard for pasting into an existing email.
• Drag & Drop: Easy integration with Evernote, Gmail and other cloud based facilities.
• Create PDFs on letterhead.
• Add page numbering, headers, footers, watermarks.
• Bookmark each job automatically.
• Create table of contents automatically.
• Convert to grayscale.
• PDF/A archiving.
• Add text notes.
• Fill in forms.
• Crop pages.
• Edit text.
• Add multiple signatures and initials with Notes function
• Combine documents into a single PDF and rearrange them.
• Custom Drivers for specific tasks.
• Text highlight, copy and redact.
• Graphic copy, delete, save.
• Convert text to links.

Just because the Print to PDF is good enough for your uses, doesn't mean it's good enough for everyone's.  Nor that it's right.  And if it's from version 13, it seems as if they would have done something not to cripple every other use of it.  This isn't a plugin to Chrome, it's a standard printer driver.  And they're sending rastarized flattened version for our own good.  They said there was a fix in 17, but here we are, years later, and it still hasn't been fixed.

Right.

3385

General Software Discussion / Chrome and Printing to PDF

« Last post by wraith808 on October 16, 2015, 10:48 AM »

Just posting this in case anyone else runs afoul of it.  And hoping that someone else might have a workaround.

Chrome introduced a print to PDF setting on the browser. However, long before they did so, many people used another software way of doing it.  I've been using PDFFactory for YEARS before they introduced that.  They've crippled every other way of doing it, in the name of compatibility, even though they worked fine before.

A thread on it: https://code.google....sues/detail?id=92304

Basically, if you print to PDF from chrome, it creates a fully searchable PDF.  However, if you print to a printer driver from chrome, it creates a rasterized flattened image to send to the printer.  The quality sucks, and you can't search it.  It took me forever to figure out what was going on.

3386

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by wraith808 on October 15, 2015, 09:58 AM »

Skarp Laser Razor Has Raised $4M on Kickstarter

-Arizona Hot (October 14, 2015, 09:50 PM)

https://www.kickstar...21st-century-shaving

Its actually been canceled.  They had no prototype, and devices have to have prototypes to run on Kickstarter.  A lot better than IndieGoGo, where there have been instances of people funding devices that are not even possible.

3387

Developer's Corner / Re: Resources for learning git?

« Last post by wraith808 on October 14, 2015, 10:32 AM »

*Deletes long post about the roles of MinGW and MSYS, the position of Python, what constitutes emulation layers, how Git has pretty much caught up with Mercurial on Windows support*

Damn you, f0dder, beat me to it .

-Jibz (October 14, 2015, 04:02 AM)

I was thinking the opposite... thank you for arguing it so I wouldn't have to!

3388

Developer's Corner / Re: Ethics in Technology

« Last post by wraith808 on October 13, 2015, 03:34 PM »

New elements to the VW story shed interesting light (ideas.4brad.com

Makes some interesting points:

more on the initial topic i.e. the POV of the employee: the pressure from the top to succeed (or be fired) -- what do you do in this situation, what does a group (e.g. of engineers) do in this situation?
Which initially seems to be blaming the engineers as the source of the idea, but says this could have been at any level.

-tomos (October 13, 2015, 08:09 AM)

Thanks for that Tomos... it does point to some of the things that I'd originally wanted to ask- but we've spiraled into talking about VW as a company, rather than the individuals, i.e.

The ingredients, in this model are:

• A hard driving culture of expected high performance, and doing what others thought was difficult or impossible.
• Promising the company you will deliver a hotly needed product in that culture.
• Realizing too late that you can’t deliver it.
• Panic, leading to cheating as the only solution in which you survive (at least for a while.)

I ask, because I work in that type of environment.  "Pay for Performance", "Stack Ranking", whatever you call it... it sucks.  They make it even worse by the fact that even though time spent =/= performance, they equate it to that.  If someone is working at 4AM, then then the question should be "Why?" not "Oh, they're really dedicated".  You're supposed to plan for the standard- and do the out of the ordinary when necessary because the standard planning was wrong, and didn't take something into account.  You shouldn't be rewarded for that.

Same thing with this situation.  If someone made a wrong assumption- you don't cheat to make it go away.  But, these kinds of cultures and pressures make people do what they know is wrong.  And it can be hard to stay on the side of the angels if "everyone is doing it".  Some ask about whether it's Ethical, and whether that even enters into it.  Are those the kinds of questions we ask to make it so that we don't have to deal with the deeper issues IMO.  Maybe "Ethics" is the wrong word.  But if you're coding something to get around something that you know is a law... isn't that always wrong?  Or why would you be coding around it and hiding it?

Those are the questions I'd wanted to to get to.  Because even in not dealing with that, I have hard decisions quite a few times- should I speak up and be known as the 'negative nelly', even though the concerns are right?  And be marginalized because of it?

One of the comments points to the actual dilemma:

Eventually, even when a project isn't going off the rails, you always start tuning for the benchmarks whether they are Spec, or 3DMark, or Common Core, whatever. That's fine, necessary even.

Eventually, you almost always wind up with cases of "this makes the benchmark better" and either "doesn't do squat in real life" (benign), or "and does something really sucky in real life" (malicious) and everything in between.

Almost never will your entire management chain appear in your cube (Ha! Fooled you, no one gets cubes anymore) in capes, top hats, and twisting their mustaches and go "BwaHaHa, we are Evil(tm), pursue plan Maximum-Deception!!!". Except maybe 3DMark, no really, look into that shit; people literally looked at the name of the binary running and did lo-res/fast rendering for that binary only; amazing.

No, what will happen is your manager will stare glassy eyed at a point 3 feet behind your head and state the the #1 priority is to get the very best performance on FooMark2000, get the best performance for all customer cases foreseen and unforeseen, shave 4 weeks off the promised schedule, and follow the 27 point Corporate Responsibility Achievement Partnership we were told about at onboarding and forced to recertify every 89 days.

If you inform your management chain that some of the above items are in conflict, they will blink rapidly to indicate duress, mutter something about the 27 points of CRAP, how Black Duck will catch it if it is a problem, and then scurry away and never make eye contact with you again.

I've had that in real life- where we're coding a new state-of-the-art system upgrade, and all of a sudden realize that it's not as performant as it should be.  It wasn't related to safety or anything, but the chills that go down your spine are pretty bad.  In our case, we did investigation into the solutions, said, "Hey, these are the numbers.  We can make them better, and have user stories on the backlog to do so.  But they will push back the release.  Or we can do it after." We left it at that with the higher ups, and they chose option C- not to do anything.  Then when there were complaints, we pointed to that- and said we knew areas to increase performance.  The fact that we'd done it the way that we did sort of covered us- but not really, though we were able to shuffle it off and get it fixed.

What do you do when confronted with those types of situations?  Especially when everyone around you wants to circumvent them?

3389

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

« Last post by wraith808 on October 11, 2015, 08:56 PM »

Two young ladies playing a matched set of those godawful all-in-one built-in amplifier and rhythm box guitars Vox built way back when.

-40hz (October 11, 2015, 11:40 AM)

They probably didn't get them from older models:

Vox again revived these body styles in 2013 with their Apache Series Travel Basses.

-wraith808 (October 11, 2015, 01:12 PM)

I'm aware. I just didn't feel like getting too pedantic about these things like I usually do in this thread.

FWIW you can still find a limited number of them in various places including Amazon. But they are starting to get hard to find again, so if you have $350-$400 (average) burning a hole in your pocket, you'd better act fairly quickly if your GAS is acting up for one. 

-40hz (October 11, 2015, 01:28 PM)

Another strange one for you:

https://www.massdrop...e-ltd-edition-guitar

5 hours left.  They go for $700 on other places.  But I just couldn't get into the printed or painted art instruments.  I got my Taylor in red because it was a good deal... and it still feels ostentatious.  But I love it!  But I don't understand the instruments as art pieces for some reason.

I guess I'm just strange.

3390

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

« Last post by wraith808 on October 11, 2015, 01:12 PM »

Two young ladies playing a matched set of those godawful all-in-one built-in amplifier and rhythm box guitars Vox built way back when.

-40hz (October 11, 2015, 11:40 AM)

They probably didn't get them from older models:

Vox again revived these body styles in 2013 with their Apache Series Travel Basses.

3391

N.A.N.Y. 2016 / NANY 2016 Release: Text Overlay Tool

« Last post by wraith808 on October 11, 2015, 01:08 PM »

NANY 2016 Entry Information

Application Name	TextOverlayTool
Version	1.0
Short Description	Display transparent overlay of a Text file (plain text or markdown)
Supported OSes/Requirements	Any OS that supports .NET 4.5
Download Link	http://bit.ly/TextOverlayTool

CodeTRUCKER had a pretty simple list of requirements for a text based reference tool.

I have created a number of checklists for flight simulator.  But, having another Notepad window open to read the text line (checklist item) is quite distracting and the white background of the window makes things difficult to see for night flights.

Okay, so this isn't a perfect world, so I will settle for a menu-less, border-less text editor with the capability to make the background black and the text white or green (sort of like Q10).  It would have the ability to shrink it vertically to only see one line at a time.

This app creates a transparent window that displays the contents of any text file.  If it detects markdown, it will display it formatted in markdown.  The one thing I've still not been able to solve is always on top on full screen (instead of full screen windowed) games.


And one screenshot of it in use over a game:




Installation

With .NET 4.5 installed, unzip application to location and run.

Feature Map

Implemented

• Opens Text or Markdown files (if the file is formatted in markdown, it displays the markdown format)
• Allows the preview to be refreshed manually
• Specify an opacity of the window
• Allow the changing of the background of the window
• Can export to HTML or PDF (determines which one you want by filename used)
• Borderless, movable, resizable minimal interface
• Window background can be set.
• Can be set to always on top
• Watches chosen file for changes, and updates on the fly.
• Global Hotkey to enable control no matter where the cursor is

Planned

• Add Global Hotkey customization to the settings dialog.

3392

N.A.N.Y. 2016 / NANY 2016 Pledge: WakaDash (Canceled)

« Last post by wraith808 on October 11, 2015, 01:05 PM »

NANY 2016 Entry Information

Application Name	WakaDash
Version	1.0
Short Description	A dashboard for WakaTime

I've been using WakaTime- which is a great service!  But one of the annoyances I've had is the fact that the dashboard is completely web based, and when using it to log my time for work, it's not the most straightforward for logging time.  And there's the limitations on storage duration.  So, armed with their API, I am going to create a dashboard in C#/WPF/.NET.


Update: Cancelled as they changed the model format on their response stream- a real no-no.  Because of this change, it stopped deserializing, and I didn't realize until too late to finish it for NANY.

3393

Living Room / Re: Show us a picture of your.. CAR!!!

« Last post by wraith808 on October 09, 2015, 11:34 PM »

I went with Cthulhu.  It's not overtly religious, and actually a little more subversive.

3394

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« Last post by wraith808 on October 09, 2015, 11:33 PM »

I'd forgotten about this thread!

A good site for people that like gadgets and good prices: http://www.massdrop.com.

It's a membership club that uses the buying power of its members to drive down prices.  I've gotten some really good deals there.  If you're interested in a referral, let me know.  It's free to join, but you have to join to see the full extent of the merchandise- it's a condition of some of the sellers.  But I've found it worth it. But you have to do your research into the products offered.

3395

General Software Discussion / Re: NANY 2016 !!

« Last post by wraith808 on October 09, 2015, 10:50 AM »

I have to get through NaNoWriMo first   One push at a time!

3396

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox drastically bleeding market share

« Last post by wraith808 on October 09, 2015, 10:44 AM »

Funny how spot-on and prescient Stallman is about so many things. Far from being a cynic, he is now beginning to seem almost like an optimist. Because the emerging reality we now live in is far worse than the most dystopian one even he imagined.

A prophet is always without honor in his own country.

-40hz (October 09, 2015, 08:07 AM)

So, as I said in another thread... Renegade is a prophet, not a cynic, and one day that will become obvious. 

3397

General Software Discussion / LogMeIn purchases LastPass

« Last post by wraith808 on October 09, 2015, 10:43 AM »

https://blog.lastpas...-joins-logmein.html/

https://investor.log...astPass/default.aspx

I have mixed feelings.  I like LogMeIn as a company.  I use Join.Me and Cubby, and have for a while, even though there were other alternatives (and cheaper alternatives) because of their reliability.  (If you want to try, PM me your e-mail and I'll send an invite- a lot less intrusive than the links, I think).  I started with Xmarks, which was saved by LastPass, which got me involved with LastPass, and they've been very reliable.  So it seems like a win-win.

But then you wonder what they offer each other, and how they will change...

3398

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Get Quote to use full edit applet instead of Quick Reply?

« Last post by wraith808 on October 08, 2015, 10:53 AM »

I don't see any way to get into Preferences if that is where this is controlled.  When I quote a post I get Quick Reply with no way to switch to the whole enchilada.

Edit:  Also I see no way to upload attachments or do much of anything.  If I click Quick Reply it just hides the window.  It does not give me an option to use the full BBS Edit thingie.

-MilesAhead (October 08, 2015, 09:23 AM)

I thought that was the way it always was... at least that's the way I always used it.  In order to get to the full reply from there, you just click preview.

3399

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

« Last post by wraith808 on October 07, 2015, 10:07 AM »

This thread was never meant to be taken seriously. IainB made an ironic comment, but softened it by disguising it as a joke, a funny. Someone didn't get it, maybe someone else did. Move on; Guido Fawkes' blog really is dry... and Renegade probably doesn't need your help anyway. IainB is a peacekeeper, and his silly comments made me smile - you know: "silly humor - post 'em here!"

-Curt (October 07, 2015, 09:37 AM)

I wasn't trying to help Renengade... in fact, it seemed directed at myself and Tomos, when we were just pointing out my view on the same issue, as that link definitely didn't fall into 'silly humor'.  But as I've taken from others... onward 

3400

Living Room / Re: Anyone know anything about CAN-SPAM laws?

« Last post by wraith808 on October 07, 2015, 08:24 AM »

I found an interesting service...

https://www.privatebox.co.nz/

Has anyone used something like that?