Mental diseases can manifest themselves in many forms! Like I said I'd just eliminate such specimens from society... unfortunately, easier said than done! But paranoia is also one of them! In this case however, it's called compromise. ;P Or a necessary evil... :(

And the fight never ends... :(

Thanks a lot Richard! Valuable info!

Thanks Richard! I've been on this forum for almost 10 years, so not quite new, IMHO. Mostly a watcher - only 24 comments, wich qualifies me as a 'Lurker' :laugh: In my experience, the spammers live a short life on most forums: they (automatically) create a new identity - usually random names [+numbers] - post their garbage and then they're gone. Not hard to detect! None of them live, under the same identity, for several years on a forum. A content analyzer wouldn't also be very hard to implement, these days. Even without using AI. Anyways, this is the way we have to live now... I would sanction individuals who engage in any kind of internet illegal activities in a much more drastic way than what we have in place today... Many years of imprisonment? Death penalty? Too harsh? Why? What do we have to lose?! A concerned non-spammer.

Same here! Any way one can check if new editions of Daily Insider have been published? Or, is there a today's edition online, one can check? What's going on?

Is there somewhere a 'black list' with words we're not allowed to use? Because it looks like every single message I post is marked as 'potential spam' and goes 'under review'! Really?!

That is an entire different story! My work computer uses Cisco / Anyconnect VPN. I don’t pay for it, it wasn’t my choice (horrible and expensive) and I am forced to used it (to connect to work network). It rarely works, for short periods, for some people. Everybody has problems with this disease, which the corporate IT department cannot fix! However, I think this is a different subject altogether.

I've used ExpressVPN before. Good service, but pricey. Switched to NordVPN - almost half the price - and I'm happy with it. No issues so far. Why I use it? 1. Netflix - like having U.S. programs as an alternative to German ones (hate hearing Morgan Freeman speaking German) 2. Accessing media from other countries, which restrict content to locals 3. Hiding my ip, for privacy reasons - tracking, advertising, etc. 4. Occasionally downloading (usually books, sometimes apps, to check on a VM) from the gray zones, and avoiding (I hope) to have my ISP watching over my shoulder As I don't communicate regularly with Mossad, CIA or KGB, I'm not using VPN for security reasons. I'm also not trying to break into other countries' servers - I live it to the CIA: they're so much better at it! :laugh:

I've been tinkering with these free AI tools for a while now, specifically ChatGPT, Copilot and codepal. The only one I've tried for generating code was codepal. Not very impressed: it only generates code snippets ('functions'), and after very few such short snippets it reaches the limit for free usage. For not code related questions, I found ChatGPT far better than Copilot. It used to be really bad just a few months ago, but it significantly improved. It reaches the limit for free usage pretty fast though, requiring a few hours of timeout. Copilot is just pathetic, in my experience, at this time. Both Copilot and ChatGPT give quite often wrong answers - they don't 'realize their own mistakes', but rather admit them when pointed out, leading to 'I apologize for the confusion/misunderstanding/frustration...'. Almost never 'for the wrong answer'! They're trained well ;) What they're not trained to say is 'I don't know', which I'd prefer, instead the constantly wrong answers. I usually know the correct answer, or at least I know when the answer is wrong, but what happens if I don't? They're nice toys, but not really useful and trustworthy in my opinion. Maybe I'm not very good at asking questions (they can understand), but I do it in a very clean manner and provide enough context, so I doubt that. I would be myself impressed with any decent answers (nevermind code generation), because my expectations are pretty low, but so far I'm not. Your Mileage definitely Varies!

Glad to hear that people have switched to Linux and are happy with it... I've been trying to, if not ‘switch to’, at least use it significantly, alongside Windows, since the late nineties. No luck so far, but I’m persistent! The arguments for using Linux were: independence from the big bad wolf (Gates), lightweight, no BSOD, no viruses (hence no antivirus penalty), unbelievable stability and no need to reboot after every update, etc. Most of these arguments are not valid anymore: there are viruses and malware targeting Linux, the reboot after (almost daily) updates is a rule, I had crashes of the OS that I never seen on Win. for decades, programs crashing, or not working, on a weekly basis, etc. etc. In the last couple of days, I’ve been trying to repair Kate – a basic text editor, similar to Notepad – which was crushing and losing all typed text :(( , when trying to save the file(!). I’ve installed Kate a few months back, when the previous text editor (gedit I think) stopped working! Did anyone had any major problems with Notepad lately?! After pulling my hair for some time and searching the internet for solutions (THE MAIN ACTIVITY on Linux!… BY FAR!), I gave up. Then I’ve tried to use the newly installed STM32CubeIDE… It wouldn’t start, because, when starting, the first thing it does is to check for updates. Aaaand, it can’t take them because I’m the wrong user (not root). Another couple of hours later, after new research online, it turns out, it was installed as root, and to a different location! This is not Windows! You can not just click on an icon and install the program, after a few ‘Next’s, eventually. There are a myriad of sources, packages, dependencies, and, and, and… that one can use, and mostly not well (or at all) documented – even when they come from a reputable source as STM Microelectronics! And, after a painful installation of an application, come the problems: where is it installed?! It might not (fully) work, it can’t be updated, how can you uninstall it (and this can be a big problem, because months later you need to know exactly how you installed it!) I’ve been thru all this, again, while having to uninstall, and install a new version, in a 'different way' the CubeIDE. :sigh: After almost 30 years of Linux, I still can’t say how to do a proper, sensible backup! There are always a thousand ways and tools to do it, none that properly works! But hey, you got what you paid for, ain’t you?! Would you be happy with that end?! What about your time, life, neurons?! Another major probl

There is no such thing as kph! it is km/h.

It might be recent indeed... it doesn't seem to exist in Outlook 2016 :( Good to know anyways. Thanks!

"user-friendly Linux"! I wish I'd live to see that day... It will come sometime in "the year of Linux" ;) Crappy names is the last thing I care about Linux. I've been using Linux since 1997 (Suse), I have a dual boot machine with Ubuntu and Win 10 and a VB with Fedora. I know/used several programming languages, have a masters in computers and hardware engineering and I am persistent. Not enough for Linux! It is renown for its stability, security, getting updates without need to reboot, etc. It is all long gone! The difference between Linux and Windows is that, while windows is an environment populated with programs/applications one can just use, Linux is the work in itself - always tweaking, learning, keeping up-to-date with the latest changes, dealing with applications that just don't work anymore because some 'dependency' changed version or was deleted, etc.,etc. I am so sick and tired of having to spend my time fighting the OS, instead doing some useful work. Linux has its place on servers, in embedded systems (because it's free) and generally used by experts and masochists (like me). Not for the casual/ordinary/sane user as the only OS on he/her's computer.

"Sqlite is installed with Windows" You mean it is included in a normal Windows installation? Which Windows? I didn't have it installed on my computers, as far as I know, on any version of Windows (3.1..10). If you mean that it 'can' be installed in Windows, that's something else. What can't?! Just curious...

Totally agree! Not only is plain wrong (in my opinion), but is also sooo confusing in many instances. Never mind the arrogance! And speaking of time, it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck every time I hear the morons speaking of hundreds of hours (never something like 1745 hours!). Is there any other country in the world where the people are so handicaped so they cannot handle numbers up to 24?! And to understand that 17:00 is not 1700, but hours and minutes?! I understand their obsession for war, but nowhere else in the world, when people look at a clock, automatically think of 'military'... Another issue I have to deal with quite often: paper formats. I own a printer made in Japan and sold in Europe, which for the love of God, refuses to understand that letter format (for example) is something I NEVER need. That is the default! In Europe. Coming from Japan! WHY? And, of course, there is no way to set another format (like A4) as the default! Incomprehensible!

...or foot by foot, or yard by yard, or finger by finger, or...anyone any more body parts?

They are NOT stupid! Quite the opposite! they are 'smart' or, actually 'street smart'. And they are LAAAAAZY! They have been conditioned to behave like this by our new society. When the 'classical' school is reduced to Google, YouTube, blogs and forums - all easy ways to solve your problems without work or even giving it much thought (they are not even able to articulate the question they want to ask/search for), then why wouldn't they take advantage of them?! Books, manuals, datasheets, etc. all hundreds of pages long must be avoided like the pest! I see them every days on technical forums, mumbling some 'question', mostly asking for 'codes' and the forum 'experts' jumping to serve them like bitches in heat! They go mindlessly thru schools and universities and come out as the new specialists with impressive titles and diplomas. They are the future. Fortunately they are not all like that - just like >95%. God help us...

I've got the new one (26.01.'22 21:10).

You're right about the usage of 'and' instead of 'plus' by americans. Considering this, how do you come to "2 & 2 (which is 2 plus 2) = 22" ? I don't get it. I might be slow this morning...

Do you know if this shortage of video cards (and their ridiculous prices) has to do with their intensive usage for crypto mining? Or is just the need for gaming - the raison d'être of 'computers' for more and more people? Because I - not being interested in either perversion - could happily live with what the motherboard itself has to offer in terms of video and sound. At least for a good while.