Recent Posts

4526

Living Room / Re: Google Engineer Wins NSA Award, Then Says NSA Should Be “Abolished”

« Last post by tomos on August 01, 2013, 06:02 AM »

also mentioned here
(cross posted mainly cause of the extra link)

A Google engineer with integrity?

Google Engineer Wins NSA Award, Then Says NSA Should Be Abolished
Posted by timothy on Sunday July 28, 2013 @08:29AM
from the well-if-you'd-like-my-opinion-gentleman dept.

First time accepted submitter MetalliQaZ writes "Last week, Dr. Joseph Bonneau learned that he had won the NSA's first annual "Science of Security (SoS) Competition." The competition, which aims to honor the best 'scientific papers about national security' as a way to strengthen NSA collaboration with researchers in academia, honored Bonneau for his paper on the nature of passwords. And how did Bonneau respond to being honored by the NSA? By expressing, in an honest and bittersweet blog post, his revulsion at what the NSA has become: 'Simply put, I don't think a free society is compatible with an organisation like the NSA in its current form.'"

-IainB (July 28, 2013, 10:52 AM)

4527

Living Room / Re: Peer Review and the Scientific Process

« Last post by tomos on August 01, 2013, 05:57 AM »

The scientist was Linus Pauling, and you can read something about him here: The Vitamin Myth: Why We Think We Need Supplements

-IainB (August 01, 2013, 01:02 AM)

-
I'm only half way through the Atlantic article, but it is a real eye-opener! Haven't taken vitamins myself for donkeys years now, but that's not been from any kind of belief (or disbelief). I guess I do reckon though that if you want vitamin C, you could eat more brocoli (or whatever) ;-)

But still the medical research results continue to trickle in that seem to consistently indicate a relatively strong correlation between premature death from various causes (including heart disease and cancer) and the high-level consumption of vitamins. The mounting pile of evidence pointing to the conclusion that the high-level consumption of vitamins is not only ineffective in promoting health, but also potentially harmful seems irrefutable.

-IainB (August 01, 2013, 01:02 AM)

-
I was wondering was that anecdotal but it seem to have been shown in tests according to the article. Unfortunately info is given about these is incomplete. I see the article is an excerpt from a book. May be more info there. Maybe not. I'm presuming The Atlantic checked out his sources...

In 2007, researchers from the National Cancer Institute examined 11,000 men who did or didn't take multivitamins. Those who took multivitamins were twice as likely to die from advanced prostate cancer.

-
this I found not so convincing. It could be another factor related to the 'type' of person who tends to take vitamins. Are they 'worriers'? More stressed? Different lifestyles?

========

Would be an interesting scenario if vitamins ended up getting a health warning like with cigarettes.

4528

Living Room / Re: Uncommon snapshots of home

« Last post by tomos on August 01, 2013, 05:37 AM »

Is it a spoiler if I add an image?

4529

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by tomos on July 31, 2013, 05:08 PM »

^FWIW, my small experience with 80x80 fans has been *very* noisy.
Maybe there are quiet ones out there?

4530

Living Room / Re: Worth Reading: Trevor Pott's editorial on NSA PRISM and its real ramifications

« Last post by tomos on July 31, 2013, 12:20 PM »

Quote from: barney on Today at 07:00:11
If we have allowed PRISM, et. al., there are naught to blame but ourselves. /quote

I have a *real* problem with that statement.

-wraith808 (July 31, 2013, 09:08 AM)

Spoiler

I think the "we get the government we deserve" bit is like the bigger picture. I'd phrase it differently myself:
the government do what they sense they'll get away with - sometimes they're wrong, but mostly they get that "what'll we get away with" bit down fairly well.

To me that view can exist quite comfortably with the idea that individuals are responsible for their actions. Which brings us back to the people - the politicians etc will only be held responsible for their actions when the general populace start thinking:
- "hey, that's not on - you cant get away with that "

4531

Living Room / Re: Worth Reading: Trevor Pott's editorial on NSA PRISM and its real ramifications

« Last post by tomos on July 30, 2013, 08:46 AM »

dont escalate! dont escalate!

- it's been an interesting few posts btw.

4532

Living Room / Re: Infographic of Internet Usage Every 60 Seconds

« Last post by tomos on July 30, 2013, 08:41 AM »

Interesting.

Spotify seems to be in a different league to the others - 14 new songs added - I guess it adds up over the day, but it might have been more impressive to list the number of users...

4533

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

« Last post by tomos on July 30, 2013, 03:33 AM »

The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello:

-panzer (July 30, 2013, 02:36 AM)

FTFY :-)

nice to see this thread rolling again

4534

Living Room / Re: Movies or films you've seen lately

« Last post by tomos on July 29, 2013, 10:17 AM »

French film, Paulette

Paulette lives alone in a housing project in the Paris suburbs. With her meager pension, she can no longer make ends meet.

-
about a grandmother who manages to go into business with the local dope dealer ("hasheesh, hash, ganga, sheet").
All good clean fun really. (Honestly!)
(Oh yeah, dont watch the trailer if you're planning on watching the film, it shows too much of the story.)

4535

Living Room / Re: did you ever throw your back out?

« Last post by tomos on July 28, 2013, 06:21 AM »

Besides -
I am impressed how this Gokhale woman has applied some small rubber pieces to the cover of a $60 office chair, and is now selling it for $560... http://gokhalemethod.com/chair
 

-Curt (July 28, 2013, 06:16 AM)

hah, you'd have a good laugh if you saw my current chair. It's an old flat bottomed timber chair with one arm ripped off of it. I dont used the arms or the back anyway (I sit upright - I just ripped the one arm out to make it easier to sit down in the thing.)

4536

Living Room / Re: Prim Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome (techcrunch.com)

« Last post by tomos on July 28, 2013, 05:12 AM »

"ironing" - what's that

4537

General Software Discussion / Re: Dopus 10 : Some question about it.

« Last post by tomos on July 28, 2013, 05:04 AM »

^thanks for that tip 4wd - I've missed that.

Probably because you turned it off

-4wd (July 28, 2013, 02:56 AM)

on two different installs seems odd/unlikely - especially because when I installed it on my laptop (relatively recently), I decided to go for default settings/toolbars etc so I didnt mess around with anything. I might try a portable install when I have time and see what happens there.

4538

Living Room / Re: did you ever throw your back out?

« Last post by tomos on July 28, 2013, 02:38 AM »

My back used to go out about once a year - often so badly I'd have to spend a couple of days in bed. I've never been sporty so I guess the combination of that and sitting so much at the computer didnt help. I think it was Kfitting here that recommended learning the Gokhale method (dc search if you want more info). That was 4 or 5 years ago now - since then I've had no problems. I've been occasionally doing very hard physical work, e.g. 8 hours garden work in one day this week. The fact I can do that kind of hard physical work just occasionally and 'get away with it' (keeping in mind the non-sportyness, and the mostly at the computer lifestyle) is the best testimonial I could give for any back I think ;-)

FWIW/edit

I think, because of my enthusiasm, some people think I'm spamming or being spammy when I post about this. I realise that peoples wariness increases in direct proportion to enthusiasm shown, but there you go - this one was a life changer for me, so I get enthusiastic :p
Be warned as well - I *will* post about this again (or link to this) in response to any future complaints about back pain. Take it or leave it ;-)

4539

General Software Discussion / Re: Dopus 10 : Some question about it.

« Last post by tomos on July 28, 2013, 02:14 AM »

right-click outside of a button (can be tricky on hi-res or small screen),

-hulkbuster (July 27, 2013, 09:45 PM)

Hold down the ALT key and left click on a button.

-4wd (July 28, 2013, 12:33 AM)

that hasn't worked for me since upgrading to Dopus 10 - I presumed they had disabled it for some reason - does it still work there?

(I'm on Win7 & Win8 64bit)

4540

General Software Discussion / Re: Dopus 10 : Some question about it.

« Last post by tomos on July 27, 2013, 04:21 PM »

Hello again, thought i would continue with my question and answer session about Dopus in an old thread rather then creating one, at the moment i am using  DOpus 10.5, and i want to switch between tab that was created by using the Hotkey Ctrl+T,  does anyone know the hotkeys to"

• please see the snapshot below: could i remove the FTP button and Favourite button from the toolbar.

(see attachment in previous post)Awaiting some suggestions.

-hulkbuster (July 27, 2013, 12:51 PM)

hi hulkbuster
to change between tabs in one pane, use Ctrl+Arrowkeys (Left/Right)
to change focus between panes - Ctrl+Tabkey

To remove buttons from toolbar:
right-click outside of a button (can be tricky on hi-res or small screen), click on customise - a dialogue opens. Drag the button you want to remove onto the dialogue. That should remove it. (I'm sure you can also reach this dialogue via the menu but forget how.)

4541

Living Room / Re: Interesting Amazon MP3 development

« Last post by tomos on July 26, 2013, 10:37 AM »

Got a mail today from Amazon.de offering downloads of two CD's I bought at Christmas (last time I bought new CD's).
All mp3's I have bought from Amazon were also available for download/playing.

I *had* to use/update Amazon mp3 downloader (booh!)

Otherwise I'm happy.
It might encourage me to buy more new CD's (I tend to buy second-hand, or mp3's).

4542

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

« Last post by tomos on July 26, 2013, 10:24 AM »

^sounds great!

And while everybody's in an acoustic mood, here's a guy who changed my mind on neo-classical fingerpicking...
Ewan Dobson

Time 2 - Did he just play trance music on a guitar?

-Edvard (April 07, 2011, 12:42 PM)

I knew I recognised that hat
... and that track still sounds really good

4543

General Software Discussion / Re: Are you going to wait for Windows 9?

« Last post by tomos on July 24, 2013, 12:07 PM »

Darwin: "I really don't see a difference between 7 and 8 other than the start menu."
tomos: "I'm only using the desktop in Win8"

My first question to tomos is: "the desktop", as opposed to the start menu?

The subject makes me uncertain because the desktop is one thing I never use. But you may of course not be the right person to ask for advice because of your anti-Explorer attitude... hehe...

-Curt (July 24, 2013, 11:50 AM)

Sorry Curt - I need to clarify there:
by "desktop" - I mean the OS as we know it from Win7 (and XP) i.e. working with the OS and avoiding the touch-screen world of "the tiles". It works out slower for me than Win7 and I get annoyed by it, so it's not conducive to work for me.
YMMV!

Re hardware, I've read that Win8 will work better than Win7 on less powerful hardware (I dont know anything about driver for older hardware though).

Re explorer - they've changed it a lot, but yeah, I dont use it so cant really comment :-) (note it's now called File Explorer).

4544

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by tomos on July 24, 2013, 10:35 AM »

Re Germany and Snowden / NSA / etc.
There's a lot of questions being asked in Germany - there's supposed to be an official statement today or tomorrow (sorry forget which) but I dont have great expectations.

here's a good summary via Reddit (Snowden Gets Whistleblower Award in Germany)

Spoiler

[–]prollyjustsomeweirdo 728 points 20 hours ago

People here need to realize that this is not a government sponsored award. Germany didn't "give him" this award, he gets it in Germany.

The irony of this is not lost on me though. He would be put in chains the moment he tried to receive this award in person.


[–]ademnus 30 points 17 hours ago

especially because it just came out in the wash that germany partnered with the US to spy on german citizens too.


[–]grimhowe 4 points 14 hours ago

Wow, i hadnt heard. Dudnt Germany 'demand answers' from Obama in regards to the spying of the US on german citizens shortly after the NSA thing,

Goes to show ..


[–]ademnus 15 points 14 hours ago

they did and then the truth came out. oops!


[–]prollyjustsomeweirdo 5 points 5 hours ago

Yeah we did, it was hilarious. Our minister of the interior went to Washington to "demand answers". Obama basically told him "Just because, now go back home" and he did. Said afterwards his trip was a success and he now understands why PRISM is awesome, and every other citizen should too.


[–]underwaterlove 13 points 11 hours ago

Well, it's not like Germany is a single entity with a single mind. It's quite possible that those who didn't know were genuinely upset and really wanted to know what was going on, while those in the know just played along, pretended they didn't know anything either and hoped it'd just blow over.


[–]ClownWithCrown 4 points 7 hours ago

We have different political parties you know?


[–]Asyx 10 points 13 hours ago*

The opposition did. Merkel was quiet. We now know why...


[–]nyando 3 points 6 hours ago

The thing is, when this whole shebang started out, the opposition parties were actually in power. So they definitely knew about this.


[–]FormalyKnownAsFury12 2 points 3 hours ago

It is still debated whether the cabinet/chancellor knew about this (allthough it seems very likely). However, there is pretty decisive evidence that the BND (german intelligence agency) has been cooperating with the NSA ever since 1962.

4545

General Software Discussion / Re: Are you going to wait for Windows 9?

« Last post by tomos on July 24, 2013, 10:04 AM »

^I wonder how long win7 support is - let's see ... extended support till 2020. Gives me time to think about alternatives and prepare.

The new UI side of Win8 is aimed at tablets and as such should, I think, be compared with whatever it is they have on iPads and the relevant Androids. That's a world I know nothing about so I cant comment.

-tomos (November 21, 2012, 05:32 AM)

Okay, so how about comparing it to Win7 then? Are the "minor" annoyances you mention outweighed by some major benefit (for Win7 desktop users - or even XP users who may want to choose between Win7 and Win8)?

-dr_andus (November 21, 2012, 09:02 AM)

FWIW I'll answer this again - the "minor" annoyances were big enough in the end for me to stop using Win 8 for work with images. I usually tweak a windows install and add a share of software, but Windows 8 requires so much tweaking to make it usable in a desktop scenario (again, with images) that I just could not be bothered.

(My last answer was:)

Spoiler

Okay, so how about comparing it to Win7 then? Are the "minor" annoyances you mention outweighed by some major benefit (for Win7 desktop users - or even XP users who may want to choose between Win7 and Win8)?

-dr_andus (November 21, 2012, 09:02 AM)

I cant say yet - I've only been messing around with it for a week - not using it that much.
I dont use 'the tiles' at all (I'm mostly not even online with the thing so most of those apps are useless to me).

Advantages for me:
I can easily change languages for the complete system.
AV works out of the box - there's been no nagging (some people might consider this a weakness e.g. for basic users)
Task Manager is more than enough for me - in win7 I use process explorer.

(Percieved or real) Disadvantages can mostly be overcome (see my Win8 Tips thread).

Otherwise I'd say it's very similar to Win 7. There's still going to be a learning curve though.
To be honest, if I had to get a new desktop right now, I'd go for windows 7.
But in a couple of months my answer would probably be different.

-tomos (November 21, 2012, 02:16 PM)

4546

Screenshot Captor / Re: Screenshot Captor and DCUpdater Problem

« Last post by tomos on July 24, 2013, 09:39 AM »

DCUpdater stopped updating my DC apps a while ago - not sure exactly when it stopped. Apparently it was after one of the fairly recent SSC updates.  When it finally did appear on my screen with an update a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that there is a new setting for it right on the main screen: it says to only look for updates to Screenshot Captor with a checkbox next to it, and the checkbox is always selected. (I have deselected it several times but it is always checked again when I take a look.) When I first found it and deselected it DCUpdater found a slew of updates that I was missing!

-J-Mac (July 19, 2013, 12:16 PM)

if you start dcupdater from a particular programme it will only search for updates only for that app. AFAIK this has always been the case. So, I guess the question is how it appeared on your screen?
My experience (see link below) was that it had stopped working for at least a couple of months - I presume it's still broken, but dont know for sure...

DCUpdater stopped updating my DC apps a while ago - not sure exactly when it stopped.

-J-Mac (July 19, 2013, 12:16 PM)

related -
DCupdater no longer checking for updates (I think)

4547

Screenshot Captor / Re: [SOLVED] SC Post-capture dialog - default response to Enter key

« Last post by tomos on July 19, 2013, 08:36 AM »

I will however, add an option that says what Enter should do (save+hide vs save+show).

-mouser (July 19, 2013, 07:19 AM)

great - that will make life even easier

4548

Screenshot Captor / Re: [SOLVED] SC Post-capture dialog - default response to Enter key

« Last post by tomos on July 19, 2013, 05:17 AM »

Found the solution:

I see from this thread that the Altkey works.
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=35233.0

So I can fill in the new filename and press Alt+e and the dialogue will disapper.

4549

Screenshot Captor / [SOLVED] SC Post-capture dialog - default response to Enter key

« Last post by tomos on July 19, 2013, 05:09 AM »

I've started using the very helpful "Overide filename" in the post-capture dialogue.

I fill in my filename, if I then press enter -
the SC window opens with the image.

No biggee, but I'm wondering is there a way to get it to save the image but *not* open the SC window (when I press the Enter key)?

4550

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Screenshot Captor Review

« Last post by tomos on July 19, 2013, 04:13 AM »

^I believe larger fonts in options was requested by someone lately.
Are you using larger font size in your display or is it just standard classic theme?

You posted in the wrong board, but I'm sure the author will see it eventually & comment.