Latest postings for The Lounge

What are you guys and gals doing next month? [modified]

Chris Austin — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:24:00 GMT

In January, one of my Muay Thai instructor's best young students broke his ankle and foot in a car accident. The rub is that this kid was scheduled to fight in June. Long story short, I was asked to fill in and said ok. I've been dieting and training like crazy ever since. I'll be stepping back into full contact competition for the first time since I was 22. To date myself , it's been 13 years. Now, I'm getting really excited and felling a bit of trepidation. So, if my feet don't get too cold, I'll be fighting agin for the last time in 30 Days. Anybody else got something exciting coming up next month?

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - -Lazarus Long

modified on Friday, May 9, 2008 5:49 PM

Top 50 worst album covers

Judah Himango — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:22:00 GMT

I've seen a few of these before...but now the Chicago Tribune has put together the top 50 worst album covers[^]. My vote goes for #31. And without further ado, I leave you all for 1 week of vacation. Woo!

Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. From my latest post: "It's sobering to watch: the whole country stops for 2 minutes as a siren is blast to remember the 22,437 victims of terror and soldiers who died in defense of Israel..." The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango

Feedback required: Searching the forums

Chris Maunder — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:21:00 GMT

We're currently working on speeding up and improving the forum search and we're stuck on a question that only you can answer. 1. When searching the forums, do you need to specify a date range? If yes, do you need to specify a specific date range, or would an option such as "Only search recent posts" be sufficient, where "recent" equals a month? 2. When searching the forums do you need to search lots (over 4) at a time, or would the option of searching 1,2, 3 or all forums at once be sufficient?

cheers, Chris Maunder

CodeProject.com : C++ MVP

The Orange Playroom and the Boy Called Mike, Part 1

GlassBeadGuru — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:00:00 GMT

One day Mike was wandering around and saw a new building. The sign on the building said The Orange Playroom and underneath that in smaller letters it said Everyone Welcome. Mike walked in and found many other boys and girls there, talking, laughing, and playing a game that Mike did not recognize. Some of the boys and girls walked up to Mike and said hello, and right away he felt comfortable at TOP (which is what everyone called it), and with the TOPians (which is what they called themselves). Mike continued to stop by TOP, nearly every day. He began to learn the strange new Glass Bead Game that the TOPians all loved to play, and found that he had a knack for it. Then one day something changed. He noticed garish posters on the wall, advertising products he did not recognize or did not want. The posters began to annoy him. "How can I play the Game with those garish posters all around?", he loudly asked. The other TOPians were silent at his protests. Finally the proprietor of TOP came over to see what all the fuss was about. "The posters are distracting me from the Game!" Mike exclaimed. "They make me lose my concentration, and that is bad. They go or I go!" he announced. All the TOPians was shocked. Mike was respected by many, and they could not understand his bold statements. They understood it even less when Mike actually left, but soon TOP was back to normal, with people talking, laughing, and playing the Game. All of a sudden, Mike returned. He was welcomed and treated to many happy greetings. Once again, Mike felt comfortable at TOP, and fell right in with the usual activities. He became even better at the Game, and in no time he was the #1 Player. Then one day something changed. Many TOPians simply ignored his mood swings - they respected him enough as a Player to forgive the occasional outburst - but some TOPians considered his tirades as negative and provocative, quite a departure from the usually civil atmosphere at TOP. Mike began scoffing at these long-time TOPians, scorning them as "vanilla people" who don't understand the benefits of diversity. Mike did not know that the Magister Ludi, the creator of the Glass Bead Game, was standing nearby and overheard what Mike was saying. "Mike," said the M.L., "You are the #1 Player, but you understand nothing. You can have strong opinions, and still be respectful of others. You can criticize, and still be civil. You can disagree with others, and still be a constructive force at TOP. That you have chosen not to do so, means that you have failed to understand what the Glass Bead Game is all about." With that, the M.L. turned and left TOP. The TOPians stood silently, waiting to see what Mike's response would be.

Go in peace, my friends.

Fried neurons...

Fernando A. Gomez F. — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:38:00 GMT

It's hot. Really hot. Since the morning, we've been at no less than 30°C. And it's cloudy. And it's been this hot all the week. Yesterday we were at 32°C even when the rain was falling. Some of my few useful neurons are melting. I type a line of code and I sweat. It's like being on the beach, but without... the beach. Anyone else's neurons are melting too?

Stupidity is an International Association - Enrique Jardiel Poncela

A good night from Xp SP3!

Hamed Mosavi — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:37:00 GMT

It's late in the evening here. Xp SP3 is good but seems to be sleepy. Worked very hard today and has a lot of works tomorrow. So good night and have a nice sleep everybody.

// "In the end it's a little boy expressing himself." Yanni while (I_am_alive)
{
cout<<"I love to do more than just programming.";
}

A message from XP SP3!

Hamed Mosavi — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:32:00 GMT

Everything seems to be functioning at least in a few hours after installing. Sometimes I feel some of my apps starts up even faster. Nothing's broken yet. It's very good to feel good

// "In the end it's a little boy expressing himself." Yanni while (I_am_alive)
{
cout<<"I love to do more than just programming.";
}

Your Friday Thought Exercise

Marc Clifton — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:20:00 GMT

Let's say you're in a room with a 100 people, and you're stuck in that room, but you can make other people leave. So, at first, getting rid of the people that are idiots or don't agree with you or have other value systems is easy, because the diversity factor is high. So, you get rid of the extremists and you're left with a more moderate bunch of people. Everything is fine... ...for a while. And then what happens? Well, some of those people that were moderate originally are now the extreme within an even smaller circle of more moderate, more vanilla people. Out they go! And the circle gets smaller and smaller, until one day, you realize you're the only one left in the room, and you can't get out. What would you do differently, if you could go back in time? Marc

Thyme In The Country Interacx My Blog

Do you / did you play in a band?

Christopher Duncan — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:24:00 GMT

I was musing on a thought the other day. For most hobbies, like people who fly model rockets or folks who drive Corvettes, there's usually local / regional clubs where they get together, do events (launches, road trips), and generally interact and share tips, trick & war stories. Mind you, I'm talking about physical clubs, not Internet forums. When I got to music, however, the paradigm shifted. It seems to me that there's no corresponding monthly group mentality. Musicians tend to hang in little cliques of a dozen or so people - the band members, their SOs, and a few friends - and they consider themselves the center of the universe ("all those other bands suck!"). Am I missing something here, or is there some sort of way that musicians in general get together monthly or so and interact in a manner similar to other hobby clubs?

Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com

[JOTD] The ocean of beer

Vikram A Punathambekar — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:41:00 GMT

Yeah, it's probably a repost. So what? It might even cool the tempers round here. Two men were adrift in a life boat following a shipwreck. While rummaging through the boat's provisions, one of the men came across an old lamp. He rubbed the lamp vigorously. To the amazement of the castaways, a genie appeared! This particular genie, however, stated that he could only deliver one wish, not the standard three. Without giving much thought to the matter the man blurted out, "Make the entire ocean into beer!" Immediately the Genie clapped his hands with a deafening crash, and the entire sea turned to the finest brew ever sampled by mortals. Simultaneously, the Genie vanished to his freedom. Only the gentle lapping of beer on the hull broke the sudden stillness as the the two men considered their circumstances. The other man looked disgustedly at the one whose wish had been granted. After a long, tension-filled moment, he spoke: "Nice going! Now we're going to have to pee in the boat!"

Cheers, Vikram.

The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.

This is the way to work

Anna-Jayne Metcalfe — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:34:00 GMT

It's hot but not too sunny in Bournemouth today - I'm sitting with my laptop on the balcony, listening to streaming music from last.fm and coding away...

Anna Linting the day away Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"

UAC might have been a little more bearable

Vikram A Punathambekar — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:28:00 GMT

If MS hadn't decided that essential, all-too-common things like Windows Update required confirmation. I installed that tool somebody mentioned the other day so I don't get hit by UAC every time Last.fm starts up with Winamp, but, pretty much every alternate day, Windows Update? Sheesh!

Cheers, Vikram.

The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.

What is right with this place? [modified]

martin_hughes — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:57:00 GMT

1) It's a welcoming place 2) It's self moderating 3) It brings together people the world over 4) It's fun 5) People can have decent debates without them always spiraling into flame wars ... 95) We have an "International Duff Joke Week" (52 weeks of the year ) 96) Mustafa can offer legal advice on any salad-based worm issues you may have 97) We even have some girls here 98) Pete can advise on cold clothing requirements 99) We have our very own Grizzly Adams 100) I come here Let's focus on the positives, people

modified on Friday, May 9, 2008 11:45 AM

What is wrong with this place? [modified]

Robert Royall — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:52:00 GMT

As I wandered through the Lounge on my breaks yesterday I smirked, then laughed, then cried. What happened to this place? I always thought the Lounge was a place we could all get together, have fun, be silly, and just generally enjoy ourselves. That ideal broke down yesterday. Yes, I'm talking about the huge, mega 20+ page bunch of threads about leckey's list. Michael Schubert, I have nothing bad to say about you. You saw something that looked interesting and posted it for the rest of us to share. That's what I think the Lounge is for, to find things in our lives and on the Internet and to say to everyone, "hey check this out, I think you'd be interested!" And then things got a little weird. Instead of people saying "hey, that's pretty funny, thanks for bringing it to my attention," people instead began saying " that's horrible and you're horrible, how could you say that about those people?" Now everyone is entitled to their opinion and I don't mind a little debate here, that's another thing that makes the Lounge fun, and eventually that thread died out. Big deal. But then someone deliberately broke the rules, and it's someone who should have known better. Nishant Sivakumar (a.k.a. Nish), I respect you a lot because you have a whole lot of skill and talent. It takes a lot to make CodeProject MVP, and it's even harder to make Microsoft MVP, and I have to give you all the credit you're due for having achieved both. But despite all that, I am calling you out on the carpet right now. You purposefully broke the rules. Everyone rags on newbies and idiots who post "PLZ HELP GIVE ME CODEZ" in the Lounge. The big red phrase "DO NOT POST PROGRAMMING QUESTIONS HERE" is prominently displayed everywhere. But there's more text under that, and I specifically refer you to the part that says "no flame wars." Nish, the title of your post was "Wow - potential character assasination attempt!" Call me crazy, but that sounds like the opening salvo of a flame war to me. The content of your post wasn't overtly objectionable, but you stressed plenty of times that you thought leckey was an idiot herself. Did d@nish ask you to speak on his behalf, Nish? Do you think he cares whether leckey thinks he might be an idiot? Do you really, honestly think that a potential employer would somehow follow a Lounge link to leckey's blog and with all of d@nish's code samples, resume, and glowing recommendations from friends and former employers say to himself, "gee, this lady says on her blog that this kid's an idiot, I'd better not hire him"? You had your concerns, yes. But Nish, your concern involved someone else (d@anish) being mentioned on a private blog that was specifically pulled off CP so as not to generate the kind of argument you started. I think you should have known better, and I think there were other avenues that you should have taken to address any problems you may have had with leckey instead of calling her out publicly. After all of your accomplishments, I'd like to think that you're better than that. My last unresolved question is, when this thread got completely out of hand and grew to 15+ pages, most of which were "well you're an idiot", "nu-uh, you're the idiot", why wasn't it simply wiped off the board? I realize that the CP staff is busy trying to keep the site working smoothly, but didn't they see that something might be wrong when they started getting massive amounts of abuse reports coming from a single thread? I think the fact that nothing was done by the admin staff contributed to the argument, and everyone felt free to keep flaming each other. I don't know what Chris' thoughts were on the subject, but I'd be interested to hear. I wanted to get this off my chest this morning. One of the things I love so much about this place is the strong sense of community - we all care about each other and we all want to help each other achieve our greatest potential. That feeling broke down yesterday, and for a while I felt like I was drifting without an anchor, cut off from the community that cared for me and supported me. I don't like that feeling. I don't think anyone does. Please, no more flames. Edit: this post is intended to give everyone a chance to think about things, not to rehash yesterday's grudges. I will leave it up for one hour. If at that time the overwhelming consensus is to take it down, I'll edit out this post and put something else up. Edit part 2: people still seem to be voting and commenting so we'll go another half hour and see where we stand. Edit part 3: everyone seems to have calmed down and it looks like this post is resonating with a lot of people, for better or worse. I'm going to leave it up for now and try to find a good joke to post in the JOTD thread above.

Imagine that you are hired to build a bridge over a river. The river gets slightly wider every day; sometimes it shrinks but nobody can predict when. Your contract says you can't use concrete or steel - the client only provides timber and cut stone (but won't tell you what kind). Gravity changes from hour to hour, as does the viscosity of air. Your only tools are a hacksaw, a chainsaw, a rubber mallet, and a length of rope. Welcome to my world. -Me explaining my job to an engineer

modified on Friday, May 9, 2008 12:09 PM

Just as a side thought from an earlier thread...

Dalek Dave — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:43:00 GMT

Did anyone here ever own/use a Jupiter Ace? It was a ZX 81 CLone, except it used FORTH. (reason for asking is I have seen one for sale and I wouldn't know how to do jack on it!) Mod... Here is a link![^] Just to remind you all

------------------------------------ "I want you to imagine I have a blaster in my hand" - Zaphod Beeblebrox. "You DO have a blaster in your hand" - Freighter Pilot "Yeah, so you don't have to tax your imagination too hard" - Zaphod Beeblebrox

Is there a codeproject API?

John Simmons / outlaw programmer — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:22:00 GMT

I'm specifically interested in web services regarding the retrieval of article information.

"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001

Anyone blown thier stimulus check?

jchigg2000 — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:09:00 GMT

I got mine last friday! I was headed to Chicago on a weekend vacation and did my best to stimulate the economy inside Wrigley Field! So I did my part...anyone else?

SOTD

norm .net — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:16:00 GMT

Sig. of the day



                  o
                  |
                ,'~'.
               /     \
              |   ____|_
              |  '___,,_'         .----------------.
              |  ||(o |o)|       ( KILL ALL HUMANS! )
              |   -------         ,----------------'
              |  _____|         -'
              \  '####,
               -------
             /________\
           (  )        |)
           '_ ' ,------|\         _
          /_ /  |      |_\        ||
         /_ /|  |     o| _\      _|| 
        /_ / |  |      |\ _\____//' |
       (  (  |  |      | (_,_,_,____/
        \ _\ |   ------|        
         \ _\|_________|
          \ _\ \__\\__\
          |__| |__||__|
       ||/__/  |__||__|
               |__||__|
               |__||__|
               /__)/__)
              /__//__/
             /__//__/
            /__//__/.
          .'    '.   '.
         (_kOs____)____)

www.software-kinetics.co.uk

I hate AVG

Christian Graus — Fri, 09 May 2008 10:50:00 GMT

So, I installed AVG. I figured I'd give it the 30 days, uninstall and install Avast, and if Avast doesn't find anything AVG missed, I'd buy it. But in the meantime, AVG as installed something on my IE toolbar that makes IE crash even more often than usual, often freeze, often die. So, I was deleting it altogether. But I can't. The uninstaller can't backup a gif, so it refuses to run the full uninstall process. Or something.

Christian Graus Please read this if you don't understand the answer I've given you "also I don't think "TranslateOneToTwoBillion OneHundredAndFortySevenMillion FourHundredAndEightyThreeThousand SixHundredAndFortySeven()" is a very good choice for a function name" - SpacixOne ( offering help to someone who really needed it ) ( spaces added for the benefit of people running at < 1280x1024 )

Just out of curiosity....

Reynolds Glisner — Fri, 09 May 2008 10:19:00 GMT

Could someone explain why this member is deemed to be a "Gold Member" http://www.codeproject.com/script/Membership/Profiles.aspx?mid=3956886[^]