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6001

Living Room / Re: Products designed to fail, a documentary

« Last post by IainB on November 07, 2011, 09:36 AM »

Have you read the Koran?  I was quite surprised when I did read parts of it, that apparently some things are left out of the rhetoric.  Then I did some research, and found that most things that you hear regurgitated and used as an excuse for violence are misquotations/misinterpretations.  It actually talks of respect for the followers of Christ, not persecution.  And I don't think that this is unique in this situation either.

Religion isn't necessarily evil.  People have evil uses for religion, IMO.

-wraith808 (November 07, 2011, 07:46 AM)

I have been studying the Koran since about 2000. One of my favourite translations is the Koran published in paperback form by The Penguin Classics (published and republished between 1956 and 1974). It is by N.J.Dawood , who, according to the biographical notes of my 1974 copy:

* translated "Tales from the Thousand and One Nights" and "Aladdin and Other Tales", for the Penguin Classics.
* was born in Baghdad.
* came to England as an Iraq State Scholar in 1945.
* graduated from London University.
* was a director of Contemporary Translation Ltd. and managing director The Arabic Advertising and Publishing Company Ltd., London.
* edited and abridged "The Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun".
* translated numerous technical English works into Arabic.
* had written and spoken radio and film commentaries.
* contributed to specialised English-Arabic dictionaries.

If English is your language of preference, then I would suggest NJD's English translation because it is one by a Muslim and an academic who was equally at home with English and Arabic - possibly unlike other translators that you might come across - e.g., there are 6 versions in the Bahai Interfaith Explorer collection - which is a program with a database which includes the religious texts from many of the major sects on the planet. I installed it on my laptop a couple of years back and it gets updated with refreshed editions from time to time.

It's not easy to misquote the Koran once you have studied and understood it. It is very specific about things. Of course, you would not necessarily expect a child of 6, who has learned to recite parts of the Koran, to be able to fully understand what she is reciting, but she will learn the specific parts by rote.

The reader needs to bear in mind that the prophet Mohammed (pbuh) had a vision where the angel Gabriel read to him from words which had been inscribed on stone by Allah. Mohammed (pbuh) then recited what Gabriel had said to him, and it was later written down verbatim by the scribes who listened to him. ("Koran" means "Recital".)

When a Muslim holds the Koran up in his right hand, he knows that he holds the absolute and infallible word of Allah, and that there is no picking and choosing as to what to believe, how to think about things, how to implement Allah's directives. To become a Muslim, you have to submit absolutely to Allah ("Islam" means "Submit"). This includes submitting any desire for freedoms, other than that freedom which Allah allows you. (This explains those placards you may have seen, held up by protesting Muslims, that say something like - for example - "Freedom go to Hell".)

No other religion has this - the absolute and infallible word of Allah. All other religious texts are invented and written by human authors. That includes the Old Testament of the Bible, for example, and the New Testament (the latter being written mainly by Mathew, Mark, Luke and John.
You submit to Allah to become a Muslim ("Islam" means "Submit"). That is why the Koran is treated with such reverence by Islamists.

6002

Living Room / Re: Products designed to fail, a documentary

« Last post by IainB on November 07, 2011, 08:50 AM »

The vast majority of people are complete idiots on any given topic.
...
I've really appreciated your input here and the many links. (I must confess, I've not had time to follow and read them all.) It's refreshing. A logical, scientific approach where no god is sacred... Truly refreshing!

-Renegade (November 07, 2011, 07:12 AM)

Maybe it's not that people are necessarily "idiots" - though I used to arrogantly think that. A lot of them are quite smart idiots. I reckon that it's the ignorance that does for them, combined with poor thinking skills.
Much of my adult life has been spent fighting ignorance, bigotry and stupidity - some of which I am embarrassed to admit has been mine.

Like you, I usually avoid "giving my opinion", preferring to arrive at a rational and thought-out conclusion that can be substantiated with a solid rationale based on good theory and practice.

My belated start to trying to sharpen up my own thinking skills was when I read Edward de Bono's book Teaching Thinking, in about 1983/4. I still refer to it - still like to keep practicing/reviewing the recommended behaviours/methods. Reading the book made me realise that I was stuck in what de Bono calls an "intellectual deadlock", where your ego will not allow you to accept that you needed to improve your thinking skills, because that could be tantamount to meaning that you hadn't been thinking perfectly well all this time...so, no change was needed for the perfect. (The ego is quite irrational.) He said that the smarter people were, the more likely they were to become stuck in this deadlock, unable to change and further develop their thinking skills. This is like letting your ego run the ship, including your thinking. It's a rut, and we tend to become stuck in it, but once we know it is there, we have some options.

When my son told me, years back, that he was doing Edward de Bono's Thinking Skills course at his boarding school, I was very pleased. I hadn't known that New Zealand schools had picked this up (it's de Bono's CoRT curriculum - Cognitive Research Trust), though I knew that it was being used by hundreds of secondary schools in the UK at the time.

I was even more impressed several years back when I read that UK schools had Critical Thinking as a GCSE "O" level (or whatever they call them now). It helped the children to develop a transferable skill that apparently enabled improvement across all their other subject studies.
The textbook (an extract is here) Critical Thinking - An Introduction (Alec Fisher) was by the professor in charge of the initial Critical Thinking course introduced to secondary schools in about 2001 (I think it was then). I read that it is now in its 2nd edition.

I ended up buying that book from Amazon, and also Fisher's further study book The Logic of Real Arguments.
Both books were very useful, and helped me to improve my critical thinking skills through practice of the exercises given. This all helped me directly in my work, where I am often faced with new/complex problems that clients expect me to help them resolve as if by magic.

By the way: I am very grateful for, and feel somewhat humbled by the recognition in your statement:

I've really appreciated your input here and the many links.

6003

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by IainB on November 07, 2011, 07:47 AM »

Just to bring to your notice a rather nifty FF extension that I just came across: Bookmark Highlighter 1.5

About this Add-on
Bookmark Highlighter does what it says on the tin. Text links are highlighted with a blue background, and image links are highlighted with a dotted blue outline. This is a simple and effective way to see what's bookmarked among a sea of links.

Pretty simple really - and handy too. Just installed it today. Seems to work very nicely.
Nice install - requires no restart.
I shall update this thread with any further comments/feedback if I have any that might be of use.

6004

Living Room / Re: Products designed to fail, a documentary

« Last post by IainB on November 07, 2011, 05:37 AM »

You're only debating what is good or what is evil.
...

Aristotle -- People only do what they think is good. Anything else is simply people being misinformed/uneducated. (Paraphrasing)
Kant -- Categorical Imperative. (Duty, veil of ignorance, etc. etc.)

Slap those 2 together, and you've got a solid recipe for "good" and "evil". Kant might be pretty radical, but it's damn hard to argue against him.

So at the end of the day, in that line of thought, people only really need to education to solve more problems than you can shake a stick at.

-Renegade (November 06, 2011, 10:26 PM)

Well, I didn't intend to debate good/evil.
I was intending to provide a serious note of warning about do-gooders and activists who believed that they were operating on "good and just" principles, and who know what is best for you, me and the rest of humanity - whether we like it or not.

For example, Warmists insist that there is a risk of global catastrophe from an as yet unproven theory of AGW. I was watching some video footage the other week on YouTube where some Greenies/Warmists had challenged this guy (Lord Monckton) who didn't see that there was any rational justification for accepting the theory of AGW, and said so in rational terms.

But reason had apparently disappeared, because pretty soon the Warmists started to ad hominem the guy. Resorting to the use of logical fallacies - such as ad hominem, for example - is usually a sure sign that someone is desperate, having no rational basis for supporting their argument.
Eventually, one of them referred to Monckton's approach or something as being akin to the Nazis, whereupon Monckton - whose wife I think was a child of Jews who had survived the Nazi concentration camps - politely pointed out a few truths. He said that, in using the term "Nazi" for this as a form of labelling only served to ameliorate the perceived heinousness of the Nazi's crimes against humanity (OWTTE), and did nothing to substantiate any rational argument.

If people can be ignorant like this, then the educational system would seem to have already failed to teach them to take responsibility for thinking critically for themselves. They are arguably as likely to have read and understood what Aristotle or Kant had spoken/written of as a flea would be likely to comprehend its place in the universe. If you looked  into such peoples' eyes you would probably see all the lights on, but that nobody's home.

6005

Living Room / Re: Products designed to fail, a documentary

« Last post by IainB on November 06, 2011, 09:55 PM »

Lawfully Good vs. Lawfully Evil[/url]

Excellent read. Very articulate.

-Renegade (November 06, 2011, 06:43 PM)

In the start of that article, it says:

In contrast, activists don’t care whether something is lawful, they care whether it’s good and just.

If that, by implication, is true of all activists, then you could say that it holds true for (say):

• Roman Catholicism: RC leaders of yore, who, before the Reformation, were a deadly, and acted ostensibly in the name of God and for our own salvation. I have not seen a historical estimate of how many people have had to die at the hands of this Religion of Peace, over its 2,000 year-old history, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were not of the order of 100+ millions.
• Islamism: Islamist activists of today, who are eternally obliged by Allah in the Koran to ensure that Islamism is the dominant religion and legal system, and that it is enforced (typically under threat of barbaric punishment or pain of death) in any society/culture where they find themselves. I saw an estimate of 140+ million people who have had to die at the hands of this Religion of Peace, over its 1,400 year-old history.

• Stalinism: the Russians are a bit secretive about this, but historical estimates seem to vary between 20 to 50 million deaths of mostly Russian citizens.

All these deadly "-isms" started small. The most recent were, I gather, Facism and Nazism. I suspect that "communism"/"globalism" - i.e., global state governance - may be the Next Big Thing to tyrannize and kill us for our own good.

But supposing I don't want to forego the freedom to live my life peacefully and in my own way as I might reasonably choose?

The thing that scares me is the people - whether government bureaucrats, religio-political activists, or politicians - who not only believe that what they are working towards and agitating for is "good and just", but also know with absolute certainty that it is best for us, and so are determined to ram it down our throats, into our statutes and (often) into our wallets. And if you don't like/accept what they espouse, then you are labelled in a deprecatory or pejorative manner and marginalised or killed:

• Don't believe our [insert religio-political ideology here] dogma? Are you with us or against us?
• Don't believe in an imaginary concept of God? Then you are an atheist.
• Don't believe in our ideology of Christianity? Then you are a heretic, (they were generally killed) and nowadays also a lost soul.
• Don't believe in our ideology of Islamism? Then you are an infidel (who Allah says must be killed if they commit blasphemy or do not submit) and nowadays also an Islamophobe.
• Don't believe in our ideology of Communism? Then you are a Capitalist pig and also an enemy of the State
• Don't believe in our ideology of socialist-collectivism? Then you are a member of the extreme Right Wing.
• Don't believe in our ideology of Capitalism? Then you are a Communist and also a member of the extreme Left Wing.
• Don't believe in our theory of AGW? Then you are a sceptic or a climate denier.

After it becomes Politically Incorrect and then made a crime enforceable in Law, anyone who objects, ridicules or denounces the X-ism will be punished. For example, the UN is apparently currently being urged by the Muslim member countries to make it illegal to "Defame a religion" or some such nonsense.

Sometimes, this activism takes over wholesale, and then it may become a matter for national standards to be imposed, so that the citizens of your own and/or neighbouring countries - who cannot see things the right way - are to be variously excommunicated, imprisoned, tortured, killed, or [insert atrocity here].

Some people might say, "Of course, this is exaggerated nonsense. How could it possibly be true?"

Some of possibly the worst historical examples:
(Source: (Possibly) The Twenty (or so) Worst Things People Have Done to Each Other:


No thanks. Keep your well-meaning "good and just" activists well away from me, mate.
[/list]

6006

Living Room / Re: Cute jokes' thread

« Last post by IainB on November 06, 2011, 06:00 PM »

It's "Flip-flops"!...
...

6007

Living Room / Re: Cute jokes' thread

« Last post by IainB on November 06, 2011, 04:00 PM »

Atomic signs.

Two atoms were sitting in a bar having some drinks and chatting.

1st Atom: Good grief, I just lost two of my electrons!

2nd Atom: Are you sure?

1st Atom: Yes, I'm positive.

2nd Atom:  Well then, where did they go to?

1st Atom: They attached themselves to you!

2nd Atom:  Oh no they didn't!  Oh NO they didn't!

1st Atom:  You see?  You're too negative!

6008

Living Room / Re: Post Your Funny Videos Here [NSFW]

« Last post by IainB on November 05, 2011, 10:07 PM »

@Edvard: ThankYOU! Made me smile. My daughters are gonna like this one too.

6009

Living Room / Re: Beyond Gamification. Designing up Maslow’s Pyramid.

« Last post by IainB on November 05, 2011, 09:46 PM »

...as stuff like social media sharing buttons spread around the concept is what then boosted the motivation to develop such concepts as social curation and cross-sharing further than what designers and coders would have intended. (My emphasis.)

-Paul Keith (October 18, 2011, 01:38 PM)

I thought this Dilbert cartoon made a good comment on this...speaks for itself really.

-IainB (October 30, 2011, 10:48 AM)

I don't see what's confusing.
...
...Again, I'd like to emphasize that the above is merely hinting at the potential of social curation and not saying this will be the reality.

-Paul Keith (November 05, 2011, 10:28 AM)

Well, perhaps I added the confusion then? Because I are still confuzzled.
Unless you are making a joke of this? It could be amusing for Tweedledum and Tweedledee, I suppose.

At any rate, I am sorry if you feel the need to be defensive about using the term, but all I intended was to point out - without sticking it in your face - that if you are unable to define a term (in this case the "curation" concept) before you proceed to use it in a rational argument, then it cannot be a rational argument from the point when you first use it - because there is no definition of terms.
This isn't my opinion, it's just one of the rules of logic that I learned in high school when we were being taught how to develop our critical thinking skills and methods of thinking.

The only definition I have so far managed to find for "curation" is this sense:

curation
late 14c., from O.Fr. curacion, from L. curationem, noun of action from curare "to cure" (see cure).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper

The way you talk about it, that meaning (above) doesn't look like it has anything to do with the price of fish. However, your language indicates that you seem to know what it is that you mean when you are talking about "... curation ....".
However, there seems to be nothing to put one's finger on and say, for example, "Ah! That's what he means when he talks about the terms 'curation' or 'social curation'! "

If we carried on discussing this without some idea of what you mean by the term "curation" in this context, then it will probably become an absurdity like the discussion in "Waiting for Godot".

So, please help me - this is making my brain hurt!:

• "Curation" - what exactly do you intend it to mean when you use it?
• "Social curation" - what exactly do you intend it to mean when you use it?

Thanks in anticipation.    

6010

UrlSnooper / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - URL SNOOPER - v2.30.01, Nov 4th, 2011

« Last post by IainB on November 05, 2011, 07:14 AM »

Nope, doesn't work. URLS cannot find a suitable network adapter whatever I do - whether the default or a selected adapter under advanced.

6011

Living Room / Re: Beyond Gamification. Designing up Maslow’s Pyramid.

« Last post by IainB on November 05, 2011, 07:07 AM »

I am confuzzled by most of what you wrote above - even after having read it through carefully, three times.
You seem to be discussing the merits of something that you confirm is still an undefined term - a buzzword - and which thus does not exist.
Sorry, I don't wish to seem rude, but, as someone whose teachers included grammarians and logicians, I think your comments probably only serve to confirm that "curation" is still in the Bullsh*t Bingo buzzword collection.

Anyway, I think it could likely be more fun (though no more useful) to debate the colour of the wings of those nonexistant fairies made so famous by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

6012

UrlSnooper / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - URL SNOOPER - v2.30.01, Nov 4th, 2011

« Last post by IainB on November 04, 2011, 08:33 PM »

Thanks @mouser. I recently tried to use this utility for the first time on my new laptop (OS is Win 7-64), but could not seem to get it working properly.
I shall use this update to reinstall and force the WinCap install as well, and let you know how I get on.

6013

General Software Discussion / Re: classify data

« Last post by IainB on November 03, 2011, 10:52 PM »

@kalos: I think I understand now.
If you intend to do this in Excel, then I'm sorry, but I don't think I can help much with that.
A person who is an Excel wizard might be able to help though - I don't know if there are any on the DC Forum.

6014

Living Room / Re: Products designed to fail, a documentary

« Last post by IainB on November 03, 2011, 09:07 AM »

Playing devil's advocate you have to have to ask is it reasonable for a business to pump more money into development costs for new drivers on a device they haven't sold in the past 10 years?

-Carol Haynes (November 03, 2011, 06:34 AM)

Yes, but it's not as old as 10 years, and anyway it is hypothetical and thus:
(a) of academic interest only, and
(b) unlikely to be a useful/valid argument for anything practical, as it stands.

Similarly, I suppose some people could play devil's advocate to justify the dumping of waste tech products in Africa (thanks for raising that point), but I wouldn't dream of doing so - because it would be a red herring and trivialise the issues. In any event it wouldn't alter the fundamental issues - discovery of the root causes of the problem and addressing those.

That is, the root causes that gave rise to such as, for example, the objectives of the good psychopathic Corporations involved - e.g., including Lock-in, Planned Obsolescence, maximisation of profit, and externalisation of any side-effects (including massive damage to adults and children alike in some 3rd-world economies).

The Western economic model and legal systems that created and allowed such as those dumping monsters to be self-sustaining and self-perpetuating is arguably the domain (root cause) that needs to be addressed (QED per The Corporation).
Fining Corporations for what they would (and generally do) see as legitimate actions, as you suggest above, might be all very well. However, though I rather like the idea of the fines, it would only be likely to address the symptomatic problems, not necessarily the causal problems. It would be like Hydra - cut off one head and another one (a new symptomatic problem) would pop up somewhere else.

I am not a strong advocate of State control of Capitalist enterprise, as history shows what happens when State/government interference and control becomes excessive - QED the Communist command-economy of the USSR. However, you cannot always demonstrate  that laissez-faire works any better either. So, let Corporations be self-governing as they might like, but where they have demonstrated the types of situations where they have an essential incapacity to do this, then regulate and change/reduce their legal rights as a legal person/Corporation, so that they become legally prevented from committing the same class of error in another form - e.g., lightbulbs - forming cartels that fined a manufacturer for making lightbulbs that lasted longer. Change, not punishment or retribution.

If communities in the US/Canada can take responsibility and collaborate effectively in taking action to do this (QED per The Corporation), and succeed, then we already know which direction we could move in to address the causal problem.

Examples of relevant regulations, standards bodies and codes of practice in the UK that already have achieved some effective control over Corporate psychopath behaviours could include:

• The Sale of Goods Act 1979.
• The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP).
• The Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP).
• The Office of Fair Trading.
• The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
• The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977.

If these things became compulsory not only on the operation of a Corporation in the UK but also its operation overseas, then we might be getting somewhere.
Unfortunately, I don't quite see how to implement that in a consistent fashion and with certain results, so I think you would need to go back and review the structure of the Corporate Charter, and probably regulate that.

6015

Living Room / Re: Products designed to fail, a documentary

« Last post by IainB on November 03, 2011, 06:31 AM »

Effecting change for the better: Macropathy vs. The Swarm

6016

Living Room / Re: Products designed to fail, a documentary

« Last post by IainB on November 03, 2011, 06:28 AM »

I know that it's immoral, but I would actually prefer some of my stuff to break early in order to justify buying a newer, better version of it.

-phitsc (November 03, 2011, 05:21 AM)

I don't think you could reasonably be called immoral for that.
There are many examples where changing/upgrading a technologically-rich device was necessary to make progress.
For example, I am please with my new Epson scanner, and it's much better hardware and software technology too. Yet I am annoyed that I was forced to dump my old HP scanner by HP artificially architecting its obsolescence by burying the OS support in XP and Win7-64.

6017

Living Room / Re: Products designed to fail, a documentary

« Last post by IainB on November 03, 2011, 06:17 AM »

I guess I am surprised that some people in this forum seem to be so surprised and indignant about PO (Planned Obsolescence) in action. The reason I am surprised is that I have seen PO in action for most of my adult life. It is a common-place and ubiquitous fact of life in Western economies.

For example:
Cars:

• Make sure it fails: The infamous case of the deliberate under-engineering of the tab of a locking washer on the end of the camshaft in the British Leyland Austin Princess 2200HL (a superbly advanced design of car for its time). The tab was a known design flaw that was never corrected, though it could easily have been. On assembly in the production line, there was a 50/50 chance that the tab would shear as the torque nut that held it was being tightened. In operation, the shearing would mean that the torque nut, having no locking washer to prevent it, would be rotationally pushed out on its thread. This would gradually give increasingly excessive end float to the shaft, which would perform as normal for typically about 18 months of its operation (i.e., until out of 12-month warranty), all the time moving in an out and gradually chafing its way through the camshaft end-housing. The housing would develop a hole, out of which engine oil would leak, ending up with oil-starved main bearings and eventual engine failure. A new/rebuilt engine was necessary. Oh dear, what a pity, never mind.
• Make sure it rusts: After the bare metal car chassis had been made, they would be stacked outside in the weather, developing a film of rust before being painted. So the rust worked away under the paint, pushing it off and exposing the metal to the elements. Through the long winters in the UK, it was common practice for local councils to have trucks mechanically scatter sand-and-salt mix over most of the major roads, so as to prevent black ice forming. It was very effective at that. It was also effective as a sand-blasting of the painted underside of the cars, exposing the bare metal so that the salt accelerated the corrosion through an electro-chemical effect. Perfect.
  Unless you had never driven the car during a winter, new cars were all set to be converted into rust-buckets after about 2½ years. What a surprise. (NOT.)
• Kill threatening new technology: the General Motors EV1. The zinc and steel alloy invented and patented in the '70s. As strong as or stronger than just steel, this alloy became malleable when heated up to a certain temperature and coincidentally was rust-proof. It would have made pressed-steel manufacturing of car bodies obsolete. You could just heat the sheets of metal up so as to easily mould them into complex shapes using simple moulding or blow-moulding techniques. Cheaper, more efficient, and more effective - and how about that rustproof chassis and body, eh?! Buried without trace.

Computers:

• Mainframes - make 'em fat and bloated: IBM invented the nifty trick of regularly releasing new updates/versions of the OS, and withdrawing contractual support for the older versions. You had to keep upgrading to the newer, faster, bigger mainframes because - well, obviously - the older machines became progressively more fully occupied just running the new OS (if they could run it at all), and couldn't get much productive computing done. (Does this sound familiar? It should do.)
• PCs, laptops, servers: (Enuff said.)

6018

Living Room / Re: Products designed to fail, a documentary

« Last post by IainB on November 02, 2011, 10:38 PM »

@4wd: Many thanks for the links.
I was ignorant of this trade (technology equipment dumping) by 1st world economies onto 3rd world economies.
The is almost as obscene as the plastic bottled water scam industry.
Absolutely classic Corporate psychopath behaviour though - an externalised and huge environmental footprint left for society to pay for the cleanup costs. Massive potential harm to an unsuspectingly naive and ignorant public who are impoverished and in no position to protect themselves anyway.

6019

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you know a GUI that does...

« Last post by IainB on November 02, 2011, 08:04 PM »

+1 for what @tedhessjr wrote.     

6020

Living Room / Re: Products designed to fail, a documentary

« Last post by IainB on November 02, 2011, 08:02 PM »

@Carol Haynes:

...'second hand' goods con turning swathes of Africa and Asia into open sewers.

Could you explain this for me please (maybe in a PM if it is off-topic)?
I Googled the phrase and still couldn't really figure out what it was that you were intending to refer to.
(Thanks.)

6021

General Software Discussion / Re: classify data

« Last post by IainB on November 02, 2011, 07:41 PM »

Without understanding your user/business requirements (what you need to achieve for a specific purpose), it is difficult to advise.
Having said that, I think you would be better advised to use a database (e.g., Access) for this.

Hmm. Just thinking of using Excel, which I am rather rusty in...

If the "calculated date n" is used to hold the pointer to the destination cell which is to have the data inserted, then one approach could be to treat that destination cell's contents as a string and append the "my text" string to it, using Excel functions.
But this would only work, I think, where the destination cell's contents (i.e., the existing date and any appended text) were the same format - i.e., text, in this case.
However, your destination cells in the "after" picture have a changed date format, so I guess that could imply a date format(?) and so what I suggest would be impossible.
 
What you seem to be doing is treating a cell as a database record, with the header index being "Date". A database would seem to be simpler.
I would recommend you don't try this with Excel as it could be attampting to bastardise the thing in an 'orrible way - that's IF you could do, which I suspect you won't be able to very easily.

It might be easier if you listed your user/business requirements (what you need to achieve for a specific purpose), and then we might be able to help more.

6022

General Software Discussion / Re: spell checker in any text

« Last post by IainB on November 02, 2011, 07:04 PM »

Not sure if this is what you want, but on the odd occasion when I want to do what you seem to want to be doing, I can use one of two methods:

1. OneNote's "Clip to OneNote": which can capture the area of the screen you select in its crosshairs, and copies it into a Note in OneNote, as an image/"picture".
If you have already set OneNote to scan all images for text, you then:

• Right-click the image to "Copy text from Picture" - that puts the OCR text into the clipboard.
• Paste (Ctrl-V) the text into OneNote or any other proggy which has a spellchecker
• Select spellcheck and run it on the text you've just pasted.

2. Use ABBY Screenshot Reader: which can capture the area of the screen you select in its crosshairs, scan it using OCR, and put any text it finds into the Clipboard.
You then:

• Paste (Ctrl-V) the text into any proggy which has a spellchecker
• Select spellcheck and run it on the text you've just pasted.

6023

Living Room / Re: Automated site capture

« Last post by IainB on November 02, 2011, 08:01 AM »

Good point, these tools have the potential to abuse. As for me I will be doing one site - one page - once a day.

-rgdot (October 30, 2011, 11:48 AM)

Sorry, I did not register this till just now.
If you have not already tried it, then I would recommend you take a look at: ScrapBook
It's very handy indeed. I use it all the time.

6024

Living Room / Re: Hard drive shortage

« Last post by IainB on November 02, 2011, 06:56 AM »

@db90h:

BUT ... the increase in speculation will decrease the effective supply, as these speculators are going to be parting with their drives for the max they can get. So, the price will rise as major retailers run out of stock, then flatten as the speculators start to unload their inventory, then gradually decrease ... which I explained in a previous post more eloquently. The way back down is not nearly as fast as the rise in prices.

Well, if I understand you correctly, then I think that what you describe is the classic Supply-and-Demand model.

Spoiler

The price P of a product is determined by a balance between production at each price (supply S) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand D). The diagram shows a positive shift in demand from D1 to D2, resulting in an increase in price (P) and quantity sold (Q) of the product.

The theory does not help us to understand the rate at which things will move up or down relative to each other.

6025

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extension "Download Statusbar" Now Adware - Maybe Malware

« Last post by IainB on November 02, 2011, 06:38 AM »

I think he did remove the "bad" version, though since he tried to sneak that in I won't use anything from him again. Screw me once,,,

-J-Mac (October 31, 2011, 02:42 PM)

Yeah - but I don’t trust him now.

-J-Mac (November 02, 2011, 05:11 AM)

+1 from me.     

And now FF is in bed with the Corporate psychopath, Microsoft (re Bing).

And after the Google unilateral fiascos and/or removals:

• Google Notebook
• Google WAVE.
• Google SideWiki.
• Google Buzz.
• Google's software package download bundle.
• Google Desktop.
• Google Toolbar for Firefox.
• Google Plus.
• [Insert name of screw-up here]

- I am similarly unimpressed and and am wondering whether it is rational of me to trust Google with my data and/or my email, my Google Groups, my Google Webpages, my Google knol, etc.

I say this because it seems that Google have now clearly indicated that we users really do not matter and that ALL of these things are now uncertain and under consideration and could be taken away by Google at the drop of a hat, regardless of whether you pay for them currently. That's one reason why, for example, I keep my backups under MY control, duplicated on separate hard drives.