Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
I want to download Youtube videos. . .
I take a different approach. Since I almost always only want to download a video after I've watched it, it's already stored in my browser's cache. It's just a matter of grabbing it from there.
For this, NirSoft's Video Cache View does the trick. It's available as a tiny portable program too with no need to install it.
Use the program to locate the video you want, then tell the program to save a copy. Simple as that!
Note: Close browser before executing the viewer.
Cheers, PW.
P.S. NirSoft makes other programs you may find useful:
General video capture:
Video Capture
General browser cache utilities:
Chrome
Internet Explorer
Mozilla
. . . As things go today, the lower price in crude oil will stimulate the USA's economy. . .
Today's energy prices are a gift. I sincerely hope we don't squander this bit of good fortune that's been coming our way.
. . . Speaking of that, the war on coal will probably benefit us in the long run, since we are sitting on about a third of the world's known reserve of coal. Not producing it now does not mean that we will never benefit from it.
For those who have never seen long-term thinking, your words show us what it looks like. It prefers sacrificing a tiny convenience today for huge rewards in the future.
Cheers, PW.
. . . Both the Americans and the visitors from overseas eventually came around to wanting to discuss how deformed United States foreign policy has become, noting generally that the elite that runs Washington seems to have no clue about what is going on outside the continental U.S. . .
From the article None So Blind
Cheers, PW.
Full Auto Revolvers. . .
Shame on you for submitting your message about the Challenger SRT Hellcat on New Year's Day. . .
We'll need to wait until tomorrow to place our orders.
Cheers, PW.
One can spend considerable time looking for drivers. Fortunately, you have the drivers you need already. They're on your original disk.
Simply have Device Manager search your original Windows system disk to update your drivers. It will locate the ones you need and install them.
Cheers, PW.
P.S. Sometimes, driver backup software can help. Here is one to consider. . .
Driver Backup
Warning!
In an earlier message, I included a couple of links to download software for backing up the drivers installed on a Windows system.
Message 32,882
The second link I provided connects to a site that makes repeated attempts to get unwanted code installed on your system. Sure, it's possible to get the driver backup you want, but you'll need to read every word of fine print and decline repeated offers for extraneous crap.
And once you do this, and it appears that you can finally get the program you want, yet another sneaky attempt rears its ugly head.
THIS DOWNLOAD IS SIMPLY NOT WORTH THE RISK OR EFFORT!
Please accept my apology for bringing this mess to this thread.
Cheers, PW.
P.S. I keep an archive of the software I use. I also keep a record of where I downloaded it. When I recommended this package, I didn't download a "fresh" copy; hence, I wasn't aware that the site had changed. I'll try not to repeat this mistake.
Many thanks to Wildbilly for bringing this issue to my attention.
To activate an OEM Windows system you need three pieces of a puzzle that must fit together: Product Key, BIOS SLIC, and OEM Certificate.
Since Windows 7 has been running on your system, you can be certain that you have the correct BIOS SLIC (System Locked License.)
You also have the correct Product Key.
That leaves the OEM Certificate. If you did NOT install your OEM Certificate, then you can assume it's missing. The easiest fix is to grab a copy of it from your old disk. To do this, you have two choices: Manually or use Software. . .
For Manually:
Grab a copy this file:
C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\Tokens.DAT
NOTE: You want to work with a COPY. NOT THE ORIGINAL!
Once you have a copy of this file, you must find and extract the OEM Certificate that is inside of it. Notepad will work for this.
Search for the following string: "OEM Certificate"
Find the string "<?xml " directly preceding the string "OEM Certificate" (About 345 characters)
Find the string "</r:license>" directly succeeding "OEM Certificate" (About 2,370 characters)
Select from the "<?xml " to "</r:license>" and copy into another file (Include the "<?xml " and "</r:license>")
Save the file with .xrm-ms file extension.
That's how to get your certificate manually.
You may find the automated way easier.
Download Activation Backup
Execute this tiny program using your old system. It will self extract a few files. One will be Activation_Backup.EXE
Execute Activation_Backup.EXE and it will create two files: Your Product Key and your OEM Certificate. Both will be text files.
Cheers, PW.
I found this excellent demonstration of Common Core math in use. . .
Demonstration
Cheers, PW.
P.S. Other places are trying education innovations too. . .
A five minute video showing a few steps in creating a Beretta shotgun. . .
last consecutive date we'll see in our lifetime.
How about the Second of January, 2034? It becomes 1 2 3 4.
Cheers, PW.
P.S. In a few months, we'll see Pi, the ratio of the circumference to diameter of circles, roughly 3.1415 on March 14, 2015, as 3 14 15
P.P.S. And the following year, we'll get 3 14 16 which is a more accurate Pi. (Rounding 3.141592...)
P.P.P.S. One can download a Pi Calculator program here and produce Pi accurate to millions of decimal places.
It's a pity the guy was still able to move a little bit after his "tune-up" was completed. People like that deserve to be disabled for life.
Cheers, PW.
Hmmm. Let's see. . .
Last year, New York cops made 318,518 arrests. Of these, 8 were killed. What happened to the other 318,510?
My guess is that they survived. It looks like surviving arrest in New York has pretty decent odds. Can this be a coincidence? Probably not. It's most likely a reflection on the quality of the police work New York residents are blessed with.
Who should be thanked? Giuliani would be a reasonable choice.
Arrest Statistics
Cheers, PW.
P.S. Let's look at a sub-category, Violent Felony: 27,196 arrests. These guys may be the most dangerous. Amazingly, 27,188 survived their arrest.
I thought the weekend was off to a great beginning, then I read this. . .
Self defence
Warning! It can be a blood boiler!
Cheers, PW.
. . .“failing young African-American men,”. . .
In the media, it's easy to find people claiming that our society is failing one group or owes another. Whether it's black criminals, unwed teen moms, natives, or illegal immigrants, it's only the group that changes, never the claim.
Just for a change, I'd like to see an article outlining what these people owe society. Do they not have any responsibility for their own behaviour, neighbourhood, and circumstances?
But maybe it really is our fault? As de Maistre observed: "Every country has the government it deserves."
Cheers, PW.
P.S. Actually, he said "Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite."
Feel free to request that the store lower their sound system's volume. I do this frequently, and they've ALWAYS agreed.
I once told a car salesman that since I can't think with while I'm bombarded by their music; hence, I'm leaving. The showroom was totally silent within seconds.
Major purchases are serious decisions. One want's to apply their full mental faculties because making mistakes can be expensive.
I don't know what influence you'd have a Sears or Safeway, but I'd guess that if you spoke to a manager, you'd get better results than dealing with a clerk or cashier. A letter would be even more effective.
Of course, the easy route would be to shop somewhere else.
Cheers, PW.
P.S. I watched an auto auction on TV a few days ago. The cars sold for seven figures. The auctioneer spoke quietly and slowly, gave the bidders plenty of silent time to consider their positions, and when the time came to declare the vehicles sold, paused briefly before dropping his hammer. Contrast this with the auctioneers reel so often heard when people are getting rid of Grampa's garage junk.
With thanks to Brumar89 on Silicon Investor who is being chastised for sharing it.
Link
Cheers, PW.
. . .have the fire hoses ready to give them a nice soaking!
Better yet, add a bit of soap.
Cheers, PW.
. . .trying to find straight wood at Home Depot. . .
You're kidding us, I hope!
I can't believe there's gay wood or straight wood.
Cheers, PW.
I found this on a humor thread (Link) and thought people here would enjoy it too. . .
"A gun is like a parachute. If you need one, and don't have one, you'll probably never need one again."
The definition of the word Conundrum is: something that is puzzling or confusing.
Here are six Conundrums of socialism in the United States of America:
1. America is capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is subsidized.
2. Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims.
3. They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the government.
4. Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer.
5. The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about.
6. They have things that people in other countries only dream about - yet they want America to be more like those other countries.
Makes you wonder who is doing the math.
These three, short sentences tell you a lot about the direction of our current government and cultural environment:
1. We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics.
Funny how that works. And here's another one worth considering...
2. Seems we constantly hear about how Social Security is going to run out of money. But we never hear about welfare or food stamps running out of money? What's interesting is the first group "worked for" their money, but the second didn't.
3. Why are we cutting benefits for our veterans, no pay raises for our military and cutting our army to a level lower than before WWII, but we are not stopping the payments or benefits to illegal aliens.
Conundrum!
Cheers, PW.
Guy keeps shooting after bullet(s) stuck in barrel. . .
Story
Cheers, PW.
. . . Will they loot, burn, kill, and rape? The usual? The police in Ferguson prepare. . .
From Fred ON Everything
Cheers, PW.
On a bookshelf in my home in a glass-and-brass frame I keep my great-aunt’s Ellis Island health card. It’s cardboard, about as big as your hand. She wore it on her coat during her nine-day journey from Ireland. Every day the ship’s surgeon (possibly brusquely, probably officiously) examined her for signs of acute or long-term illness. The card noted her details—immigrant, steerage, age about 20—and other facts. SS California out of Londonderry, 1909, Mary Jane Byrne, last residence Glenties. On the back it says, “Keep this Card to avoid detention at Quarantine and in Railroads in the United States.” If she failed the physicals she would be held at Ellis Island or sent back. There’s a little notch to mark each day the doctor found her healthy. In the end there were nine.
She disembarked at Ellis Island where, so enraged at this crude, assaultive violation of her civil liberties—being subjected to intimate questioning by a stranger, feeling harassed by the daily threat of rejection and expulsion, being, in effect, immigrant-shamed—she got a lawyer, sued the U.S. government, and, with Emma Goldman and Floyd Dell, started a civil-liberties movement that upended American immigration law.
Wait, that’s not what happened! She accepted with grace the needs and demands of her new nation, took no offense, and acknowledged the utility of a quarantine or ban—why would America be bringing in sick people who could spread disease? She settled in Brooklyn near the Navy Yard and became a maid, a job she worked as a true profession, for half a century. Thus was America built.
The card she wore on her coat? She kept it as a souvenir. She didn’t know it was a relic of abuse, she thought it was a first palpable sign of citizenship. And so, 50 years later, she passed it on to me.
I miss such humility, don’t you? Did we fail to encourage it by forgetting to honor it? Or, if these questions are insufficiently ideological, whatever happened to courtesy to the collective? We should bring it back. We could answer the current quarantine question if we faced it with the calm of a 1909 immigrant.
An American nurse returns from Sierra Leone after treating Ebola patients. She did that on her vacation. We are proud of her. After she lands at Newark Airport she is hustled into quarantine. She is greatly shocked and indignant, loudly protests in the media. Her rights are being violated, her treatment is “inhumane.” By that she perhaps meant uncomfortable—a tent, paper scrubs, no shower. It was all on-the-fly and disorganized, a state scrambling to do what the federal government would not.
The nurse got sprung and is currently in Maine, refusing quarantine, threatening legal action, and gaily bicycling past media scrums. I see a future in politics.
Should she have been quarantined? Of course. Because she is at higher than normal risk of developing and transmitting a deadly virus.
She has been tested for the disease, tests came back negative, and she has no symptoms. But—do we need to keep saying this?—the same was true of Thomas Duncan, the Liberian visitor who later developed Ebola and died. As a doctor said, it takes time for the viral load to become big enough to register. The nurse probably won’t get sick—she looks like a person who knows how to protect herself—but why not be careful?
The nurse’s case of course makes us think of the New York City doctor who came back from Guinea a few weeks ago after helping people there. He ran all over New York—subways, restaurants, bowling alley—before he came down with Ebola. The New York Post this week quoted law-enforcement officials saying the doctor at first claimed he’d self-quarantined, then admitted he hadn’t. But to be blithely bopping around when he knew he might be carrying a dread illness whose spread would concern an entire city—that was, and I hope I’m not breaching protocols here, discourteous. It wasn’t nice of him to scare everyone like that.
It would have been gracious if the nurse, hearing of heightened public anxiety, and concerned for the safety of others, had patiently accepted the situation and expressed understanding.
Instead she, and the sick doctor, acted as if, when a microbe meets a respected and altruistic health-care professional, it, like the general public, is expected to bow.
Doctors Without Borders suggests those returning from health-care work in West Africa not go to work for 21 days. The military will quarantine U.S. troops back from West Africa for 21 days. Why can’t we have an overall national policy that establishes this? Why are the states forced to do it—then pressured not to?
It doesn’t seem to matter if quarantined individuals are at home by themselves, with a cop posted at the front door, or alone in another setting. The only point is that they not endanger anybody.
Support among the American public for quarantine appears at this point to be overwhelming. You can know this if you walk down the street and ask people, or if you look at a CBS poll that found 80% of respondents think citizens returning from West Africa should be quarantined until it’s clear they do not have the disease.
But America’s “professionals” in the scientific and medical communities, and certainly those in the White House, seem deeply uninterested in the views of common people. When pressed on the issue they, especially the president, offer only gobbledygook and slogans. We can’t be safe here until they’re safe over there! They sound like propagandists for Bleeding Belgium in World War I.
The only argument against a quarantine that makes sense is that the decision might dissuade U.S. health workers from going to West Africa. It can easily be answered. Pass a law to pay everyone’s full salary while they’re quarantined. Make it a free vacation. Get them every kind of benefit and service possible for those three weeks. And then when they’re well, thank them publicly. Have them in the balcony at the next State of the Union!
Three weeks off and the thanks of a grateful nation. That’s not a disincentive, it’s an incentive.
It must be noted that all this—the quarantine argument, the travel ban—is another expression of the deep, tearing distance between America’s professional and political elites, who operate as if they are estranged from common sense, and normal people, who are becoming more estranged from the elites, their oblivious and politicized masters.
That distance has been growing all my adult life, but the Ebola argument has brought it into sharper relief. The elites should start twigging onto it. They are no longer immediately respected, their guidance is not reflexively taken. They seem more immersed in political thinking—what is the ideologically enlightened position to take, where’s the boss on it?—than in protecting public health.
Or thinking commonsensically, like your great-aunt.
Which is too bad because great-aunts built America.
All this will be part of the story on Tuesday, in the elections. It is hard to believe you can patronize people, and play them, and they will not, first chance they get, sharply rebuke you.
Noonan
Conservative Fanatic vs. Liberal Loon. . .
Apparently, people who lean left or right differ in their favourite insult words.
From Article
Cheers, PW.
Beach Boys' fans should appreciate this one...
Chuck Berry fans should recognize the tune as well. . .
Is he carrying a gun?
Spot the Gun
Cheers, PW.
Television has enriched my life. But the truly wonderful shows seem to have disappeared. I can't even get re-runs of my favourite show, Hee Haw, gone almost two decades now.
Cheers, PW.
Saturday morning I was thinking of Pascal, as who was not. He had a mordant observation about the physicians of his time. Doctors in those days dressed fancy—long robes, tall hats. From memory: Why do doctors wear tall hats? Because they can’t cure you.
Why do public health officials speak in public as they do, with the plonking bureaucratic phrases and the air of windy evasion? Because they can’t cure you. Because they don’t really know what they’re doing. I think they are reassured by their voices, like children who wake up from a nightmare and say in the darkness, “That’s not true.”
* * *
In his Saturday radio address, the subject of which was Ebola, the president warned the public against “hysteria.”
Again, the public isn’t hysterical but concerned. One reason is that they have witnessed a series of bad decisions by the government and its institutions. Another is that they know there’s no one to trust in this crisis, no official person who is in charge and seems equal to the task.
A third component of public anxiety has to do with what normal people can see and imagine, which they have a sense the government isn’t capable of seeing and imagining.
What normal people can see and imagine is that three Ebola cases have severely stressed the system. Washington is scrambling, the Centers for Disease Control is embarrassed, local hospitals are rushing to learn protocols and get in all necessary equipment. Nurses groups and unions have been enraged, the public alarmed—and all this after only three cases.
What would it look like if there were 300? That is not a big number in a nation of over 300 million. Yet it would leave the system hyperstressed, and hyperstressed things break down.
How many people and professionals have been involved in the treatment, transport, tracking, monitoring, isolation and public-information aspects of the three people who became sick? Again, what if it were 300—could we fully track, treat and handle all those cases? If scores of people begin over the next few weeks going to hospital emergency rooms with Ebola, how many of their doctors, nurses, orderlies, office staffers, communications workers and technicians would continue to report to their jobs? All of them at first, then most of them. But as things became more ragged, pressured and dangerous, would they continue?
This is why people are concerned. They can imagine how all this could turn south so fast, with only a few hundred cases. This is why the White House claims that we will not have a widespread breakout is fatuous: Even a limited breakout would take us into uncharted territory.
The only thing that will calm the public is competence. Until they see it, warnings about hysteria will be experienced as patronizing and deeply self-serving.
* * *
On the subject of a travel ban, the administration and those media members who function as its allies have produced a number of airy statements and sentiments. All of it feels of deliberate obfuscation and confusing of issues.
We have experienced Ebola in the United States because a Liberian citizen carrying the illness came here on a plane. That is why two of his nurses, so far, have gotten sick, and why scores of people are being tracked.
In order to enter the United States, Thomas Eric Duncan had to apply for a U.S. visitor visa. He did so, saying he wished to travel to Texas to attend his son’s high-school graduation. Mr. Duncan was granted a visa and flew from Monrovia to Brussels to Dulles to Dallas.
The question is whether the U.S. should, for now, ban the issuance of visas to citizens of the three West African nations where the illness is known to exist. That is what a travel ban would be.
Those opposed to it have taken to noting that there are no or very few direct flights from the affected nations to the U.S., and that citizens from the affected states can fly to other nations first, and then connect to the U.S.
That has nothing to do with the question of a ban. Direct versus indirect flights don’t matter because airplanes don’t catch and die of Ebola, people do. No matter how you get to the U.S. from the affected regions, to get in legally you need a visa.
There is the charge that a travel ban would isolate the three nations. But why “isolate”? First, we are only talking about U.S. travel; we are talking about keeping citizens of the affected nations from entering the US. Help can and would continue to go into those nations. Charter planes certainly could and would go in. Other airlines might too. Health workers would continue to go in, as would supplies of all sorts.
On returning from the nations in question, U.S. citizens and others would presumably have to go through a quarantine. But health-care volunteers, of all people, wouldn’t let that stop them.
The president, in his Saturday address, argued against a ban: “Trying to seal off an entire region of the world—if that were even possible—could actually make the situation worse.”
Well, no one has called for trying to “seal off” anything, not to mention “an entire region of the world.” This is just the president trying to paint those who oppose him as frightened and delusional.
And how would a ban make the situation worse? The president: “It would make it harder to move health workers and supplies back and forth.” But again, how? Why? Health-care workers would continue to go in.
“Experience shows that it could also cause people in the affected region to change their travel, to evade screening, and make the disease even harder to track.” This appears to be wordage in pursuit of a thought. If citizens of the three nations need a visa to come here, and are not given those visas, exactly what does the president think they will do to harm themselves, their countries, or us? Duncan himself, in fact, evaded screening even with a visa: He failed to self-report having been near Ebola when asked about it at the Monrovia airport.
Nor will the new screening at U.S. airports prove an adequate replacement for a ban. Those carrying the virus who show no symptoms will breeze through, as Duncan did.
What will help keep people with Ebola from entering the U.S. is denying U.S. travel visas to those from the affected countries.
Some critics, finally, say that a ban won’t work 100%. Let’s posit that. But if it works 78%, or 32%, isn’t it worth it?
The burden is on those who oppose a ban to make a hard, factual, coherent and concrete case. It is telling that so far they have not been able to.
* * *
On the appointment of Ron Klain as the president’s so-called Ebola Czar, much is made of the fact that he lacks a medical or scientific background. I’m not sure that’s important.
More significant is that he is a longtime, hard-line Democratic Party operative who is known more for spin and debate prep than high-level management. That suggests the White House sees the Ebola crisis as foremost a political messaging problem. The president certainly seems unafraid of appearing to see the problem as a political messaging one. His primary focus when choosing Klain looks self-indulgent: “Who do I trust and like to work with?” as opposed to “What does the public require and the situation demand?”
Ebola is going to prove spin-resistant: In fact, the more you spin down the deeper you’re going to get in the hole.
A problem with the Klain appointment is that he does not have natural command presence and public authority. The administration blew its initial handling of the crisis. What is needed is a Gen. Schwarzkopf sort of figure who could stand there at the morning briefing and tell you what’s happening and you know he’s telling it to you true. A straight-shooting retired general or admiral, or a civilian—an independent CEO with a public reputation, someone known for getting things done, someone with his own lines of communication to the media and political class. A Mike Bloomberg—someone who doesn’t need you, who can walk away from the job if he doesn’t get the tools and is feared inside because he can walk.
Someone who is not only bigger than Ron Klain but bigger than Barack Obama.
Instead, the president appointed a political mover and partisan operator who was played in a movie by Kevin Spacey.
Why does that seem such a consequential mistake?
From Peggy Noonan
Panhandler's new car gets noticed and guy who has been a regular donor isn't happy. . .
Common Core. . .
Imagine third-graders learning how to subtract using this method.
Cheers, PW.
P.S. Take the Common Core challenge. Pick any two numbers and try to subtract one from the other using Common Core guidelines.
I tried subtracting 25 from 150.
I circled 5, got 30, circled 70, got 100, circled 50 and got confused. So I added 5+70+50 and arrived at 125.
But could I have done this if I hadn't known the correct answer from the beginning and used it to guide my steps? Doubtful.
Cheers, PW.
Finally, a judge understands the cultural underpinnings of Honour Crime. . .
Honour Crime
Cheers, PW.
. . .why has the last couple of conservative/republican presidents had problems proving it with a thriving economy. . .
An excellent question.
Let's use building a house as an example. If one chooses to build with brick, it will take much longer to produce a finished home than their neighbours who choose to build with paper and sticky tape.
Viewing things superficially, the "paper builders" appear far more successful at producing housing.
But everyone knows which builder is doing the better job.
Similarly, with the economy, one group wants sustainable growth based on a foundation of real wealth and prosperity. The other prefers to give the appearance of prosperity using borrowed money.
Since most people take a quick look and are unwilling to dig for facts, the economy with the good looks good seems like it's doing better than the economy with the real strength.
Cheers, PW.
P.S. I'm sure conservative readers of this thread will also point out that because their Presidents had to spend so too much time undoing the damage of their liberal predecessors that the benefits of their wiser policies were compromised.
Could someone please tell me what the hell she just said?
She wasn't saying anything. Her dictionary was being being tumbled in a clothes dryer while she was reading it out loud.
Cheers, PW.
P.S. With thanks to John Oliver.
Miss America
Sound advice. Anyone who pays attention to it should prosper.
Cheers, PW.