Owens L'ill Slice of the Web

Well said.

Owen — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:27:28 +0000

It’s been obvious to me for a long time that organised, systematic, sociopathic deceptive behaviour (ie. lying en-mass to harm others) has been a bedrock of our society for a long time. Combined with huge greed and a willingness to resort to bigotry and violence at the first sign of serious resistance this has kept the least deserving in riches for a long time. Or as a fellow humanist once wrote, “it’s not just the cream that floats to the top“.

So I was delighted to read this; from Julian Assanges submission to the Levenson Enquiry;

The truth has positive social utility because it helps us to understand the world around us, and the right to speak that truth must be defended. However, the same reasons that give the truth positive social utility also mean that lies have negative social utility; they undermine our understanding of the world. For people to support those wonderful protections that help us tell the truth, we must develop a way to discourage opportunistic liars or negligent journalists from abusing such protections to spread falsehoods. Press falsehoods need to be disincentivised or they will flourish. Unfortunately, the Press Complaints Commission does not provide effective disincentives or corrective remedies for victims. Neither, in many cases, do the courts due to the expense of libel actions.

There is a reason why the system has flooded the media with the words ‘rapist’ and ‘douche’ to describe him; it’s to prevent you reading what he actually says.

2 cores good, 4 cores better

Owen — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:44:21 +0000

I finally did what I promised last year; put a AMD Phenom II 840 processor in my system. Going from a 2 core 2.8 GHz processor to a 4 core 3.2 GHz has made an impressive difference to heavy processing job times; I’ve been backing up my DVD collection to .avi files recently and this has taken the average rip time from two hours down to one. Excellent. Games play crisper too and boot-up is a bit quicker. Next improvement will be a hybrid SSD drive.. maybe.

New Fish..

Owen — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:11:51 +0000

Found him in a supermarket rummage bin

I have a new friend; easier to keep than the rest of my Fish too

It’s kit 30025 if anyone wants one of their own.

Did someone say..

Owen — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:43:30 +0000

..that they need an Atlas of The Universe?

Put me in my place…

It all goes in cycles.

Owen — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:20:28 +0000

We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.
Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.
Our knowledge as made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind.

Charlie Chaplin, the superb closing speech from The Great Dictator, 70+ years old and still as relevant today as ever.

Acer RS780HVF

Owen — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:00:37 +0000

So, my main PC is a Acer Aspire M3201, cheap and cheerful, It has been fine for me.. But I’ve been transcoding some video lately and it feels sluggish compared to my works machine. It only has a x250 twin core processor: time to see what a RS780HVF motherboard can go up to: and the answer is: any AM3 socket chip which draws 95W or less, which includes several 4 core processors that are now dropping in price. Upgrade time soon I think.

Things that never happen in Star Trek

Owen — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 12:40:23 +0000

#6 : An enigmatic being composed of pure energy attempts to interface to the Enterprise’s computer, only to find out that it has forgotten to bring the right leads.

The PayPal Helpbot..

Owen — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:59:52 +0000

Sarah – PayPal :
Hi. I’m Sarah, PayPal’s automated customer support assistant.
How can I help you today?
You :
How do I cancel my account
Sarah – PayPal :
What type of PayPal account would you like to close:
-Student
-Business
-Premier
-Personal
You :
them all
Sarah – PayPal :
I found the following information. You can click to learn more.
- How do I manage my profile information and preferences?
- How do I close my PayPal account?
- I want to cancel a transaction
You :
How do I close my PayPal account?
Sarah – PayPal :
What type of PayPal account would you like to close:
-Student
-Business
-Premier
-Personal
You :
Personal
Sarah – PayPal :
Before I help you close your account, could you tell me why you’d like to close it?
You :
Because you are a bunch of scum bankers
Sarah – PayPal :
Thank you for providing a reason. We’re sorry that you’ve chosen to close your account. You can close your account by clicking this link. You may need to login to see it.

By the way, if you have a positive balance, you’ll need to withdraw your money before you close your account. Please remember there are no maintenance fees to keep an account open, and that when you close it all your incomplete and scheduled transactions will be canceled.

Note: If your account is limited, you might not be able to close your account until the limited is resolved.

Before we continue, was the information I gave you helpful?
-Yes, this was helpful
-No, this was not helpful
You :
Yes, this was helpful
Sarah – PayPal :
Great. I’m right here if you have any other questions.

Actually; I need to empty my account first; but their helpful savant at least showed me the way.

It’s Alive!

Owen — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 10:09:35 +0000

Honeycomb UI goodness.

So; I got my POV MobII tablet resurrected; I thought it was dead, bricked. The usual trick to put it into recovery (pressing and holding the back switch, pressing the power switch after 2 seconds, holding for 2 more and then releasing both at 2 seconds intervals..) did not work! However; the trick of first holding the power switch for at least 20 seconds, and then doing the buttons, did. Phew.

So now I have a working Android tablet; with ‘VegaComb‘ on it; a lash-up (hacked) version of Android 3.0 Honeycomb UI stuff running on a Android 2.3 kernel.. Very handy; biggest problem is that Flash is not working; so it’s just like having an Ipad

Dead Tab.

Owen — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:13:44 +0000

BooHiss: Looks like I need this: http://desire.giesecke.tk/advent-vega-steps-to-flash-a-new-rom/

I have a Brick; doorstop; paperweight.. whatever. Certainly not a working tablet..
Somehow need to get it into recovery mode and then update the firmware.

Then see if I can get the Cyanogen Mod7 in on it or even the Honeycomb experimental stuff; maybe even VegaComb.