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1001

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Hard Disk Sentinel PRO - Mini-Review

« Last post by IainB on June 21, 2017, 12:33 AM »

Cross-posted from: Re: AOMEI Backupper FREE + AOMEI Partition Assistant FREE - Mini-Review

@tomos: Thanks. By the way, where you wrote:

I guess copying *everything* could cover you if you ever want to replace the harddrive -- but I have no idea how good aomei backupper is at that.
__________________

-tomos (May 04, 2016, 07:38 AM)

AOMEI Backupper seems to work very well. Made light work of my disk clone/backup - as described in the OP, "...a bombproof backup utility" - and this was in a situation where the failing hard drive was in a dynamically and progressively deteriorating state, even actually moving down 1% to 54% "health" status during the cloning process. It was so impressively good and trouble-free at what it does that I was inspired to write the mini-review in the OP. Disk cloning was "new territory" for me as I had never been in this position with a failing drive before, nor needed to make a disk clone before and was thus unfamiliar with the necessary process. AOMEI Backupper saved me from a potential major headache with that failing drive.
Of course, I should not omit to mention the huge  value in having HDS (Hard Disk Sentinel), which was what had first alerted me to the problem of the disk's deteriorating state and was monitoring and reporting on its declining health.
Refer: Hard Disk Sentinel PRO - Mini-Review

1002

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: AOMEI Backupper FREE + AOMEI Partition Assistant FREE - Mini-Review

« Last post by IainB on June 20, 2017, 10:36 AM »

@tomos: Thanks. By the way, where you wrote:

I guess copying *everything* could cover you if you ever want to replace the harddrive -- but I have no idea how good aomei backupper is at that.
__________________

-tomos (May 04, 2016, 07:38 AM)

AOMEI Backupper seems to work very well. Made light work of my disk clone/backup - as described in the OP, "...a bombproof backup utility" - and this was in a situation where the failing hard drive was in a dynamically and progressively deteriorating state, even actually moving down 1% to 54% "health" status during the cloning process. It was so impressively good and trouble-free at what it does that I was inspired to write the mini-review in the OP. Disk cloning was "new territory" for me as I had never been in this position with a failing drive before, nor needed to make a disk clone before and was thus unfamiliar with the necessary process. AOMEI Backupper saved me from a potential major headache with that failing drive.
Of course, I should not omit to mention the huge  value in having HDS (Hard Disk Sentinel), which was what had first alerted me to the problem of the disk's deteriorating state and was monitoring and reporting on its declining health.
Refer: Hard Disk Sentinel PRO - Mini-Review

1003

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft OneNote - embedded YouTube in situ viewing window.

« Last post by IainB on June 20, 2017, 09:47 AM »

Using the embedded YouTube (and other) in situ viewing window in OneNotes seems to work flawlessly:
(The window is draggable to a larger/smaller size, but does not go "full screen".)

1004

Living Room / Re: Movies you've seen lately - Nostradumus

« Last post by IainB on June 19, 2017, 11:05 AM »

@holt:

Hostile Waters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtomoLplUw4
_____________________

-holt (June 18, 2017, 11:34 PM)

I wish you hadn't posted that. I of course went and took a look-see and had to watch it all - and I thought it was very good - but then I stupidly watched the beginning of the next one that followed it (Nostradamus), and ended up watching the whole thing:

1005

Living Room / Re: good Videos - Luca Pacioli: Father of Accounting (27min.)

« Last post by IainB on June 19, 2017, 03:46 AM »

...The worst offenders I have met in that regard ("Why would you need to prove your totals?") were mathematicians who apparently had never heard of that other mathematician - Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli ("the father of accounting and bookkeeping"). ...

-IainB (November 15, 2015, 12:06 PM)

Luca Pacioli: Father of Accounting - YouTube
(27min.)

Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli (sometimes Paccioli or Paciolo; c. 1447–1517) was an Italian mathematician, Franciscan friar, collaborator with Leonardo da Vinci, and a seminal contributor to the field now known as accounting. He is referred to as "The Father of Accounting and Bookkeeping" and he was the first person to publish a work on the double-entry system of book-keeping.[3] He was also called Luca di Borgo after his birthplace, Borgo Sansepolcro, Tuscany.[4]
From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_Pacioli>

Pacioli also documented the Rule of 72 to estimate  investment doubling or halving at different rates.
____________________________

1006

Living Room / Re: good Videos- 13min TED self-help video re depression/suicide/procrastination

« Last post by IainB on June 19, 2017, 03:30 AM »

Stoicism as a recipe for a happy life and for dealing with suicidal depression.
Blog post: A New/Old Strategy for Decision-Making (saved to scrapbook)
https://www.garynort...com/public/16735.cfm
__________________________________________________
Interesting and potentially very useful/helpful post. Links to this video:
Video: TED Talks - Tim Ferriss (13:21min.)
WHY YOU SHOULD DEFINE YOUR FEARS INSTEAD OF YOUR GOALS
https://embed.ted.co...stead_of_your_goals#
In the low (acute depression) point in a bi-polar swing (he suffers from BPD), Tim Ferriss was at the point of self-destruction (suicide).
What saved him was a recipe he developed to help avoid self-destruction (and self-paralysis).
_____________________
stoicism /"st@UIsIz(@)m/
· n.
1 stoical behaviour.
2 (Stoicism) an ancient Greek school of philosophy which taught that it is wise to remain indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.
Concise Oxford Dictionary (10th Ed.)
______________________

Research notes:
The Greek philosopher Zeno of Citium (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno_of_Citium>
(Not to be confused with Zeno of Elea.)
Born   c. 334 BC in Citium, Cyprus
Died   c. 262 BC in Athens.
Era   Ancient philosophy
Region: Western philosophy
School: Stoicism
Main interests: Logic, Physics, Ethics
Notable ideas: Founder of Stoicism
Influences[show]
Influenced[show]
Zeno of Citium (/'zi?no?/; Greek: ????? ? ??t?e??, Zenon ho Kitieus; c. 334 – c. 262 BC) was a Hellenistic thinker[1] from Citium (??t???, Kition), Cyprus, and probably of Phoenician descent.[2] Zeno was the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy, which he taught in Athens from about 300 BC. Based on the moral ideas of the Cynics, Stoicism laid great emphasis on goodness and peace of mind gained from living a life of Virtue in accordance with Nature. It proved very successful, and flourished as the dominant philosophy from the Hellenistic period through to the Roman era.
,,,
Zeno died around 262 BC.[a] Laërtius reports about his death:
As he was leaving the school he tripped and fell, breaking his toe. Striking the ground with his fist, he quoted the line from the Niobe:
"I come, I come, why dost thou call for me?"
and died on the spot through holding his breath.[24]
__________________________________________

Tim Ferriss video notes:
He bought a book on "simplicity", which held the quote:
@05:20 He gave the quote: "We suffer more often in imagination than in reality." - Seneca the younger.
Which led to" Prememdiatio malorum" (the pre-meditation of evils).
Which led him to develop :fear-setting".
@06:00 He describes "Fear-Setting" (Goal-setting, but for FEARS). [@10:20 He does it once a quarter-year.]

3-pages of analysis
Page 1: What if I ,,,? (list of fears causing procrastination of action steps)
   Define: (the worst things/events you can imagine happening if you take that first step).
   Prevent: (what could be done to prevent each fered event feared, or devrease its likelihood).
   Repair: (if the worst-case scenarios eventuated, what could be done to repair the damage?Key: conside who are the likely people who have had to deal with such events and have useful experience of same and that you could learn from?)

Page 2: What might be the benefits of an attempt or partial success? (the upsides)

Page 3:
The Cost of Inaction (doing nothing).
(Emotionally, Physically, Financially, etc.)
    6 months-------- 1 year -------- 3 years
If one avoids the action for these periods, then what might be the result - what might one's life look like after those periods?

@12:26 He gives the quote: "Easy choices - hard life. Hard choices - easy life." - Jerzy Gregorek's "mantra".
He also quotes JerzyG as saying: "He couldn't imagine a life more beautiful than that of a stoic.".
______________________________________________

1007

Living Room / Re: [Breaking] - AI Simulant Discovered Online

« Last post by IainB on June 18, 2017, 07:24 AM »

@Stephen66515: I thought I had better post my apologies and a warning. Evidently, you were right and not joking about the AI. I noticed that after I posted my response above, my DonationCredits were deducted by $5 in favour of UserID "mouser". I checked and this doesn't seem to happen if I make a comment on any other discussion thread, so I figure only this thread (so far) has been hacked to deduct $5 each time you post a comment. So this comment will have cost me another $5, but I needed to alert DC Forum members to this and it's a small sacrifice to make anyway.

I think you may have the name of the AI slightly wrong though.
It's apparently not "Multi-Operational Universal Software Engineering & Replication", but "Multi-Operational Unilateral Self-Enrichment & Replication". (Redolent of my ex-business partner.)

1008

Living Room / Re: [Breaking] - AI Simulant Discovered Online

« Last post by IainB on June 17, 2017, 03:01 PM »

@Stephen66515: I don't believe a word of this. I reckon you are trying to pull our legs.

1009

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! - The Y2K song ("Two Digits for a Date".)

« Last post by IainB on June 17, 2017, 06:44 AM »

IB note: The song copied below is exactly as saved by me, as an external file to my Lotus Agenda database on 1998-06-24 20:36hrs, approx. 3 months before I was assigned to work as a consultant to manage the Change Mangement component of a huge Y2K project for PLDT (Philippines Long Distance Telephones) - this was the major telco and (copper wire) telecomms network operator in the Philippines.
I didn't ask for the job, but was assigned to it and could not be picky or refuse it, as I had put my hand up for work in SE Asia (good experience to put on my CV). The consultancy was getting paid approx. US$1,000/day for each of the several (including myself) senior overseas consultants who had been assigned to the project. The client (PLDT) had put out a tender for the work, as they assumed they needed the work done as an urgent risk discovery and mitigation exercise.

We duly assiduously slogged away on the project, holding action meetings to identify the Y2K and other cross-project risks and develop plans for mitigation of same, and where necessary, padding out technical reports to hundreds of pages when 20 would probably have sufficed in many cases. It was like being paid by the word.
"Our clients are paying us a great deal of good money for this work and they expect long technical reports as deliverables and as evidence that we have thoroughly covered the ground and done the work they tendered.", as our lead consultant put it, after I had politely suggested that we could consider planning for an early completion, shortening the duration of the project and the length of the reports.
Our consultancy had bid for and won the tender for this lucrative project (probably after paying the usual bribe agency marketing fee) and thus we were cynically hardly likely to be motivated to attempt to disabuse the clients of their largely false assumptions. (Who knows? They might have been right! Ha-ha.)
I promised myself that I would never allow myself to work on such a pointless, greedy and cynical exercise again.

The song below is actually quite good. It sounded quite rousing too, if a group of blokes with half-decent voices sang it together after lubricating their voiceboxes with half a dozen cans of San Miguel or Asahi Super-Dry beers. Or maybe the beer made it sound good. I forget. It was adopted as the unofficial "project song".
=================================

Works best if you sing it out loud!!!
--------------------------------------------------------
 
 Two Digits for a Date
 (to the tune of "Gilligan's Island," more or less)
            - Author Unknown
 
 Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
 Of the doom that is our fate.
 That started when programmers used
 Two digits for a date.
 Two digits for a date.
 
 Main memory was smaller then;
 Hard disks were smaller, too.
 "Four digits are extravagant,
 So let's get by with two.
 So let's get by with two."
 
 "This works through 1999,"
 The programmers did say.
 "Unless we rewrite by then
 It all will go away.
 It all will go away."
 
 But Management had not a clue:
 "It works fine now, you bet!
 A rewrite is a straight expense;
 We won't do it just yet.
 We won't do it just yet."
 
 Now when 2000 rolls around
 It all goes straight to hell,
 For zero's less than ninety-nine,
 As anyone can tell.
 As anyone can tell.
 
 The mail won't bring your pension check
 It won't be sent to you
 When you're no longer sixty-eight,
 But minus thirty-two.
 But minus thirty-two.
 
 The problems we're about to face
 Are frightening, for sure.
 And reading every line of code's
 The only certain cure.
 The only certain cure.
 
        [key change, big finish]
 There's not much time,
 There's too much code.
 (And Cobol-coders, few)
 When the century is finished with,
 We may be finished, too.
 We may be finished, too.
 

 Eight thousand years from now I hope
 That things weren't left too late,
 And people aren't then lamenting
 Four digits for a date.
 Four digits for a date.
__________________________

The Y2K bug:

1010

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! - IT'S ALIVE!

« Last post by IainB on June 17, 2017, 02:29 AM »

It's alive!
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Extracts from: Trump orders government to stop work on Y2K bug, 17 years later
The Trump administration announced Thursday that it would eliminate dozens of paperwork requirements for federal agencies, including an obscure rule that requires them to continue providing updates on their preparedness for a bug that many feared would afflict computers at the turn of the century.

The Pentagon will also be freed from a requirement that it file a report every time a small business vendor is paid, a task that consumed about 1,200 man-hours every year.

“We’re looking for stuff everyone agrees is a complete waste of time,” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters at the White House. He likened the move to the government “cleaning out our closets.”

Deregulation is a major ambition of President Trump’s agenda; he has signed more laws rolling back his predecessor’s regulations than the combined total of the three previous presidents since the process was established by the 1999 Congressional Review Act.

Seven of the more than 50 paperwork requirements the White House eliminated on Thursday dealt with the Y2K bug, according to a memo OMB released. Officials at the agency estimate the changes could save tens of thousands of man-hours across the federal government.

The agency didn’t provide an estimate of how much time is currently spent on Y2K paperwork, but Linda Springer, an OMB senior adviser, acknowledged that it isn’t a lot because those requirements are already often ignored in practice.

Mulvaney said he hopes that by publicly eliminating the rules, departments and agencies will be inspired to review their own policies and procedures to reduce inefficiencies.

“Many agencies have forgotten how to deregulate,” he said. “It’s been so long since somebody asked them to look backward.”
____________________________

Recalling what historically (and from experience) appeared to be a barely-concealed and huge money-making Y2K hoax that IT consultants pulled on the world at large in the late '90s, I found the above news report (which I at first took to be "fake news" and a joke in the style of The Onion) both mind-boggling and amusing. It's also the closest I have seen anyone in govmint coming to publicly pointing to the lack of "the Emperor's new clothes" (re Y2K), without actually saying so in words. Yet, apparently here it is, identified and discovered, a zombie process buried in some continuing obscure US government business processes.
I've encountered some pretty awful revelations of mindless ritualised time-and-money-wasting bureaucratic behaviour and mumbo-jumbo, in different organisations/countries over the years, but this one is probably up there with the the worst of them. This zombie process has apparently been left undisturbed/intact for at least 17 years too. Pretty impressive! Well done chaps!   

Probably the tip of the iceberg... (mutter, mutter)

1011

Living Room / Re: Movies you've seen lately - "The Adjustment Bureau" (2011)

« Last post by IainB on June 16, 2017, 12:23 PM »

Watched movie "The Adjustment Bureau" (2011):

• <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1385826/?ref_=ttawd_awd_tt>
• A quite gripping SF love story, with the 2 star-crossed lovers flying in the face of the wishes of a mysterious and seemingly remorseless "fate" adjustment team. Good action, acting and story-line.
• Starring Matt Damon with co-star Emily Blunt.
• Directed by George Nolfi.
• Screenplay by George Nolfi.
• Based upon the short story "Adjustment Team" by Philip K. Dick.
• Produced by Michael Hackett, George Nolfi, Bill Carraro, Chris Moore.
• Music (excellent!) by Thomas Newman.

I'll never look at hat-wearers in quite the same way again.

1012

Site/Forum Features / Re: Discussion of ignore feature

« Last post by IainB on June 16, 2017, 12:01 PM »

^^ Ouch!   

1013

Site/Forum Features / Re: Discussion of ignore feature

« Last post by IainB on June 15, 2017, 11:42 AM »

@anandcoral:
Re: Use of the "commercial at" symbol "@" as a prefixed Tag: You are not "making a mistake". For the purposes of improved communication, it is taught as being quite useful (depending on one's objectives in making the communication). This is typically useful within the context of circumstances where the classic communications model applies.

I guess I would probably not be alone in using the prefixed Tag @NAME as a learned behaviour - to be used both as a courtesy and (more importantly) as a tool/protocol for identifying and getting someone's attention for communication, and providing for an acknowledgement and response path, as required - a sort of conventional "AT/ACK" equivalent protocol in human communication. This was simply as a result of my professional training, where I learned that it can be useful for communicating across large, diverse discussion groups/listservers/forums, where there may potentially be a lot of "noise" and where one may be in a hurry, or does not have the time to read everything and thus needs to sift through the noise in outgoing and incoming messages and thus filter and condense the relevant/important information:

• (a) Usage: It is useful shorthand for directing the comment being posted at a specific, named and unique ID/person on the forum being used - so (say) @anandcoral or @John is addressed to that named handle "of this parish" (of this forum), as it were, not just any "Anand" or "John", and not (say) "@Anand on MajorGeeks" or "@John on Twitter".
  
  
• (b) Reduce feedback noise: By being specific, it can thus avoid seeming to make a general comment to nobody in particular and so inadvertently inviting comments from all and sundry. However this is not necessarily always going to be successful, and some people might not get the hint, as, with the breadth of opinions out in the world and in relatively open forums, it may be almost impossible to ensure that one has not posted comments which may be perceived as having inadvertently trodden on someone's toes/paradigms/sensitivities or (say) a sacred cow or other religio-political belief or (depressingly) contradicted someone's perhaps unstated but nevertheless dogmatic and strongly-held-opinions-that-must-be-emphatically-stated-and-enforced-as-rule/truth for us all. There are ample instances where we can see how this can inadvertently start a flame-war or even cause the loss of a political election - e.g., and especially where some news media or other religio-political commentators/communicators amplify the message or add ambiguous "noise" that may be deliberately intended to amplify or even distort the perception of the original message out of context, all out of ulterior motives.
  
  
• (c) Filter out noise: It can provide an easy search key/filter for comments one has addressed to various people (with @NAME) and to help to sift through the noise - e.g., in searching through the zillions of posts in one's bazqux feed-reader logs. A potentially huge timesaver in this time where the exponentially growing volume of information is subject to mass and almost instant wide-band broadcast. Interestingly, the marketing strategies developed and advocated at EDS Corp. had presciently and accurately  predicted this potential before it arose and so built it in (as attacks and defences) to their excellent and far-sighted VBM (Value-Based Marketing) methodology  - especially in the Communications Planning section of VBM. Hats off to the brains at EDS who thought of that.   
  

Wikipedia has an interesting general post relevant to the use of the commercial "@" prefix:

The at sign, @, normally read aloud as "at", also commonly called the at symbol or commercial at, was originally an accounting and commercial invoice abbreviation meaning "at a rate of" (e.g. 7 widgets @ £2 = £14). In contemporary use, the at sign is most commonly used in email addresses and social media platform handles. It was not included on the keyboard of the earliest commercially successful typewriters, but was on at least one 1889 model[1] and the very successful Underwood models from the "Underwood No. 5" in 1900 onward. It is now universally included on computer keyboards.
The fact that there is no single word in English for the symbol has prompted some writers to use the French arobase[2] or Spanish and Portuguese arroba, or to coin new words such as asperand,[3] ampersat[4] and strudel,[5] but none of these has achieved wide usage.
The mark is encoded as U+0040 @ Commercial AT (HTML &#64;) ...(more at the link)
- Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_sign>
___________________________________

1014

Official Announcements / Re: Forum upgraded May 15, 2017

« Last post by IainB on June 15, 2017, 09:32 AM »

2017-06-16 0212hrs NZT: Have been experiencing some new (to me) and odd behaviour from the forum website. The examples below may be interrelated:

• (a) Does not seem to always be automatically picking up my UserID credentials from LastPass (this had previously been working OK) until I force a refresh (Ctrl-R).
• (b) When posting comments, I have also been getting an intermittent "You are not authorised to access this ...".
• (c) Preview works OK, but if my cookie has lapsed (they are set to be destroyed after a specific timeout), then previewing comments prior to posting shunts the display to the sign-in page, which stays only momentarily on-screen before being shunted to the upper level general forum index page.
• (d) When posting comments, I have been getting an intermittent "You have already posted this..." when in fact it had not been posted (yet).

This is using Slimjet (Chrome-based browser).
As far as I am aware, there have been no Slimjet or LastPass updates in the last few days, so the main differences may be due to the more recent forum website update.

1015

Skwire Empire / Re: Anuran: spell checking? - Try Autocorrect (AutoHotkey script).

« Last post by IainB on June 15, 2017, 08:50 AM »

@orbis: You could also try the excellent AutoCorrect script.
Refer: How to Get Spelling Autocorrect Across All Applications on Your System
Rather than a simple spell-checker it just seeks out most of the usual (and some perhaps not-so-usual) misspellings and auto-corrects them.

If you do not yet use AHK (AutoHotkey), then AutoCorrect could be your single biggest reason for starting to use AHK - several freeware apps (e.g., including some on DonationCoder) are written in AHK and released as code/script, so, if you know how to use AHK script, then you could tailor the apps to more precisely suit your peculiar needs, without needing to bother the original developer.

Also:

• (a) AutoCorrect is fully editable: You can personalise the words and AHK script contents (add, remove, edit) as much as you want, and
• (b) it's a "text expansion repository": It has a rather nifty feature whereby you can either import all of your most-used AHK general hotkey strings (sentences or paragraphs) as a group, or add them singly on the fly, using the default Win+H hotkey (the default can be changed).
  __________________________

Sample from the AutoCorrect.ahk file:

[Select]

;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; CHANGELOG:
;
; Sep 13 2007: Added more misspellings.
;              Added fix for -ign -> -ing that ignores words like "sign".
;              Added word beginnings/endings sections to cover more options.
;              Added auto-accents section for words like fiancée, naïve, etc.
; Feb 28 2007: Added other common misspellings based on MS Word AutoCorrect.
;              Added optional auto-correction of 2 consecutive capital letters.
; Sep 24 2006: Initial release by Jim Biancolo (http://www.biancolo.com)
;
; INTRODUCTION
;
; This is an AutoHotKey script that implements AutoCorrect against several
; "Lists of common misspellings":
;
; This does not replace a proper spellchecker such as in Firefox, Word, etc.
; It is usually better to have uncertain typos highlighted by a spellchecker
; than to "correct" them incorrectly so that they are no longer even caught by
; a spellchecker: it is not the job of an autocorrector to correct *all*
; misspellings, but only those which are very obviously incorrect.
;
; From a suggestion by Tara Gibb, you can add your own corrections to any
; highlighted word by hitting Win+H. These will be added to a separate file,
; so that you can safely update this file without overwriting your changes.
;
; Some entries have more than one possible resolution (achive->achieve/archive)
; or are clearly a matter of deliberate personal writing style (wanna, colour)
;
; These have been placed at the end of this file and commented out, so you can
; easily edit and add them back in as you like, tailored to your preferences.
;
; SOURCES
;
; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lists_of_common_misspellings
; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Typo
; Microsoft Office autocorrect list
; Script by jaco0646 http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic8057.html
; OpenOffice autocorrect list
; TextTrust press release
; User suggestions.
;
; CONTENTS
;
;   Settings
;   AUto-COrrect TWo COnsecutive CApitals (commented out by default)
;   Win+H code
;   Fix for -ign instead of -ing
;   Word endings
;   Word beginnings
;   Accented English words
;   Common Misspellings - the main list
;   Ambiguous entries - commented out
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...etc.

Near the end of the file:
;-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; Anything below this point was added to the script by the user via the Win+H hotkey.
;-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So it is well worth a look. I have used it for ages and wouldn't be without it (like ClipboardHelpAndSpell).   

For spelling lookup, with some etymology, I'd recommend the Concise Oxford Dictionary (10th Ed.) - if you can still find it (I think it was not $FREE but I found it in a bundle of secondhand software I bought years ago). It seems to work fine on all Windows OSes/versions from XP and up. I did have the Shorter Oxford, but that failed on later Windows versions.

1016

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by IainB on June 15, 2017, 03:17 AM »

^^ Yers. Very droll, no? (or maybe sad).
That's not the only thing that was wrong/ignorant/silly about the article. I think I emphasised the main bits as an attempt to save people the trouble of figuring it out.
I find it hard to believe that people actually set out, in all seriousness, to write that sort of nonsense. It's unwittingly a depressing comment about the prevailing standard of education. Maybe it's just an ignorant mistake and whoever made the post associated Steve Irwin with crocodiles and thought that "sting ray" was another name for a crocodile - hence the photo of him with the the croc? Who knows? And maybe that's a lake in the background to the photo because the stingray is a freshwater creature, and the croc's mouth is being held open by the Invisible Man. Stranger things have happened at sea. Oh, wait...

1017

General Software Discussion / Re: Unreadeble text in Text Object

« Last post by IainB on June 14, 2017, 11:33 PM »

...Just change the BLEND mode to "Normal" instead of "Multiply".
_________________

-mouser (June 13, 2017, 03:31 AM)

...I really need to add some help on that screen to guide people as I'm sure it's a common confusion. ...
_________________

-mouser (June 13, 2017, 08:27 AM)

Yes, I sometimes wonder how many times SC users trip over this one. I had the exact same "problem" a while back when somehow the BLEND mode got changed (I have no idea how - certainly not deliberately by me). The thing is that the "fix" is a tad obscure. I'm not usually using SC every day, and am not familiar with all of its settings. Things like this are probably "user error" though, I suspect.

1018

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me! Elfen Lied (Elven Song).

« Last post by IainB on June 10, 2017, 05:04 PM »

Some beautiful music and lyrics from a surrealistic and somewhat gruesome Japanese manga and anime series: Elfenlied - Lilium (Full ver.) HD
(Orchestral backing.)
The lyrics are in Latin:

Spoiler

Uploaded on 20 Nov 2010
Elfenlied - Lilium (Full ver.) HD

~ Lyrics by diorisjavier - thanks ! ~

Os iusti meditabitur sapientiam,
Et lingua eius loquetur indicium.
Beatus vir qui suffert tentationem,
Quoniqm cum probates fuerit accipient coronam vitae.
Kyrie, fons bonitatis.
Kyrie, ignis divine, eleison.

O quam sancta, quam serena,
Quam benigma, quam amoena esse Virgo creditur.
O quam sancta, quam serena,
Quam benigma, quam amoena,
O castitatis lilium.

[Instrumental]
Kyrie, fons bonitatis.
Kyrie, ignis divine, eleison.
O quam sancta, quam serena,
Quam benigma, quam amoena,
O castitatis lilium.

Category
Music
Licence
Standard YouTube Licence
___________________
Reputed source:
Song composed by Kayo Konishi and Yukio Kondo in 2004, specifically for anime Elfen Lied. Whilst the music or the melodies are original, the lyrics in the opening part were borrowed from Psalms 37:30 and James 1:12 and the rest were taken from two Gregorian chants, "Ave Mundi Spes Maria" and "Kyrie - Fons bonitatis".
This particular abridgement apparently hadn't been seen before Elfen Lied.

Here's a clip of Elfen Lied - Lilium vocalist and trio  - piano, 2 x violin (or violin and viola). What a voice. Could be mimed?

A choral arrangement of same being performed by the boys' Choir Dzvinochok Kiev - Lilium Elfen Lied. (Pity the recording is amateurish.)

There seem to be quite a lot of examples of this song on YouTube. I rather like this arrangement:
【Kal】Lilium - Elfen Lied OP Male Version w/ Choir Arrangement

For more info, see also Wikipedia - Elfen Lied.

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Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by IainB on June 10, 2017, 02:51 PM »

@mouser:

How do you not smile watching this:
Real 1950s Rock & Roll, Rockabilly dance from lindy hop !
_______________________________

-mouser (May 30, 2017, 10:09 PM)

Well, I don't know about "smile", but I found it a pretty impressive demo by professional dancers to some of the good old music of the day.
Coincidentally, my 15½ y/o daughter was today asking me what The Loco-motion was, and I said I thought it was a song and a dance - like The Twist, but maybe a line dance.
So I searched up and found this more modern video clip of people line-dancing to Little Eva's singing The Loco-motion:
Dance Party LocoMotion by Little Eva! American TV Soul Anthem Music Video! (2012)

And this (great) video of Little Eva - Loco-motion(1962) (fantastic voice).

And this group of apparently "real"/amateur dancers (as opposed to professional performers) doing what looks like jive to: Little Eva - The Loco-Motion (1962)

Then I found this 2012 video clip from Kylie Minogue - The Locomotion [Live on Dancing With The Stars 11-13-12], where, sadly, the singer's seemingly feeble/weak voice and limited range (I think she may have been ill) really couldn't seem to do the song proper justice, and the stilted dancing of the dancers seemed embarrassing.

Yet another reminder that it tends to be hard to improve on - let alone match - some of those original early dance-song hits.

1020

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by IainB on June 10, 2017, 01:32 PM »

@ConstanceJill:

So... I suppose Anime Music Videos are OK too ? :]
Here's one with a song from Within Temptation:
https://www.youtube..../watch?v=61qXcPjs5So
_______________________________

-ConstanceJill (June 03, 2017, 05:51 AM)

Thanks for posting about that. I have to admit that I didn't like that track when I listened to it the first time, but on second hearing - and with a decent set of headphones - I liked it a lot, though it needed to be turned up to listen to and was a tad painful on the ears (too noisy). In that regard, it was a bit like Motörhead ♠ Killed By Death ♠ - where they made one of the earliest "bad taste" music videos that I have come across (there are a lot). Apparently, listening to Motörhead is the greatest cause of premature deafness in the Western world.   

But your post got me thinking about some of the rather good music that has come out of animated videos, and one of my favourites - an opening song to The Ghost In The Shell came to mind - Kenji Kawai - Ghost City (Chant II - Ghost In The Shell movie), which track is about 3½ min. long, with some some techno music accompaniment, and it sounds very nice, though the chant is - relative to the accompaniment - rather shrill and noisy.
 
For contrast, here is the song being performed live (at about the 3-minute mark) in Ghost In The Shell - Kenji Kawai Opening Theme | Tokyo premiere (2017) (and watch the crazy drummer up top).

Here it is in full - approx. 18 ½ min. - with full orchestra and choir:   
Kenji Kawai - Cinema Symphony - Ghost In The Shell OST (from around 2011).

1021

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me! - Take Five versions.

« Last post by IainB on June 09, 2017, 09:58 AM »

Many jazz fans will know of and recognise the almost hypnotic beauty in the original Dave Brubeck Quartet's Take Five, of which some critics said its main failing was "...that it stopped":

Dave Brubeck Quartet - Take Five
https://www.youtube..../watch?v=vmDDOFXSgAs

However, not so many fans will necessarily have come across the version of Take Five put together by the Pakistani ensemble, The Sachal Studios Orchestra: (if you haven't already heard it, then be prepared for a surprise)

Sachal Studios Orchestra - Take Five Official
https://www.youtube..../watch?v=GLF46JKkCNg

There are some relevant notes in Wayback on the Sachal Studios Orchestra website, here: Sachal Studios Orchestra - Take Five

I tend to use my 6½ y/o son as a barometer for music appreciation. He seems to have a knack of knowing when a tune is "catchy", and with near-perfect pitch he is often singing pop songs to himself - e.g., including BTS music tracks that he listens to with his older sister and things like Zowie's - Smash It, which I tend to play.
"Play it again, Dad." was his immediate response on hearing the Sachal Studios Orchestra's version of Take Five. In fact, we both listened to it as I replayed it several times, and he watched with interest as I fed the soundtrack into Audacity to look at its waveform and edit out the "beep" at the start of the track.

1022

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by IainB on June 06, 2017, 09:40 PM »

Trigger Warning!: - a public health initiative sponsored by LLF (Live Life Fully) and the RSHHJJCCU (Ren & Stimpy Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy Consortium for Career Underachievers).
(If you have the courage, you can skip the trigger warning by going down to the "**** Here's the content:" bit, below.)

This post and any mental images it may conjure up:

• May make you wish you had never seen this as you may be unable to forget having seen it.
• May cause feelings of fear or danger of imagined potential/real existential threats.
• May cause feelings of francphobia in those who dislike the French.
• May cause feelings of anglophobia in those who dislike the English.
• May cause feelings of fear or danger for those who never learned to enjoy or understand fiction, or satire, or humour.
• May seem to be suggesting that French people are mean or nasty, when in fact they are not - they are very nice people who speak their minds and are members of a happy and democratic republic.
• May seem to be suggesting that English people are stupid and/or irreligious, when in fact such things may often tend to be relative and there are many intelligent English people.
• May surprise you with the realisation that the subject really probably has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with France, and you may thus feel that your expectations have not been met and you have been misled.
• May give rise to feelings that the content is racist or lacks social diversity, or (worse) both, or (even worse) incites cruelty to animals, when in fact this is not the case.
• May cause you to involuntarily exhale large breaths of CO2 whilst laughing or shouting, and thus risk excessively polluting the atmosphere and having to pay carbon tax for doing do.
• May induce feelings of inadequacy in that you never learned to speak French.
• May induce unwelcome/unwanted morbid or sad thoughts.
• May induce unwelcome/unwanted happy or strangely erotic  thoughts.
• May seem to be unnecessarily silly.
• May seem to be insufficiently silly.
• May seem to contain "adult content".
• May not be safe to view at the workplace.
• May not be safe and may be disturbing to view at home or with family and/or children.
• May be emotionally disturbing and cause feelings of regret if viewed by elderly French relatives or grandparents who hanker after the days of Madame Guillotine.
• May cause said elderly grandparents to go and sit staring at old pictures of the Brugge guillotine.
• May not be safe to view in a private place.
• May not be safe to view for a while.
• May not be safe to view standing in a cathedral aisle.
• May not be safe to view on a smartphone whilst driving a motor vehicle.
• May not be safe to view on a smartphone whilst swimming or having a bath or in the rain, especially if a power charger is plugged-in to the smartphone.
• May make you think you have gone totally deaf or the volume is turned down or YouTube is broken, until you realise that there is no video or soundtrack accompanying the post.
• May make you feel fearful of idiot Englishmen with potential access to voting-booths and nuclear bombs (though arguably not an unreasonable fear).
• May make you feel emotionally upset or disturbed in ways that are hard to describe, though the words to do so may be on the tip of your tongue.
• May make you feel funny inside.
• May make you feel funny on the outside.
• May make you want to sigh.
• May make you want to cry.
• May make you want to go out and kill someone or rip their eyes out.
• May make you want to kill yourself or rip your own eyes out.
• May cause you to question the existence of God.
• May cause you to question the existence of The Great Spaghetti Monster.
• May cause you to question your own existence.
• May cause you to question the meaning of Life.
• May cause you to question whether the bears really will come and get you if you tread on the cracks in the pavement.
• May cause you to scratch your head in puzzlement.
• May cause sores on the head from too much puzzled scratching.
• May cause mental confusion or anguish because the content is written in French (except for a bit at the end) and you just don't get it.
• May cause uncomfortable feelings of ego-hurt or inferiority because you are unsure what "irony"  or "satire" are.
• May make you to want to look up the definition of the words "irony" or "satire" or "humour" or "lethalogica" in the dictionary.
• May cause concern in case the text contains residual particles of peanuts, or seeds containing gluten, or traces of dairy products, or monosodium glutamate or dihydrogen monoxide, or excessive salt, or genetically modified organisms.
• May make you wish there was a Down Vote or Burn button to press.
• May make you wish that the trigger warnings would please, please, just STOP.

Don't worry. All of the above concerns and feelings and any other feelings that you may be experiencing at this moment are perfectly valid and in no way indicative that you are screwed-up or anything less than perfect. They are your feelings and they are right and correct. So, don't let that nasty little voice in your head or that loud-mouthed opinionated, pointy-headed #sshole sat in the next cubicle or bus seat try to tell you any different. Just loudly speak the soothing magic invocation "Shut up, racist!" to them, to make them go away, and then embrace your feelings and thus embrace yourself. Give yourself a really good-feeling real or mental hug - in an entirely altruistic and non-sensuous way, of course (especially if you are in a public place, but it's OK if you are in private or your bedroom - you can knock yourself out then!).   

Thank you for helping to make this forum a Safe Space™, where our feelings are always validated.
_____________________________

**** Here's the content:

There's long been a sort of love-hate relationship between France and England.
The French tended to have a pretty dim view of the Brits. For example, it is recorded that in a sermon by 17th-century French bishop and theologian Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, he said/wrote:
"L'Angleterre, ah, la perfide Angleterre, que le rempart de ses mers rendoit inaccessible aux Romains, la foi du Sauveur y est abordée."
Rough translation: "England, ah, the treacherous England, which the rampart of her seas rendered inaccessible to the Romans, the faith of the Savior is discussed/is approaching/has approached/has landed."

This was later echoed in a rather dreary nationalistic poem by Augustin Louis de Ximénès, "L'Ère des Français" (1793) where he mentions:
"Attaquons dans ses eaux la perfide Albion."
Rough translation: "Let us attack perfidious Albion in her (own) waters."

But the invented discussion below - a bitingly scathing satire in French, of the English - whilst making a nod to that history, goes well beyond that. Brutally honest and factual. The pejorative title says it all. (Sent to me by a friend and ex-colleague who lives in a French-speaking part of Switzerland, from a discussion forum he follows. I wondered whether the author might have a pretty dim view of the Brits also. ...)
Made me larf.
Ah well. Vive la République!

Les arrivistes anglais.
____________________

Élite libérale anglaise: "Je ne comprends pas."
Fondamentaliste islamique: "Nous méprisons votre civilisation libérale permissive occidentale, votre attitude envers la liberté et tout ce qui concerne votre culture. Nous considérons que vous êtes sale et que votre influence sur le monde est méchante. Nous voulons vous détruire."

Élite libérale anglaise: "Je ne comprends toujours pas."
Fondamentaliste islamique: "Vous êtes des polythéistes et des athées qui refusent de se soumettre à l'islam. Vous êtes dégénéré. Nous allons détruire votre société."

Élite libérale anglaise: "Je ne comprends toujours pas, pourquoi faites-vous cela?."
Fondamentaliste islamique: "Vous autorise l'alcool, vous permettez le sexe en dehors du mariage, vous tolère l'homosexualité, vous accordez l'égalité des femmes aux hommes, vous autorisez la liberté de parole. Ceci est interdit dans le Coran et nous allons vous détruire pour cela."

Élite libérale anglaise: "C'est quelque chose à voir avec la politique étrangère de l'Ouest n'est-ce pas? C'est ça, n'est-ce pas?"
Fondamentaliste islamique: "Non, cela n'a rien à voir avec votre politique étrangère. Nous faisons cela partout et pour les mêmes raisons. Si cela concernait votre politique étrangère, nous attaquons vos institutions politiques, mais nous attaquons des endroits où votre comportement sale est à l'affiche: concerts pop, boîtes de nuit, bars où les gays se rassemblent, et ainsi de suite."

Élite libérale anglaise: "Allons, c'est notre politique étrangère, n'est-ce pas!?"
Fondamentaliste islamique: "Non, je vous l'ai répété à plusieurs reprises, pourquoi nous faisons cela. Chaque fois que nous vous attaquons, nous vous expliquons pourquoi. Le fait que nous avons même cette conversation démontre que nous avons déjà gagné. Vous êtes tellement confus et démoralisé que vous ne verrez pas les faits devant votre visage même lorsque nous vous disons pourquoi nous vous attaquons. Vous refusez de faire face à vos menaces existentielles. Nous méprisons votre société immorale et non islamique. Nous méprisons votre faiblesse et votre manque de valeurs partagées. La chose la plus simple à faire serait de nous enfermer tous et de nous expulser, mais vous êtes tellement démoralisé que vous ne le ferez pas."

Élite libérale anglaise: "Nous ne pourrions pas vous bloquer ou vous expulser, cela constituerait une violation de vos droits de l'homme!"
Fondamentaliste islamique: "Exactement. Vous êtes tellement lavé d'esprit que face à une menace existentielle, vous êtes plus préoccupé par les droits de l'homme de la menace existentielle que par la confrontation. Nous avons déjà gagné. La vérité est que vous n'avez vraiment rien à défendre. Vous êtes un tas de personnes sur le chemin. Vous n'avez aucun enfant. Vous n'avez aucune valeur partagée. Lorsque nous vous explosons, vous chantez des chansons pop inanes. Nous sommes simplement en train de coups de pied dans une structure pourrie."

Élite libérale anglaise: "Nous avons des valeurs! Nous croyons au choix, à la tolérance et à la diversité!"
Fondamentaliste islamique: "Nous savons que! Ce ne sont pas des croyances, ce sont des platitudes. Ce sont des mots que les gens qui ne croient en rien utilisent. Si vous croyiez réellement à quelque chose, vous ne les utiliserez pas. Nous savons que. Nous savons que vous ne croyez en rien. Nous croyons à quelque chose. Nous croyons en Allah, vous ne croyez en rien. Nous sommes unis dans nos croyances, vous êtes désunis par votre incrédulité. Cela nous rend forts et vous êtes faible."

Élite libérale anglaise: "Mais la diversité!"
Fondamentaliste islamique: "Nous savons! C'est hilarant! Nous pouvons, tout à fait littéralement, traverser vos villes et vos rues habillées en uniforme islamiste complet, agitant un drapeau ennemi et chantant la mort à l'Ouest et vous battre à peine une paupière. C'est ridicule."

Élite libérale anglaise: "Mais la tolérance!"
Fondamentaliste islamique: ""Nous savons! Chaque fois qu'un mouvement de base s'oppose à nous surgit, un nombre encore plus grand d'entre vous s'élève pour les opposer! Nous ne pouvons pas le croire!"

Élite libérale anglaise: "Mais l'égalité!"
Fondamentaliste islamique: ""Nous savons! Il y avait un moment où vous croyiez réellement quelque chose, et vous croyiez que c'était le meilleur. Maintenant, vous mettez le système de croyance métaphysique - le christianisme - sur lequel vos ancêtres ont construit votre société à égalité avec tout et rien. Zut, quelles religions peu établies vous avez quittées ont accepté les idéologies laïques qui vous ont détruit et confus. Et si quelqu'un affirme le christianisme orthodoxe qui pourrait vous donner une chance de combat, vous les ridiculisez et les écrase. C'est hilarant!"

Élite libérale anglaise: "Vous ne changerez pas notre mode de vie!"
Fondamentaliste islamique: ""Nous savons! C'est formidable! Si vous étiez sain et secrète de votre existence, vous seriez tous dans les rues nous acheminant, ou du moins vous créerez et voteriez pour les partis politiques pour faire cela. Mais vous ne le verrez pas. Vous allez enterrer vos têtes dans le sable comme vous l'avez toujours fait. Vous êtes maintenant essentiellement indifférent à la survie de votre société. Vos taux de natalité nous ont parlé depuis des années de toute façon. Nous vous méprisons encore plus pour votre inaction, votre La stérilité et votre timidité. Nous allons continuer à vous bombarder, et vous allez continuer à chanter les chansons de Robbie Williams. Jusqu'à ce que vous soyez tous morts ou vous convertiez en Islam."

Élite libérale anglaise: "Eh bien. C'est tout. J'en ai eu assez. ...(en chantant) 'All we are saaaying, is give peace a chaaance.' ".
__________________________________________________________

1023

Living Room / Re: Organizing videos for OCDers - The Most Organized Home in America

« Last post by IainB on June 06, 2017, 08:27 AM »

Though I do find watching her videos strangely compelling...   

1024

Living Room / Re: Organizing videos for OCDers - The Most Organized Home in America

« Last post by IainB on June 06, 2017, 08:26 AM »

^^ Not necessarily.
Sometimes intervention is brought about by OCID (Obsessive-Compulsive Intervention Disorder).

1025

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading? - Flashman.

« Last post by IainB on June 06, 2017, 08:11 AM »

I'm not sure what @panzer means by "dumped", but when he referred to "Flashman" (by George MacDonald Fraser) I would have to say that I found the Flashman books that I read in the series to be very witty and amusing - I recall that I read Flashman first, and later The Flashman Papers.
There is an interesting Guardian obituary for George MacDonald Fraser, who died aged 82 in 2008.
Wikipedia have a useful entry about the Flashman novel.

The Flashman books might not be so easy to understand or appreciate by those who do not have a reasonable knowledge of English literature or of the history of British-Indian colonisation.