Recent Posts

5726

Living Room / Re: Nice Keyboard, However...

« Last post by Deozaan on February 02, 2011, 01:38 AM »

http://www.logitech....evices/7288?WT.ac=ps

-Stephen66515 (November 06, 2010, 10:20 PM)

I am so getting that... one of these days.

-Deozaan (November 06, 2010, 11:39 PM)

I just received confirmation from Amazon.com that it shipped. Amazon sold it for $78, I used a $20 gift card that I got for free, and it came with a $15 mail in rebate and free shipping. So after all is said and done, I got a $100 keyboard for $43. Not too shabby!

It should be arriving next week.

5727

Living Room / Re: Why does the Mayan calendar end on....?

« Last post by Deozaan on February 01, 2011, 11:12 PM »

It's kind of fun to speculate and let the imagination run wild. What if it wasn't a calendar, or an indication of when time would "end" but rather a countdown timer to when some big event would happen? Maybe we wouldn't even consider it that big of an event. Maybe Haley's Comet will be flying by in 2012? Maybe that's when extra terrestrials will contact us? Maybe that's when their time capsule will unearth itself. Maybe it marks the beginning of a 10 (or 20 or 50) year "calm before the storm" that is the real end of the world as we know it.

In all likelihood, it's probably just the Mayan equivalent of the Y2K fiasco. They knew time would go on past 2012, but they didn't really plan ahead that far.

It's kind of like if, 500 years from now mankind has finally calculated Pi and looks back on the people of today wondering why we gave up at the 2.7 trillionth decimal place.

5728

Living Room / Re: Intel Sandy Bridge Build

« Last post by Deozaan on February 01, 2011, 10:45 PM »

Yeah, just wait a couple months. Unfortunately I just bought a new Sandy Bridge laptop (which so far is great, but this sours me a bit). I'm still not clear if this issue affects the laptop chipsets/boards. Hopefully not.

-JavaJones (January 31, 2011, 02:30 PM)

As I understand it, it only affects the new H67 and P67 motherboards, not the CPU.

Also, there are some SATA connectors that are not affected, even on defective mobos:

Interestingly enough the problem doesn’t affect ports 0 & 1 on the 6-series chipset. Remember that Intel has two 6Gbps ports and four 3Gbps ports on P67/H67, only the latter four are impacted by this problem.

5729

Living Room / Re: IE6 Effects

« Last post by Deozaan on February 01, 2011, 10:33 PM »

Reminds me of Windows 95. . .

5730

Living Room / Re: *URGENT* Patch IE security flaw (31 January 2011)

« Last post by Deozaan on February 01, 2011, 10:27 PM »

^ But do you have it on your machines?  Because of certain sites, I have to have it on my machine for work.  I don't actively use it unless I'm using those sites... but still it's there...

-wraith808 (February 01, 2011, 09:32 PM)

Yes, I have it on my machines, and there are certain websites (usually government ones!) that require IE to be used. That's why I'm glad it was brought to my attention.

5731

Living Room / Re: I'm Confused

« Last post by Deozaan on February 01, 2011, 09:10 PM »

How about if they just perfect cars that drive themselves and then it won't matter if you're drunk or blind or a dog, you'll be able to get where you want.

5732

Living Room / Re: IE6 Effects

« Last post by Deozaan on February 01, 2011, 09:00 PM »

Ha!

5733

Living Room / Re: MOBILE VS. PC -- Please Chime In!

« Last post by Deozaan on February 01, 2011, 09:00 PM »

An Indie game developer recently wrote a blog explaining why touch input isn't as great as many people make it out to be. It seemed somewhat related to this topic:

Touch-screens have been a key driver of the smartphone market - but this is more because they facilitate maximum screen size in smallest form factor, rather than any particular benefits of the touch-screen itself. I fondly remember the ability to stumble along the pavement drunk, writing perfectly accurate text messages with one hand and rolling a cigarette with the other, whereas on a smartphone I seem unable to walk and text while sober and using both hands without flying into an angry rage at the sheer bastard difficulty of it all.

[...]

Compared to the economy of the mouse, many actions on a touchscreen feel like hard work. Consider the position of the arm when resting on a mouse correctly: it's well supported all the way along. You have all the muscles from the shoulder down to the fingers to co-ordinate movement, without having to move from the resting position. With the tiniest movement you can flick the cursor from one side of the screen to the other, or scroll up and down with the mouse wheel. To me that is entirely preferable to moving the arm around in the air unsupported which is required to interact with a touch-screen (or to put it another way, I want my arm to rest at right angles to the screen).

-http://klobb.posterous.com/a-touchy-subject

He makes a great point in that last paragraph I quoted. Mobile devices are great for short bursts of media consumption, but terrible for long term anything, really. Muscle strain and fatigue set in. Didn't we learn this from the Wii? Now we've got Sony's Move and Microsoft's Kinect trying to get in on the action. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing games on the Wii (I haven't tried Move or Kinect), but most of the time it feels like the "waggle" would work just as well (or better) if they assigned the response to a button push. Any game I've played that is designed for long-term gaming sessions have very little/infrequent waggle. Though I should clarify that I think using the Wiimote as a pointer isn't bad, as it basically just requires slight movements of your wrist, much like operating a mouse.

But I suppose I'm getting off topic since this isn't about gaming consoles.


Another reason why touch screens aren't so great, and probably my favorite quote from the article:

As of 2011, we don't have transparent hands.

-http://klobb.posterous.com/a-touchy-subject

Read the rest here: http://klobb.postero...com/a-touchy-subject

5734

Developer's Corner / Re: "competitive upgrade" - is it ethical?

« Last post by Deozaan on February 01, 2011, 08:01 PM »

I just saw that SpiderOak has a "competitive upgrade" offer. Apparently Mozy has dropped unlimited storage plans so SpiderOak is offering 20% off with 'mozy' coupon code.

From Twitter:

#Mozy Drops Unlimited Storage - http://t.co/5fuZuvZ Get 20% our premium storage off via code 'mozy' when you switch to Spideroak.com #backup

-http://twitter.com/spideroak/status/32616496588918784

5735

Living Room / Re: *URGENT* Patch IE security flaw (31 January 2011)

« Last post by Deozaan on February 01, 2011, 07:41 PM »

Glad I don't use IE. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

5736

Living Room / Re: HTTPS on facebook, FINALLY here

« Last post by Deozaan on February 01, 2011, 07:26 PM »

HTTPS for Facebook is worthless. All the links redirect you to the insecure http website.

5737

Living Room / Re: HTTPS on facebook, FINALLY here

« Last post by Deozaan on February 01, 2011, 06:50 PM »

Speaking of HTTPS I wan to suggest HTTPS Everywhere from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It switches to HTTPS for a lot of sites.

-housetier (February 01, 2011, 02:57 PM)

I wish they made this for Chrome.

5738

Living Room / Re: Google sets up a sting against Bing

« Last post by Deozaan on February 01, 2011, 06:06 PM »

Google explains it on The Official Google Blog: http://googleblog.bl...s-google-search.html

5739

Living Room / Re: Sony v. Hotz: Sony Sends a Dangerous Message to Researchers -- and Its Customers

« Last post by Deozaan on February 01, 2011, 02:45 PM »

Sony is sending out the DMCA takedown notices like crazy and even the Carnegie Mellon professor has taken down his mirror for the time being...

1/27/2011 Update: Judge Illston has granted the TRO against George Hotz despite the venue issue still being contested by Hotz's attorney. And I'm out of town. Since CMU has a west coast campus in California and is therefore subject to her jurisdiction, I have disabled my mirror until I can get back to Pittsburgh and look more closely at the current state of things.

http://psgroove.com/...MCA-Takedown-Notices

EDIT:

Hmm... Wonder what this is all about?

5740

Living Room / Re: Any Good & Safe Free Movie Sites Beside StageVu?

« Last post by Deozaan on January 29, 2011, 06:58 AM »

http://crackle.com/ has TV shows and movies as well as original (made just for Crackle?) shows.

5741

Living Room / Re: Darwinism + geneticism + two-wheeled vehicles = ... awesomeness.

« Last post by Deozaan on January 29, 2011, 06:56 AM »

True, but could you design a better motorcycle than one resulting from 1 million+ years of evolving

-Eóin (January 28, 2011, 11:27 PM)

Show me a motorcycle that's been evolving for 1+ million years and I'll let you know.

5742

General Software Discussion / Re: Sublime Text: Some innovative text editor!

« Last post by Deozaan on January 29, 2011, 06:44 AM »

A pity it is so pricey..

-Tuxman (January 28, 2011, 12:20 PM)

I don't know if the developer plans to do this for Sublime Text 2, but in version 1 the "free trial" never ends. It just pops up a nag box every now and again when you save your documents after the trial ends.

I really like it and would love to buy it--when I don't have so many other bills that need to come first. Until then I still enjoy it. I'm not using it all day every day (or even at all, most days) but when I do, it sure is nice.

5743

Living Room / Re: Egypt Blacks Out Internet!

« Last post by Deozaan on January 28, 2011, 09:38 PM »

Anyone else notice how the current U.S. administration made efforts to put into place an Internet kill switch for the President but responds to Egypt by saying that shutting down of Internet is a "sign of dictators"?

See: Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers

Anyone from Egypt or in touch with people who are who can give us an update from your perspective?

-mouser (January 28, 2011, 09:35 PM)

Nobody in Egypt has internet right now, so I don't think so.

5744

DC Gamer Club / Re: RIFT - MMORPG Beta Invite

« Last post by Deozaan on January 28, 2011, 09:17 PM »

Okay, here's the second Key--available for anyone--since there hasn't really been a demand for it:

Key

NM3X-LWJQ-N3YN-EYLH-MHPZ

5745

Living Room / Re: Darwinism + geneticism + two-wheeled vehicles = ... awesomeness.

« Last post by Deozaan on January 28, 2011, 09:08 PM »

This seems to make a great case for Intelligent Design. I'm sure after a few minutes of manually tweaking I could get my motorcycle to fare a lot better than it's doing after hours of evolutionary genetic mutations.

5746

Living Room / Re: Darwinism + geneticism + two-wheeled vehicles = ... awesomeness.

« Last post by Deozaan on January 28, 2011, 04:05 PM »

I've been watching for a while now and it appears to me as though the number in parentheses is twice the previous generation's highest score.

5747

Living Room / Re: Darwinism + geneticism + two-wheeled vehicles = ... awesomeness.

« Last post by Deozaan on January 28, 2011, 01:47 PM »

That said, I've got no idea what that parenthetic value really does mean. But it regularly shows an absurdly high value -- far higher than any of my cars have ever reached. And in the succeeding generation, it is *not* the case that my cars that all scored lower than this are discarded. They continue to evolve (generally) forward, using the rules I listed.

-CWuestefeld (January 28, 2011, 01:31 PM)

I think you're right about everything, except that I think my "goal" score idea is correct. I just might not be very clear in my description of what a "goal" score is. Let me try to clarify:

Basically, if a motorcycle reaches the "goal" score, it doesn't bother simulating it any further and just moves on to the next mutation. Thus, it has reached its "goal" and is considered the cream of the crop for its particular generation.

Ideally the algorithm should favor those motorcycles which scored the highest, but there's really no way of knowing how exactly a vehicle that reaches the goal affects the next generation compared to the others that don't.

What I do know is that when none of the vehicles get close to the "goal" score, then the number goes down. But if just one makes it or gets about half way, it goes up (doubles?).

5748

Living Room / Re: Darwinism + geneticism + two-wheeled vehicles = ... awesomeness.

« Last post by Deozaan on January 28, 2011, 01:09 PM »

Hey, my score just went down from 340-ish back to 230! I've devolving! Help meeee...

-timns (January 28, 2011, 01:07 PM)

That's not your score. That's the "goal" or "target" score. See my post above for what I mean.

5749

Living Room / Re: Darwinism + geneticism + two-wheeled vehicles = ... awesomeness.

« Last post by Deozaan on January 28, 2011, 12:38 PM »

It looks fun, but what's the parameter used to determine when a new car is generated?

Every contraption I've seen so far seems to "survive" for a mere couple of seconds - IMHO the stopping parameter should be "hasn't moved for n seconds", whereas it seems to currently be pretty much random.

-f0dder (January 28, 2011, 09:58 AM)

It seems to progressively last longer depending on how the previous generation scored. It seems the number in parentheses is the "goal" score. If the motorcycle reaches that score, it will consider it a success and generate a new one. At first the goal is really small because it's so random that it's probably not very helpful to allow one to go a long distance. That is, in the beginning, quantity is much more important than quality to help narrow down the mutations. I've charted what I think the UI represents in a screenshot:



The graph at the top appears to be as follows: The red line appears to be the goal (target) score and the black line appears to be the average score for that generation. Depending on how well each generation does, the goal score goes up or down to help improve each iteration. If no motorcycles reach (abot 50% of the) goal score, it will be lower next time so that it can iterate through more mutations faster.

EDIT: The above is all just a guess based on my observations. I could be wrong about any or all of it.

I was playing with this last weekend. I tried three times, for at least 8-10 hours each, and never was able to evolve something that could get past around 213.

-CWuestefeld (January 28, 2011, 11:33 AM)

I've had it running for about 20 minutes and I've already beat that. I wish it would display the best score somewhere on the UI...

Oh damn, so what's the point of that? There's a lot of potential for a "game" like this to become more competitive: one challenge, who can breed the best machine to stay the course?

-timns (January 28, 2011, 11:26 AM)

Yeah, that would be awesome. I've had similar ideas while watching this thing go for a while.  

5750

DC Gamer Club / Re: Battlefield Play4Free Beta Invites

« Last post by Deozaan on January 28, 2011, 10:53 AM »

I'd like one please.