Recent Posts

9301

Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

« Last post by 40hz on April 19, 2010, 05:52 PM »

Ummm... maybe I didn't make myself clear?  It was people coming to the forums for the first time that saw me comment in a thread that PM'd me for answers, instead of me doing the asking...  :shrugs:

-wraith808 (April 19, 2010, 04:24 PM)

Um...nope! You were clear - I misread it.  

I had just got off the phone with Charter Communication's high-speed internet tech support "experts" so forgive me if I was seeing double when I wrote that.

Allow me to correct myself:

Glad to see some Supplicants PMed a Sage and finally got their answers.  

-----

Semi-OT follows. Feel free to ignore.

So Mr. Wraith808, you old Sage you! Here's a research question:

Do you tend to prefer private message exchanges (or focused/expert's colloquies) when sharing/discussing technical information over the more unstructured discussion mechanisms like open forums?

Enquiring minds want to know...

Seriously, I very much would appreciate your input on that. (Feel free to PM if you'd rather.)  

9302

Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

« Last post by 40hz on April 19, 2010, 03:37 PM »

I've had more than one that someone has backdoored me a question by PM because the forum was too noisy.  Yes, the conversational approach is nice, but when you're searching for an answer, it makes the forum seem too noisy, and not helpful.

-wraith808 (April 19, 2010, 08:21 AM)

I guess that would all come down to whether you're participating in the Supplicant or Symposium mode.

(BTW - Glad to see some Sages finally PM-ed you your answers. Sages love to use "back channels" to get things done. It's one of their characteristics. PMs and 'guru level' IRC chats are big favs when you're a Sage. )

9303

General Software Discussion / Re: Process Tamer speeds up my games & internet speed!

« Last post by 40hz on April 19, 2010, 03:14 PM »

But if you do insist on going the cookbook route, at least be sure you read all the instructions - and follow them to the letter...

-40hz (April 19, 2010, 02:29 PM)

There's also imaging software to image your machine before you make wholesale changes so you can get back to where you are.  With them being so useable now, I just don't see how you don't have an image if you're getting ready to do something that you *know* you don't understand...

-wraith808 (April 19, 2010, 03:03 PM)

How does that old gag line go? Something like:

"If you're gonna confuse the issue with logic, we might as well end this discussion right now."

   

9304

General Software Discussion / Re: Process Tamer speeds up my games & internet speed!

« Last post by 40hz on April 19, 2010, 02:29 PM »

Go and look at sites like www.blackviper.com to see which services can be disabled.

-Shades (April 17, 2010, 11:32 AM)

I love Black Viper's site. His advice has brought in quite a lot of money for me when I have to fix what his advice broke on clients' PCs.

-Innuendo (April 17, 2010, 08:12 PM)

+1 with you on that.

He's been responsible for a very nice fix-it project* we recently got called in to do - but shouldn't have. Too bad BV doesn't have a "make donation" button on his website. I almost feel I owe him something.

Generally, it's a bad idea to go "cookbook" if you're gonna ditz with system settings. There's really no good substitute for actually understanding a bit about what you're changing around.

But if you do insist on going the cookbook route, at least be sure you read all the instructions - and follow them to the letter...

My client didn't.

ka-ching!!!  

*(Just in case anybody's interested - it was a video editing workstation they were trying to get a "performance boost" out of because they had a deadline coming up and were running late.)

What strikes me as strange is that people who find out about the Black Viper site, make changes and then call for help because something goes wrong. The site also shows what the default service setting should be in case something goes wrong. Can people not change back to the default state which is shown to them? More or less next to suggested change?

-Shades (April 18, 2010, 11:30 AM)

Apparently not. And bless 'em for that!

Sorry, but that kind of stupidity does hardly compute with me. Such things make me always think: 'User error, replace user and continue'

Oh please don't! Who will sign all those lovely checks and credit card slips if you do that?

9305

Living Room / Re: Pure Boredom Post: The 3 Word Story Game

« Last post by 40hz on April 19, 2010, 02:01 PM »

But then again

9306

Living Room / Re: Stephen's Weekly Tech News - Edition 9

« Last post by 40hz on April 19, 2010, 07:59 AM »

Thanks for another great issue.

I found the NSA/Cyberwarfare article particularly interesting, as much for what the officials said, as what they left unsaid.

Troubling times...

But nothing we can't handle or get through.

9307

Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by 40hz on April 19, 2010, 07:38 AM »

I know this is all happening automatically without evil intent, but when you step back and look at it from again from the point of view a maliciously cloaked addresses then one that is doubly cloaked is very very suspicious.

-Eóin (April 19, 2010, 06:46 AM)

I don't think app103's issue is with the validity of how bit.ly might be interpreting a double-shortened link. (Double shortening?)

I think her issue is with bit.ly's refusal to accept responsibility or do a fix once their error has been brought to their attention.

I'm not sure where bit.ly is coming from, but I'd suspect they've been aware of this problem for some time and either: can't be bothered, are in denial, or scared silly.

Reputations are valuable. There are legal repercussions for those who  damage one. And that liability applies even if such harm was done "unintentionally."

Unintentional actions may be viewed as mitigating factors in a slander or defamation charge. But only if the party who did the harm responded in a timely fashion; did everything in their power to minimize the damage; and could show how steps had been taken to prevent it from happening again.

Saying something was done "automatically" may let you argue your intent wasn't malicious. But to just say "oh well" or "sorry, we're working on it" doesn't meet the requirement for acting in a timely and responsible manner. Nor does it remove the liability for any harm done.

Society doesn't expect all our actions to be error free. But it does expect us to accept responsibility for our mistakes.

And to make good on them.  

9308

Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

« Last post by 40hz on April 18, 2010, 08:45 PM »

Any librarians in the membership that can offer some input or insight? This sort of thing is right up their alley.

Those people wrote the book on information cataloguing, classification and retrieval. Biggest mistake the web ever made was not involving librarians from the get go.

9309

Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by 40hz on April 18, 2010, 04:15 PM »

ps. Also, seems like some blame should be laid at the feet of any twitter client that is re-shortening already short urls.

-mouser (April 18, 2010, 03:48 PM)

Out of curiosity - why?

When did everybody get together and agree to bit.ly's arbitrary rule?

Guess I wasn't copied in that memo.  

9310

Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by 40hz on April 18, 2010, 03:49 PM »

  I liked your idea about shortening a link to bit.ly with a competing service and then submitting it back to bit.ly to trigger a false positive.

Hoisting someone on their own petard is poetic justice at it's best.

(BTW - remind me never to get you mad at me. )

9311

Site/Forum Features / Re: NANY 2011 :: A New Concept -- Have your say!

« Last post by 40hz on April 18, 2010, 01:06 PM »

Also not to say that documentation needs to be written documentation. Something like those nice videos Mouser has provided for FARR could also count. At least IMHO.

Also - as StoicJoker points out, docs could spin NANY off into the weeds. That's why I suggested the whole issue of docs be treated as its own thing. Tech writing is a specialty anyway.

One of my favorite programs is SoftGears wWhoIS, it's a CLI program, with no documentation (that I've seen) ... and it doesn't need any either - it's usage is self explanatory -

-Stoic Joker (April 18, 2010, 10:27 AM)

Very valid point in those cases where a program is simple or single purposed enough that it works.

But some programs handle things that aren't intuitive such as video transcoding or graphic modeling. With this category of program, no matter what you do, it will still remain fairly complex to grasp and use. Look at Blender. It gets criticized for its complexity. But what it does will always remain a fairly complex set of tasks. And while the interface could be improved or streamlined, it won't make using Blender any easier for the end-user.

So for a program like Blender, good docs are a necessity.

One of the things that took me (being more of a nuts-&-bolts guy) a while to grasp is that DC has a bit of an academic slant - e.g. The point of a discussion javascript:void(0);is to discuss the point, drawing a conclusion is optional. That's part of it's charm, and something that should not change.

-Stoic Joker (April 18, 2010, 10:27 AM)

Well said. Never though of it exactly that way, but I think SJ just hit the nail on the head with that insight.

--------

Note: I just realized that since I'm shooting my mouth off about NANY, I probably should seriously start thinking about coding again. Been a whole lotta years since I've done much of that.

Gulp!

9312

Site/Forum Features / Re: NANY 2011 :: A New Concept -- Have your say!

« Last post by 40hz on April 18, 2010, 08:03 AM »

I think the suggested documentation requirement for something to be included in a separate category could be a major stumbling block. Documentation is a MAJOR PAIN for everybody including the big commercial code shops.

Maybe there could be some form of 'special achivement' recognition for excellent documentation being included? Maybe like NANY and NANY w/bronze oak leaf frond...This way it doesn't categorize something as better. It just acknowledges it came with some extra goodness.

Documentation is the bane of the FOSS world. Many otherwise excellent applications are hobbled by the fact they're complex programs and nobody want to write the documentation they need to be useful to most people. So I'm very big on encouraging good documentation.

Maybe a major documentation effort could be its own achievement award? Cody Quill anyone?
 

9313

Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« Last post by 40hz on April 18, 2010, 07:39 AM »

Dont you think this story is too much exaggerated

-paarkhi (April 16, 2010, 11:05 PM)

Hard to say.

I used to feel that way about all those dystopian stories about the USA gradually becoming a police state.

Then along came the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay and documented accounts of some of what went on there. I haven't felt the same about our political and legal system since.

SciFi is only scifi until reality catches up with it. Nowadays, it seems like the lagtime can be measured in days instead of centuries.
 
 

9314

Living Room / Re: How one very smart woman found a way to help save lives at a cost of $3

« Last post by 40hz on April 17, 2010, 03:39 PM »

Follow up on the patent thing:

Did a little research, and apparently the device was developed as part of this program at MIT.

The students are all part of the Experimental Study Group, a program celebrating its 40th year at MIT. As an alternative that allows about 50 freshmen to satisfy their General Institute Requirements in an atmosphere of small, personalized classes and peer learning in small study groups, ESG generally provides a sense of community and camaraderie more typical of a small college. Slocum, director of the program since 2002, is also an alumnus of ESG himself.

Slocum ’82, MS ’83, PhD ’85, the Neil and Jane Pappalardo Professor of Mechanical Engineering, loves to tinker and build, but most of all he loves to ignite that same passion for creating new devices in other people. His enthusiasm is one reason he was named Massachusetts’ “professor of the year” in 2000, among many awards he has garnered for both research and teaching.

...

Devices for doctors

One of the programs Slocum has been especially interested in is a class that he evolved from a class originally created by Prof. Guttag with CIMIT, the Boston-based Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology. Each year in that class (2.75, “Precision Machine Design”), clinicians and doctors from area hospitals propose to CIMIT a device they wish someone would invent to deal with problems they encounter in their practice.

Students can then pick a problem they would like to tackle, and form teams to develop devices to fill that need. Thanks to U.S. Army sponsorship, each team then gets a budget of about $5,000 to pursue the project. “I have weekly design-review and problem-solving meetings with the student/doctor teams, and the students’ task is to work with the doctor they’ve selected, create strategies and concepts, do a patent search, then do the research and engineering needed to build and test their solution,” Slocum explains.

<more>

From what I see, having the student look at the issue of patents is part of the course requirements.

Link to article:

http://web.mit.edu/n...ile-slocum-0302.html

------

BTW: Professor Slocum looks like the sort of professor many of us wish we had more of. He's a pretty interesting 'character' as well. Here's a video showing some of what Professor Slocum and his crew are up to at MIT:

http://techtv.mit.ed...288-2007-documentary

Well worth the 10 or so minutes it takes to watch.

 

9315

Living Room / Re: Which prize would you choose?

« Last post by 40hz on April 17, 2010, 03:12 PM »

I'm truly fascinated by the amount of people who would actually choose neither.

-Eóin (April 17, 2010, 02:02 PM)

Me too! I did not expect that at all.

-app103 (April 17, 2010, 02:51 PM)

Yeah that is odd. I've heard of risk adverse, but non-risk adverse?

Not that it would matter in my case. I've earned my share of awards. But won prizes? No. In my entire life I have never won a free anything. Not a single contest, raffle, giveaway, or door prize.

I sometimes suspect the main reason I still occasionally buy a raffle ticket for a worthy cause is to see if this trend will remain unbroken rather than for my stated reason, which is: "to support the cause."

Otherwise, wouldn't I just make the contribution and not take a ticket if that were so?  

 

9316

Developer's Corner / Re: Article: Donation-based Funding of Basic Research

« Last post by 40hz on April 17, 2010, 02:38 PM »

Cool idea. 40hz's concerns are definitely legitimate. Still as a potential contributor I'd be willing to forego any share of profits if some cool stuff comes out of it.

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (April 05, 2010, 09:47 PM)

I think many of us would. Few people expect something back for their donations so long as nobody else is getting rich off them either. But the problem is how to keep one of these new projects from just turning into a (donation funded) commercial enterprise.

There's an inherent contradiction someplace in there that I just can't seem to get around.

If you take a look at some of the big FOSS projects that have recently gone under a corporate mantle (MySQL for example) you can see the potential for problems.

For while very few begrudged the fact that MySQL's central project team finally got some 'payback' for years of hard work, it was still a pretty raw deal for the many who materially contributed to the project over the years, but were not brought in as part of the clique.

And it was also a major blow to the 'social contract' necessary for FOSS to work when Sun almost immediately started to look for ways to get around the GPL (despite assurances to the contrary) by internally forking MySQL into a community and a commercial set of releases with functional differences in the core code.

To be sure, many OSS products have community and commercial editions. But in most cases, the commercial version came first, rather than the other way around as it did with "Sun's" MySQL.

The big hoopla that went down following Sun's announcement caused them to relent on some of their plans. But nobody is convinced it's anywhere near over. The departure of MySQL founder Martin Mikos from Sun in early 2009 would appear to indicate as much. And the steady stream of departures (Gosling, Phipps, Nutter, Enerbo, Siegler, Wierzbicki, et al) all of whom are major developers and project leaders from the OSS world tends to further reinforce the notion that all is not well in paradise.

So for me the question is how something like Eureka Fund's methodology can avoid creating a similar debacle down the road.

9317

Living Room / Re: Workaround to print directly from an iPad

« Last post by 40hz on April 17, 2010, 01:01 PM »

Does your butt comply with Steve Jobs' butt guidelines?

-nosh (April 17, 2010, 07:44 AM)

I'd guess. I have an iPhone so he's... uh...kicked mine just like he has all the other iPhone owners.  So that should count for something, right?

9318

Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

« Last post by 40hz on April 17, 2010, 09:21 AM »

Take a look at what we do and what we are best known for.

The most popular section of the forum is the livingroom, which is primarily discussions around links found and shared by other members.

-app103 (April 17, 2010, 08:23 AM)

+1 on that.

From what I've seen, the DC forums are unique both in quality and feel. Spend a little time on other forums (including the ones hosted by the 'biggies' such as Microsoft) and you'll quickly learn to appreciate just how unique DC's 'uniqueness' is.

-----------



               WITCH

But that's not what's worrying me
-- it's how to do it.

These things must be done delicately
...or you hurt the spell.

9319

Living Room / Re: Workaround to print directly from an iPad

« Last post by 40hz on April 17, 2010, 07:36 AM »

Just thinking...does that mean that now you can, like take a photo of your butt, and then run it off on the office copier?
 

9320

Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

« Last post by 40hz on April 17, 2010, 07:11 AM »

AFAIK they are. 

Hope so anyway. I'm using them in a book I'm working on. 

9321

Living Room / Re: Apple Attacks Adobe

« Last post by 40hz on April 17, 2010, 07:04 AM »

Unless Adobe had a specific agreement with Apple to use/run Flash, Adobe has no case to bring. The courts have long found in favor of closed industries unless they're breaking prior contractual agreements.

That legal argument didn't work too well for Microsoft. 

Once you reach a certain mass, the various trade commissions start to view your actions in a different light.

Apple is used to playing the underdog. Now that it's becoming more and more obvious they're not, I think they're going to gain a better appreciation of what Microsoft is going through being current King of the Hill.

  

9322

Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

« Last post by 40hz on April 17, 2010, 03:45 AM »

Then there's the question of who you're primarily catering to.

From my perspective, people who regularly visit tech sites fall into one of the following categories:

Supplicants - those who seek an answer.
This group constitutes about three quarters of what's out there. These are the people that ask for, but don't materially participate in arriving at solutions for a variety of reasons. Seldom participate in topics other than the ones they have initiated. Tend not to remain significantly active once their questions are answered.

Sages - those who have an answer.
This group is composed of people with expertise or experiences they are willing to share with others. Reasons and motivations for participation will vary widely with this group. Usually significantly active participants, although many will self-restrict their participation to topics that fall within their area of expertise.

Symposium - those who participate in coming up with an answer.
This is the classic "Socratic approach" crowd. Often (but not necessarily) composed of people with deep knowledge in specific topic areas who are moving outside their areas of expertise in order to broaden their knowledgebase. As a result, many in this group also fall into the Sages category. Reasons and motivations for participation will vary widely with this group, although the primary motivations seem to be the "joy of discovery" and the pleasure derived from helping out.

Right now, it appears Donation Coder's active membership is heavily weighted with participants from the Symposium category.

So for me, the question becomes: what additions/changes could be made to create a better experience for the primary group while, at the same time, not ignoring everyone else?

9323

Living Room / Re: How one very smart woman found a way to help save lives at a cost of $3

« Last post by 40hz on April 17, 2010, 02:31 AM »

I suppose it might depend on who is holding the patent application and why it was sumitted.

If it was originally developed as part of an ME class, like the article mentioned, there's a good chance the application was submitted by MIT. MIT understands patents and licensing quite well and has a habit of patenting everything they come up with.

As to why, it could also have been filed as a defensive measure like the FSF does with software. And yes, FSF holds software patents even though they are very much opposed to the entire notion of software patents.

If something like this device ever hopes to see the light of day it's going to need something heavy behind it. Otherwise the "big medicine" companies will either attempt to obtain it - or litigate it out of existence if they can't.

Patents aren't necessarily a bad thing in the world of medical devices. You need to have one to make a lot of money. But you'll need one even more for something that will either be sold cheaply or given away.

"I am not cynical. I'm a realist." as the old joke goes.  

    

9324

Living Room / How one very smart woman found a way to help save lives at a cost of $3

« Last post by 40hz on April 16, 2010, 06:13 PM »

With all the negativity surrounding healthcare and medical reporting, it's sometimes nice to hear some good news for a change. Stories about people like Danielle Zurovcik make me feel good about being a member of the human race.

link: http://www.fastcompa...the-developing-world

MIT Student Develops $3 Cutting-Edge Healing Device, Field Tested in Haiti
BY Cliff KuangWed Apr 14, 2010

The new device could radically improve healing times for tens of millions, at a cost of $3.

No one really knows why, but for an open wound, simply applying suction dramatically speeds healing times. (The theory is that the negative pressure draws bacteria out, and encourages circulation.) But for almost everyone, that treatment is out of reach--simply because the systems are expensive--rentals cost at least $100 a day and need to be recharged every six hours.

No more. Danielle Zurovcik, a doctoral student at MIT, has created a hand-powered suction-healing system that costs about $3.

<more>
 

Of course the headline is a little misleading in that Fast Company refers to her as a "student."

The word "student" conjures up a very different image in my mind than somebody like Ms. Zurovcik, who just so happens to be a doctoral candidate at MIT.

Oh well... It takes nothing away from Danielle's contribution.

I guess FC felt the need to do something to entice people to read the article.

 

9325

Living Room / Workaround to print directly from an iPad

« Last post by 40hz on April 16, 2010, 12:48 PM »

Courtesy of FORM Group:



Yeah Baby!!! That's what Daddy likes...

-----

w/Thx to Device Mag for this find.

Link: http://www.devicemag...lved-dyi-workaround/