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3776

Living Room / Re: Wrigley Making Caffeinated Gum - New Alert Energy Caffeine Gum

« Last post by 40hz on March 22, 2013, 10:04 AM »

Half a glass of OJ with two tablespoons of nutritional yeast mixed in would give you a bigger boost, last longer, and be considerably safer. Probably taste better too.

-40hz (March 18, 2013, 04:29 PM)

  Only problem with that is diabetics have to stay away from OJ.

-Tinman57 (March 21, 2013, 08:18 PM)

True.

But they should probably be avoiding caffeine and oddball 'natural energy' additives anyway.

3777

Living Room / Re: Wrigley Making Caffeinated Gum - New Alert Energy Caffeine Gum

« Last post by 40hz on March 22, 2013, 09:58 AM »

Good source of info for all you caffeine fiends: look no further than here. The Energyfiend website has full specs and risk levels of 548 different caffeinated beverages and drink additives.

---------------

FWIW, when I feel the rare need for a "chemical assist," this is my drug of choice:



40mg per 8 oz. vs the 100-110mg a cup of freshly brewed coffee averages. If you haven't become too desensitized to the effects of caffeine due to excess consumption, you'll find this mild beverage provides plenty of 'lift.' And if you are desensitized, bite the bullet and put yourself through a self-detoxing regimen first, then give Morning Thunder a try. Works the charm once you do. And you'll probably live longer because of it.
 


Note: Just for the record, I'm a totally unrepentant coffee lover. And I do try to drink decaf even if it does IMO taste inferior to "regular bean" no matter what they try to tell you.(Blindfold tests have confirmed regular coffee drinkers can taste the difference - and overwhelmingly prefer the unprocessed grind.) However, when push come to shove, high-test is just fine by me. "Any port in a storm" as the saying goes.

Or as TooMuchCoffeeMan so aptly puts it:



 

3778

Living Room / Re: LXLE Linux anyone?

« Last post by 40hz on March 22, 2013, 09:06 AM »

Actually, it was thanks to...

-dantheman (March 22, 2013, 08:08 AM)

Oops! Well...that's what I get for speed-skimming DW's newsletter so much lately.  

I also have a very bad habit of tending to ignore distros that are either "just announced" or on the waiting list. Mostly because so many of them tend to disappear without fanfare (and a fair degree of regularity) within a year or so of announcement. As my reliance on Linux increases, so too has my concern for the long term. When I was still a hobbyist I loaded and loved just about every new distro that came out. Now that I've put Linux into production for my own business and personal use, I've focused and standardized on the players I have reasonable expectations will still be around for as long as I need them.



What can I say? I guess I've become a somewhat grumpy penguin.

3779

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by 40hz on March 22, 2013, 08:32 AM »

^Out of curiosity - exactly where and how do you spend them? From what I've personally seen, there isn't much I'd be all that interested in I could use them for. At least so far. But I don't do much in the way of transactions I'd feel the need to stealth, so maybe I'm just not part of that demographic where 'buyer anonymity' seems to be the major selling point.

So I'm genuinely curious...just how usable for mainstream purposes are they as of right now?

Anyone else want to cry?

-Renegade (March 21, 2013, 11:04 PM)

Yup. How about the people who got their accounts cleaned out in any one of several net heists successfully perpetrated on various Bitcoin exchanges? News like this or compilations like this don't exactly give me warm fuzzies...

How bitcoin users seem to imagine bitcoin exchanges.

Except even better!

What a real bitcoin exchange most likely looks like.

Not that there's anything wrong with it

.

@Ren - sorry. Couldn't resist. (Definitely have way too much free time on my hands these last two days.)

3780

Living Room / Re: LXLE Linux anyone?

« Last post by 40hz on March 22, 2013, 07:45 AM »

We haven't discussed any Linux stuff much lately...

-dantheman (March 22, 2013, 06:59 AM)

That's because f0dder won't allow it!

Ok. Lets get more serious now.

Can't say much about LXLE. It's not tracked by Distrowatch.com (which is unusual) and there doesn't seem to be much information or specs posted on their website - although I do appreciate the little essay the builder wrote about the motivation and goals behind creating it. Something I wish more distros would do.

For lightweight feel and a solid build (with no weirdness or oddball glitches) I'd have to hand the job to  CrunchBang Linux. That's my current go-to distro for most laptops or older desktops. Really like that Ninja-charcoal-zero-bling look too! (And the chicks love it! ) But don't let it fool you. Beneath that austere desktop (with a nice mix of Conky monitors sitting in the upper right corner) lurks all the usual penguin goodness found in any Linux distro. It's all just a click away courtesy of the OpenBox desktop manager. A right-click anywhere brings up the menu wherever your mouse pointer is. Very old-school Smalltalk style that is! And addictive once you start using it.



If you like light but still powerful, be sure to take CrunchBang for a 'live spin." Installs like a dream too.  

3781

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite movies?

« Last post by 40hz on March 21, 2013, 10:46 PM »

I very briefly mentioned this little gem of a movie from 2003 earlier. If you like caper films (I'm addicted to them) it's one of the better ones. It's called Foolproof.



It's the story of three twenty-somethings living in Toronto who have formed a very unique club.  One that is dedicated to meticulously planning "foolproof" high-stakes robberies. The club has  four rules:

• Style, finesse and brains are everything. No guns, violence or use of force allowed.
• Whatever skills are required to commit the heist must be real skills at least one member of the club actually has
• The research and planning must be complete enough that the robbery could have actually been committed if they so chose.
• The planned crime is never to be carried out. It's purely an artistic and intellectual exercise.

All goes well until one of the members accidentally loses his copy of one of their heist plans. A short time later, the club members are shocked to see the jewel warehouse robbery they so meticulously planned had been successfully carried out. And from the details the police released to the evening news, it was very clear that whoever had pulled it off used their plan. Shortly afterwards they receive a phone call. Whoever had used their plan admired their expertise - and also knew their identities. He now wanted them to work with him on stealing something even bigger. And just in case they didn't want to help him, he pointed out that he still had the copy of their plan. A plan with enough in it for the police to be able to trace it back to the club should someone ever decide to send it to them."

Neat little film with some extremely clever plot twists and surprises. Recommended!

-----

Note: last I looked the full movie is up on YouTube. Watch it here.

3782

Living Room / Re: In search of ... opinions on AMD vs Intel graphics cards

« Last post by 40hz on March 21, 2013, 09:02 PM »

I'd give the edge to the Dell for what you're doing. The Radeon is definitely the better graphics choice. And unless you're doing something processor intensive (like heavy video transcoding or CGI) the differences in performance between an i7 running at 2.0Ghz and 2.4Ghz won't be material. Probably wouldn't be material even if you were. The i7 is a beast! Especially with 8Gb of RAM at its disposal.

+1 w/f0dder's note about power consumption. And don't forget about heat. Maybe they've since fixed it, but in the past. some Inspirons seemed to run very hot. So if you go with Dell please be aware of it. FWIW, if heat buildup is going to be a problem for your laptop,  my experience has always been it happens very early on. If it doesn't manifest in the first two or three months of use it usually won't happen.

re: 5400rpm  drive speed. It's fine. Faster drives just run hotter and use more battery power. Not worth it for the small amount of increased performance you'd get. If you need really fast disk access, bite the bullet and get an SSD. Don't bother installing a faster standard disk drive. I have a WD Scorpio Black 750 (WD7500BPKT-6) running at 7200 in the laptop I'm using right now. It runs noticeably hotter than the failed 5400rpm Hitachi it replaced. And its real world performance isn't that much better that I'd buy this same drive again if I were shopping for a replacement disk today.

Also, one other thing to consider is where and how any warranty service will get done.

I've generally been unimpressed with Toshi's service options. YMMV. Dell is a lot easier (at least where I am) to get repaired. Something to think about since fixing a laptop usually involves more trouble and expense than fixing a desktop would.

 

3783

General Software Discussion / Re: ironshield antivirus

« Last post by 40hz on March 21, 2013, 05:05 PM »

@f0dder - maybe you should ask the guys over at Cisco that question?

-40hz (March 20, 2013, 10:19 PM)

Yeah, saw that yesterday - efiin' insane.

Oh, and nice pic you chose to go along with the story

-f0dder (March 21, 2013, 07:46 AM)

Did the wording myself. Glad you liked it!

(Also spent a while yesterday checking HW inventory lists to see which of my clients might be affected by it so I could put an advisory out.  )

3784

Living Room / Re: unmountable_boot_volume error = is there a fix?

« Last post by 40hz on March 21, 2013, 04:53 PM »

Sounds like the controller has mostly failed and the drive is not far behind.

You might try GParted and attempt a data rescue since you have nothing to lose at this point.

Sorry the outcome hasn't been better so far.

3785

Living Room / Re: Google Keep note-taking app spotted

« Last post by 40hz on March 21, 2013, 04:46 PM »

^ +1 for what @eleman said.

-IainB (March 19, 2013, 06:25 PM)

Agree.

I'm no longer interested in using Google for anything that involves hosted data storage in any way shape or form.

"Burn me once - shame on you. Burn me twice - shame on me." 

3786

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by 40hz on March 21, 2013, 10:55 AM »

the action scenes, specifically with regard to combat, are good. I may cease and desist if it gets too lurid. then again, I may increase my reading pace  

-kyrathaba (March 21, 2013, 10:13 AM)

Well, a faster pace might explain the heavier breathing...

3787

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by 40hz on March 21, 2013, 09:59 AM »

^I have all of them   . No, they're out of print.

-kyrathaba (March 19, 2013, 10:54 PM)

Well...the books did come out starting in the late 60s, which were a little more, shall we say..."receptive" to some notions than they are today? Annnnnd the social mores of Gor didn't exactly "fit in" with the cultural memes and moral climate even back in those considerably more liberal times. So I guess I'm not surprised they've since gone out of print.  

The truth about Gor readers

 

Too bad in a way. Once you got past, or maybe just stopped drooling over (if that's your thing), the...um...kinky stuff, there were some very good ideas and storylines in some of the Gor books. Mostly the earlier ones since Norman started to go off the deep end a bit starting with installment #10: Tribesmen of Gor. At least in IMHO.

3788

General Software Discussion / Re: ironshield antivirus

« Last post by 40hz on March 20, 2013, 10:19 PM »

Linux does have the advantage of getting bugs patched faster once they're found - but there's also been reeeeal oopsies like Debian getting rid of proper SSH randomization because a developer didn't understand Valgrind properly (why does a person like that deal with security-crucial code?)

-f0dder (March 19, 2013, 04:12 AM)

@f0dder - maybe you should ask the guys over at Cisco that question?

This from The Register

Cisco slip puts hardware at risk
Borg announces weak password feature

By Richard Chirgwin
Posted in Security, 20th March 2013 22:46 GMT

Cisco has issued a security advisory revealing that it mis-coded the implementation of a new password hashing algorithm.

Its “Type 4” password implementation was supposed to salt passwords and then run them through 1,000 iterations of SHA-256 for storage, following the Password-Based Key Derivation Function (PBKDF) version 2 described in RFC 2898.

In what Cisco calls an “implementation issue”, its engineers forgot to salt passwords, and set the SHA-256 iteration count to 1. As its advisory states: “This approach causes a Type 4 password to be less resilient to brute-force attacks than a Type 5 password of equivalent complexity.”

The problem was discovered by Philipp Schmidt and Jens Steube from the Hashcat project. Because of the weak protection, they were able to decode a hash that had been posted to inetpro.org, and as noted by Ars, enough information has leaked to permit “millions” of hashes to be cracked in hours, if anyone gets their hands on the stored hashes.

The vulnerability affects kit running Cisco IOS and Cisco IOS XE releases based on the Cisco IOS 15 code base, the advisory says, along with instructions for determining whether a user is running vulnerable code.

Adding insult to injury, the implementation of the broken Type 4 password also disabled the Type 5 hashing it replaced...

3789

Living Room / Re: Probably the single most obvious reason why DRM doesn't (and can't) work

« Last post by 40hz on March 20, 2013, 07:45 PM »

That said, I don't know that this model would work for the kind of books that people read once and discard, like popular fiction titles.

-xtabber (March 20, 2013, 05:02 PM)

My GF is a big reader. She does the exact opposite. She bought herself a Nook about a year ago and has been quite happy with it. She tends to read things on her Nook first. Then, if she really likes the title, she'll buy a paper copy. Which unfortunately is the exact thing the big booksellers seem to want her to stop doing.

3790

General Software Discussion / Re: ironshield antivirus

« Last post by 40hz on March 20, 2013, 07:30 PM »

  Basically it just comes down to who codes the best and without shortcuts.  I've owned a lot of commercial programs that were very poorly coded and have some awesome open source programs....

-Tinman57 (March 20, 2013, 05:33 PM)

+1. That's been my experience too.

3791

Living Room / Re: The US Registrar of Copyright herself calls for a mixed bag of reforms

« Last post by 40hz on March 20, 2013, 07:23 PM »

(Trivia: Anyone know how long it took them to get the copyright terms extended as soon as Disney wailed about the Mouse?)

-TaoPhoenix (March 20, 2013, 06:14 PM)

The first rumblings to extend started in 1995 IIRC with Disney lobbying everybody who would listen. Then Congressman Sonny Bono introduced the bill. The copyright term extension got passed in early 1998. So I'd say it was a little less than three years.

Like the Sonny & Cher song said: I got YOU babe!"

Actually, you may have stumbled on a post-modern flaw of the "checks and balances" that the framers never intended - pure malice in Congress.

-TaoPhoenix (March 20, 2013, 06:14 PM)

Interestingly, that actually was something the Founding Fathers had anticipated and attempted to plan for.

Unfortunately, the system of checks and balances has been steadily eroded over the years such that we now find ourselves in an era where all real power and authority has been centralized in the executive. And what's so disturbing is that this change was largely engineered without the consent (and largely outside the notice) of most of the general public. So I guess you could say that it basically took about 40 years to pull off what, for all intents and purposes, was a silent coup d'état.

Those who did most of their growing up in the late 80s and early 90s probably aren't aware of just how different a country the United States now is from what it was less than 40 years ago.

The Al Stewart song On the Border has a section that sums up much of how it feels for many of us who date back before our system of government was overthrown by our very own government.

In the village where I grew up
Nothing seems the same
Still you never see the change from day to day
And no-one notices the customs slip away

Late last night the rain was knocking at my window
I moved across the darkened room and in the lampglow
I thought I saw down in the street
The spirit of the century
Telling us that we're all standing on the border

In the islands where I grew up
Nothing seems the same
It's just the patterns that remain
An empty shell
But there's a strangeness in the air you feel too well

So be it. This too shall pass.

3792

Living Room / Re: Could DRM's true purpose really be to prevent legal forms of innovation?

« Last post by 40hz on March 20, 2013, 05:23 PM »

Well what a surprise! Can you believe it?

(@app - Seriously...thx for finding that. I was hoping somebody directly involved in the standard itself would stand up to Tim Berners-Lee's earlier endorsement for incorporating DRM capabilities into HTML5.)

3793

Living Room / Re: The US Registrar of Copyright herself calls for a mixed bag of reforms

« Last post by 40hz on March 20, 2013, 03:54 PM »

Now for some cynicism....  If congress ever even looks at it, whatever good idea's she has will be immediately ignored, whatever is troubling will be approved, and whatever requires more thought and study will automatically be included.  This seems to be the norm for our government(s), which is how we got the old saying "it's good enough for government work", and is why we're in such a pickle that we find ourselves.

Now I would absolutely LOVE IT if they prove me wrong.  Hell, I would stand on my head in the corner of the room and chant the Pledge of Allegiance until I passed out!  But as I fear, I won't be doing that....

-Tinman57 (March 19, 2013, 08:44 PM)

Nope. You won't.

Lookee here courtesy of TechDirt's Mike Masnick:

Congressman Already Claims That He Needs To Overturn Supreme Court Ruling In Kirtsaeng
from the and-off-we-go dept

We fully expected efforts in Congress to look to overturn the strong and important "first sale" ruling by the Supreme Court, and it looks like they're not wasting any time. Rep. Doug Collins has already put out a statement about how awful the ruling in Kirtsaeng is and how he'll look to remedy it.

    “The Supreme Court's ruling in Kirtsaeng v. Wiley raises concerning questions about the future of U.S. copyright law,” Collins said. “Many industries and businesses in Georgia rely on strong copyright protections to create jobs and invest in our local economies, including the established and exclusive right to import in to the United States. When a U.S. business harnesses innovation and creativity to develop a product, they should have certainty their copyrighted work will be protected against unauthorized importation of foreign products.

    “As a Member of the House Judiciary Committee, I look forward to discussing the need for strong copyright protections with the Register of Copyrights at a subcommittee hearing tomorrow afternoon.”

No, actually, it doesn't raise any serious questions. It confirms a basic principle that "you own what you've purchased." It's amazing that a Representative who claims that he wants government to get out of the way and and that "the private sector is best at generating economic growth" would suddenly pipe up in favor of centralized monopolies handed out by the federal government. Furthermore, it's ridiculous, wrong and misleading to argue that Kirtsaeng is somehow antithetical to "strong copyright protections." The first sale doctrine has existed in the US for ages and nothing in it goes against "strong copyright protections." The Supreme Court decision standing up for first sale is hardly an attack on copyright. Even the claim about "being protected against unauthorized importation of foreign products." That's not a copyright issue, but an import issue. Here, again, Collins, who pretends to be for free trade, appears to be arguing that the US should have tariffs. It's funny what copyright will do to politicians -- including highlighting their own hypocrisies.

Now that didn't take very long at all did it?

3794

Developer's Corner / Re: On finding partners and co-founders

« Last post by 40hz on March 20, 2013, 03:46 PM »

It would be "like what Jim Morrison did with the Doors," he said. (Forgetting that Jim Morrison actually wrote all the lyrics and some of the music the Doors performed. Oh yeah...another minor detail...Jim could also sing a little. )

-40hz (March 20, 2013, 12:16 PM)

That's just details.

-Deozaan (March 20, 2013, 01:30 PM)

Yup. And we all know how some seemingly tiny details are more important than others!



 

3795

Living Room / Re: Probably the single most obvious reason why DRM doesn't (and can't) work

« Last post by 40hz on March 20, 2013, 03:05 PM »

In any case, there is no doubt that O'Reilly's anti-DRM policy has really paid off for them.

-xtabber (March 20, 2013, 12:43 PM)

Well it certainly has in my case. I don't willingly buy any media with DRM on it. And I have often declined to get e-books from some sources because of it. (That is also the main reason why I still have so much 'paper' in my tech library.) On the other hand I currently own at least a couple dozen O'Reilly e-titles. And I generally make it a point to always get the new editions whenever they come out (even if I don't really need them) precisely for that reason.

Desired behaviors need to be rewarded if we want them to continue, right?

3796

Developer's Corner / Re: On finding partners and co-founders

« Last post by 40hz on March 20, 2013, 12:16 PM »

@Deo - exactly right!

What you don't want to run into is somebody like the well-dressed guy who came up to my godson following a gig in NYC and wanted to "partner" with him artistically. His pitch was as follows: My godson was a superb guitarist, and obviously a very well-trained and professional musician. He, for his part, had "these incredible ideas" for "hundreds of hit songs."

Now this guy, by his own admission, wasn't a musician.

He said he knew "very little" about music per se.

He almost boasted how he couldn't sing, play an instrument, read music, or write lyrics.

But he had ideas - hundreds and hundreds of ideas. For songs. Hit songs no less!

And all he needed was somebody who knew (and could do) all this stuff to work out songs using "his ideas" and then play them.

For which he'd be willing to split 50-50.

It would be "like what Jim Morrison did with the Doors," he said. (Forgetting that Jim Morrison actually wrote all the lyrics and some of the music the Doors performed. Oh yeah...another minor detail...Jim could also sing a little. )

When my godson (politely) turned him down, he didn't seem overly surprised. His parting comment was that the problem with people like my godson and his fellow musicians was that they were envious and afraid of real talent. Sure they knew "all that technical stuff." And they could play. But he was a guy that had ideas. Hundreds and hundreds of them...

I'm sure we've all run into a variation of that same guy in the tech world. Even if it wasn't somebody quite so full of himself. Or half so crazy.

Then again, when you think about guys like Steve Jobs or Mark Shuttleworth...

3797

Living Room / Re: Probably the single most obvious reason why DRM doesn't (and can't) work

« Last post by 40hz on March 20, 2013, 10:44 AM »

Also, Tim O'Reilly claims that removing DRM from their ebooks greatly increased sales.

-xtabber (March 20, 2013, 10:34 AM)

I'd be very interested is seeing how they established that correlation. Is there a link to any of that?

3798

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

« Last post by 40hz on March 20, 2013, 10:34 AM »

I'll have to become a more advanced being now...
 (see attachment in previous post)
http://www.dieselswe...ies.com/archive/3282

-tomos (March 15, 2013, 03:15 AM)

Kind of reminds me of an IM I received from a friend once, where she was in a state of panic over wikipedia being down, which she claimed was causing her a temporary loss of 50+ IQ points. 

-app103 (March 15, 2013, 03:36 AM)

It does. Even Randall Monroe says so, and he's a minor deity so you can't contradict him.
http://xkcd.com/903/

-TaoPhoenix (March 20, 2013, 03:43 AM)

"Bloody thanks for posting that xkcd link!" sez 40hz as he wipes half a mouthful of coffee off his desk, keyboard and monitor.

3799

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

« Last post by 40hz on March 20, 2013, 10:29 AM »

 Does anybody really miss the early 60s?

3800

Living Room / Re: DOTCOM saga - updates

« Last post by 40hz on March 20, 2013, 10:20 AM »

Still no word yet on what is being done re the apparent perjury by police.

-IainB (March 20, 2013, 08:33 AM)

It all depends on how high up the food chain the shared culpability goes. The higher the level of power implicated, the greater the incentive to "let bygones be bygones." At least from my experience with government wrongdoings.

In the end I'm guessing there will be little more than some very public hand-wringing and fervent apologies - possibly even coupled with a few additional resignations and/or firings of low to mid-level scapegoats (who were nearing retirement anyway) - followed by a spate of new directives and departmental policies that will apply to all future police actions. This will guarantee the NZ public that such an outrage will never happen again.

I had a fair degree of confidence that judicial and legal sanity would ultimately prevail in NZ. Then I saw this bit of news  and started to worry all over again.

BTW - I sincerely hope I'm wrong about the above...but I somehow doubt I will be.