Root Access

Bob

12:00

@Boris_yo Guess what you run Excel on?

vzhen

12:23

i playing a old pc game commandos in win 7. The game go "not responding" often. any idea?

Bob

@vzhen How old?

badp

stupid question

Why does the bottom screw down there fit nicely when the other doesn't?

(classic case of the clueless user asking the wrong question after several layers of wrong decisions)

Journeyman Geek

what is that? ;p

Sathya

screw seems to fit the thread on the other side

Journeyman Geek

did you check if you installed the PSU upside down? ;p

badp

12:31

@JourneymanGeek an SSD being mounted upon an empty fan slot for lack of alternatives

@JourneymanGeek the PSU hasn't been mounted yet

Journeyman Geek

.....

and you're wondering why it dosen't fit? ;p

badp

yes

I'm nonironically wondering why one screw will fit the SSD and the other won't

regardless of what I'm screwing the SSD onto

that's not where the PSU will go

Journeyman Geek

because the spaces between the holes don't match the spaces between the screws?

because its not designed for it?

and.. dude, get a converter or something

badp

@JourneymanGeek no no no forget the spaces

forget the ghetto solution

I have a bunch of identical screws

Journeyman Geek

;p

badp

12:36

one fit in there

Journeyman Geek

the screw just dosn't go in?

badp

nothing else does

Journeyman Geek

erm....

badp

@JourneymanGeek yes

Journeyman Geek

there's two similar pitches of screws they use...

maybe they're not the same?

badp

12:36

they came from the same bag?

Journeyman Geek

THOUGH, I am very sure SSDs used another pitch of screws when I installed them

badp

basically the only bag that came with the (non-SSD equipped) case

@JourneymanGeek why why why would they do that

why would Samsung not ship them with the SSD

Journeyman Geek

One's M3. I can't remember the other one

because usually your case or converter would have em

Bob

@badp wat

I... wat

badp

you come up with a same-day solution :P

Bob

12:38

@badp Duct tape.

badp

this is a mount point for an optional vent I don't have

Bob

Uh, @Sathya? This question? Yea... SF isn't too happy about home users ("not professional situation")...

Oliver Salzburg

@badp So, is the problem with the screw or with the hole?

badp

@Bob while this would be the bottom of the case, it sounds even more ghetto. That said I could certainly combine the two

Sathya

@Bob meh. after all the crap they send us

Bob

12:39

@badp Superglue! :P

badp

@OliverSalzburg The holes should be the same, the screws should be the same, one pair fits, the rest won't

Bob

@Sathya I thought it was SO that sent random crap.

badp

@Bob E_NOENT! :P

Bob

SF tends to just downvote to hell and close.

Oliver Salzburg

@badp I'm wondering if another screw (which fits into one of the other holes) would be fine. Which would indicate a problem with the hole

Sathya

12:40

@Bob remind me to show you the crap Server Fault sends too

Bob

@Sathya Do show :P

@allquixotic Heh, just played around with BT music in the car. It sounds pretty good, if a little quiet :P

Stack Exchange

0

Q: Close votes filter enhancement

The close votes allows us to filter by up to 3 tags. Can these (and if so how) be negative values. For example, I know nothing of Linux, and as such I spend quite a while clicking the skip button. I admit, it's not a hardship, however, I'd like to be add -linux -bash and just have those removed ...

feature-request

badp

@JourneymanGeek what are they called can I get an amazon link?

so that when they arrive I can switch to a less ghetto solution and for now I can move on

Journeyman Geek

@badp: 3.5 inch to 2.5 inch drive converter. Unless you want a 4 2.5 inch in a 5.25 inch bay converer

so something like

amazon.com/SABRENT-3-5-Inch-2-5-Inch-Converter-BK-HDDH/dp/…

badp

also, a silly question

Bob

12:54

@JourneymanGeek You can fit four of them? o.O

Huh.

I need to get some 2.5" drives :P

I'm out of 3.5" bays

badp

neither of my HDD, my SSD or my mobo seemingly came with SATA cables

Bob

@badp eh. $1-$2

badp

what am I missing?

@Bob D:

vzhen

13:10

@Bob commandos - beyong the call of duty. i think it is 2001 game

Bob

@vzhen 98 game?

hmm

if it were DOS-era, I would've suggested DOSBox

you might have some luck in a virtual machine with XP

heck, you might be able to run it on WINE on a Linux VM

vzhen

not dos

Bob

WINE works pretty well with XP-era Windows programs

and a game that old shouldn't have performance issues

grab VirtualBox, set up a Ubuntu VM and try running the game in WINE there?

a bit complicated though

alternatively, look at resource usage as you play

@vzhen What are your hardware specs? CPU model, RAM quantity...

I'll be back in a bit.

vzhen

i meant the game name is commandos. is actually running. but sometimes when saving the game it causes not responding

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: something like this news.softpedia.com/news/…

@badp: your mobo should have come with at least 2

I tend to hoard them so I have... lots ;p

badp

13:17

@JourneymanGeek yup, I had 4

you see I merely know they're called SATA, I don't know what any cable actually looks like

Journeyman Geek

@badp: there's a generic question for that on SU ;p

badp

@JourneymanGeek link plz

Journeyman Geek

and we've discussed the merits and demerits of cables here before ;p

badp

I have a few unidentified cables from the cable which seem to be power related but why do I need two pair of power cables from the cable in the first place?

QUESTIONS

Journeyman Geek

15

Q: How do I identify hardware I am unfamiliar with on my computer?

How would I go about identifying a port, card or connector on my system which I am unfamiliar with? Where would I find information on what these parts are? What would be the steps I would take in identifying a unknown port or cable? This question comes up frequently, and the suggested sol...

community-faq

thats a good starting point

I need to go foodz. I can walk you through the rest later ;p

badp

13:19

(and that's before I manage to figure out how to undo the zip tie on the PSU 100-headed hydra

Journeyman Geek

oh the big types?

also you familiar with the motherboard, CPU and video card power connectors?

badp

no, but I suppose those are on the mobo manual

These ones sitting on my ram.

knowing that the one on the left is called Molex is of little solace :P

Journeyman Geek

The one on the left is a molex connector thats probably for a fan controller

the one on the right is the 'correct' one

I can't tell what the middle one is

badp

oh right I need to plug the two fans in yes.

That explains it

Journeyman Geek

though if I can I'd use the fan plugs on the motherboard first

case fan controllers suck

the full version of that poster in my answer has a picture of the 'basic' power connectors you will come across at the bottom

badp

13:34

none of the cables is long enough to reach on the motherboard, and the cables that seem to go to the motherboard have the wrong number of pins anyway

that is

the tiny one in the middle there has 3 pins

SYS_FAN1/2/3 have 4

so..?

Journeyman Geek

you can plug in a 3 pin cable to a 4 pin connector

and so on

advantage with using the motherboard pins is you usually have software control

(and all my fan connectors have the 'right' number of pins

I can't remember how many that is though ;p

vzhen

@bob vzhen
21:14
i meant the game name is commandos. is actually running. but sometimes when saving the game it causes not responding

@bob the game requires direct x 9. But im using direct x 11

badp

14:03

The disk power connectors were rather tough

But this miles stuff seems almost impossible

the fans come in both male and female versions when the PSU only has female

I suppose that's a convenience thing of the fans'?

allquixotic

@Bob Your first foray into BT music in the car? I've been doing it since 2011 :)

Journeyman Geek

naw, I think the female ones are the fans

the male ones are to the fans from the fan controller

DemCodeLines

So I am brand new to mobile app development. I need help understanding some very basic things though. How are all these mobile apps (like instagram when it launched, snapchat, tinder etc.) storing all their information? I mean there has to be a central server for it, right? So how do they connect? And can it just be any type of server (like you would use for a website) or are there specific servers out there that deal with mobile apps?

allquixotic

@DemCodeLines they usually have some local cache or such on the mobile device itself to improve performance, but the data that's shared with the company (updating your status, your profile, whatever) is usually done over HTTPS

Ash

I have hid the GRUB menu entries by setting timeout as 0 , is there a way to hid the GRUB welcome text

allquixotic

14:16

it's almost always some kind of protocol on top of TLS (for security): it can be REST, SOAP, some other type of web services, ICE, protobuf, etc

Ash

"GRUB loading... Welcome to GRUB"

allquixotic

and the data is usually stored in some kind of database: the more traditionalists would tend to use an RDBMS like MySQL or Postgres or SQL Server, while the more new-age shops would go with a NoSQL solution or ORM or something like that

DemCodeLines

Alright, for a minute, let's take tinder for example.

allquixotic

I have no idea about their server architecture; you'd have to ask them

DemCodeLines

Instagram/Dropbox

Assuming you're basically getting something from Facebook

and allowing user to interact with it.

allquixotic

14:21

Dropbox is totally different. it stores user metadata (accounts, etc) on its own servers, but all the actual file data is stored on Amazon S3

still HTTPS though

DemCodeLines

But then, I guess you no longer actually need another server. Just need to connect to the internet and facebook api

allquixotic

@DemCodeLines what are you on about? what does Facebook have to do with any of this?

Ash

:p

DemCodeLines

Forget everything I said and start afresh

Assume you have an app, that fetches all the data from numerous sources

And then allows users to view them.

For example, something like Tinder (which is I brought them up in the first place).

allquixotic

OK......................................................... except that "Tinder" doesn't "fetch all the data from numerous sources and allows users to view them"

DemCodeLines

14:24

That app essentially fetches data from facebook. If you "accept" the other profile and that profile "accepts" you too, then they set the two of you up to message each other.

So it begins with getting data from facebook and then eventually the app uses its own engine to set up a message client for the two

allquixotic

I would presume that's how it works

also, aren't you (very much) a minor? what do you know about Tinder??

why I oughta tell your parents about that ;p

DemCodeLines

college freshman

minor in the real world

Journeyman Geek

I don't even know what that is ;p

allquixotic

@JourneymanGeek of course you don't. Tinder doesn't support dogs.

Journeyman Geek

SPECIESIST!

allquixotic

14:30

yup.

DemCodeLines

shots fired

allquixotic

not even speciesist

orderist!

(the closest common denominator between dogs and humans is the mammalia class, but dogs aren't in the primates order)

if dogs are in the same genus as humans, there's a minor problem

Journeyman Geek

They're carnivora no?

allquixotic

@JourneymanGeek wut? you don't even know what order you're in?

Journeyman Geek

;p

I'm a computer geek, not a biologist ;p

5

Bob

14:37

@vzhen DX9 is installed alongside DX11 by the game. Usually.

DemCodeLines

@allquixotic So the server that enables them to chat, that's what I meant.

That's where a server comes in

Bob

@allquixotic I used FM back when I had an N8

@allquixotic TO THE ~~MUN~~ MINMUS!

Journeyman Geek

AND BEYOOOOOOND

jokerdino

@allquixotic you. are you a taxonomist?

Malachi

@CanadianLuke do you mind if I leave those Comments there? or at least some of them, I think they add clarification to the answer.

11

A: First attempt at a Blackjack game

There is a small mistake in your code: Aces are only 11, but not 1. This means the player (or the dealer) could bust with just the two cards they're dealt. Assuming they only had Aces, then it would be a bust with this code. I would add a check to see if the player is busting, but that one of th...

I know this is SU but

Just for the record I haven't starred anything in here for the last 2 days

and for the Mods, new and old, I have a Bounty Expiring in less than 2 days here

32

Q: Why doesn't attempting to edit count as a pass for a review audit?

I just got a question in the review queue that, though poor, I thought was potentially salvageable via editing. However when I clicked the Edit button I got the deleted post error. Since the post was gone, I clicked I'm Done (what is there do do with a deleted post?) only to get the review audi...

bug review review-audits

this happened to me ▲▲

Bob

15:06

0

Q: Why does ` (backtick) not appear until after I press another key?

On Stackexchanges sites I quite often have to use the backtic which can be got at usually as the key beside 1 (right side ) however when I press it the first time the ` doesnt appear until I press it again (at which point I get `` (2) or if I press another key such as a space. Is there a histori...

keyboard history backticks

Do we have a canonical on dead keys?

allquixotic

@Bob good luck! :D

Bob

wtf

US Patent Office Grants 'Photography Against A White Background' Patent To Amazon

11

Q: Photography lighting (Amazon) - Issued Patent - PRIOR ART REQUEST

sorry to ask this but unless I've missed something fundamental in that massively overly complicated and distracting description of a setup that, with probably small adjustments in lighting positions, is already used in photographic studios all over the world. I was always under the impression ...

prior-art-request post-grant amazon us8676045

10

Q: When were white seamless backgrounds and platforms first used in studio lighting?

Amazon has just been granted a patent on the method for using: A white seamless background An elevated platform Rear-facing lights ...in order to make the entire background and platform disappear without the use of green-screen techniques. That's a fine approach, but it certainly does not lo...

lighting background patents

allquixotic

@Bob next up, Apple patents HTTP?

Bob

@allquixotic Thanks :D

Canadian Luke

@Malachi It doesn't matter to me. That was my first post on that site, so I expected critiquing

Malachi

15:20

@CanadianLuke it is a good answer.

@Bob should that be a Meta question?

allquixotic

@Bob oh, not sure if you have access to Illuminator flashlights yet, but if you do, installing at least one on the bottom of your landing stage (whichever stage that happens to be) can help you know when you're close to the ground (the light is too dispersed to be visible until you're a few hundred meters up).

gives you a nice intuitive landing visual-assist

Bob

@Malachi What?

Malachi

maybe I read that wrong.

allquixotic

usually when i see the light reflecting off the planet surface as i'm landing, unless i have a parachute and am landing in atmosphere, i will instinctively run my engines up to full

Bob

@allquixotic heh, I had no trouble slowing down for the landing attempt on minmus

the problem was I kept going too far and going back up :P

after a whole bunch of repeats, I ran out of fuel

the sloped ground didn't help

hopefully, landing struts will make it easier

heh.

To be fair, my job at NASA was working on robots and didn't actually involve any orbital mechanics. The small positive slope over that period is because it turns out that if you hang around at NASA, you get in a lot of conversations about space.

now I really know how accurate that is :D

allquixotic

15:39

@Bob do you have landing struts yet?

the LT-2s are better imho

Bob

@allquixotic ya

had the basic ones for a while, but never put them on a ship

I'm trying to think of the ship design :P

tempted to pack more science jrs on

not adding a mobile processing lab this time

that thing is damn heavy and near useless

allquixotic

LT-2s are fairly sturdy -- they can withstand 11 m/s "crash" impact against a solid body without breaking. for a manual landing with keyboard controls, around 9 m/s is a typical landing speed

but 9 m/s will break most engines

Bob

is there any reason to have the cheap antenna?

I've seen some builds recommend both antennae

allquixotic

@Bob nah, until they re-do atmospheric drag

Canadian Luke

16:29

2

That Brazilian Guy

> If you do have a modem/router provided by [your ISP], they can see how many other host devices that have been connected, what their computer or device names are, which ones are currently connected, as well as the local IP of said devices
-- http://superuser.com/a/751291/165442

Is that accurate?

Canadian Luke

@ThatBrazilianGuy It's definitely possible. You never know what they do to the firmware of the device

Another reason to always buy your own router, or setup your own gateway

I've got Leopard rep! (10.5 K)

That Brazilian Guy

My ISP customizes the firmware of its modems with a few "nice" features: (1) you have a 2nd SSID broadcasting, it doesn't require a password. (2) By typing 192.168.x.1/someURL you can perform many tasks, that include managing the modem, changing the PPPoE username and password, etc. It asks no password, you can access it apart from the modem FW login.

Canadian Luke

... Cool?

That Brazilian Guy

They basically got the "next-next-OK" wizard philosophy and put it on my modem firmware.

Canadian Luke

16:35

Mine is a modem-only, then I have my own router, then my server

That Brazilian Guy

Which reminds me, I gotta check if it is compatible with DD-WRT & the like.

Sathya

17:18

> we're going to be rolling out a change that gives you more power when it comes to handling duplicates, a chronic source of pain. If a question has a tag where you have a gold badge, and it was part of the original set of tags applied to the question, you can mark it as a duplicate with a single vote.

> Likewise, if you have a gold tag badge in one of the original tags of something marked as a duplicate and feel a mistake was made, you can re-open it with a single vote and (optionally) mark it as a duplicate of another (theoretically better) question.

> Same rules apply, you get only one close / re-open vote per question. Additionally, if a question goes through two iterations of being opened and closed where this new 'Thor's Hammer' was used, moderators will get a flag alerting them to a contested duplicate.

51

Q: Increase close vote weight for gold tag badge holders

In order to increase the efficiency with which poor quality questions are closed, it could make sense to have weighted close votes for a small subset of qualified users. A very good way to measure the qualified users would be to leverage the tag badges. However, it needs to be rationally limite...

feature-request vote-to-close

2

interesting change

allquixotic

@Sathya cool!

that's almost like giving more "diamond-mod-esque" powers to non-diamonds

I think that kind of change is inevitable so that diamond mods have to do less work. it makes especially good sense on the large-volume sites such as SU and SO

Sathya

it's not much of a change to us since the close flags don't come to us

allquixotic

@Sathya true, but it helps expedite the process of closing dupes, which is great, because if you look at our close vote queue on SU, it's enormous, and at least half of the questions in the close vote queue should really be closed

Sathya

yeah

allquixotic

if people with sufficient expertise and community trust are allowed to now hammer those with a single vote, it'll be better all around

Sathya

17:21

btw Stack Overflow has 10x the number in close queue as compared to us

allquixotic

though it only works for dupes :(

maybe in the future they will consider expanding it to off-topic as well

Sathya

they'll monitor it, no doubt

allquixotic

imho it is a very beneficial change but I think they will see that it is helpful and want to expand it to at least off-topic as well (I wouldn't expand it to "primarily opinion-based" because that can mean so many things, and there is often disagreement over whether or not a question is opinion-based or not)

"is X a dupe of Y?" and "is X on-topic for this site?" are much less... debatable questions, in general, than "is this question primarily opinion-based?"

Sathya

well, I'm expecting more callouts on meta XD

allquixotic

> This is being deployed initially as an experiment, I think there's enough sanity here to prevent most abuse cases, and we don't really have a very large rate of incorrect duplicates. If this pans out well, we might consider giving gold tag badge holders more weight in other areas, and possibly considering silver tag badge holders.

YEEEESSSS. Tim Post, you are the man.

mega kudos for this

there have only been 14 gold tag badges awarded on SU, though, so it's not like this will be used/abused by thousands of people

I don't even have a gold tag badge yet, but at least I know that once I get one, I'll be able to do some interesting stuff with it ;p

Mokubai

17:28

I was just about to say, didn't think that SU had many gold tag badges...

Wow, the best I've got is a silver in windows-7

allquixotic

out of the 14 gold tag badges on SU, only 3 are handed out to current diamond moderators

the rest are with non-diamonds who will now be able to use this power

so, 11 active users will be able to single-handedly dupe-close questions who couldn't do that before

Canadian Luke

Well, I'm going to create a tag called canadian-luke, and become an expert in it!

5

allquixotic

they might also consider making it require only two votes to dupe a question for silver tag badge holders -- that could be part of the future expansion if this pans out well

silver is still 400 upvotes

@JoshCaswell People naturally want to answer, heck - often with just a link to the duplicate. We're actually going to embrace that a tiny bit by making it incredibly easy to not half-ass it by loading in pre-quoted / pre-attributed copy of the top voted answer, and letting you add a bit of context around it to make it better suit the OP's needs. Additionally, we're looking at ways for folks to convert up-votes on those answers to close votes on the question, without deducting from your daily close vote limit. All whiteboard now, but will have more details next week. — Tim Post ♦ yesterday

big changes in SE Q&A land! and I have to say, it looks good from here.

Mokubai

Most intriguing...

Sathya

17:43

I have silver in google-chrome & windows-7

need to make it into gold, at least for Chrome

hardly get time to answer :(

allquixotic

most of the stuff I answer isn't about the operating systems themselves, but people tag their questions based on what OS they're running, so the most common badges people get are for the OSes :P

Mokubai

Heck, I was proud as punch when I got my first bronze tag badge

allquixotic

ditto

Sathya

I'm actually very proud of my generalist badge :D superuser.com/help/badges/15/generalist

allquixotic

oh, look what else is coming

stackoverflow.com/users/reloaded/13249/nick-craver

no, Nick Craver is not (specifically) coming (here). I mean the "reloaded" profile :P

Canadian Luke

17:58

@allquixotic Old news!

Sathya

18:13

@allquixotic yeah, I mentioned it earlier, but looks slick

10 hours ago, by Sathya

this is Stack Overflow for now but the new profile page is damn cool

Mokubai

Damn you Steam if you're going to put a game on sale along with its DLC at least put the Season Pass on sale too!

allquixotic

@Mokubai give them an inch and they take a mile. -_-

Mokubai

The Season Pass costs more than the actual game

@allquixotic How many smegging badges does he have!?!?!?

o.o

allquixotic

@Mokubai I don't think anyone on SE has a smegging badge.

Mokubai

@allquixotic Maybe we need to invest more time in it, just like the canadianluke badge...

Canadian Luke

18:28

Yay, I got a script to ban automated logins on my server!

Mokubai

@CanadianLuke \o/ Script all the things!

allquixotic

@CanadianLuke you mean via ssh?

just require pubkeys; problem solved :P

!!xkcd new

ChatBot John Cavil

Trains rotate the Earth around various axes while elevators shift its position in space.

Canadian Luke

@Mokubai I didn't write it

@allquixotic Yes, but then how do I generate them on new hosts?

Ash

JohnnyExpress

Canadian Luke

18:44

The first question about canadian-luke

(and yes, I know it will be closed)

allquixotic

Downvoted and favorited. This is the best question ever on SU. Flagging "Other" as "Please put this in the Community Bulletin". — allquixotic 28 secs ago

possible duplicate of I need a firewire express card for a panasonic dvx100a — allquixotic 17 secs ago

Canadian Luke

I love @techie007's comment

allquixotic

superuser.com/revisions/751736/2

Canadian Luke

@allquixotic I am watching it closely... Just waiting for all the upvotes so I can get a gold badge!

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