@Bob erf you have it bad

I'm glad I don't use AT&T and my dedis don't peer with AT&T

When I updated a few days ago it was just "Do you want to change your search engine to Yahoo"

they've been piping everything that goes through the AT&T network to government surveillance since 2008

O_o

@Bob the JDK never bothers you, oddly enough... so I just install the JDK and it works

@allquicatic I haven't needed to do any Java-related dev or, well, anything on this computer yet. Except that ADB install. Dammit.

So... I installed the JRE.

Bleh.

@Dog What, you get Yahoo? -_-

I always use JDK with IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse and such... I use Java all the freaking time for work... I really really really like Groovy now :D

@allquicatic Ha. Yea, I need it at work. NetBeans, Tomcat, Subgit...

Didn't need it nor particularly want it at home.

def foo = new SomeObject()
someMap.each { k, v ->
foo."$k" = v
}

beautiful

@allquicatic Eh... I don't see how that's so different from C#. Or Java 8, come to think of it.

@Bob dynamic property assignment without using painstakingly complicated reflection code

@allquicatic dynamic, ExpandoObject

o_O

I know dynamic in C# but not ExpandoObject

dynamic foo = new ExpandoObject();
someMap.Select(kvp => foo[kvp.Key] = kvp.Value);

@allquicatic ^

that's C#

Java?

Can be accessed via foo.key

@allquicatic Don't think Java has a dynamic equivalent, unfortunately

(and tbh Java 8's streams/lambdas feel kinda half-arsed...)

IIRC Groovy uses reflection under the hood, but reflection is faster since Java 7

@allquicatic I have no idea how ExpandoObject is implemented :P

being a Rubyist as well, Groovy is great because it's so similar to Ruby, but you get the JVM

also @Grab annotations for your dependencies

@allquicatic Oh, use #r in C# :D

well, in C# Script

@Grab('com.whatever:blah-dep:1.2.3')

@allquicatic msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt614271.aspx

Don't think it does NuGet though

@Bob Yeh

#r ".\Newtonsoft.Json.7.0.1\lib\net45\Newtonsoft.Json.dll"
#load "Mashape.csx"  // Sets a value for the string Mashape.Key
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Newtonsoft.Json;
using Newtonsoft.Json.Linq;
public class Spell
{

:D

@Bob NuGet has way fewer deps than the leading Maven repos though, imo

just in terms of enterprise software and libs

for a lot of the stuff I use

@allquicatic Did you check recently? It is newer, and has grown quite a bit in the last few years.

Though depends how niche the things you use are, I guess.

plus Jenkins is 100% Java, and we're a Java dev shop, so...

@allquicatic C# has really gone crazy with the new syntactical sugar recengly. C# 7 is introducing pattern matching! :D blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/08/24/…

@allquicatic Yea, my work env is mostly Java-based, though .NET is creeping in. Funny thing there, actually... IIRC Progress/OpenEdge had a few Java integrations before, but now they're moving to .NET. Acquired Telerik and all.

IMO? C# is syntactically far nicer than Java. And it's advancing quickly now, while Java is playing catch-up.

Java seems to have somewhat better lib support, with a quite a few C# libs being ported from Java.

Java 9 was delayed for another year...

Groovy is still my favorite language right now :P if I didn't have Groovy I'd probably prefer C#, but I prefer the JVM and its library selection over NuGet and the MS ecosystem and the .NET API

JVMs are RAM hogs, but I don't work on any desktops with < 8 GB of RAM or servers with < 32 GB RAM anymore

even at work

Apparently Java 9 has no syntax changes at all...

Purely JRE & JDK updates

Some of them are nice updates, to be sure.

But, as a language, it's annoying to write in.

@allquicatic Now I'm curious which libraries you need that you can't find for .NET

I don't disagree, which is why I use Groovy whenever possible now

@allquicatic Yea... I'm stuck using Java proper at work :P

Though most of my time (as in, >99%) is spend on JS these days

@Bob it's not that I can't find them, more like it's annoying to use the .NET alternatives or to attempt to port or incorporate via IKVM the Java libs I want the most

Apache POI is a big one; their spreadsheet usermodel API doesn't care if your underlying spreadsheet is .xls or .xlsx, whereas with OpenXML SDK you have to care, and if it's .xls you're fucked and have to use slow COM

@allquicatic NPOI?

Though, most Java => C# ports do tend to have annoying APIs

@Bob they don't really keep up with POI as far as I can tell, in terms of fixes and convenience features

I mostly use EPPlus, but that's XLSX-only.

It was really nice, though.

Mostly dealing with exports, so lack of XLS-compat wasn't an issue, thankfully.

I have to open hand-hacked XLS or XLSX sheets saved by users in Office 2010/2013/2016, modify, and re-save without losing any of their custom crap in other worksheets within the same workbook

POI recently-ish (last year or two) fixed a read-modify-save "faithfulness" bug that was wiping out entire classes of objects

I doubt NPOI ported that fix considering the release history

I don't think I'm allowed to even say which libraries I use other than that, because some of them would give away some of our business partnerships

but I just looked up two of them and neither one has any support for .NET unless you could get them running under IKVM

@allquicatic Yea. Actually, a bit weird that MS hasn't gone and done their own.

@Bob I think MS is explicitly trying to kill the HSSF (Horrible SpreadSheet Format, as POI calls it) -- the legacy Office '97 format -- by not going out of their way to support it in dev tools :P

Considering how often it apparently crops up (especially on ASP.NET), and that they've explicitly warned against using COM unattended.

if all you're processing is OOXML, you can use OpenXML SDK - but that code is super verbose compared to COM or POI

@allquicatic EPPlus :)

yeah

I was lucky enough to be in the position to say "save the file as xlsx to use this program" that time

@allquicatic Probably. Would be fairly easy for them to release/package their own compat tools, but the MS Office team isn't nearly as open as the .NET team.

Ha. "I was hoping Java would kill the need for Groovy, but Java is an embarrassingly 1990's language." -- Paul Bartlett (cc @allquicatic)

@Bob actually, the .NET team is pretty much the only team that's even remotely "open" within Microsoft. The Core Windows team? Nope. Show me a SLOC of the Windows core platform that's open source. Kernel? Explorer? Win32 API? No, no, no.

Office? The only parts that are "open source" is the OpenXML file format. The program is locked up tight.

Want a copy of Windows (client or server) or Office? Pay up (even if the cost is low / free for students).

Don't even get me started on SQL Server. Closed, closed, closed. And super expensive.

Apple is very slightly better than Microsoft in some respects when it comes to MacOS. Open kernel; many open core utilities (enough to make an OS, GNU/Darwin); open source compiler (LLVM and/or GCC); and Swift is open source. But the core APIs and frameworks, like Microsoft, are closed. And not much besides the kernel is open on iOS, too.

dpreview.com/articles/1838149063/…

> Even by 1998 standards, the Game Boy Camera was a bit underwhelming in terms of technology. It took 0.5MP still images and displayed them at half that resolution. Output options were extremely limited: you either displayed your photos on the screen and passed your Game Boy around the room, or you acquired the Game Boy Printer – a glorified receipt printer that spits out tiny renditions of your subject on thermal paper.

lol @ "glorified receipt printer"

Eh, it was a gimmick on a children's toy

...that people paid for o.O

the only thing I got useful out of the Surface Studio was the commercial having Fiona Apple's rendition of Pure Imagination

which went on my Spotify playlist immediately

I'm rather puzzled at Microsoft's decision to compete with Wacom Cintiq et al.

@allquicatic ooh, thans for the artist name :D

*adds to playlist*

@bwDraco How so?

THey did acquire NTrig...

Hmm. That might make more sense at this point given that there are few competitors in this space...

@bwDraco and the only 1070 and 1080s in laptops right now are 17.3" or larger :/

15.6" is my limit

The gaming laptop market is growing fast, but at the same time, it's flooded with loads of brands from Alienware to Lenovo Y.

nothing bigger fits into my expensive leather carry bag

@allquicatic Me too. I could try to carry a 17" machine but I'd need a new bag. Besides, 15.6" is already pushing the limits of what I can carry in terms of weight.

I wanna see benchmarks on the Radeon Pro 460 4GB before I consider buying the top-end Macbook Pro 15"

@bwDraco Also, I feel I should point out that the Cintiq only goes up to QHD, and costs almost as much as the (lowest-tier) Surface Studio @ 4500x3000. And that the Cintiq is display-only.

(no, that goes up to GTX 1070, probably due to thermal constraints; GTX 1080 needs a beefier cooling system that apparently can only fit in a 17" chassis)

Granted, I did say I'd like to see a display-only Surface Studio option.

But just saying the Wacom costs almost as much without even including the other hardware.

@allquicatic Uh, no?

@Bob no?

@Dog and I found a few 1070s in 15.6", I think. Except they do tend to be fairly thick.

ah

thickness is ok ;) (TWSS)

@JourneymanGeek ^^ your TWSS

@allquicatic 1070: xoticpc.com/…

arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/…

lol

that's almost what @bwDraco said in his (now-deleted) comment. Same laptop too! :P

the Radeon Pro 460 -- top end model -- only pushes 1.85 TFlops and has an underwhelming 1024 shader cores

"top end model"

@Bob I actually beat you to it:

it would be ideal for me to have all three operating systems (MacOS, Windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04) triple booting on a high-end Macbook Pro and abandon my desktop, but it seems convergence will have to wait

@bwDraco ya, but talking more about the 10xx GPUs

just found it interesting that there's full desktop CPU and GPU in that one

@allquicatic ...yea, not too surprising

It's a bit of a Clevo tradition that the top-of-the-line laptops get desktop-class processors.

thin + long battery life = somewhat underpowered

great for most uses, bar gaming

@bwDraco yea, I skimmed over a few of them when I was purchasing, for the thickness/size/price :P

they're not laptops

they're somewhat-portable-desktops-with-screens-attached

@allquicatic yea, 1080 doesn't seem to appear in 15.6" laptops

pity

It's 180W vs 150W TDP

$6k USD to build that XOTIC the way I want it -_- but the 1070 would be fine for me

@allquicatic Or wait half a year for more options?

if I could actually afford that, I could sell my desktop and Ivy ThinkPad

Though I doubt you'll see MacBook w/ GTX 1080

two M2 SSDs and two SATA SSDs totaling 10 TB of storage = win

I'd still have to keep a Mac around, though, for the occasional need to compile crap in XCode and put it on my iPhone

wouldn't need a particularly good Mac though

could just keep my Macbook Pro Early 2015 for the next 5 years

I've been looking for a 15.6" true desktop replacement for a long time, I'm kinda sad now that I spent all my spending money on a desktop instead of a laptop like that one

@allquicatic Wait, did they announce a new iMac? GPUs?

@Bob no new iMac

I think they're letting it die

ow

@allquicatic replacement?

isn't that their only serious desktop?

@Bob ....no, the Mac Pro is their serious desktop

Haswell-E currently

ah

oh, the trashcan

seriously though

that 15.6" Xotic you linked me to would give me better (faster) storage than my current desktop, same RAM, same CPU, very slightly downgraded (1080 to 1070) GPU

ah, they're letting their AIO die

a 1070 can definitely still play Star Citizen, though

@allquicatic I'd just be wary of throwing $6k on a laptop, knowing how much they get banged around :\

Cevlo-based builds tend to be fairly sturdy, but even they will die

@Bob I'd pay $400 for 3 or 4 year all-inclusive "anything happens, we replace/fix it" insurance if I went all-out on a laptop like that

@allquicatic oh yea, that'd make sense

from a third party if necessary

would also set up FDE on all the RAIDed SSDs :P

OPAL 2.0

before I actually jump on something like that, I think I'm going to give SSDs just a little more time to develop yet-higher capacities and still-lower price/GB

that's very close to being affordable but I want better

my "very comfortable amount of storage that I'll probably never need more than" number is 8 TB for the foreseeable future

but the build as I configured it included $3000 worth of storage

that's insane

that's a sixth of an entry level car

ow

that's enough for like five or six entry level console killer gaming desktops! :P

@allquicatic to cover a $6k laptop with general personal item insurance:

> $156.76 monthly* or $1881.23 annually

(minus monitors and peripherls)

@Bob shit.

hope it's not that much in the US

I'm surprised at that number honestly

@allquicatic age would also be a factor

and I guess specialised laptop insurance might be cheaper

Lenovo used to sell $300 insurance packages (all inclusive) for their high-end T-series and W-series thinkpads that would easily eclipse $3000

@allquicatic yea, you can get the same from Dell, HP, etc

but Clevo is harder...

and that $300 would cover 3-4 years

other problem with having a single system like that is putting all my eggs in one basket

@allquicatic yea specialised insurance is much better compnow.com.au/wp-content/uploads/…

lose it, break it, unplanned component failure, leave it at home / work when I'm at the other place and don't have it... and ugh

only goes up to $4k but for three years it's only about $500

with ~$100-$200 excess

@allquicatic yea, diy repair would be much harder too

mobo goes, you can't just hop in the car and get a new one from a local shop

as it stands I have three serviceable computers that can play SWTOR: my Macbook Pro in Parallels Desktop (VM) plays it alright at 1280x800; my Ivy Bridge ThinkPad T530 plays it pretty well at 1336x768; and my high-end gaming desktop plays it perfectly at 3440x1440@100 Hz

it's to the point that I can dual box two accounts at home for RP (one a protagonist and one the antagonist/boss) while not even having to tote a laptop back and forth from work

I can lock my Macbook Pro in my file cabinet at work, leave with just my lunch bag and phone and keys, go play SWTOR at home with the ThinkPad and desktop, then come back to work the next day, never moving a laptop

and if I stay late at work I can play SWTOR there too

convergence is a pipe dream, basically

@allquicatic I don't see the value in laptops with that much power, personally

@Bob yeah, it's poor value

I'd much rather relatively light/portable laptops and a nice desktop

which is what I have

@allquicatic not just value; you could throw $100k at it and it'd still be pretty bulky

money can't defeat the laws of physics

source

@Bob it can if fucking game devs will STOP increasing system requirements for games, and focus on optimization! :P also, if fucking display manufacturers will STOP adding pixels that add computation cost! :P

@allquicatic well, lowering res is relatively easy :P

Uh, I paid $149 for an extended warranty from Sager.

@Bob true, and a big reason SWTOR is playable on the MBP in a VM is that the non-Retina resolution is only 1280x800

(3 years)

@bwDraco extended warranty != insurance

doesn't cover accidental damage

if you drop it, extended warranty won't help

that's also why insurance costs so much more

Never had to use it but my old laptop had loads of issues where I had to send it in repeatedly.

@allquicatic yea, if I play a game on my 3200x1800 laptop, it's gonna be at 1800x900

which the 860M can barely manage on

I'm hard on my keyboards. I broke my ThinkPad T530's keyboard (the "a" key, specifically) by hitting it - hard - with my pinky finger, on the first week I owned it. My accidental damage protection allowed me to take it to a local Lenovo repair depot, and after they ordered the part from China -- which took a week -- I picked it up after 8 days in the shop and it was good as new

@allquicatic IMO, that would've been a warranty claim

keyboard was defective

@Bob oh? how do you know I just don't press inhumanely hard with my heavy fingers?

my fingers are more powerful than some body builders' abs

(star that please)

lol

Not that!

Granted, at one point, for a warranty repair on my old HP laptop, there were a few non-warranty line items (motherboard for damaged Ethernet jack, display frame because the machine was dropped) but the keyboard and a couple of USB ports were replaced under warranty.

hmm, I'm tempted to use a sharp knife and cut off the port covers for my iPhone 7 Plus's Otterbox Defender

it's annoying to open the port covers because they're very tight fit, and they don't even need to be that protective since the phone is IP67

I just need it not to break when I accidentally drop it, and it already does that job well

the port cover I open most often is the silence rocker

which, honestly, should've become a thing of the past long ago :/

man, I wish we didn't have to use McAfee as our virus scanner at work

I'm 7zipping 425,524 files (open source stuff like Ruby and Eclipse takes up a load of space) on "Fastest" on a Broadwell i5 with a 7200 RPM HDD and it's compressing, like, 15 tiny files per second... this is going to take a long time

most of that slowness is due to the cost of OpenFile() with McAfee

it'd be done already with no virus scanner or even something faster like BitDefender

Might Bash on Ubuntu on Windows speed things up? IIRC it doesn't go through the same syscalls

@BenN Windows 7 (for now)

actually doing this backup so I can upgrade to Windows 10

chicken and the egg problem

Norton is much faster than this.

I freaking hate McAfee.

TIL: Craftsman hand tools are made by an obscure company called Western Forge. WF makes no tools under its own brand (possibly due to noncompete agreements).

!!/wiki Western Forge

...is the bot down again?

Whatever OEM makes these tools, it doesn't matter because Craftsman hand tools are generally excellent in quality.

@bwDraco then why the fuck are you using it?

is is it a grudge against the person and not the antivirus?

McAfee the person is pretty cool IMO

The antivirus is a massive pain

@tereško I don't use it. I've been using Norton Security for years and have nothing bad to say about it. Ask @allquicatic instead.

/me is sticking with Nod32

...never mind:

"have to" ... that sounds like corporate policy

Anyone got an advice/tips/suggestions for monitor choice for a setup like this:

Not to scale, resolution and size is what I'm interested in.

The main display is on the low end, being only 27".

or you could get one 3440x1440 and then see if you need another 1440x900

I like the segmentation it gives, especially when working with multiple windows.

The idea is to use the side displays for documentation(Excel, Reader, etc.) and the main display as workspace.

will you really need two vertical windows?

Absolutely. I'm often tabbing between a lot of documentation wishing I had some additional estate. Currently I have a 2560x1600 display with an old 1280x1024 on the side.

you can do two tilled windows in 3440x1440

and there is no black bar between

I guess a single 3440x1440 could do the trick. Especially if I can find some utility to help arrange windows properly.

it's default behavior on windows (snap to left, snap to right)

and lin linux you actually have tiled window managers

Well, snap to left and right isn't going to cut it, I need at least three slots. I'm wondering if there is an utility that might do it.

Looks like something called DisplayFusion can do just that.

@WilliamMariager swaywm.org

I'm an obnoxious Windows User :P So I'll need something that works with Windows.

DisplayFustion does the trick nicely though. Now I just have to decide if I want to go with a single large display or multiple smaller displays.

Regardless of how many you use, make sure that if you rotate a monitor 90 degree that you do not use a TN monitor. Use IPS.

Reason: The view angle onTN is significantly worse if you look from a different height (or when rotated, look from the side)

Also make sure that the monitor can actually pivot (the one you bookmarked can)

Burp

sooooo ... FBI reopened the case

there is no way this will turn in category 5 shitstorm by monday

Nope not at all

Hasn't it been a shit storm for the past six months anyway?

it's what we refer to as "a bit stormy"

I think it actually started when to oversight comity was told that you need "above god's eyes only" clearance to see some of those mails

I can dig up the CSPAN video, if anyone is interested

Above God's eyes? Wtf is that

@Hennes I was thinking I'd get a 3 monitor stand/wall mount, to make sure they get as close and seamless as possible.

Also, I'll be shopping for a docking station along with the displays. The one I've had my eyes on only supports two displays though, so nice catch.

That is, docking station for my laptop. This is 100% workstation stuff. :)

Half the time it did not update the screen, could not drag stuff from one window to it. COuld drag but only get an outline... Meh

I have a brand new XPS which has all kinds of support through the firewire port.

Whatever youy do, do not run windows 7 or windows 10 and use a startech USB3 2 HDEH

Two displays might be enough, if I just use the DisplayFusion stuff to split one of them.

Opening two windowed PDFs etc on the second screen works

And you can split non-50-50

Almost like me. 2560x1600 main, 1280x1024 old.

The old one is too small for two pdfs though.

Which is a good thing, but if you are used to 'maximise on this monitor' it might take some time getting used to

This is the dock I've been looking at: dell.com/en-us/shop/accessories/apd/…

Not final yet, but it's the recommended for my laptop.

Not the greatest reviews though.

I have a Dell lattidude E6500 with an E-dock (actually, 3 docks)

Old, feb 2009 laptop

But still works

It is my media player at home

I got a new XPS15 9550 as a work station. PCIe SSD and a powerful CPU. So far it's working great.

Pre-USB 3 and pre USB-c time though

PCI-e SSD and M.2 with NVME ?

Also has a decent GPU, but I prefer my desktop to gaming.

Specs just say 256GB PCIe Solid State Drive

I'm not that techy when it comes to hardware. :P

A recent (and actually used) standard is the M.2 connector

The latter allows read speeds up to 3000MB/sec

And more importantly, it is a standard format. If things break you can put it in an modern desktop and read the files. Or upgrade it to bigger/faster.

That's handy

I'm off. Appreciate the help.

Wave. Bedtime myself.

@allquicatic Ironically, all my bags support 17" or bigger laptops, but the largest I've ever had is a 14"

That's literally the only screen I get during Java update, except the Finish/Close screen once it's finished

Oh it's saturday

bob might not be up