Disqus - Latest Comments for radiantmatrix

Re: Stainless Steel: All About Food Grade 304, 18/8 and 18/10

proteus — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 12:29:00 -0000

Cr+3 (trivalent) and Cr+6 (hexavalent) are toxic. The Cr in stainless steel is Cr+0 and therefore not toxic.

Even if you were to use a strong (but still edible) acid to convert some of the Cr+0 into one of the toxic states, the amount would be well below toxic levels. I wouldn't use stainless steel to store citrus for long periods of time, but that's about all I can think of in terms of risk.

Re: Shocking Experience

proteus — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 17:26:01 -0000

maybe not the best practice, but it's really not unsafe. The current will stay in the pipe, and only would pose a risk if it somehow were to arc in the presence of a gas/oxidizer mixture; that's surprisingly hard to make happen, especially since a ground strap like this only has "live" power if there is a fault elsewhere.

Re: How hackers will jailbreak the iPhone 5

proteus — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 18:03:29 -0000

Cracking is a kind of hacking; it's just that not all hackers are malicious (or even "breakers").

Re: How hackers will jailbreak the iPhone 5

proteus — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 18:02:31 -0000

you never properly own the iphone if you can't install what you like on it.

This is the most astute comment on this thread at the moment. The fact that you have to exploit a security flaw to use a portable computer as a real general-purpose computer is depressing.

Unfortunately, the relative "safety" of Apple's closed ecosystem is exactly what most consumers want. I just wish Apple would have a way for a user to say "yes, I'm fine voiding my warranty and handling my own stability and security controls; release me from your jail." Short of paying your $99 to get a developer Key, and fighting with code signing, that is.

Re: How hackers will jailbreak the iPhone 5

proteus — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 17:59:40 -0000

Apple's security measures are characterized as a war on jailbreaking. That's not really fair -- the methods used by jailbreakers to gain lower-level control of the device are also security flaws that malicious attackers could leverage.

I don't know Apple's internal thoughts about jailbreaking, but even if they actively supported that community, they would and *should* still fix the holes the jailbreakers find.

Re: ONLY CUTE CHUBBY GIRLS

proteus — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 19:45:29 -0000

Love the glasses; especially with that expression! :)

Re: PirateBox DIY - David Darts Wiki

proteus — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 09:40:04 -0000

Yes, physically drive around with equipment to identify APs, check to see if they look like pirate boxes, verify that they're sharing "illegal" content, and triangulate the signal to a house, all while preserving a chain of evidence that would be admissible in court -- and this is *easier* than participating in torrent swarms from the comfort of an office?

Re: F&*#ing Internet, how does it work?

proteus — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 13:12:37 -0000

We shouldn't make fun of Ted Stevens for saying that the Internet is a series of tubes. That's actually not such a terrible analogy (in fact, when getting a faster connection, it's not uncommon to hear techs talk about a "bigger pipe").

We should be making fun of Ted Stevens because of this:

"I just the other day got… an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially."

Re: Sanitary peripherals: a must-have.

proteus — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:55:52 -0000

Who needs dishwasher-safe peripherals? Anyone with toddlers in the house... *everything* goes into the mouth.

Re: Post-PC era, indeed

proteus — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:38:53 -0000

Considering that "serious academic work" was once done on manual typewriters (and with ink and quill, for that matter), I don't see why an iPad would be insufficient for such work even without special support to help make academic writing more efficient.

That said, Apple's Pages is a fully-capable word-processor on the iPad; combined with iSource (MLA or APA edition) for keeping track of sources and quickly citing them, I see no real barrier to doing undergraduate academic work on an iPad.

Re: Weekend Giveaway: Something Called An iPad Two (??)

proteus — Sat, 14 May 2011 15:18:02 -0000

I would like one

Re: http://everyday-carry.com/post/2592975281

proteus — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 12:02:25 -0000

Very few people need to *sharpen* regularly. If you hone your knife with a proper steel on a regular basis (I use my knife frequently, so I hone daily), it will not only restore the edge, but increase the amount of time needed between actual sharpenings.

When you hone, you don't remove any of the blade (except microscopic bits that come off anytime you rub surfaces together), you just "straighten out" the bends that come from cutting.

When you sharpen, you *do* remove part of the blade. This is necessary to restore an edge that's been worn away -- which happens through use. But regular honing will make the edge last longer, which ultimately means your knife will last longer.

Re: http://everyday-carry.com/post/2564403553

proteus — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 14:22:22 -0000

IMO, it's far too easy for the iPhone battery to conk out -- and likely at the worst possible time. So while I too use my phone for time/flashlight capabilities, I *also* carry a winding watch and a long-life light.

Re: http://everyday-carry.com/post/2564403553

proteus — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 12:16:59 -0000

I use my pocket knife regularly to: cut or peel fruit for lunch, open packages, etc.

I use my flashlight regularly to illuminate the ground in front of me when I walk to my car from the light rail, and in "flash" mode when I'm crossing busy streets (makes me more visible).

Nothing in my EDC is there "just in case"; it's all there because I use it regularly.

Re: Artists wanted for Steampunk Art book project

proteus — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 12:23:11 -0000

It's a fair question; the editor of the proposed book is an artist himself, so one would assume he'd be sensitive to such things -- but I don't really know for sure. Sounds like a good question for him -- if you get a response, post it here. If it's interesting, I'll put it into the post itself.

Re: Too+Few+Women+In+Tech%3F+Stop+Blaming+The%26nbsp%3BMen.

proteus — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:48:08 -0000

Arrington is an ass, but he's not totally wrong: the issue isn't that the male-dominated tech fields "keep the women down". The few women who continue to argue that are actually taking away from the real issue: girls and women are discouraged from entering STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields in the first place.

Yes, it's a problem that a tech conference is only 10% female; however, you can't force that ratio higher by simply getting more women to speak at the conference. You have to change our social and cultural norms so that women are welcomed into -- even encouraged to participate in -- the STEM fields.

And there's a lot that men can do to help this: like not promulgating the stupid "girls are bad at math" myth, or working to change the stereotypes of the tech fields as a bunch of inconsiderate boys. And yes, there's a lot women can do as well, aside from merely pointing out the problem. There is a need for more courageous, smart women to break into STEM fields despite all the obstacles. There is a need for women who can form partnerships with men who want to change things -- and those who don't understand the problem -- in a positive manner.

If everyone -- on any side of this discussion -- spent as much time trying to fix the problem as they do talking about it, we'd be much better off.

Re: Steampunk Art Show and Sale -At The Gallery of THUM

proteus — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:05:05 -0000

Updated! Sorry about that...

Re: Lightweight theme

proteus — Tue, 25 May 2010 17:40:17 -0000

Please PM me about this on the forum - I'd like to know more about the host you use and what you were able to accomplish; our host has been good to us, but if I can do better at a reasonable cost, I'd like to know about it.

Re: Lightweight theme

proteus — Sat, 08 May 2010 14:10:46 -0000

I have to chuckle a little bit whenever someone proposes this -- I sincerely mean no offense by it, it's just that lots of people come to the conclusion that BG just has a bad web host, but it's not really true.

We started out with a host called Fasthosts in the UK -- they're almost exactly equivalent to Dreamhost in the US. They served us well, but we simply *outgrew* their "unlimited plan". See, such plans still have limits around things like number of concurrent sessions, RAM usage, CPU slice, etc. (even though bandwidth and disk are either unlimited or practically so).

We have about 80,000 unique visitors to the *front pages* of the blog and forum alone every month; but we run on Wordpress and SMF. These scale well enough, but they're not designed to be lightweight -- our dual-core server routinely pegs its CPU.

Money can certainly be thrown at this problem: a couple of grand for a nice 16-core physical server, and about $90/mo to co-locate it would go a long way. That's about 200% more than we pay for the hosting we've got, though -- and as long as we're trying to be ad-free, we rely on donations to pay for what we do. That keeps us online, but it's not enough to co-locate. I make up for it by trying to stretch what the server can handle by keeping the blog and forum as tuned and lightweight as possible.

Re: Lightweight theme

proteus — Sat, 08 May 2010 14:01:58 -0000

It's a fixed-width layout, so if your browser window is wider than 730px, you'll see some whitespace on the right.

Using fixed widths for elements makes certain authoring and maintenance tasks a little easier, and let's face it: I'm lazy. ;-)

I did do the layout almost entirely in CSS, which means that if you need to fix something to fit your needs (e.g. high-contrast text) or desires (e.g. not fixed width), you can override the stylesheet locally. For an example of how to do this with Firefox, check out http://coreygilmore.com/blo...

Re: Lightweight theme

proteus — Sat, 08 May 2010 04:37:20 -0000

I've tweaked it a bit -- tell me what you think.

Re: What do you do with old computer stuff? – Steampunk it!

proteus — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:46:31 -0000

Aw, man -- I was hoping for a full-on re-case, not just paint and gears. :(

Now I feel motivated to re-case a netbook...

Re: It's hard to like Android. - jerakeen.org

proteus — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:01:48 -0000

"You gain Freedom by using an open platform, making life worse for yourself in a thousand tiny ways"

An interesting viewpoint. I wonder how much of "worse" is "not what I expect" instead of objectively worse. I only ask because I use all three of Linux, MacOS, and Windows - and I spend a lot of my time when I get a new Mac or Win box making it work more like Linux...

Perhaps it's a matter of wanting your computer to work the way you think - in which case the worst you can say (other than "it really, provably, doesn't work") is "this doesn't work the way I want". I wonder how many use Linux because they feel freedom is more important than usability, vs. how many use Linux because they actually like the way it works.

I'm in the latter camp, so I wonder if I'd like Android...

Re: The Importance of “Roots” In a Portable World

proteus — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:21:18 -0000

It's all well and good that you love your work so much (I do too). Still, people need vacations, even if they're from work we love - it's essential for our sanity and creativity that we allow our bodies and minds to take a break from our routines.

Re: GiraffeSoft | Welcome to smarter web app development.

proteus — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:59:38 -0000

I see people here getting awfully defensive, because *you* do things differently than "great hackers", and it works just fine for you thankyouverymuch.

To me, this post is about *mastery*. You can build a house with a cheap-o circular saw and a hand-powered screwdriver and a 9-oz hammer. But a master builder wouldn't - she'd have long ago gotten irritated by the limitations imposed by those inferior tools, and long ago found better tools (and often built some of their own).

Buying the professional's tools won't make you a better builder. But learning something about why they choose those tools, understanding why they built their own jigs instead of buying something pre-made, and so on, will help you understand what you need to be learning.

Likewise, you can build software that works -- even works well -- using the pretty VisualStudio or Eclipse IDE. The thing is, the great hackers have tried those tools and been frustrated by how much they get in the way. So they use vi, or emacs. In part, they do that because they want to build their own tools -- stuff that gets the frustrating, repetitive tasks off into the hands of the tools, so they can focus on their craft.

Switching to vi, installing Linux at home (or Cygwin on your win machine at work), and so on won't make you a great hacker. But understanding why great hackers choose these tools will help you be a better developer.