Humor Random Comments Thread

[Matias Saibene]

Completely unrelated: Why do OSX and Linux distros handle font rendering so well, and yet have Windows look so crappy? Using Roboto Mono in VS Code while in Ubuntu renders beautifully, when in Windows it's just crap... And overall, everywhere text is drawn, it looks so much better in Ubuntu than it does in Windows...

I don't know much on this, but I think Mac OSX and the Linux distributions I know, use a rendering type called Subpixel rendering.

But you can still get very good results in Windows using ClearType settings, it is very intuitive to set up.

There is an impressive article on Wikipedia that explains everything.
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering[/ame]

 

[mojoey]

This is totally serious business.

 

[orb]

Why do OSX and Linux distros handle font rendering so well, and yet have Windows look so crappy?

Windows even with tweaked contrast of ClearType to make the fonts looking bolder uses heavy hinting, which makes the fonts sharp, but also not keeping their original shape, what sometimes causes distortions (especially with small size text), while OSX smooths them without any hinting, which makes the fonts blurrier, but keeps their original shape, as also renders them a little bolder. On Linux you can set whether you want to use and how heavy hinting you want, or completely disable the hinting in configuration file(s).

You can make Windows fonts look more like on Linux and OSX by using gdipp. (However I don't know if it's still working fine on Windows 10.) You will however need to change the default configuration a little and add a few exceptions, because some programs don't like the gdipp's font rendering and either don't display text at all or display a corrupted text (e.g. "gimp.*\.exe", "spaceway\.exe", "Steam\.exe", and probably a few more).

 

[SolarLiner]

Subpixel rendering has proven interesting. And that was the hinting parameter I was seeing in Unity Tweak Tool!

:tiphat: for explaining you two!

 

[Artlav]

(e.g. "gimp.*\.exe", "spaceway\.exe", "Steam\.exe", and probably a few more).

That's odd - Spaceway does it's own text drawing and doesn't use fonts.
It shouldn't be affected by any OS-side tweaking tool.

 

[orb]

It was causing some problems with gdipp, but I don't remember what and I don't know whether new versions have been causing them, too, because I added it to the exceptions around end of 2012 / beginning of 2013.

 

[Urwumpe]

Looks like the current thunderstorm outbreak in Germany resulted in an catastrophic mudslide in Braunsbach, BW... the first pictures and videos of the event look dramatic.

http://www.swp.de/gaildorf/lokales/...d-Braunsbach-schwer-getroffen;art5722,3854342

Right now, a multiple hundred kilometer long front of supercells is moving slowly north, the situation is pretty dramatic in the south, with sudden flashfloods literally everywhere on the map, 70 l/qm precipitation in just one hour in some places, that is the amount of a whole May usually.

 

[orb]

Subpixel rendering has proven interesting. And that was the hinting parameter I was seeing in Unity Tweak Tool!

:tiphat: for explaining you two!

I think I just found a good [EDIT3: not so good] replacement for my old gdipp, that enables the FreeType font rendering on Windows with plenty of possible tweaks, which is much easier to configure than gdipp - MacType (2013.1231.0).

Unlike in gdipp, which configuration I needed to edit with a text editor and after every little tweak restart the service from the services manager to see the changes, this one has a GUI editor with sliders and instant preview window - MacTuner.exe, and the service doesn't need any restart after configuration tweaks/change, but just reload of the configuration file - with MacWiz.exe.

The best is to run MacTuner (as Administrator, unless you save the configuration in your profile) and MacWiz (which is set to be executed as Administrator by default) alongside, to make fast changes in the font rendering appearance.

You only need to set it to run as a service (it defaults to registry, which requires a restart in order to enable or disable the renderer), and change language from Chinese to English or Français on the first launch to understand what is written there.

EDIT: And it works fine without font rendering problems at least in GIMP, which didn't like the gdipp.

EDIT2: It will work in web browsers once you disable DirectWrite / Direct2D (in Chrome / Chromium with "chrome://settings#disable-direct-write" and in Pale Moon / Firefox with "gfx.direct2d.disabled"=true and "gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled"=false in about:config).

EDIT3: MacType has been crashing (with StackHash) Pale Moon when viewing some webpages, so I'm going back to gdipp, and by the way the exception for Steam can be removed from it once you launch Steam with "-no-dwrite" parameter.

 

[n122vu]

I got Neutral Good, although actually tied with Lawful Good.

You Are:

Neutral Good

Alignment:
Lawful Good ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (28)
Neutral Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (28)
Chaotic Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (18)
Lawful Neutral -- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (22)
True Neutral ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (22)
Chaotic Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Lawful Evil ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (17)
Neutral Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (17)
Chaotic Evil ---- XXXXXXX (7)

Law & Chaos:
Law ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Chaos --- XXX (3)

Good & Evil:
Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (15)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXX (9)
Evil ---- XXXX (4)

 

[Matias Saibene]

Looks like the current thunderstorm outbreak in Germany resulted in an catastrophic mudslide in Braunsbach, BW... the first pictures and videos of the event look dramatic.

http://www.swp.de/gaildorf/lokales/...d-Braunsbach-schwer-getroffen;art5722,3854342

Right now, a multiple hundred kilometer long front of supercells is moving slowly north, the situation is pretty dramatic in the south, with sudden flashfloods literally everywhere on the map, 70 l/qm precipitation in just one hour in some places, that is the amount of a whole May usually.

My condolences to those affected, in my country we have had recently a similar situation with landslides and floods and is very painful. In the mesopotamic areas (very poor areas) there was flooding, and in the mountainous area were a tremendous alluvium. Currently it is also raining throughout the country http://www.smn.gov.ar/.

But have confidence the things will get better, and bad situations will end.

 

[Urwumpe]

My condolences to those affected, in my country we have had recently a similar situation with landslides and floods and is very painful. In the mesopotamic areas (very poor areas) there was flooding, and in the mountainous area were a tremendous alluvium. Currently it is also raining throughout the country http://www.smn.gov.ar/.

But have confidence the things will get better, and bad situations will end.

Yeah, here it is just the beginning of a week with huge thunderstorm potential. Right now a news briefing of the situation in southern Germany is going on, looks like three people died yesterday. Among them a firefighter, who died with the person he tried to rescue from a rapidly flooding underpass. The third victim died in an underground parking, which flooded faster than he was able to escape.

Multiple houses had been damaged beyond repair by the floods.

Storm chasers had a field day here yesterday, I had never seen so many radar reports of rotating supercells at the same time here before. Videos of the approaching thunderstorms are even for US standards dramatic.

 

[Koloss]

Did you know that there is a cigarette brand with the name "Apollo-Soyuz" in Russia?
Awesome design, methinks!

 

[Andy44]

Did you know that there is a cigarette brand with the name "Apollo-Soyuz" in Russia?
Awesome design, methinks!

Death sticks!

 

[Matias Saibene]

Maybe a stupid question (sorry for my ignorance):

I am referring to gamma radiation:

Suppose I have an atom of radioactive uranium and this, ionized other atom (or became radioactive) to another atom.
Is there any way to return things to their original state?
Is there any way that radioactive uranium "stop" to be radioactive?
Is there any way to "cancel" the weak nuclear force?

Thank you very much.

 

[Loru]

There were also cosmos cigarettes:

 

[Urwumpe]

Maybe a stupid question (sorry for my ignorance):

I am referring to gamma radiation:

Suppose I have an atom of radioactive uranium and this, ionized other atom (or became radioactive) to another atom.
Is there any way to return things to their original state?
Is there any way that radioactive uranium "stop" to be radioactive?
Is there any way to "cancel" the weak nuclear force?

Thank you very much.

1. Never. Thermodynamics, you can never get back to the start. But you can sure return an ionized atom back to its original energy level.

2. Decay to a stable element. Which can take a while, depending on the isotope.

3. No. Bombarding an atom with W+ bosons could maybe reduce the chance of beta decay, but you would cause new interactions that way, because the other particles have a bigger cross section.

 

[jedidia]

Which can take a while, depending on the isotope.

In the case of Uranium, you might as well wait until the sun dies... :lol: The half life is somewhere about 4.5 billion years, I think.

 

[Urwumpe]

In the case of Uranium, you might as well wait until the sun dies... :lol: The half life is somewhere about 4.5 billion years, I think.

Well, some isotopes also decay in nanoseconds. :lol: But U-235 decays at 700 million years halflife and U-238 at about 4.5 billion years. U-236 decays in 23 million years and U-234 decays in 25000 years.

U-96 decays in about 5 years.

 

[Anroalh12]

Please, watch this video. It's so crazy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah_hcT9oPDw

 

[RisingFury]

Please, watch this video. It's so crazy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah_hcT9oPDw

Well, those are several hundred kB I'm never getting back...