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8651

General Software Discussion / Re: Liquid Story Binder: Excellent

« Last post by 40hz on December 10, 2010, 04:13 PM »

Think Artie in Warehouse 13

-40hz (December 10, 2010, 03:12 PM)

[superboyac quietly queues up Warehouse 13...]

-superboyac (December 10, 2010, 03:23 PM)

Check out the characters played by JoAnn Kelly, Jamie Murray, Genelle Williams and Allison Scagliotti while you're there. Enough variety to suit every taste.



(Not too hard on the eyes either.   )

Hollywood & Television studios take heed! Finally a show where ALL the female characters are intelligent, complex, and strong.

It works.

Do more of that.

8652

General Software Discussion / Re: Liquid Story Binder: Excellent

« Last post by 40hz on December 10, 2010, 03:12 PM »

The program is sold as a novel writing software, but I think it's pretty helpful for any kind of story writing.  Fiction, nonfiction, comic books.

-superboyac (December 10, 2010, 02:18 PM)

Actually, what I'm using it for right now is to help a friend rough out a Steampunk game concept he's in the process of designing. He took one look and decided to score his own registered copy of LSB. So now all we'll need to do is throw the files up on DropBox and we are set to rock... (Bring it on, bring it on, bring it ON!)

LSB should be great for keeping track of all the assets and snippets and story themes and dossiers and yadda-yadda... that usually wind up on Post-It notes all over the walls, the floor, and (sometimes) the ceiling when you do this sort of thing. (Think Artie in Warehouse 13 with that glass wall he's always consulting - except we're nowhere near that furry or fat, thank god!)



I'm also seriously thinking about using the mind map function for level design since it looks and works like a balloon map anyway. Have to set it up as a separate file of course. Or maybe not. Hmmm...

Oh well, that's for the weekend.  

Now to finish-up these Win2k3 server scripts for my paying client...<*yawn*>

8653

Living Room / Re: Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality

« Last post by 40hz on December 10, 2010, 11:45 AM »

IIRC, it was something in the local soil and thus local crops which made locals unable to lie.  The Want Ads were a hoot, since everyone told the truth.

-AndyM (December 10, 2010, 10:09 AM)

Wow! Blast from the past...

IIRC it was a mold culture (Jasper) that was being added to all the products made by the Jaspers food co-op, and which was the only brand of food the citizens would consume.

And since it was also psychoactive and addictive, nothing with Jasper in it was ever knowingly given to a non-resident, hence the mystery for outsiders.

(I got a friend that does a homebrew 'double bock' that could be like that if he'd just make enough of it on a regular basis!  )

8654

Living Room / Re: DDOS Ethics

« Last post by 40hz on December 10, 2010, 11:22 AM »

If Anon and Wikileaks really wanted to hit back, the single best thing they could have done was to get the entire world laughing at the people responsible for what was being revealed rather than try to provoke moral outrage.

Governments and institutions are engineered to withstand challenges to their authority. And most are quite adept at redefining morals and ethics to suit their own ends.

But the one thing that authority cannot fight against is widespread ridicule and laughter at their expense. Emperors need "clothing" in order to get enough public consensus (or tolerance) to continue advancing their agendas. And this holds equally true whether they rule in the United States or North Korea.

So the biggest weapon that could be brought to bear against these men of little worth would be to expose them for what they are. And to get everybody laughing about it.

Most people lack the capacity to remain angry for extended periods of time. So while it may be true that anger burns hot, it also burns quickly. But a good joke has a half-life that can often be measured in years.

***

There's a story told about King Louis of France. Although the details vary, the most common version tells of how the king had his wig fall off at a ball while bowing to a young lady he was trying to impress with his non-existent dance skills.

Nobody in the room seemed to notice, and the wig was shortly returned to the king's head without comment or fanfare.

A visiting Hungarian nobleman commented to the intense young Frenchman standing next to him that he was surprised nobody had laughed.

"That is because I would have arrested them if any had - and they know it," replied the young man, whose name was Antoine Raymond Jean Gualbert Gabriel de Sartine, comte d'Alby - and who happened to be (among other things) the head of the king's much feared secret police.

"Arrest a man merely for laughing?" exclaimed the Hungarian Count in disbelief. "What possible crime could there be in that?"

"Sedition, my dear Count," replied Sartines with a resigned smile. "For don't you see, the authority and might of kings depends in its entirety on their taking pains to assure no one laughs at the wrong times."

 

------------

As long as they were either venerated, or simply hated and feared, the French nobility was unassailable.

It was only when their behavior attracted widespread ridicule and contempt that the revolution finally took place.

8655

Living Room / Re: The minimalist lifestyle. Anyone here successfully implemented it?

« Last post by 40hz on December 10, 2010, 09:45 AM »

I think wraith808 hit on something that goes to the heart of the matter: that many of us can benefit from simplifying our lives. And that it can be accomplished without needing to radically alter everything we're doing or go without.

My GF and I made a significant commitment to streamlining and simplifying our life a few years back. And it worked. We managed to keep everything that really mattered to us, and got rid of all the objects and responsibilities we almost mindlessly accumulated over the years that didn't.

Now we have cosiderably less than we had before. And we've become much richer and happier in the process.

-------

P.S. I actually like my job too!

8656

General Software Discussion / Re: Liquid Story Binder: Excellent

« Last post by 40hz on December 10, 2010, 09:25 AM »

@Dormouse/wraith808 - thx for that info!  But I went and bought a new license anyway. Which is only fair. I intend to get some serious use out of this package in the coming year. And every developer deserves the support of those that use their products.

I just migrated something I'm working on over to it as we speak. Already liking this app very much!

8657

General Software Discussion / Re: Liquid Story Binder: Excellent

« Last post by 40hz on December 10, 2010, 08:36 AM »

Allso left out one other thing I really like about LSB: documentation!

It has a MANUAL!!! (Does anybody remember how software always used to come with a manual?) I thought I was either hallucinating or had fallen into a timewarp.

And it's in PDF format so you can print it out too!

Man, I am really starting to love this guy...

8658

Living Room / Re: The minimalist lifestyle. Anyone here successfully implemented it?

« Last post by 40hz on December 10, 2010, 07:36 AM »

Probably a worthwhile aesthetic and philosophy to embrace.  

But in my case, I think I'll wait until after the big bombs hit before I start embracing it.  

"Necessity furthers. No blame." as the I Ching teaches us.  

8659

General Software Discussion / Re: Liquid Story Binder: Excellent

« Last post by 40hz on December 10, 2010, 07:04 AM »

Hey SB! Thanks for the find!

I used to own a copy of LSB some time ago. I got it as a free one-day promo from the GOTD website. Unfortunately, I didn't realize the license was only for that version. So when I innocently upgraded it to the new edition that came out a few weeks later, I lost the free license. I hadn't used it all that much at that point (only two very rough first drafts) so it wasn't a major issue. I just grabbed the files I created, went back to using WriteMonkey and MS Word, and tried to stay organized.

I did keep meaning to order LSB however. But somehow...I never quite got around to doing it.

Until today.

Just goes to show that procrastination pays!

Or at least it did this time...

-----
@tomos

It's geared towards writing in a general sense although there are plenty of tools a fiction writer will appreciate. But it should also work equally well for a picture book, a piece of non-fiction, or a magazine article.

It's basically a sophisticated file manager/organizer that provides a collection tools you can group into functional 'workspaces' to assist in creative and organizational tasks. Each workspace can have more than one tool open. And you can customize and save workspaces as needed. I like to think of it as a writing desk on steroids.

Here's the drop-down menu of tools to give you an idea of the functions they provide:



Some screenshots of tools and workspaces:

     

   

It's a very flexible arrangement. All the tools use floating windows. So your workspace can be set up with as much or as little "stuff" as you like. Macintosh and AdobeCS users will feel right at home.

Need to have a clean space in order to write? More creative with a cluttered desk? LSB lets you work either way.

Some things I really like about it:

• It doesn't use a database, or proprietary file formats.
  All files are stored in standard Windows directories. And your files are saved in RTF format for maximum compatibility with other software.
   
• It's pretty!
  Appearance is very important to me. Especially when it comes to anything I'll be staring at for hours at a time.
   
• Flexibility
  Unlike some other software (i.e. Save the Cat, DramaticaPro, etc.) LSB doesn't require...or "strongly suggest"   any particular 'method' of writing.  You can use as much or as little of the feature set as you like. And you can use the tools in any order - or combination. I'm normally a very organized and focused writer. But there are times when I just want to start writing and see where it takes me. LSB can accommodate either mood.
   
• Fair & sane licensing terms.
  The software is licensed to you - not your machine. You can load and register it on as many machines as you like with the understanding that only you should be using it. Registration is via a simple cut & paste text key that doesn't require an online connection. No hokey "genuine advantage" type nonsense down the road either.

You can always try the full package for free for 30 non-consecutive days to see if it works for you. Doesn't get any fairer than that.  

8660

Living Room / Re: DDOS Ethics

« Last post by 40hz on December 10, 2010, 04:55 AM »

Perhaps the U.S. Government should put the current Wikileaks 'threat' in perspective?



 

8661

Living Room / Re: DDOS Ethics

« Last post by 40hz on December 09, 2010, 04:22 PM »

Back in the "Viet Nam Era," there was an acid test to determine the level of commitment to a politically revolutionary cause. It was pretty simple two-part question.

------------------------------------------------------------
If push comes to shove:

1. Are you willing to go to jail?

2. Are you willing to get beaten up?

------------------------------------------------------------

If you answered "yes" to 1 & 2, you were a revolutionary, and the type that sometimes makes a difference.

If you answered "yes" to #1 only, you were a dedicated supporter with revolutionary leanings, and the type most likely to make a difference.

If you answered "yes" to #2 only, you were just a troublemaker, and the type most likely to harm the cause - and get other people hurt.

And if you answered "no" to both questions, you were a dilettante and a potential security threat since you were the type most likely to cut a deal with the authorities and perjure yourself once the hammer came down.


Ethics aside, I'm wondering where in this spectrum the Wikileaks people fall.

8662

Living Room / Re: Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality

« Last post by 40hz on December 09, 2010, 09:50 AM »

@tomos-Actually, according to my GF (who works for the government - and is here to help! ) quite of few of them do that in the cities around where we are. So unless one guy owns all the area franchises (which well might be the case) there seems to be something more going on. Because, in the end, it comes down to the owner(s) rather than the employees or the managers just being nice.  The discrepancies between sales and the cash drawer will need to be accounted for sooner or later. And if the owner isn't on the same page, all those 'nice' people are going to be seeking new employment.

Maybe "policy" was a bad choice of words on my part. Perhaps "understanding" or "protocol" is a little closer to how it gets handled in practice.
 

8663

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: A-PDF: 90% off!

« Last post by 40hz on December 09, 2010, 09:23 AM »

Is it my imagination or does their website seem to be abnormally quiet about WHO they are and WHERE they're located?

I have a real problem with internet-based business that don't furnish things like

• Legal name of business
• Street address
• Phone number
• Years in business
• Names of company officers

A whois query of their URL indicates it's a private registration. Talk about stealth! I could understand if they were an investigative blogger trying to retain a small degree of anonymity. But a business?

Anytime somebody wants to do business business with me, I want to know exactly who I'm dealing with. Which is only fair considering they can find out anything they want to know about me the minute I give them a credit card number.

Sorry for the mini-rant.  I know many other web businesses are also guilty of not providing company information so they're not alone in this. But this is one of my pet peeves.

 

8664

Living Room / Re: Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality

« Last post by 40hz on December 09, 2010, 07:15 AM »

I'm not eating in McDonalds or Burger King very often. But when I do, I'm usually disappointed about what I'm getting because it's so much different to what I see on the pictures.

-phitsc (December 08, 2010, 08:56 AM)

Last time I ate something (a BigMac) from a fast food chain was back in the early 80s.

Since then, I'm extremely grateful that I have never once been in a position where I was so hungry that I had to eat something from one of those places.**

If it's a toss-up between eating a Whopper, BigMac or a TacoBell whatever - I'd rather go without.

Same goes for some of what they call "coffee." I'm a coffee addict, no bones about it. But if my only choice is Starbucks, I'll pass every time.

----

**Note: I think it's important to realize some of these places provide a valuable community service despite my low opinion of the food being served.

I recently took a walk with another tech who decided he wanted to go to a MacDonald's not too far from where we were working. I accompanied him to provide 'backup' since this place wasn't located in the best part of the city.

While standing in line, I couldn't help but notice how several of the poorer looking people were paying well below what the cashiers told them was the price for the meals they were getting. Some of these folks were doing little more than dropping a couple of dollars (or in one case, pocket change) for a burger/fry/drink combo.

In every case, the cashiers took what was offered and handed these people their meal, without comment - and with the manager looking on. Obviously this was some sort of a policy they were following.

After my partner ordered, I remarked to the manager that I thought it was a nice thing they were doing for these people. He only shrugged and said: "People gotta eat."

 

8665

Official Announcements / Re: Does Santa skip you during the holidays? Cody won't forsake you

« Last post by 40hz on December 07, 2010, 10:56 PM »

Looks like somebody just got their Member Kit! 

8666

Living Room / Re: A NAS server for my home

« Last post by 40hz on December 07, 2010, 10:38 PM »

MaximumPC published a step-by-step article about a year ago you might find helpful if you do go the DIY route and opt for FreeNAS.

Back in the day, the average nerd household had one or two computers, a printer, and a game console. If you were lucky, you had an Internet connection on one of those computers—forget about the printer; forget about the console. And forget about home networking. But now, the average geek household has a multitude of machines: desktop computers, laptops, netbooks, Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones, and networked game consoles—not to mention terabytes of ripped movies, music, and photos. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a central location where all of those files lived that was accessible to all your computing devices? A place where you could back up all of your computers, host your media files for streaming to your console or other computers, and use as a file share for your whole network? Yes. Yes, it would.

A few months ago, we showed you how to set up a Windows Home Server to enable such a scenario. But a Windows Home Server license costs 100 bucks, and doesn’t necessarily play well with non-Windows machines. FreeNAS, on the other hand, is a free, open-source FreeBSD derivative, and though it can be a little more complex under the hood, it’s as powerful as Windows Home Server and runs well on salvaged hardware. And FreeNAS plays well with Windows, Apple, and *nix systems.

 We’ll show you what hardware you’ll need for a FreeNAS server, how to install and configure your server, and then help you choose between FreeNAS and WHS. 

Link to full article here. Printer friendly version here.


-----

You might also want to take a look at Lime Tech's website.

Lime Tech is the developer behind the unRAID Server. Their website is a trove of good info because they freely share specific details (i.e. mobo choice,  power supply, etc.) of their server products. Since they use off-the-shelf components, you could either duplicate their setups, or use them as the basis for further research for your own build.

Check out the spec for their RB-1200 Server which can accommodate up to 12 2TB-SATA/SATAII drives for a total of 22TB of usable storage in a standard midtower case. Scary!

 

8667

General Software Discussion / Re: Command line tools - Console apps heaven

« Last post by 40hz on December 07, 2010, 03:26 PM »

New one for me, but I don't use Chrome so that's no surprise.  

Gonna have to take a look at that. You've piqued my curiosity.


UPDATE: it's a flagged issue (Issue #11) Apparently they're still working on it.

8668

Living Room / Re: Connections problem has me stumped ...

« Last post by 40hz on December 07, 2010, 02:08 PM »

+1 w/Nudone on Nvidia drivers. I lost half a week on a desktop my sister owned due to network issues caused by those.

Also, are you plugged into a 1.1 or 2.0 USB socket? I have a Belkin USB wireless card that works beautifully as long as it's not in a version 1.1 port. If it is, it sporadically exhibits behaviors very similiar to what you're seeing: long files hang or abort towards the end of the download, but browsing always seems to work fine.

I never bothered to find out exactly what the problem was although I suspect it's either some sort of ack/nak lag issue due to the slower usb port, or some sort of buffer clog/overflow problem.

Either way, I installed a USB 2.0 card in the PC and the problem disappeared.

Try disabling the internal wifi on your laptop and see if plugging in the 'problem child' results in the same symptoms. If it does, you just might have a bum dongle.

Luck!

8669

Developer's Corner / Re: How to program for all 3 platforms at once

« Last post by 40hz on December 06, 2010, 07:20 PM »

^ Just DL'ed the 30-day trial.

I'd be interested in hearing from anybody who uses it too. 

8670

Living Room / Re: A NAS server for my home

« Last post by 40hz on December 06, 2010, 07:13 PM »

^How'd you know I was watching Angelina?. 

8671

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by 40hz on December 06, 2010, 03:57 PM »

It made the middle ages sound very appealing compared to our current Western capitalist culture, and I'd like to read more about the European guilds system. Any one know a good book on the subject?

-Ampa (December 06, 2010, 02:44 PM)

If you don't mind something that focuses primarily on the economic ramifications of the guild system, Wage Labor and Guilds in Medieval Europe by Steven Epstein is a good read. We used it in an economics course I took a few years ago, and I thought it was a pretty fascinating book.

Amazon sells it for a lot less than the college bookstore wanted for it!    Link here.

For excellent general introductions to medieval lifestyles try the "Daily Life" books by Frances & Joseph Gies. There are three titles in the series:

• Life in a Medieval Castle
• Life in a Medieval City
• Life in a Medieval Village

I just discovered there's also a 400-page omnibus edition (if you want all three in a single volume ) called: Daily Life in Medieval Times: A Vivid, Detailed Account of Birth, Marriage and Death; Food, Clothing and Housing; Love and Labor in the Middle Ages



Amazon carries all of these too. But your local bookstore and library usually have copies since this is an extremely popular series. You can always check it out at those places before you buy.

 

8672

Official Announcements / Re: Preparing for a new master DonationCoder server

« Last post by 40hz on December 06, 2010, 12:50 PM »

Besides, these guys are more than savvy enough that if they felt using blogs would have been helpful, they would have set them up already. So who am I to say?

lol which guys are we talking about?  

-mouser (December 06, 2010, 12:22 PM)

Oh nobody in particular.  Just a few people who built something rather remarkable - and who scored a quarter million registrations and a higher number of forum posts in just five years, assuming Wikipedia is current with their stats.

So no big deal, right? What could they possibly know? Doesn't every website do just as well as this crew?  

8673

Official Announcements / Re: Preparing for a new master DonationCoder server

« Last post by 40hz on December 06, 2010, 12:19 PM »

well...mouser is right also.  I don't know...I shouldn't really participate in this, this is not my bag .

-superboyac (December 06, 2010, 10:32 AM)

  That's why I thought I'd better stop talking midway through my ramble. Not my site.

Besides, these guys are more than savvy enough that if they felt using blogs would have been helpful, they would have set them up already. So who am I to say?

 

8674

Developer's Corner / Re: How to program for all 3 platforms at once

« Last post by 40hz on December 06, 2010, 10:34 AM »

@Carol: Thx. Found it. (They also respond to their email! How common a thing is that for a software company? Looking better and better already  )

8675

Official Announcements / Re: Preparing for a new master DonationCoder server

« Last post by 40hz on December 06, 2010, 09:51 AM »

This is more under site design than graphic design:

I would very much like to see some sort of revival of the weekly (Dr. Ehtyar/Stephen) "Tech Newz" feature - except I think it would be better if it were implemented as a blog rather than a forum post this time around.

A rolling format would be more practical since it's difficult for readers to comment on stories under the "single topic per" paradigm forum threads use. Note: I'm only talking about the tech news section here. The forum itself is fine. It's the weekly newspost  that doesn't work well inside the forum.

Any individual story/discussion that really took off could always be moved over to a forum thread to keep major discussions all in one place and avoid creating a split betwen the forum and the newsdesk areas. You could always do a link to the news blog from within the forum to help provide a more unified user experience.

A blog engine would also make it easier for the news editor to post stories as they break - or as the news editor's time permits - rather than on some arbitrary weekly deadline. We don't "go to print" so there's really no need to have press deadlines or "editions" anymore.

Just thinking out loud.

Actually, a blog format would make a lot of sense for the annual NANY as well as the software author's pages. Once you load up something like Wordpress, you can easily create as many blog spaces as you'd need and still have the regular forum and static pages for what they work better for. But this is a topic for a whole 'nuther discussion...and... uh...I'm gonna shut up now.