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5051

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MS Office 2013 US$9.95 Corporate/Enterprise Home Use Program - Mini-Review

« Last post by wraith808 on January 28, 2014, 05:27 PM »

Actually, a lot of the features that he's talking about from Word 2013 were in Word 2010.  I tried it for a while, then after trying it, tried to fix the fact that I didn't want the huge monolithic document and give back my corkboard which I missed by utilizing writing outliner (excellent tool, BTW if you're going with this).  But in the end, I'm back to Scrivener.

5052

General Software Discussion / Re: Group two windows so they get focus together. Possible?

« Last post by wraith808 on January 28, 2014, 05:24 PM »

Looks kind of interesting.  Have you much experience with it?

-MilesAhead (January 28, 2014, 04:23 PM)

I tried it briefly, but it didn't work in the context that I wanted to use it

FWIW I was running a screen scraper into excel so I wanted to group excel, the source app, and the bot in one window, but, for whatever reason, when I dragged the apps onto the task space the bot could no longer see the target app...

That said, I didn't really give it much time (I didn't really have it to spare) but I had intended to come back to it as there were a few combinations I could try...

-Target (January 28, 2014, 05:10 PM)

Probably because it parents the window to the taskspace window, and the bot is looking for that window as a top-level window.  But still a pretty cool app- thanks for the info for my needs

5053

General Software Discussion / Re: SkyDrive no more, it's now OneDrive!

« Last post by wraith808 on January 28, 2014, 01:02 PM »

Either. 

5054

DC Gamer Club / GOG Running DRM-Free Time Machine Sale

« Last post by wraith808 on January 28, 2014, 11:07 AM »

DRM Free Time Machine Sale

Starting at 1983, GoG is going through the years with one highlight of that year (well, since some are in bundles, they're wonky... seemed to be based on an average).

To add to the fun of the sale, each game has a +1/-1 sec and you can vote whether to make the time it's available longer or shorter.  You also vote with your money; each buy increases the time it's available on sale by 3 seconds.

GoG's been having some decent DRM-free discount goodness lately with fun little gimmicks on top of them.

5055

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for iTunes alternative (WMP? or other?)

« Last post by wraith808 on January 27, 2014, 12:29 PM »

Paid- I purchased the lifetime gold version.  Not sure if things have changed since the review, but it asked me before it did any of what the reviewer describes.  It doesn't ask me on subsequent startups as it refreshes what is available and what is not.  But on install, it did ask, and even asked for what paths I wanted to include.

5056

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for iTunes alternative (WMP? or other?)

« Last post by wraith808 on January 27, 2014, 11:11 AM »

As an alternative to music bee there is mediamonkey.  I've been making use of it with no problems for a while.

5057

N.A.N.Y. 2014 / Re: NANY 2014 Release - epCheck

« Last post by wraith808 on January 26, 2014, 11:11 AM »

probably.  basically you're using it for a plain-text database if you strip it down... so a separate file from the configurations would seem to be the right way to go imo.

5058

Living Room / Re: NSA restraints? Yes we can! (not)

« Last post by wraith808 on January 26, 2014, 01:27 AM »

Yes, I think there is the implied assumption that nothing is being done...when perhaps something is, but it just isn't evident on this board.

5059

General Software Discussion / Re: Google Chrome: Time for a Second Chance?

« Last post by wraith808 on January 25, 2014, 01:02 AM »

Posted here quite a bit ago, but there wasn't much uproar over it on DC.

5060

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by wraith808 on January 24, 2014, 03:39 PM »

Ah... I get it.  But from a philosophical standpoint, if it's worth it, is it waste?    But yes, I get your meaning.  There is waste in the process, and cutting that would be better, as it would be the waste in burning fossil fuels in automotives and such, with the greenhouse emissions and reduction of those.

And to be sure... I'm not one of the real bitcoin advocates.  I just enjoy a good debate, especially about abstract ideas, especially when they intersect with technology, and was just enjoying myself as there's not been one of those around here in a while.  And I do see the benefit from that level, especially in terms of fiat and who holds it.

5061

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by wraith808 on January 24, 2014, 08:22 AM »

You're deliberately missing the point. I claim that gold has a value regardless of the assumption of it being a medium of exchange. Bitcoin hashes do not have that VALUE REGARDLESS OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THEM BEING A MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE. See the phrase "in and of itself".

Anyway, this is slowly evolving into a flame war, and I don't want to be a jerk (I feel I will be in my next post, if I'm not already). So I won't reply anymore.

-eleman (January 24, 2014, 07:22 AM)

I wasn't deliberately missing the point- I was debating the merits of your argument.  Gold does have productive value, as I conceded.  But it's *worth* isn't directly proportional to that value, nor based on it.  It's based on, as you put it, the value of it being shiny, more than that productive value, which skews the argument towards it being more like bitcoin than not.  10% goes towards production- is that correlative to the amount of energy put into mining it?  Not at 10%.  If correlated, there would be a lesser demand, and a lesser investment of industry towards mining it.  I also didn't intend any flame war- it wasn't devolving into such on my side.  I do apologize if you viewed it that way, and if I said anything that you construed as being towards you instead of your argument (it doesn't seem that I did... but then that is, I guess subjective).

Thanks for the conversation.

when I replied there I didnt realise that was still your main focus. It is unfortunate that there is this waste involved. It would have been great it it could have been doing something useful. But that's not the case - and cannot be changed in retrospect. And I dont think it's going to stop the forward march of bitcoin.

-tomos (January 24, 2014, 07:41 AM)

But is that waste?  It's providing a very real service, i.e. taking fiat out of the hands of the rich, and putting it into the hands of all of us.  That's not a waste to me. 

85 people have as much money as half the world

I strongly recommend that no matter where you stand on the issue, you actually read Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations). He knew and said that the top oligarchs were not "job creators" but rather would concentrate on "rent-seeking" which is not Capitalism. Supply Side "economics was a betrayal of Smith that ignored human nature and was never ever right. Jobs are created by small business and by high tech. Both of which across 6000 years were always crushed by owner-oligarchy.

Capitalism of the true, creative and open variety is one of the top VICTIMS of oligarchy. Read… Adam… Smith...

... but that's getting out of the technological aspects of Bitcoin, so I'm going to stop right there.

5062

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by wraith808 on January 24, 2014, 07:13 AM »

Well, I'd also raise the same argument against the dollar, or peso, or lira, or euro, whatever, if it did needlessly contribute to global warming. Sure they do (dead trees), but not at the scale applicable to bitcoin mining I reckon.

-eleman (January 24, 2014, 06:46 AM)

But they do.  Maybe not as directly... but they do.  It's *all* digital these days, truth be told.  The paper money that we hold is just a representation of digital systems in place, especially in this day and age of fractional reserve banking, quantitative easing, and creative accounting.

So why should bitcoin be held to a different standard?  It's value is in the same thing as all of our other digital banking and such- in the reliability of the transactional data and the ability to conduct those transactions with a measure of security.

You keep harping on how gold has intrinsic value based on the shine, i.e. from your last post:

I wouldn't discount the shine as a source of value. Value is defined as the likelihood to get something else in return. I could imagine shiny rocks buying services to some caveman in a cave bordello. In other words you could use it in barter, even before the invention of money. I can't imagine that for random strings of numbers.

-eleman (January 24, 2014, 03:44 AM)

But now you've gotten yourself in a logical hole.  Just because you can't imagine cryptographic strings being worth much- apparently many others can.  And as such, by your definition, doesn't that give it 'intrinsic value'?  After all, people want it, right?

5063

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by wraith808 on January 24, 2014, 12:46 AM »

Just because someone is attracted to something doesn't define an intrinsic value.  I think intrinsic value is pretty much universally taken to be characterized in terms of the value that something has “in itself,” or “for its own sake,” or “as such,” or “in its own right.”  Gold has no value in and of itself, other than as you say as a shiny bauble.  Therefore, gold has no intrinsic value.

The concept of the intrinsic value of gold is more related to the belief that gold is a safe investment vehicle is based on the presumption that a rare shiny yellow metal has intangible value because it has been used as a store of value and a commodity currency in the past. While this holds today, that does not mean that in the future, gold will be regarded as a "precious metal."

With that in mind, the fundamental intrinsic value of gold, in my opinion, is equivalent to the demand for gold in productive applications.  Not as jewelry, but in production- the same yardstick that you are using in bitcoin vs. the electricity used.  While it is true, as you say, that gold can and is used in electronics, that is not the store placed on its value.  Indeed, if that was the only thing that gold was useful for, it would be as valuable as other metal materials used for the same purpose at the same rarity, especially as the reserve would be larger as jewelry applications would not compete with the use in productive applications.

As such, if you take away the perceived value because of shiny baubles, there is not much in the way of intrinsic value in gold.  It's value is what people see it as.

5064

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by wraith808 on January 23, 2014, 10:18 PM »

But it doesn't.

The other things we used to generate money, for instance mining gold, had an actual use other than just generating money. Actually, the original function of gold (making shiny things women like, using in alloys to make rust resistant weapons etc.) predated the use as legal tender.

This one doesn't have another function. You just burn electricity, and assure yourself that you'll be paid for it. No intrinsic purpose whatsoever.

-eleman (January 23, 2014, 09:42 PM)

Gold has no intrinsic value.  The only value is what people place on it.  When people mine gold, they use power for all sorts of things, under the assurance that they will be paid for it, out of the fact that people want it.

5065

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by wraith808 on January 23, 2014, 09:23 PM »

Anything we do that generates revenue in some way has a cost.  Why should this be any different?  What makes this the thing that makes power the consideration?

5066

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

« Last post by wraith808 on January 23, 2014, 01:59 PM »

^ Ok... thats funny.  Especially in context.  And it's cool that I get it now 

5067

Living Room / Re: NSA restraints? Yes we can! (not)

« Last post by wraith808 on January 23, 2014, 01:58 PM »

Perhaps so. But I'd rather die on my feet, than live on my knees. Because my generation wasn't taught to just give up and bend over on cue.

-Stoic Joker (January 23, 2014, 12:36 PM)

This.

-40hz (January 23, 2014, 01:35 PM)

Double this 

5068

Living Room / Re: BitCloud: BitCoin concepts applied to... everything else.

« Last post by wraith808 on January 22, 2014, 08:20 PM »

Cynically, I think that one of the reasons it worked before was that they weren't prepared.  Now?  It would be like trying the same sucker punch on the same person.

But... what about bitcloud? 

5069

Living Room / Re: BitCloud: BitCoin concepts applied to... everything else.

« Last post by wraith808 on January 22, 2014, 12:21 PM »

No...it's a nice idea. But as long as you're running on somebody else's physical backbone and closed hardware it'll never be your own private internet. This is a rearguard or short-term strategy at best.

-40hz (January 22, 2014, 11:39 AM)

Well, as I understand it, it works on a similar principle to the other BC uses that leverage the privacy of BC and the tenets, i.e. you know that communication has taken place, but not what communication, nor for what.  And yes, the bandwidth favors those that have high speed.  But doesn't BC in general favor those that have a lot of processing power?  This isn't a socialist view of the internet... just a more private one.

5070

Living Room / BitCloud: BitCoin concepts applied to... everything else.

« Last post by wraith808 on January 22, 2014, 10:46 AM »

Announced on Reddit with a project on GitHub, and reported on now by the Guardian, BitCloud is the attempt to replace a whole lot of what people use the internet for other than buying things with a shadow-internet equivalent.  Where BitCoin is based on proof of processing power spent, BitCloud will apparently be based on proof of bandwidth given to the network.  This is in the very early stages- so much so that no one is even sure what proof of bandwidth means.  But it's very interesting to follow...

[Draft document on GitHub]

5071

General Software Discussion / Re: What's thrashing my hard disk?

« Last post by wraith808 on January 21, 2014, 03:23 PM »

I'm still surprised to find it inside a Samsung, though.  I'd have expected them to use their own HDs.

-rjbull (January 21, 2014, 03:03 PM)

Even if they had their own assets, it would be a toss up as to what they use.  It's always been that way.

5072

Living Room / Re: AMC movie theater calls “federal agents” to arrest a Google Glass user

« Last post by wraith808 on January 21, 2014, 03:22 PM »

Actually, it's more than actionable.  They held him without advising him of his rights and questioned him.  Confiscated his equipment.  The manner of questioning for hours is also more than a little debatable.

It comes down to... do we have the rights that our forefathers set forth or not?

Against him is the fact that he didn't challenge them.  It takes balls to do, but when you're uncomfortable, you can request your equipment, refuse to let them search and take your equipment, and ask to walk away.  At the point when you force it back in their court and they're forced to actually do something, they make an actionable stand.  Otherwise they say the double-speak.

It's fear more than anything else- he theoretically had a recording device.  But it has very limited recording capacity, and the fidelity is such that it wouldn't even be useable.  In fact, most incidences of piracy are in house jobs, not the old sit in a movie theatre with a camera on your shoulder.  That wen't out long ago.

Once again, law enforcement is behind.  And being pushed by the MPAA.

5073

Living Room / AMC movie theater calls “federal agents” to arrest a Google Glass user

« Last post by wraith808 on January 21, 2014, 02:10 PM »

AMC movie theater calls “federal agents” to arrest a Google Glass user

FBI snatches Google Glass off the face of innocent AMC movie-goer

I do hope he takes legal action... though I know it will amount to nothing.

5074

Living Room / Re: Why George Orwell wrote 1984

« Last post by wraith808 on January 20, 2014, 11:58 PM »

Let America Be America Again

  by Langston Hughes   
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?
Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

Some people have always known... Orwell falls into that perceptive group, but is not alone.

5075

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

« Last post by wraith808 on January 20, 2014, 06:44 PM »

A "joint meeting"