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3726

General Software Discussion / Soluto is now a company offering a sort of PC support technology franchise.

« Last post by IainB on July 28, 2013, 11:55 PM »

At the point when I migrated all my PC stuff from an old (failed) Toshiba laptop (Win-XP) to a new HP laptop (Win7-64), I did not install Soluto on the new laptop. I had all but forgotten about it. I think Soluto has become defunct by now.
I was just clearing out/updating the feeds in my feed-reader (BasQux Reader) that I am trialling, and came across the now-broken link (404) to the Soluto/Satisfaction feed. After DuckDuckGoing "Soluto", I came across this news item at TechCrunch:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Soluto Brings Web-Based PC Management To Small Business, Ranks The Best Windows Laptops For SMBs (It’s A Mac)
Rip Empson
Wednesday, April 24th, 2013
Comments
soluto-iphone

Over the last few years, Israeli IT startup Soluto has morphed from simply being PC software that helps users run diagnostics on their hard drives, to a web-based platform that aims to turn you into a one-person Help Desk. In other words, Soluto now allows anyone to offer remote tech support and run diagnostics, whether that be for your mom’s computer or dozens of customers.

From the beginning, Soluto has been focused mainly on individual users, but today the startup is launching a new version of its remote PC manager that brings a handful of new features and beefed-up support to small businesses. In turn, Soluto is also releasing its first trend report, which compares and ranks the market’s best-selling laptops based on reliability and usability, giving small businesses some basic guidelines to consider when purchasing a new PC.

Lately, as tablets continue to eat into worldwide PC shipments and sales, the forecast for both the PC and for Windows has been increasingly grim. A recent report from IDC last month showed that global PC shipments in Q1 were even worse than it had expected, declining by 7.7 percent. The one bright spot for PCs, however, appears to be small businesses, which are expected to buy over 150 million PCs every year until 2017, Soluto founder and CEO Tomer Dvir tells us.

At the same time, 53 percent of small businesses are frustrated by their computing technology, he says. Soluto wants to be a part of the solution by helping SMBs improve their productivity, operations and the overall PC user experience. The startup’s new “Business” plan gives companies a full PC management and support service starting at $9/month, which the founder says makes it considerably more affordable than comparable services.

soluto With the launch of Soluto For Business, the company will still offer a free plan for up to three PCs (or three sessions/week), along with its Pro plan for up to 10 PCs at $9/month, Business Pro for up to 50 PCs at $60 and a Business Plus plan for enterprise users that want support for more than 50 PCs. The company’s new business product allows IT managers to collect all the PCs they monitor in one place, receive email alerts when things go haywire, along with the ability to fix problems or remotely access a PC with one click from any of their devices.

In turn, the new and improved version of Soluto now includes cloud-based, offline support, allowing users to access PCs and fix problems even when the PC they’re fixing is offline, receive automatic activity reports and tap into better communication tools — all of which apply to each of Soluto’s plans.

With three million downloads to date, Soluto is now analyzing 100 million data points each day, including the frequency and types of crashes, app hangs, blue screens of death, boot times and background noise. When viewed in aggregate and put in context, this data can yield some valuable insights on trends in PC performance and help inform purchasing decisions.

So, today, in conjunction with its new plans and features, Soluto released its first industry report, which compares and ranks the best laptops on the market. From here on out, it plans to release new reports each month, which will be available to Business Pro customers. The report is based on a sample of 150K PCs that were analyzed over three months, including data points taken from over one million boots, 224,000 crashes, 84,000 BSoDs and so on.

Screen shot 2013-04-24 at 6.04.24 PMIn its description of the report, Soluto says that its “big-data frustration analytics” are unique because they’re based on “long-term, ongoing analysis of a huge number of PCs” and take into account events like the ones mentioned above (i.e. crashes, etc.).

In turn, it defends its findings by saying that most other “best of” PC lists are based on hands-on reviews made over the course of a few days, or benchmarking software that pushes the machine to the limits. Instead, Soluto’s report is based on real data taken from the experience of actual, live human beings “in the field” under real conditions. Price was not taken into account.

Without further ado, Soluto’s report found that the most reliable and best performing Windows PC laptop is … The 13-inch MacBook Pro. Ha. Yep. MacBook Pros that run Windows in parallel to its native OS X are the most stable, albeit the most expensive. Soluto’s explanation:

    A main factor in this machine’s metrics is the fact that every Windows installation on it is clean. Today, with PC manufacturers loading so much crapware on new laptops, this is a bit of an unfair competition. But on the other hand, PC makers should look at this data and aspire to ship PCs that perform just as well as a cleanly installed MacBook Pro.

To its credit, Soluto also lists a few of the disadvantages of running Windows on a Mac, including longer set-up and configuration time and potential driver issues.

In second place, ranking as the top native PC, was the Acer Aspire E1-571. This was surprising even to Soluto’s analysts:

    Our data has long shown that Acer machines are very stable and well-performing, but to find the E1-571 so high on the list was surprising even for us. The reason is that Acer’s E series are considered more entry level vs other series, like the V series (which you can find in the 5th place).

Dell’s XPS 13 captured third place, with Dell, Acer and Lenovo making up the rest of the rankings. You can find the full list here.

Now I guess we know what the Soluto genome software was probably for - to gather information about the vast market for PC support.

3727

Living Room / Re: Movie Banned By Censors Becomes a Piracy Hit With Kiwis

« Last post by IainB on July 28, 2013, 09:34 PM »

Something about this had been reminding me of past silliness in censorship - in France - that I couldn't quite recall. It had been scratching around in the back of my brain. Here it is from the AP News Archive (Beta): (note my emphasis)

Mitterrand Book Banned in Bookstores, But Not in Cyberspace
PIERRE-YVES GLASS , Associated Press
Jan. 24, 1996 10:57 AM ET

PARIS (AP) _ A banned book that reveals Francois Mitterrand lied about his health during his entire presidency can't be found in any French bookstore. But you can read all about it on the Internet.

Pascal Barbraud, manager of Le Web, a cafe for computer enthusiasts in the eastern town of Besancon, transcribed all 190 pages of ``Le Grand Secret'' into his Internet site late Tuesday.

"We are thumbing our nose at the censors and other sorcerers,'' he said. "Between banning a book and burning it, there's only one step.''

``Le Grand Secret'' was written by Dr. Claude Gubler, Mitterrand's physician during most of his 14 years as president.

Gubler says Mitterrand had prostate cancer since 1981, the year he took office. But despite promises to keep the French public informed about his health, Mitterrand did not disclose he had cancer until 1992. He left office in May at the end of his second term and died Jan. 8 at 79.

Gubler's book came out last Wednesday and sold all 40,000 copies the same day. On Thursday, a Paris court put a stop to further sales, agreeing with Mitterrand's family that his right to medical privacy had been breached.

The case raises the question of whether a nation's legal decisions apply to Internet, the worldwide network of interconnecting computers used by millions of people. Though Internet is still in its infant stage in France, it already has about 200,000 users.

Plon, the publisher of the book, was considering what action to take against Barbraud for reproducing the text without permission.

"You don't play around with a court decision,'' said Plon publishing director Olivier Orban.

Barbraud was unfazed. He said he hoped the case would create a judicial precedent in favor of unrestricted use of the Internet.

"We are on a network that doesn't concern national legislation,'' he said.

And he says he has been flooded by electronic messages of support from Europe, Canada and French overseas islands.

Christian Hassenfrantz, state prosecutor in Besancon, said he received no complaint against Barbraud as of today.

I stumbled upon this quite coincidentally in this item on Reason.com, about free speech on the Internet:
As France Legalizes Insulting the President, Remember the Censorship Laws That Spurred Online Free Speech Culture

As the French say, "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose".

3728

Living Room / Re: How to capture/download a televised US Senate hearing?

« Last post by IainB on July 28, 2013, 01:07 PM »

Thanks for the suggestions @Shades.

3729

Living Room / Re: How to capture/download a televised US Senate hearing?

« Last post by IainB on July 28, 2013, 01:06 PM »

Is it not recorded on C-Span?

-Renegade (July 28, 2013, 11:35 AM)

I don't know. I don't think it is on C-SPAN (I couldn't find it there, anyway).
It is recorded - here.

3730

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

« Last post by IainB on July 28, 2013, 11:42 AM »

3731

Living Room / Re: Worth Reading: Trevor Pott's editorial on NSA PRISM and its real ramifications

« Last post by IainB on July 28, 2013, 10:52 AM »

A Google engineer with integrity?

Google Engineer Wins NSA Award, Then Says NSA Should Be Abolished
Posted by timothy on Sunday July 28, 2013 @08:29AM
from the well-if-you'd-like-my-opinion-gentleman dept.

First time accepted submitter MetalliQaZ writes "Last week, Dr. Joseph Bonneau learned that he had won the NSA's first annual "Science of Security (SoS) Competition." The competition, which aims to honor the best 'scientific papers about national security' as a way to strengthen NSA collaboration with researchers in academia, honored Bonneau for his paper on the nature of passwords. And how did Bonneau respond to being honored by the NSA? By expressing, in an honest and bittersweet blog post, his revulsion at what the NSA has become: 'Simply put, I don't think a free society is compatible with an organisation like the NSA in its current form.'"

3732

Living Room / How to capture/download a televised US Senate hearing?

« Last post by IainB on July 28, 2013, 10:43 AM »

I want to capture a televised US Senate hearing as I watch it - or alternatively download it - at the website http://www.tvw.org/index.php
These are like a webcast/podcast.
I know that I can download an .MP3 (audio) file of the hearing, but I want the video also as an experiment.

Does anyone know how I might be able to do this?

3733

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

« Last post by IainB on July 28, 2013, 07:12 AM »

Stickonspy - Turn your laptop into a real NSA spying machine: http://stickonspy.com/

3734

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

« Last post by IainB on July 28, 2013, 07:10 AM »

This is bloody funny!
 (see attachment in previous post)

-Renegade (July 27, 2013, 09:01 PM)

Har de har-har. An unkind and cutting remark.
It is barbaric though.

3735

Living Room / Re: Worth Reading: Trevor Pott's editorial on NSA PRISM and its real ramifications

« Last post by IainB on July 28, 2013, 07:04 AM »

And presumably this might be no coincidence: (from the guffaws were heard dept.)
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

JP Morgan to eurozone periphery: “Get rid of your pinko, anti-fascist constitutions”
At times, I do marvel how antiseptic, bland even, that the language of the most wretchedly villainous documents can be.

Last week, the European economic research team with JP Morgan, the global financial giant, put out a 16-page paper on the state of play of euro area adjustment. This involved a totting up of what work has been done so far and what work has yet to be done in terms of sovereign, household and bank deleveraging; structural reform (reducing labour costs, making it easier to fire workers, privatisation, deregulation, liberalising ‘protected’ industries, etc.); and national political reform.

The takeaway in the small amount of coverage that I’ve seen of the paper was that its authors say the eurozone is about halfway through its period of adjustment, so austerity is still likely to be a feature of the landscape “for a very extended period.”

The bankers’ analysis probably otherwise received little attention because it is a bit ‘dog bites man‘: Big Bank Predicts Many More Years of Austerity. It’s not really as if anyone was expecting austerity to disappear any time soon, however much EU-IMF programme countries have been offered a relaxation of debt reduction commitments in return for ramping up the pace of structural adjustment.

The lack of coverage is a bit of a shame, because it’s the first public document I’ve come across where the authors are frank that the problem is not just a question of fiscal rectitude and boosting competitiveness, but that there is also an excess of democracy in some European countries that needs to be trimmed.

    “In the early days of the crisis, it was thought that these national legacy problems were largely economic: over-levered sovereigns, banks and households, internal real exchange rate misalignments, and structural rigidities. But, over time it has become clear that there are also national legacy problems of a political nature. The constitutions and political settlements in the southern periphery, put in place in the aftermath of the fall of fascism, have a number of features which appear to be unsuited to further integration in the region. When German politicians and policymakers talk of a decade-long process of adjustment, they likely have in mind the need for both economic and political reform.” [Emphasis added]

Yes, you read that right. It’s in dry, banker-ese, but the authors have basically said that the laws and constitutions of southern Europe are a bit too lefty, a product of their having been written by anti-fascists. These “deep-seated political problems in the periphery,” say authors David Mackie, Malcolm Barr and friends, “in our view, need to change if EMU is going to function properly in the long run.”

You think I’m perhaps exaggerating a smidge? They go into more detail in a section describing this “journey of national political reform”:

    “The political systems in the periphery were established in the aftermath of dictatorship, and were defined by that experience. Constitutions tend to show a strong socialist influence, reflecting the political strength that left-wing parties gained after the defeat of fascism.”

All this is a load of historical horse-lasagna anyway. Italy for example never went through a process akin to Germany’s denazification, and in Spain, the democratising king, Juan Carlos, played a major role in the transition. Only in Greece and Portugal were there popular socialist insurrections that resulted in or contributed to the overthrow of the regimes: the Athens Polytechnic Uprising played a key role in the Metapolitefsi or ‘polity change’ (although much, much more than the crushed student protests were involved here, including a failed coup d’etat and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus), and in Portugal a proper left-wing rebellion, the Revolução dos Cravos or Carnation Revolution, brought down the Estado Novo regime. Although it is true in the case of the latter three countries that their late-in-the-day construction of welfare states in the 70s and 80s was largely carried out by social democratic forces, the architects of the Italian post-war state were the Christian Democrats, who dominated government for 50 years.

    “Political systems around the periphery typically display several of the following features: weak executives; weak central states relative to regions; constitutional protection of labour rights; consensus building systems which foster political clientalism; and the right to protest if unwelcome changes are made to the political status quo. The shortcomings of this political legacy have been revealed by the crisis. Countries around the periphery have only been partially successful in producing fiscal and economic reform agendas, with governments constrained by constitutions (Portugal), powerful regions (Spain), and the rise of populist parties (Italy and Greece).”

Let’s parse that paragraph, shall we? Weak executives means strong legislatures. That should be a good thing, no? Let us remember that it is the parliament that is sovereign. The executive in a democracy is supposed to be the body that merely carries out the bidding of the legislature. There is a reason why liberal democracy opted for parliaments and not a system of elected kings.

Oh, and we want strong central states. None of this local democracy nonsense, please.

JP Morgan, and presumably the EU powerbrokers they are ventriloquising for, finally are being honest with us: they want to do away with constitutional labour rights protections and the right to protest. And there has to be some way to prevent people electing the wrong parties.

Thankfully though, the authors note, “There is a growing recognition of the extent of this problem, both in the core and in the periphery. Change is beginning to take place.”

In particular, they highlight how Spain has begun “to address some of the contradictions of the post-Franco settlement” and rein in the regions.

But other than that, sadly, the process of de-democratization (okay – I’m calling it that. They call it “the process of political reform”) has “barely begun”.

Well, the JP Morgan paper may have been written in English, but there is a venerable Spanish phrase that that all good anti-fascists right across the eurozone periphery know and is probably the simplest and best response to such provocation: ¡No pasarán!

Some people (not me, you understand) might say that now was not a good time for European governments to be accepting any advice whatsoever from American bankers as to European nations' need to "improve their democracy", but I couldn't possibly comment.

3736

Living Room / Re: Worth Reading: Trevor Pott's editorial on NSA PRISM and its real ramifications

« Last post by IainB on July 28, 2013, 06:51 AM »

Interesting, from my HackerNews feed:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Obama Promises Disappear from Web
July 25, 2013, 11:31 a.m.

Change.gov, the website created by the Obama transition team in 2008, has effectively disappeared sometime over the last month.

While the front splash page for Change.gov has linked to the main White House website for years, until recently, you could still continue on to see the materials and agenda laid out by the administration. This was a particularly helpful resource for those looking to compare Obama's performance in office against his vision for reform, laid out in detail on Change.gov.

According to the Internet Archive, the last time that content (beyond the splash page) was available was June 8th -- last month.

Why the change?

Here's one possibility, from the administration's ethics agenda:

    Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.

It may be that Obama's description of the importance of whistleblowers went from being an artifact of his campaign to a political liability. It wouldn't be the first time administration positions disappear from the internet when they become inconvenient descriptions of their assurances.

Obama's vision for lobbying transparency has similarly been discarded along the way, but the timing here suggests that the heat on Obama's whistleblower prosecutions has led the administration to unceremoniously remove their previous positions.

3737

Living Room / Re: Movie Banned By Censors Becomes a Piracy Hit With Kiwis

« Last post by IainB on July 28, 2013, 05:06 AM »

I just watched the trailer at the link given by @Renegade in the OP.
I see that IMDB gives Maniac (1980) 6.3 stars, and Maniac (2012) 6.2 stars. Looks like it's not such a great film then.
Still, I'd like to know what it is that the censors don't want me to see that is so “Injurious to the public good”.
I don't think I'd like to watch it, but now that the Streisand Effect has been invoked, I just might...

3738

Living Room / Re: Movie Banned By Censors Becomes a Piracy Hit With Kiwis

« Last post by IainB on July 27, 2013, 07:24 PM »

Odd for NZ to ban a film in these supposedly more tolerant times. “Injurious to the public good”, eh? State censorship of anything is usually cock-eyed.
For example, the last I read of a film being banned was in the UK years ago - I think it was Straw Dogs (1971). Starring Dustin Hoffman as an American astrophysicist who has moved his family to England to get away from American violence, but then finds more violence than he could ever have imagined in his worst nightmares. Apparently, the film was banned because of a scene where his wife (played by Susan George) was raped and began to enjoy it. I saw the film on video in New Zealand, some years ago. It was quite a good film too - I see it has a 7.6 rating on IMDB. The thing is though, the film was a fiction.

Whilst the British censors might have banned something like that in 1971, the British mores are evidently different nowadays - it seems as though almost anything goes. For example, my 11½ y/o daughter drew my attention to some UK news the other day that ended up with my listening to an Oxford Union debate where it was mentioned that there had apparently been systematic grooming, raping and prostitution of underage (under 16) girls - some just children around the same age as my daughter - by a group of all/mostly Muslim men in the university town of Oxford. The group were convicted of criminal offences as a result, but it seems that the mainstream media, the police, and child protection authorities had all apparently turned a blind eye to it for some time, though it had been reported to them. Presumably the police might have been too busy fighting more serious priority crimes, but then it transpired that almost identical criminal gang activity had been occurring in other parts of the country, with similarly belated action by the MSM, the police, and the child protection authorities. That's bad enough, but the thing is, there has already been some TV documentary work about these crimes, and you can bet that somebody will make a good docu-drama film about this child-grooming at some stage, and that the censors will likely as not just let it alone because it depicts "real life", no doubt thus providing lots of good viewing for closet paedophiles whose prayers for a good, legally authorised wet-dream will have been finally answered.
I wonder, if that happened, whether it could be construed as being “injurious to the public good”, and thus censored.

3739

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

« Last post by IainB on July 27, 2013, 06:00 PM »

New doctor.

A young doctor had moved out to a small community to replace a doctor who was retiring.

The older doctor suggested that the young one accompany him on his rounds, so the community could become used to a new doctor.

At the first house a woman complains, "I've been a little sick to my stomach."

The older doctor says, "Well, you've probably been overdoing the fresh fruit. Why not cut back on the amount you've been eating and see if that does the trick?"

As they left, the younger man said, "You didn't even examine that woman? How'd you come to the diagnosis so quickly?"

"I didn't have to. You noticed I dropped my stethoscope on the floor in there? When I bent over to pick it up, I noticed a half dozen banana peels in the rubbish bin. That was what probably was making her sick."

The younger doctor said "Pretty clever. If you don't mind, I think I'll try that at the next house."

Arriving at the next house, they spent several minutes talking with a younger woman. She said that she just didn't have the energy she once did and said, "I'm feeling terribly run down lately."

"You've probably been doing too much for the Church," the younger doctor told her. "Perhaps you should cut back a bit and see if that helps."

As they left, the older doctor said, "I know that woman well. Your diagnosis is almost certainly correct, she's very active in the church, but how did you arrive at it?"

"I did what you did at the last house. I dropped my stethoscope and, when I bent down to retrieve it, I noticed the vicar under the bed."

3740

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

« Last post by IainB on July 27, 2013, 04:29 AM »

@Renegade: The Detroit street view thing was silly-funny, but you know, there's probably more than a grain of truth in there somewhere...

Nice-looking leafy suburb, Belvidere St in Detroit.

3741

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

« Last post by IainB on July 27, 2013, 02:36 AM »

Apparently true...

(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Climate Craziness of the Week – taxing sunlight
Posted on July 26, 2013   by Anthony Watts

No, I’m not kidding. Truly, idiocy has no bounds.
In Spain, they appear to have actually done this, with fines up to 30 million Euros for non compliance.
The stupid, it sunburns. Air will be next. Breath tax.

From MISH’S Global Economic Trend Analysis:
sun_tax
link to Google translated article: El Pais,  Spain Privatizes The Sun
    If you get caught collecting photons of sunlight for your own use, you can be fined as much as 30 million euros.
    If you were thinking the best energy option was to buy some solar panels that were down 80% in price, you can forget about it.
    …
    “The Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF), which brings together some 300 companies representing 85% of the industry, ensures that, implemented these changes, it would be more expensive solar consumption resorting to conventional supply. “It prevents the savings to consumers and paralyzes the entry of new competition in the electricity market,” contemplate. “

Source: http://globaleconomi...tax-on-sunlight.html

3742

Living Room / Re: Movies or films you've seen lately

« Last post by IainB on July 27, 2013, 02:03 AM »

Winter, school holidays, flu and colds. July has been a big video month...

Spoiler

Chrysalis (I) (2007)
French with English subtitles.
SF thriller, moody, quite good story.
Saw 2nd time 2013-07.

The Princess & the Warrior (2000)
German with English subtitles.
Fascinating, slightly surreal romantic drama, good story.
Saw 2013-07.

Shadows of Time (2004)
Indian with English subtitles.
Beautiful and  engrossing life/love drama, good story.
Saw 2nd time 2013-07.

The Campaign (2012)
Silly American comedy.
Saw 2013-07.

Year One (2009)
Silly American comedy.
Saw 2013-7.

The Quiet Family (1998)
Korean black humour with English subtitles.
Amusing.
Saw 2013-7.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)
(aka The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!)
Silly British animation, children's comedy.
Saw 2013-7.


Romeo and Juliet (1968)
American version of Shakespeare's classic tragedy.
Very well-produced.
Saw nth time 2013-7.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1979)
American war drama, about the lives of a group of young German friends as soldiers in WW1. Excellent.
Saw 2nd time 2013-7.

Enemy Mine (1985)
American SF drama, about 2 enemy castaways combining their efforts to survive. Excellent.
Saw nth time 2013-7.

Hell in the Pacific (1968)
American WW2 drama , about 2 enemy castaways combining their efforts to survive. Excellent.
Saw nth time 2013-7.

Miss Marples (1961)
Series of British TV movies. Comedy-dramas, a detective whodunit series. Excellent. Based on Agatha Christie's stories.
Saw nth time 2013-7.

Oliver!
British Musicsl version of the Dickens classic. Excellent.
Saw nth time 2013-7.

Oklahoma! (1955)
American musical comedy-drama-romance.
Saw nth time 2013-7.

Carousel (1956)
American musical comedy-drama-romance.
Saw nth time 2013-7.

3743

Living Room / Re: Movies or films you've seen lately

« Last post by IainB on July 27, 2013, 12:19 AM »

Just watched "State Of Mind: The Psychology Of Control".
I watch UFO TV documentaries. Very entertaining. --> https://www.youtube....sFoY9yYQpOfL00N3nSxg

-Renegade (July 19, 2013, 07:58 AM)

Was "State Of Mind: The Psychology Of Control" worth watching (and the bandwidth)? I wondered about downloading that yesterday, and decided to give it a miss.

Do you like UFO videos?
Have you ever seen a UFO with your own eyes? I have.

• Once whilst out walking the dog with my eldest daughter one day, years ago. We both looked up and noticed 2 very large bright yellow-gold glowing ball-shaped lights, moving steadily in the sky ahead of us. In the space of about 30 seconds or so, they moved fairly swiftly in parallel with each other, out of sight over a nearby hill, so they may have been at a relatively low altitude (around 500 feet), or going incredibly fast and very big if they were at a high altitude. I wondered if they could have been explained as being what are called "sun dogs".
  
  
• Once whilst on our patio one day, years ago. My eldest son and his mate were lying back in their chairs, drinking beer, talking and looking up at the sky. They called the rest of us (family) out to look at a very small silver ball or disk that they had chanced to see in a gap in some very high cloud, almost directly above us. So small that it was difficult to spot at first, so the boys had to point it out. We all watched it for a while, moving against the background of blue sky. I reckoned it could be a weather balloon, but when we all saw it move about, back and forth and sideways, in a most un-balloon-like manner, we realised that it had to be a UFO. The cloud eventually obscured it, but we had watched it whilst discussing it for a few minutes.

3744

Living Room / Re: Movies or films you've seen lately

« Last post by IainB on July 26, 2013, 11:23 PM »

Loved The Illusionist and The Prestige although the romantic in me preferred the first...

-40hz (July 26, 2013, 01:54 PM)

Yes, same here.

3745

Living Room / Re: Movies or films you've seen lately

« Last post by IainB on July 26, 2013, 11:16 PM »

Just ran across this over at QuietEarth.

-40hz (June 27, 2013, 01:33 PM)

Talking of "Quiet Earth", I wondered whether you had seen this:

3746

Living Room / Re: Take back control of YouTube and STOP it downloading.

« Last post by IainB on July 25, 2013, 09:31 PM »

If you're using Chrome or Opera, try Youtube Options, and check out the "disable auto-play" options.

-Edvard (July 25, 2013, 01:25 AM)

   Yes, that is a good recommendation - I have that set on all browsers (that or "click to start player"). It avoids unnecessary utilisation/waste of bandwidth and other resources.
However, as I understand it, the thing about the above userscript (adds a Stop Video button) is that once you started to view a video and then paused/stopped it, YouTube continued to feed it down into the browser's cache in the background, thus consuming bandwidth.
There was a facility for the user to be able to right-click the video and select the option to STOP that background download, but now YouTube has removed that option and forced it's own algorithm on you that makes the decision as to how much more it will continue to feed a background download to the cache before pausing the download and awaiting your further playing.

If a user wishes to maintain control over the extent to which the PC system consumes limited resources (e.g., bandwidth, disk storage), then the above userscript (adds a Stop Video button) restores the rather useful control function that Google had removed.
There are probably many PC users - myself included - who would strongly resist the efforts of a third party (a commercial advertising company) that was attempting to wrest that control from the user.
There is a principle involved here in terms of the ownership of the PC's domain. Once you allow another entity access to and control over parts of that domain - an entity with interests that may be hegemonic and quite at odds with your interests - then you may be unable to prevent that entity from taking over completely, leaving you forced into the role of a passive subject of the domain. Indeed, that may even be the objective. The Russian occupation of East Berlin and the Berlin Wall is probably a classic example of this.
This is arguably what Google's proprietary Chromebook could be attempting. In any event, Google have screwed about enough with my PC's domain already, with Google Desktop, and I for one have no intention of allowing them to encroach further into my life or my PC's domain. I have enough trouble keeping Microsoft away as it is.

3747

General Software Discussion / Re: Freeware = CRAP!

« Last post by IainB on July 24, 2013, 01:16 PM »

...When being presented with a new PC for my use (as opposed to simple tech for someone else) it takes me the better side of a week to get all the little goodies on there!

-TaoPhoenix (July 24, 2013, 12:29 PM)

Yep, I have that experience too.

3748

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

« Last post by IainB on July 24, 2013, 12:54 PM »

Oh don't be so stuffy @wraith. Neologisms can be silly, funny, clever, and even useful.
For example:
Neologisms: (updated Jul. 2013)
(Neologism: The action of coining or using new words or expressions; a new word or expression.)

404:  Someone who is clueless.  From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located.  Used as in: "Don't bother asking him, he's 404 man."
Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the "adminisphere" are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve. This is often affiliated with the dreaded "administrivia" - needless paperwork and processes.
ALPHA GEEK: The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group.
Anally: Occurring yearly.
AQUADEXTROUS (ak wa deks'trus) adj.  Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub tap on and off with your toes.
Arbitrator: A cook that leaves Arby's to work at Mc Donald's
Artery: The study of paintings.
ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss.
Avoidable: What a bull fighter tries to do.
Bacteria: Back door to cafeteria.
Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
Baloney: Where some hemlines fall.
Barium: What doctors do when patients die.
BEER-COAT.  The invisible but warm coat worn when walking home after a booze cruise at 3am.
BEER-COMPASS.  The invisible device that ensures your safe arrival home after booze cruise, even though you're too drunk to remember where you live, how you got here, and where you've come from.
Benign: What you be after you be eight.
Bernadette: The act of torching a mortgage.
BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.
Bowel: A letter like A.E.I.O.U.
BREAKING-THE-SEAL.  Your first pee in the pub, usually after 2 hours of drinking.  After breaking the seal of your bladder, repeat visits to the toilet will be required every 10 or 15 minutes for the rest of the night.
Burglarize: What a crook sees with.
Burglesque: A poorly planned break-in. (See: Watergate)
Caesarean Section: A neighbourhood or district in Rome.
Carcinoma (n.), a valley in California, notable for its heavy smog.
CARPERPETUATION (kar'pur pet u a shun) n.  The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string or a piece of lint at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.
Catscan: Searching for Kitty.
Cauterize: Made eye contact with her.
Circumvent (n.), the opening in the front of boxer shorts (esp. if worn by Jewish men).
Coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon.
Coffer (n.), the person doing the coughing.
Colic: A sheep dog.
Coma: A punctuation mark.
Congenital: Friendly.
Control: A short, ugly inmate;
Counterfeiters: Workers who put together kitchen cabinets.
CROP DUSTING: Surreptitiously farting while passing through a cube farm, then enjoying the sounds of dismay and disgust; leads to PRAIRIE DOGGING.
CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles.
D&C: Where Washington is.
Diarrhoea: A journal of daily events.
Dilate: To live long.
DILBERTED: To be exploited and oppressed by your boss.  Derived from the experiences of Dilbert, the geek-in-hell comic strip character. "I've been dilberted again.  The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week."
DISCONFECT (dis kon fekt') v.  To sterilize the piece of confection (lolly) you dropped on the floor by blowing on it, assuming this will somehow 'remove' all the germs.
Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem brighter when they come at you rapidly.
Eclipse: What an English barber does for a living.
ELBONICS (el bon'iks) n.  The actions of two people manoeuvring for one armrest in a movie theatre.
Enema: Not a friend.
Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
Eyedropper: A clumsy ophthalmologist.
Fascion: The tendency of societies to reincarnate the National Socialist German Workers' Party in new forms.
Fester: Quicker than someone else.
Fibula: A small lie.
Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of obtaining sex.
Frisbatarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck there.
FRUST (frust) n.  The small line of debris that refuses to be swept onto the dust pan and keeps backing a person across the room until he finally decides to give up and sweep it under the rug.
G.I.Series: World series of military baseball.
Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavoured mouthwash.
Genital: A non Jewish person.
Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high. . . .
Glibido: All talk and no action.
GOING FOR A McSHIT.  Entering a fast food restaurant with no intention of buying food, you're just going to the bog. If challenged by a pimply staffer your declaration to them that you'll buy their food afterwards is known as a McShit with Lies.
Grippe: Suitcase.
Hangnail: What you hang your coat on.
Heroes: What a guy in a boat does.
Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
Homophone: A gay telephone sex-line.
Hormone: A sound made by a prostitute when you refuse to pay her.
IDEA HAMSTERS: People who always seem to have their idea generators running.
Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
Impotent: Distinguished, well known.
INNUENDO: An Italian suppository.
Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously (when you are running late?).
Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a refund from the IRS, which lasts until you realise it was your money to start with.
Intense pain: Torture in a teepee.
JOHNNY-NO-STARS.  A young man of substandard intelligence, the typical adolescent who works in a burger restaurant.  The 'no-stars' comes from the badges displaying stars that staff at fast-food restaurants often wear to show their level of training.
Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right?  And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like a serious bummer.
Labour Pain: Getting hurt at work.
LACTOMANGULATION (lak' to man gyu lay' shun) n.  Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk container so badly that one has to resort to the 'illegal' side.
Left Bank: What the robber did when his bag was full of loot.
Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
Medical Staff: A doctor's cane.
MILLENNIUM-DOMES.  The contents of a Wonderbra - i.e., extremely impressive when viewed from the outside, but there's actually naught in there worth seeing.
Misty:  How golfers create divots.
MONKEY-BATH.  A bath so hot, that when lowering yourself in, you go: "Oo!Oo!Oo! Aa!Aa!Aa!".
Morbid: A higher offer.
MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation's answer to the Couch potato.
MYSTERY-BUS.  The bus that arrives at the pub on Friday night while you're in the toilet after your 10th pint, and whisks away all the unattractive people so the pub is suddenly packed with stunners when you come back in.
MYSTERY-TAXI.  The taxi that arrives at your place on Saturday morning before you wake up, whisks away the stunner you slept with, and leaves a 10-Pinter in your bed instead.
Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absent-mindedly answer the door in your nightie.
Nitrates: Cheaper than day rates.
Node: Was aware of.
OHNO-SECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake - e.g., you've hit "reply all" by mistake for your email with personal comments.
Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.
Outpatient: A person who has fainted.
Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.
Pap Smear: A fatherhood test.
Paradox: Two physicians.
Parasites: What you see from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
PEARL HARBOUR.  Cold (weather).  An example of it would be - "It's a bit Pearl Harbour" out there (there's a nasty nip in the air).
Pelvis: Second cousin to Elvis.
PEPPIER (peph ee ay') n.  The waiter at a fancy restaurant whose sole purpose seems to be walking around asking diners if they want fresh ground pepper.
PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.
Pharmacist: A helper on the farm.
Pheromone: The musty smell of an ancient Egyptian mummy.
PHONESIA (fo nee' zhuh) n.  The affliction of dialing a phone number and forgetting whom you were calling just as they answer.
Pokemon (n), A Jamaican proctologist.
Polarize: What penguins see with.
Post Operative: A letter carrier.
PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.  (This also applies to applause for a promotion because there may be cake.)
Primate: Removing your spouse from in front of the TV.
Protein: Favouring young people.
PUPKUS (pup'kus) n.  The moist residue left on a window after a dog presses its nose to it.
Recovery Room: Place to do upholstery.
Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified demeanour assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.
Rectum: Darn near killed 'em.
Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
Relief: What trees do in the spring.
Rheumatic: Amorous.
Rubberneck: What you do to relax your wife.
SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream, only to get screwed and die in the end.
Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the recipient who doesn't get it.
Scar: Rolled tobacco leaf.
SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps over everything and then leaves.
Seamstress: Describes 250 pounds in a size six.
Secretion: Hiding anything.
Secretion: Hiding something.
Seizure: A oman emperor.
Seizure: Roman emperor.
Selfish: What the owner of a seafood store does.
Serology: The study of knighthood.
SINBAD. Single working girls - Single Income, No Boyfriend And Desperate.
SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.  What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids or start a "home business".
STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.
Subdued: Like a guy, like, works on one of those, like, submarines.
Sudafed: Bringing litigation against a government official.
Tablet: A small table.
Tatyr: A lecherous Mr. Potato Head.
TELECRASTINATION (tel e kras tin ay' shun) n.  The act of always letting the phone ring at least twice before you pick it up, even when you're only six inches away.
Terminal Illness: Getting sick at the airport.
Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
TESTICULATING.  Waving your arms around and talking Bollocks.
Tibia: A country in North Africa.
TOURISTS: People who take training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs.  Example: "We had three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists."
Tumour: An extra pair.
Urine: Opposite of you're out.
Varicose: Located near by/close by.
Vein: Conceited.
Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
WOOFies: Well Off Older Folk.
XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.
YUPPIE FOOD STAMPS: The ubiquitous $20 bills spewed out of ATMs everywhere. Often used when trying to split the bill after a meal: "We owe $8 each, but all anybody's got are yuppie food stamps."

3749

General Software Discussion / Re: Freeware = CRAP!

« Last post by IainB on July 24, 2013, 11:08 AM »

OH Boy!   I wish I never got this (Screen Shot Captor).  Now I cannot  use my internet without junk web sites popping up - it's really annoying!!!!  Definitely give this a second thought - In fact just spend the money and get the real Snip It tool!!!!   
THERE IS NO WAY I WOULD EVER MAKE A 'DONATION' FOR THE HEADACHE THIS 'FREE' SOFTWARE HAS GIVEN ME!!!!  IT ONLY A VIRUS!
BEWARE!
-KC

-K_Connolly (July 24, 2013, 05:58 AM)

I have to admit that, sometimes, I wish I had never got Screen Shot Captor - I'm hooked on it so bad that I am now unable to function on a PC without first installing Screen Shot Captor.
And that goes double for Clipboard Help & Spell too.
Curse you @mouser! Curse you a thousand times! You know full well what you have done to me!
Software madness. I'm not hitchhiking anymore, I'm cruising!

It's not FREEWARE - it's ADDICTIONWARE!  Don't touch it!

3750

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

« Last post by IainB on July 24, 2013, 10:03 AM »

@Renegade:

...fascion...

Heh. I like it, a neologism.