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1276

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Antivirus Software a Waste of Money?

« Last post by IainB on February 01, 2017, 09:03 PM »

I have updated the Windows Defender (also Microsoft Security Essentials MSE) - Mini-Review with comments and a link to this discussion thread.

As stated in that review:

Conclusions:
Windows Defender aka MSE is an excellent AV tool. Performs as designed, and very well.
There are other AV tools, but to a large extent they would seem to have been eclipsed or made redundant by Defender/MSE, as the latter would now seem to be the de facto anti-virus application and virtually a no-brainer for the majority of PC users.

-IainB (December 04, 2012, 08:02 PM)

Given the latest turn in events and as per this discussion thread:

In the ongoing discussions, there was a general argument that most AV products could be akin to a scam and in some cases as bad as a virus, with the sole exception of Microsoft's MSE/Defender.

I found this interesting because I had independently - and based on experience - already arrived at this potential conclusion some years back. In particular, for example, the experience of Norton/Symantec AV, as an OEM install, being notoriously cuckoo-like and hostile to other AV software to the extent that it blocks out Defender and puts hooks all over the ruddy registry - so much so that it even needs to have it's own special tool made by Symantec, to completely expunge it from the OS. Hence, "Like a virus."

-IainB (February 01, 2017, 08:24 PM)

From my perspective, after the experience of using Defender/MSE over the years, supporting several PCs with it installed, and installing Defender/MSE on other people's PCs to replace their existing cruddy/$annoyware AV products, the best things about Defender/MSE seem to be:

• It just works pretty much seamlessly with everything.
• You can install it and forget about it.
• It just gets on with doing its job.
• Very low maintenance.
• One less potentially unproductive technical support issue to have to spend time on or worry about.

1277

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Windows Defender (also Microsoft Security Essentials MSE) - Mini-Review

« Last post by IainB on February 01, 2017, 08:24 PM »

UPDATE 2017-02-02: Given that there has been some recent discussion on some blogs/forums by "technical IT people with no axe to grind and who could be expected to know what they were talking about" regarding the merits (or otherwise) of some AV (Anti-Virus) products, I thought I should update this thread (and the opening post of this Mini-Review) accordingly.
So I shall add: Is Antivirus Software a Waste of Money?

In the ongoing discussions, there was a general argument that most AV products could be akin to a scam and in some cases as bad as a virus, with the sole exception of Microsoft's MSE/Defender.

I found this interesting because I had independently - and based on experience - already arrived at this potential conclusion some years back. In particular, for example, the experience of Norton/Symantec AV, as an OEM install, being notoriously cuckoo-like and hostile to other AV software to the extent that it blocks out Defender and puts hooks all over the ruddy registry - so much so that it even needs to have it's own special tool made by Symantec, to completely expunge it from the OS. Hence, "Like a virus."



As it says in the OP review notes:

Conclusions:
Windows Defender aka MSE is an excellent AV tool. Performs as designed, and very well.
There are other AV tools, but to a large extent they would seem to have been eclipsed or made redundant by Defender/MSE, as the latter would now seem to be the de facto anti-virus application and virtually a no-brainer for the majority of PC users

-IainB (December 04, 2012, 08:02 PM)

1278

Living Room / Re: Movies you've seen lately

« Last post by IainB on February 01, 2017, 05:25 AM »

Watched The Return of the Pink Panther.
An oldie but a goody, if one is a fan of Peter Sellers' comedic antics. A lot of sight gags too.
The Pink Panther was good, and I reckon The Return was just as good.

1279

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer - New 2.14 Beta (win32 AND x64 version) - Feedback wanted

« Last post by IainB on January 31, 2017, 02:54 AM »

@mouser: Thanks!  Shall try it out.

1280

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by IainB on January 31, 2017, 01:58 AM »

@tomos: Glad you caught on to the Welsh bit. To save offence, I would usually translate it for my English mates as meaning "Bless all Englishmen". I used to speak/write Welsh fluently, but am a bit rusty now, though it all starts coming back whenever I read some document like (say) a police charge-sheet written in Welsh. I studied Welsh in Llanrwst International School and later studied the ancient art of Llap Goch self-defence (according to the Python school) in Llangefni, with the rest of the inmates at the prison there. It helped to pass the time and kept one fit and provided besides a good career training/preparation for increased thuggery effectiveness on release/parole, if one was a hardened recidivist. Highly recommended.

1281

Living Room / Re: silly humor - normal statistical distribution v. paranormal.

« Last post by IainB on January 30, 2017, 05:52 AM »

Not sure whether I or anyone else has previously posted this.

1282

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Antivirus Software a Waste of Money?

« Last post by IainB on January 30, 2017, 05:45 AM »

So we're not expert enough? What does it take to be a mouser-qualified expert on security topics?

-Tuxman (January 29, 2017, 01:33 PM)

Presumably someone who seems to know what s/he is talking about on the subject under discussion.
Oops. Oh, wait...

1283

Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - EU ignores potential ACTA implications,

« Last post by IainB on January 30, 2017, 03:26 AM »

In the post: New ISDS consultation seems surreal it says:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

The European Commission has launched a consultation on an investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) variant: a multilateral investment court. 1 In an email the commission confirms the consultation has a narrow scope. The commission does not want feedback on the system as a whole. This way the system’s social and environmental impacts will go unmentioned in the consultation results.

This is irresponsible, as the system as a whole will strengthen investments vis-à-vis democracy and fundamental rights. This undermines our values and ability to respond to crises, including climate change.

Mankind faces its biggest challenge ever: climate change. For the commission it’s business as usual. Give multinationals their own court and keep the social and environmental impacts out of sight.

That’s surreal, not?

I asked the commission two questions about the consultation; below the commission’s answer, with inline comments. ...
___________________________________

Regardless as to whether one is skeptical of climate alarmism in general, for those who are concerned about it, the above question is valid and (presumably) deserves an articulate response.
But no. Look at the response from the European Commission.
Some people (not me, you understand) might say that the EUC response is basically two fingers (English style) - the equivalent of "F#ck off, rude letter follows", or similar - but I couldn't possibly comment.

1284

General Software Discussion / Re: Copying from pdf's from the web (download them first!)

« Last post by IainB on January 30, 2017, 02:57 AM »

@Curt: Well done for understanding the lingo.   
I never could understand French.

1285

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by IainB on January 30, 2017, 02:47 AM »

...PS yeah, I guess it is literally politically correct to call an autonomous country by it's own name, as opposed to by the name of its neighbour.

-tomos (January 29, 2017, 11:01 AM)

Thanks for the interesting historical interpretation, and sorry Tomos, I didn't mean to step on your ancestral toes, but the point that I was trying to politely make (as an Anglo-Saxon Islamic-Christian Yorkshire-Welsh Jewish Republican Democrat Llap Goch human being) was that the term "ancient Britain" would have collectively included Ireland by default - which is why the historians at the BBC presumably (i.e., based on historical record) would have referred to it as that, rather than as you might seem to have preferred it to be described. That is, Ireland would not have been at that time "...an autonomous country [known] by it's own name" in the current geopolitical sense.
Indeed, I am also very sorry if I have somehow angered the Old Ones and disturbed the very orbit of the Sun around the flat earth, and the balance of the tortoises on which the latter rests.

Now the BBC might have got it entirely wrong, of course - and goodness knows, it probably wouldn't be the first time - so, if you think they did, then I would strongly suggest that you bring it up with Ofcom, though one suspects that they won't take kindly to it if they thought they were being asked to rewrite history (mind you, one never knows until one tries).

Otherwise, you might like to get up a petition to insist that the venerable (but not infallible) Beeb make a public apology and correction, so that the term "Ancient Britain" must now be brought into line with current (modern political) boundaries and to include (by name) Éire, Northern Ireland, Cymru(Wales), Scotland, the Outer Hebrides, the Channel Islands (including Guernsey, Big Sark, Little Sark and Brecqhou), the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Anglesey, etc. and not forgetting that other piece of land whose inhabitants the Welsh affectionately refer to as "Twll dîn pob Sais".

Many people could probably be a signatories for that, if they considered that the Beeb were a bunch of arrogant Anglophiles who are up themselves and who would have been deservedly taken down a peg or two if only Hitler had had his way. That'd teach the Beeb to make those arguably divisive "Dad's Army" and "Allo, Allo!" comedy series which absolutely nobody in their right minds would have larfed at.
Some people (not me, you understand) might say that the Beeb were "Offensive bigoted racists", but I couldn't possibly comment, though it might mean that you could be in with a chance at either or both Ofcom or a petition.

1286

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff" - WARNING, using a 3D printer can endanger one's life.

« Last post by IainB on January 29, 2017, 05:47 AM »

What I really wanted to post here though, before I read @tomos' previous comment, was a note of caution: Please do study science, if only for one's own sake:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Source: Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Killed Berkeley Couple
BERKELEY (CBS SF) – A couple found dead in their Berkeley home under mysterious circumstances earlier this week was killed by carbon monoxide poisoning, a law enforcement source told KPIX 5 Friday.

35-year-old Roger Morash and 32-year-old Valerie Morash were found dead Monday afternoon in a fourplex on Deakin Street in Berkeley where they had lived for several years.

The source said that the couple was using a laser 3-D printer that was venting into their residence. Symptoms and signs consistent with carbon monoxide poisoning were found in their bodies.

Police evacuated the apartment building and called in PG&E and the fire department’s hazardous materials team to look for a gas leak or some other hazard but no contaminant was found.

Their two cats were also found dead. The couple was identified by authorities Tuesday.

Roger was a game developer working on an adventure game called Shard. Valerie was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco.

They both attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A memorial service is planned for 6 p.m. night at the Ed Roberts Campus on Adeline Street in Berkeley.

© Copyright 2017 by CBS San Francisco and Bay City News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

This sort of death really does annoy me. So unnecessary. So stupid. Ignorance. Another Darwin Award, one suspects, for removing their genes from the gene pool in such an unfortunate manner. He might have been quite a good computer games developer too. She was apparently a "postdoctoral research fellow at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco". Apparently no basic science knowledge. I bet they were both dearly beloved by their parents. The potential of humanity is reduced by such deaths.

History repeats. Previously, this sort of stupid CO death was quite common in caravans and houses where the occupants were using gas heaters that were parasitic of the atmosphere in the enclosed space and gave off CO. Just like 3D printers, it seems. All such deaths are avoidable.

1287

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by IainB on January 29, 2017, 05:17 AM »

...(this one at least should have been called History of Ancient Britain *and* Ireland)
Tom

-tomos (January 25, 2017, 08:37 AM)

Heh, very droll. Was there such a political or regional differentiation in ancient times? One suspects that it were all Anglo-Saxon or Celtic like, mate, or som'at. They probably hadn't learned of political correctness then.
Long live Queen Boudica (Boadicea) of the Iceni.
'Scuse me whilst I paint my face with woad, as is my cusrtom.

1288

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

« Last post by IainB on January 27, 2017, 12:27 AM »

                   

1289

General Software Discussion / Re: problems with windows clipboard

« Last post by IainB on January 26, 2017, 03:57 PM »

Why not try my Clipboard Help and Spell?

-mouser (January 25, 2017, 10:49 AM)

Very good/useful suggestion!   

1290

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CLIPBOARD HELP+SPELL LATEST VERSION - text editing hotkey standardisation.

« Last post by IainB on January 24, 2017, 11:05 PM »

I had forgotten to note this as I had become so accustomed to working around it:
When editing text in the body of a clip, the "standard" Windows text editing hotkeys seem to work OK, including, for example:

• Ctrl+Backspace: deletes the word and space preceding (to the left of) the cursor.
• Ctrl+Delete: deletes the word and space following (to the right of) the cursor..

However, these hotkeys do NOT seem to work this way when editing text in most/any of the other fields in CHS which can hold editable text - but they probably should.

1291

Find And Run Robot / Re: Protocol links?

« Last post by IainB on January 22, 2017, 07:40 PM »

@aloishammer: Thanks for the above pointers. I had already tried some FO3 Nexus mods. However, nothing has so far enabled FO3 to play properly. The Nexus mods got FO3 to start up, the file selected loads, then crashes during load. That's on 2 of the laptops. The 3rd laptop plays FO3 without any mods ... I have no idea why, and cannot spot the differences that might be behind it. Spent hours on troubleshooting FO3. 

1292

Living Room / Re: Reader's Corner - online encyclopaedias Wikipedia + Infogalactic added.

« Last post by IainB on January 21, 2017, 11:17 PM »

2017-01-22:
Just added these to the table of links in the OP:

Online encyclopaedias:

Wikipedia Infogalactic (a fork of Wikipedia)

I gave up on Wikipedia because of its bias/fakery, years ago, and started using Google Knol, until that was disappointingly closed by Google. However, though Infogalactic is a fork of Wikipedia, it seems intended to take a more liberal, hi-tech, hands-off  and non-censorial approach than Wikipedia - and for all the right reasons (objectivity, apolitical, freedom of speech, etc.). This novel approach just might work. We shall see. They had a press release on Oct. 2016:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

PR 20161010
From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 10, 2016

INFOGALACTIC: an online encyclopedia without bias or thought police

Zürich, Switzerland. All around the world, thousands of users are accessing and editing the new online encyclopedia for the 21st Century, Infogalactic, which styles itself the Planetary Knowledge Core™. Conceived as a next-generation replacement for Wikipedia, the troubled online encyclopedia, Infogalactic is a dynamic fork of Wikipedia that is designed to supplant its predecessor by addressing the problems of bias, vandalism, harassment, abuse, and inaccuracy that have plagued the Wikimedia Foundation’s flagship project for years.

“Every notable public figure who has a page devoted to them knows very well what an inaccurate nightmare Wikipedia is,” said Vox Day, Lead Designer of Infogalactic, a computer game designer and bestselling philosopher. “The page about me there has had everything from my place of birth to the number of times I’ve been married wrong. And that’s not even counting the outright abuse, such as when Wikipedians replaced the entire page with a definition of a sexually-transmitted disease or with a string of obscenities.”
Infogalactic plans to solve the structural problems of a community-edited online encyclopedia through objectivity, proven game design principles, and a sophisticated series of algorithms. Currently in an operational Phase One, the Planetary Knowledge Core has a five-phase Roadmap that its founders claim will eliminate edit warring, significantly improve accuracy, neutralize vandalism and other forms of griefing, and render all forms of political bias on the part of administrators and editors irrelevant.

“The primary challenge facing any online wiki is the individual editor’s incentive to impose his perspective on everyone else,” said Renegade, the Operations Director of Infogalactic, who, as per the organization’s pro-anonymity policy is known only by his handle. “Most people who contribute to an online knowledge base do so because they want to have their say, but in the end there can be only one perspective that is enforced by the site’s administrators. Infogalactic has solved that problem by embracing true objectivity and eliminating the enforcement incentive by moving from a centralized, vertically-stacked orientation to a decentralized, horizontally-distributed model.”

Infogalactic’s anti-bias architecture will permit users to select their preferred perspective and automatically see the version of the subject page that is closest to it based on a series of algorithms utilizing three variables, Relativity, Reliability, and Notability. This means a supporter of Hillary Clinton will see a different version of the current Donald Trump page than a Donald Trump supporter will, as both users will see the version of the page that was most recently edited by editors with perspective ratings similar to his own.

“The single biggest problem with Wikipedia isn’t Jimmy Wales or its outmoded 1995 technology, but the fact that it is patrolled by 532 left-wing thought police who aggressively force their biased perspective on the rest of the world,” Vox Day, aka “Fenris” on Infogalactic, added. “This isn’t Conservapedia 2.0 and we aren’t replacing Wikipedia’s admins with their conservative equivalent, we are making the function of thought police irrelevant through technology. Our design philosophy is based on the idea that only the user has the right to define what his reality is.”

The Planetary Knowledge Core is also distinguishing itself from its predecessors by its corporate-friendly policies. Corporations, large and small, are welcome to participate on the site, advertising by page and by category is permitted, and a number of strategic partners have been established, including Gab, the popular new Twitter alternative that already has over one hundred thousand active users.

Andrew Torba, the CEO and co-founder of Gab, said: “At Gab our mission is to put people first and promote free speech for all. Part of this mission includes working with others who share our core values, specifically around promoting and protecting free speech online. This is why we are incredibly excited to work with Infogalactic. We look forward to building a strong partnership that puts people first and promotes free expression for all.”

Even prior to its public announcement, tens of thousands of people have made the switch to Infogalactic. “The support from the community has been tremendous,” said Rifleman, the Technical Director of Infogalactic. “We haven’t even launched and we’ve already signed up subscriptions to cover more than one-third of our current server-and-storage burn rate. It’s clear there is a tremendous appetite for an alternative to Wikipedia’s institutional left-wing bias.”

Infogalactic has replaced the well-known Five Pillars of Wikipedia with its own Seven Canons™, which refer to the fundamental philosophy by which the Planetary Knowledge Core intends to operate. They are explained in detail on the Seven Canons page:
   1. Infogalactic does not define reality.
   2. Infogalactic is written from an objective point of view.
   3. Infogalactic is free content.
   4. No griefing.
   5. Play nice and play fair.
   6. Rules are guidelines for users, not chew toys for lawyers.
   7. Facts are facts.

While the 5-million-page Phase One Infogalactic is virtually identical to the English-language Wikipedia, in the Planetary Knowledge Core’s next phase, Infogalactic developers will introduce a number of new features to distinguish it from other online encyclopedias. These innovative features include Context and Opinion sub-pages, dynamic page updates, Autobio sub-pages for Verified editors, and an alpha version of perspective filtering.

Main Page
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This page was last modified on 10 October 2016, at 16:02.
Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License unless otherwise noted.
This article's content derived from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (See original source).
___________________________________

1293

Find And Run Robot / Re: Protocol links?

« Last post by IainB on January 21, 2017, 09:31 PM »

I reckon this could be quite a useful discussion for Steam games players, though having just re-read it, I must confess to being somewhat mystified as to the objectives per the OP and subsequent posts and whether the outcomes have so far been able to help resolve the questions posed.

Regardless, I have learned some things from this discussion. I was interested that @aloishammer raised the issues in the OP, since I had had similar questions in my mind for a while now (related to automating Steam game startups), so I am grateful for that and also:

• (a) to @wraith808 for the info on using the Steam URL Converter to get the current links into FARR.     
• (b) to @Nod5 for the explanation of the Steam "url" format used in the shortcuts and the nifty bit of AHK script to generate up to date shortcuts.   

The challenge for me is that I need to support and keep 3 different laptops (3 different manufacturer brands) in such a state as they have a consistent, common look-and-feel, so that users can use them interchangeably without noticing any/much difference. I am always in favour of automating things, but this can sometimes become more  complex where there are shared Steam game libraries.

I also have had problems with trying to work around the death-grip of GFWL, and had found some great Fallout 3 script hacks that did just that, but sadlement Fallout 3 now only seems to work on one of the laptops, and for the life of me I can't figure out why only that one.

However, there is hope - as @aloishammer says:

Fortunately, a lot of angry people have worked very hard at removing GFWL runtime requirements from older, unsupported titles. PCGamingWiki has a lot of details on this.

1294

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CLIPBOARD HELP+SPELL v2.39.0 - "invisible" Title pasting error.

« Last post by IainB on January 20, 2017, 10:36 PM »

I have accidentally discovered how to consistently reproduce this obscure "error" - except it is NOT an error at all, as CHS seems to be doing exactly what it was probably designed to do.

What I have "discovered" is that the Title field in the Memo pane seems to be able to accept multiple lines of pasted text, including line feeds - I'm not sure what the max text limit might be.
So, if you copy a string which has an invisible linefeed character embedded at the end and then paste it into the Title field in the Memo pane, the result will be as follows:

• (a) The text and the line feed are pasted in correctly to the Memo pane and the cursor in the Title field rests at the last character displayed - which is the line feed - thus the preceding text will have been scrolled up (out of sight) and the invisible line feed character is all that the user "sees" in the Title field window of the Memo pane.
  
  
• (b) In the Grid pane, the first line of the the Title text string is displayed.

Thus, when the Memo pane is refreshed, the Title field then reverts to displaying just the first line of text, as was already being displayed in the Grid pane. So, the apparent delay in displaying the first line of text is not a delay at all.

Far from it being an "error", I would suggest that this is an undocumented feature of CHS which could be turned into a rather useful feature for users of CHS, by the simple expedient of making the Title field window in the Memo pane able to be draggable-down by the user, so as to expand its depth to display "n" more lines of title text, as may be required by the user.

1295

Living Room / Re: how to learn finance

« Last post by IainB on January 19, 2017, 11:42 PM »

@kalos: I happened to read this today and thought of your query: 10 Financial Websites That Help You Stay On Top Of The Market

Most of the 10 seemed like they might be commercial or "punting" websites.
This one seemed like it might be educational and worth investigating further: MyMoney.gov

1296

Living Room / Re: good Videos [short films] here :)

« Last post by IainB on January 19, 2017, 11:33 PM »

Well, it's SF-surrealism, I guess. I rather liked it! Nice find.   

1297

Living Room / Re: how to learn finance

« Last post by IainB on January 17, 2017, 01:30 AM »

From what's been mentioned so far, it might be worth stressing the importance of budgeting in this discussion thread. Budgeting is the very useful good/best practice method that accountants developed donkeys ages ago for getting to grips with business financial control. Businesses that have periodic budgetary reviews generally do well (minimised financial risk), whereas those that do not will necessarily lead a hand-to-mouth existence and generally tend to fail in the medium term. Marconi was an example of a company with a long history of being a very well-run and highly profitable business. It was tightly controlled through regular management budgetary reviews against an annual budgetary plan. It was all very conventional stuff, from an accountant's perspective. The CEO was a very sage financial accountant.

When the CEO retired, his replacement focused more on marketing and his "vision" for the company and grandiose goals, and he let the budgetary controls slip, and, apparently as a direct result. the company failed (collapsed) in about 2½ years.

What a lot of people don't realise (because they may not have have had the advantage of an accountancy training) is that what is good/best practice for business financial control is also good/best practice for personal financial control:

"My other piece of advice, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.”
 - from the book "David Copperfield", by Charles Dickens (1850).
_____________________________

There is a DC forum thread Microsoft Money Plus Sunset - Mini-Review

Microsoft Money Plus was and still is arguably the best accounting package on the market, bar none, for small-to-medium business use and for personal use. It includes very good, self-contained budgeting tools and plenty of Help/assistance in the use of these tools - and it is $FREE. It does not assume that the user will necessarily be an accountant.

1298

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CLIPBOARD HELP+SPELL LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - v2.39.0 - Dec 22, 2016

« Last post by IainB on January 17, 2017, 12:04 AM »

@mouser: To answer your Q, from my perspective:
The described episodic and non-fatal CHS problem of tardy display of the Title text copied/pasted into the Memo pane is still occurring - e.g., I noticed it sometimes occurring yesterday, whilst I was doing  a fair amount of clipping and editing in CHS.

As I think I have already pointed out, the problem is nothing new, having been observed by me for a long time and on different laptops and versions of Windows. Because it is episodic, it would probably only be observed by people who were - like me - periodically engaged in doing a lot of editing of clip Titles, with the Title text being copied/pasted into the Memo pane, from the same or another existing clip. Even then, unless the user was - like me - an analytical user accusomed to testing software, the problem might well pass unnoticed.

Similarly with the tooth-grindingly chronic, laggy scrolling refresh timing problem, it seems. Fortunately, that seems to have been almost fully fixed now (thankyou very much!), with CHS most of the time now being/feeling blazingly fast by comparison with its earlier performance levels. Such a great improvement. I am now getting the sub-second response times I would expect and like to get from CHS on my computer system. As one inevitably becomes accustomed to this new, faster level of ergonomic performance, it of course reduces one's tolerance/expectations for delays even further, so that I can now very occasionally perceive those very brief, almost imperceptible, and intermittent lags that might still manifest for some so far inexplicable reason. These are minor imperfections. It's all about "better. faster, bigger or smaller", I suppose.

Two things that I have thought might be desirable improvements:

• (a) In addition to the existing fixed or variable text strings that can be inserted into the clip Title field, for my purposes at least it could be useful for the Title field to be able to be filled by the first "n" characters in the string of the first line of text in a clip (set as a default user parameter). This could be a time-saver.
• (b) The Notes field to always automatically include the source URL for clips captured from any web browser. This currently only seems to work in CHS if the browser is Firefox, or something, despite the Clipboard apparently always containing that metadata anyway. This too could be a time-saver.

1299

Living Room / Re: Peer Review and the Scientific Process - bias, blindness and fraud

« Last post by IainB on January 15, 2017, 10:34 AM »

Fascinating paper here with more on the “replication crisis”. Helps to explain a lot as to how we can erroneously take something as "fact" when it is not proven.

Research: Publication bias and the canonization of false facts
Silas Boye Nissen Tali Magidson Kevin Gross  Carl T Bergstrom
University of Copenhagen, Denmark; University of Washington, United States; North Carolina State University, United States
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.21451
Published December 20, 2016
Cite as eLife 2016;5:e21451

Abstract
Science is facing a “replication crisis” in which many experimental findings cannot be replicated and are likely to be false. Does this imply that many scientific facts are false as well? To find out, we explore the process by which a claim becomes fact. We model the community’s confidence in a claim as a Markov process with successive published results shifting the degree of belief. Publication bias in favor of positive findings influences the distribution of published results. We find that unless a sufficient fraction of negative results are published, false claims frequently can become canonized as fact. Data-dredging, p-hacking, and similar behaviors exacerbate the problem. Should negative results become easier to publish as a claim approaches acceptance as a fact, however, true and false claims would be more readily distinguished. To the degree that the model reflects the real world, there may be serious concerns about the validity of purported facts in some disciplines.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10...7554/eLife.21451.001
(...read more at the link)

I think this could also be relevant to the condition Scott Adams refers to with a new term -  "cognitive blindness":

"It probably does have a name. It’s a mix of cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias at the least, but a special case in my opinion."
...
"It isn’t that you disagree with the strong form of the argument on the other side so much as you don’t know it exists no matter how many times it is put right in front of you."

Such blindness may extend to self-serving fraud. In this example report, scientists/management investigated at the US DOE had apparently planned a scheme that deliberately withheld relevant information from Congress, so that members of Congress could not see the strong form of an argument that risked disproving the DOE's management's preferred "truth" and politicised line of research funding: Dept of Energy gov’t scientist fired for answering Congressional questions contrary to DOE management views.

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Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« Last post by IainB on January 14, 2017, 09:36 PM »

@Arizona Hot: Nice pics! The sight of all those mountains gives me itchy feet. Need to go walk over them. (Not into rock-climbing though.)