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5201
Living Room / Re: Shit Apple Fanatics Say
« Last post by 40hz on September 13, 2012, 03:57 PM »
It is a cult. Here's an recent example (link to full article here).

I took the liberty of bolding some of the more "religious" passages... ;D


The iPhone 5 is without a doubt the best telephone on the market yet everyone seems to be completely underwhelmed by it. This has very little to do with the device itself and more to do with the expectations we hold for it. When the iPhone was introduced in 2007, the most sophisticated smartphones were Blackberrys and Treos. It was a touch screen god-send to a world of Motorola RAZR flip phones. It was truly something that had never been seen before. At that point, Apple made it clear they were eight to ten years ahead of any competitor. But that gap has leveled in the last five years. While Apple continues to make the best phone on the market, with the best application community behind it, we’re no longer seeing quantum leaps in their products’ abilities.

Maybe it’s because Jobs is gone. But the iPhone 3G was barely a step up from the original. And the iPhone 3GS was essentially the same device as the iPhone 3G. It was only the iPhone 4 that ushered in a new kind of design sense and internal components to follow. When people complain that the new iPhone isn’t better than the older versions, they really mean to say “It doesn’t look that different. How could it be any better?”

My iPhone is the product I interact the most regularly and intimately with. It exists with my person. The only thing that could challenge it for time in contact is my wallet and I spend a lot less time interacting with that. Before my current iPhone, I had my original iPhone for three years. I refused to let go of it in favor of newer models because the plastic build of the 3G and the 3GS felt cheap and reductive of the personal interaction implicit in the phone/phone-owner relationship. My original iPhone felt right in my hand. The anodized aluminum backing wore where my hands touched it until it was smooth. It is that type of connection between person and product that is seldom possible. In fact, I fear it’s something so rare that to someone who hasn’t owned an iPhone, iPad, or other Apple product the language I used to describe such a bond seems downright silly. The point: the iPhone 5 has—for lack of a more accurate metaphor—soul. And it’s soul is found in the painstaking engineering and design that went into the product. No company but Apple can manufacture something that carries so much life.

The iPhone 5 won’t make your draw drop. It does not present itself like alien technology as the original iPhone did five years ago. It is, however, the best phone on the market for the soul, precision, and standard of excellence it embodies.


This is the typical Apple fanbois speil.

Not impressed by an Apple product? That's your fault because you're either stupid (because you're not an Apple customer) or a jaded ingrate (if you are an Apple customer)!

Beginning to doubt the hype? Well...that may be because the demigod Steven Jobs no longer dwells among us mere mortals. So we must expect mistakes to be made now that our lives and destiny are no longer safe in Steve's almighty hands. (This is a favorite fallback whenever some criticism is so glaringly obvious that it's impossible to just wave it away.)

Having problems with that weird erotic/sexual subtext you keep getting? Well, it's obvious you've never had a real relationship with anything or anybody, which makes it obvious you lack sufficient "soul" and maturity to be able to understand. So piss off!

Oh lordy, lordy, lordy...why do we continue to listen to these people? ;D
5202
Living Room / Windows 8 Pro will now include option to downgrade to Windows 7
« Last post by 40hz on September 13, 2012, 03:35 PM »
From the Department of "So Much for Doubling Down" comes this bit of news as reported by PC World and several other sites:

Microsoft Will Allow Downgrades From Windows 8 to Windows 7 , Vista
By Gregg Keizer, Computerworld   

Microsoft will allow users of Windows 8 Pro to downgrade their new PCs to Windows 7 or even Vista, according to the operating system's licensing agreement.

Not surprisingly, users may not downgrade to the still-used-but-slated-for-retirement Windows XP.

Downgrade rights -- which let customers replace a newer version of Windows with an older edition without paying for two copies -- are available only in Windows 8 Pro. That fits with previous practice: Only Windows 7 Professional, for instance, was allocated downgrade rights.

"Instead of using the Windows 8 Pro software, you may use one of the following earlier versions: Windows 7 Professional or Windows Vista Business," states the software license agreement for the version of Windows 8 Pro that will be installed by computer makers (OEMs) on new PCs.

<Read full article here>

It's interesting that PC sales have tanked disastrously in the last six months for many computer manufacturers. And that despite the fact that server and network device sales have increased significantly.  Much of the loss of PC revenue has been blamed on tablets and smartphone sales. But I wonder if that's the whole - or more significant reason.

In the past,  the introduction of a new version of Windows has generally been counted on to boost PC sales. This time around however, I wonder if there is enough concern (especially in business circles) that corporate buyers are hesitant to commit to larger numbers of PC purchases out of concern for potential productivity issues that might be introduced by Microsoft's new dream child?

I can't speak for all businesses, but I've installed the Windows 8 Release Preview on some laptops and ran it past a few of my clients. I did not hear one positive thing said about it by any of them. About the best reaction it got was a worried "I guess we'll have to see" that was immediately followed by a concerned "How soon did you say this is gonna be Windows?" And most reactions to the Metro front end ranged from negative to unprintable.

However, now that it's official you can downgrade, it will be interesting to see if desktop PC sales start making a recovery. Obviously they'll never return to their former level of sales now that so many niche alternatives are available. But it is interesting that the drop was so precipitous that several (usually) savvy PC manufacturers were caught completely off guard by it.

If you're in IT, it's gonna be a "fun" Fall, that's for sure. :-\


5203
Living Room / Re: NSA Whistleblower interesting technical details
« Last post by 40hz on September 13, 2012, 11:58 AM »
^Likely that's a variation of the Coventry gambit.

But the goal of this sort of thing isn't to prevent crime. It's to protect the security and secrecy of certain entrenched political interests.

Like Hoover said, justice is incidental to enforcing law and order. So is fighting crime since people who are victimized by criminals provide the convenient benefit of demanding more restrictive laws and a larger police presence to enforce them.

To those who pull strings, ongoing violent crime is a win-win. Especially for the proponents of expanded government authority.
5204
@Steven - not so much "seems" as does make you do a lot more.  I use Keypass and it's Linux cousin. And you are absolutely correct. Getting auto entry to work is a fiddly exercise at best. And occasionally it's also study in frustration since it sometimes "just won't work" with some websites, no matter what you do.

That said, I still prefer it I over anything that stores passwords to somebody else's servers. But I'm the " wears suspenders AND a belt" type when it comes to passwords.
 :)
5205
Living Room / Re: Write until you pass out!?
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 10:28 PM »
Not that I haven't courted disaster more than once...
That's something to a void.

What an abyss-mal pun that was!!!




Miles has just fireed his opening valley...
5206
Living Room / Re: Write until you pass out!?
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 05:29 PM »
Of course there's some things I've read that made me wish more that the authors had passed out before they had written.

5207
Living Room / Re: NSA Whistleblower interesting technical details
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 05:24 PM »
Wow! Can you believe they did that? :tellme:

Seriously however, that's the real problem with surveillance technologies. They're addictive and they beg to be used. Sad when the people who have sworn an oath to protect the United States of America and all that it stands for have probably done more in the last 20 years to undermine it than the efforts of any "Evil Empire" ever did.

But that's what happens when the paranoia and political ideologies of some in power no longer allows them to see the fundamental difference between acts of patriotism and acts of treason. And once such people adopt the premise that "the ends justify the means," there can no longer be any difference.


5208
Living Room / Re: 1080p playback: hardware discussion
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 05:03 PM »
I know it sounds like overkill, but I need a full desktop pc if I'm going to do experiments.

It does not sound like overkill at all to me. If you're conducting experiments, and you're not able to run virtual machines, you're creating a lot more work and expense for yourself than you need to. And you can't do something like VMs or serious multitasking on most singleboard computers.
 8)
5209
Living Room / Re: 1080p playback: hardware discussion
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 03:38 PM »
How about XBMC on a Raspberry Pi?

The MPEG-2 license will only cost an additional $3.79. And the VC-1 codec costs $1.90. And that's for registered fully legal use. Read more here.


I plan on running OpenELEC on mine - if I ever get it. :-\
5210
Living Room / Re: Trick-or-treat caramel onions
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 03:31 PM »
Well, I used to cook steak with carmelised onions (fry onions with a little sugar till they brown).
Onions are quite sweet when cooked, so why not go the whole hog and do caramel ones -
I'd try them :-*

Agree. Sounds like it should work! :Thmbsup:
5211
Living Room / Re: Write until you pass out!?
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 03:13 PM »
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said it best when he told one hapless attorney: "This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice."

Don't look to the courts for justice. It's not what they do.

Then there's this:

Justice is incidental to law and order.  ~J. Edgar Hoover

Hmm...

Apparently it's not what the Judicial Branch thinks it does either.
5212
Living Room / Re: Trick-or-treat caramel onions
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 02:30 PM »
I think I want to try one of those. What type of onion do they use? :P

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

My town pretty much killed the practice of door-to-door 'trick or treating.' The town now throws parties at the schools for the kids.

That's hilarious. It's both a trick AND a treat! But when I was a kid my mom made me throw away anything that wasn't still in it's original wrapping. If it wasn't wrapped, it went in the trash.

candyApple_oneDone.jpg

Pretty much the rule in my house too except we were allowed to keep things like red candy apples (which were the Holy Grail of Halloween treats!) or some of those little mixed treat bags, provided we and our parents "knew" the neighbors who gave them to us. And since everybody knew everybody around where I lived, we got to keep most of what we collected - as long as we stayed in the immediate neighborhood.


Note: it was a disaster of near biblical proportions when the neighborhood grandmother "old Mrs. Blier" finally turned 70 and moved down to N. Carolina to live with her daughter and son-in-law. That was the end of red candy apples on Halloween in my neighborhood. She was one sweet lady. She used to do an 'open house' for the kids on Halloween. She provided treats, hot cider, a bathroom to use so you didn't need to go back home to use one. It was like a Halloween homebase for us. And she made these fantastic (extra-cinnamon!) red candy apples. Sometimes (if she thought the other kids weren't looking) she'd slip an extra candy apple into your bag - always with a wink and an admonishment not to "say anything about it" to the other kids. However, truth was, almost all of us ended up getting a second apple that way before the night was over.  ;D

Halloween just wasn't the same once she was gone. :(



5213
Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: SilverNote
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 11:38 AM »
@adamc - Thx! That answered my question. Appreciate the quick reply too. 8)
5214
The baseboard "picket fence" idea was also pretty clever. Relatively easy to implement as a homebrew project too. But I'd skip the pointed tops and just go with a rounded or flat shape and put the wire slots more like 6"-8" (or 150-200 mm) apart.
 8)
5215
Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: SilverNote
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 10:37 AM »
40hz - There is an 80 notes per notebook limit with the free version and no limit with the premium version (and there's no limit on the number of notebooks with either version). The largest notebook that I routinely use has just over 2,000 notes (average about 2-3 pages each).

Understood. But what I was more interested in was the functional limits for the program. I worry because even though a database may not have a limit in theory, it must have one in reality. Usually it's a limitation of the underlying 'engine' rather than the amount of RAM these days.

So what I was more concerned about was encountering a situation like Microsoft had with some versions of Outlook where if your PST filesize went a little over 1.2 Gb (not hard to do if you saved a lot of messages with attached PDFs), it became inaccessible because Outlook could no longer handle it.

The real problem wasn't so much the filesize limits as the fact Outlook gave no warning nor did it gracefully degrade. You went from "working" to "broken" in one fell swoop. And the data 'recovery' process suggested by Microsoft was a kludgey hack and a royal pain to go through even when it did work. (And it didn't always.)

So that's why I was wondering about absolute file sizes. :)
5216
Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 10:17 AM »
^I've been dorking with Que's WordPress In Depth the last few weeks.

Be forewarned - it isn't.

I'd call it more like "WordPress for the clueless." And I'm very disappointed since most of the In Depth titles have been quite good in the past.

This book feels disorganized. But that may well be because WordPress itself is rather disorganized - besides being mostly written in pHp - which (from my admittedly limited experience with it so far) has to be the single most sloppy, poorly implemented, and sprawling of any scripting language.

There's nothing in this book you couldn't get by looking around online or reading the official Codex.

Not recommended. :down:
5217
General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 15 less of a memory hog
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 09:20 AM »
^I'm seeing a lot of exactly that on YouTube pages.
5218
Living Room / Re: Raspberry Pi's $35 Linux PC
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 09:18 AM »
^I've been given to understand Cthulhu sits on that school's Board of Trustees. :tellme:

CthRP.jpg

5219
I'd like to see that "plug with a hole" concept become more popular. :Thmbsup:
5220
Living Room / Re: Raspberry Pi's $35 Linux PC
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 08:56 AM »
Ok...something I've been waiting to see happen has happened!

They have built a supercomputer out of Lego blocks and 64 Raspberry Pi boards. It has a total of 1TB of RAM (via 16Gb SD cards installed on each Raspberry Pi); and it runs on standard AC mains power. Cost is about $2500 for the hardware. All software was obtained from F/OSS sources.

Awesome!

You can read more about it on the phys.org website. Link to the full article here.

rPiSuper1.jpg
Professor Cox and his son James with the Raspberry Pi supercomputer


Engineers build Raspberry Pi supercomputer
September 11, 2012

(Phys.org)—Computational Engineers at the University of Southampton have built a supercomputer from 64 Raspberry Pi computers and Lego.

The team, led by Professor Simon Cox, consisted of Richard Boardman, Andy Everett, Steven Johnston, Gereon Kaiping, Neil O'Brien, Mark Scott and Oz Parchment, along with Professor Cox's son James Cox (aged 6) who provided specialist support on Lego and system testing.

Professor Cox comments: "As soon as we were able to source sufficient Raspberry Pi computers we wanted to see if it was possible to link them together into a supercomputer. We installed and built all of the necessary software on the Pi starting from a standard Debian Wheezy system image and we have published a guide so you can build your own supercomputer."
.
.
.
< Read the rest of this article here.>

As was noted in the above article, Professor Cox was also good enough to provide full details (available online or via PDF download) so you can roll your own if you're feeling ambitious.

I don't know what's more impressive: the fact they built this thing - or that they were able to score 64 Raspberry Pi boards to do it!

(I'm still waiting for the one board I ordered.  :P)
5221
Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: SilverNote
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 05:33 AM »
@adamc - first up, welcome to Donation Coder. I think you're going to like it here. :Thmbsup:

Second, out of curiosity, have you tested for the maximum file size (or number of items) for a notebook? And if so, what is it? I ask because I sometimes need to assemble very large data collections. So I always worry about lockups, file corruption, or getting frozen out of a collection if it inadvertently exceeds a program's limits.
 :)
5222
General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 15 less of a memory hog
« Last post by 40hz on September 12, 2012, 05:02 AM »
I'm having scrolling problems occasionally too - page freezes when scrolling with mouse wheel.

Same here. However, the other problem I mentioned previously regarding lock-ups when attempting to open new tabs seems to have mysteriously gone away. Weird...
5223
General Software Discussion / Re: School Regrets Swapping Laptops For iPads
« Last post by 40hz on September 11, 2012, 10:32 PM »
Wasn't meaning to be a boar…

You weren't. No ham done. ;)
5224
Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!
« Last post by 40hz on September 11, 2012, 09:15 PM »
first...the violin chick is hot and I want her to move in with me.

Gently... ;)

Some of the folks at CBN are like family to me. :)

5225
General Software Discussion / Re: School Regrets Swapping Laptops For iPads
« Last post by 40hz on September 11, 2012, 06:42 PM »
@ Chris - thanks for spotting my typo since I suspect you won't buy it as being my own coinage. ;D

I did type that on a smartphone which ties in very nicely with your earlier observation about rooms and keyholes. 8)

Oh yeah...I fixed it too, ok? ;)
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