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5376

Living Room / Re: new DVD "M-Disc" perfect for archive material

« Last post by Renegade on July 20, 2012, 06:13 AM »

I've always had good luck with LG drives.

5377

Living Room / Re: new DVD "M-Disc" perfect for archive material

« Last post by Renegade on July 19, 2012, 05:56 PM »

If you're worried about archiving data for more than 20 years, I'd be as concerned about how available reader devices might be.  For example, even  if your old Iomega Zip disks still contain their data, it has probably already become a bit of a problem finding a working Zip drive. I wouldn't be surprised if it would be easier to find something to read an old 8 inch floppy.

Of course, DVD readers will probably be around for a much longer time than Zip drives, but it's still something to consider if you 're serious about long, long term archiving.

-mwb1100 (July 19, 2012, 04:14 PM)

Yeah, this is what is going to end up pushing us all grudgingly to the cloud, I'm afraid.

-daddydave (July 19, 2012, 04:29 PM)

Good points.

What was storage in 1992? Geez... It's been a while...

5378

Living Room / Re: Need Critique On This Image

« Last post by Renegade on July 19, 2012, 02:39 PM »

It is very "Hellish". It reminds me of the Venom album cover for "Possessed".

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Living Room / Re: new DVD "M-Disc" perfect for archive material

« Last post by Renegade on July 19, 2012, 01:59 PM »

I believe services like gmail/dropbox/rapidshare trumph CDs/DVDs for distribution purposes. If I distribute a piece of paper with a link or a QR code, people will be able to access it from their PC, phone or tablet without needing a DVD reader. 500MB is piece of cake these days.

What I would love to see is something like a data crystal from Star Trek. Something that is functional, you can carry it in your pocket AND is beautiful or stylish. Burned DVDs don't even work as presents, because they look cheap (compare them to a classic vinyl LPs!).

-vlastimil (July 19, 2012, 11:24 AM)

This is probably one of those areas where we'll never agree.

While I think that it is far better to distribute purely online with pieces of paper that have links (or whatever), they are not a substitute for giving someone data.

The fact is, the Internet sucks in a lot of places. I joke about the Internet here being the "Assie Shiternet" because I live in Australia, and the Internet is just total shit here (that may be an understatement ). Well, bandwidth blows, that is. It's pathetic. You can go to a third world country and get better speeds. I am NOT exaggerating. At all. There's a thread here with speeds where I posted speed from here (Australia) in a major city and from Viet Nam in a city in the middle of nowhere. No comparison. In a country where a heck of a lot of people make under $400 a year... they have better bandwidth... Sucks to be on an island in the middle of nowhere.

So distribution of data online is entirely at the mercy of bandwidth limitations. Not really much to debate there. Those are just facts.

When you have crap bandwidth, well, you have crap distribution, which makes physical media far superior in some cases. Not all, but some. If it's just a single web page, then it doesn't really matter too much. If it's a large amount of data... different story. And the limiting factor is still bandwidth.

But whether that's a CD, DVD, Blu-ray, NAND, isometricaltonic cubical crystal or whatever really doesn't matter. The point is that it's physical media that you can hand someone and that they can take it back home (or to the office) and use it with no reliance on bandwidth.

You also have the problem of reliability with online storage. You are at the mercy of your ISP, and then you are at the mercy of your service provider. I've been burned far too many times to underestimate the problems of networked data. Networked data is NOT reliable. A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush.


As for beauty... Yeah... No argument there. You can "print" optical media to make them presentable though. But it's an extra step and a PITA.

I'm with vlastimil, this is like planning for the future of a dead horse.


But I do have to wonder, what is the shelf-life expectancy (for cloudless offline storage) of the data on various other types of media?

-Stoic Joker (July 19, 2012, 12:47 PM)

Dude... from you? Seriously? I didn't expect that from you as you know networks really damn well. (Sorry -- had to razz you a bit there! )

For SSDs, it's damn good. 1~2 million hours MTBF. I know that from doing work for Samsung Semiconductor. They put that in their docs for enterprises, so they have to deliver on it. (That is all publicly available.)

I forget the Samsung NAND stats. Probably similar.

However, consider the cost between NAND/SSD/HDD and optical storage... Again, you can't beat optical storage for price for distribution.

Imagine you're out on a street corner (or trade show, or wherever) trying to convince every passer-by that <insert something here />, and you pass out either:

1) A pamphlet and storage media for interested folks
2) A pamphlet and nothing for interested folks

Where do you think you'll get better results? Physical media of course.





Now... about QR codes... It's a completely silly concept (qualified below). There's no way that anyone is going to be running around town and see some QR code and think to themselves, "Hey! I need to go and find out what that bizarre looking squiggly square is, then look for software than can decrypt it for me so that I can try and find some web site..." JFC... That's total insanity. QR can only work if it is pre-installed on all (or most) devices. Nobody cares about funky squares. They're meaningless wastes of space for most people. That is... Until it reaches past critical penetration, which it is very far from right now. (Yeah... I tend to piss on stuff early... I know...) But we've already seen this fail several times before. The QR code thing is just the new kid on the block, and he'll get his black eyes as well before long. (Unless there is serious industry intervention.)

That is, adding in an additional layer before people can get to the data is simply too much to ask. (Yes - I know what I just said, and the implications, but the installable software question is an entirely different level of commitment on the part of the recipient.)



Now, as for what I think I'd use? Different question. I use HDD for storage. It's far superior for what I need right now. No question at all there. Optical storage isn't comparable for what *I* need. However, I just burned an audio CD today for someone else, and it was good that I had CDs laying around and had a burner for it. I'd hate to spend $100 on a drive just to burn a bit of data... So there are times when CDs (or DVDs or whatever) prove useful.

Again, it's all about what you need and about how much you are prepared to pay. I'm not willing to pay $100 when I can pay less than $1.

5380

Living Room / Re: new DVD "M-Disc" perfect for archive material

« Last post by Renegade on July 19, 2012, 09:58 AM »

Have to wonder too if disc technology will die out completely as vlastimil says.

-tomos (July 19, 2012, 08:56 AM)

vlastimil has a very good point, but I think that's just one perspective, i.e. storage for personal use.

Like, who here wants to go out and buy an HDD so that you can put data on it and hand it to someone to keep?

Optical storage, or "mini-storage" (be it Flash/NAND/whatever), will always have a place because you can buy physically separated storage. While the total storage cost may be the same as for an HDD (or SSD or NAND), you have discrete pieces that you can hand out to people. e.g. Burn 20 discs then go to a meeting and hand them out to people, or whatever. The point being that you can distribute the physical media to different people.

So, again, it all boils down to what you want to do and what your specific needs are. Need a decent amount of storage like 2 TB? Get an external HDD. Need more? Get a NAS. Need to distribute 500 MB to 50 people? Get optical discs.

5381

Living Room / Re: new DVD "M-Disc" perfect for archive material

« Last post by Renegade on July 19, 2012, 07:22 AM »

Looks like you can get an M-Disc burner for $80 or so.

https://www.google.c...biw=1920&bih=870

Not too bad. Disks are around $4 each for 5, then $2.90 each for 25. Really, if you care in the least about your data, the small premium is worth it.

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Living Room / Re: new DVD "M-Disc" perfect for archive material

« Last post by Renegade on July 19, 2012, 05:51 AM »

WOW~! Nice find!

I really only burn for backups, and I always worry about degradation as it has happened to me far too many times. It's a pisser when you pick up a disk after so long, only to find that you can't read it.

5383

General Software Discussion / Re: How can a b/w photo's thumbnail be in colours?

« Last post by Renegade on July 19, 2012, 01:47 AM »

Imagine you're at home, getting out of the shower, and your spouse snaps a photo of you. While you don't want to post full frontal nudity of yourself, perhaps the facial expression is really funny, and you want to share that. So, you crop the photo and email or upload it...

Now, if the software didn't erase the stamp, you've just sent that original stamp of your naked body around. Not good. And probably not what you'd intended to do.

-Renegade (July 15, 2012, 11:52 PM)

Kind of like what happened to Cat Schwartz from the old TechTV show:

-mwb1100 (July 19, 2012, 01:13 AM)

Exactly~!

5384

Living Room / Re: Cute jokes' thread

« Last post by Renegade on July 18, 2012, 07:08 AM »

5385

Living Room / Re: Staple of people from State and Europe !

« Last post by Renegade on July 18, 2012, 06:54 AM »

I could use some tips on what to eat to get my weight back up.

-cmpm (July 18, 2012, 03:11 AM)

Oh oh oh~! I have another good idiotic idea~!

5386

Living Room / Re: Staple of people from State and Europe !

« Last post by Renegade on July 18, 2012, 06:00 AM »

I could use some tips on what to eat to get my weight back up.
Having lost too much from 2 surgeries (4 inguinal hernias) over the past year.

-cmpm (July 18, 2012, 03:11 AM)

Beer.

Or vodka.

Or pretty much any alcohol.



And it's a FUN way to gain weight~!

Well, maybe that's not a really good idea, but it *was* an idea...

Meat? Potatoes? Squash? I really have no idea on a healthy way to gain weight, as evidence by my idiotic suggestion to drink yourself a few extra kg.

5387

Living Room / Re: What's a good discussion forum for movie buffs?

« Last post by Renegade on July 18, 2012, 03:25 AM »

IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes both have comments... not sure if that's quite what you're looking for though.

5388

Living Room / Re: The first cybernetic hatecrime?

« Last post by Renegade on July 18, 2012, 03:22 AM »

Cripes... Just goes to show that the French truly are fried.

5389

Living Room / Re: Staple of people from State and Europe !

« Last post by Renegade on July 17, 2012, 09:52 PM »

but I do eat a lot of bread ... that I bake myself. 

Since I make it myself, I have great control over what goes into it:  no preservatives, sometimes meats, sometimes various vegetables. 

-barney (July 17, 2012, 09:47 PM)

I've often wanted to do that, but I just can't get motivated enough. Cripes... I've still got this homemade beer-kit that I haven't started on the next batch with...

5390

Living Room / Re: Staple of people from State and Europe !

« Last post by Renegade on July 17, 2012, 09:26 PM »

I mean their has got to something they must be eating some supplement which would fulfill Vit and Minerals intake :

-hulkbuster (July 17, 2012, 09:08 PM)

Unfortunately, I don't think there really is. Which would, as StoicJoker pointed out, help explain the overwhelming obesity in the US (and some other places with similar diets).

The typical American diet consists of mainly processed food, which is just double-speak for nutrient deficient.

While some foods actually do benefit from cooking (heat), they are in the minority. Nutritional value is preserved in most foods by eating it raw, not cooked.

But the situation gets much worse for processed foods. Processing basically strips food of its nutritional value. Industry shills will blather on about safety and all kinds of nonsense, but it all really just boils down to scare tactics.

One of the easier things to find out more information about is milk. Pasteurization eliminates the beneficial bacteria and flora in milk. UHT (ultra-high temperature) milk is basically dead with no real nutritional value. Fresh, raw milk has a far higher nutritional content, but is illegal in many places. (I wonder why that is...?)

India is under massive pressure from US industry to pollute its food supply, but luckily has a good grass-roots base in many places that oppose US industry concerns. This is a great thing, and definitely in the long-term interests of India.

I've been doing a lot of reading and research on food, agriculture, and health, and it really is fascinating. Some of the things out there are simply mind-blowing.

Got a cut? Spread manuka honey on it. Now just how the hell did people figure that one out?

The number of foods that help burn fat and lose weight is simply astounding. Green tea. Lots of it. And a million more.


Oh - bread -- not all bread is created equal. We never eat white bread, and often eat wheat-free, sprouted grain bread. When you look into nutrition in bread, wow... there's quite a bit to know.

Then there's sugar... Pretty much all of our sugar intake is from fresh produce. Not all sugars are equal, and again, so much to know there.


But, I think I'm blathering. It would be interesting to know what people eat. I know that I'm kind of on the freakish side of being a health nut there. (And I love the taste of McDonalds Big Macs, but don't eat them anymore... I do miss the taste... I suppose I should try making hamburgers at home. With kangaroo meat~! )

5391

Living Room / People Who Are Constantly Online Can Develop Mental Disorders

« Last post by Renegade on July 17, 2012, 09:09 PM »

This is just hilarious~!

http://charlotte.cbs...op-mental-disorders/

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg  recently studied more than 4,100 Swedish men and women between the ages of 20 and 24 for a year and found that a majority of them who constantly use a computer and mobile phones can develop stress, sleeping disorders and depression.

Get off your computer and back in front of the TV where you belong~!

For anyone that is a bit older and has a bit of time to reflect back, would you characterize yourself as mentally stable in your early 20's? Didn't think so...

5392

Developer's Corner / Re: Help me think of a small ipad app idea to code

« Last post by Renegade on July 17, 2012, 08:18 PM »

HA! just kidding!  It was basically far worse than I could have imagined.  Really really a horrible convoluted, unnecessarily complicated and opaque process whose every step feels like it has been designed with the sole purpose of demonstrating the worst case vision of bureaucratic dystopia.

-mouser (July 17, 2012, 04:11 PM)

Oh god... I know how you feel...

At the moment I'm using the following for cross platform development:

Monodevelop
C#
GTK# (GTKSharp)

And will be incorporating these once I get to that stage:

OpenTK
MonoGame

Later on for mobile:

Mono for Android
MonoTouch

So far that has magically made the Mac so much less painful. I simply cannot express just how much nicer it is. AND, I can compile on Windows, then deploy to OS X and Linux.

At the moment I'm farting around with figuring out setup packages/packages/installers/app bundles/whateverthehellyouwannacallthem.

I suppose unsurprisingly, I've found Linux easier than Mac for packaging so far, but I'm not finished with either, so the jury is still out. We'll see.

Anyways, just wanted to throw that out there for you. Since you already know C++, C# should be trivial for you as it's managed, and you don't need to worry about things like pointer arithmetic and all that low-level memory management.

If you want to see a very simple example of an application that runs cross platform:

https://github.com/R...inds/Frackin-Reserve

The code is poor though. I copied and pasted from the original Visual Studio version, which was written linearly as a tutorial on the subject matter for non-programmers, with total disregard for any programming sanity. But whatever. It works and illustrates the basic tool-chain for cross platform development, and consequently, the regaining of sanity on the Mac platform, and a pleasantly surprising reduction in screaming profanities.

5393

Living Room / Re: Staple of people from State and Europe !

« Last post by Renegade on July 17, 2012, 07:55 PM »

You want dieting tips from the country with the highest percentage of overweight people on the planet ... Are you trying to figure out what not to do??

-Stoic Joker (July 17, 2012, 06:41 PM)

I went through Houston once... wow... just wow... I'd never seen basketballs walk.

A quick search turns up a few interesting things:

https://www.google.c...ties+in+america+2012

Canada isn't much better.

5394

Living Room / Re: Leap - touch control: makes Minority Report look prehistoric

« Last post by Renegade on July 17, 2012, 01:39 PM »

Very cool! I want 2!

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Living Room / Re: Staple of people from State and Europe !

« Last post by Renegade on July 17, 2012, 01:32 PM »

You may get a bizarre mix of diets, depending on who chimes in.

I'm originally from Canada (the 51st state of the US ), but live in Australia (tasteless jokes omitted ). My diet is mostly fruit, vegetables, herbs, spices, rice, bread, chicken, beef, kangaroo (which is great and even preferable to beef). I drink mostly water, coffee (with milk), and a wide variety of alcohol. I don't think my diet is typical though. We do not eat any fast food, junk food, canned food, and the amount of processed food in the house is extremely low. It's pretty much all fresh, and organic whenever possible/practical.

Well, time to supplement my diet with another glass of booze before bed~!

5396

Developer's Corner / Cross Platform Game Development - MonoGame

« Last post by Renegade on July 17, 2012, 05:03 AM »

I just came across this:

http://monogame.codeplex.com/

I had a quick peek, and it look very cool. There's just about nowhere that you can't make a game for!

FOR DEVELOPMENT

iOS - Mac OS X, MonoTouch, MonoDevelop
Android - Mac OS X or Windows, Mono for Android, Mono Develop or Visual Studio
MacOS X - Mac OS X , MonoMac, OpenTK, MonoDevelop
Windows - Windows, Mono, OpenTK, MonoDevelop or Visual Studio
Linux - Linux, Mono, OpenTK, MonoDevelop

And they have more coming!

What is MonoGame?

MonoGame is an Open Source, OpenGL implementation of the Microsoft XNA 4 Framework. Our goal is to allow XNA developers on Xbox 360, Windows & Windows Phone to port their games to the iOS, Android, Mac OS X, Linux and Windows 8 Metro.  PlayStation Mobile development is currently in progress.

Anyway, thought it looked cool and thought I'd pass it along for anyone that's interested in writing a game.

5397

Living Room / Re: What will be your next computer?

« Last post by Renegade on July 17, 2012, 02:43 AM »

I'm alternating between A and C

-Ath (July 15, 2012, 01:41 PM)

I don't know whether to alternate between A/C or D/C... 

5398

Living Room / Re: Who's up for a DonationCoder talk show?

« Last post by Renegade on July 16, 2012, 09:48 AM »

BUMP! I want to see this happen! 

-nosh (July 15, 2012, 04:15 AM)

And:

I could help with most of these issues (Done a whole lot of Internet radio in my time ^_^) - You're more than welcome to PM me for any help or if you have any questions!

-Stephen66515 (February 16, 2012, 11:15 AM)

@Stephen - Be sure you let them know how much work it is to produce a talk show on a regular basis. It's a lot harder than it looks - and technology is the least of the headaches involved.

I've worked with at least six people who wanted to do a talk show/podcast. None of them made it past eight shows - with the average number being more around three.

Anybody who is interested in doing a podcast should try doing a regular 'non-stream of consciousness' blog or newsletter first to get some idea of what they're in for.

It's dangerous to generalize, but I think it's a safe bet to say if you don't have what it takes to keep a regularly scheduled blog or newsletter going, you're certainly not going to be able to muster the 'grunt' needed to do a podcast/show that will still be around 6 months later.

Just my 2¢

-40hz (February 16, 2012, 11:29 AM)

+1 and another 2¢

Just to get an idea for how hard it is to pull off well, do one 5 minute show. Just a test. Just get the recording done for 2 people. Not 3. Just 2 people. Put it together. Listen to it. See what the quality it like. See how many "ums" and "ahs" there are, and then go back and clean up things. It is far more time consuming than most people think. Well, that is if you want to maintain a very high degree of quality. If you simply record and publish, it's much faster. However, you then have workflow issues that affect quality and may lead you back into doing post-production...

I took down The Dot Net Preacher Show (had 9 shows up and 3 shows backlogged that never made it up), but Andrew still has The Doc Report up:

http://thedocreport.com/

It only has 2 shows though. Still, the methodology used and the quality are the same for the DNP show.

Recording was done individually on each person's computer. Everyone then uploaded their audio files. I took them, normalized them, sync'd them, edited them for pauses, profanity, ums, ahs, extraneous content, etc. etc., and then added in the sound effects, intro, outro, etc. etc. Andrew then took my final file and edited that for content, snipping out parts, etc. etc.

It's not hard to spend 4~8 hours on 1 show just for post production.

5399

Skwire Empire / Re: Release: Comic Book Archive Creator

« Last post by Renegade on July 16, 2012, 09:21 AM »

1) Creating RAR files means you must have a license.

-skwire (July 16, 2012, 08:23 AM)

Unless they've changed, nobody can create RAR files because they do not license creating RAR files to anyone. Are you sure about that?

Or do you mean that the USER must have a license for WinRar so that you can call their licensed version from your program?

5400

General Software Discussion / Re: How can a b/w photo's thumbnail be in colours?

« Last post by Renegade on July 16, 2012, 02:40 AM »

Oh - don't forget to check the "thumbs.db" file as it can contain cached data. You can safely delete that. If you've deleted the EXIF data, then the stamp is likely gone, but still in the thumbs.db file.

(That sounds like the issue - though I'm certain there are other ways for the wonderful world of computing to melt our minds! )