The Question Thread

[O Really]

OK, so update is complete. Seems to be working fine. So far.

[rstrong]

OK, so update is complete. Seems to be working fine. So far.

As with any OS install, run updates immediately.

[O Really]

OK, so update is complete. Seems to be working fine. So far.

As with any OS install, run updates immediately.

Right.
Also, I currently use Chrome. Would I be happier using Edge?

[rstrong]

Also, I currently use Chrome. Would I be happier using Edge?

Edge is to Internet Explorer what Windows 8 is to Windows 7. You can see hints of good ideas, but mostly you go "what the @#%$^ were you people thinking?"

I'm using it for most things, and really *trying* to like it. But I keep going back to IE for some things. It's not improving fast enough.

It's handling of favorites is still garbage. Rearranging them is badly broken. Occasionally when you drag a favorite to a new location it'll stay, but almost always it'll be back what it was the next time you open a browser window.

While OUTSIDE of the browser, IE stored its favorites as shortcuts in a directory on your hard drive. You could use File Explorer to easily rearrange them, or copy them to another machine. Edge uses a database file instead. There's no way to quickly arrange your favorites, and within the browser its broken.

And it gets worse when you have more than one Windows 10 machine on your Microsoft account. After an update it'll ignore your previous settings and merge the favorites from all your machines into one horrific mess.

When you tell it that new browser windows and page should open on a blank page, the next update will still reset it to their firehose of crap.

On one hand they've removed a lot of fine-tuning of security and other features. On the other hand it's more like what you'd recommend for your elderly parents to use.

I like the ability to easily turn Flash on and off in the Advanced Settings menu. On the other hand it lacks IE's Internet, Trusted and Restricted lists, so you can't just drop a site into the Restricted list so that it'll always block flash for that site but not others.

Once they fix the Favorites problems I'll probably recommend it. But not just yet.

[O Really]

Thanks much!
I opened Edge, expecting "great things" and didn't see much impressive. I liked the way you can set up the blank tab with your own links. Chrome shows you (theoretically) most used, but you can't add your own. It doesn't seem to let me use two or more tabs for the home page opening. I'll keep with it for a while and give it a fair run, but so far I'm not impressed.

[Seth Milner]

Question: Do the women really get prettier at closing time?

[JTA]

Question: Do the women really get prettier at closing time?

Yeah they do. I'm a pretty observant self aware guy... Well I like to think I am anyway. Many-a-time I've gotten pretty saucey and thrown on the beer goggles. I'll be looking at a lady and be thinking "I know she's ugly. She's not good looking and if I weren't drunk ID be like nah man. But I'd totally holler at it now."

[billy.pilgrim]

Question: Do the women really get prettier at closing time?

Yeah they do. I'm a pretty observant self aware guy... Well I like to think I am anyway. Many-a-time I've gotten pretty saucey and thrown on the beer goggles. I'll be looking at a lady and be thinking "I know she's ugly. She's not good looking and if I weren't drunk ID be like nah man. But I'd totally holler at it now."

In this case they may have been trying to fix the Ugly in the the location.
There is some real dirt poor ugly in this part of Oklahoma that requires mass quantities of liquor to fix

[JTA]

Question: Do the women really get prettier at closing time?

Yeah they do. I'm a pretty observant self aware guy... Well I like to think I am anyway. Many-a-time I've gotten pretty saucey and thrown on the beer goggles. I'll be looking at a lady and be thinking "I know she's ugly. She's not good looking and if I weren't drunk ID be like nah man. But I'd totally holler at it now."

In this case they may have been trying to fix the Ugly in the the location.
There is some real dirt poor ugly in this part of Oklahoma that requires mass quantities of liquor to fix

Man that's intersting I never thought about it that way.

If I want to fix all the ugly in my life, all I need to do is stay drunk. Checkmate, doctors, psychiatrists, and pharmaceutical industry.

[Seth Milner]

I thought of you JTA when I posted that photo, what with your Bud Lite and all!

billy, why do you think this is Oklahoma? (wait, never mind, Pond Creek OK; I Googled it; they have a Facebook page)
I didn't think it was a real place!

[JTA]

I thought of you JTA when I posted that photo, what with your Bud Lite and all!

billy, why do you think this is Oklahoma? (wait, never mind, Pond Creek OK; I Googled it; they have a Facebook page)
I didn't think it was a real place!

Pffft! Bud light? Come on man, what do you take me for, a pleb? Miller Lite all the way!

[Seth Milner]

Pffft! Bud light? Come on man, what do you take me for, a pleb? Miller Lite all the way!

My bad! Could'a sworn you said Bud.

[JTA]

Pffft! Bud light? Come on man, what do you take me for, a pleb? Miller Lite all the way!

My bad! Could'a sworn you said Bud.

Bud light on the rocks.

[billy.pilgrim]

I thought of you JTA when I posted that photo, what with your Bud Lite and all!

billy, why do you think this is Oklahoma? (wait, never mind, Pond Creek OK; I Googled it; they have a Facebook page)
I didn't think it was a real place!

Google Earth - right between the napa and the Buy Rite

[rstrong]

Question: Do the women really get prettier at closing time?

Yeah they do. I'm a pretty observant self aware guy... Well I like to think I am anyway. Many-a-time I've gotten pretty saucey and thrown on the beer goggles. I'll be looking at a lady and be thinking "I know she's ugly. She's not good looking and if I weren't drunk ID be like nah man. But I'd totally holler at it now."

New York Times:

It’s 2 a.m. The bar is closing. Republicans have had a series of strong and nasty Trump cocktails. Suddenly Ted Cruz is beginning to look kind of attractive. At least he’s sort of predictable, and he doesn’t talk about his sexual organs in presidential debates!

Well, Republicans, have your standards really fallen so low so fast? Are you really that desperate? Can you remember your 8 p.m. selves, and all the hope you had about entering a campaign with such a deep bench of talented candidates?

Back in the early evening, before the current panic set in, Republicans understood that Ted Cruz would be a terrible general election candidate, at least as unelectable as Donald Trump and maybe more so....

[Vrede too]

*hic* She ain't that ugly. *hic*

[Seth Milner]

Oh shit! Damn! Didn't "she" used to be a WWE world wrestling champion? <shudder>
Beauty is skin deep; "hers" never sunk in and "her" ugly goes slap to the damn bone!

[O Really]

OK, so I've had ummm, "opportunity" to experience "cord cutting" and so far it''s not much fun. The place where we park the winter residence most of the season has cable and relatively decent wi-fi. In addition, I've got a hotspot that works very well, and an external HD antenna that is satisfactory. Missing a DVR, but whatever.

Moving up the coast, we're in a place that does not have cable, and the wi-fi is sketchy. So I've been playing the cut the cord game and looking for workable solutions. With decent wi-fi, I can stream things like CNN and other cable stations (although that's not really cut cables because you still have to have a cable account). Using the hotspot, though, runs up a ridiculous bill when you stream a film or so. Regular networks (along with their weird side channels work fine, but have limited programming.

I've looked at satellite, but even though you can get "pay as you go" service, it also is limited in that it doesn't get "local" channels away from "home" and you're paying for a bunch of stuff not watched. So you spend $500 or so on an antenna, another $150 or so for a receiver, pay $50 or so for each month or part thereof you're using it, and still have to switch back and forth to the built-in antenna. Not a very acceptable solution.

So -anybody totally cord cut? Suggestions?

[Seth Milner]

I've totally cut the cord here at the lake and put up a rooftop self-motorized antenna I bought from Amazom.com for $29.95. Works pretty decently, picks up a number of local networks and their side channels; but as you say, it lacks a lot if you're coming down off a satellite or cable high. I have AT&T U-Verse DSL connected to a desktop which I've connected to my TV. I usually watch the freebie movies (Hulu, Crackle, Yahoo Red, etc.) along with an occasional Netflix current run movie. I've gotten the satellite news channels out of my system now, so I've resigned myself to the PC and the locals. Not too bad once you get used to them. Not to mention the extra weight in your wallet.



Antenna is a Chines-made cheapie, but it works.

[rstrong]

When I live out in the country a few years back I had satellite TV (StarChoice / Shaw Direct). My internet service came through a flat-panel microwave antenna pointed at a distant tower.

The "broadband internet service" - ANYTHING can be called "broadband" service here - was faster than dial-up but nowhere near DSL or cable modem speeds. And when all the kids in the neighborhood got home from school and onto their computers the service slowed to a crawl.

This is where I learned the dishonesty of claimed internet speeds. My download utility would graph the download speeds. Any file being downloaded would go at full (somewhat faster than dial-up) speed for the first few second, but then it would be throttled back to less then half that.

This meant that web pages were reasonably snappy. But any file downloads over a couple hundred K were terribly slow. It also meant that internet speed checking sites claimed unrealistically high speeds - unless you changed the default file size it used for testing to something much larger.

I would never go back to that.