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Has anyone else noticed a trend; people posting stuff in the Tech forum that ought to be in the Beginner Forum?  I was just thinking perhaps renaming them would help:  Change Tech Forum to Dev Forum, Change Beginner Forum to Tech Forum.

The Tech forum has always been there to communicate with the developer(s).  Now that there are more than one developer it's even more important to keep it tidy.  Just wondered what everyone else thinks.   

Bender Rulez!

They setup an e-voting system and invited people to try and hack it.  Funny they used "admin" for username and paswword to login  to the super secure system.  Link to full story below.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/hacked-school-board-election-names-drunken-robot-winner-222831053.html

I came across http://vodo.net/, a website that hosts Creative Commos or similarly licensed films many of which are crowd funded al la Kickstarter.  There are other independently produced films around such as Drawn By Pain, Stranger Things, Star Trek: Phase II and I'm sure there are many others.  Star Trek Phase II actually have the blessing of Parmount, the copyright holder.  Walter Koenig and George Takkei have appeared in two of the films one of which was written by D.C. Fontana.  Grace Lee Whitney (Yeoman Janice) and Majel Barrett Rodenberry have also made appearances. (sorry, I'm a Trek fan)

Anyway, it seems like there is going to be more and more of this as time goes by.  Will this sort of stuff replace all or a substantial part of the traditional industry?  Is this the future?

This is article on Wired.com is very interesting and the video is absolutely amazing.

Harvard University engineers have come up with a production technique inspired by pop-up books and origami, that allows clones of tiny robots to be mass-produced in sheets.

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/02/robotic-bee/?utm_source=Contextly&utm_medium=RelatedLinks&utm_campaign=MoreRecently

I cam across an interesting TechDirt article,
The Rise Of The 'Professional Amateur' And The Fall Of Gated, Exclusionary 'Clubs', I thought may be of interest.  It talks about how barriers of entry into creative fields such as ours are falling.     

Hehe, I just found this on Craigslist in the Free Stuff section.  

She is all yours I'm done with her. She is aged 30 years. Not good at cooking or cleaning. Not good in bed. So if you want her She is yours

http://spokane.craigslist.org/zip/2834975796.html

Please post here if you have legitimate files on MegaUpload.  Give a brief description and a file list if you have it. 

Lo, in the twilight days of the second year of the second decade of the third millennium did a great darkness descend over the wireless internet connectivity of the people of 276 Ferndale Street in the North-Central lands of Iowa. For many years, the gentlefolk of these lands basked in a wireless network overflowing with speed and ample internet, flowing like a river into their Compaq Presario. Many happy days did the people spend checking Hotmail and reading USAToday.com.

But then one gray morning did Internet Explorer 6 no longer load The Google. ...

An entertaining read:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/in-which-i-fix-my-girlfriends-grandparents-wifi-and-am-hailed-as-a-conquering-hero

This company is looking for someone to manage a game localization project.  Apparently they are opening an office in Europe.  I believe they are a reputable company.  I don't have any connection other than living in the same place as their main office.   perhaps someone here may be interested.

http://spokane.craigslist.org/bus/2714590000.html

I came across an interesting article about a novel use of games and and collaborative efforts. 

"Foldit is a multiplayer online game in which players collaborate and compete to create accurate protein structure models. For specific hard problems, Foldit player solutions can in some cases outperform state-of-the-art computational methods."

Click on the link following for the full article.   
Algorithm discovery by protein folding game players

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/10/dennis-ritchie/

C, The gift that keeps on giving, thanks Dennis ...

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2393123,00.asp

Microsoft executives said this week that Windows 8 tablets using an ARM chip will not be able to run legacy Windows 7 applications, with the possible exception of Office. ... This week, Microsoft held an analyst meeting in conjunction with BUILD, its developer conference in Anaheim, where the company talked more about Windows 8 and provided the first code to developers. (For more, see PCMag.com's hands-on of the Windows 8 preview http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392886,00.asp.) ...

Been reading a lot about M$ new directions lately (i.e. abandoning .net in favor of HTML5 & JS and now Win8).  Just wondering what other ppl think and what affect it will (or should) have on AGS.

For any who dislike telemarketers  as much as I do, I thought I would share a website I stumbled upon.  you can rat them out so to speak on a discussion board.
http://800notes.com/

But even more cool are these videos where folks pranked the telemarketer.  Enjoy
http://800notes.com/videos/i-rickroll%27d-a-telemarketer
http://800notes.com/videos/chris-pirillo-telemarketer-rickroll-prank-call

If you are new to AGS, overwhelmed, need encouragement, or just want to ask a dumb question without reprisal then you have come to the right place. 

• Reply to this thread
  
• Edit the subject line with your question or topic
  
• Type any specific in the message box
  
• Expect help only from other beginners

Are there any good quality AGS Doctor Who games recently completed  or currently in active development?  And yes I did search the GIP and completed threads but didn't find what I was looking for.

Title says it all, thought I would share the info with friends.   
http://tardisblue.net/

I am serious so please no jokes or snarky remarks.   My cat, Tuqu (too-coo), who I dearly love is missing since last Saturday evening.

A year and a half ago I found a 3 week old kitten at my moms house.  He couldn't see because his eyes were full of crap and glued shut.  I think this was from fleas that were biting his face and the areas around his eyes.  I fed him milk from an eyedropper, traveled through airports with him, taught him to walk with a leash climb trees and chase birds (he picked up on the bird thing pretty quick).

I know that his not cowering under some bush and afraid to come home.  If he could come home he would.  He is a skilled climber and world class athlete.  He's smart enough to no get lost and brave enough not to have been frightened away.  One evening last summer while walking on a leash a neighbor's dog came to the other side of the fence and started barking.  I had expected that Tuqu would have frizzed out and run away pulling on and slipping out of the leash.   Instead he just sat down and started growling under his breath like he was really, really angry. 

The last time I saw him was 5:30 pm last Saturday when I let him go outside.   I took our other cat outside on a leash shortly after that for a short walk around the house.   I came back in the house and started working on the computer.   Around 7:30 I all of a sudden something inside told me to go look for Tuqu.  I asked my wife if he came back in yet and she ask me why I was asking (I'm usually the one who is absent minded about that).  We went out looking for him for the next three hours but hew was not to be found.   

Here are the possibilities I am fairly confident that can be eliminated:
=================================================
1. He was not hit by a car.  Check nearby streets and animal control about DOAs.

2. Has not killed by a dog.  There was no sign of blood, fur, or other indications of such a struggle.

3. He was not frightened away and too scared to come home.

4. He did not wander off and forget how to get back home.


Here are the possibilities that are still open:
=================================================
5. He got stuck in a garage or a shed.  We had a break in the weather and perhaps people took the opportunity to stow (or retrieve) stuff in a garage or shed.

6. Someone took him in as a stray.  His bones are almost full grown but he looks skinny and has always had a ravenous appetite.  So it wouldn't be that odd for someone to think he was a stray., in which case they would keep him in the house for awhile so they could  care for him and so that he wouldn't runaway and be "homeless" again.

7. He was killed by a gang for some kind of initiation ritual.  We have recently had gang graffiti appear in the neighborhood.   However, I am told that the gang it appears to be (Latino/Philipino) are sort of low key and that gangs don't typically hurt animals.  And if they did do something like that they wouldn't hide the remains but would want them to be found and to know who did it.

8.  He was killed an eaten. 

8a. A neighbor who lives about a block away who is from a country where cat eating is very prominent.   

8b. About 2 years ago there was an outbreak of rabbits (100+) on the same corner.  They were just running around in the street until  finally the city came and took them away.   Everyone thought they belonged to some old retired dude because they were always in his yard.  However, it turned out that they were not his at all and that the other neighbor had brought the original ones there and was eating them. 

8c. We lost another cat, Bandito, in similar circumstances around that time frame also.  A was a warm May morning and I saw our oldest cat Gordito, crossing the busy street he is not supposed to cross and going in the direction of the rabbits.   I left the house and went after him.  I was carrying him in my arms and was going to take him home.  We passed by Bandito who was playing in tall grass just across from our house.   I didn't want Gordito feel like he was being punished so I put him down next to Bandito so they could play together.   I did some yard work not more than 200 ft away.  I called them around lunch time but they never came back.   Yes, my cats are trained to come when I whistle and they always come (almost ).  Gordito finally got back at 5:30 but Bandito did not.

8d.  I was passing out "lost" poster the other night on the same block where this neighbor lives.  I was told that 4-5 cats have went missing on that one block since October.

8e.  I went to the copy shop to get more posters made yesterday.  The clerk told me that he lives in a nearby suburb and that a couple of years ago he had several cats go missing from his home and that other people nearby also had cats go missing.  When he went looking for the last cat he found his tale in a neighbor's back yard.   Apparently police came to ask questions etc and within a few days the neighbor moved away.  his neighbor came from the same country as my neighbor.

8f.  I asked him if they threw a sack or something over his cat and he said that his cat was friendly and probably just walked up to them to say high.  Both of my missing kitties would have done the same thing. 

8g.  I knocked on the neighbor's door last night, gave hime a "lost' poster and gave my little speech.  I swear I could see in his eyes that he was laughing at me inside, like I was an idiot for looking for a cat that was Sunday dinner the week before.

So now I am wondering if 2 years ago Bandito and Gordito when back across the street to check out the rabbits and wandered into this guy's yard where they caught Bandito and ate him.  Gordito got back 5 hours later than usual so maybe he was also trapped and managed to escape or he hung out hoping to bring Bandito back home and maybe left after he realized they killed him and he wouldn't be coming back?  Now two years later the same thing happens to my Tuqu and the other neighborhood cats.

I have to tell you that I am horrified at the thought and I don't want it to be true.  But as time passes the other possibilities become less and less likely.  I would like to figure out for certain if my dark suspicions are true or not and if they are I would like to send those SOBs to prison for a long time or as long as the law permits.

Next week I plan on canvasing the  neighborhood and documenting all the missing cats and the relevant details to see if there is a pattern.  I am also thinking about slipping the garbage men a 20 spot every week to check their garbage for cat remains over the next several months.   I am going to talk with the copy clerk today to get more details of his experience.  I think I can get adjacent neighbors to keep an eye out but I'm not sure that will be effective.

Do you know of any instances of people stealing and eating their neighbor's pets?   Do you have any other ideas of how I might catch these fiends?

I any of you are religious at all please say a little prayer for Tuqu.  Ask to keep him safe and from suffering and to help him find his way home if he is still alive.  And if not perhaps you could ask Tuqu to forgive me for not being smart enough to keep him safe.

Thanks for listening my friends.
Rick

Does anybody here have experience with MODBUS?  I need to interface a Click PLC to a Linux PC's serial port using the MODBUS RTU protocol.   

Any advice or knowledge you can provide will be greatly appreciated.   I would like to know what difficulties (or ease) you have experienced working with MODBUS. Thanks.

http://treeline.bellz.org/scrnsht.html

I just installed it and played with it for a few minutes.  It's easy to use and exports to many formats including ODF and HTML which always seems what other similar "tree" editors lack.   It seems like it will be very useful and so I thought I share my find.   

I stumbled upon this website and thought it may be of interest to some folks here.   It contains a bunch of PC/Network info and links (perhaps somewhat dated).

http://www.spazmatic.net/

The forum doesn't seem to be of much use as it was last updated over a year ago.   But the Knowledge Base led me to third party software for my wireless router which I found to be very interesting and would like to give a try someday.

http://www.sveasoft.com/

You may find a jewel of your own .... cheers.