Recent Posts

5401

General Software Discussion / Re: What's up with Flash crashing all the time lately?

« Last post by wraith808 on October 16, 2013, 12:40 PM »

but in today's world it's a solution in need of a problem.

-Vurbal (October 16, 2013, 05:07 AM)

Actually, I think that's backwards.

but in today's world it's a solution problem in need of a problem solution.

-Vurbal (October 16, 2013, 05:07 AM)

There... much better. 

5402

Living Room / Re: Pirates Jump on “The Walking Dead” Despite Legal Options

« Last post by wraith808 on October 15, 2013, 02:14 PM »

If they released their stuff on TPB, it would sort of legitimize TPB... so I think that expecting them to do that would be a bit much...

5403

DC Gamer Club / Re: UBER-CRYPTO CURRENCY COOLNESS! FOR GAMES!

« Last post by wraith808 on October 15, 2013, 02:13 PM »

It already is.

5404

General Software Discussion / Re: Zuckerberg and Gates contribute to coding tutorials initiative

« Last post by wraith808 on October 15, 2013, 09:26 AM »

Everything that MS and Gates do isn't bad...   There was an outcry because MS contributed to Ghost, which was complete BS.

5405

DC Gamer Club / Re: UBER-CRYPTO CURRENCY COOLNESS! FOR GAMES!

« Last post by wraith808 on October 15, 2013, 09:26 AM »

They'll need to deal with botters though, but a lot of games already have anti-bot gamemasters and infrastructure to sniff out bots.

-Renegade (October 15, 2013, 08:55 AM)

This is going to be a big problem.  And it isn't just a matter of you can make money playing games.  You can also LOSE money playing games.  And in all reality, more people are going to lose than gain.  It's just the nature of the beast.

5406

Living Room / Re: Pirates Jump on “The Walking Dead” Despite Legal Options

« Last post by wraith808 on October 15, 2013, 09:23 AM »

So why not just use the delivery system people seem to rather obviously prefer instead of trying to handle the traffic spicks and bandwidth hits themselves?

-Stoic Joker (October 15, 2013, 07:00 AM)

Even if they did, they wouldn't use open torrents.  So, the effect wouldn't be the same.

If the habit is to go to Pirate Bay or to use a torrent aggregator, then the fact that its available elsewhere won't change that habit.

5407

Living Room / Re: Programming/Coder humor

« Last post by wraith808 on October 13, 2013, 11:43 AM »

"Who thought it was a good idea to assign DebtCeiling as a global variable? Can we deprecate?"

5408

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

« Last post by wraith808 on October 13, 2013, 09:41 AM »

5409

Living Room / Re: Google to Sell User Profiles, Photos in Ads

« Last post by wraith808 on October 13, 2013, 09:38 AM »

^ That's the same link above

5410

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

« Last post by wraith808 on October 12, 2013, 11:53 PM »

Studio C's Shoulder Angel (and a Shoulder Devil):

-Deozaan (October 12, 2013, 01:52 AM)

Hilarious!  Thanks for that!

5411

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Clarify screen recorder on Bits du Jour today, 2013-10-12

« Last post by wraith808 on October 12, 2013, 04:10 PM »

I have their prior software before it was bought (screensteps), and that was a great piece of software.  Never tried this before now... but I'm thinking about it.

5412

Living Room / Re: Google to Sell User Profiles, Photos in Ads

« Last post by wraith808 on October 12, 2013, 03:50 PM »

Users are opted in to Google's new scheme by default. In the past, Google gave itself permission to use users’ +1s alongside advertisements unless the user specifically opted out. The new “shared endorsements” are an extension of that setting, wherein Google gives itself permission to take even more of a user’s content and place it alongside ads.

Had you opted out of that already?

5413

Living Room / Re: Google to Sell User Profiles, Photos in Ads

« Last post by wraith808 on October 12, 2013, 11:38 AM »

You can opt out.. though there's no real 'link' to the opt-out page.

Article
http://arstechnica.c...-content-in-its-ads/

Opt-out
https://plus.google....ettings/endorsements

5414

Living Room / Re: Going cold turkey on the unholy trinity

« Last post by wraith808 on October 11, 2013, 10:56 AM »

Adobe slimmed down the PDF reader stuff a while ago in response to the 3rd party pdf readers, but it has seemed to bloat up as of late   I might have to get back on the alternate PDF bandwagon at some point.  My problem is that my job now uses a plug-in to do some functionality, so I have to keep it available for testing/development. 

5415

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

« Last post by wraith808 on October 10, 2013, 12:06 PM »

Three guys walk into a bar, an FBI agent, a CIA agent, and an NSA analyst. They get their drinks and the FBI guy says, "So, how's that Budget Accountability Review treating you?"

The NSA guy says "I can't talk about it."

The CIA guy says "I'd have to kill you."

With a chuckle, the FBI agent goes to the bathroom, at which point the NSA analyst turns to the CIA agent and says "Okay, I have to ask - everyone keeps talking about a 'budget' and I have NO IDEA what that is."

The CIA guy replies, "I'll tell you all about it if you can explain what 'accountability' means."

5416

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by wraith808 on October 09, 2013, 02:23 PM »

This seems to ignore the primary function of MC and Visa... to bankroll those people who like to live outside of their means.   Bitcoins does nothing for that use.

5417

Living Room / Re: Am I the only person bothered by the differences in Free?

« Last post by wraith808 on October 08, 2013, 10:55 PM »

+1000

5418

Living Room / Re: Am I the only person bothered by the differences in Free?

« Last post by wraith808 on October 08, 2013, 04:12 PM »

Many font designers handle this in a very clever way. If you go to their sites for a freebie, you often discover you need to register first to download. All their no-charge fonts go in their shopping cart just like everything else they offer does. An invoice gets generated with a total of $0 which gets emailed to the 'buyer' along with the download link plus a copy of the license. Brilliant!

-40hz (October 08, 2013, 03:10 PM)

Actually, now that you point this out, this is exactly what I told my wife to do, but didn't take my own advice.  She's a photographer, and to build up her name/portfolio, she regularly does stuff for free (especially for the kids in the neighborhood/friends of my kids).  I told her to generate invoices and put down the price of her services discounted to zero rather than just doing it for free, so that they and others could see the value that they were getting.  Makes a lot of sense, even if it does involve more work.

5419

Living Room / Re: Am I the only person that has a real big problem with software like this?

« Last post by wraith808 on October 08, 2013, 04:02 PM »

I would only ask how much difference there is between the NSA/government and parents when it comes to actually caring. I somehow doubt that the former really cares about people, whereas the latter do care about their children.

-Renegade (October 08, 2013, 03:32 PM)

I'd say none. These things always start with a desire to care for/protect X. But than as circumstances extenuate more stringent measures are needed. So before anybody realizes what's happening an NSA class invasion is born.

Baby steps and good intentions...that, is precisely how anything goes to shit.

-Stoic Joker (October 08, 2013, 03:57 PM)

You're giving the government too much credit and parents as a whole too little IMO.  I don't think that most gov't applications start out as anything other than a power grab.

5420

Living Room / Re: Am I the only person that has a real big problem with software like this?

« Last post by wraith808 on October 08, 2013, 02:05 PM »

In light of that, I'll recuse myself from this discussion going forward.

-40hz (October 08, 2013, 01:28 PM)

Well that's a downer since you're the one that started it.   Conversation ended more surely than the invocation of Godwin's Law.

5421

Living Room / Re: Am I the only person bothered by the differences in Free?

« Last post by wraith808 on October 08, 2013, 02:03 PM »

Unfortunately, very true

5422

Living Room / Re: Am I the only person that has a real big problem with software like this?

« Last post by wraith808 on October 08, 2013, 11:49 AM »

please keep politics out of this thread.

-mouser (October 08, 2013, 11:00 AM)

And i think that's the point.  This thread is not about politics, nor about political abuses.  This software is not even intended as such.  But because of abuses by those in power, any uses of such things are conflated with the morass of political arguments about such issues.

Does this software (and others of its ilk) have potential for abuse?  Well, the answer to that is pretty obvious.  But does the existence of such software necessarily equate to it being abused in such a way in any given use case?  I don't think that's as clear, nor true.

5423

Living Room / Am I the only person bothered by the differences in Free?

« Last post by wraith808 on October 08, 2013, 10:41 AM »

I've not seen any pushback on this particular topic in the realm of newspeak.  Free has always meant free as in I give you something for no charge.  But now, we need such disambiguations:

From Free Software on Wikipedia^w

Free software may refer to one of the following.

• Freely redistributable software
• Free software, defined by the Free Software Foundation, is software which may be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed ("free as in free speech"), but is not necessarily available for no charge
• Open-source software, similar to free software
• Free and open-source software, software that can be classified as both free software and open-source software
• Freeware, software available for zero price, but not necessarily with the rights to modify and redistribute it
• Free Software Magazine
• Free Software Magazine (China)

And when I say that my software is Free, because of the appropriation of the term Free Software by Stallman, people say that it's not.  

Isn't that the same as the newspeak that the establishment practices?  Re-appropriating known and well-defined phrases to mean something else?

...sorry, just a rant, as you give stuff away for free that has taken your time and effort to develop and people rail against you because you won't give the source (which in many cases you can't).  But I really want to know where the demarcatory line is drawn on such practices.

5424

General Software Discussion / Re: Run a security check on your Gmail account - if not already done

« Last post by wraith808 on October 08, 2013, 09:30 AM »

You can also turn on 2-stage authentication.  It works really well.

5425

General Software Discussion / Re: Objective upgrade Netbook with XP to Netbook with Win 7

« Last post by wraith808 on October 08, 2013, 09:29 AM »

Correct, but it's possible to do the in-between step of Vista. It'll feel like hell, taking ages for 2 consecutive upgrades, but if an upgrade is required to keep some unique application installed, it's a solution.

-Ath (October 08, 2013, 01:39 AM)

I didn't even mention that b/c its not really viable in the space that most netbooks have (ask me how I know).  Once I got through both, the system was pretty borked and slow, and I had very little HDD space left.  Thankfully, I had an image of how it was before, so I was able to just do a clean install and get what I needed from the image.