[AntAltMike]

I just got my Microsoft notice on my HP Pavilion G6 today. It let me "reserve" my copy for installation on I think July 28 or 29th. Why should I or anyone have to reserve a copy of intellectual property, when it is endlessly replicable?


"Sir, you don't know what it means to reserve a car."

"No, YOU don't know what it means to reserve a car, because of you did, there'd be a car here for me. The one you reserved."

 

[AntAltMike]

I couldn't find it when I searched the archives for it a month ago, but back around 2002, when this site did not require registration to post, someone using the temporary screen name "trust me" announced the schedule for DirecTV sending out the revised software to remedy a dozen problems in the GAEBO/Sony B55s, (or was it B65s? I forget) that they had insisted didn't exist. It said that one night they'd go to every receiver in a certain area code (303?), and then the next night, to every receiver associated with an eastern time zone account, the next night to every central time zone account and the final night to every other account, with the caveat being that they would slow down the release schedule if they encountered difficulty handling the customer calls pursuant to each download.

The software revision worked great, solving every reported problem. I had been sending Hughes and Sony E-mails telling them of my plight, which was that when the tuner was set up in the secret, "stacked" mode for multiple dwelling use, it could not tune frequency-shifted transponders 12, 14, 16 and 18, which was killing me.

A week later, I got my first "reply" from Sony. They apologized for taking so long to get back to me, but added that since they hadn't heard from me since, they were going to assume that I had found a way to remedy the problem myself so they would not be contacting me further in this matter. Riiiight. I rewrote my own tuner software. Clever me.

 

[AntAltMike]

I just purchased me a Windows 8.1 computer and during setup I was asked them to reserve Windows 10. Now that is faster than fast.

Every time I power up the laptop I bought off Craigslist for $85 and acquired in a parking lot rendezvous, Microsoft asks me to pay them $119 to make the Windows 7 upgrade software legal.

 

[AntAltMike]

Actually, it didn't start displaying that message until I swapped some hard drives between computers, but it isn't inhibiting me from doing anything. My hunch is that the computer came with a Vista operating system, so either the previous owner did an unauthorized upgrade, or, once I switched drives, there was some detection that took place as the drive with the legal Windows 7 might interact on power-up with the BIOS of the HP G60 that was purchased with pre-installed Vista

One thing that pisses me off is that several years ago, when I bought a laptop from Best Buy, I paid an extra $300 to upgrade to whatever Microsoft calls its premium business package, and when that computer bit the dust two months later and I got rid of it, Microsoft won't let me use that same upgrade disk for my current computer because the $300 was a discounted price that attached to use with that computer only. Maybe there is a way to work around that restriction but I don't have the time to screw with it, since it just isn't that important to me.

 

[AntAltMike]

What is wrong with a 1968 Rambler American?

The aluminum block.

 

[AntAltMike]

Security experts hack into moving car and seize control
Reuters - ‎1 hour ago‎

SAN FRANCISCO, July 21 A pair of veteran cybersecurity researchers have shown they can use the Internet to turn off a car's engine as it drives, sharply escalating the stakes in the debate about the safety of increasingly connected cars and trucks.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/07/21/autos-hacking-idINL1N1011QN20150721

I have a 1995 Astro Van and a 2000 Corolla. They can't turn mine off.

BTW, whenever people ask me for a jump start, they rarely need one. Most commonly, they have had their car electronically shut down due to a payment default. If they say they are current, I tell them to turn on their headlights and then try to start it. If the headlights come on strong and don't dim when they turn the key, then most times, it is due to electronic ignition kill.

 

[AntAltMike]

I just restarted my HP Pavilion G6 laptop, which is loaded with Windows 7, because it was running a little slow, but it went into an "installing updates" routine before shutting down, as it often does, only this one was huge. It said it was undertaking a 25 step procedure which took about half an hour, and at its conclusion it then updated over 41,000 files, keeping me apprised of its approximate progress. I was guessing that it was finally forcing my scheduled but user-postponed Windows 10 upgrade, but it wasn't. It was just updating my Windows 7. Any idea why such a huge, seemingly routine upgrade to Windows 7?

 

[AntAltMike]

My computer tried installing my free Windows 10 upgrade about half a dozen times and failed every time. Fortunately for me, I don't really care. We all begin our technical journeys as leading edge guys and we all eventually become trailing edge guys. I bought my first integrated circuit for a science fair project in the spring of 1966, and I bought the first commercially viable coin operated videogame, Pong, back in 1972, I even bought an Accutrac turntable with a full function remote in 1978, as well as an Advent Videobeam 1000A projection TV. Actually, I had already fallen behind the leading edge with that one, since my cousin bought an Advent 1000 with a low, three digit serial number.

What can Windows 10 do for me that Windows 7, or even Windows 3.1, under discussion in another thread, cannot? Probably nothing that I'd want to do even if I knew how.

 

[AntAltMike]

... If you have 7, there really is no one reason to make a move now. In the future though, Microsoft will stop releasing security updates January of 2020.

The actuarial table has me departing for higher (lower?) places in 2034, so I'll probably need an upgrade before then.

 

[AntAltMike]

Someone in a totally unrelated forum I participate in was taking a poll to reach a consensus on pronouns to use when addressing certain LGBT gender variants which I thought was silly. If I were ever in a social situation in which some people were thin skinned, I'd just make liberal use of I, you, it, we, they, us and them.

-E. Nelson Bridwell, Mad Magazine, circa 1958