prev <-> next
[2010-03-23 16:42:57] - gurkie: You sure you don't just doubly adore Aar? - Stephen
[2010-03-23 16:16:41] - waaah for double posting ~gurkie
[2010-03-23 16:16:07] - aaron: hehehe.... thats why we adore you! ~gurkie
[2010-03-23 16:16:06] - aaron: hehehe.... thats why we adore you! ~gurkie
[2010-03-23 15:03:23] - brest... what? oh i see the problem
i wonder which word i type more often? augh i'm so gay - aaron[2010-03-23 14:55:42] - aaron: you play too many geography games... why are we augmenting a city in france? ~gurkie
[2010-03-23 13:56:20] - grr, http://www.spikeyourjuice.com
[2010-03-23 13:56:03] - I'm tempted to try www.spikeyourjuice.com It seems like it'd be fun - who doesn't like alcoholic spritzers? - Stephen
[2010-03-23 13:55:29] - mig: but yeah i agree that luxuries like, you know, braces, rhinoplasty, brest augmentation, calf implants, other cosmetic kinds of treatments... i mean, insurance companies are good at drawing the line now. hopefully that line won't move - aaron
[2010-03-23 13:52:20] - mig: and i'm not sure if i agree, things like regular dental checkups, physicals, bloodwork, whatever - i don't think those kinds of screenings would ever be cost-effective. but, i still think they're valuable - aaron
[2010-03-23 13:50:41] - gurkie: the reviewer mentioned the girl who played with him had a boyfriend, and didn't do any flirting... but i agree that seemingly defeats the purpose - aaron
[2010-03-23 13:38:57] - aaron: yea they were talking about setting it either on flirty or dirty... But really you are paying for the girl to at least flirt with you while playing... Not really just to have them play a video game with you. ~gurkie
[2010-03-23 13:38:24] - well at least some of the preventive care, i would imagine there are some things that are just going to be expensive no matter what. - mig
[2010-03-23 13:37:06] - I believe preventive care might save money if we reduced the scope of medical insurance to what insurance was actually meant for ... catastrophic and unforeseen events. - mig
[2010-03-23 13:23:53] - gurkie: and yeah the "preventative care saves money" theory is an emotionally pleasing one but i don't think it's true, or at least not according to politifact. but, preventative care is still a nice thing to do even if it's more expensive - aaron
[2010-03-23 13:22:04] - presumably there's a lot of dead time, or some other reason why they're paying so much for a six-minute session - aaron
[2010-03-23 13:21:09] - amy: ha ha i was mostly joking. but i don't make $50/hr at my job. but, playing video games with perverts for money probably isn't as fun as it sounds - aaron
[2010-03-23 12:46:38] - hmm i take that back. that was my rate when i was teaching at home. i guess i'd rather do that than play VGs for $? seems weird but true. also i didn't read the article so i don't really know what it's about. maybe i should do that before responding to it. -amy
[2010-03-23 12:37:58] - aaron: i have other means of making that hourly rate. (they are, of course, equally unappealing if not more so.) -amy
[2010-03-23 12:22:08] - aaron: Id consider it if they picked better games, and if there were better guidelines around what is and is not allowed... The "dirty" setting means that its going to be primarily a thinly veiled dirty site and not for me. ~gurkie
[2010-03-23 12:11:43] - mig: I think Aaron's point was that by having the proper preventative medicine then a lot of people wouldnt need as expensive urgent care at the ER... which might reduce costs since people dont get turned away from the ER right now, the part I am unclear on is if the ER cost gets covered by govt when they are unable to pay or what happens... ~gurkie
[2010-03-23 11:56:02] - aaron: don't forget the tips! - mig
[2010-03-23 11:47:24] - i think their prices are like, an order of magnitude too high. particularly if they're willing to offshore this kind of work to overseas women - aaron
[2010-03-23 11:46:10] - i'm trying to crunch the numbers... $8.25 for a 6 minute flash game... so $82/hr... girl gets 60%... so that's like $50/hr? that's pretty good. gurkie, amy, maybe you should switch jobs - aaron
[2010-03-23 11:43:00] - paul: gamecrush strikes me as really sad, though I'm sure it'll be a financial success. - mig
[2010-03-23 11:23:47] - a: Mind if I pick your Linux brain some more? I'm wondering if you could tell me (1) how to find out what the graphics chipset is on my netbook and (2) whether or not the ubuntu automatic upgrade process would upgrade the intel graphics chipset drivers for my netbook. Thanks. -Paul
[2010-03-23 10:58:43] - i mean, it would still cost money to go to the doctor... - aaron
[2010-03-23 10:57:46] - mig: i'm confused about your argument... why would people go to the doctor's office for trivial things? because it's fun? i mean you have health insurance now, do you go to the doctor for trivial things? - aaron
[2010-03-23 10:57:27] - in upstate NY the people all seemed to be very adamantly against the HealthCare bill. A lot of them were like "get your hands off my medicare". I dont know enough about it to have an educated opinion on it. I may look over the link Aaron posted if I end up having time. ~gurkie
[2010-03-23 10:48:27] - stephen: i suppose it may make me a little self-conscious about certain things I consume, but I doubt it'll have that much of an impact. - mig
[2010-03-23 10:45:10] - aaron: i'm not so sure increasing the number of people going to doctor's office is necessarily a good thing, particularly if more people go to the doctor's office for trivial things. There's only so many doctor's around. - mig
[2010-03-23 10:15:57] - http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/107/1079073p1.html Would You Pay a Girl to Play Halo With You? -Paul
[2010-03-23 10:12:35] - paul: I may be interested in trying baseball again. Not sure if I'm going to be into a full roto setup but maybe a weekly head to head would be fun. - mig
[2010-03-23 09:38:39] - Aaron: It's pretty sad that a trillion dollars actually doesn't seem all that big anymore. But if this is anything like Medicare, then we are in big trouble. -Paul
[2010-03-23 09:29:02] - paul: well, numbers like "one trillion" have a bad habit of making other numbers look small. how many trillion dollars do you think the paperwork is going to cost?
- aaron[2010-03-23 09:19:36] - Aaron: Heh, I actually just read (skimmed it, is more like it) that article earlier this morning. I also think something that is getting overlooked is the hidden costs of the legislation, such as the increased burden on small businesses and the taxes on the uninsured. -Paul
[2010-03-23 09:17:52] - which i guess they're hoping will encourage employers to pick cheaper insurance plans... whether any of this actually works is yeah, 2014 i guess. really anybody's guess. - aaron
[2010-03-23 09:17:38] - Also, is there anybody here who would be interested in participating in a fantasy baseball league this year? -Paul
[2010-03-23 09:16:53] - paul: this newsweek article is probably all review for you, but it was informational for me. basically sounds like they're thinking they'll reduce the scope of medicare, reduce the amount of emergency-room visits. they're also adding a new tax on insurance plans which cost more than a certain amount, - aaron
[2010-03-23 08:57:27] - a: There is no way, in my mind, that this health care reform ends up costing what they have claimed it will (or less). -Paul
[2010-03-23 08:56:35] - a: Also, I'm with Miguel that I think it's absolutely laughable to think that this would somehow save money. It might technically reduce the deficit by an inconsequential amount ($132 billion over 10 years is not a lot), but that's under the most optimistic estimations of the cost of the program. -Paul
[2010-03-23 08:47:54] - a: I think it's an abject disaster, and purely on an emotional level, I'm sorry to see Pelosi succeed. -Paul
[2010-03-23 08:46:14] - Will anyone change their eating habits because of this section of the health care bill: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iXEgwDxFvwY87DuJizvav-WDpMIAD9EK6HA00 - Stephen
[2010-03-23 08:13:05] - i mean logically it has to increase costs, but it should also increase quality-of-life for the previously uninsured. so assuming anything other than a total worst-case-scenario i think this bill is a good thing, but again, hard to tell on paper what kind of effect this will have in practice - aaron
[2010-03-23 08:11:16] - a: i'm in favor of it if it increases the number of people in doctors' offices and reduces the amount of people in emergency rooms. ideally it would be nice if it reduced costs, although some experts have debunked that idea - aaron
[2010-03-22 21:18:59] - ref? ~a
[2010-03-22 21:12:15] - a: i do not believe for a second it will reduce the deficit. i've looked at how they calculated that and it reeks of fuzzy accounting and dumping obligations onto the state governments. - mig
[2010-03-22 19:59:21] - anyways, what do you think about the bill? ~a
[2010-03-22 19:59:06] - paul: i don't like the idea of the government taking over for a whole industry, but the industry they're taking over for was apparently failing. there are some other pros: reduction of the deficit and reduction of waste. ref ~a
[2010-03-22 19:36:19] - Paul: Against the bill as written. Doesn't go far enough to overhaul health care to warrant the effort while costing too much and expanding abortioon procedures. I'll be looking for the promised executive order... -- Xpovos
[2010-03-22 17:04:37] - probably something akin to "the government reserves the right to deem the premiums to be too high" - mig
[2010-03-22 17:04:05] - *I've read - vinnie
[2010-03-22 17:03:54] - vinnie: i don't know, I don't think there are hard capped values, but I'm sure there's language in their that prohibits super high premiums, though it's probably very vague. - mig
[2010-03-22 17:02:23] - mig: but can they charge you super-high premiums or what? I feel like I've so many possible iterations on this bill but have no idea what actually passed - vinnie
[2010-03-22 17:00:33] - vinnie: well i think the idea is they can no longer deny you coverage. - mig
[2010-03-22 16:59:14] - or did some sort of clause get written in denying the option to deny coverage - vinnie
[2010-03-22 16:56:31] - how does the individual mandate affect people who have been denied coverage by providers? are they just damned if they do, damned if they don't? - vinnie
[2010-03-22 16:56:08] - on the liberal side are wondering if the ends justified the means. - mig
[2010-03-22 16:55:55] - the other thing I'm curious about the overall reaction will be to how ugly this whole process looked. The democrats had to resort to some very strange and somewhat controversial measures to get the bill "passed", and with all the back room wheeling and dealing (cornhusker kickback, the 11th hour executive order to appease pro-life dems), it's possible quite a few folks...
[2010-03-22 16:55:17] - paul: mixed feelings. if it leads to a public option that is effective enough to start controlling health care costs (and I think that's a big if), then I'm for it. but right now, I'm just seeing it as more money into the pockets of health care providers - vinnie
[2010-03-22 16:41:36] - mig: http://reason.com/blog/2010/03/22/the-health-care-bill-and-the-c "Regulating the auto industry or paying "cash for clunkers" is one thing; making everyone buy a Chevy is quite another. Even during World War II, the federal government did not mandate that individual citizens purchase war bonds." -Paul
[2010-03-22 16:41:10] - Mig: Funny you mention that, because I was just reading something on Reason.com which was talking about how it could get challenged on constitutional grounds. -Paul
[2010-03-22 16:36:36] - paul: I think my views on the issue have been already stated on here, so I won't really go into that again. However, I am curious if the "you are required buy insurance" mandate will pass constitutional muster if it is brought before the supreme court. Several state governments are already planning to launch lawsuits over constitutionality the mandate. - mig
[2010-03-22 16:23:36] - So, I'm somewhat curious what people here think of the Health Care bill that was recently passed. For it? Against it? Does it go too far? Not far enough? -Paul
[2010-03-22 14:42:48] - a: Heh, no problem. I pretty much gave up days ago anyway. Thanks for trying. -Paul
[2010-03-22 13:02:18] - or a video without h.264? or a smaller video? or better hardware? seriously i don't really know what is wrong so i don't know what the solution is. i could debug it sometime, (preferably not 2 in the morning) ~a
[2010-03-22 13:00:24] - paul: well i've tried my damnedest, sorry. most of the problems you're having were fixed years ago. i think maybe you just need lucid.
~a[2010-03-22 12:19:24] - a: Miro player didn't work either. I tried mplayer again and, yeah, it just epicly crashes every time I try to play something. -Paul
[2010-03-19 19:05:18] - pierce: i disapprove.
~a[2010-03-19 16:40:55] - I made the first of the two insulting-Pierce titles this time, quoting from Community. The second one was someone ad-libbing. - pierce
[2010-03-19 16:04:01] - hahaha. you guys. well you know if you don't like the title it is pretty easy to change. type "/title NEW TITLE" or click on the "titles" link. ~a
[2010-03-19 15:35:52] - title: i disapprove.
-nina[2010-03-19 15:10:48] - vinnie: i figured the first one was from pierce. he is always quoting 30 rock. ~a
[2010-03-19 15:09:09] - pierce: I thought you were the one making those titles self-deprecatingly? now I have to take back my laughter - it's not funny when someone else is writing them
- vinnie[2010-03-19 15:06:28] - title:
- pierce[2010-03-19 14:48:15] - a: Kinda like Google News?
-Paul[2010-03-19 14:44:02] - paul: hardly. ie8 was in beta years before it went stable. ~a
[2010-03-19 14:41:23] - yeah xpovos summed it up pretty well there - vinnie
[2010-03-19 14:40:16] - a: I'm not worried, I posted those links from work.
though I think if my manager knew I was visiting a site called penisland.net, it might generate a conversation even if he knew it was a pen website - vinnie[2010-03-19 14:38:22] - a: Well, Bare Naked Ladies might not be reasonable to block for sexual reasons. But it might be for other management reasons. So it makes it hard for a worker to go to IT or management and say that their software is too strict. In one sense, it is. In another, it's probably spot on, if for the wrong reason. -- Xpovos
[2010-03-19 14:37:22] - a: Ah, gotcha. I figured IE9 was close to coming out while whatever the next version of Firefox was still some time away so that's why they chose to compare the two. -Paul
[2010-03-19 14:35:21] - a: eh, i'm not going to go through that much effort just to get a non-work related site unblocked. of course if the message board gets blocked someday I might consider it! - mig
[2010-03-19 14:32:29] - paul: you should pit ie8 against firefox 3.6 because they are both the most recent stable versions. you should pit ie9 against firefox 3.7 because they are the most recent unstable versions. the other website (/testdrive) does this correctly: they have ie8 & ie9 & firefox 3.6 & firefox 3.7 in their graphs and tables etc. ~a
[2010-03-19 14:28:43] - a: I'm confused. What's unfair about pitting IE9 vs Firefox 3.6? Isn't that the most recent version of Firefox that is out? -Paul
[2010-03-19 14:27:56] - vinnie/gurkie/aaron/mig: are you actually worried when monitoring software hits something that's not supposed to be filtered? i'd welcome an I.T. person looking into the false positives that their software is making. ~a
[2010-03-19 14:24:51] - i was pretty impressed by ie.microsoft.com/testdrive. then on the other hand you have those msdn links which are horribly biased. ~a
[2010-03-19 14:20:30] - "Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview" against "Mozilla Firefox 3.6" oh that's fucking fair. at least ie.microsoft.com pits browsers against their analogous counterparts. ~a
[2010-03-19 14:18:46] - "you can implement a high proportion of a particular specification and not pass the test, or a much lower proportion but still pass" what a retardedly (pierce word) simplistic thing to say. ~a
[2010-03-19 13:19:49] - gurkie: heh I should have said that the content on those pages in sfw, though if you have any monitoring on your machine that logs what you're visiting, it may not be sfw - vinnie
[2010-03-19 13:15:55] - Xpovos: The pool of games is way too small to make any solid predictions so far. I have two brackets. My serious bracket is 9 of 16 and in the 42nd percentile while my other is 10 of 16 and in the 70th percentile. -Paul
[2010-03-19 13:02:26] - vinnie: while I *trust* you that they are sfw I also installed a new antivirus yesterday which has blocked my work and Pidgin and... yea I have a feeling it will block those sites too... ~Gurkie
[2010-03-19 13:00:16] - vinnie: lol .D -amy
[2010-03-19 12:48:48] - mig: Yeah, that actually freaks me out, since I have WVU winning it. Not looking good. I started strong but the rest of the day destroyed me pretty hard. Yahoo says I'm in the 44th percentile now. -- Xpovos
[2010-03-19 12:43:50] - I guess the Big East wasn't as good as advertised this year... - mig
[2010-03-19 12:29:49] - at least the ultimate loser gets their money back. i'm aiming for that now -nina
[2010-03-19 12:29:24] - i had Georgetown FTW. . . my bracket is done. . . now i have yet another reason to hate Georgetown. -nina
[2010-03-19 12:26:41] - mig: and the links all loaded OK, although i didn't have the courage to try penisland. i've had the barenaked ladies wikipedia article get blocked before so i know some level of keyword filtering goes on - aaron
[2010-03-19 12:25:50] - paul: this page linked from your article is pretty cool. they have test suites which you can try out in any browser - aaron
[2010-03-19 12:16:17] - actually our web filter scans urls for keywords as well so i think it will trip it. - mig
[2010-03-19 12:16:13] - paul: many firefox developers have the same viewpoint, it's one reason why firefox has done so poorly on the acid tests compare to other browsers like safari/opera/chrome - aaron
[2010-03-19 11:22:42] - lol
[2010-03-19 11:11:18] - http://www.whorepresents.com (sfw). ok I'm done now
- vinnie[2010-03-19 11:10:04] - http://www.penisland.net (sfw) - vinnie
[2010-03-19 11:09:03] - http://www.speedofart.com (sfw) - vinnie
[2010-03-19 11:08:05] - http://www.ferrethandjobs.com (sfw) - vinnie
[2010-03-19 10:40:43] - paul: yeah that's it. but like i said it worked for me in lucid, not hardy. ~a
[2010-03-19 10:39:39] - a: Well, I saw some sort of Miro internet streaming software. Could that have been it? -Paul
[2010-03-19 10:38:51] - http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/03/ie9-standards-and-why-acid3-isnt-the-priority.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss IE9, standards, and why Acid3 isn't the priority -Paul
[2010-03-19 10:23:10] - paul: really? i saw miro in hardy. in the drop-down are you looking under all software? yes, you can change the fps of the video. that requires editing the video (which is extremely easy, but it's understandable that you would want to avoid this step if merely viewing the video). ~a
[2010-03-19 10:09:41] - a: So it seems like maybe the netbook has trouble rendering the video (understandable), which makes every frame "late", and therefore it never gets displayed. I wonder if there is a way to just tell it to just skip every other frame or something. -Paul
[2010-03-19 10:08:23] - a: VLC had an option to "Skip late frames" which apparently drops frames which arrive later than they are supposed to be shown, or something. Anyway, that was clicked by default, so I tried unclicking it and the video played, but it was VERY slow (maybe half speed) with some occasional video glitches. -Paul
[2010-03-19 10:06:41] - a: I couldn't find anything called miro that appeared to be a video player last night, but I did find something interesting. -Paul
[2010-03-19 09:43:39] - Stephen: I thought Georgetown would beat Ohio, but I had them losing to Tennessee next round so it doesn't hurt me much. -Paul
[2010-03-18 21:31:21] - Wow, Georgetown losing? I never would have predicted that, but I think the local media gives Gtown and UMD way too much credit. - Stephen
[2010-03-18 21:22:14] - paul: the old version of miro in hardy didn't work for me. ~a
[2010-03-18 18:02:29] - paul: reading the first page of the study, it looks like they were picking against the spread, which makes more sense. - aaron
[2010-03-18 17:57:33] - 5 of 7 now, but Vanderbilt was an awful loss for a lot of people. Thankfully, I had them losing next round to UTEP. We'll see how that pans out for me. -- Xpovos
[2010-03-18 17:56:59] - Aaron: Heh, I certainly don't disagree with that. In the sports writers' defense, though, I wonder if that study had them just pick an outright winner or if they were picking against the spread. -Paul
[2010-03-18 17:46:57] - paul: http://www.cracked.com/article_18380_the-6-most-statistically-full-shit-professions_p2.html heh there's a good reason sportswriting is #1 on this list
i like the statistic about successfully predicting college/NFL games although i can't imagine how it could possibly be true - aaron[2010-03-18 17:39:23] - Nina: I'm 3 for 5 right now, but the Notre Dame loss really hurt. I had them beating Baylor next round and now that certainly won't be happening. -Paul
[2010-03-18 17:12:20] - i'm doing terrible in my bracket right now. the only upset i predicted was Florida, and they lost in double overtime. i'm 1 for 4 right now. -nina
[2010-03-18 15:46:50] - I just can't bring myself to be interested, I'm probably going to avoid the tourney like a plague this year. - mig
[2010-03-18 15:26:37] - Stephen: Fair enough.
-Paul[2010-03-18 15:05:09] - And there have only been three games. - Stephen
[2010-03-18 15:04:58] - Paul: And one double overtime game, and a 2 seed going into overtime. - Stephen
[2010-03-18 15:00:32] - Stephen: There's only been one upset so far, right? -Paul
[2010-03-18 14:51:59] - I really wish I could be at home watching these games. I don't think anyone would have predicted these outcomes! - Stephen
[2010-03-18 14:34:19] - i'm also a fan of privacy, so we'll see. ~a
[2010-03-18 14:26:13] - i'm actually not a google fan, but i am a fan of openness. ~a
[2010-03-18 14:19:43] - Stephen: There's also WebOS phones on Verizon (Pre Plus and Pixi Plus), which I think are great and have pretty good reviews, but if you're a google fan, I think it would be hard to beat an Android phone. -Paul
[2010-03-18 14:18:46] - Aaron: The crackdown on state-leagalized marijuana (and suicide) was foremost in my mind when I said that. -Paul
[2010-03-18 12:38:28] - mig: yeah i figured that kind of anti-state-rights attitude was bipartisan, bummer - aaron
[2010-03-18 12:37:46] - a/Stephen: I use the Android OS on my G1. I like it a bunch. the biggest problems I have are hardware related, and the Nexus One is significantly more powerful... -- Xpovos
[2010-03-18 12:29:31] - a: Thanks! I am a google fan, so I'll definitely read the reviews for the nexus one. - Stephen
[2010-03-18 12:19:20] - stephen: i have a few friends at work that love the android os. it is very integrated with google stuff so if you're into gmail you'll probably like it. you should note: the nexus one comes out through verizon next week. read the reviews for the nexus one. i'm totally getting ONE next week (if they have them and if they'll let me renew my contract a month early). ~a
[2010-03-18 12:16:18] - aaron: federal crack downs on state legalized medical marijuana have been bipartisan for the most part. Obama supposedly said he wanted to stop the federal interference, though I don't know if anything ever came of that. - mig
[2010-03-18 12:04:59] - mig: if that's true, are democrats against state-level laws as well? - aaron
[2010-03-18 12:00:11] - Does anyone have an opinion on Android OS? I want to get a smartphone w/Verizon when my plan is up in May, but I'm not sure what to get. - Stephen
[2010-03-18 11:47:22] - paul: i tried miro on your video and it seemed fine in lucid. i haven't tried hardy yet. ~a
[2010-03-18 10:58:28] - paul: are you referring to stuff like the government cracking down on state-legalized marijuana use in california? or are you referring to something else - aaron
[2010-03-18 10:48:09] - http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the_dagger/post/Can-you-support-Duke-and-have-a-political-career?urn=ncaab,228296
[2010-03-18 10:46:52] - paul: also the grayson campaign against rand paul has become incredibly pathetic. I'm not sure if he's still running this particular ad, but essentially he was attacking Rand because he went to Duke for undergrad. - mig
[2010-03-18 10:39:51] - Paul: I agree with you that the feds are generally more tolerant of stricter state laws than looser ones. - Stephen
[2010-03-18 10:19:21] - Aaron: I'm not entirely sure. I guess I still think that the federal government is more tolerant of stricter state laws than states legalizing things that the federal government doesn't like. -Paul
[2010-03-18 10:17:39] - Aaron: For instance, I don't think the federal government minds if states have stricter no-smoking laws or anti-drug laws... although I suppose the federal government has generally been against stricter marriage and abortion laws... -Paul
[2010-03-18 10:15:38] - Aaron: It's possible, but I think that how things work right now, the Federal government is generally more tolerant of the states "tightening things up" than letting them relax laws. -Paul
[2010-03-18 10:07:03] - Which is why you see them fight tooth and nail to get rid of people like Ron Paul. Democrats don't even bother even running a candidate against him anymore, and I think the republican party is throwing 3 people in his primary in Texas. - mig
[2010-03-18 10:05:11] - aaron: except that they don't care if it represents the average american or not. They believe, like democrats do, that the federal government is their personal tool to force their own beliefs onto everyone else. - mig
[2010-03-18 09:50:00] - if they have any illusions that these laws actually represent the beliefs of the average american, they should be in favor of state-level regulation since, maybe half the country will really tighten things up (marriage is only between the same race, no smoking cigarettes/cigars, abortions/contraception illegal for any reason) - aaron
[2010-03-18 09:48:38] - paul: is their fear of having cultural matters like marriage, marijuana, and aborrtion decided at the state level that it would lead to state-level legalization of these kinds of things? isn't there a remote possibility that states would decide to tighten stuff up? and if not, then why are the laws so strict? - aaron
[2010-03-18 09:37:01] - http://reason.com/blog/2010/03/17/national-security-republicans?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reason%2FHitandRun+%28Reason+Online+- One would think the Republicans, who just got their asses kicked in the last election, would have better things to do than spend money fighting their own members. -Paul
[2010-03-18 09:36:21] - a: I'll give it a try tonight. I spent some more time playing around with it to little success last night. Do you think the problem might be that the video resolution (1280x720) is greater than my monitor's resolution (1024x600)? -Paul
[2010-03-17 20:25:35] - vinnie: cry ~gurkie
[2010-03-17 17:33:57] - paul: add to the list of video players to try: miro. a very old version of miro comes with hardy. ~a
[2010-03-17 16:47:50] - dragon age people: so I got the expansion yesterday, and enclosed in it was a sheet with the dragon age logo and the date "02/01/2011". The speculation is that's the release date for Dragon Age 2, given that the date falls on a Tuesday. - mig
[2010-03-17 16:38:27] - http://www.divinecaroline.com/22323/94928-amazing-piano-freestyle-chat-roulette - aaron
[2010-03-17 16:31:21] - i'm in. ~a
[2010-03-17 16:23:49] - gurkie: definitely don't have any formal plans, but Pierce and I are thinking of grabbing a drink at Fireflies in Alexandria later tonight. Probably around 9pm-ish. Anyone and everyone is welcome to join us. -nina
[2010-03-17 16:19:23] - gurkie: yeah we're having a no gurkie party at... I mean, no plans - vinnie
[2010-03-17 15:37:50] - I dont have any plans I was just curious if there was some ... activity that I wasnt invited to
~Gurkie[2010-03-17 15:17:04] - me too
~a[2010-03-17 14:53:53] - I put on a green shirt by coincidence today. yay coincidence - vinnie
[2010-03-17 14:49:54] - gurkie: went out with my coworkers but i'm not doing anything after work. are you doing anything? ~a
[2010-03-17 14:26:26] - gurkie: wearing a green necklace, a 4-leaf clover sticker, and green eyeliner. and working until 9. -amy
[2010-03-17 14:08:50] - gurkie: Seeing the Chinese terracotta warriors downtown. Maybe I will drink green tea or something afterwards. - Stephen
[2010-03-17 14:01:05] - is anyone doing anything for st p? ~gurkie
[2010-03-17 13:03:09] - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100317/ap_on_bi_ge/us_feds_on_facebook going "undercover" on facebook, myspace etc seems to be a really disturbing trend that law enforcement appears to be embracing. - mig
[2010-03-17 11:31:48] - aaron: don't forget giuliani. ~a
[2010-03-17 11:26:24] - http://mojo.codehaus.org/shitty-maven-plugin/usage.html at first i thought this plugin was just a joke plugin to have a funny name. but now i'm working on a project which actually uses it to run integration tests - aaron
[2010-03-17 09:40:58] - amy: yeah i'm always down for some drawing, you've got a tablet now so we could always openCanvas some time, or i can come over and we can do some sketchbook stuff - aaron
[2010-03-16 22:50:25] - (this invitation is obv extended to anybody else here too but I can't think of anybody here who I know is into drawing who also lives nearby.) -amy
[2010-03-16 22:49:37] - aaron: but looking at this stuff got me thinking about comics again and now I have a hankering to do drawing. I haven't done any in forever, possibly since our super drawing overdose fest back in sept. would you want to do some random drawing together for a block of time significantly less than 24 hrs? -amy
[2010-03-16 22:47:33] - they didn't have all that many options, plus you have to earn "credits" in order to "buy" certain options (much like a crappy facebook app gives you points or credits when you do stuff like log in) and by the time I played/struggled with the character's face for about 5 minutes, I realized I probably could have drawn the face I wanted in about that amount of time. -amy
[2010-03-16 22:46:01] - aaron: maybe it's because i'm using my laptop (for which my mouse broke, so i have to use the trackpad thingy) but basically you can click on stuff and add characters, scenery, and click on every little detail to customize it. (facial expression, hair style and color, things like that.) i spent about 5 minutes trying to create a character, found that they didn't... -amy
[2010-03-16 18:36:33] - yeah they've definitely gone from "acid3 is horrible and so is your face" to "we're working on it" so i'm happy. ~a
[2010-03-16 17:31:30] - a: lol IE7 displays a mishmash of colored rectangles and a "yo dawg did you notice the information bar" popup. i guess compared to that 55 is pretty good. - aaron
[2010-03-16 17:29:03] - a: i'm actually more impressed that they're advertising their shitty 55/100 score than anything. it's one thing for a company to brag about a high score, it's another thing for a company to publish a low score and say, "we're working on it". i'm a lot more impressed by the latter - aaron
[2010-03-16 16:40:09] - awww ie9beta doesn't run on xp
~a[2010-03-16 16:22:11] - what is this? ie 9 is beta and microsoft seems to care about acid3 and sunspider? so excited. ~a
[2010-03-16 15:15:04] - amy: i'll have to check it out later, what's it like? - aaron
[2010-03-16 14:24:19] - OK i played with pixton for about 3 minutes and have so far found it to be more tedious than drawing. -amy
[2010-03-16 14:10:28] - holy crap. i may finally have the means to make my comic stories: http://pixton.com/video -amy
[2010-03-16 13:46:24] - xpovos: ah that makes more sense. I get the point of it now - vinnie
[2010-03-16 13:43:41] - vinnie: You can only double once, and then you have to wait for the opponent to double. So, I get ahead early and double, and you accept, because it's early and you can catch up, if I stay ahead, I can't double again. If you do catch up and take a lead though, you could double and force me to accept or resign for the two-point loss. -- Xpovos
[2010-03-16 13:21:18] - the doubling cube doesn't make a lot of sense to me either (though I speak from having only played a few games of backgammon). it's like raising in poker if the hands are open. you can figure out who has the greater chance of winning - why wouldn't you always double if you're ahead? - vinnie
[2010-03-16 11:59:12] - I guess maybe a player might try to sandbag a position, double and even accept a double pretending a newbishness, but that trick will only work once. If even that one, there's not many sandbagging techniques for Backgammon. -- Xpovos
[2010-03-16 11:57:44] - aaron: I think that's why the 'expert' players believe that's where the skill is. Doubling early is random noise. Doubling late is an effort to force a drop. Somewhere in the middle it might be beneficial. But it's rare for one a game of backgammon to go back and forth, usually one player takes a strong lead and holds it. -- Xpovos
[2010-03-16 11:20:18] - so for example, turn #1, i roll a 2 to beat your 1. i go first and move two of my checkers. turn #2, you double, i resign. is that a typical game of backgammon with the cube? - aaron
[2010-03-16 11:19:13] - xpovos: i never understood the doubling cube, it seems like statistically, it would be in your best interest to double the instant you gained an ever-so-slight advantage, and it would be in your opponent's best interest to drop - aaro
[2010-03-16 09:53:12] - aaron: I'm sure there are hardcore Uno players out there, and they probably consider the Xbox game some kind of bastardization. IIRC pretty much all of the serious backgammon players consider 90% of the skill to be in the doubling cube. -- Xpovos
[2010-03-16 09:50:36] - i was amused to learn that there were people who took backgammon seriously, considering the ridiculous amount of luck in the game, so i guess i thought the existence of "hardcore uno players" wouldn't be that much of a stretch - aaron
[2010-03-16 09:49:20] - xpovos: heh that's funny they wouldn't show you your opponent's hand, that drastically changes the strategy of the game. i guess it just shows that nobody actually cares about uno strategy? after reading the last paragraph of the uno article, i thought maybe there were some people who actually played the game seriously - aaron
[2010-03-16 09:35:59] - I only found the challenge in Uno for the Xbox, where it doesn't show you the hand. It can verify itself whether a player is cheating/bluffing. The loss of information is a big deal, but it's still often worth challenging, because the extra two cards are a small penalty compared to potentially avoiding a 4-card draw and giving the bluffer a 4-card draw instead. -- Xpovos
[2010-03-15 23:46:05] - vinnie: heh heh yep you'd always challenge, especially in a two player game. knowing the exact contents of your opponents hand is invaluable especially if they're about to go out - aaron
[2010-03-15 22:59:46] - wild draw four challenge? never heard of this rule, seems like it would just slow the game down or be used as a strategy to find out the hand of a player who was close to going out - vinnie
[2010-03-15 18:01:24] - (from Uno_(card_game)#Penalties) - aaron
[2010-03-15 18:00:17] - gurkie: heh yeah i have nothing against house rules; usually when i'm playing with people i'll be like "well these are the *real* rules but let's play your way, since i don't care". it especially comes into play for uno, i've never known anybody who played with the bizarre 2-card penalty for playing a draw-four out of sequence - aaron
[2010-03-15 15:33:37] - aaron: again house rule. I dont think that playing with house rules or a variant on the "official rules" is a bad thing. I only brought up the official rules since A kept making a point of saying his rules were the official ones. ~gurkie
[2010-03-15 15:32:40] - Bryan: Im glad you liked it I believe Rothfuss will be in Springfield VA this weekend doing a book signing. ~gurkie
[2010-03-15 13:55:34] - gurkie: it's too bad that "you win the game by shooting the moon" rule isn't a real rule, that sounded fun - aaron
[2010-03-15 13:39:33] - a: you can make up for it by getting me some donuts. - pierce
[2010-03-15 13:37:31] - Gurkie: I really enjoyed The Name of the Wind
-Bryan[2010-03-15 12:21:16] - a: eh, I wasnt positive that you were wrong... I thought it unlikely that you were right on all counts though since my grandparents used to go play every week and I had grown up playing with them... also I did think screw the dealer and ten and under were house rules rather than official rules. And I was wrong about tied going to both ~gurkie
[2010-03-15 11:39:27] - i apologize for being such a dick. ~a
[2010-03-15 11:38:58] - gurkie: yeah. ok so i was wrong on all counts. ~a
[2010-03-15 10:50:47] - also shows tied game goes to no one and no mention of partners... No screw the dealer (dealer has to bid) and no ten and under... ~gurkie
[2010-03-15 10:48:11] - a: http://www.hoylegaming.com/rules.php?id=25 Official rules show shooting the moon as different but no dealing rules and low going to whoever takes the low card not based on whose hand holds the card... ~gurkie
[2010-03-15 10:42:56] - mig: yes, happy real birthday - vinnie
[2010-03-15 10:06:17] - mig: happy birthday! ~gurkie
[2010-03-13 17:23:11] - still waiting on those donuts, jerk. - pierce
[2010-03-13 00:14:37] - "Darnit, Adrian! Why don't html tags work? Oh, and bring some donuts to techlab, too."
[2010-03-12 19:04:20] - bored bored bored. ~a
[2010-03-12 17:29:28] - gurkie: Lockheed Martin (LMT). Not 16%, but not shabby. -- Xpovos
[2010-03-12 15:11:33] - old news but it's alledged that chinese hackers compromised the gmail accounts of some journalists - aaron
[2010-03-12 15:08:57] - a: yeah they thought they were getting hacked by employees working for the chinese government - aaron
[2010-03-12 14:41:16] - a: from what I recall, the hacking incident on gmail awhile back was originally thought to have been perpetrated from people within chinese government. - mig
[2010-03-12 14:33:42] - why would google pull out of china because of the hacking? ~a
[2010-03-12 14:18:34] - a: google's not pulling out 'cause of the censorship, i thought they were pulling out because of the hacking? - aaron
[2010-03-12 14:10:02] - either way i'm glad google is taking a stand. ~a
[2010-03-12 14:09:28] - china and google unlikely to find a compromise. it seems to me like china is acting unreasonable in this respect. on the other hand, if some chinese company had come to the US, following our laws would be axiomatic in my mind. ~a
[2010-03-12 13:58:25] - kaleb: so you're waking up in the a.m again i see
- aaron[2010-03-12 13:42:00] - music created using iPhone - http://mashable.com/2010/03/10/pixietea-iphone/ -nina
[2010-03-12 13:34:25] - Xpovos, gurkie: Thanks for the welcome. CA, and Ventura County in particular, is very nice, as usual. - Kaleb
[2010-03-12 13:32:02] - a: Yes, I'm using ShareBuilder. Of course I also have a 401(k) with a lot more $ in it, but that's a different subject. - Kaleb
[2010-03-12 12:47:19] - kaleb: welcome back... how is ca? ~gurkie
[2010-03-12 12:25:49] - xpovos: sadly BKS is not up 16% since I bought it... What was the alternative that you bought? ~gurkie
[2010-03-12 11:49:08] - xpovos: wait what bn is up? I bought a lot of that! Cause of the Nook ~gurkie
[2010-03-12 10:26:02] - Xpovos: I think Gurkie bought some Barnes and Noble stock, although it could be Borders. Which one had the new e-reader? -Paul
[2010-03-12 10:23:32] - I'm happy with my purchase, but I should've gone with Barnes & Noble (BKS) they're up 16% with a dividend too since I bought the alternative. C'est la vie. -- Xpovos
[2010-03-12 09:59:51] - a: And the video played pretty well (a few stutters, but far from a side-show type performance), so I don't think it's necessarily a cpu/video card issue. -Paul
[2010-03-12 09:58:38] - a: Not to dig up this issue again, but I was playing around with my netbook last night and I was able to sometimes get the video to play for some of my video files by playing around with having drop down menus open when it circled around to play a second time. -Paul
[2010-03-12 09:22:07] - My biggest portfolio update of the past 6 months or so is having lost a ton of money on Palm stock. Ouch! -Paul
[2010-03-12 08:48:19] - So, it'll be good to refresh that topic. Particularly since the market seems to be over the massive jitters of a year and a half ago. -- Xpovos
[2010-03-12 08:47:42] - Kaleb: Good to hear from you again. We haven't talked portfolios in a while--something I was just bemusing about with Paul a little while ago. -- Xpovos
[2010-03-12 02:05:59] - haha. yes! do you remember me? so, hey, your portfolio is online or what? ~a
[2010-03-11 21:45:55] - Remember me? I have a portfolio now! Now I can discuss it with you guys and talk about how it "took a hit". My protfolio is pretty small though; I could fit it inside my coat. - Kaleb
[2010-03-11 20:44:49] - paul: well, particularly if it's endangered, it should be common sense - aaron
[2010-03-11 17:20:39] - http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/11/california.whale.meat.charge/index.html?hpt=Sbin I actually didn,t know it was illegal to serve whale meat in this country. -Paul
[2010-03-11 17:00:28] - mig: ahhhhh ;_;
;_; ;_; ;_; ;_; ;_; ;_; ;_; ;_; ;_; ;_; - aaron[2010-03-11 16:43:54] - http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Single-Sign-On.aspx the bit at the end really made me sad. - mig
[2010-03-11 15:20:15] - some on /. mentioned (and I don't know if this is actually true or not) that some meats require salting as part of their preparation to be considered kosher ... so um, yeah good luck trying to ban salt. - mig
[2010-03-11 15:11:31] - a: Yeah, mplayer mostly just crashed, although I think it ran without crashing once but did the same thing (blank screen with sound). -Paul
[2010-03-11 15:02:06] - Mig: I saw that on Vihao's fbook also and considered linking it... Seriously that would be depressing. ~gurkie
[2010-03-11 14:57:26] - you might try the "gnome-mplayer" since it has a gui. ~a
[2010-03-11 14:55:14] - did you try mplayer? ~a
[2010-03-11 14:51:08] - a: Not sure, I got a CD with the netbook, but I don't know if it contains a copy of Ubuntu. Anyway, I'm not really interested in having to go through whatever process is necessary for upgrading linux just to fix this problem. I guess I'll just use my desktop to handle my videos. Thanks for your help. -Paul
[2010-03-11 14:46:30] - does dell provide you with a version of hardy (on their website or on cd) you can overwrite your system with . . . if it were necessary? ~a
[2010-03-11 14:45:00] - paul: well dell might provide a version of lucid since it seems dell is still latching onto the LTS concept. maybe. ~a
[2010-03-11 14:41:16] - a: I've been avoiding upgrading because I think the version of Ubuntu that I have for my netbook is optimized in some ways for it. -Paul
prev <-> next