There are usually some songbirds by the bird bath.

It'll be one of those awkward speaking to a stranger in the sauna kind of situations

For an exceptionally well-qualified candidate, I might throw in some twigs and a ball of hair retrieved from a brush.

Awkward? That sounds like fun. Especially if you make it awkward for them.

Like one time I was in a sauna with some old guy and he started talking to me and telling me about how his son was getting a PhD in jazz performance

See, that's exactly what I'm saying. He was having fun.

He looked too old to troll

But too young to blame senility

@PhiNotPi I got 8...

Try the same thing happening, but in a mixture of Japanese, English, and (mostly) hand gesturing.

Japanese baths are the best.

@AlexA. No one's too old to troll

@trichoplax Very true. We have a near-70 presidential candidate that proves that.

@Geobits With Bush I could never guess whether he was pretending. Unfortunately with this one I'm fairly sure he's not...

Anyway, enough politics, back to trolling. I mean on topic discussion

Aww, but politics is the ultimate form of trolling. The internet is baby stuff compared to that ;)

True... Imagine what the world is going to be like in a few decades when all the politicians grew up on the internet

@trichoplax I got 35. .-.

"We found a list of Candidate Z's old YouTube comments. Number 17 will blow your mind!"

@AlexA. Wow - I have a better monitor than you. I was not expecting that. Especially as mine is several years old and hanging on by one hinge

@trichoplax Or you could have better vision and/or color discrimination than I do. ;)

@Geobits Only a matter of time...

My monitor is the thing that's attached to my laptop

2011 MacBook Pro

@trichoplax Maybe the politics of SE can be a model. Avocado spouting birds will get the limelight...

@AlexA. My monitor is the thing that's attached to my laptop by one hinge at a funny angle

I got 19, also a laptop monitor.

@trichoplax O_O

@HelkaHomba Avocadolight...

My monitors are the two things on my desk, attached to a proper computer via cable.

@Geobits I might have to try that...

@Geobits pfft "proper" computer...

I had a dual monitor set up a few years back but they weighed more than my fridge so I got rid of them

@AlexA. It's hard to find laptops with nice mechanical keyboards :P

@trichoplax XD

@Geobits You know, there is such a thing as a USB cable. :P

what mechanical keyboards do you all use

i have a das keyboard

@AlexA. I know. I also don't really see the point of a laptop if I'm going to connect a keyboard and mouse to it and set it on my desk anyway ;)

@poi830 I use my laptop keyboard at home and whatever piece of garbage Dell decided to barf into a box at work.

TIL that I need one of these:

A comic sans keyboard??

@poi830 xarmor u9plus

@Geobits Well yeah. But at least you could use it like a desktop computer then disconnect everything for a good squat-n-surf on the laptop.

I have a laptop for that :P

^^

@Doorknob probably uses this facecoverz.com/static/img/uploads/…

When will desks with inductive charging surfaces come around? Then your monitor, keyboard, mouse, laptop, phone, etc would never need any cords.

And electricity would be pulsing through your veins while you sit at your desk :P

Only for people like iron man

was yolk

yolk is rich in iron

I'm not sure a monitor could run on it but it would be cool

You'd still need to send data, though. You can do that wirelessly now, but you can also get batteries for everything except the monitor now, too.

Long-distance wireless charging might be a bigger issue.

Could a monitor run on a treadmill?

stackoverflow.com/index.php

@QPaysTaxes Right, I'm just saying that induction charging isn't enough by itself to go cord-free.

@AlexA. Be powered by, or actually run on??

@AlexA. is your refrigerator running?

@Quill why am i just listening to it now

@QPaysTaxes So are batteries :P

@poi830 A cold

@QPaysTaxes Sounds like you need to unclog the drain at the back

@AlexA. presumably its nose as well then?

@trichoplax I meant run on because surely you could power it easily by running on said treadmill yourself

@QPaysTaxes Eventually... at least for my mouse, I change the single battery maybe every six months.

like a big gerbil

@QPaysTaxes I did see your question, but I have no feedback. I really don't know.

@Geobits Sure. But wireless data transmission seems much more prevalent than wireless power transmission.

why would you want that

that would make the computer basically unusable

@QPaysTaxes Oh sure, the monitor is a problem for anything. I'm not even sure induction charging is enough for that right now.

voted to close as too broad

@HelkaHomba My estimate: 4 to 8 years

Is that like 6 to 8 weeks? I swear they said that 4 to 8 years ago :P

why even use keyboard/mouse when you can wirelessly send information from your brain

@Quill vote to quill as too chill

@AlexA. voted to alex as too a.

@poi830 Shhh.... most of these people haven't figured out they can yet, and we aren't supposed to be running our mouths about it.

@Geobits No that's my precise uneducated guess... To be fair we do have induction charging now, just not many devices that can use it

@poi830 My brain isn't powerful enough to get more than a mouse click per minute to the computadora from my headzeroni

@Quill How did you do this, btw?

@Geobits That works for output too?? I've only been using it for input

How fast (latency and bandwidth) would one's internet need to be to have the lion's share of all the actual data storage and processing power done at some external server somewhere (say within 100 physical miles) and not have the average user notice a difference?

For one user?

Right.

Does that include media encoding?

Hmm. Probably pretty damn fast. I've used thin clients on a 30Mbps connection (unsure latency) and it was horrendous. Also, unsure of user count.

Like companies would set up the server and people could pay more to get a better virtual computer.

stackoverflow.com/index.pl ;-;

@HelkaHomba Data storage might not be so bad as long as you have some small amount locally

@HelkaHomba If you don't plan to stream media, a regular 16/1 MBit/s connection is almost overpowered. I use my ubuntu server as my regular desktop using X2Go.

@mınxomaτ I mean a bunch of users might be accessing this server at once, but they'd all have their own "virtual pc"

@HelkaHomba Then you need a beefier server, but the X2Go approach would still work, since it is powered by X over SSH.

But as I said, media streaming is a no-go (unless you server has specific media encoders and dedicated GPUs).

@mınxomaτ The average user would want to stream media. But not compute the trillionth prime in a nanosecond.

Anything where you'd need a fast refresh would probably be hard. Media, gaming, etc.

＜￣｀ヽ、　　　　　　　／￣＞
　ゝ、　　＼　／⌒ヽ,ノ 　/´
　　　ゝ、　`（ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)／
　　 　　>　 　 　,ノ
　　　　　∠_,,,/´”

@HelkaHomba maybe have some windows able to be rendered locally

like for example, media streaming and gaming

@AlexA. Thank you for that contribution Alex.

I do what I can

What did you do to the starboard???

the user could designate if they wanted a window to be done locally

@trichoplax Kicked it up a notch

More like sideways... :P

For Windows, this is not feasible. X can be mirrored over SSH, but Windows' GDI is just a PITA. Hence why Teamviewer sessions look so horrible (GDI must be streamed as media basically).

ah that did not work

@poi830 what even

@mınxomaτ who wants windows anyways?

@Maltysen The majority of games really.

wine?

doesnt always work

I don't think you know what you are talking about.

sadly

Wine usually works pretty well for me.

Very few exceptions

@Geobits A little blast from my spice weasel

There was a remote "gaming desktop" service. But I forgot the name.

It does for me, except games. Games older than five years or so, sure, but...

@quartata I have the same thing

very few exceptions it actually works

@Quill ...

@AlexA. Ah, the spice weasel. Never leave home without it.

I know everyone complains about Wine and how much trouble they have with it but I've really never ran into problems with it.

Hell, I can play CS:GO on it. Not like I would want to but

I can play Diablo 2 on it >_>

Diablo 2 has a weird DirectDraw glitch that causes the colors to freak out on act changes sometimes but other than that it works perfectly

I should probably try it with Glide/Direct3D.

it took me forever to get hearts of iron running on it

Most things I try work.... but not fully work. Like some menu will be messed up somewhere. Sometimes it's a dealbreaker, other times not.

Probably would work better

@quartata Huh, never noticed that one.

@Geobits Maybe it's just an issue I run into :P

Anyways, Wine has never been much of a problem for me.

Diablo 3 has an issue where every time the disc goes into my PS4 I lose a week of life.

I primarily use it for Hammer which isn't very graphic-intensive but very very CPU-intensive

(the compilation part at least)

Hmm. Devon's new garden seems to be growing quite a bit faster than his old one. Only about an hour old.

@mınxomaτ I'm not really talking about what tools are available now. I mean if a big company developed their own hardware and software to make it possible for a user to just buy a monitor-like device, sign into their wifi, and then "have a computer" which physically exists in a big server warehouse, would the fastest current consumer internet speeds (~2Gbps) allow the same experience/responsiveness as a normal computer?

I'm sure 2Gbps could handle it.

The bulk of the data is going to be video streaming.

The "monitor" would have to have some general processing capabilities, like to display a YouTube video.

But latency would be just as important as bandwidth.

You're basically just asking "How fast does the internet need to be for me to do everything in a browser?", right?

More like a TV.

@El'endiaStarman Sure, but I'd guess it'd be more like a tv, just displaying the image it reads off the airwaves

It probably won't be as simple as a monitor that starts a VNC session. At minimum you'll want interpolation for mouse/window/etc movements and client-side prediction for a few things

@El'endiaStarman Kinda

Videos would have to be handled client-side though.

Why? You can send a raw HDMI stream like you would to a tv.

Unless you mean that decoding.

Oh, I see what you're getting at. Like, transmit every keystroke and mouse movement to the company's server and send back the response.

But you're not factoring in the consumer's internet speed.

At best your ping might be 15 ms.

@El'endiaStarman Right.

Well, wait a second.

@quartata Oh, I thought we were assuming blazing fast end-to-end.

You could probably do something along the lines of how console games currently work. I think they go through a central server. So everything is synced every second or so, but in the meantime, the users' own consoles handle the gameplay.

That would work for video streaming.

Assuming you're trying to watch a 60 fps video the best case you might be able to get away with no drop frames

Just send a second at a time.

Assume you have 1Gbs+ internet speed and the server is within 100 or so physical miles of you. No latency to transmit round the world and back each time

Hmm. You might get mouse lag though. I mean, there's a reason games (in particluar) do a lot of client-side processing.

yeah

You'd have to have interpolation for the mouse movements and client-side prediction for the keystrokes.

A la Quake.

Yea... I can't imagine playing an FPS where your camera angle, etc, is handled server side.

There used to be no client-side prediction in Quake -- pressing a button meant there was a delay between you actually doing the action

Even for looking?

Not for looking.

Camera angle is always client-side in Quake-based games.

But for things like WASD

Oh, right right.

I know a lot about this shit because I had to read a bunch of boring white papers on it for making my video game

It's interesting to see how lag compensation technology evolved over the years, though.

@quartata You made a video game? o.O

@QPaysTaxes just ping him

@El'endiaStarman Making.

I used to work on MMORPG server software, but there was a lot handled client side, and it didn't need to be as fast as a shooter.

I hate games where so much is handled client side.

You're giving way too much trust to the client

It's nice for cheaters at least :/

Yeah.

It kinda disgusts me that cheaters are still even around in most FPSs.

@QPaysTaxes I'm pretty sure my dog doesn't even hear them any more.

It would be so easy to fix VAC to make it not suck

@QPaysTaxes :O

@QPaysTaxes That's peer-to-peer (with central server), and that's how most multiplayer games used to work.

Until people realized that was a bad idea

@QPaysTaxes How do you @Sherlock9 is asleep? Or doesn't turn off noisy things at night like most people would...

And John Romero made the client/server model and all the cool lag compensation things and everyone loves him now

(you can mute pings btw)

I don't leave my computer on at night.

@QPaysTaxes I don't understand. I've read it twice now and can't find the objective winning criteria.

@Geobits hahahahahaha

@Geobits Vote to close as offic topic

> offic topic

That was unintentional but I like it

@QPaysTaxes But, but... how can you score the multiple valid answers you'll surely receive?

popularity-contest :/

Does Alex know he's posting these?

@HelkaHomba I think it's a script that just does it at random intervals.

@QPaysTaxes That's a given on all sites on the network

I don't often vote on SO questions in languages I'm not familiar with.

Guys I'm dumb how do I do a function pointer in C again

NASA is currently live with some interviews .. from space: youtube.com/watch?v=OX9I1KyNa8M

@Geobits Except down. It's much easier to tell a bad question than a good one :P

hence your avatar

@poi830 I don't understand. What about it?

@QPaysTaxes No I know that but how do I declare the type

it is a downvote

@mınxomaτ Only 100 watching. What happened US space enthusiasm? :/

Is it something like (int())* I can't remember

@QPaysTaxes Might be that

@poi830 What is?

@HelkaHomba And the chat is very mature >.>

@Geobits ...your profile pic is a downvote?

@HelkaHomba Well, it is 11 on the east coast and I hadn't even heard of this until now, so it can't have been well publicized.

@poi830 It's a play button from an old mp3 player, just rotated.

yeah I don't know what you're talking about Geobits's avatar isn't a downvote

Does it really look that much like a downvote?

Nah.

@NewMainPosts Alice and Bob got exchanged for Cheers :P