analog_kidd

For those of you that are Amazon Prime members, July 12th is Prime Day. It's like Amazon's Black Friday sales in July. I picked up several good deals last year. The only bad thing, as I recall, is the deals come all day long, so you kind of have to be near a computer all day long.

One time I heard someone say "Ride like everyone else is drunk, and you are invisible." Every time I get on the bike I think about that. The one time I had a close call, it was because I wasn't paying attention. You have to be vigilant. Constantly scan the road and look at every car and ask yourself "what will I do if they do X,Y or Z, " Then move to the next car. Find a buddy that rides, and do some long day trips with them. You'll pick up tips as you ride with someone else. Most of all enjoy it.

Funny how the whole Fast and Furious scandal just faded away. Maybe this will bring it back and give it new life.

I'm profoundly frustrated that the government had ample opportunity to prevent the Orlando shooter from getting guns, and failed. I'm profoundly frustrated that the police, the protectors of the people, took three hours to come to the rescue of the citizens. I'm profoundly frustrated that the Liberals in our government are ignoring the Radical Muslin Terrorist / mental health aspect of this event, and shifting the blame to guns & gun owners. Sounds to me like instead of gun law reform, we need government reform.

Or you can boat up to many places. I think it would be cool to use a motorboat to carry your stuff to the site. If you have ever been to the "Marina" in Oak Ridge, where they do the rowing, if you look right across the river from there you will see what looks kind of like an island. There is actually a small strip of land that connects it to the land on the other side of the river. All of that is TVA property, and good to go for hunting / camping. A month or so ago, I walked all around out there just to explore. There is a lot of brush along the river bank of the island, but if you could find an ingress point from the water, it would be a great place to camp. I had always heard that TVA was seriously anti-gun. I heard the dire warnings of do not keep a loaded gun in your boat while using the boat ramps, or the TVA police will carry you away and you'll never be seen again. But reading the rules, it sounds to me like, if you have a permit, you are allowed to carry at the ramp. And with being able to use the unimproved areas for hunting, and possibly plinking, they may not be as bad as I was led to believe.

I know you can hunt / camp on ANY undeveloped TVA land. Not sure how they feel about setting up targets. I'm sure they would not like you leaving any trash, so I would pick up everything. I recently discovered that there is a tract of land just up the road from me that is great for camping. I see folks parked at the gate all the time during hunting season. I assumed you had to get permission. I called and they said the undeveloped land is available for use to the public without any additional permission for recreation including hunting and camping. Here are the rules. You determine if they apply to target shooting. I think at the very least, I would call them: https://tva.gov/Environment/Environmental-Stewardship/Land-Management/Rules-for-Use-of-TVA-Public-Lands You can find the maps of the land here: https://tva.gov/Environment/Recreation/Undeveloped-Recreation-Areas

I quoted and replied to a message earlier today and when I clicked submit I got an error about an "invalid character or emoji". There was a smiley face in the quoted text, once I erased that, the post was able to be submitted. I couldn't tell if that was a standard emoji from the board, or if it was something else. The post I quoted is the top most one on this page (page6):

The contrast in the darker theme is much better, but I think I still like reading the post's text against a white background.

First concert I ever went to was a Cheap Trick show. My best friend's mom took us. I loved Nielson's guitar, and how he used to do that jump move. And the drummer, who always looked like he just got off work at the office. Here is one of my favorite CT songs, that never got any airplay:

The definition between posts is perfect and that made it 10 times easier for me to read. Maybe it's just my monitor, but I still can barely detect any shading in the quote box. The quote text is italicized, and slightly dimmed, so that does help a bit, but still if the background of the quotes could be darkened up just a touch, I think that would help. Overall, though, I really like what you've done with the place

Because that is the new formula for every TV show now. To be a successful show, they have to be racially diverse with at least one black person. they have to have a strong female lead that makes the male lead look like a doofus, and she can do anything the men can do, and do it better. And they have to have a gay character. Another show I watch recently revealed that the black female lead was also gay. They went for the trifecta. What bugs me is the dramatic "Surprise!" that they always do to introduce them as lovers. It's almost like they have to dramatically reveal it and make a big deal over it. If it's so natural, then why make a big deal. And the fact that they have to keep showing it with way more regularity than they show straight couples being amorous. I'm sorry, but seeing two men kissing just skeeves me out. Let them be gay, I don't care, but I don't want to see that.

I think what everyone is perceiving as being washed out is a lack of definition in the grey areas. For instance there is a border around each post that is slightly darker than the white background of the posters text. To me, it's not enough contrast to really show the division between the posts. It's so faint that it's almost a distraction instead of a help. Also the box that contains quoted text is barely visible to me. Its almost like it's a part of the actual post. I really have to squint to see that it is darker than the post. Contrast in this box really helps as a visual queue to something I've already read, sparks the memory and I can read the reply without having to determine that it actually was a quote and a reply. The other place I really notice it is on a multi page thread, the page numbers at the bottom of the page. The page you are currently on is ever so slightly darker than the rest of the pages. So slight that I just have to read the "Page X of Y" pulldown just to see where I am. If these could be darkened up a bit, I think it would be a big improvement to the readability of the pages. Caveat: I am pretty color blind, so I never know if what I see looks off because it's me or if it really is off. (I can't tell you how many purple things I own because they looked blue when I bought them) But in terms of grey scale I'm usually pretty good.

There are a couple of things I'm loving so far: When I read a post and go back to the forum, I immediately see that post as marked read. On the old software I had to hit refresh, or leave that forum and click back into it to see the posts as marked read. I really like being able to hover over a thread and get the popup for the first or last post of the thread. The old software had that ability too, but I felt it was clunkier. I also like the paragraph spacing when you hit enter. Used to have to hit enter twice to get any real definition between paragraphs.

I noticed quoted posts in other threads are not showing up correctly. In general chat, some threads the quoted text is just indented, not enclosed in a shaded box. This thread here in support looks good, tho. I noticed all posts were marked read for me around the time of the upgrade. It had been a week since I logged on, and only posts from the last day or so are unread. One cool thing I like, when I read a thread and use my back button to get to the forum, that thread I just read has been marked read. They were always marked read, but didn't show up as read until I refreshed my browser.

I commend AIM for owning up and providing the credit monitoring, but I don't have a whole lot of faith in most of those services.   I've been caught up in two hacking incidents at work, and the one from Home Depot a while back. In all three cases, I was provided credit monitoring services. A coworker (who was included in one of the work hacks) was buying a house, and the bank refused him a loan, due to his massive credit card balance. He told them he didn't keep a balance on any credit cards. Apparently, someone had opened a credit card in his name and racked up a ton of debt.   He called the monitoring company to find out what was up, and they said "Oh, sorry, we missed that one." He said "That's OK, you'll make it right, right?" to which they said, "Oh, no. We are just a MONITORING company. It's on you to get it all cleaned up"   It's not like they are the ones out there that guarantee you won't get hacked. They just let you know that the damage has already been done.

#5 looks very similar to the mine entrances you can see from I-40 at Crab Orchard, just East of Crossville. They cut stones out of the side of the mountain there that are used for siding and patio stones.   #4, I swear I have been there, but can't recall where that is. For some reason, I want to say it is in Pickett State Park, just West of TN side of the Big South Fork.

Nearly 30 years ago now, my wife an I got married outside at may parents house. They lived in the country and the setting made a nice out doors wedding. Right in the middle of the ceremony, one of those ice cream trucks came through the neighborhood.I think every kid in the neighborhood must have rode their bikes down and converged right in front of the house. That ice cream truck must have stayed for 10 or 15 minutes, blasting the stupid song.     The music must have set off something in one of the neighbor's chickens. As soon as they drove away, the chicken started clucking and bawking, for another 5 minutes while it was squeezing out an egg.   You can hear it all clear as day on the video someone took. Once the commotion died died down, we all kinda had a good laugh. All these years and we still remember those things and recall them fondly.   So, no, the ice cream truck doesn't bother me. But I can't even remember the last time I saw one around here.

  Thanks for that! Very interesting sounds. I love discovering someone I've never heard of, whose music I find that I enjoy.

I recently had to go to a specialist for a "procedure" (I turned 50, you older guys know what I'm talking about). I had to fill out a form with all kinds of stupid questions. While there weren't any gun related questions, the questions were not relevant at all to the procedure I was having done. If it wasn't a question that helped them with billing (name, address, insurance, etc.) or my medical history, I left it blank. I was ready to put up a fight when I delivered it, but they never even gave it a second look.   Somewhat off-topic, but what I really want is an option to opt out of having all my medical info stored up in the Government cloud. The government does not pay for my insurance, nor any of my healthcare. It's none of their damned business what my blood pressure is, or what prescriptions I am on. I always worry that eventually they will say "Anyone taking prescription XYZ should not be allowed to own guns". And if they know who owns guns thanks to doctor's questionnaires, they can say "Sorry, your spouse is taking XYZ, you can't have guns in your house at all".

I really liked this episode. Everything Carol did while a captive was just an act. She is a master of psychological warfare.   Her crisis at the end of the show was a realization that she is just like Red, and at any moment could become heartless and unfeeling just like her. I think the fact that she knew her kill number was 18 was something for her to hold on to that lives still matter. whereas Red had just stopped counting.   This business of everyone being Negan is interesting to me. Carol knew the secret, but Rick was hasty to off the guy at the end who said he was Negan. He would have been better off keeping him alive a bit longer. I think he was about to spill it.

  You know, It occurred to me that this happens occasionally on my wife's laptop; the trackpad just stops working. There is a little switch on her laptop to disable the trackpad that somehow accidentally gets set to off. Many times there is a function key combination that will also disable it. You might check the laptop documentation and see if yours has either of these. Perhaps your trackpad is just temporarily disabled.   As an alternative, plug in a wireless mouse. My work laptop has Bluetooth, and I have a mouse that works with it. I've gotten to where I hate using the trackpad now.

  I don't know about the fingerprint scanner, but likely it and the touchpad just need an updated driver. Go to the manufacturers web site, and look up your model laptop and see if they have a new driver for each, made specifically for Win10. You might also look in the system tray, the area next to the clock in the bottom right corner and see if there is an applet running for either of them. You might just discover that the devices are turned off. You may need to click the little up arrow chevron in the system tray to reveal more applets. Hover over each applet and look at what it is. If you find one that looks like it might be for the device, right-click it and see if there is a settings or options menu item.   As far as the networking, were you connecting via a Homegroup? If so, then did you upgrade the computer that was the master? You may just need to recreate the homegroup, and then go to each of the other PC's and rejoin to the new homegroup. I recall I had to do that when I upgraded. Click in the Cortana search bar next to the start button and type "Homegroup". Click on the homegroup control panel and verify your settings. You may need to leave the current homegroup and recreate a new one. If you do recreate, remember your password, and then go to each of your other PC's and leave / rejoin there as well.   Good luck

Run with it for a while, and keep at it. Eventually you'll figure it all out. Google is your friend for trying to find info quickly. Just start all your searches with "Windows 10 How do I ..." and you'll have lot of info. after a while it will feel normal. You'll use an old PS with Win 7 or XP on it, and it will seem archaic and clunky.

  I think it was at the very end of the show. It was Walkie-talkie lady, another lady and a guy, all holding Maggie and Carol. 

The savior lady on the walkie talkie looked familiar to me. Not sure if I recall her from a different show (Justified perhaps) or was she one of the ones that Darryl had a run-in with when he was in the woods that one day. The one where a lady was diabetic and after escaping, he brought her meds back.   The interesting thing to me is, so far the Saviors have been a blood bath against our heroes. Every one of them they have gone up against has been killed, with none of Rick's group getting killed. For all the hype of Negan being such a badass, his group has not proved it yet.