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[@Renegade]

As threatened, the U.S. Department of Justice has just filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and five major publishing house for fixing the price of ebooks.

Well, I guess I should say "Hurrah for active consumer protection from government." I thought it was dead.

Much as I detest government intervention/regulation of market economies, that was probably the only way something was likely to be done to correct matters in this case. The consumers in the market did not seem to be organised/smart/awake enough to boycott - as @Renegade pointed out.
The publishers obviously had no scruples about using their monopoly/oligopoly position to milk their market for all it was worth, whilst they could. Classic self-serving Corporate psychopathic behaviour.

The thing about this kind of government intervention is that it only addresses the symptom - monopolistic practices. So, whilst we can all probably feel cheered by this particular result, the causal problem remains - i.e., the legal status of the corporate (psychopathic) person. So this type of ripoff will be able to recur ad infinitum, under different guises, and each time it recurs the consumers who have been ripped off (victimised) will probably never be given their money back. Suckers.
Now that's a failure of government.

[@justabeginner:]

@justabeginner: Hope you don't mind too much, but I sent an email with a link to this project/discussion to http://www.adafruit.com/
Its just the sort of thing they could find useful and might broadcast on their blog.   

[if]

Well, humans invented Fascism, gulags, political censorship, and every other nasty thing that we do to our fellow-humans, so I suspect this case (under discussion) is merely another manifestation or reflection of the rather more unsavoury aspects of our natures. We can't help it. Similarly she probably can't help it, if she so firmly believes in AGW that she recommends "unbelievers" be given psychological correction, or something.
That's arguably less worse - by a considerable margin - than being unlucky enough to (say) have your head cut off as punishment for being an Infidel (unbeliever in Islam).

Bit off-topic:

[@justabeginner:]

@justabeginner: Thanks! Nice little resistance colour-band decoder/calculator. I don't think I've seen one like that before.

[here]

I figured you might be able to  do this in a Google docs spreadsheet, using the GoogleLookup function - which I have used in the past. So I went to create a spreadsheet in docs to demonstrate the thing working, only to find that GoogleLookup has been disabled.
After a quick search I found here that:

GoogleLookup
The GoogleLookup function was retired in November 2011. This function relied on technology from Google Squared, a Google Lab that has been shut down. As a result, the GoogleLookup function can no longer be used, and cells that contain GoogleLookup functions will return an error.

GoogleLookup was a surprisingly powerful data gathering and linking function. It was ruddy brilliant.     
I don't know on what basis Google substantiated discontinuing it. Maybe it was too good or risked breaching copyright, or something. Very odd.

[@xtabber:]

@xtabber: Thanks for posting this and pointing to the very interesting Wired article - which I had not read before.
I guess the situation is that the newly-emerging technology in the iPad is running foul of and having to workaround the legacy of what we can now perceive as archaic, mountainous copyright-locked business models.
Since the mountain is Big Corporations, I would guess that we are stuck with "Mohammed will have to keep going to the mountain".
That's just more innovative technological adaptation, I suppose.

Wait Iain, is that part of a Lost episode? 

Har-de-har. 

[attach]

I switched from Scroogle to DuckDuckGo.com to my greatest satisfaction. Startpage is also getting better.

Yes, I recently switched to DDG and it looks quite good to me, so far.

[EDIT:]

This might have been part of the Telext and Videotext technology that started up in the '60s and 70s and was generally well under way by 1981 - e.g., Teletex(t), Videotex(t), CeeFax, Prestel, Minitel, etc.
It seemed rather confusing, because it was a mish-mash of competitive, proprietary technology offerings.

I think Teletext became the de facto standard in UK/Europe, and was (or maybe still is being?) delivered via TV broadcast. (You saw "TXT" buttons on some TV remote controls if the TV had a Telext decoder fitted.) The data was carried for free in previously unused bandwidth (blank screen lines) in the TV transmissions. It was quite useful - e.g., on-screen updated information on things such as football results, weather, news, etc.

In the early '90s, something a bit similar seemed to have happened to Radio in the UK. The BBC was making digital radio information transmissions on FM, which could be utilised if you had a DR receiver. I recall hiring a car in the UK in the '90s. It had DR which could display transmitted information about the FM station (e.g., currently playing program name), and even brief traffic reports peculiar to your local FM transmitter's area. The reports appeared on a small car radio LCD display.
Bit dangerous if you were trying to read it whilst driving.

EDIT: Teletext is apparently alive and well, in NZ at least:
What is Teletext? TVNZ TELETEXT HAS IMPROVED
(Link also contains a brief history of the development of Teletext from the '70s.)

[ODDNS: Decentralized and Open DNS To Defeat Censorship]

This is interesting:
ODDNS: Decentralized and Open DNS To Defeat Censorship
(Text of the post is below. There is a diagram in the actual post - click the link.)

For the last couple of years discussion around censorship of websites in the West has become as prolific as the that around already established blockades in countries such as China and Iran. While meddling with the Internet’s DNS is the weapon of choice for censors, a new P2P system called ODDNS hopes to put control back in the hands of the people.

The Internet’s Domain Name System, which translates human-readable URLs into IP addresses so that web users can more easily find Internet sites, has become a battle ground for censorship during the last couple of years.

From residing almost exclusively in the awareness of computer engineers and nerds, recent attempts by various copyright holders to censor sites such as The Pirate Bay and introduce even more broad powers with the introduction of the SOPA legislation in the US, the existence and mechanisms of the Internet’s DNS have now broken through into the mainstream.

In a response to growing attempts at censorship, various alternative DNS systems have been proposed with an emphasis on those that can’t be meddled with by the authorities. The latest, called ODDNS, comes out of France.

As its name suggests, ODDNS (Open and Decentralized DNS) is an open and decentralized DNS system running on the P2P (Peer-to-Peer) model. It’s creator, web developer Jimmy Rudolf, told PCinpact he invented the system with two specific aims in mind.

The first, and of most interest to people fighting censorship, is to “show governments that it is not possible to prevent people from talking.”

The second, of interest to anyone who owns and maintain their own domain names, is to take back control of them. “I find it absurd to have to regularly pay for a domain name,” Rudolf explained.

ODDNS is an application which allows everyone running the software to share information about domain names with each other, a bit like how a P2P network functions. ODDNS can supplement or even replace regular DNS.

Because domain names and related IP addresses are shared among peers in the network, they can no longer be censored. Furthermore, buying a domain name from a registrar is no longer required since people running ODDNS can create and maintain their own.

Still under development, as expected the source code to ODDNS is licensed under GNU GPLv3. PCinpact reports that the current ODDNS website will be updated next week and the first beta release of the software will follow shortly after.

Of course the success of the project will sit on the developers’ ability to overcome the technical hurdles and, crucially, if they can encourage enough people to come on board and stay on board. The desire to stick with this kind of system will be driven by need so more censorship will become this and similar projects’ lifeblood.

[not]

Thought I'd better mention this in this board. I'm not sure whether the override is an intentional feature.
I figured out today that SSC was giving me just the image file path, not the image, with both boxes ticked for these Post-Capture Options:

• Copy Image to Clipboard
• Copy File Path to Clipboard

[attach]

The second tickbox apparently overrides the first. (see attachment in previous post)

Does it store different versions of the files for backup and archiving purposes?

 - I think this might answer your Q:

It is highly customisable and includes real-time monitoring capability and maintenance of versions in the backups.

[@tomos]

if you used (say) ScreenShotCaptor (SSC), then the image is captured into SSC's working buffer and saved as a file. However, I think SSC does not get the image copied into the Clipboard.

see SC Options >Post Capture Options
Select "Copy image to clipboard" :-)

Thanks @tomos! I felt sure there would be a way to do that.
EDIT: Oops. Spoke too soon.
My SSC seems to give me just the image file path, not the image.
The second tickbox apparently overrides the first.
[attach]

[If]

This is worth a laugh or 2:
http://www.huffingtonpost...tle=Detention_For_Browser
 (see attachment in previous post)
That there is just so utterly ridiculous... "Although he was correct... Alex would be better off simply accepting my teachings without resistance." That's seriously ****ed. Ignorance is strength.
 (see attachment in previous post)
Foxfire.exe~!
Nothing like making a mockery of education... Because resistance is futile~!

If these are true, then your point is spot-on:

- ignorance is strength.

- or rather, ignorance can be and is used as a lever to indoctrinate, browbeat and manipulate people's (in this case children's) minds. Splattergate was a superb example of that practice.

The irony is that insisting that children believe what their teacher tells them is true, without proof, actually invites children to override their critical thinking (CT being something that teachers are supposed to help their students develop).
In that first example (1Km > 1 Mile) there seems to be at least these 4 logical fallacies in play:

• argumentum ad hominem (argument against the person)
• argumentum ad baculum (appeal to fear).
• argumentum ad ignorantiam (forwarding a proposition without any certain proof).
• argumentum ad verecundiam (appeal to authority).

An amazing achievement by a so-called "teacher"! Could that be another nominee for The Skeksy Award?

[Just a thought:]

I'm not sure about Excel 2003, but the (non-intuitive) Excel 2007 approach described above works fine. The image is copied into the Clipboard and can be pasted from there.

Just a thought: Alternatively, if you used (say) ScreenShotCaptor (SSC), then the image is captured into SSC's working buffer and saved as a file. However, I think SSC does not get the image copied into the Clipboard. So, to get the image into the Clipboard, you have to select the image (or a part of it) captured in SSC, copy it and then you can paste it from the Clipboard.

[could]

Amen! The scientific journal scam has to end -- these scientific articles, funded in good part by public dollars, need to be free.

Yes, I think it is very heartening to see this.
It could be the start of freeing up a lot of publicly-funded research (knowledge), but I think that could be wishful thinking. From experience, I strongly doubt that it will happen. The Wikipedia entry on Elsevier indicates that:

...In 2010, Elsevier reported a profit margin of 36% on revenues of $3.2 billion.

In separate discussions in the DC forum, we have probably pretty well explored the boundaries of power of the Corporation and its obligations to its stockholders. This is all about money and power. So the prospect of earning forward potential revenues amounting to many billions of dollars will likely not be abandoned easily, unless (say) some form of government anti-trust regulation kicks in, in a deliberate market restructuring.
 
What it might need is (say) for someone like Amazon to take a hand in disruptively restructuring the market that is Elsevier's niche. Given what Amazon has been and is doing in aggressive fashion, this is not outside the bounds of possibility, but I wouldn't care to make a guess on the probability of Amazon becoming that kind of white knight. It might be more likely that Elsevier could (say) decide to pre-empt that and diversify by buying up Amazon anyway. Who knows?

A bit of background as to why I say the above:

The Elsevier website's "history" page is here, but it does not really reflect any of the above, though you can get an idea of the company's impressively comprehensive market breadth and scope from their website.
Money, locked-up knowledge, and power.

[not]

Wife: Bin Laden Hid in Pakistan, Not Caves, for Decade
http://news.yahoo.com/wif...-abc-news-topstories.html
"Osama bin Laden's youngest wife has revealed that the al Qaeda leader spent a vast majority of his time after the 9/11 attacks not hiding in caves but living in Pakistani cities, where he moved several times and fathered a handful of children. ...the most wanted man in the world skipped from home to home in Peshawar, Swat and Haripur, Pakistan before settling in Abbottabad for about the last six years of his life."

I don't see what relevance that has to anything.
The interventionist wars or other military actions by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, and other places in the Middle East, Africa and the Indian sub-continent (e.g., belatedly taking out Bin Laden in Pakistan) would theoretically have served to boost the economies of the US in particular. WW2 showed that nothing improves national GDP like a good war (think of all that ordinance needed by the military), and the more prolonged the better for the economic growth.

At the point when the US military media publicly proclaimed the circumstances of Bin laden being killed and later buried at sea, skeptics would be able to question that the US intelligence had not known of his whereabouts for years. It was apparently common knowledge in Pakistan.
But, there you are. If you have made a political decision to pull out of those warlike activities (for whatever reason), then the scapegoat for the wars would need to be formally terminated. So it was all a "success" you see?
Bin Laden's termination would probably have been just a matter of time - a "tidy this loose end up" type of job. He could probably have anticipated that there would eventually have to be such an action at some stage. He must surely have had some serious life insurance risks. I bet the life insurance company actuaries would never have sold him a life insurance policy, regardless of how healthy he might have been and even at an astronomical premium.

[1000 scientists and counting boycott Elsevier journal publishing]

Speaking of Elsevier (which we were): 1000 scientists and counting boycott Elsevier journal publishing

Wow. It's apparently now up to 8,800 scholars and scientists boycotting Elsevier - and counting: An Open Letter to Academic Publishers About Open Access

I believe ShellCity was the very first place that ever wrote about DonationCoder -- many people discovered us from that great site. 

I am a fan of Shell City's. I think it was a reference in Shell City that first led me to DC.

[This reproduced the flat file structure in the Junction folder.]

I am a bit of a novice in this, and I might misunderstand what's required here, but after reading this discussion thread, I just now sat down with xplorer² to see whether I could meet the apparent requirements, and:

1. Created a Junction folder (Reparse point).
2. Created a scrap pane (a sort of virtual folder).
3. Selected several folders and flattened them and their contents into the scrap pane, creating a flat file (you could save this for future use as a reusable CIDA file - a particularly useful/powerful feature in xplorer²).
4. Copied all files in the scrap pane.
5. Pasted them into the Junction folder (I think this this effectively creates a "Library" containing pointers to all the files pasted).
This reproduced the flat file structure in the Junction folder.
The above steps should apply for Win XP and Win7-64bit Home Premium.

I then:

1. Created a new Library in Windows Explorer.
- then performed steps 2, 3, 4 above in xplorer².
5. Using Windows Explorer, pasted them into the Library folder (I think this effectively creates a "Library" containing pointers to all the files pasted).
This reproduced the flat file structure in the Library.
The above steps should apply for Win7-64bit Home Premium.

I could be wrong, of course, but I think this means that:
(a) You could then access the Reparse point folder or Win7 Library as your central (consolidated) server "directory".
(b) This directory would reflect realtime any changes to the source folders/files included in the flattened file.
(c) You do not need to copy any actual files anywhere to create the central (consolidated) server "directory".

The main constraints here I think would be:

• You can only do this in NTFS formatted file systems/drives.
• The Reparse points can not be created to work across a network, so you would need to have it all on a single server with directly attached drives - and of course, the web site will be able to access the central (consolidated) server "directory". I am unsure whether this constraint applies to Win7 "Libraries", but I would expect it probably does.

I have been experimenting using this approach to create a structured (not a flat file) central (consolidated) "directory" to hold all of the target folders to go into my FreeFileSync backup. This is instead of the conventional and rather tedious approach of individually specifying in FFS which target folders to back up. So FFS would just back up whatever was in the central (consolidated) "directory", and I could change the contents of that directory to manage backups of changes to the range of backup target files/folders.

Caveat:

• Mucking about with Junction folders (Reparse points) could be risky if you are not careful with your file-naming (I always include the word "Junction" in a Reparse point folder name).
• Anything you do to a logical folder or file in a Junction folder directly affects the actual folder or file on disk.

Hope this all makes sense and is of use/help to someone.    

Well, you've had things such as, for example:

• The publication of the World Government Plan (The Covenant) by the proponents of AGW;
• An AGW spokesman coming out and specifying that their "Cause" is World Government;
• The proposal of a new "World Bank" to collect punitive carbon taxes/fines and redistribute that wealth to poorer countries, and it's to have immunity from prosecution too, under the wing of the UN;
• The UN IPCC's litany of "mistakes" and misinformation, and a stochastic lie in the shape of the "hockey stick";
• The proposal by a scientist to genetically modify humans to adapt them to accepting the AGW creed;
• Now a sociologist recommending that skeptics be "treated" for their skepticism as though it were a social crime;
• The Climategate 1 and 2 FOIA files;
• The Gleickgate fraud.

What else do you need?
Hmm...if it smells like a rat and looks like a rat, then...but no, I see no rats here.    
Could it all be just a big joke?    

Would you guys want a feature that basically said "WIPE EVERYTHING" (backup database files, all clips, empty recycle bin, etc.)

Well, it might be useful - maybe "nice-to-have" rather than "highly desirable" or "mandatory", from my perspective though.
I wouldn't be likely to use it much. When I want a secure delete, I toss files in a shredder in xplorer².

[Results:]

I have a similar problem.
Because I am impatient, my laptop touchpad settings are set on nearly full acceleration, but then I sometimes find that the pointer (cursor) overshoots the destination I have in mind. Which is annoying.     
I have therefore set the Shift key to act as a damper. This is easily done in the standard touchpad settings. If you are moving the cursor and then you hold down the Shift key, the mouse/pointer slows down to a crawl.
Results:
No more overshoots.
More precise pointing.

I suppose you could modify the mouse settings to improve on this, using an AHK script. The script could sense when the pointer was approaching a specific area (co-ordinates), and then AHK would send a Shift-key to the keyboard buffer, thus slowing down the pointer. Something like that, anyway. I would use it.

Thankx. I shall play around with that approach.