Geek Ramblings

The Seven Deadly Forum Sins

2009-12-12T10:02:00.000-08:00

We've all been to them. Forums, that is. Online discussion boards. Newsgroups for Web 2.0. The collective (lack of) intelligence on the Internet. When posting on a forum, there are certain posting habits that piss everyone off and make you look like a tool. Here are the seven worst and most-widespread.

7. Overuse of Smilies

Okay, we get it. You absolutely loooooove the latest update, the new book, or that sexy main character. But, you know, sometimes words could just do without the extra <3 or :-D. You can state an opinion just fine without using images. The poster above (taken from the deviantART forums) at least had the courtesy of using complete sentences. At least (s)he's showing that much intelligence.

6. 1337 h4x0r sk1llz

If you could read that heading, good job! You know someone who uses (or used) 1337speak! A shoddy attempt to appear like a hacker, leetspeak will only make you look like a moron. Sorry, kiddies, it's true.

5. Stacking Quotes

Click here to view screenshot

The "quote" feature on most PHP-based forums is extremely useful -- for example, breaking up large posts into pieces so you can reply to each one. However, when they become "stacked" (ie. multiple nested quotes), they start to take on a Ziggurat-like structure and have more content in them than the actual post. This disturbs the reading flow of a thread by forcing the reader to either read all of the quotes over again, or spend time scrolling through them. Just go back one level. In rare cases, you may need to go back further to illustrate a point, but real instances of that are few and far between.

4. Enormous Signature (Images, text, etc)

Click here to view screenshot

Formerly known as the "wall of text" on newsgroups, signatures are considered "too large" when a one-line post is inflated to larger than the quick-profile information in the left sidebar (for most forums) due to the signature. It sometimes confuses users, as it looks like a separate post. Worst of all are the lolcat/loldo(n)g/insert-other-stupid-meme-here images which are clearly just taken from X website. Please, for our sanity, just don't.

3. Thread Necroing

Sometimes threads can span across years. Sometimes threads last so long you weren't even a member on the forum when the thread was started. Maybe you weren't even born yet. Either way, long-lasting threads are acceptable, so long as they stay active. Thread necroing is the action of taking a thread that has been dead for months (or even years, as seen in the above image taken from the Concession forums) and posting in it. Look at the timestamps. Know where they are and what they mean. Or you could end up in this situation.

2. Butting In

Click here to view screenshot

The best way to avoid butting in is simple: read the entire thread before rushing to the "Quick Reply" box. What you said may have been said before! Make sure that your answer is well-formed, concise, and to the point. If you feel the need to expand upon something that's been said before, Quote the original reply and state that you agree but would like to add more.

1. LOLROFFLEMAO (and etc.)

There are two things that hinder a user's ability to read a forum: obnoxious styling and obnoxious language. These are the two most-oft committed sins. The former, seen here, is not so much hard to read (until the word "silver") as it is flat-out annoying. However, overuse of netspeak (the bastard cousin of leetspeak) makes posts end up something like this:

Christ, that was hard to read! Use full sentences, proper punctuation, grammar, and capitalization (technically a part of grammar, but the most abused) and people won't yell at you for being a nitwit.

So, anytime you have the urge to delve into the wonderful world of Internet forums, remember these tips so not look like an idiot! (This applies especially to Twilight fans.)

Note: All of the above posts are real, and only one of them was by me (for demo purposes).

The OS War, Part 1: Look out the Windows

2009-02-11T06:25:00.001-08:00

For those of you whose heads have been in the dirt for the past ten years (or are non-geeks, I suppose), we are at war. The Operating System War. The slugfest has been long and arduous, and I can guarantee you it will last for quite some time longer.

The main contestant is Microsoft, with its flagship product (Windows). Holding approximately 89% of the market, Windows has dominated the computer world for as far as most people know. Now, this post is not going to be a "bash-Microsoft" campaign journal, so if you're looking for ammunition to use against Windows I suggest you look elsewhere.

The other major players include Apple (putting out OSX) and the various distributors of Linux (Red Hat, Canonical, Novell, etc). Other operating systems exist, such as BSD, the various forks of UNIX such as AIX, Solaris and IRIX, and Minix; however, they do not contribute significantly to the OS war as they are targeted towards a very specific audience. I will be focusing primarily on Windows, Linux and OSX. Part 1 will focus on Windows and its iterations, Part 2 on UNIX derivatives, and Part 3 on OSX.

The very first iteration of Windows, Windows 1.01 (what happened to Windows 1.0? Who knows?), was released in 1985. It was a 16-bit operating environment, the first Microsoft OS to implement multitasking. However, all Windows at that point was, was an overlay for DOS. The user still had to have DOS installed in order to run this environment (I hesitate to call it an OS). It was superseded by Windows 2.0 and 2.1x, which introduced the ability to "drag" windows across the screen and overlap windows. Next came the wildly successful Windows 3.1, released in 1992 (3.0 was released in 1990). Windows 3.1 included 32-bit disk support, high contrast coloring schemes, and the separation of real mode and user mode.

"Windows" as most people know it began its life as the little-known network operating system OS/2. Through a partnership with IBM, Microsoft helped develop one of the most stable operating systems at the time, devoid of the clunky DOS architecture. Once IBM and Microsoft fell out, Microsoft took the code it had created, expanded upon it, and created Windows NT. This created three families of Windows: the consumer level (95, 98, Me), the enterprise level (NT, NT for Workgroups, 2000 Professional), and the server level (NT Server, 2000 Server).

For home users, three operating systems emerged, all of which used a 16/32-bit hybrid kernel. Windows 95 was the first consumer-level Windows OS to be able to boot without an existing DOS install. It introduced concepts like the Start menu, the taskbar, Safe Mode, the system tray and the Task Manager. Three years later, it was succeeded by Windows 98. Along with Windows 98 came a new driver standard, enabling device manufacturers to make improvements to the driver architecture. System tools, such as ScanDisk, Disk Defragmenter, MSConfig and RegEdit, were released with 98. In 2000, Windows Me (Millennium Edition, though why the e is lowercase I'll never know) was released. As an operating system, it was a flop. However, it incorporated many new components now considered vital Microsoft products. These include Windows Movie Maker, Windows Media Player (v7 at the time), Windows DVD Player (Now merged into WMP), Image and Thumbnail Preview, Windows Networking Wizard, Universal Plug and Play, Automatic Updates, and generic USB Mass Storage Device drivers.

On the professional level, Windows NT 1 was released in 1993. It had a GUI adapted from Windows 3.1, and was the first true 32-bit platform released by Microsoft. By the time Windows NT 3.0 rolled around, Windows 95 had hooked consumer audiences and Microsoft redesigned NT to look and feel more similar to the Windows 9x series (while still remaining unencumbered by MS-DOS. Until Windows 2000, the NT family used the NT Driver Model, which was incompatible with the Windows Driver Model introduced in Windows 98. However, Windows 2000 Professional and Server included support for the WDM, nearly merging the two OS lines' compatibility charts.

On October 25, 2001, a Windows revolution was released. The newly-named Windows XP was driven out to the masses, marking the end to the Windows 9x line forever. XP was based around the same 32-bit kernel used in Windows 2000, and was hailed as the greatest Microsoft product to date. Simultaneously, Microsoft shipped copies of XP capable of running on Intel's Itanium architecture (IA-64), while in 2005, Microsoft released a version of XP Professional compatible with the x86-64 architecture(AMD's Athlon/Sempron/Phenom 64 and Intel's Core 2/i7/Atom lines). Windows XP was in use for nearly six years before the next release, Vista, was published.

Windows Vista brought a very wide range of improvements to the Windows family. The now-iconic Aero interface was introduced (much to chipset manufacturers' chagrin), Windows DVD Maker, a much-improved and simplified Windows Update, improved audio functionality and control, the Reliability and Performance Monitor, and the Logical Disk Manager. Under the hood, a new Windows display model, the Desktop Window Manager, was introduced. DWM runs best on dedicated graphics chips, as it is based on the DirectX 10 technology. As such, much of the hatred of Vista has spawned from simply not having a powerful enough GPU. Inside the kernel, the memory manager has been improved greatly, along with introducing the Heap Manager (preventing buffer overflow exploits).

Windows 7, the next release of Windows, is currently in beta. As such, I do not feel it is ready to be included in this article. Suffice it to say that I believe 7 is what Vista should have been two years ago.

Now, on to the meat of the issue.

The primary reason most people use Windows is simple: Most prebuilt (OEM) computers come with Windows. Recently, manufacturers such as Dell and Asus have been releasing Linux computers, but they still have a long way to go before they catch on. In addition, compared to other OSs (yes, even OSX), Windows is very user-friendly. It has one of the largest hardware compatibility charts I've ever seen, and the recent addition of 64-bit support in the standard install is phenominal (no pun intended). Vista, particularly, is extremely stable, and I've yet to receive a BSoD that wasn't caused by a faulty device driver (or deliberatly trying to make it crash). If you have hardware that can support it, Vista is incredible.

Now for the bad side. Vista has a large overhead, making it very clunky on older systems. Any less than a dual-core CPU clocked at at least 1.5 GHz will not be able to run Vista efficiently. In addition, running Aero on anything lower than an nVidia GeForce 8600 (or ATi Radeon 3450) will not go over so well. Microsoft seems to have lost the concept 32-bit audio support, opting for 24-bit instead (wut?). After that, all the major problems I've seen come down to support and drivers (ie, not Mifrosofts fault).

Security has always been a problem on Windows, which is alleviated slightly by the introduction of User Account Control (UAC). This nifty little thing asks you whenever a program tries to make changes to important system files. However, it is extremely overbearing. I had to answer "Are you sure?" dialog boxes every time I wanted to delete a Start Menu shortcut. Ugh. UAC has been much improved in Windows 7, and I'm hopeful to see what comes next.

Microsoft licensing is where it gets iffy. After reading through the End User License Agreement (EULA) for Windows Vista, I was slightly put off. The problem that stuck out to me was Section Eight: "This software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights." Scary.

Up next: Linux, Minix and BSD -- The bastard children of UNIX

Now, was that so hard?

2008-11-11T10:43:00.000-08:00

A quick update.

PLUR: DoaR is dead. I killed it. Not enough time and it sucked, anyway.

I now run an Internet radio station, co-DJ'd with Kyo-sama. It's called SubLevel 21.

Now, this post is all about audio formats. Specifically, resampling. What I use on my server to broadcast is called sc_trans_linux040. Support is still experimental, but it works well enough. Now, a common problem with sc_trans is that it does not handle anything with a sample rate other than 44.1 kHz. I have some of my songs encoded at 48 kHz.
The error goes as such:

Warning: input file samplerate is 48000 Hz, must be 44100!

Warning: input file samplerate is -1209601104 Hz, must be 44100!

It was literally impossible to find a guide online of how to re-encode mp3s. So, here you go. Note that this guide requires a basic understanding of Terminal (or at least DOS).

Open your favorite Terminal application.

Enter in the following commands and let them run:
- sudo apt-get install mpg123
- sudo apt-get install lame

cd to directory containing the mp3.

Enter in the following commands (in order) and let them run:
- sudo mpg123 -w <filename>.wav <filename>.mp3
- sudo rm <filename>.mp3
- sudo lame --resample 44.1 <filename>.wav <filename>.mp3

This process does not work on Windows. Why? Because Windows doesn't really use RAW audio for its wav files. It uses a proprietary audio codec that doesn't compress, similar to FLAC.

Scientology

2008-10-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

Scientology. You can hardly walk down the narrow confines of the Internet these days without some mention of this organization.

Perhaps a bit of history is in order. The first Church of Scientology was established in the latter half of 1953 by L. Ron Hubbard. It is based around a self-help program developed by Hubbard called Dianetics, which is advertised as a miracle drug. The concept, in itself, is not bad. A system where an adviser speaks with an emotionally troubled person to root out the problem. This works well as a form of psychology (which is described by the Church as "evil"). However, Dianetics clams to be able to cure diseases such as leukemia, arthritis, coronary problems, and more. This simply is not the case. "Power of the mind" and "Mind over matter," two interesting phrases that come to mind. Unfortunately, it's flat wrong. The mind is not capable of affecting things of physical nature. If you have an aneurysm, willing it away won't change the fact that there's a hole in your brain. Eliminating painful memories, or "engrams" according to Hubbard, doesn't stop the tumor in your liver from killing you.
After that, it just gets weird. According to Scientologists (and classified under the auditing step called "The Wall of Fire," or OT3), the source of human misery is derived from "Thetans," alien spirits that come from a planet far far away who were exiled by a being called Xenu. As the humans evolved, the Thetans began inhabiting human bodies and corrupting their souls.

As most of you know, there's a pseudo-organization called Operation Chanology run by a group known as Anonymous. You know them from such sites as 4chan, SomethingAwful, 2ch, and Encyclopædia Dramatica. The goal is to take down Scientology, one brick at a time. It goes hand-in-hand with Operation Clambake (you can trust that link, I swear!), whose goal is to educate the world about the abuses of Scientology. There's way more than I can cover in one little blog, but if you want to know more, here are some links to notable Scientology and Anti-Scientology sites:

Operation Clambake
Chanology Portal
Ex-Scientology Kids
Scientology Controversies (Wikipedia)
Official Church of Schitology
Bona-Fide Scientology

The Management is terrible! We've had a string of embezzelers, frauds, liars and lunatics making a string of catastrophic decisions. This is plain fact. But who elected them? It was you! You who elected these people! You who gave them the power to make your decisions for you! While I'll admit that anyone can make a mistake once, to go on making the same lethal errors century after century seems to me nothing short of deliberate. You have encouraged these malicious incompetents, who have made your working life a shambles. You have accepted without question their senseless orders. You have allowed them to fill your workspace with dangerous and unproven machines. You could have stopped them. All you had to say was "No". You have no spine. You have no pride. You are no longer an asset to the company.
-V, V for Vendetta

Defense of Marriage Act (Public Law No. 104-199, 110 Stat. 2419)

2008-10-12T18:53:00.000-07:00

The Defense of Marriage Act was passed on September 21, 1996, by what some would call a landslide (85-14 in the Senate and 342-67 in the House). It reads as follows:

Powers reserved to the states:
No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.
Definition of 'marriage' and 'spouse':
In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word "marriage" means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word "spouse" refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.

The DOMA broken down
Part 1: Powers reserved to the states
This section essentially says, "No state has to recognize a same-sex marriage, even if it was obtained legally in another state."
Part 2: Definition of 'marriage' and 'spouse':
Defines a marriage as a union between one man and one woman, and a spouse as the corresponding gender title (husband or wife).

What this means
Basically, gay couples do not recieve any of the federal benefits of marriage*, including:

Social Security benefits
Veterans' benefits
Health insurance
Medicaid
Hospital visitation
Estate tax reduction
Retirement savings
Pension increase
Family leave (depends on employer)
Armed Forces employment ("Don't ask, don't tell")

Also, it makes sure that any state that already bans gay marriage does not ever need to change its laws.

My opinion
Part One totally circumvents the Supremacy Clause, by placing state power above the federal power. It's basically saying "make your OWN decision, assholes." This I don't argue, every state has the right to handle its own marriages.
Part Two, however, is another story. By defining a marriage as a union between one man and one woman, it's excluding a very specific minority from the benefits it deserves. This is, quite simply, a modern form of the anti-Black laws in the pre-1960s, and I believe Civil Unions are a reincarnation of the "separate but equal" ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson from the 1890s, and we know how well that worked out.

tl;dr
This law should not even exist in the first place. Part Two is a violation of human rights, therefore Part One is just another redundant statute.

*Note that in listing these, I mean "the marriage aspect of," not that homosexuals do not receive them entirely.

PLUR: Diary of a Raver

2008-09-29T08:15:00.001-07:00

Here's a little project of mine I've been working on for a few weeks. It's a webcomic, whose name you can find in the title. It has a fairly minimalist art style, loosely based upon Yatzee's Zero Puctuation. I'm slowly developing the characters, exploring the different paths this can take (it still doesn't have a defined plotline). It was formerly hosted at 110mb.com, but I'm now running it off a server at my house. Since I'm on a standard DSL connection, it's a little slow, but not unbearable. I'm working on a domain name and all that fun stuff, but for now you can find it at http://141.149.175.138:8080/.

EDIT: Domain name. http://plurcomic.com/

Piracy

2008-06-17T17:56:00.000-07:00

Before we begin, allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Tony, better known as Che'samo or Mr. Finnigan. I live in Massachusetts with my parents and I am going into my senior year of high school in the fall. I am enrolled in the Information Sciences technical area at the school I go to, and have earned both the Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) certification and the Internet and Computing Core Certification (IC³). In my spare time I build and troubleshoot computers, do photo manipulation and graphic design, and play FPS games.

I am a furry, perhaps better known as a furfag. I will not go into detail about my fursona since it really doesn't matter all that much. I am a member of the FurAffinity and #Concession online communities.

Now then. To business.
Recently there has been an outbreak of really, really stupid pirates. You know the type. People who hop on /r/ and post stupid things like "lol gaiz wher can i fund crakz n warez lololol" so many times you want to beat them with a giant red d20 until they make an abortion look sexy*. If you just took the time to look, we wouldn't have the problem. Websites like MiniNova and ISOhunt exist for a reason.
For those of you that are reading this and are thinking, "That's illegal! I'm going to report you to the NAACP (or whatever)!!" I DON'T CARE (true story, though... someone once threatened to report my piracy to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Yes, I use illegally obtained software. Yes, I have produced registration workarounds (cracks) and distributed them via the Internet. Get over it! You know what's ridiculous? Paying $350 for a product that cost less than 500 man-hours to produce!
Admittedly, there are some fairly nice FOSS software replacements out there. the GIMP functions very nicely, and one of my favorites have always been the OpenOffice suite. However, the GIMP is missing Flash effect functionality (which can be added in via a plug-in, but without live preview and no changing the settings once it's set) and OpenOffice's interface is getting dated (Office 2007's Ribbon interface is incredible once you get used to it).
Am I saying piracy is good? Hell no. I am, however, simply pointing out that I am merely paying the distributer exactly how much I think their product is worth. Plus, I've even gone out and bought products I had previously pirated (FL Studio standing out here) because it's a fantastic product. Am I going to pay for little things like file archivers or silly little casual games? Of course not. If the product is worth its price tag, I will buy it. But not a moment before it proves its own worth.

Don't forget to tip your waitress.

*The last half of that joke is credited to 2 the Ranting Gryphon.