Recent Posts

551

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

« Last post by app103 on November 29, 2014, 05:22 AM »

Voice Recognition Elevator in Scotland

552

Found Deals and Discounts / 48 hours of Learnable for free

« Last post by app103 on November 27, 2014, 05:30 PM »

Black Friday special: 48 hours of Learnable for free, no credit card needed.

Using the following link between now and midnight Sunday (Pacific time) will get you a free 48 hours of online access to all of Learnable's books and video courses:

https://learnable.com/join/322/account

With NANY coming up, this might be a good opportunity to brush up on your web development skills. You'll be able to enroll in as many courses as you want, watch as many videos as you want, and read as many books as you want, online, in your browser. If you decide to renew and continue your membership, it will be at a rate of $9 per month.


Disclosure: I work for Learnable but they have not asked me to post this, nor are they paying me to do so.

553

Living Room / Re: New square monitor (27" 1920x1920)

« Last post by app103 on November 24, 2014, 01:53 PM »

Side to side eye motion is something we have been trained since childhood to do, when we first started reading.

I suppose in those countries where text is written vertically, they are used to a different eye movement and would find it easier than side to side.

I'd rather swivel my head side-to-side than nod my head up and down all day long.

-Deozaan (November 24, 2014, 12:54 PM)

So, you are not a "yes man"? 

554

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

« Last post by app103 on November 21, 2014, 02:07 AM »

Is DonationCoder getting the same amount of snow as Buffalo?

-Arizona Hot (November 20, 2014, 08:31 PM)

I think if that happened, mouser would be posting an SOS.

555

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

« Last post by app103 on November 18, 2014, 01:12 AM »

556

Living Room / Re: Mandatory Work Activity (UK) - Stupidity Beyond Belief. [DEBATE]

« Last post by app103 on November 17, 2014, 07:05 PM »

In my home state of NJ (USA). We have a similar "Welfare to Work" program. But it requires recipients, and every unemployed member of their household over the age of 16 and not a full time student or disabled, to spend at least 30 hours per week looking for work (and documenting it), until they find some. And if they still remain unemployed after 6 months, the state sends them to school to gain some job skills (at the state's expense), and then helps them to find a job.

They do not require you to work for less than minimum wage. The job you end up with is a real job, with real wages being paid by your employer...full wages, like they would pay to any other employee. The state would actually prefer if you were being paid more than minimum wage, since almost everyone on welfare has children to support.

What they do is start cutting your benefits, if you earn over a certain amount. But you do not lose your food stamps, medicaid, childcare benefits, rent, utility, or phone subsidies right away. Those are figured separately, and one can continue to collect under those programs indefinitely, if they still need it.

The goal is to get you off of the reliance on welfare's cash benefits by the end of 2 years time, because there is a lifetime cap of 5 years on receiving cash benefits, and they don't want you to hit that cap on your first shot (you might need the help again some day).

And there are exemptions for disabled people that can not work, and full time students that do not have the time to take on a job along with school. They would rather teen mothers finish school, enter a job training program, and end up with a good paying job that comes with benefits and a pension plan, than to quit and take on a minimum wage job that keeps them collecting benefits from some part of the system for the rest of their life.

They will even help mothers go after deadbeat dads for child support, if they are not already collecting it. In fact, they require you to cooperate with them, as they go after the father of your kids for child support, as a condition for collecting welfare benefits. If you refuse to supply a father's name, they can cut your benefits until you do.

The goal of our state's program is to turn as many recipients as possible into self sufficient tax payers that raise kids that also become self sufficient tax payers, because under the old system (that didn't work), people ended up trapped into poverty that extended for generations, with the state picking up the tab for supporting them all, for their entire lives.

And how it works with unemployment benefits, everyone pays into the system through their employer. It's an obligatory insurance plan that pays off should you become unemployed. You collect an amount based on what you earned at your last job and for up to a specified length of time. When your benefits run out, if you have not found a job yet, good luck...you are on your own.

This is not to say that our system is perfect and doesn't have any issues, because believe me, it does. But it is much fairer and far better than the system that you describe in the UK.

My husband maxed out his unemployment benefits when he was laid off from his last job, and was on his own (with no income) for about 4 months longer, before he was finally able to find a job. That was one very rough time in our lives that we are still recovering from.

I asked my Advisor at the Job Center for a careers advise appointment of sorts (Basically to try talk it out and figure out what is the best University courses for the paths I want to go down), and the person I was talking to, ignored everything I said and decided that me working as a Warehouse Operative for Boohoo.com (Yes I WILL name and shame them) - In a town 8 miles from here...would be the best thing for me (Bearing in mind I suggested that my 2 career paths are [Working within the Technology Industry] and [Flying Instructor]...2 completely different paths I know, but both things that I want to do more than anything). 

-Stephen66515 (November 17, 2014, 02:23 PM)

Some years back, when we were collecting food stamps, I had to meet with one of the state's job counselors. I brought along a burned disk containing my artwork, software, and static copies of websites I had built. He took one look at the disk, wouldn't even bother to see what was on it, and replied "Oh, you like using computers? Maybe we can get you into a class to learn how to use MS Word." To which I replied "I already know how to use MS Word. I taught myself by reading the help file. What I want to learn is maybe how to write the next version of MS Word, which you would know if you bothered to look at what is on this disk."

The end result of that meeting was for him to claim I never showed up to keep my appointment with him, for which my whole family was kicked off food stamps a month later. 

That dude reminded me so much of the patronizing high school guidance counselor that told me programming was for boys, and then shoved me in a secretarial typing class, because I showed a desire to "play with a keyboard". 

I often wonder what I could have accomplished with my life if so many people didn't insist on getting in my way and shitting on my dreams.

557

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

« Last post by app103 on November 17, 2014, 06:25 AM »

I SOOOO have to try that!   :Thmbsup

-Renegade (November 16, 2014, 10:28 PM)

My husband made me promise not to. 

558

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

« Last post by app103 on November 16, 2014, 04:02 PM »

This would be a great prank to play on someone. Do this to all their eggs and put them back in the fridge, without cooking them. 

559

Living Room / Re: Where do you buy your printer ink?

« Last post by app103 on November 16, 2014, 02:36 PM »

Amazon of course

-questorfla (November 15, 2014, 08:58 PM)

You can get burned on Amazon just as easily as anywhere else. 

-app103 (November 15, 2014, 09:56 PM)

I hate how they've gone all "eBay" (aka marketplace) without making it more clear that you're not always buying from Amazon. )c:

-Deozaan (November 15, 2014, 10:23 PM)

It would be nice if someone came up with a "bid filter" for searches.  Like anything where you have to bid rather than make a straight buy doesn't show up at all.  I'd bid $1 for that AddOn. 

-MilesAhead (November 16, 2014, 09:47 AM)

Bid? I have never had to bid on anything on Amazon. Never seen anything like that.

What I was referring to, and think Deozaan was too, is the 3rd party merchants, some of which are quite scammy. You know, the ones selling cheap stuff with outrageous shipping costs, things not quite as described, and sometimes even counterfeit goods (be very careful buying a copy of Windows on Amazon, avoid all 3rd party merchants).

560

Non-Windows Software / Re: Android: Lil' Debi

« Last post by app103 on November 16, 2014, 05:03 AM »

For a minute there, I thought it was a new version of Android OS, named after the snack cakes. 

561

Living Room / Re: Programming/Coder humor

« Last post by app103 on November 16, 2014, 03:59 AM »

562

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

« Last post by app103 on November 15, 2014, 10:28 PM »

Negative Electrostatic Charisma?

-app103 (November 15, 2014, 02:21 PM)

What happens if you bump into someone with Positive Electrostatic Charisma?

-Arizona Hot (November 15, 2014, 10:23 PM)

All your stuff starts working perfectly again, for no explainable reason?

Or all their electronics suddenly blow up? 

563

Living Room / Re: Where do you buy your printer ink?

« Last post by app103 on November 15, 2014, 09:56 PM »

Just a note of caution.

A few years back I decided to save money by using non-Canon ink.
I bought from one of the 'better' suppliers (I don't want to mention any names as I don't want a supplier blamed for what might be a one-in-a-thousand event).
First set was fine.
Second set was fine.
Third set screwed up the printer to the point where it was useless.

So, for me, potential savings were far outweighed by replacement equipment cost.

-cranioscopical (November 15, 2014, 06:44 PM)

Don't think I don't worry about that. And don't think that I don't know that OEM cartridges can destroy a printer, too, with no recourse if the printer is out of warranty. I know that from experience. 

Before our 4-in-1 printer-scanner died, I found an excellent source at CastleInk.
I speak absolutely from personal experience they have great prices and wide selection.

-bit (November 15, 2014, 08:45 PM)

I am a bit confused as to what they are selling here. This is rather pricy, but it's not clear if they are an unmentioned brand compatible with Canon printers, or the Canon branded ones. Reading the description does not really answer that. And I am unsure what info is in their chart. Does "Brand" refer to the cartridge brand? Or the printer brand it's made for? And the image is too small to be able to read anything on it to be able to tell that way, either.

For that price, I would expect the real thing, but who knows?

Amazon of course

-questorfla (November 15, 2014, 08:58 PM)

You can get burned on Amazon just as easily as anywhere else. 

564

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

« Last post by app103 on November 15, 2014, 02:21 PM »

Played fine for me in IE 11.

-Stoic Joker (November 14, 2014, 06:56 AM)

I think the source is the latest Window Update(last Wednesday). It only seems to be a small problem and only here.

-Arizona Hot (November 14, 2014, 10:24 AM)

Just got the updates caught up and tried again. It still plays. Although I had to disable MS EMET to get IE to load for some (very strange) reason.

-Stoic Joker (November 14, 2014, 12:25 PM)

Just got the updates caught up and tried again. It still plays. Although I had to disable MS EMET to get IE to load for some (very strange) reason.

-Stoic Joker (November 14, 2014, 12:25 PM)

Are you sure it isn't because you are a very strange person?

-Arizona Hot (November 15, 2014, 12:36 AM)

That's not the prevailing theory...but I'm not ruling anything out just yet..

I had MS EMET on a very aggressive setting, so I'm guessing that it just was not allowing some post update first run modification to the browser. So I disabled its checks for IE briefly to get it to load, and then re-enabled them. *Shrug* All is fine now, so I'm just going to go with it for the moment.

-Stoic Joker (November 15, 2014, 07:49 AM)

Negative Electrostatic Charisma?

565

Living Room / Re: Where do you buy your printer ink?

« Last post by app103 on November 15, 2014, 12:53 PM »

Doesn't have your tanks though, sorry, what model is the printer?

-4wd (November 15, 2014, 12:14 AM)

PIXMA MG5520

566

Living Room / Where do you buy your printer ink?

« Last post by app103 on November 14, 2014, 06:31 PM »

First of all, I know by making this post, I'll probably be inviting every ink spammer on the internet to reply, so I will only consider replies from existing members. If you join the forum just to post on this thread, I will consider it spam and it will be deleted!

That said, I am curious where you guys buy your printer ink.

I have a brand new fancy Canon inkjet printer and I need the best deal I can get for Canon PGI-250XL/CLI-251XL compatible cartridges (all 5 colors), and I don't want to get ripped off. (shipped to a US address)

Now, this is not an invitation to do a Google search for me. I am quite capable of doing that myself. What I need is for you to speak from experience, offering only those sellers that you have purchased from, that in your opinion gave you a great deal on a great product, that was as described.

Doing a Google search, I came across a seller offering a 30-pack for $38 (free shipping), and I probably would have jumped on it, but there was only 1 review on the seller/item, and it wasn't so good. The buyer complained that they were passing off regular cartridges as XLs, and when he called the seller to complain about it, he got a woman that kept repeating "we sell quality ink" to everything he said. And when he returned the product, he had a hard time getting a refund. Not sure I want to trust a seller like that.

So, can you steer me in the right direction?

567

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

« Last post by app103 on November 13, 2014, 11:36 PM »

Things IT people never say:

"Well, that upgrade went smoothly..."

-Edvard (November 13, 2014, 07:40 PM)

"Yes, your laptop is waterproof."

568

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox begins its mass rollout of ads on new tab tiles

« Last post by app103 on November 13, 2014, 08:05 PM »

What is that? Or better question, what browser is that?

I have Adblock edge installed in both Pale Moon and Firefox, and I have never seen a page like that before, with or without Adblock edge.

I have seen a page similar to that in Chrome, however. They were some sort of installed add-on apps in my father's browser.

Are you sure you don't have some other add-on installed that is making that page, or a bunch of little browser apps installed, matching those names?

-app103 (November 12, 2014, 09:00 PM)

No, I haven't done a super rigorous test that other addons are creating that.

But I have new evidence that even with Adblock Edge on, the sponsored tiles come through.
 (see attachment in previous post)

-TaoPhoenix (November 12, 2014, 10:03 PM)

The original image you posted looked nothing like this one. It had an unusual icon located next to the search bar and a heading "8 Essential Desktop Apps" and the thumbnails featured icons on colorful backgrounds. That's what I am referring to.

This one actually looks normal.

569

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Developer Edition

« Last post by app103 on November 13, 2014, 04:21 AM »

Yeah, I tried that. I tried just about everything obvious that is accessible with a setting.

I have had to resort to using DOM Inspector and Stylish, and changing one CSS property at a time. Also doing some other tweaks, while I am at it.

570

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Developer Edition

« Last post by app103 on November 12, 2014, 10:54 PM »

This is what I am seeing with the default theme (the only theme that allows an add-on that colors tabs, to work):



And this is how it should look, when not skinned (Pale Moon):

571

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox begins its mass rollout of ads on new tab tiles

« Last post by app103 on November 12, 2014, 09:00 PM »

Here's a tab page when I turned Adblock Edge back on somewhere:


It's not labeled sponsored ...
What ARE all these things? I haven't even heard of half of them! And why aren't they labeled sponsored?


 (see attachment in previous post)

-TaoPhoenix (November 12, 2014, 05:45 AM)

What is that? Or better question, what browser is that?

I have Adblock edge installed in both Pale Moon and Firefox, and I have never seen a page like that before, with or without Adblock edge.

I have seen a page similar to that in Chrome, however. They were some sort of installed add-on apps in my father's browser.

Are you sure you don't have some other add-on installed that is making that page, or a bunch of little browser apps installed, matching those names?

572

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox begins its mass rollout of ads on new tab tiles

« Last post by app103 on November 12, 2014, 01:17 AM »

I suppose this may be what FF was thinking of when they created this new 'feature':

-bit (November 11, 2014, 07:08 PM)

I am pretty sure what they are doing won't be comparable to Super Bowl ads. 

573

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Developer Edition

« Last post by app103 on November 11, 2014, 09:09 PM »

OMG, how do I disable these crazy ugly skins and make it use my OS colors? I can't read the button captions. Black on black is impossible!

(my temporary solution till I can figure out how to disable themes  )

574

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Developer Edition

« Last post by app103 on November 11, 2014, 04:18 AM »

I used to use a portable version of Firefox, loaded up with nothing but dev tools, till the Aurora crap showed up. Then I replaced it with a portable Pale Moon, with the same dev tools.

I might use this Developer Edition, if/when it's available in a portable version, since there are some differences between how Pale Moon and the latest Firefox renders pages.

575

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox begins its mass rollout of ads on new tab tiles

« Last post by app103 on November 11, 2014, 03:49 AM »

Once upon a time, there were browsers with ads in them, in which you could pay to have them removed.

• Opera
• CrystalPort (very innovative tabbed IE based browser from the late 90's)
• Plenty of others

But they all either disappeared or got away from that business model. I believe Opera was the only survivor from that era. (A shame, because I really liked CrystalPort and still miss some of its features)

And now here we have Mozilla that hasn't learned from the past and the mistakes of others, creating an even worse set of options with Firefox: ads or screw you, use something else...not even a paid option, without ads.

I haven't noticed anything on my Firefox like this yet.
But I've got some old VCR tapes of movies, complete with tv used car commercials and other sales pitches, and you know what?
I used to hate those old tv ads, or not care for them so much, and now, the nostalgic value is incredible.
I mean, when I see the old movie, and then those old commercials pop up, it's like being in the past, before all the modern things that went bad and made the world go crazy (crazier than it already was) happened, and I wouldn't trade those old shows for nothing because of those commercials.

-bit (November 11, 2014, 12:51 AM)

This is different, very different. There will be no nostalgic ads involved.