Recent Posts

401

General Software Discussion / Re: Router-based ad-blocking. Possible? Totally!

« Last post by Edvard on November 30, 2014, 11:19 AM »

Continuing on with Edvard's thread since it's related, (hope you don't mind Edvard)
...

-4wd (November 30, 2014, 04:31 AM)

I don't mind at all!  
Awesome post and I'm thinking I may just do what you've done, as it looks pretty painless.  Many others I looked at were a bit hacked-together and I was looking for something clean.  You've put together what looks like a clean package and relatively painless process, thanks!
 

402

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

« Last post by Edvard on November 29, 2014, 03:35 PM »

"How to Avoid Huge Ships" by John Trimmer
http://www.amazon.co...immer/dp/0870334336/


From the reviews:

As the father of two teenagers, I found this book invaluable. I'm sure other parents here can empathize when I say I shudder at the thought of the increasing presence of huge ships in the lives my children. I certainly remember the strain I caused so long ago for my own parents when I began experimenting with huge ships. The long inter-continental voyages that kept my mom and dad up all night with worry. Don't even get me started on the international protocols when transporting perishable cargo. To think, I was even younger than my kids are now! huge ships are everywhere and it doesn't help that the TV and movies make huge ships seem glamorous and cool. This book helped me really approach the subject of huge ships with my kids in an honest and non judgmental way. Because of the insights this book provided, I can sleep a little better and cope with the reality that I can't always be there to protect my kids from huge ships, especially as they become adults. I'm confident that my teens, when confronted by a huge ship, are much better prepared to make wiser decisions than I did. At the very least my children certainly know that they can always come to me if they have any concerns, questions or just need my support when it comes to the topic of huge ships.

 

Well, actually...

From Wikipedia:
"Intended for a specialized audience (the captains or operators of small private boats such as yachts and trawlers), the book gives advice on appropriate avoidance actions when confronted by the near presence of a large ship such as a freighter, along with anecdotes and background information such as the capabilities and operating procedures of the large ships."

403

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by Edvard on November 20, 2014, 02:11 AM »

Sometimes, and only sometimes, I forget the 80s.  Thanks Renegade.  DA reminds me of AMQA:

 

404

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

« Last post by Edvard on November 19, 2014, 01:49 AM »

I've been in that situation.  I used to draw cartoon hot rods and super heroes and etc. during my junior high/early high school years (fairly typical) and I can name (first and last!) two kids who took my drawings and passed them off as their own.  I know now that it was just a stupid kid thing to do (making it more pathetic when adults do it), but there's a weird sense of betrayal that goes with it that you can't quite describe.  
To save face and reclaim my stolen notoriety, I went around drawing stuff for people *on the spot* to prove I was the original artist.  

405

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by Edvard on November 19, 2014, 01:40 AM »

OK, I have an earworm to share... 

We'll start with the original: Loituma's performance of "Ievan Polkka" (instant happiness, I tell you...)

Wack it out, I mean WAAY out, to Japan, that is (this one only included for completeness):

Dip it in the surf:

Forge it in metal (sorry, couldn't find a decent video, but this folk-metal thing is rather fetching...):

And finally... UNTERGANG style!!

(this one had me crying...)

Ok, that's enough...
 

406

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by Edvard on November 19, 2014, 12:44 AM »

WTF? I mean seriously...WTF???

-40hz (November 10, 2014, 10:08 PM)

Dude, that ain't even half, and you know what I'm talking about...  

Just started playing the game Omikron - The Nomad Soul again after some years and got reminded just how exceptional the music (by David Bowie) was.
...
And here's the opening number, a version of New Angels of Promise. Still one of my all time favorite game (and hard rock) songs. (I like this one even better than the non-game studio version.)

-40hz (November 16, 2014, 11:29 AM)

Hmmm... the reverbed guitar skronk in that song reminds me a bit of Brian Eno's "Skysaw".  I can't find a decent video for the song, but it's a damn tight performance, with Percy Jones and Phil Collins nailing down the rhythm section for Eno and John Cale to squawk and noodle over.  Check it out if you've a liking...
 

407

Developer's Corner / Code fight club

« Last post by Edvard on November 18, 2014, 12:40 AM »

The first rule of code-fight.club is... umm... forget I mentioned it.

Code-Fight.Club is a project built by Andrew Hathaway with the aim to help fellow developers learn how to write their code in the nicest, most efficient and preferred way they can. To decide which code is the most preferred way, users can comment and vote in a fight for their favorite contender.

http://code-fight.club/

from CodeProject News

408

Living Room / Re: Stephen Fry's eloquent response to Grammar Nazis

« Last post by Edvard on November 16, 2014, 09:59 PM »

In texting, I couldn't care less.  Economy of verbosity is the name of the game there.  As long as you have the good sense to not use the same language on your résumé, meh... whatevs.

I think the things that get to me worst are the very same types of things as the 'of' phenomenon... phoneticisms that turn into grammatical faux pas; e.g. "loose" vs. "lose" (yet another plague!), or "At your beckon call", or "One in the same". *shudders*

I'll once again stop before I go too far.

409

Non-Windows Software / Re: Instead of Debian based I tried Debian 7 in VM

« Last post by Edvard on November 16, 2014, 06:05 PM »

Been running Debian for about 5 years now.  No complaints, except I'm running the 'Testing' branch, which I like very much but comes with its own pain...
 

If you can't do it with Debian, it can't be done.
-Robert Pogson

410

Non-Windows Software / Re: Android: Lil' Debi

« Last post by Edvard on November 16, 2014, 05:25 PM »

I was so hoping it was a flavor of Debian that would run on Android devices.  No such luck.
Cool concept, though... 

411

Living Room / Re: Stephen Fry's eloquent response to Grammar Nazis

« Last post by Edvard on November 16, 2014, 04:47 PM »

I quite agree with Mr. Fry on many points, even as I consider myself, not a grammar 'nazi'... perhaps a grammar 'conservative'.  I have no problems with language being used unconventionally for the sake of entertainment or even 'wrong' use of grammar when it actually contributes to clarity.  The recent plague (yes, plague I say...) of using the word 'of' to replace the contraction of 'have' as seen here is an example of something I just can't let go as any sort of 'correct'.  I have others, but in the spirit of the topic, I'll stop there.

412

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

« Last post by Edvard on November 13, 2014, 09:13 PM »

More where that came from:

Uncomfortable Questions: Was the Death Star attack an inside job?

Like many citizens, I have many questions that I would like answered: was the mighty Imperial government really too incompetent to prevent a handful of untrained nerf-herders from destroying one of their most prized assets? Or are they hiding something from us? Who was really behind the attack? Why did they want the Death Star destroyed? No matter what the answers, we have a problem.

Below is a summary of my book, Uncomfortable Questions: An Analysis of the Death Star Attack, which presents compelling evidence that we all may be the victims of a fraud of immense proportions.

I like the first video better, but the more the merrier!

413

Living Room / Re: Programming/Coder humor

« Last post by Edvard on November 13, 2014, 08:51 PM »

http://blog.djmnet.o...ster-and-back-again/

From Novice to Master, and Back Again

In 1985, I was a freshman at St. Olaf College in Minnesota. The college had a VAX 11/780 running 4.2BSD and a PDP-11/70 running v7 with some Berkeley and local code hacked in. It was my first experience with multi-user systems other than dialing into an MS-DOS BBS or two.

The college’s Academic Computing Center had printouts of the 4.2BSD manuals, plus some home-grown documentation, available for sale so students could learn how to use UNIX. One week I sat in the Science Center terminal room and started going through the alphabetical list of the commands available on the VAX, trying each one and reading its man page to learn what it did.

Eventually I got to “su”. “Become the super-user”? What’s that? Does it involve wearing a cape? Sounds interesting, so I tried it. To my disappointment, it just asked for a password, and wouldn’t do anything.

Shortly thereafter, someone came running into the room and asked, “Are you David MacKenzie? Did you just run ‘su’?” “Yeah… what does it do?” “Uh, don’t do that.” My failed “su” attempt had been logged on the system console and one of the sysadmins was worried about an attempted breakin.

Within a year, I did have root access on the VAX, as I learned enough to be hired as a student system programmer. I contributed to upgrading the machine to 4.3BSD when that was released.

Recently I was working on a CentOS Linux virtual machine and needed to look up the command-line options to “su”. I had worked for the past several years mostly on Macs where “sudo” is preferred, so my “su” skills were rusty. I ran “man su” and got the information I needed. Then at the bottom of the screen I sheepishly read “Written by David MacKenzie.”

In the 1990s, while filling in gaps in the GNU toolset, I wrote the GNU “su”, and I had forgotten about it. It’s still what Red Hat and other distributions are shipping.

At least I know what it does now.

 

414

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

« Last post by Edvard on November 13, 2014, 07:49 PM »

The story behind Star Wars from the Empire's perspective...
 

-Renegade (November 13, 2014, 04:40 PM)

I got your Luke's Change right here...

415

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

« Last post by Edvard on November 13, 2014, 07:40 PM »

Things IT people never say:

"Well, that upgrade went smoothly..."

416

Living Room / Re: Everything You Need To Start Making Webcomics For Free

« Last post by Edvard on November 12, 2014, 11:31 PM »

Manga U has a nice collection of Tachikawa nibs and holders they offer as The Ultimate Manga Pen Set for $25.
...

-40hz (November 12, 2014, 08:20 PM)

I prefer fountain pens for that kind of work (we've been over this, haven't we? ), though $25 for the dip set is a decent deal.  I have (and still use) an assortment of dip-pens, but these days I use them to draw circuit boards (thin down some inexpensive model paint and draw with it for easy and artistic etch-resist).

I'm more the Faber-Castell or Sakura type.

I used to be a marker-point pen guy (Pigma Microns FTW!!), seemed a decent enough replacement for gravity-feed pens like the Rapidograph, but... no.  I drop pens way too much, and the first time you drop a marker pen, it eventually hits the point and it's done.  Even if you don't, the points eventually wear or dry out.  
At least, they do for me.  

417

Living Room / Re: Everything You Need To Start Making Webcomics For Free

« Last post by Edvard on November 12, 2014, 07:43 PM »

Yup.  

I'm a pen freak.  Sue me.

And technically, you can write/draw in a variety of angles/pressures with a fountain pen (or any split-nib pen, for that matter) to get fine lines, blotchy lines, smooth-but-kinda-fat lines, etc.  So, it's possible to draw with the nib to the side like that, but only to drag the line to a taper.  The fancy look to that pen makes it rather improbable that he's doing any drawing though, and the Shutterstock original shows he's really just holding it, and the photographer thought that showing the fancy embossed top would imply luxury or something.  

Ah... advertising.

Seriously, you want to draw comics with a fountain pen?  I would applaud your decision, and direct you to these fine instruments:

http://www.jetpens.c...c-Comic-Tools/ct/812


http://www.jetpens.c...-Comic-Tools/ct/1576

418

Living Room / Re: Everything You Need To Start Making Webcomics For Free

« Last post by Edvard on November 11, 2014, 05:16 PM »

 

Seriously, good article.

419

Living Room / Re: Everything You Need To Start Making Webcomics For Free

« Last post by Edvard on November 11, 2014, 12:28 PM »

He's holding the pen wrong... >_<

420

Living Room / Re: good Videos [short films] here :)

« Last post by Edvard on November 10, 2014, 06:58 PM »

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's just an advertisement for a smart phone, but I have to admit, I did find it entertaining.

Samsung Galaxy 11 "Can football save the world?", short film in 4 parts or 4 too-long advertisements, you decide:

The Beginning:

The Training:

The Match, part 1:

The Match, part 2:

421

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

« Last post by Edvard on November 07, 2014, 01:23 AM »

The NoPhone
https://www.kickstar...d-unimproved-nophone

Phone addiction is real. And it's everywhere. It's ruining your dates. It's distracting you at concerts. It's disrupting you in movie theaters. It's clogging up sidewalks. Now, there is a real solution.

The NoPhone is a technology-free alternative to constant hand-to-phone contact that allows you to stay connected with the real world.

422

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by Edvard on November 06, 2014, 09:38 PM »

423

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by Edvard on November 06, 2014, 09:33 PM »

The definitive answer to "Does down-tuning REALLY make a metal song 'Heavier'?":

424

Living Room / Re: Thoughts on the tech on the TV show Scorpion?

« Last post by Edvard on November 06, 2014, 09:01 PM »

425

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

« Last post by Edvard on November 05, 2014, 07:54 PM »

Well, trying not to cut myself shaving with Occam's razor, here's a collation a few of the theories floating from the Slashdot thread mixed with my own:

-TaoPhoenix (November 04, 2014, 11:33 PM)

Interesting theories, and all of them plausible.  At one point, there were many websites that hosted MAME ROMs that were shut down due to people who had hand-me-down copyrights raising a stink.  And in the case of Mame.dk (sigh, never got a bad ROM from them...), it was their hosting company Efront that was slapped.  Ahh, memories...

* Edvard loads Galaxian... again...