subject:"A very basic blog about D"

Re: Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

2013-07-21 Thread Nick Sabalausky

On Wed, 17 Jul 2013 04:31:40 +0200
"Adam D. Ruppe"  wrote:

> On Tuesday, 16 July 2013 at 21:33:33 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> 
> > THAT'S POSSIBLE?!? PLEASE TELL ME HOW!!! Or is the forward/back
> > dropdown list still unified? That's the part that really bugs 
> > me.
> 
> I cannot for the life of me remember how. I'm looking at the user 
> set about:config values and can't find it there either. But it is 
> obviously still in force!
> 
> The dropdowns are unified, but I searched for the thing and came 
> across this:
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noun-buttons/
> 
> which claims to separate that too. idk if it is crap though. My 
> general assumption with [s]add-ons[/s] [s]software[/s] most 
> everyhing is that it is until proven otherwise, but maybe it will 
> be good.
> 

Ahh cool, last I checked that add-on was pretty much useless, but it
looks like it finally got a major improvement last year.

Hot damn! I think I actually managed to get FF *v22* to not suck! It was
an absolute royal fucking PITA though. It's amazing how much new
idiotic bullshit Mozilla manages to cram in and accumulate with every
new release, and never with any clear way to disable. FF has more dumb
shit to undo now than ever. But it seems to finally be possible, and the
under-the-hood improvements do counteract the problem pf needing to
load it down with so many more "undo Mozilla's latest brilliant idea"
add-ons. I think I'm going to make a little article soon explaining how
to do it all.

> > And it was color!
> 
> indeed. And nice bright colors too, going back to the backlight 
> but just the palettes in a lot of the older games seemed so much 
> brighter than they do nowadays.
> 

Haven't you heard? Real is brown!:

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=222

The worst offender I've seen so far (of both the ultra-brown and the
ultra-bloom) is Need for Speed: Undercover (at least the PS3 version
anyway). It's somewhat of an older one though, and luckily Need for
Speed visual styles have gotten a lot better since then.

> > (Although I am one of the few people who did like FF: Spirits
> > Within...go figure.)
> 
> That's a film I feel that I should give another try. I watched it 
> once a while ago and was meh, but that could be due to bias since 
> I've heard a few people say it really wasn't that bad.

It had a major audience problem: Gamers didn't like it because, aside
from having a Cid, there was nothing Final Fantasy about it (kind of a
strange complaint though, since at the time none of the FF games ever
had anything to do with each other.) And non-gamers weren't into it
because it was a movie that was (allegedly) based on a game, which is
never a good sign.

So it was disliked because it was based on Final Fantasy *and* because
it *wasn't* based on Final Fantasy. Quite an unfortunate situation.

Some of the animations were a little awkward sometimes, but considering
the state-of-the-art at the time, I thought it was entirely forgivable.
And hell, even if it had been crap, I'd still have loved it just
because it was a CG movie that *wasn't* a cartoon (or a mix of
live action with tons of obvious CG effects).

Re: Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

2013-07-19 Thread Nick Sabalausky

On Tue, 16 Jul 2013 16:35:47 +0200
"Adam D. Ruppe"  wrote:
> On Tuesday, 16 July 2013 at 00:28:11 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> > They're corporations. It's not about turning a profit. It's 
> > about being under a legal obligation to shareholders to extract
> > *as much* money as possible.
> 
> Indeed. But at this rate, they're not even staying competitive 
> with their corporate alternatives. The cable company will have to 
> shape up or accept defeat, but nope, they keep raising their 
> rates. Maybe they're just milking what they can.
> 

Yea. While they're desperately trying to hoard money...they're just
doing it very stupidly ;) The action of "squeezing sand" comes to mind.

> And yeah, I agree with the sad state of tv. A lot of what I watch 
> are actually reruns but there's a lot I like about regular tv 
> over dvds: the cost (which was a pure loss with cable, but a win 
> with over the air), the variety, and actually I kinda like 
> commercials because they give me a chance to get up. Yes, I could 
> pause a dvd whenever, and change the discs for variety, but eh 
> the regular tv is nice and mindless.
> 

PUO's do piss me off. I wish I could find a (likely of sketchy
pedigree) player that would let me disable PUOs so I wouldn't have to
waste a DVD+/-R (and often downsample to single-layer) just to get rid
of them (well, I *think* Media Player Classic *might* be able to, but I
mean a proper set-top player). It's kinda weird how it's easier to
find a regionless player, or a player with a hidden regionless setting,
than one with a way to kill PUOs. (Not that I like region coding any
better.)

> > (usually anime)
> 
> Sailor Moon rocks btw!
> 

Maybe I just haven't seen far enough through, but I always thought it
was weird how it seemed like every episode Tuxedo Mask would end up
having to come save her sorry ass. :)

Pretty Cure isn't bad either as a slightly later "Magic Girl" show, at
least the sub version anyway. The fighting is standard generic
stuff, but aside from that it's just very cute. Actually, there was a
fantastic GBA game based on it, which is what originally drew my
attention to the series: "Futari wa PreCure: Arienaii: Yume no sono
wa dai...something" Umm I forget the rest of the name, but it's a
side-scrolling platform puzzle game with a "co-op but only
one-player" concept. Quite brilliant IMO. A shame it never had a
western release.

It is interesting though, how compared to live action stuff and most
western works in general, animes/mangas tend to have much broader
demographic appeal beyond just the "core" audience for a given work.
For example, While there's certainly some good Seinen I like (like
Cowboy Bebop, Death Note, and Ghost in the Shell, as far as the really
obvious examples go), there's also been a bunch of Shojo that's managed
to really hook me: Kodocha, Marmalade Boy (the manga, haven't seen the
anime), Clamp's Suki Dakara Suki, and some others. And that's not an
uncommon phenomenon at all.

('Course, then there's other great ones that I'm not really even sure
what category they'd *technically* fall under: Like FullMetal Alchemist
and K-On.)

> > were going to redo the protocol, I'm sure they could have done
> > something far better than the non-degradable new system we 
> > ended up with.
> 
> Yeah, my thought is at least they could interlace the frames, 
> using the same signal they have now, just changing it from a high 
> res compressed stream to a lower res, redundant and 
> error-correction supporting stream. So it sends frames like:
> 
> 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 3 2 2 1 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2
> 
> well that's confusing looking, but the idea is if the resolution 
> is like 1/4 the size, we should be able to send each frame 4 
> times in the same digital signal. So then if your connection cut 
> out and you lost a frame, it is ok because you'll have another 
> chance to pick it up 50ms later. So if you then have a small like 
> 16 frame buffer in the box you could pick up almost a second to 
> recover a frame and piece it together from its sub-frame 
> checksumed chunks as it is rebroadcast, to give the user a smooth 
> picture.
> 
> 
> Or something like that, I'm not a signal expert nor a reliability 
> engineer, but it seems to me that it ought to be possible.

I was initially thinking along the lines of "there's gotta be a way
these days to make a better analog format than NTSC/PAL", but yea, that
certainly sounds like a direction to pursue as well. And frankly I
barely know shit about analog EM signals, so I could be wrong about
that part anyway.

Re: Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

2013-07-16 Thread Adam D. Ruppe


On Tuesday, 16 July 2013 at 21:33:33 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

One useful tip to minimize clicking: You can switch between
tabs^H^H^H^Hribbons with the mouse's scroll wheel.


cool, I'll have to try that.


THAT'S POSSIBLE?!? PLEASE TELL ME HOW!!! Or is the forward/back
dropdown list still unified? That's the part that really bugs 
me.


I cannot for the life of me remember how. I'm looking at the user 
set about:config values and can't find it there either. But it is 
obviously still in force!


The dropdowns are unified, but I searched for the thing and came 
across this:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noun-buttons/

which claims to separate that too. idk if it is crap though. My 
general assumption with [s]add-ons[/s] [s]software[/s] most 
everyhing is that it is until proven otherwise, but maybe it will 
be good.



But that reasoning falls apart the first time you reach for 
"stop" and the damn thing changes to "reload" just before you 
click.


Yeah, I've done that before.


And it was color!


indeed. And nice bright colors too, going back to the backlight 
but just the palettes in a lot of the older games seemed so much 
brighter than they do nowadays.



Of course normally, calling a youtube commenter a troll is kind 
of like calling a sasquatch "hairy". ;)


hehehe


(Although I am one of the few people who did like FF: Spirits
Within...go figure.)


That's a film I feel that I should give another try. I watched it 
once a while ago and was meh, but that could be due to bias since 
I've heard a few people say it really wasn't that bad.

Re: Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

2013-07-16 Thread Nick Sabalausky

On Tue, 16 Jul 2013 16:22:46 +0200
"Adam D. Ruppe"  wrote:

> On Tuesday, 16 July 2013 at 00:26:51 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> > Vista doesn't have that horrible MS Dock taskbar
> 
> Worth noting you can turn that off: I have 7 on the laptop I'm on 
> now and after a few settings changes, it is very similar to 
> vista. To get a good taskbar you need to turn off the group 
> similar windows function (which I hated when it was introduced in 
> XP anyway).
>

Yea, I did actually manage to get my Win7 taskbar (and file explorer
and start menu) into a fairly XP state (and I do actually like being
able to manually rearrange the taskbar tasks now), but it took an
enormous amount of obscure, and often third-party, hacks.

> Your quick launch still keeps their place but that doesn't bug me 
> like I thought it would, it is actually kinda nice.
> 

Win7 doesn't even have quick launch unless you hack it back in. (Which
I've done of course.) But MS sure as hell doesn't make "No I don't want
your idiotic new UI ideas, just the kernel" easy.

> > window screenshots *every* freaking time your mouse goes near
> 
> Oh yeah, that is annoying. I hate hover things in general.

Me too. :/

> The 
> worst of them is on websites. My bank website used to have hover 
> menus right above the login thing...
> 
> So I go to the address bar and type in my bank dot com. Then i 
> move the mouse down toward the login form and click it but 
> oops, on the way down, I hovered over the stupid menu, so now by 
> click is redirecting me to some new site! RGGGT!
> 

Yea. Makes no sense to me how *all* menu bars *everywhere* work on a
"click to open" concept, including the web browsers themselves, but
then the entire web decided "No, we have to make menu bars operate on
an incredibly inconvenient, distracting AND non-standard "hover" basis.

> God I hate hover crap.
> 

My sentiments exactly :)

> > I do actually like a lot of the ribbon stuff though. I don't 
> > see what the big problem is
> 
> It's different. I still haven't really figured out the new Paint 
> UI. I don't think it sucks, but it does take some getting used to.
> 

One useful tip to minimize clicking: You can switch between
tabs^H^H^H^Hribbons with the mouse's scroll wheel. The occasional extra
clicking to switch ribbons was probably the one thing I can understand
people not liking about the ribbons.

> 
> > Hmm, yea, that's not too bad, although I have found Linux FF 
> > tends to have a better default UI (that is, matches the system 
> > better) than Windows FF anyway.
> 
> Yes, I agree. And even there, I had to do an about:config thing 
> to kill the unified back/forward nonsense.
> 

THAT'S POSSIBLE?!? PLEASE TELL ME HOW!!! Or is the forward/back
dropdown list still unified? That's the part that really bugs me.

> > and so does the unified "stop/reload"
> 
> Oh yeah, that's annoying. But the keyboard is a bit better there, 
> f5+esc are easy to hit and more reliable anyway.
> 

Good tip, although my hand and mind are usually in mouse-mode when I'm
on the web.

I can understand the rationale for unified stop/reload: There's never a
time when *both* make sense to use. No point in reloading while loading
(gotta stop first), and makes so sense to stop when it's not loading.

But that reasoning falls apart the first time you reach for "stop" and
the damn thing changes to "reload" just before you click. I'll take
them separate, thank you.

> > Remember the old Sega GameGear's crappy LCD?
> 
> lol I actually liked it because it was backlit! Ate through 
> batteries like mad but it was usable in varied lighting 
> conditions.
> 

And it was color! (One of my all-time favorite commercials is the old
GameGear one where a kid is sitting outside playing a GameBoy, grabs a
big thick fallen tree branch, clonks himself over the head with it,
turns back to the game, and goes "Whoa! Color!") I had a GameGear. I
liked it. It was even blurrier than GameBoy though. And you're right
about the batteries. Shit, it went through them *six* at a time! I
usually just used the power cord though.

> > Screen size makes much more of a difference on PS3 than 
> > resolution. Probably at least 95% of PS3 games I've tried
> > include text that's so damn *small* that's it's barely
> > readable on even a 29" set
> 
> Yes, I can barely even read it on my friend's larger tv in the 
> call of duty game (especially when we play split screen, no point 
> even trying to read the score, 8, 3, and 11 all look the same to 
> me at those sizes)
> 

I never played CoD multiplayer. But I have to give them *huge* credit
for how (with the exception of multiplayer I guess, and maybe it's only
the Modern Warfare series) there is *no* tiny text at all, unlike most
PS3 games.

It always perplexes me how so many PS3 games will have a big 'ol box or
area for text, and then the text is so small that 90% of it is just
margins and padding.

> 
> > Really HD is only a moderate improvement if you compare
> > it to a

Re: Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

2013-07-16 Thread Nick Sabalausky

On Tue, 16 Jul 2013 15:11:21 +0200
"Joakim"  wrote:

> On Tuesday, 16 July 2013 at 09:02:19 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> > Chrome then all the better (Seriously, why the fuck does Google 
> > have
> > two basically-identical browsers and the whole "Chrome vs 
> > Chromium"
> > bullshit anyway? Makes no fucking sense.)
> Chromium is an open source project.  Chrome is google's build of 
> Chromium, with some additional proprietary bits added, like a 
> closed-source pdf viewer or licensed audio/video codecs compiled 
> in:
> 
> https://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/ChromiumBrowserVsGoogleChrome
> 
> They use a hybrid model with Chrome, where it's 99% open with 
> added proprietary bits, a subject I've talked about before on 
> this NG.

Ok, good to know. I do still think they could have handled it without
splitting it into two barely-different projects. And from what I'm
seen, Google gives off a very strong impression that "Chrome" is their
browser for end-users to actually use, and "Chromium" is
just...some..."thing" for developers (from what I've seen, Google hasn't
been particularly clear on it, ever even really say much about it at
all on their Chrome site, but I do appreciate your clarification).

So if someone came along with a "basically Chrome with some stuff
removed" that's *really* just minor tweaks on Chromium, then I do think
Google kind of brought that situation on themselves. And I don't think
it's necessarily bad, either. Yes, it would be better if SRWare was
more accurate in stating what Iron exactly is, but still, a prebuilt
distro of Chromium, without the lack of clarity on what Chromium is,
and with default settings changed to what a lot of people would change
them to anyway - I do think there is genuine value in that.

Of course, Google could easily counteract that value by saying right
there on their Chrome site "Ok, and here we also have a pre-built
Chromium which is Chrome but without the auto-updater and non-OSS bits,
etc". Or better yet: "Here's the Chrome installer, and it lets
you choose whether or not to install the auto-updater, and whether or
not to include the non-OSS extensions, and has an option for "ultra
privacy" defaults where none of the controversial settings are enabled
and nothing is ever implicitly sent to Google" (Obviously wording can
be adjusted).

But last I looked, Google didn't have anything like that, but Iron
does, so there's value in it.

> > I don't give a shit what the primary motivation of Iron's 
> > creator is or
> > how much work it did or didn't take to create. I use it because 
> > it works
> > the way I want it to and Chrome doesn't.
> You are free to use whatever you want, but when you say you don't 
> care about what this guy has done, you lose all credibility on 
> privacy and security.
> 

Not that I'm trying to change your mind here, but what I'm seeing here
is: Some guy created a useful product (even if it is only minimally
useful) because he wanted to generate ad revenue. There's nothing
questionable or even remotely uncommon about that.

> Haha, now outright lying about how you "massively modified the 
> source" or that you're still "open source" is merely overblown 
> "marketing?"
> 

"Massively" is a highly subjective term. Now I agree with you that if
the changes are indeed what your articles say (and I'm not doubting
that) than that doesn't match what I, or most people, would consider
"massively". But it *is* a subjective term and business *do* exploit
that all the time. I don't like that they do, I wish they didn't, but
we don't go calling every such thing a "scam".

As far as the "open source" thing, well if the source really is closed
off now (and not just some site snafu or something) then yea, that is a
license violation and needs to be changed. And proper public VCS would
be good, although I've seen a LOT of developers who are still stuck in
pre-VCS mode and unfortunately don't really "get" the whole GitHub
thing. Not an ideal way for Iron to work, but since I'm only interested
in using it, not building or modifying it, then it's not a deal-breaker
for me. There's a lot of useful freeware that, for some ridiculous
reason I've never understood, was closed-source. 'Course, most of those
aren't license-bound to *be* OSS.

> You're twisting yourself into pretzels to try and justify this 
> choice.  Maybe you didn't know all this about Iron before, but it 
> seems like an irrational, personal attachment to keep using and 
> defending this browser after all this.

Just because I'm not knee-jerking at some new information (that really
isn't anywhere near as condemning as you make it out to be) hardly
qualifies as "twisting...irrational, personal attachment", etc.

Re: Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

2013-07-16 Thread Adam D. Ruppe


On Tuesday, 16 July 2013 at 00:28:11 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
They're corporations. It's not about turning a profit. It's 
about being under a legal obligation to shareholders to extract

*as much* money as possible.


Indeed. But at this rate, they're not even staying competitive 
with their corporate alternatives. The cable company will have to 
shape up or accept defeat, but nope, they keep raising their 
rates. Maybe they're just milking what they can.



And yeah, I agree with the sad state of tv. A lot of what I watch 
are actually reruns but there's a lot I like about regular tv 
over dvds: the cost (which was a pure loss with cable, but a win 
with over the air), the variety, and actually I kinda like 
commercials because they give me a chance to get up. Yes, I could 
pause a dvd whenever, and change the discs for variety, but eh 
the regular tv is nice and mindless.



(usually anime)


Sailor Moon rocks btw!



Or that awful digital "stutter".


Ugh, yeah. It is beautiful with a good signal, but just awful 
otherwise.



were going to redo the protocol, I'm sure they could have done
something far better than the non-degradable new system we 
ended up with.


Yeah, my thought is at least they could interlace the frames, 
using the same signal they have now, just changing it from a high 
res compressed stream to a lower res, redundant and 
error-correction supporting stream. So it sends frames like:


1 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 3 2 2 1 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2

well that's confusing looking, but the idea is if the resolution 
is like 1/4 the size, we should be able to send each frame 4 
times in the same digital signal. So then if your connection cut 
out and you lost a frame, it is ok because you'll have another 
chance to pick it up 50ms later. So if you then have a small like 
16 frame buffer in the box you could pick up almost a second to 
recover a frame and piece it together from its sub-frame 
checksumed chunks as it is rebroadcast, to give the user a smooth 
picture.



Or something like that, I'm not a signal expert nor a reliability 
engineer, but it seems to me that it ought to be possible.

Re: Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

2013-07-16 Thread Adam D. Ruppe


On Tuesday, 16 July 2013 at 00:26:51 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

Vista doesn't have that horrible MS Dock taskbar


Worth noting you can turn that off: I have 7 on the laptop I'm on 
now and after a few settings changes, it is very similar to 
vista. To get a good taskbar you need to turn off the group 
similar windows function (which I hated when it was introduced in 
XP anyway).


Your quick launch still keeps their place but that doesn't bug me 
like I thought it would, it is actually kinda nice.



window screenshots *every* freaking time your mouse goes near


Oh yeah, that is annoying. I hate hover things in general. The 
worst of them is on websites. My bank website used to have hover 
menus right above the login thing...


So I go to the address bar and type in my bank dot com. Then i 
move the mouse down toward the login form and click it but 
oops, on the way down, I hovered over the stupid menu, so now by 
click is redirecting me to some new site! RGGGT!


The taskbar thing is similarly annoying but at least it pops up 
above, so you are less likely to accidentally click it in 
transit. Though I have many times clicked one window then went up 
and clicked another window because it popped up. God I hate hover 
crap.



I do actually like a lot of the ribbon stuff though. I don't 
see what the big problem is


It's different. I still haven't really figured out the new Paint 
UI. I don't think it sucks, but it does take some getting used to.



Interesting. I wonder why exactly that is.


IIRC it was because a lot of browsers clear cache on close, or 
the cache expired too soon.



Hmm, yea, that's not too bad, although I have found Linux FF 
tends to have a better default UI (that is, matches the system 
better) than Windows FF anyway.


Yes, I agree. And even there, I had to do an about:config thing 
to kill the unified back/forward nonsense.


On Windows, firefox can look ok by doing the same adjustments, 
but one thing that still annoys me is that there's a weird shadow 
thing behind the menu. It isn't too bad but just seems pointless.



and so does the unified "stop/reload"


Oh yeah, that's annoying. But the keyboard is a bit better there, 
f5+esc are easy to hit and more reliable anyway.



Remember the old Sega GameGear's crappy LCD?


lol I actually liked it because it was backlit! Ate through 
batteries like mad but it was usable in varied lighting 
conditions.


Screen size makes much more of a difference on PS3 than 
resolution. Probably at least 95% of PS3 games I've tried

include text that's so damn *small* that's it's barely
readable on even a 29" set


Yes, I can barely even read it on my friend's larger tv in the 
call of duty game (especially when we play split screen, no point 
even trying to read the score, 8, 3, and 11 all look the same to 
me at those sizes)




Really HD is only a moderate improvement if you compare
it to a *real* SD set instead of "SD on an HD set".


Aye. And even so, meh. I was called a troll a while ago because 
somebody on youtube did a cgi remake of some Star Trek 2 scenes, 
and I said my old VHS copy looked better.


But it did. The cgi artist did a fine job, sure, but the original 
director and model makers did a *better* job and the VHS captured 
it just fine. (One thing I think the cgi artist missed was the 
deliberate angles and coloring choices the director made in the 
original movie, to get across the contrast of hero and villain. 
If you've seen the movie, you might remember what I mean - the 
Enterprise was often shot with bluer light and taller angles (if 
that's the right term), making it look more good and innocent, 
whereas the Reliant had low angles and redder lights to look 
menacing - a perfect fit for the scene. The cgi artist had 
bazillion polygons but didn't capture the same atmosphere.


Then there were things that just looked silly, like cgi smoke. 
Bah, the original effects were kinda cheesy too but I bought 
them. Maybe thanks to the actors but still, my old tape looked 
fine whatever the reason.)





That's strange. I wonder if maybe you're one of those people 
that's sensitive to the subtle flicker in backlights.


Maybe, but the lcd computer screen doesn't bug me the same. idk.

Re: Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

2013-07-16 Thread Joakim


On Tuesday, 16 July 2013 at 09:02:19 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
Chrome then all the better (Seriously, why the fuck does Google 
have
two basically-identical browsers and the whole "Chrome vs 
Chromium"

bullshit anyway? Makes no fucking sense.)
Chromium is an open source project.  Chrome is google's build of 
Chromium, with some additional proprietary bits added, like a 
closed-source pdf viewer or licensed audio/video codecs compiled 
in:


https://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/ChromiumBrowserVsGoogleChrome

They use a hybrid model with Chrome, where it's 99% open with 
added proprietary bits, a subject I've talked about before on 
this NG.


I don't give a shit what the primary motivation of Iron's 
creator is or
how much work it did or didn't take to create. I use it because 
it works

the way I want it to and Chrome doesn't.
You are free to use whatever you want, but when you say you don't 
care about what this guy has done, you lose all credibility on 
privacy and security.


Honestly, I don't get all the FUD about Iron. A lot of stuff 
uses
ad-supported models, big freaking deal, welcome to the web. 
There's no
malware and no money charged, so there's clearly no "scam". 
Maybe some
stuff is overstated, but try finding a "legit" corporation that 
doesn't
twist and spin facts in their marketing. Not that I like that, 
but it
just means that SRWare is no more of a scam than Johnson & 
Johnson, or
General Mills or whatever. It all just sounds like a big 
overreaction
to a tool that just simply isn't *as* large of an improvement 
as it

makes itself out to be (which again, is a pretty common thing).
Overstatements or not, worries about him being some sort of 
"sellout"
or not (it's not as if Google is there for pure altruism 
instead of
trying to make a buck either), regardless of any of that it's a 
useful

Chromium distro.
Haha, now outright lying about how you "massively modified the 
source" or that you're still "open source" is merely overblown 
"marketing?"


You're twisting yourself into pretzels to try and justify this 
choice.  Maybe you didn't know all this about Iron before, but it 
seems like an irrational, personal attachment to keep using and 
defending this browser after all this.

Re: Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

2013-07-16 Thread Nick Sabalausky

On Tue, 16 Jul 2013 07:28:35 +0200
"Joakim"  wrote:
> 
> I don't get your paranoia about the auto-updater:

Paranoia has nothing to do with it. I don't want it always running in
the background, I don't want it auto-updating, and I certainly don't
want a program installing an always running service I never asked it to
install in the first place.

>what makes you think it does anything other than check for updates? 

I never said it did.

> I understand your suspicion of google.  I don't use their 
> services other than search and have never signed up for facebook 
> either, but that's no reason to use shady software just because 
> it's "not google."  There are real privacy concerns with all 
> these services, but if we don't stick to the facts, we damage our 
> case.  I don't like what the Iron guy did and have documented the 
> issues, it is up to you and others to decide what to believe.

"Because it isn't Google" has nothing to do with my usage of Iron. I
use it because I've had problems with Chrome that I haven't had with
Iron. And if I don't have to go through the bother of configuring those
settings in the first place and making sure to get Chromium instead of
Chrome then all the better (Seriously, why the fuck does Google have
two basically-identical browsers and the whole "Chrome vs Chromium"
bullshit anyway? Makes no fucking sense.)

I don't give a shit what the primary motivation of Iron's creator is or
how much work it did or didn't take to create. I use it because it works
the way I want it to and Chrome doesn't.

Honestly, I don't get all the FUD about Iron. A lot of stuff uses
ad-supported models, big freaking deal, welcome to the web. There's no
malware and no money charged, so there's clearly no "scam". Maybe some
stuff is overstated, but try finding a "legit" corporation that doesn't
twist and spin facts in their marketing. Not that I like that, but it
just means that SRWare is no more of a scam than Johnson & Johnson, or
General Mills or whatever. It all just sounds like a big overreaction
to a tool that just simply isn't *as* large of an improvement as it
makes itself out to be (which again, is a pretty common thing).
Overstatements or not, worries about him being some sort of "sellout"
or not (it's not as if Google is there for pure altruism instead of
trying to make a buck either), regardless of any of that it's a useful
Chromium distro.

Re: Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

2013-07-15 Thread Joakim

On Tuesday, 16 July 2013 at 01:09:18 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
I really have had problems with Chrome (and other Google
software)
forcefully installing always-resident processes before, and
giving me

trouble getting rid of it. Never had such a problem with Iron.
Chrome, which is based on the open-source Chromium project, has a
built-in auto-updater which always stays resident and checks for
updates. Since Iron is based on Chromium, not Chrome, it may not
have the auto-updater.

Even if
Iron is just a few better defaults and some options I don't
even want
anyway removed, that certainly doesn't qualify as a "scam".
Hell,
Iron's website is already perfectly clear about the settings
existing

in Chrome but being forced to a specific setting in Iron:

The
article makes it sound like SRWare is being deliberately
deceptive,

which is verifiably untrue.
Iron has always billed itself as some sort of privacy fork. For
example, their FAQ says:

"Can't i just use an precompiled unchanged Chromium-Build from
the Google Server?

This is not useful because the original Chromium-Builds have
nearly the same functions inside than the original Chrome. We can
only provide Iron because we massively modified the source."

http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_faq.php

I verified that this is untrue in the linked article, at least
back when they released Iron 3 and 4. Nobody can verify it
anymore, because even though there are still links for source
download, they don't work, ie you can't download the source.
This probably breaks the LGPL license, but I've read that they
stopped providing source a while back, likely after I analyzed it:

http://www.insanitybit.com/2012/06/23/srware-iron-browser-a-real-private-alternative-to-chrome-21/

Plus Chrome introduces bugs almost as much as it fixes them, so
less
frequent releases doesn't really bother me. And I wouldn't be
using
Chrome's auto-updater anyway (and if I did, I would only do it
in a VM).
I don't track Iron closely, but I think they follow the same
release schedule for major stable releases, only delayed, and
likely without all the smaller point releases with security fixes
that Chrome provides. So you have all the disadvantages of
google's six-week release schedule, with the added disadvantages
of Iron's delays and omissions: I don't see the benefit.

Chrome does introduce some bugs as it updates, but I don't think
any other browser is any better. I don't get your paranoia about
the auto-updater: what makes you think it does anything other
than check for updates? My understanding is that the source for
the updater is available.

Iron may not be a big change, but it's proven itself to me in
real-world usage to still be worthwhile.
There is one advantage to Iron: it provides occasional builds of
the stable branch of Chromium, which google does not provide
except as part of the Chrome Stable channel. You could build the
stable branch of Chromium yourself, but I understand if you don't
want to put in the effort. I suspect you would be as happy with
the Chromium builds that are provided, which are only from the
trunk branch:

http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromium-browser-snapshots/index.html

And that archived article seems pretty biased. Ex: "...likely
only to

evade source analysis like I'm doing..." Uhh, accusational and
speculative anyone? Especially since it's perfectly reasonable
to

figure the different version numbers could have more to do with
divergent forks than actually "Iron deliberately changed the
version
number to be sneaky". Perfectly likely that Iron had merged in
v4.x,
then merged in various other changes, and just missed a line
diff
involving the v4->v5 version number change. But no, we're
supposed to
just *assume* it was intentional deception because that better
supports

the initial "Iron is a scam" position.
The reason it's intentional deception is because I analyzed the
Iron source, which certainly doesn't "massively modify the
source" for Chromium, as they claim. I made a guess that they
chose to go in and change the version number to evade such
analysis, which fits the pattern of deception.

I didn't get into all this in the article, but they've never had
a public source code repo, which is suspicious for someone who
claims to be "open source." They were dumping code in 7z
archives on rapidshare instead! Without a repo where I could
track commits, I had to download the Iron source then manually
track down which version of Chromium corresponded to that version
of Iron, since the version number was changed. That took time,
and given their pattern of deception, I can only assume it was a
deliberate move to throw off such analysis.

I understand your suspicion of google. I don't use their
services other than search and have never signed up for facebook
either, but that's no reason to use s

Re: Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

2013-07-15 Thread Nick Sabalausky

On Mon, 15 Jul 2013 16:47:45 +0200
"Joakim"  wrote:

> On Monday, 15 July 2013 at 09:56:07 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> > I use SRWare Iron in place of Chrome (as I said, it literally is
> > Chrome), but if you have to put up with Chrome's "bug of the 
> > day" junk
> > then yea I guess that wouldn't work. Although at that point I 
> > would
> > reach for VirtualBox. If I ever have to run the real Chrome, 
> > it's
> > getting its ass sandboxed.
> I agree with much of what you say about how the web is broken, 
> though I don't understand your disdain for Chrome, but there's 
> absolutely no reason to use Iron.  I analyzed its source a couple 
> years back and it's basically a scam:
> 
> http://web.archive.org/web/20120331155237/http://chromium.hybridsource.org/the-iron-scam
> 
> You're getting delayed Chrome source with a different theme.  
> There's almost no difference, other than being exposed to 
> security bugs longer, which are patched in Chrome's constant 
> releases.

I really have had problems with Chrome (and other Google software)
forcefully installing always-resident processes before, and giving me
trouble getting rid of it. Never had such a problem with Iron. Even if
Iron is just a few better defaults and some options I don't even want
anyway removed, that certainly doesn't qualify as a "scam". Hell,
Iron's website is already perfectly clear about the settings existing
in Chrome but being forced to a specific setting in Iron:
 The
article makes it sound like SRWare is being deliberately deceptive,
which is verifiably untrue.

Plus Chrome introduces bugs almost as much as it fixes them, so less
frequent releases doesn't really bother me. And I wouldn't be using
Chrome's auto-updater anyway (and if I did, I would only do it in a VM).

Iron may not be a big change, but it's proven itself to me in
real-world usage to still be worthwhile.

And that archived article seems pretty biased. Ex: "...likely only to
evade source analysis like I'm doing..." Uhh, accusational and
speculative anyone? Especially since it's perfectly reasonable to
figure the different version numbers could have more to do with
divergent forks than actually "Iron deliberately changed the version
number to be sneaky". Perfectly likely that Iron had merged in v4.x,
then merged in various other changes, and just missed a line diff
involving the v4->v5 version number change. But no, we're supposed to
just *assume* it was intentional deception because that better supports
the initial "Iron is a scam" position.

Re: Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

2013-07-15 Thread Nick Sabalausky

On Mon, 15 Jul 2013 16:23:39 +0200
"Adam D. Ruppe"  wrote:
> (Especially since cable is $70 / month. Really, at that 
> obscene price, do they even need commercials anymore to turn a 
> profit? 

They're corporations. It's not about turning a profit. It's about being
under a legal obligation to shareholders to extract *as much* money as
possible. ('Course I think their current practices are *still* failing
at that by running themselves into the ground.)

The worst thing wasn't paying a huge bill to get commercial breaks. The
worst thing was paying a huge bill to get commercials *overlaid* on top
of the actual shows. That was the tipping point for me. Plus the fact
that there's no longer anything on cable that *isn't* a reality show.
Even Food Network is pretty much 100% reality shows these days.

> canceled it in christmas 2011 and set up an antenna. I 
> still get most the shows I watch over the air

Yea, we got rid of cable about a year ago and haven't regretted it
(Well, except I do genuinely miss that two-month free trial of NHK they
once gave us. I didn't understand most of the talking, I'm not fluent,
but it still became my favorite channel. I watched it far too much.)

Honestly, I don't even watch over-the-air anymore anyway. If my digital
converter box stopped working, I probably wouldn't notice. All I ever
use my TV for is videogames and DVDs (usually anime) from the library.
And sometimes netflix, but they keep making their PS3 UI worse and
worse, and they're crap for anime anyway (netflix never does dual-audio
tracks for anime).

> (higher quality too*)
> * The new digital tv over the air signal looks great, even on my 
> old tvs, compared to digital cable. Which kinda amazes me, but it 
> does. I guess it has to do with cable compression. The problem is 
> if you don't get a good signal, it is unwatchable. And when it 
> gets hot and/or windy, my signal gets crappy.

Yea, I absolutely couldn't believe how horrible cable's video quality
suddenly became a couple years ago. I genuinely suspect that it may
actually be MPEG 1, it really is that bad. And the A/V sync is almost
always botched. And even after a replacement, the settop box's
interface will would go completely unresponsive for up to a full minute
at a time. Completely worthless service at any price.

> 
> With the old analog tv, it was almost always watchable. Maybe 
> fuzzy or ghosting picture, but watchable, even in imperfect 
> weather.
> 

Yea. Over-the-air digital is a bad deal. With OTA, there's *always*
going to be periods of significant interference. And analog signals
degrade *far* better with decreasing signal quality than digital
signals do. And digital signals require a much stronger signal in the
first place (Both my dad and grandmother went from plenty of channels
to nearly no channels after the digital switch until they shelled out
for ultra fancy new antennas). It was a questionable tradeoff at best.

> I think digital tv, maybe the PS3 too now that I'm thinking about 
> it, are examples of where we're going toward more more more at 
> the peak, more pixels, more channels, etc., while ignoring 
> graceful degradation for an acceptable average.
> 

Yea.

> Yes, with a strong signal, 1080p might be great. But getting a 
> black screen when the signal weakens sucks.

Or that awful digital "stutter". Analog interference is perfectly
watchable and listenable. Digital interference (ie, the stuttering)
just simply isn't.

>I betcha if they 
> broadcast a highly error resistant 480i (or whatever standard tv 
> resolution used to be)

Yea, for NTSC it's basically 480i. Slightly more for PAL (520i?) at the
cost of a few less frames per second.

> on that same data stream, they could have 
> gotten a much more reliable stream, giving a very consistent 
> quality even in poor weather.
> 

Yea, I'm sure there's a lot they could have done. NTSC/PAL were
invented how long ago? And look at what they've been able to do with
cellular signals since then. Obviously the different operating
frequencies make a HUGE difference in how much can be done, but if they
were going to redo the protocol, I'm sure they could have done
something far better than the non-degradable new system we ended up
with.

> But then how would they sell people new high def equipment every 
> other year?
> 

Same way cell phone industry does it. Make the quality of the design
and manufacturing bad enough that they break down in around a year. ;)

> 
> Wow I'm getting off topic even for an off topic thread! Oh well.
> 

I'm probably becoming famous for that ;)

> > Actually, I think that's preferable as long as the UI matches 
> > (or rather, *is*) that of the user's associated video player 
> > program.
> 
> Yes, I like to use mplayer for things so I can skip and speed up 
> easily. I don't like watching videos at normal speed (most the 
> time), it just takes too long. With text, I can skim it for 
> interesting parts. With video, I'd like to do the same but can't. 
> B

Re: Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

2013-07-15 Thread Nick Sabalausky

On Mon, 15 Jul 2013 16:23:39 +0200
"Adam D. Ruppe"  wrote:
> I think XP started the downhill trend, maybe 
> even 2000, with changing the explorer around. I really liked it 
> in Win95 - it just got the job done in a simple, straightforward 
> way.
> 

For me, XP was the peak of Windows and Vista started the consistent
decline. I do like how from 2k on you can take a non-dual pane explorer
window and make the treeview pane appear by just clicking one button.
The "tasks" pane is useless, but you can easily make the treeview pane
the default. OTOH, one of my biggest XP annoyances is that unlike Win7,
XP doesn't *always* respect your "default to treeview instead of tasks
pane" setting (ex: if you open a directory via an icon on the desktop).

> That said though, I don't have too much trouble with the newer 
> Windowses. I actually like Vista!
> 

Heh, I tend to be kinda mixed on "Vista vs Win7". Win7 is a little less
buggy (I'm actually trying to repair my mom's Vista machine even as I
type this), but Vista doesn't have that horrible MS Dock taskbar
replacement, or that infinitely obnoxious and never helpful "popup
window screenshots *every* freaking time your mouse goes near the
dock" (I went through s much trouble to finally get rid of those on
my Win7 machine - which I would have already converted to an XP box if
it wasn't a laptop.)

Neither Vista nor 7 let me have my XP-style "all programs" menu without
using the third party "Classic Shell" utility (which I *highly*
recommend for any post-XP user - it's an essential part of making Win7
tolerable IMO.)

I do actually like a lot of the ribbon stuff though. I don't see what
the big problem is, it's just a toolbar with better grouping and a
better more varied set of UI controls. Win7's MS Paint is the best
version by far. (not that that's saying a lot being MS paint, but it's
always come in handy now and then.)

> > Yup. So depressingly true. And what's really bizarre about it 
> > is that a LOT of that JS is specifically in the name of speeding
> > up the site ("Because you don't have to redownload *all* 1k of
> > HTML on every link!")
> 
> Oh yeah, I have to deal with this a lot too. The big thing is 
> even in ideal situations, an ajax request is likely about the 
> same speed as a full refresh, since on most sites, it is 
> dominated by request latency anyway! If it takes 50 ms for your 
> signal to cross the internet and 5ms to generate the ajax and 
> 10ms to generate the full page the whole ajax thing only 
> saved you maybe 10% of the already very fast speed.
> 

Exactly.

And on top of that, most ajaxy sites will actually perform ajax
requests *during initial page load*! That's so damn pointless. For
god's sake, if something's supposed to show by default, then *just bake
it into the page itself*! The only time JS *ever* needs to run upon
page load is to undo any non-JS fallbacks.

> (If your site takes longer than 50ms to load, I think you've 
> gotta spend some time in the profiler regardless.)
> 

I don't think anyone who uses Ajax ever does any profiling. (I'm not
even being sarcastic. I really doubt that any more than maybe 0.1% of
Ajax devs do even basic handheld-stopwatch profiling, especially on any
browser that isn't V8.)

> 
> Important to get this working though is to set the right cache 
> headers on everything. And I betcha that's where people make 
> mistakes. I like to cache those ajax answers too when I do have 
> to use them, because killing the server round trip latency is a 
> huge win.
> 

Yea, it is easy (and frankly, very tempting!) to overlook HTTP cache
settings.

> If you're using it from a CDN so the browser has cached bytecode 
> (or whatever they do), you can get it reasonably quickly, about 
> 10ms added if you reference it.
> 
> but that's actually pretty rare. I don't remember the number, 
> but there was a survey of web traffic that found a big percentage 
> of users aren't cached.

Interesting. I wonder why exactly that is.

> And if you are slow for first time users, 
> how much you want to bet they'll just hit back, try the next 
> guy's link, and never return?
> 

Yup. Hell, I know *I* do that. Why go playing some random web
developer's game of "set up your browser to be how I think it should
be" when there's twenty other search hits I can just use instead?

> [JQuery] has some nice things in it, but just isn't worth making my 
> site 5x slower than it would be without it.

That's a pretty good summary of it.

> > Just so I can do as much as I can without putting up
> > with a unified forward/back, browser skin, address bar with
> > unicorn-rainbow-vomit Fisher-Price-sized text, or all that UI
> > over-minimalism.
> 
> Let me show you what my firefox looks like:
> 
> http://arsdnet.net/firefox.png
> 
> I had to change a few settings to get it there, but I think this 
> isn't too bad at all, and as you can see, it is a fairly new 
> version. (I'm probably 10 versions behind again, it has been like 
> thr

Re: Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

2013-07-15 Thread Joakim


On Monday, 15 July 2013 at 09:56:07 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

I use SRWare Iron in place of Chrome (as I said, it literally is
Chrome), but if you have to put up with Chrome's "bug of the 
day" junk
then yea I guess that wouldn't work. Although at that point I 
would
reach for VirtualBox. If I ever have to run the real Chrome, 
it's

getting its ass sandboxed.
I agree with much of what you say about how the web is broken, 
though I don't understand your disdain for Chrome, but there's 
absolutely no reason to use Iron.  I analyzed its source a couple 
years back and it's basically a scam:


http://web.archive.org/web/20120331155237/http://chromium.hybridsource.org/the-iron-scam

You're getting delayed Chrome source with a different theme.  
There's almost no difference, other than being exposed to 
security bugs longer, which are patched in Chrome's constant 
releases.

Re: Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

2013-07-15 Thread Adam D. Ruppe


On Monday, 15 July 2013 at 09:56:07 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

Which means *every* time I want to open two or more file manager
windows, I have fool this stupid fucking piece of shit NannyOS 
into doing so, instead of you know, just clicking the damn 
button however many times I need.


Yup. I've found you can get around it somewhat well by right 
clicking and open in new window from the parent directory. Still 
somewhat annoying - I think XP started the downhill trend, maybe 
even 2000, with changing the explorer around. I really liked it 
in Win95 - it just got the job done in a simple, straightforward 
way.


That said though, I don't have too much trouble with the newer 
Windowses. I actually like Vista!


Yup. So depressingly true. And what's really bizarre about it 
is that a LOT of that JS is specifically in the name of speeding

up the site ("Because you don't have to redownload *all* 1k of
HTML on every link!")


Oh yeah, I have to deal with this a lot too. The big thing is 
even in ideal situations, an ajax request is likely about the 
same speed as a full refresh, since on most sites, it is 
dominated by request latency anyway! If it takes 50 ms for your 
signal to cross the internet and 5ms to generate the ajax and 
10ms to generate the full page the whole ajax thing only 
saved you maybe 10% of the already very fast speed.


(If your site takes longer than 50ms to load, I think you've 
gotta spend some time in the profiler regardless.)



It just seems to be psychological, because sometimes the browser 
will white out the background or jump around the scrollbar while 
loading the full page, it feels more jarring. But they don't even 
always do that.



Important to get this working though is to set the right cache 
headers on everything. And I betcha that's where people make 
mistakes. I like to cache those ajax answers too when I do have 
to use them, because killing the server round trip latency is a 
huge win.


And what's the extra bonus for that pessimization? Broken 
"back", broken "forward", broken bookmarking, and broken link 
sharing.


But you see, this is why those FB share + tweet buttons are so 
important! Otherwise people will copy/paste the wrong link :<


blargh.


JS's bottleneck was never bandwidth.



Indeed, and this is one reason why I absolutely refuse to use 
jQuery. (The other being it isn't even significantly different 
than the built in DOM! IMO most of jquery is just pointless 
wrappers and name changes.)


If you're using it from a CDN so the browser has cached bytecode 
(or whatever they do), you can get it reasonably quickly, about 
10ms added if you reference it.


but that's actually pretty rare. I don't remember the number, 
but there was a survey of web traffic that found a big percentage 
of users aren't cached. And if you are slow for first time users, 
how much you want to bet they'll just hit back, try the next 
guy's link, and never return?


jQuery in file cache but not pre-compiled is brutally slow, 
something like 150ms on my laptop, on top of everything else it 
has to load. So the page is loaded, but it won't actually work 
until that pretty noticeable delay. (And then it still has to do 
whatever work you wanted jquery for in the first place! Since js 
is usually loaded sequentially, the other stuff has to wait for 
this to complete)



It has some nice things in it, but just isn't worth making my 
site 5x slower than it would be without it.


Floats are good for what they were originally intended for 
(wrapping text around an image) and for nothing else.


Amen.


Just so I can do as much as I can without putting up
with a unified forward/back, browser skin, address bar with
unicorn-rainbow-vomit Fisher-Price-sized text, or all that UI
over-minimalism.


Let me show you what my firefox looks like:

http://arsdnet.net/firefox.png

I had to change a few settings to get it there, but I think this 
isn't too bad at all, and as you can see, it is a fairly new 
version. (I'm probably 10 versions behind again, it has been like 
three months! but meh.)



And those minor annoyances have been more than made up for by 
all the times I've banged my head against the wall over some 
PITA HTML/CSS problem, then decided "fuck this shit, I'm using 
tables" and


Eh, I haven't that that, at least not for a long time, but it 
could be because I know a lot of arcane css crap so it isn't a 
head banger anymore.


Could also be that I'm given simpler designs too!


Heh, I can't stand tiny TVs (I don't even like using portable 
game systems).


Maybe I'm weird, but I don't like *big* tvs. Too much light, 
weird movement just looks wrong to my eyes, and watching them for 
a while hurts my brain, literally, I get headaches.


Might not all be size itself, could be the high def, frame 
interpolation, lcd tech, whatever, but I just really prefer my 
old tvs. I have a 19" that I watch when I'm on the other side of 
the house (the room it is in is a long one, s

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