Best posts made by NDC

@jmoore said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@momurda said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@jmoore There are some quests in that game that make me wonder if i am a decent person or not because of my choices.
"did I really just help this person who is a drunk, wife beating murderer? For 200 gold? Yes I did."
"That person I just saved turned into a werewolf and butchered an entire village!"

oh my, guess there will be some interesting times to come

There really are. That game has much more interesting moral dilemmas than pretty much any other and outcomes will not always match expectations. Great stuff.

@wirestyle22

So it sounds like you are maybe looking for recs mostly in the cyberpunk field but probably not exclusively.

If you haven't read any Gibson you should do it post haste.

I think something like the Marid Audran novels starting with When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger would also be excellent for you.

For something (relatively) recent and super cool but not cyberpunk check out Folding Beijing by Hao Jingfang. Not exactly SF or Fantasy, but has some great stuff going on.

Edited to add: Lady of Mazes by Karl Schroeder would also be an excellent addition to your list. It is more straight SF but has some really excellent takes on how augmentation might play out.

@travisdh1 said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:

@ndc said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:

@wirestyle22

So it sounds like you are maybe looking for recs mostly in the cyberpunk field but probably not exclusively.

If you haven't read any Gibson you should do it post haste.

I think something like the Marid Audran novels starting with When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger would also be excellent for you.

For something (relatively) recent and super cool but not cyberpunk check out Folding Beijing by Hao Jingfang. Not exactly SF or Fantasy, but has some great stuff going on.

Edited to add: Lady of Mazes by Karl Schroeder would also be an excellent addition to your list. It is more straight SF but has some really excellent takes on how augmentation might play out.

You're reminding me of how long it's been since I've ready Isaac Asimov's stuff. I need to pick up digital versions of the robot series'.

When @wirestyle22 first asked for recommendations of SF/Fantasy cross over stuff I had thought about suggesting Childhood's End due to he heavy use of psychic powers but I don't think it's really where he's headed. Good stuff though and worth a read.

I use Meraki. In part because that was in place when I started my current job, but it also does what we need it to. Which is keep track of ~200 iOS devices and make sure that each of them has access to certain information and apps depending on the type of user. Definitely reduces some headaches for me v. doing it all by hand.

We don't use it for AV or monitoring. Except occasionally some one will come in who doesn't know where they left their device and we do a check to see if it has recent GPS data.

Would also love to use the os update feature but sadly you can only use that if you are on a DEP account and our current mobile carrier doesn't support that.

It isn't open source or self-hosted but does have the advantage of being free. It seems Cisco treats the MDM portion of Meraki as a loss leader to bait you into using their hardware as well as the other paid monitoring and deployment features of Meraki.

Is there actual info available for server parts yet? All that I've seen so far is data on the Ryzen 7 line which they seem to be positioning as high end desktop components. Not that it will stop people from running servers with them or anything.

Brewer here, I have a pretty decent all-grain set up that can handle a 10 gallon batch. It's been sitting idle for rather a long time though. I really should fix that.

Have not tried my hand at any of the food stuff or kombucha.

@RamblingBiped said in Well, that really, really sucks.:

Also, if you're just staying in Illinois because of the booze, Michigan has WAY better beer and is just across the Lake. You could literally stop in damn near any small town throughout the state and find a decent brewery.

Even if you only consider Three Floyd's brewery in Munster, Indiana has way better beer than Illinois. If you also throw in Upland's wheat they win hands down.

And, well, Wisconsin has always been superior to Illinois in booze and alcoholics.

I can't think of a good reason to move to Iowa, Misery, or any other state to the South...

Upland is an Indiana brewery! But yeah the Michigan and Wisconsin brewing scenes are pretty good. I'm partial to New Glarus' fruit beers not much of anyone out there doing quite the same thing.

Edit: Wow, I'm asleep at the wheel you were talking about Indiana beer in that part of the post...

@Tim_G said in Xfinity data limits:

@scottalanmiller said in Xfinity data limits:

@Tim_G said in Xfinity data limits:

What about an Amazon Snowball?

Nice, how have I not seen this yet?

There's another one too... also snow related. I forget what it's called though... It's a whole 18-wheeler truck you can load up with data, lol. Imagine how much data you could fit on that!

Snowmobile

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Why would someone mute me over that, especially days later when I've not been on the thread?

Almost sounds to me like someone is going about poisoning the well.

@worden2 said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

@ndc said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

This is always a fun topic around here. There are a few previous discussions you can take a look at under the IT Education tag that might be worth your time to review.

I will, and I should've done my research before posting (duh). Thank you.

No worries, I was just pointing out a resource you may not have realized existed since you're new. Creating another discussion on the topic is certainly not a problem. It's sort of a moving target so can bear continued discussion. Also since you are coming from a different point of view on the topic from the majority of contributors here we may get some new conclusions going.

Not sure if this will help since we can't see what sort of error you are getting but...

Office doesn't always uninstall cleanly and may screw up future attempts.

Try using the removal tools here

Then reboot the machine and start up a new installation once things are cleared out.

The Expanse

Watched s2e5 last night. Current!

Installed one yesterday and it didn't show. It was there when I logged in this morning though. The applications section is blank currently and I thought I saw people upthread with results there.

There is little law involved here. MS said it was the rule. They may have had signed contracts with large distributors that had the stipulation and that would have had some civil court clout as far as penalties for breaking contract etc. But once it was in the hands of smaller distributors/shops there would have been little reason to adhere to this other than Microsoft's reputation as a bully.

The new Zelda game has been eating my brains for the last week or so. It is likely to continue to do so for rather a while yet.

SodiumSolution(s)

I suppose it may not actually be better for SEO though...

@Breffni-Potter said in Windows 10 volume licensing questions:

Where does MS say that it is legal to buy an OEM copy of Windows IF you buy a broken stick of Ram with it as well? Stop inventing nonsense about Europe being able to evade US contract law. It's basic knowledge that an OEM edition of Windows is not tied to anything except for the motherboard of the system in which it was supplied. So...how can you buy a faulty ram stick and be "legal" under their OEM agreement?

The whole thing was very shaky from the beginning when MS demanded that people only sell the license with hardware. They gave people a bunch of crap about selling licenses with broken stuff. They gave people crap about selling with a singe piece of working hardware. Mostly it was self enforced because MS are scary.

This comes down to they wanted their product supported. They weren't willing to provide the support at the OEM price point. Trying to tie a piece of hardware to the license(MS really wanted a full system here) gave them leverage to make someone else provide the end user support.

@wirestyle22 said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@NDC said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@wirestyle22 said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@coliver said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@wirestyle22 said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@coliver said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@wirestyle22 said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@coliver said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@wirestyle22 said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@coliver I did notice a reduction in quality last year but that event is more about seeing friends from all over the country for me. Couldn't go this year.

I got a last minute Sunday ticket for dirt cheap. The board game section, which I normally go for, was probably 1/3 the size this year then it was last (which was 1/2 the size of previous years). The expo hall layout was hard to understand and get around, mostly because they were cramming more exhibitors in.

My brother and I are going to try and hit up the PAX Unplugged event in Philly, that's dedicated to board games so hopefully that will be a nice change.

You ever go to GenCon? I have a lot of board game fanatic friends that go every year. Sounds right up your alley. It is in Indiana I think though

No, that's been on the list for a few years. PAX East was just so much more accessible for us.

Yeah it sounds like it. If you aren't enjoying yourself though maybe it's becoming the better option. From what I hear it's absolutely insane.

Yep, I am probably going to volunteer to run some games for one of the companies I follow in the near future. That will comp the ticket then I just need to get there and pay for a hotel.

If you do end up going let me know what your experience is like. It's been on my list awhile too

Gencon is huge and fun. Worth trying at least once if you are into that scene.

Checking out some of the smaller regional/local cons might be worth while as well. Dexcon in NJ was one of my favorites when I lived out there. Been ages since my last one though so I'm not sure what quality is like these days.

Edited because phone.

Hm, I can't seem to locate an online presence for Dexcon. What part of NJ is that? I competed for years in Street Fighter and I used to go to a lot of majors for it. not a stranger to going to tournaments. It's a fun time.

Dexposure.com is the site for the group that runs it. The do a lot of other events as well. Dreamation is the other one of theirs that I have been to. Largely the same thing as Dexcon. They run them at about a six month interval.

@lakshmana Not sure where you would find it these days. That was more meant as a point of interest than a suggestion.