Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

Pixels · Post by **Pixels** » Mon Jul 11, 2016 3:02 pm

Prak wrote:Everyone on the internet should be able to use the title Reverend, then.

That's Discordian Pope to you, thankyouverymuch!

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Jul 11, 2016 6:10 pm

I'm ordained as well. Mostly because I thought it would be funny because I'm probably the least qualified person in the world.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Aug 01, 2016 4:35 am

I know I'm going to catch shit for this, but.... it's the best resource I have for this sort of question.

I'm working on a book of sigils, ie, mystical bullshit from Discordianism/chaos magic. I've done a few based on pop culture things, but the most notable are the couple I've done based on the guilds from Ravnica. Where as other pop culture sigils I've designed are inspired by relatively innocuous things, like one that sort of resembles the drill from Gurren Lagann, the guild sigils are made to resemble the guild symbols, ie-

compared to

Would this likely constitute fair use, or should I err on the side of caution and not publish these specific sigils, or at least not a full set of ten?

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Mon Aug 01, 2016 9:02 pm

Depends on how risk-averse you are.

It should constitute fair use, and AFAIK WotC/Magic isn't especially ligitious, but if they do notice and take offense... well, they have lots of money for lawyers and you (presumably) do not.

Zaranthan · Post by **Zaranthan** » Wed Aug 03, 2016 9:06 pm

Most of them there isn't much risk. You can't trademark a fist, or a compass sunburst, or a fucking triangle with shit in the middle. OTOH, some of them like House Dimir and Gruul are pretty distinctive. Make sure you're using visual elements and not just copying the design and you'll be okay.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Aug 06, 2016 5:33 pm

Anyone here speak Cantonese? I'd like to know how the nickname 'little earth worker' would be spelled/pronounced.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Sun Aug 28, 2016 4:02 pm

So, Windows 10 is a shittastic piece of tablet-oriented shit.

Unfortunately, computers don't have infinite lifespans, so at some point I'll have to switch to another computer and OS.

So - what's a good starter Linux option? By good, I mean: 1-free, 2-easy to install and use, and 3- able to run Steam games, openOffice, and ideally Chrome and Thunderbird.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Aug 28, 2016 4:08 pm

What's your grievance with Win10?
How is it "tablet-oriented"?
It brings the start menue back and makes you not use the metro UI on a desktop system as well.
Steam OS < = sounds logical enough?

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Sun Aug 28, 2016 5:27 pm

Reasons I don't want win10:

1-The Metro interface - it's so spectacularly ugly and unintuitive I don't even want to learn it. And seeing my reasonably tech-savvy girlfriend struggle with it for even basic productivity tasks after several months' usage...
2-The total lack of user control over most functions of the computer. I'm not a power-user by any stretch of the imagination, but I like being able to turn off ressource-hogs frills and whistles I don't need, and eking out a year or two more of life out of an aging machine,
3-The intrusive Microsoft data collection/update policies. I'm not overly bothered by data collection, but I am concerned Microsoft may run almost-malicious code on my machine (say, to cripple openOffice to force me to buy Word)
4-General wariness after Microsoft shipped that fucking data package to me without my consent, kept reinstalling that fucking nagscreen update times and times again, and assorted shenanigans.
5-Cortana. I fucking hated Clippy, and I am sure it will take me less than a second to hate Cortana too.

I'll look at SteamOS, thanks for the recommendation.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Sun Aug 28, 2016 6:08 pm

Have you tried using ClassicShell? It's what I use for Windows 10. Makes it look/sorta act like 7 or XP.

Alternatively, Linux Mint isn't bad.

Sigil · Post by **Sigil** » Sun Aug 28, 2016 6:51 pm

MisterDee wrote:Reasons I don't want win10:

1-The Metro interface - it's so spectacularly ugly and intuitive I don't even want to learn it. And seeing my reasonably tech-savvy girlfriend struggle with it for even basic productivity tasks after several months' usage...
2-The total lack of user control over most functions of the computer. I'm not a power-user by any stretch of the imagination, but I like being able to turn off ressource-hogs frills and whistles I don't need, and eking out a year or two more of life out of an aging machine,
3-The intrusive Microsoft data collection/update policies. I'm not overly bothered by data collection, but I am concerned Microsoft may run almost-malicious code on my machine (say, to cripple openOffice to force me to buy Word)
4-General wariness after Microsoft shipped that fucking data package to me without my consent, kept reinstalling that fucking nagscreen update times and times again, and assorted shenanigans.
5-Cortana. I fucking hated Clippy, and I am sure it will take me less than a second to hate Cortana too.

There are some legitimate reasons not to like Windows 10, but of your five points only about 1.5 of them are real reasons.

1) There almost is no metro interface in 10. It exists in a few places, certain settings menus and as a sidebar on the start menu. If you get rid of the items in that sidebar on the start menu and resize it, those go away. So far all of the settings menus I've encountered are merely skins to access options that are also in the control panel, which is nearly identical to previous iterations of the control panel (unless you go back to... windows XP? I think it got a revamp in XP from a previous much different equivalent), and are therefore entirely optional.

2) You want to run a new OS targeting new hardware on old hardware. That's sort of your fault and the obvious answer is "Stick with the old OS" or "Upgrade my hardware".

3) Intrusive update policies, yeah that's a good reason not to like it. Although worries that they'd intentionally cripple third party software software to get you to buy office are unfounded. They've already been sued by the Department of Justice (and other European equivalents) over antitrust issues, and had to settle, for the gall to include a web browser with their operating system. Large governments rely on microsoft being friendly to third party software because windows is what they use, its literally a national security issue.

4) Another good reason, if you wanted to boycott microsoft for their malicious practices in promoting windows 10, that's understandable and even praiseworthy.

5) I've literally never used Cortana. It exists on my PC, but I've never used it. I simply disabled both it and web searches from the start menu and never thought about it again.

Overall, if your issue is usability, I don't think windows 10 is an issue. I like it better than 8.1 and would put it on part with 7 once you change a few settings. I actually like some of the UI changes they've made (for instance you can uninstall an application from the start menu via the right click menu instead of navigating into the Programs and Features menu).

As far as SteamOS goes, it's most useful to you if you plan to game as a linux user, since new linux compatible games released on steam will probably target SteamOS for baseline compatibility.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Aug 28, 2016 8:26 pm

And yes, classic shell is awesome as Meikle noted.
You can do so much personalization of the start menue and task bar.
My Win10 looks like a mix between Win2k and Win7 at the moment.
Just. All black. Dark Theme FTW!

Emerald · Post by **Emerald** » Sun Aug 28, 2016 10:18 pm

MisterDee wrote:So - what's a good starter Linux option? By good, I mean: 1-free, 2-easy to install and use, and 3- able to run Steam games, openOffice, and ideally Chrome and Thunderbird.

These days, most Linux distros work just fine for Linux newbies; Mint, Ubuntu, and Fedora are generally regarded as the best entry points, but pretty much every mainstream distro is free, has a simple graphical installer, is quite user-friendly, and has several browsers, office suites, mail clients, music players, and so forth in the software repositories. I don't recommend SteamOS, ironically enough, since it doesn't meet all of your criteria or address your issues with Windows 10:

So, what is it not?

We expect most SteamOS users to get SteamOS preinstalled on a Steam Machine. Although we have made SteamOS freely available for anybody to install, the installation experience is not intended for a non-technical user.

Most importantly, SteamOS only supports a certain set of hardware (you can read more in our FAQ). We will add support for newer hardware over time, but we have no plans to add more support for older hardware.

Users should not consider SteamOS as a replacement for their desktop operating system. SteamOS is being designed and optimized for the living room experience.

Regarding Steam support on normal distros, only Ubuntu (and Mint, since it's based on Ubuntu) is "officially supported", but it works just fine on many more (I have a Fedora box and a Debian box which both run Steam without any issues), so it's really up to you which distro you'd like to run.

Many distros' default interfaces are somewhat tablet-y/Metro-y these days since that's the hip new thing, so pictures of the latest Ubuntu, for instance, won't look to your taste. But since Linux separates the window manager (graphical interface) from the operating system itself it's easy to customize any distro to look like anything you want, so you could make it look almost exactly like Windows 7 or just choose a distro like a fairly-Windows-looking window manager like Kubuntu (Ubuntu with the KDE window manager) or Linux Mint with the Cinnamon window manager.

Take a look at the descriptions of Kubuntu, Mint, and Fedora and see if any of those stand out to you. You can't really go wrong with any of them, but if in doubt, default to Mint since it's somewhat viewed as the "Linux for dummies" distro so you'd be able to find plenty of tutorials for it.

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 11:25 pm

MisterDee wrote:Reasons I don't want win10:

1-The Metro interface - it's so spectacularly ugly and unintuitive I don't even want to learn it. And seeing my reasonably tech-savvy girlfriend struggle with it for even basic productivity tasks after several months' usage...
2-The total lack of user control over most functions of the computer. I'm not a power-user by any stretch of the imagination, but I like being able to turn off ressource-hogs frills and whistles I don't need, and eking out a year or two more of life out of an aging machine,
3-The intrusive Microsoft data collection/update policies. I'm not overly bothered by data collection, but I am concerned Microsoft may run almost-malicious code on my machine (say, to cripple openOffice to force me to buy Word)
4-General wariness after Microsoft shipped that fucking data package to me without my consent, kept reinstalling that fucking nagscreen update times and times again, and assorted shenanigans.
5-Cortana. I fucking hated Clippy, and I am sure it will take me less than a second to hate Cortana too.

I'll look at SteamOS, thanks for the recommendation.

1 - All of the windows 7 interfaces are still there.
2 - All of the windows 7 interfaces are still there.
3 - I also hate the silent updates. No argument.
4 - Oh wait, I guess the fact that you previously had the option to screen and deny updates actually wasn't something you used.
5 - Less than a second is also the amount of time it takes to turn off Cortana forever.

MisterDee wrote:So - what's a good starter Linux option?

I was hoping I could be really cheeky and answer "Windows 10," but it turns out when the added Bash they did not integrate a bottled Linux kernal, as I previously believed. Oh well.

Just cut yourself a line of pure Debian. This will give you the benefit of learning from the questions that Ubuntu noobs have already asked and had answered in every QA forum thus wrought by Mankind, while simultaneously permitting you to look down upon those Ubuntu assholes as the crass idiot fuckfaces they are.

If you desire, instead, to look down on Debian assholes as the crass idiot fuckfaces they are, then you should use Fedora. If you desire to be looked down upon for the crass idiot fuckface that you are, then you should wear a fedora.

Sigil wrote:2) You want to run a new OS targeting new hardware on old hardware. That's sort of your fault and the obvious answer is "Stick with the old OS" or "Upgrade my hardware".

Oh actually Win10 integrates optimization to core modules which makes it run notably better on old or under-spec'd machines. Tablet-oriented, lol.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 11:58 pm

No shit, i installed win10 on my old server which is basically netbook hardware and it is much more responsive than win7 was on that system.
And i installed it on an SSD on an old core2duo system as well and it just boots so hillariously fast now that the only annoyance i have with that comes when i want to enter the bios for some reason, because it just boots too fast to do it reliably.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:07 am

Eikre wrote:4 - Oh wait, I guess the fact that you previously had the option to screen and deny updates actually wasn't something you used.

No one checks every single KB update, nor should they have to. The annoying as fuck GWX program was originally pushed as a recommended update in the optional tab which was by default enabled regardless of user settings. That is incredibly unconventional by the typical standards of Windows update, and you'd have to be a fucking moron to believe that their deviation from the norm was anything but a deliberate effort to put it on as many computers as possible. It was basically designed to slip through the cracks. Not to mention the update was republished several times, meaning that many users who'd already blocked the update found it back on their lists waiting to be downloaded again - with Windows only giving users an official means of opting out and permanently blocking the update much later into the clusterfuck. It even got bumped back up to recommended (it had been bumped down in response to overwhelming backlash) again towards the end of the free period.

OpenCandy is genuinely less aggressive than GWX. Sure, OpenCandy is the software equivalent of a date rapist who thinks "no" secretly means "yes," but at least when you run the fuck away by clicking "cancel" it doesn't chase you down to finish the job - the same cannot be said of GWX, which made some pretty determined efforts to worm its way back onto your computer even after you'd kicked it out. GWX was pretty fucking malware-ish, even if it was pushing a product you personally liked.

Personally, the only reason I didn't upgrade to Windows 10 is because I learned that it could uninstall software without user permission (or even obvious notification) during the update process, with anecdotal examples ranging from trivial (but useful) shit like ccleaner to far more critical things like graphics drivers. I'm sure I'll have to update eventually, and when I do I'll probably dual-boot Linux and Windows and just try to keep Windows 10 away from anything even remotely important. The worst case scenario for an update mechanism which can arbitrarily nuke software off your computer is simply too fucking painful to even consider. I could just wake up one day and critical parts of my development setup could just be fucking gone. The behavior I'd actually want in the situation of an incompatibility between my software and the OS is the ability to roll back the fucking update until I had a fix. Nobody runs Windows 10 because they love Windows 10. People run Windows 10 because it lets them run the software they want to run. A commitment to nuke my software for the OS's convenience is a commitment to making my life harder and pissing me off, and if I can do without that I'm sure as fuck going to.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:30 am

Do you have an enabled TPM module on your board?
Do you intent on using secure boot or however it is called?
Do you intent on being in a corporate domain or something like that?
As far as i know, there are some requirements for windows deciding to uninstall software . . And then it is usually only software that did not pass WHQL Tests. So if the graphics driver was uninstalled, i guess it was not a WHQL Driver then.
Furthermore, every bit of software aquired via the windows store should be completely . . BWAHAHAHAHAHA yeah, no, i could not do that with a straight face either, who the fuck even uses that crap? ^^
On the other hand, a pretty important tool, the powershell, is at the moment very much broken from an update, i will give you that and say that is fucking stupid, M$ needs to do better QA to fucking not break stuff with updates that are supposed to fix things -.-

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:50 am

My understanding is that during "major" updates Windows looks for "incompatible" software and uninstalls it automatically while making a bare minimum attempt to preserve the program data in a windows.old folder if you need it. Microsft has not made any official statement about this feature whatsoever, because their new policy regarding user concerns is "fuck you for asking," but there are plenty of people who complained about having hardware monitoring utilities, ccleaner, antivirus utilities, and even their graphics drivers' control panel removed from their computer. When they reinstalled those programs they worked fine, suggesting they probably weren't really all that incompatible to begin with. While it's impossible for us to know for sure because of Microsoft's aforementioned new "fuck you for asking" policy, this feature is probably not nearly as conservative as you think it is. It actually seems pretty god damn aggressive, preferring to err on the side of false positives over false negatives. It's actually quite disconcerting.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed Aug 31, 2016 8:36 am

*shrugs*
i only have a sample size of about 100 to 150 computers to judge by, but not one of them had anything uninstalled when doing the upgrade to win10.
The windows.old folder is created, when you actually do an on the fly upgrade to win10 and not a clean install, because you have 30 days time to try out win10 and if, in that time frame, you decide it just is not for you for whatever reason(for example because stuff you desperately need and can not get anymore was deinstalled as part of the upgrade) you can with one single click tell it to go fuck itself and go back to the windows that was there before. it is, basically, a complete image of your old OS in a folder that can be automatically be reinstated. I did that on 2 machines to test it out, no problems after that either.
I had to reinstall some things that did not like the upgrade to win10 for whatever reason(steam client oddly being one of them and the only one i can actually name because i forgot about the others) but not because it was uninstalled, but just because it had been uninstalled in the upgrade process but because it simply did not want to start anymore. And that was really just the steam client, did not have to redownload and reinstall any of my steam games either.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Aug 31, 2016 10:40 am

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/windows- ... g-software
http://www.howtogeek.com/243581/windows ... ut-asking/

We're not talking about the upgrade to Windows 10 itself. We are talking about "major" updates to the Windows 10 operating system, i.e. updates which increment the build number, which don't come along very often. These major updates also create the windows.old directory, and sometimes these updates will decide that programs on your computer need to be uninstalled, and then they'll do so with neither confirmation not obvious notification while the OS makes an attempt to store the files associated with the software it's nuking off your computer in the windows.old directory. A bunch of the usual tech journo-whatever-blogs asked Microsoft for a comment on this, and got none - which means it totally happens, it's an intended feature of the operating system, and Microsoft understands that it looks bad enough that they're better off shutting their fucking mouths than trying to sell it as a positive to that particular crowd. And also it means that Microsoft are committed to being even bigger assholes than ever before, what with literally giving concerned users the silent treatment. You'll also note Microsoft has also basically discontinued patch notes - I'm not really exaggerating about the silent treatment thing. Microsoft was never particularly engaged with the community, but they seem to be pretty determined to cut ties and challenge their users to take the product as is without complaint or fuck off.

I'm honestly kind of hoping Microsoft pisses someone important off and gets hit with some more antitrust, because they're back to being really big assholes and counting on market share to make that work out. They're due for it.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed Aug 31, 2016 1:54 pm

Interesting.
First time i read about this.

Hadanelith · Post by **Hadanelith** » Thu Sep 01, 2016 3:32 am

There's a reason I slapped in a new hard drive, did a clean install of Win7, did the upgrade to Win10, and then promptly booted back into my other hard drive with the working copy of Win7. I know that I will eventually be forced to use Win10. I appreciate receiving it for free. I am emphatically NOT using it until I have to. Best of both worlds, really. It just means that I have a 1TB drive that I can't really use for much right now sitting there. Waiting.

One of these days I'll have to boot into it and start messing around. Today is not that today. Tomorrow doesn't look good either.

Yeah, that madness with Win10 updates uninstalling software for no reason - combined with the inability to tell updates to fuck off until I want to deal with them - is the reason I'm not really dealing with Win10 right now. I'm hoping that sooner or later somebody whacks together some kind of update management software - or some business manages to get fucked and raises enough hell that Microsoft has to back off on the forced update stuff.

Sigil · Post by **Sigil** » Thu Sep 01, 2016 3:51 am

Eikre wrote:
Sigil wrote:2) You want to run a new OS targeting new hardware on old hardware. That's sort of your fault and the obvious answer is "Stick with the old OS" or "Upgrade my hardware".
Oh actually Win10 integrates optimization to core modules which makes it run notably better on old or under-spec'd machines. Tablet-oriented, lol.

I didn't actually know that, I personally didn't see any appreciable difference in performance between 8.1 and 10, I just sort of assumed he knew from some kind of first hand experience that Windows 10 actually ran worse on his system. This may have been a poor assumption.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Sep 01, 2016 9:29 am

Ok, so how does traffic court go? I've got a court date in the morning for a $480 red light ticket, and I have $300 put together. I've read that I basically have to put up the full amount as bail to plead my case, but literally all I want to say is "yeah, I fucked up. I drive delivery and I was worrying about getting back to work fast, not thinking about the red light. I work minimum wage and not even full time, can I have a bit of leniency here for my first offense in five years?"

So what can I expect when I get there?

sendaz · Post by **sendaz** » Thu Sep 01, 2016 10:50 am

When you say court date are you being called in to the clerk's of the circuit court's office or actual in front of a judge. I ask as different states may handle it differently and a red light is usually just go in a pay the clerk in a lot of places.

While it is unlikely they will reduce the fee, in most states you can request an one-off extension, giving you an additional 30 days to pay the ticket, but this is solely at the clerk's discretion to give.