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No Thanks Usergroup changes
Whether you have noticed or not, there is a lot of discussion going on about this thread. The basic idea behind it is that activity is down and we need a new goal to reach to make the members who are already Premium feel like posting again as well as give new members even more incentive to join in and become active.

The original suggestion includes adding a new user group above Premiums with added perks and higher requirements. A lot of people like this idea but everyone has their own spin on it, especially the colour and name. I personally think the colour can wait, so please leave that out of this poll.

Other members suggested that we do an overhaul of the Premium group, raising the requirements at the least and offering a few more perks on the side. That suggestion also got a lot of support.

This poll is about these two possibilities and whether we as a community are more interested in creating a new group, overhauling Premium, or doing both for the sake of activity.

Please keep in mind that the goal of both suggestions is to give members a heightened incentive to post and to boost activity, even among those who are currently Premium.

Read on for the pros and cons of each group.

New usergroup
This is the current suggestion in the OP of the thread, shortened for readability:

Noble

Requirements

3,000 posts

1,500 rep

6 months membership

Rewards

Colored username

Noble pin

Beta testing new features such as new skins

Avatar Limit Increase - 200px by 200px

1 week pending for name changes

File size in signatures upgraded from 500KB to 1MB

Private message inbox gets a +50 increase, bringing it to 400

Profile picture maximum dimensions are 300px by 300px, as opposed to Premium Members, who have 250px by 200px

Maximum lines in signature is upgraded from 11 to 12

Click to expand...

The pros of creating a new usergroup are:

A new common goal for members to reach that requires them to post in counting sections, especially Premiums

The incentive to make rep-worthy posts instead of just skirting by within the rules

New perks that have never been given to members before

Difficulty

Some cons that people brought up were:

Potential elitism and exclusivity

Could open the door to even higher groups later on

Will eventually succumb to inflation just like Premium
As personal side note I would like to bring up the point that that potential elitism and exclusivity existed with Premiums in the first place. It may be a legitimate concern, but it not not special to this particular usergroup, and elitism among Premiums seems pretty low.

Premium overhaul
The basic idea behind this one is straightforward. We will add some perks and make it harder to reach premium, most importantly adding a rep requirement and raising the post requirement.

Pros:

Inspires further activity beyond the 1,000 posts that have become so standard

Reduced inflation of the group and coloured name; the appeal of speciality is regained

Quality is added to quantity

Members that spammed to 1,000 and stopped posting will cease to be rewarded for it and be forced to contribute again to regain their status

Cons:

Members who spammed or do not earn rep feel cheated or singled out

The goal is not entirely new and may not inspire as much activity as a new group

Many people will lose Premium until they meet the new requirements
Doing both would bring the pros of both together while eliminating one or two of the cons, but it would be a much bigger change than either alone, so there is a lot to be considered.

What do you think sounds best? What does this community have more interest in?
Thread by: Makaze, Aug 1, 2012, 41 replies, in forum: Feedback & Assistance
Thread
It works!

All our newline creating buttons are gone!

Not really, but this code is working now.

I feel the need to celebrate.

Thread by: Makaze, Jul 30, 2012, 72 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
Thread
Implemented Alternate Spoiler Format

I have an idea for an alternate spoiler format that is less buggy and looks cleaner overall than the button we have now. I do not want it to replace the current spoiler for reasons I will express below.

It works by making the text the same colour as the background so that it can be revealed when the text is selected. You might recognize this format from various sites such as TVTropes and other message boards.

I feel this would be a good addition because it doesn't provoke as much curiosity as the clickable spoiler and requires a more deliberate action to reveal. It also allows someone to hide text within a line without disrupting the format while the normal spoilers move things down onto the next line and are inconvenient for use in a sentence or paragraph.

The reason why it cannot replace the current spoiler tag is that it cannot spoil images and videos in the same way. It only hides text. But I think it is an efficient and elegant addition.

Since the [noparse]

[/noparse] tag is already being used, something like should work. Here is an example: http://i.minus.com/ibka3n9Jkc354L.png vs. http://i.minus.com/ibaGs8ojFU8gBo.png The code I have in mind is extremely simple and easy to use. You can edit to your leisure or make a new one if you have a better idea. [table="width: 500"] [tr] [td="width: 90"][RIGHT][hidden] =[/RIGHT][/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td="width: 90"][RIGHT] =[/RIGHT][/td]
</span>
[/tr][/table]

What do you think? Could we add something like that?[/FONT]

Thread by: Makaze, Jul 30, 2012, 19 replies, in forum: Feedback & Assistance
Thread
The Obama GITMO myth

New vindictive restrictions on detainees highlights the falsity of Obama defenders regarding closing the camp

Most of the 168 detainees at Guantanamo have been imprisoned by the U.S. Government for close to a decade without charges and with no end in sight to their captivity. Some now die at Guantanamo, thousands of miles away from their homes and families, without ever having had the chance to contest accusations of guilt. During the Bush years, the plight of these detainees was a major source of political controversy, but under Obama, it is now almost entirely forgotten. On those rare occasions when it is raised, Obama defenders invoke a blatant myth to shield the President from blame: he wanted and tried so very hard to end all of this, but Congress would not let him. Especially now that we’re in an Election Year, and in light of very recent developments, it’s long overdue to document clearly how misleading that excuse is.

Last week, the Obama administration imposed new arbitrary rules for Guantanamo detainees who have lost their first habeas corpus challenge. Those new rules eliminate the right of lawyers to visit their clients at the detention facility; the old rules establishing that right were in place since 2004, and were bolstered by the Supreme Court’s 2008 Boumediene ruling that detainees were entitled to a “meaningful” opportunity to contest the legality of their detention. The DOJ recently informed a lawyer for a Yemeni detainee, Yasein Khasem Mohammad Esmail, that he would be barred from visiting his client unless he agreed to a new regime of restrictive rules, including acknowledging that such visits are within the sole discretion of the camp’s military commander. Moreover, as SCOTUSblog’s Lyle Denniston explains:

Besides putting control over legal contacts entirely under a military commander’s control, the “memorandum of understanding” does not allow attorneys to share with other detainee lawyers what they learn, and does not appear to allow them to use any such information to help prepare their own client for a system of periodic review at Guantanamo of whether continued detention is justified, and may even forbid the use of such information to help prepare a defense to formal terrorism criminal charges against their client.
Click to expand...

The New York Times Editorial Page today denounced these new rules as “spiteful,” cited it as “the Obama administration’s latest overuse of executive authority,” and said “the administration looks as if it is imperiously punishing detainees for their temerity in bringing legal challenges to their detention and losing.” Detainee lawyers are refusing to submit to these new rules and are asking a federal court to rule that they violate the detainees’ right to legal counsel.

But every time the issue of ongoing injustices at Guantanamo is raised, one hears the same apologia from the President’s defenders: the President wanted and tried to end all of this, but Congress — including even liberals such as Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders — overwhelming voted to deny him the funds to close Guantanamo. While those claims, standing alone, are true, they omit crucial facts and thus paint a wildly misleading picture about what Obama actually did and did not seek to do.

What made Guantanamo controversial was not its physical location: that it was located in the Caribbean Sea rather than on American soil (that’s especially true since the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that U.S. courts have jurisdiction over the camp). What made Guantanamo such a travesty — and what still makes it such — is that it is a system of indefinite detention whereby human beings are put in cages for years and years without ever being charged with a crime. President Obama’s so-called “plan to close Guantanamo” — even if it had been approved in full by Congress — did not seek to end that core injustice. It sought to do the opposite: Obama’s plan would have continued the system of indefinite detention, but simply re-located it from Guantanamo Bay onto American soil.

Long before, and fully independent of, anything Congress did, President Obama made clear that he was going to preserve the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo even once he closed the camp. President Obama fully embraced indefinite detention â€” the defining injustice of Guantanamo — as his own policy.

In February, 2009, the Obama DOJ told an appellate court it was embracing the Bush DOJ’s theory that Bagram detainees have no legal rights whatsoever, an announcement that shocked the judges on the panel hearing the case. In May, 2009, President Obama delivered a speech at the National Archives — in front of the U.S. Constitution — and, as his plan for closing Guantanamo, proposed a system of preventative “prolonged detention” without trial inside the U.S.; The New York Times – in an article headlined “President’s Detention Plan Tests American Legal Tradition” – said Obama’s plan “would be a departure from the way this country sees itself, as a place where people in the grip of the government either face criminal charges or walk free.” In January, 2010, the Obama administration announced it would continue to imprison several dozen Guantanamo detainees without any charges or trials of any kind, including even a military commission, on the ground that they were “too difficult to prosecute but too dangerous to release.” That was all Obama’s doing, completely independent of anything Congress did.

When the President finally unveiled his plan for “closing Guantanamo,” it became clear that it wasn’t a plan to “close” the camp as much as it was a plan simply to re-locate it — import it — onto American soil, at a newly purchased federal prison in Thompson, Illinois. William Lynn, Obama’s Deputy Defense Secretary, sent a letter to inquiring Senators that expressly stated that the Obama administration intended to continue indefinitely to imprison some of the detainees with no charges of any kind. The plan was classic Obama: a pretty, feel-good, empty symbolic gesture (get rid of the symbolic face of Bush War on Terror excesses) while preserving the core abuses (the powers of indefinite detention ), even strengthening and expanding those abuses by bringing them into the U.S.

Recall that the ACLU immediately condemned what it called the President’s plan to create “GITMO North.” About the President’s so-called “plan to close Guantanamo,” Executive Director Anthony Romero said:

The creation of a “Gitmo North” in Illinois is hardly a meaningful step forward. Shutting down GuantÃ¡namo will be nothing more than a symbolic gesture if we continue its lawless policies onshore.

Alarmingly, all indications are that the administration plans to continue its predecessor’s policy of indefinite detention without charge or trial for some detainees, with only a change of location. Such a policy is completely at odds with our democratic commitment to due process and human rights whether it’s occurring in Cuba or in Illinois.

In fact, while the Obama administration inherited the GuantÃ¡namo debacle, this current move is its own affirmative adoption of those policies. It is unimaginable that the Obama administration is using the same justification as the Bush administration used to undercut centuries of legal jurisprudence and the principle of innocent until proven guilty and the right to confront one’s accusers. . . . .The Obama administration’s announcement today contradicts everything the president has said about the need for America to return to leading with its values.
Click to expand...

In fact, Obama’s “close GITMO” plan — if it had been adopted by Congress — would have done something worse than merely continue the camp’s defining injustice of indefinite detention. It would likely have expanded those powers by importing them into the U.S. The day after President Obama’s speech proposing a system of “prolonged detention” on U.S. soil, the ACLU’s Ben Wizner told me in an interview:

It may to serve to enshrine into law the very departures from the law that the Bush administration led us on, and that we all criticized so much. And I’ll elaborate on that. But that’s really my initial reaction to it; that what President Obama was talking about yesterday is making permanent some of the worst features of the Guantanamo regime. He may be shutting down the prison on that camp, but what’s worse is he may be importing some of those legal principles into our own legal system, where they’ll do great harm for a long time.
Click to expand...

So even if Congress had fully supported and funded Obama’s plan to “close Guantanamo,” the core injustices that made the camp such a travesty would remain. In fact, they’d not only remain, but would be in full force within the U.S. That’s what makes the prime excuse offered for Obama — he tried to end all of this but couldn’t – so misleading. He only wanted to change the locale of these injustices, but sought fully to preserve them.

Indeed, as part of that excuse, one frequently hears that even liberal civil liberties stalwarts in the Senate — such as Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders — voted to deny funding for the closing of Guantanamo: as though it is they who are to blame for these enduring travesties, rather than Obama. But this, too, is misleading in the extreme.

The reason these Democratic Senators voted to deny funds for closing Guantanamo is not because they lacked the courage to close Guantanamo. It’s because they did not want to fund a plan to close the camp without knowing exactly what Obama planned to do with the detainees there — because people like Feingold and Sanders did not want to fund the importation of a system of indefinite detention onto U.S. soil. Here’s what actually happened when the Senate, including most Democrats, refused to fund the closing of Guantanamo:

[White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs] added Obama has not yet decided where some of the detainees will be sent. A presidential commission is studying the issue. . . .

Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, favors closing Guantanamo, and the legislation his panel originally sent to the floor provided money for that purpose once the administration submitted a plan for the shutdown.

In changing course and seeking to delete the funds, he said, “The fact that the administration has not offered a workable plan at this point made that decision rather easy.”
Click to expand...

Can that be any clearer? They would have voted to fund the closing of Guantanamo, but only once they knew what Obama’s plan was for the detainees there. Feingold — whose vote against funding the closing of Guantanamo is invariably cited by Obama defenders — wrote a letter to the President specifically to object to any plan to import the system of indefinite detention onto U.S. soil:

My primary concern, however, relates to your reference to the possibility of indefinite detention without trial for certain detainees. While I appreciate your good faith desire to at least enact a statutory basis for such a regime, any system that permits the government to indefinitely detain individuals without charge or without a meaningful opportunity to have accusations against them adjudicated by an impartial arbiter violates basic American values and is likely unconstitutional.

While I recognize that your administration inherited detainees who, because of torture, other forms of coercive interrogations, or other problems related to their detention or the evidence against them, pose considerable challenges to prosecution, holding them indefinitely without trial is inconsistent with the respect for the rule of law that the rest of your speech so eloquently invoked. Indeed, such detention is a hallmark of abusive systems that we have historically criticized around the world. It is hard to imagine that our country would regard as acceptable a system in another country where an individual other than a prisoner of war is held indefinitely without charge or trial.

Once a system of indefinite detention without trial is established, the temptation to use it in the future would be powerful. And, while your administration may resist such a temptation, future administrations may not. There is a real risk, then, of establishing policies and legal precedents that rather than ridding our country of the burden of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, merely set the stage for future Guantanamos, whether on our shores or elsewhere, with disastrous consequences for our national security.

Worse, those policies and legal precedents would be effectively enshrined as acceptable in our system of justice, having been established not by one, largely discredited administration, but by successive administrations of both parties with greatly contrasting positions on legal and constitutional issues.
Click to expand...

Feingold was not going to vote for a plan to close Guantanamo if it meant that its core injustice — indefinite detention — was going simply to be re-located onto American soil, where it would be entrenched rather than dismantled. That, as all of this evidence makes clear, is why so many Democratic Senators voted to deny funding for the closing of Guantanamo: not because they favored the continuation of indefinite detention, but precisely because they did not want to fund its continuation on American soil, as Obama clearly intended.

Now, here we are, almost four years after the vow to close Guantanamo was enshrined in an Executive Order, and the rights of detainees — including the basic right to legal counsel — are being constricted further, in plainly vindictive ways. Conditions at Guantanamo are undoubtedly better than they were in 2003, and some of the deficiencies in military commissions (for the few who appear before them) have been redressed. But the real stain of Guantanamo — keeping people locked up in cages for years with no charges — endures. And contrary to the blatant myth propagated by Obama defenders, that has happened not because Obama tried but failed to eliminate it, but precisely because he embraced it as his own policy from the start.
Click to expand...

Source(s): http://www.salon.com/2012/07/23/the_obama_gitmo_myth/ — Many in the article itself

Thread by: Makaze, Jul 24, 2012, 0 replies, in forum: Current Events
Thread
Anaheim Police Shooting

This is breaking. As in today.

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — A police shooting that left a man dead led to a violent clash as angry witnesses threw bottles at officers who responded with tear gas and beanbag rounds to suppress the crowd, authorities said.

The man was shot in front of an apartment complex around 4 p.m. Saturday following a foot chase, Anaheim Sgt. Bob Dunn said. He died three hours later at a hospital.

The Orange County Register cited family members and neighbors who said the man shot was Manuel Diaz. Dunn said he could not confirm the man's name early Sunday.

His niece, 16-year-old Daisy Gonzalez, said her uncle likely ran away from officers when they approached him because of his past experience with law enforcement.

"He (doesn't) like cops. He never liked them because all they do is harass and arrest anyone," Gonzalez told the newspaper after lighting a candle for her uncle. She cursed at officers who were nearby and a police helicopter that hovered overhead.

As officers were investigating what happened at the scene, Dunn said an angry group of people began yelling and throwing bottles at them. He said that as officers detained several people, the crowd advanced on officers so they fired tear gas and beanbag rounds at them.

Video captured by a KCAL-TV crew showed a chaotic scene in which officers fired beanbag rounds as some people ducked to the ground while others scattered screaming. A man is seen yelling at an officer even as a weapon is pointed at him; two adults huddled to shield a boy and girl. Meanwhile, a police dog ran into several people sitting on the grass, including a woman and child in a stroller, before biting a man in the arm.

Dunn said the dog somehow got out of a patrol car and was "deployed accidentally."

Throughout the night, police in multiple marked and unmarked squad cars attempted to control an unruly crowd gathered near the shooting scene, the Register reported.

Some in the crowd moved a Dumpster into an intersection and set its trash on fire on at least three separate occasions, while officers kept responding to move it out of the way of traffic.

Dunn said gang detectives are involved in the investigation.

Crystal Ventura, a 17-year-old who witnessed the shooting, told the Register the man had his back to the officer. She said the man was shot in the buttocks area. The man then went down on his knees, and she said he was struck by another bullet in the head. Another officer handcuffed the man who by then was on the ground and not moving, Ventura said.

"They searched his pockets, and there was a hole in his head, and I saw blood on his face," she told the newspaper. Dunn said he could not comment on these allegations because the shooting is under investigation.

Dunn said the man shot by police was one of three men who ran away from officers who approached them in an alley. The other two suspects have not been captured.

He would not say why police shot the man, saying that the details are under investigation by the Orange County District Attorney's office.
He said several people were arrested in the melee, but he couldn't immediately provide a figure.
Click to expand...

Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...Vk1xDA?docId=2440010e2afa4291bb2bc8e1bc99fcc2

Here is the video in question.

[video=youtube;MST4RhWdlMQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MST4RhWdlMQ[/video]

Thread by: Makaze, Jul 22, 2012, 4 replies, in forum: Current Events
Thread
SJ is re-banned

Way too many people miss it when a member gets banned (unto people still being surprised to hear that Zter was banned), so I think this needs to be said. Obviously because of the timing, civility needs to be kept, but awareness should be kept as well.

Rest in peace. Or maybe you'll make it back sometime, who knows.

One family.

Thread by: Makaze, Jul 21, 2012, 93 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Downloading threads?

No announcement or member suggestion was made on this subject, so I would like for this to be reinstated:

Members were able to download threads as text. Can we please have that feature back if possible?

I will post a suggestion if necessary, but this is a minor issue and we already had it so it probably shouldn't be gone in the first place.

Thread by: Makaze, Jul 20, 2012, 1 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Are you kidding?

This is about as chuckleheaded as I have seen them get.

Thread by: Makaze, Jul 20, 2012, 6 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Jube, I found a friend of yours.

Love exists, but only men can love, since women are not conscious, their brains are different from ours.

Saying that a woman can love a person or anything (like having a true desire of knowledge even if it's not useful for them) is like arguing your pet can feel anything for you, too.

Both are social parasites that will only attach themselves to the best provider and attempt to mimic them, to use many methods to manipulate, when it suits them.

And since 99,9999999999999999999% of men are always influenced by women (or feminine traits) and can't fathom any of this (except for me and perhaps a very few people in history), they will be just like them, too.

Speaking of myself, I would have to divide what I understand as love between "intelectual", which is to care about a person in a deep mental level (in this case, a man I only knew to date on the internet 6 years ago and since that day has been a major influence in my life, practically every single day I think about him that way), and "romantic/superficial/emotional", where I would put, besides my family, the only woman I felt a strong desire to connect intimately (I told here this story).

Since there is no one (I mean, no woman, I am heterossexual) that can have all those traits combined I think it's safe to assume I will never love anyone to the fullest extent. And at least for me, the love that counts most is the intelectual one. Someone doesn't have to be highly intelligent, but have some wisdom, the desire to be more than just another puppet in this world.
Click to expand...

A truly rare specimen.

Thread by: Makaze, Jul 20, 2012, 4 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Happy Birthday

You crazy bastard.

Thread by: Makaze, Jul 10, 2012, 15 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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I realized I forgot to ask half a year ago

I have a game called Vagrant Story. Have any of you played it? What is it like, and is it worth investment?

Thread by: Makaze, Jul 7, 2012, 8 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Tests in cannibalism case: Zombie-like attacker used pot, not 'bath salts'

The naked Florida man who chewed off the face of another man last month in a zombie-like cannibal attack used marijuana but not "bath salts" as police had suspected, authorities said Wednesday.

Rudy Eugene, 31, was killed by a police officer after Eugene's 18-minute attack on a homeless man. His body didn't show "any other street drugs, alcohol or prescription drugs, or any adulterants found in street drugs," according to the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner Department.

"The department has also sought the assistance of an outside forensic toxicology reference laboratory, which has confirmed the absence of 'bath salts,' synthetic marijuana and LSD," the statement said.

A video of last month's incident shows Eugene coming across 65-year-old Ronald Poppo on a sidewalk along Miami's MacArthur Causeway, stripping clothes off him and eventually chewing on his face. Police said Poppo lost 75% of his face in the attack.

Armando Aguilar, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, told CNN affiliate WPLG last month that he suspected Eugene was under the influence of "bath salts," a drug that contains synthetic stimulants that can "cause chest pains, increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, agitation, hallucinations, extreme paranoia and delusions," according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse.

Eugene's mother said last month that her son was "a nice kid" who could have been subdued with a Taser rather than gunfire.

"He was a good kid. He gave me a nice card on Mother's Day. Everyone says he was a zombie. He was no zombie. That was my son," the mother, who asked that her name not be revealed, told CNN affiliate WFOR.
Click to expand...

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/27/us/florida-cannibal-attack/index.html

If you did not believe it was a drug scare before, you had better now.

On the subject of cannibalism, humans are genetically predisposed to cannibalism and their trigger for cannibalistic instincts may attack under various circumstances.

He was also diagnosed with schizophrenia.

But nope, it is the pot. Don't worry. Your prejudices are safe.

Thread by: Makaze, Jun 27, 2012, 2 replies, in forum: Current Events
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Police Send SWAT Team, Break Into Wrong House (& TV Film Crew) in Response to Troll

We've heard of police very frequently overreacting to things and sending in SWAT teams when they aren't necessary. We've also heard of them sending SWAT teams to the wrong place. But this latest story, found via Radley Balko (who tracks these things like no other) may be the most insane yet. It involves police sending a SWAT team and breaking into the wrong house (whose front door was open) in response to some internet trolls. I'm not kidding.

The issue was that on a Topix community forum for Evansville, Indiana, someone claimed that a list of police staff had been "leaked." Some trolls in the comments spoke out against the police -- and one certainly went too far, suggesting that a certain officer's house was going to be shot up. Rather than investigating the issue, the police got some info on where the comment came from (or, rather, where they thought the comment came from) and sent the SWAT team and a TV news crew to the home of Ira and Louise Milan -- whose front door was open. Now, they could have rang the doorbell and spoken to them. But, instead, they broke down the screen door, broke the front window, and tossed a flashbang into the living room.

And... all for naught. While they seized a bunch of computer equipment, it turns out that no one in the house had anything to do with anything. Something they could have ascertained by, you know, talking to people in the house. The police are defending their massive overreaction because.... the internet!!!!

“This is a little more difficult that a traditional crime scene, because we’re dealing with the Internet. They definitely weren’t expecting (a SWAT team at the door). The reason we did that is the threats were specific enough, and the potential for danger was there.

“This is a big deal to us,” Cullum said. “This may be just somebody who was online just talking stupid. What I would suggest to anybody who visits websites like that is that their comments can be taken literally.”
Click to expand...

Yes, so because the police might overreact, you should watch what you say online. And also always be ready for a SWAT team to show up, in case a stranger you know nothing about says something bad online. After all, it's "the internet."
Click to expand...

Source: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...tv-film-crew-response-to-internet-troll.shtml

Thread by: Makaze, Jun 27, 2012, 0 replies, in forum: Current Events
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How to go back to Windows Live 2009

Made at the request of Saxima.

This tutorial will show you how to go back to Windows Live 2009 from Windows Live 2011 without being forced to update.

1. UNINSTALL WINDOWS LIVE 2011

First, make sure that you are running Windows Live 2011. Open up your messenger, click the Help drop down in the top menu, and choose "About Messenger".

If you have Windows Live 2011, a window should pop up that looks like this:

Now that you know what version you have, it is time to uninstall.

Go to Start Menu Â» Control Panel Â» Programs and Features.

Find Windows Live Essentials 2011 and uninstall it.

If you do not uninstall all of the suite's programs, you will not be able to install the older version.

Make sure that Windows Live Essentials 2011 is no longer on your Programs and Features list before moving on to Step 2.

2. DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL WINDOWS LIVE 2009

Download the last release of Windows Live 2009 here.

Once you have it downloaded, run it and install the suite with whatever settings you want, but be sure to check Messenger.

This is my setup, installing everything that I had before in the 2011 edition:

Select the programs you want and click Install. Let it finish before moving on to the next step.

3. SET COMPATIBILITY MODE FOR WINDOWS XP (SERVICE PACK 3)

Find your newly installed msnmsgr.exe.

Mine was located in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Messenger\". (Depending the bit depth of your processor, you may not have the (x86) part at the end of your Program Files folder name.)

Right click on the file to bring up the dropdown menu and choose Properties. This will open a window with many options and tabs. Go to the Compatibility tab.

You should see a section labeled 'Compatibility mode'. Check the box labeled 'Run this program in compatibility mode for:' and choose "Windows XP (Service Pack 3)" from the drop down menu.

Click Apply and then OK.

Close the window.

You are done. You can now use Windows Live Messenger 2009 in peace until Microsoft does something to mess things up again.

Thread by: Makaze, Jun 20, 2012, 8 replies, in forum: Technology
Thread
I went for a walk

And I found this in a ditch across from someone's driveway.

Do you have any idea what it could be?

Thread by: Makaze, Jun 13, 2012, 12 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Gonorrhea Is Growing Resistant To Drugs And May Soon Become Untreatable, WHO Warns

GENEVA (AP) â€” A potentially dangerous sexually transmitted disease that infects millions of people each year is growing resistant to drugs and could soon become untreatable, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

The U.N. health agency is urging governments and doctors to step up surveillance of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, a bacterial infection that can cause inflammation, infertility, pregnancy complications and, in extreme cases, lead to maternal death. Babies born to mothers with gonorrhea have a 50 percent chance of developing eye infections that can result in blindness.

"This organism has basically been developing resistance against every medication we've thrown at it," said Dr. Manjula Lusti-Narasimhan, a scientist in the agency's department of sexually transmitted diseases. This includes a group of antibiotics called cephalosporins currently considered the last line of treatment.

"In a couple of years it will have become resistant to every treatment option we have available now," she told The Associated Press in an interview ahead of WHO's public announcement on its 'global action plan' to combat the disease.

Lusti-Narasimhan said the new guidance is aimed at ending complacency about gonorrhea and encouraging researchers to speed up their hunt for a new cure.

Once considered a scourge of sailors and soldiers, gonorrhea â€” known colloquially as the clap â€” became easily treatable with the discovery of penicillin. Now, it is again the second most common sexually transmitted infection after chlamydia. The global health body estimates that of the 498 million new cases of curable sexually transmitted infections worldwide, gonorrhea is responsible for some 106 million infections annually. It also increases the chances of infection with other diseases, such as HIV.

"It's not a European problem or an African problem, it's really a worldwide problem," said Lusti-Narasimhan.

Scientists believe overuse of antibiotics, coupled with the gonorrhea bacteria's astonishing ability to adapt, means the disease is now close to becoming a super bug.

Resistance to cephalosporins was first reported in Japan, but more recently has also been detected in Britain, Hong Kong and Norway. As these are all countries with well-developed health systems, it is likely that cephalosporin-resistant strains are also circulating undetected elsewhere.

Therefore the Geneva-based agency wants countries not just to tighten their rules for antibiotic use, but also to improve their surveillance systems so that the full extent of the problem can be determined.

Better sex education is also needed, as proper condom use is an effective means of stopping transmission, said Lusti-Narasimhan.

"We're not going to be able to get rid of it completely," she said. "But we can limit the spread."
Click to expand...

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/06/gonorrhea-warning_n_1572907.html

Add this to the list of viruses and diseases that are spreading rapidly and becoming even worse superbugs, along with MRSA.

Thread by: Makaze, Jun 7, 2012, 1 replies, in forum: Current Events
Thread
Further demonization of Occupy protesters, Entrapment; now called Terrorists

This follows from threads like these two, and emphasizes my points and predictions in this post.

[video=youtube;feNsw8r196M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feNsw8r196M[/video]

Thread by: Makaze, Jun 1, 2012, 0 replies, in forum: Current Events
Thread
How to Copyright a Colour

How to Copyright a Color

How many of you can close your eyes and picture the exact shade of green that Starbucks uses on its mugs? Or the exact color that adorns the box of a Barbie doll? These colors are a crucial part of some major brands nowadays — so it's not surprising that companies have started to copyright them, to prevent competitors from using them.

Find out how certain very specific colors have become corporate property.

T-Mobile owns a particular vibration of photons that we call magenta. Barbie doll packages, and only Barbie doll packages, can be adorned with a particular shade of cloying pink. We understand that copyright applies to arrangements of colors in a certain shape that denotes a corporate logo — but copyright is more all-encompassing than that. We all can create certain photons, but some of us can be blocked from doing it by a court order.

In America, the first definitive judgment on colors came from the Supreme Court in 1995. The case was surprisingly obscure. None of the giants of industry went to war over their color scheme. It was simply a Chicago manufacturing company, Qualitex, that complained that its competition could not manufacture covers that protected pads for dry-cleaning presses in the same shades of green and gold. They argued that the colors themselves were part of the way customers identified their products, and so should be copyrighted along with their exact designs and logos. After some time, the Supreme Court agreed. The decision cited the fact that the exact shape of a Coke bottle could belong only to the company (and how many people can picture that exact shape right now) and a certain scent, applied to a type of sewing thread, could also be copyrighted. Anything that got a consumer's hand jerking towards a specific company's product without thinking could be proprietary.

Overall, companies try to cluster around strong shades of blue and red, making those areas of the palette crowded with prohibitions. The colors aren't totally banned, of course. They only apply to someone in direct competition with the company; someone who is trying to make money in the same area as, say, Starbucks. So while a clothing manufacturer or an electronics firm might be able to work with Starbucks green, another coffee shop or restaurant wouldn't.

It's not that this doesn't entirely make sense. How many of us have zeroed in on the right product by looking for the right color in a crowded aisle? Still, colors aren't the same as manufacturing designs or eye-catching groups of lines, and not everything that helps identify a product necessarily belongs to the makers of that product. Nature doesn't produce the Nabisco logo. It does produce a color green, or blue, or red. It's unsettling to realize that particular wavelengths of light can be claimed by some and denied to others. Even physics has a corporate side.

Via Baltimore Sun, Six Revisions, and Colour Lovers.
Click to expand...

Source: http://io9.com/5913821/how-to-copyright-a-color

I have told all of you numerous times that they will eventually copyright every piece of information that you could want to make use of.

You should probably start believing me now.

Thread by: Makaze, May 29, 2012, 2 replies, in forum: Current Events
Thread
Patriotism

Due to some some examples that have shown that children are still held accountable for being unpatriotic in some places in the US, I thought I should bring the subject up.

Do you believe that patriotism is beneficial in the search for liberty, or harmful? How did you reach your conclusion?

Do you support a policy where children are held accountable for not pledging allegiance? Do you think it fair if they are allowed exemption only if their parents send a note, and even then only for religious reasons? Do you think it fair if there is no exemption at all? Please explain your answer.

If you support patriotism, how do you define the group that one should be patriotic to? Why do you define it that way as opposed to other ways?

Do you condemn those who are openly unpatriotic? Why or why not?

Some questions for the section; questions that have not been asked here in a long time...

Thread by: Makaze, May 29, 2012, 12 replies, in forum: Discussion
Thread
Texas Student Who Refused to Stand for Pledge of Allegiance Says Heâ€™s Being Harassed

HOUSTON—Ray Jones says it isn’t the students at Cypress Springs High School who are the bullies, but the teachers.

"It’s very uncomfortable," Jones said. "I’m wondering what they’re going to say next."

He claims teachers have been bothering him during the Pledge of Allegiance, and that the trouble began about a month ago, on a day he jogged to school.

The 17-year-old said he was tired. When asked to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, he did not get up.

"He was tired, dripping with sweat, exhausted," Jones’s mother, LaTonya Ellison, said. "He just, on that particular day, did not feel like standing up."

According to the Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, students who do not participate in the Pledge of Allegiance are expected to stand, unless a parent has contacted the school regarding this practice being in conflict with their religious beliefs.

Ellison admits she never wrote a note.

The mother and son said they don’t take issue with the school’s policy, or with the Pledge, but with how the teachers handled it.

"Instead of being asked what was wrong, because that was totally out of character for him, it was assumed that he was being unpatriotic—and that is not what it was about at all," Ellison said.

What began as a bad day has become a bad month. Though the mother has now written a note excusing her son from the Pledge, she said some teachers have continued to single him out in class for his choice.
Click to expand...

Source (WITH VIDEO): http://www.khou.com/news/local/HS-student-challenges-Pledge-of-Allegiance-153786235.html

You know the drill...

Thread by: Makaze, May 29, 2012, 0 replies, in forum: Current Events

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