The DMZ

Rory Alsop

15:00

(good man)

Was just looking at this interesting trend on social media this week - offering 5 random acts of generosity/kindness and asking the recipients to do the same

CodesInChaos

@Polynomial Guess you need to kill someone

there can be only one

Polynomial

@CodesInChaos His name is Glen and he likes usable websites.

Adnan

@RoryAlsop Mods have access to the email addresses?

I didn't know that!

Rory Alsop

Yes

... did i scare you? sorry

Lucas Kauffman

15:18

@Adnan well if you need more random spending of your bitcoins...

also read that ^

@Polynomial Boning Bad, " the blue stuff"

TildalWave

@Adnan Huh? Shipping what? Sounds steep. BTW there's always some ways to circumvent shipping fees here in EU. It usually means trying to keep the weight under 2 kg, even if you have to send 10 of them ;)

Lucas Kauffman

a box per bottle

TildalWave

Bottles of what? Beer? I'd say 2 - 3 if use loads of bubble wrap

Here, they don't even limit anything by size just the weight, which can get funny at the post office if you wanna troll them with a big piece of styrofoam :D

Lucas Kauffman

@TildalWave 2 KG of styrofoam, does that even fit through the door?

Rоry McCune

@RoryAlsop you scaring people again.... <tut><tut>

TildalWave

15:26

@LucasKauffman no, not really... has to be a long piece

Lucas Kauffman

and then claim insurance if they break it :p

TildalWave

ah no, you see, if you want insurance, then you pay

Lucas Kauffman

If I ever come to brewing beer myself I'm going to make a Mayhem Ale, which has Rory's mask on it

@RoryAlsop and then you can sell them at your gigs

anyway I'm a bit bored here :(

Rоry McCune

@TerryChia I am actually sat about 0.25 miles from t'other @rory 's house at the moment...

TildalWave

@LucasKauffman It's snowing in BE?

Terry Chia

15:29

@RоryMcCune What's that in real units?

Lucas Kauffman

@RоryMcCune don't know, I'm waiting to get back :p

TildalWave

:1337602 one stone-throw

Lucas Kauffman

very might stone throw :p

Rоry McCune

@TerryChia 2 furlongs

TildalWave

with a slingshot or a good trebuchet

Polynomial

15:31

220 Rory-heights.

almost exactly, it turns out.

Lucas Kauffman

@TildalWave a good trebuchet will launch that stone to London from scottland :p

TildalWave

@LucasKauffman table top version then

whatever lol

Polynomial

@LucasKauffman A really good Trebuchet will put Jeb into low-Kerbin orbit.

Rоry McCune

@LucasKauffman so what you're saying is that if we get independence they're going to throw stones at us...

TildalWave

@RоryMcCune it goes the other way around too ;)

Lucas Kauffman

15:33

@RоryMcCune nah, then you'd be all like this: youtube.com/watch?v=QAKg-CC_9gQ

Rоry McCune

@TildalWave true and we have more stones!

TildalWave

a good trebuchet would certainly improve royal mail service

Lucas Kauffman

@RоryMcCune they might sling geordies at you

solving two problems at once

kalina

bored

b0r3d

BoReD

.oO( zzzz )

Lucas Kauffman

@kalina me too

Rоry McCune

15:38

bored .. with Internet there...

you kids, I don't know

Lucas Kauffman

@RоryMcCune the problem is my internet is slow

Rоry McCune

back when I were a lad we were grateful for 56k connections and usenet

kalina

I nearly made a big mistake

Lucas Kauffman

@RоryMcCune you already had that at your age?

kalina

I nearly reset my 3 week idle timer on QuakeNet

Lucas Kauffman

15:39

@kalina which?

Rоry McCune

@LucasKauffman well I say "a lad" we'd be talking "in my 20's"

Lucas Kauffman

@RоryMcCune oh :p

kalina

@RоryMcCune and the rest

Rоry McCune

@kalina nope I totes had 56k modems when I started in IT which was in my 20's

kalina

I see how you're using "20s" to be ambiguous

when you really mean 29 and 300 days

Rоry McCune

15:41

@kalina heh nope I'd have been 22'ish IIRC

it's been a while

Iszi

@RоryMcCune See, I was in my early teens when 56k came out on the consumer market - late teens when I got mine.

TildalWave

@RоryMcCune oh that was already hi-tech, I remember the "standard" was 9,600 bps, then came some Motorolas with 14,400 ... such fun LOL

kalina

when did 56k become available?

Rоry McCune

@kalina my memory is mid 90's

I started in IT in 1995

and I think I either had 28.8 or 56k

kalina

wikipedia said 1998

Rоry McCune

15:43

pipex dial account username solfw15 password epijitha

kalina

I was 5

just sayin'

Iszi

Wow. So not quite early teens for me when it came out then.

Rоry McCune

@kalina maybe it was 28.8

Iszi

@kalina That's for the V.90 spec. I'm pretty sure there were other standards, or at least proprietary implementations, before then.

kalina

weren't the browser wars a thing by 1998?

@Iszi that's for both v90 and k56flex

Rоry McCune

15:44

@Iszi ooh yeah I'd forgotten the modem standards war...

TildalWave

Netscape was the thing then...

Rоry McCune

would you believe amazon still sell them....

amazon.com/U-S-Robotics-5686D-External-Faxmodem/dp/B00005T3X9

Iszi

@kalina I didn't see a year specified for K56Flex in that article, and what about X2?

Rоry McCune

that's the exact modem I had in the 90's!

kalina

I'm looking at this page, not a page about a specific standard:

56 kbit/s modem

A 56k modem is a voiceband modem nominally capable of download speeds up to 56 kbit/s (56,000 bits per second). In the late 1990s, they were the most popular access method for personal Internet usage, but their use has declined in the developed world as broadband Internet technologies such as DSL and cable Internet access, along with mobile data services such as 4G, have been more widely adopted and made available. In other parts of the world, ad hoc wireless networks are being more widely deployed. Speed The 56 kbit/s theoretical speed is only possible when the system being dial...

the earliest date on that page is 1998

Iszi

15:45

@kalina Same one I'm looking at.

TildalWave

@kalina this is how mine looked like

Iszi

@kalina Yes, and that's specifically regarding the ITU's drafting of the V.90 standard.

kalina

well don't ask me, I hadn't even used a computer by the time these things were happening

in fact, I had only just got over stuffing biscuits into tray loading cd players

ask one of the older people

a few years after all of this, I thought it was awesome that sticking a magnet on a big CRT TV would make the colours go weird

Iszi

@kalina Really? A few years after all that, I thought it was cool that sticking a magnet on an LCD screen didn't make the colors go weird.

Lucas Kauffman

@kalina you were that child

kalina

15:49

hey

biscuits are round

cds are round

it seemed logical at the time that inserting a biscuit into a cd player would play music

Iszi

@kalina Right, because you can totally store music on a biscuit.

kalina

@Iszi try and explain that to a 4-5 year old

Iszi

@kalina Ok, now you're really making me feel old.

kalina

you are old.

:P

Rоry McCune

@Iszi welcome to the club :)

Iszi

15:51

As in, almost biologically (though not nearly legally) old enough to be your dad.

kalina

@Iszi from my experience, quite a few people on chat fall into this category

Lucas Kauffman

great an hour delay :(

Rоry McCune

@kalina speaking of which here's @RoryAlsop :op

kalina

and chances are, you're not fully taking into consideration that you only need to be 11-13 to father a child

allquixotic

age is a weird thing :) bearded and balding, most people take me for mid-30s but i'm only 28 ;p

kalina

15:53

@RоryMcCune grandparents

Iszi

@kalina Actually, I needed to take that into consideration in order to make that statement.

kalina

@Iszi ok, well that's not that bad

Iszi

I take small consolation in that.

kalina

you only have to be ~32 to be biologically capable of being my father

Rory Alsop

my first modem was 2400 baud

Iszi

15:54

@kalina That'll be my birthday this year.

kalina

and ~44 to be biologically capable of being my grandfather

and ~56 to be biologically capable of being my great grand father

Lucas Kauffman

@RoryAlsop what did you do with that? What could you send over that?

Rоry McCune

@kalina I think we all don't quite hit that mark

Rory Alsop

Everything went over that @Lucas

kalina

@RoryAlsop how old are you?

Rоry McCune

15:55

@LucasKauffman back before all this graphical stuff turned up, slow connections were fine

kalina

42

right

allquixotic

@LucasKauffman Doom multiplayer! :D

Lucas Kauffman

the answer to life the universe and everything

Iszi

@kalina He can't answer that. The universe would implode.

Rоry McCune

@allquixotic or descent, that was cool multiplayer, just had to tunnel IPX over IP to make it work over the Internet...

Iszi

15:56

Something to do with being an exponent of Graham's number or such.

Lucas Kauffman

The world would be sucked into a giant black hole

kalina

57 secs ago, by kalina

42

allquixotic

@RоryMcCune yeah! I actually did some Descent multiplayer. remember Kali.net? I can't recall if that was native IPX or IPX over IP, but it did Warcraft 2 and such

kalina

@RоryMcCune wasn't descent that space game where you were flying around in a mine

wasn't it the first fully 3d game?

Rоry McCune

@allquixotic kali indeed what what was needed to do the tunnelling...

@kalina that's the one, not sure if it was the first 3d game but it was probably one of them...

Iszi

15:57

@kalina I doubt it. Perhaps the first 6DoF game.

Rory Alsop

I did wire up a castle with 10base2 and token ring... and added early wireless when it came out. Later I upgraded that 9600baud microwavelink to 802.11

Descent rocks, btw

allquixotic

I remember getting ogre rushed one game, into juggernaut rushed the next game, and I felt like I was so out of the league of other players that I may as well not even play

kalina

apparently it pre-dates quake

Iszi

I wish they'd make another one. Descent 3 was pretty awesome.

kalina

I think I played one of them

I don't know which

allquixotic

15:58

I'm really looking forward to Star Citizen @_@

kalina

mmmh

Star Citizen is a huge disappointment in the making

Rоry McCune

@allquixotic Elite:Dangerous could be v. cool too

kalina

I'm in the alpha for elite:dangerous

it's very well put together

Rоry McCune

@kalina ahh I didn't go for that, though I backed the Kickstarter.. what's it like so far?

kalina

but there isn't much substance

AI is a bit retarded

multiplayer alpha test starts at the end of this month

allquixotic

16:00

@kalina very likely; it may end up being unplayable unless you have a custom rig specifically for flight sim with dual flight sticks, a futuristic chair, Oculus Rift, etc., basically meaning we're all crowd funding a few elite gamers :/ but if not, yay

Rоry McCune

@kalina well at least they're getting there :) Elite and it's sequels were one of my all-time favs..

kalina

@allquixotic it's already suffering from feature creep

it doesn't stand a chance of being the game they're claiming it will be upon release

allquixotic

feature creep and delays, I might add -- two excellent components of any software failure

kalina

so great, they raised 25 mil

allquixotic

but if they're going to go all-out on delays, they may as well make it DNF and just release the ultimate awesome space game in 2024

36 mil is the latest, isn't it?

kalina

16:01

and chris roberts has a history of grand ideas and poor execution with feature creep and then half the game being cancelled

@allquixotic ages since I checked

allquixotic

heh, and Peter Molyneux's latest is a huge failure too... Godus

Rоry McCune

It's very interesting to start seeing the kickstarted games come out.. the first launches will probably decide how kickstarter does in future for game funding

allquixotic

it's "40% done" and only 2 out of the 12 or so ages are available lolol

kalina

the last time he tried to make "this game", it got sold to Microsoft and half the game got scrapped

@RоryMcCune FTL was a kickstarter game

one of the best games of the year it was released too

@allquixotic Godus broke two of my mice

2

allquixotic

@RоryMcCune yep -- I notice a bright line forming though -- there are the games that set a small, reasonable feature scope, release on time with everything promised, but they never bit off more than they could chew; these games don't get ridiculously funded, but they get more than they anticipated, but not $MMillions

Rоry McCune

16:03

@kalina well that's a good thing then .. I'm hoping project eternity + elite dangerous will be good too...

allquixotic

the other type is games that promise the world, get enormous funding, then flop because they wanted to do too much

Rоry McCune

@allquixotic yeah especially where the stretch goals were "loads more content"

allquixotic

Broken Sword 5 did well, I think... played through the first part and it was fun

short, but just what was promised, and memorable

and they're still going to release the other half of the game later this year

I think Star Citizen could succeed if they would stop feature creeping entirely no matter how much more crowd funding occurs, and delay the release by a year... it will make a lot of people mad, but it'd be even worse if they try to release in January 2015 with all the workload they've put on themselves so far

they are basically trying to build Skyrim plus Allegiance plus Wing Commander plus Everquest, in space, with 6 DOF, with exotic hardware support (Oculus and flight sticks), tons of content, MMO persistent universe, and they're hoping to do all of this and it's January 2014 (less than a year from the planned release date) and they don't even have their server infrastructure set up. Yeah. OK.

kalina

@RоryMcCune Elite: Dangerous will probably end up being good eventually

It plays pretty well already

allquixotic

Skyrim took like 5 or 6 years and it's only one tiny component of what Star Citizen wants to be

kalina

16:07

I've had a couple of crashes but that's too be expected for alpha

@allquixotic EVE Online has been in development for 12+ years

Rоry McCune

@allquixotic ouch

kalina

and that's only a fraction of what Star Citizen wants to be

allquixotic

yeah

I think Squadron 42, the single player game, could end up being just fine if they set realistic expectations, hard-cap the feature scope starting NOW (or starting 3 months ago, ideally), and hold their content gnomes to their schedules

the multiplayer-persistent thing is probably just... not going to happen... or if it does, it's going to be Star Trek Online :/

kalina

Elite: Dangerous is a project that will be delivered, and people will enjoy it because they're planning on getting the game out in a standard that (from what I've read) covers the featureset of the original

and then they're going to release multiple DLCs to add additional features

allquixotic

lol, I love the HTML page title for the elite dangerous website

"Become Legend"

kalina

16:09

►

allquixotic

isn't that some kind of meme? "I AM BECOME LEGEND"

kalina

^ me playing E:D

you do kinda need a proper joystick for it though

Thomas Pornin

@allquixotic "If you cannot move, become a casemate. If you are out of ammo, become a bunker. If there is nothing left to do, become a hero."

kalina

17 minutes until hometime

allquixotic

whoosh

Rory Alsop

16:22

@kalina - I was toying with paying the extra for alpha, but currently don't have time so I'll wait for the beta

David Freitag

17:43

@TerryChia Hm, I've never messed with the MSP430. I would assume you need some kind of programmer, that is unless you can use the USB mini port to program it. Let me check

Polynomial

heh, MSP430 is what microcorruption.com is based on

@DavidFreitag if it's a dev board you usually find that it has programming support built in

it's rare to find ones that don't

David Freitag

@Polynomial That's true, but i don't want to give @Terry any bad information without checking first.

Polynomial

indeed

David Freitag

But I think that because the launchpad is aimed at kids, it's probably a self-contained package.

> The MSP-EXP430G2 LaunchPad needs only a connection to the USB of the
Host PC—there is no external hardware required.

Looks like U3 is some other uC whose sole purpose in life is to be a JTAG emulator. @Terry it would seem all you need for one of those is a few jumper wires and some components for a project.

Polynomial

the U3 is probably an FTDI

David Freitag

17:52

@Polynomial I don't think so, no ftdi has that large of pin pitch.

Polynomial

@DavidFreitag what about the MAX ones? they're pretty large pitch

David Freitag

I don't think so... FTDI chips usually come in SSO package or QFN... and i don't think i have ever seen an FTDI with either JTAG emulation or the GPIOs necessary to do that.

Polynomial

hmm, maybe

David Freitag

digikey.com/product-search/en/integrated-circuits-ics/…

Polynomial

tbh I didn't actually look at the DS, I just guessed

David Freitag

17:56

Only one TQFP in the bunch, and it's really just a 64pin lqfp.

Polynomial

I'm at work so it's kinda hard to dig around on that stuff :P

David Freitag

Me too :]

Although you were close enough, it's a TUSB3410VF which is effectively TI's version of an FTDI.

Also, @Terry, i highly recommend these jumper wires. Just don't inhale as you are taking them out of the bag, the plastic fumes may kill you. amazon.com/Breadboard-jumper-wire-75pcs-pack/dp/B0040DEI9M/…

David Freitag

18:51

Anyone know where I can get a decent server rack?

Lucas Kauffman

20:07

Dell

Or HP

Iszi

20:21

@DavidFreitag Servers have racks? I guess you'd have to talk to a plastic surgeon about that...

David Freitag

@LucasKauffman Dell

I think we're going to end up going with this guy with a caster kit sides and some filters racksolutions.com/16u-open-frame-rack.html

David Freitag

20:34

Woohoo, my AVRISPmkII finally got here, now i have something to do

Adnan

@LucasKauffman I'm starting in March.

The Leffe Brune recipe.

David Freitag

21:07

►

cc: @Adnan @RoryA

Lucas Kauffman

22:19

@Adnan nice

Rory Alsop

@DavidFreitag I like all of those except that first one - can't get past the drums on that one

David Freitag

@RoryAlsop Huh? I think the drums are fine in the first one. A bit awkward at the start

Try skipping in about 30 seconds.... that song is too good to pass up just because the beginning is a bit sucky :\

Rory Alsop

nah - the others I like, but that first one annoys me the way Dragonforce do - technically clever and fast, but no feeling

Rory Alsop

23:06

I finally wrote up a QOTW post on my silly question on privacy

will schedule it for monday

David Freitag

23:35

@RoryAlsop Ah, oh well - at least you like the rest of them

Rory Alsop

Definitely - and I hadn't heard of them before, so that's an excellent new addition

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