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5401

Living Room / WhatPulse

« Last post by app103 on August 18, 2006, 11:52 PM »

Do you feel that you could have moved your hands, keystroke by keystroke, across the globe twice every day? Interested in finding out just how much you type a day?

-http://whatpulse.org

I have been using WhatPulse for awhile now as part of a small team. I have decided to jump ship and start a DonationCoder WhatPulse team.

Anybody interested in joining?

All you have to do is open an account here:  http://whatpulse.org
Download & install the client: http://whatpulse.org/downloads/
Join the team: http://whatpulse.org/stats/teams/10466/

You can get a forum signature tag here: http://pulse.offbeat-zero.net

If you have any questions that this doesn't answer, post them and I will be happy to answer them. 

What is WhatPulse?
Privacy Policy
FAQ

5402

Podcast Radio Show / Re: W T F happened with the music in podcast #4?

« Last post by app103 on August 17, 2006, 05:47 PM »

The problem with techno is that it's distracting, which makes it harder to understand what you are listening to, which can already be a bit difficult for some of us because of all the unfamiliar accents.

It felt like I was trying to listen in on someone else's conversation at a loud party. I had to listen to parts of it more than twice.

It was very hard to focus and mentally filter that music out.

5403

Living Room / Top Ten Signs You Are Addicted to Google

« Last post by app103 on August 17, 2006, 08:46 AM »

10. Your kids still believe the Googlebot is bringing the Christmas presents.

9. Your reply to "How are you" is "I'm feeling lucky", combined with a clicking gesture.

8. You shout at the librarian when she takes more than 0.1 seconds to find your book.

7. You just lost a case in court to name your newborn son "Google".

6. You have at least one room in your house decorated in a 'relative ad' theme.

5. Your Google shirt is losing color.

4. When people talk to you, you try to optimize their keywords.

3. Your last three Sunday family trips have been to the Googleplex.

2. You are convinced "What's your PageRank?" is a good pick-up line.




And the number one sign you are addicted to Google:

1. You are completely clueless without a computer. 

5404

General Software Discussion / Re: Personaltechpipeline.com Review: Five PC Firewalls

« Last post by app103 on August 17, 2006, 07:25 AM »

I can remember when providing tech support for connection issues involved asking the question "Are you behind a firewall or router? If you don't know what that is, then you are not."

5405

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2006 / Re: What is the Great DonationCoder.com GTD Experiment of 2006?

« Last post by app103 on August 17, 2006, 06:51 AM »

I am not sure what I have to 'get done', but I am sure I'll find plenty if I think about it...count me in too.

5406

LaunchBar Commander / Re: LC gets a mention at Lockergnome.com

« Last post by app103 on August 17, 2006, 06:41 AM »

Congrats!   

5407

Living Room / Re: techTAGG - digg like site with revenue sharing

« Last post by app103 on August 16, 2006, 09:14 AM »

interesting...and ironic that someone would post that on digg. 

5408

Living Room / Fantastic Blog Find: Huge Entity

« Last post by app103 on August 16, 2006, 07:30 AM »

I am not sure how to describe this blog other than to say it's very interesting, thought provoking, and down-right incredible.

This is better on it's worst day than digg is on its best day.

http://www.huge-entity.com

It has become my first stop in my feed reader:

http://feeds.feedbur...er.com/TheHugeEntity

5409

Living Room / Re: Computers just can't seem to get past Go

« Last post by app103 on August 16, 2006, 07:04 AM »

Sorry...wasn't aware of the size of the pic when I saved it...looked small. 

5410

Living Room / Computers just can't seem to get past Go

« Last post by app103 on August 16, 2006, 06:55 AM »

Yes, computers can play to win in chess, checkers, backgammon, scrabble, etc...but have never been very good at playing Go.

While simple to explain and to learn, Go has subtle gradations of ability. There are hundreds of professionals, mainly in Japan, Korea and China, yet even the best computer version is only as good as an average European club player, who is as far from being professional as the average tennis club player is from playing at Wimbledon. Even the best Go-playing program is presently only ranked about 9kyu. Why are computers so bad at Go? First, playing Go plunges a computer into a sea of possibilities in which most drown. A chess board, with 64 squares, is comparatively tiny: each turn offers about 30 possible legal moves. In Go, with 361 points, few moves are illegal, offering more possibilities - on average, about 200 per turn. Thus the total number of possible moves in chess is between 1060 and 1070; in Go it is about 10250.

-http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/insideit/story/0,,1835570,00.html

http://technology.gu...y/0,,1835570,00.html

5411

General Software Discussion / Re: very cool blogger tool, post2blog

« Last post by app103 on August 15, 2006, 09:02 PM »

w.Bloggar dead?!!

noooooooo!!! 

5412

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Borland IDE's Coming Soon?

« Last post by app103 on August 15, 2006, 08:55 PM »

There is a discussion on the new free Turbo line here:

https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=4713.0

5413

Living Room / What A Crowded Solar System We Live In

« Last post by app103 on August 15, 2006, 11:54 AM »

The image below is an up to date map of the solar system displaying the orbits of the terrestrial planets and the estimated position of thousands of known asteroids. This diagram is missing comets, space probes and, of course, the undiscovered asteroids. Even conservative estimates would suggest that for every asteroid on a dangerous Earth-Approaching orbit there are hundreds more which have yet to be discovered. There are over 300 known objects on Earth-crossing orbits, the majority of which are potentially capable of causing death and destruction on a scale unheard of in human history.

The terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) are shown on the diagram by Cyan or White squares, and their orbits are represented by the blue ellipses around the Sun (the yellow dot at the centre). The Earth is highlighted because of its special importance to us. Small green points mark the location of asteroids which do not approach close to the Earth right now. This does not exclude the possibility that they will do so in the future but generally we can consider the Earth to be safe from these for the near future. Yellow objects (with the exception of the one in the middle which we astronomers call the Sun ;-) are Earth approaching asteroids which are called Amors after the first one discovered. Amors have orbits which come close to the Earth but they don't cross the Earth's orbit. However, their orbits are close enough to the Earth that they could potentially be perturbed by the influence of the planets and begin to cross the Earth's orbit in a short time. There are over 300 known objects on such orbits.

-http://szyzyg.arm.ac.uk/~spm/

Small section of the full map:

http://szyzyg.arm.ac.uk/~spm/

5414

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: InstantBoss - For those of us which require motivation to work

« Last post by app103 on August 15, 2006, 10:56 AM »

2 upcoming features I am working on right now:

• Option to pause after a certain user specified length of system idle time and/or if screensaver is activated. (in case you forget to pause it when needed)
• Remind user to take a break at intervals, if work longer is selected. (same 50% extension method used by the take a longer break feature)

Just give me some time and you'll have both of those. I am not that fast and feature #1 is giving me some troubles.

5415

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Alarm Clock which plays music files

« Last post by app103 on August 15, 2006, 08:27 AM »

I thought the skins were visual. I didn't know they added any new functionality to Winamp.

5416

Developer's Corner / Got 15 minutes? Give Ruby a shot right now!

« Last post by app103 on August 15, 2006, 03:48 AM »

You can try your hand at Ruby without having to download, install, or configure anything...in your browser!

http://tryruby.hobix.com/

5417

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Alarm Clock which plays music files

« Last post by app103 on August 15, 2006, 02:46 AM »

That looks good!

And most media players can repeat the playing of a file, so it would fill that requirement too. 

5418

Living Room / Re: DC's "EVIL DEAD" Get Together

« Last post by app103 on August 15, 2006, 02:25 AM »

How about a temp channel on irc and we all meet there at a specified time/date and use the old MS Comic Chat?


Click the thumbnail of my Comic Chat character to see a screenshot of part of a conversation we had in the DC irc channel a few months ago.

I can't remember who the beatnik was, but that floppy disk was mouser. 

Normally the characters are NOT in color...I just happen to have a colorized set. 

5419

General Software Discussion / Re: Switching to VoIP chat...

« Last post by app103 on August 14, 2006, 11:12 PM »

While talking seems like it might be easier for some of us, listening might not be. Have you heard me speak before? 

5420

Living Room / Re: DC's "EVIL DEAD" Get Together

« Last post by app103 on August 14, 2006, 05:42 PM »

a DC lan party! 

5421

Developer's Corner / Re: What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Time

« Last post by app103 on August 14, 2006, 01:22 PM »

So like the value of paperback money, the accuracy of the "time" of a computer system depends on TRUST. 

-housetier (August 14, 2006, 12:13 PM)

And we all know time is money. 

5422

Developer's Corner / Re: What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic

« Last post by app103 on August 14, 2006, 08:54 AM »

I recently went through some stress when I made the mistake of using floating point numbers to represent DonationCredits on this website. 

-mouser (August 14, 2006, 03:43 AM)

That's what you get for doing things the hard way instead of listening to me. 

5423

Living Room / Re: Necrofile or other... ?

« Last post by app103 on August 14, 2006, 08:43 AM »

There are some defragmenting tools that will not only defragment the hard drive, but wipe the free space that remains too.

I am unaware of the names of any modern defragmenters that do it. I am not that familiar with any defragmenters other than the old Nuts & Bolts for 9x and the one that comes with Windows.

Nuts & Bolts for 9x does do it, but like PitrPaulus said, it does take longer to do things this way.

5424

Living Room / Re: 17 Different Ways To Tie Shoelaces

« Last post by app103 on August 14, 2006, 08:34 AM »

So...how do you tie your shoes? 

• Me: Standard Shoelace Knot
• My husband: "Better Bow" Shoelace Knot
• My daughter: Two Loop Shoelace Knot

5425

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2006 / Re: What is the Great DonationCoder.com GTD Experiment of 2006?

« Last post by app103 on August 14, 2006, 01:52 AM »

Oh, I think I know what this is.