I just got foe'd by someone named 'ScienceFail'. Found it quite curious as I haven't posted anything even remotely close to controversial in quite a while and this guy has zero posts. My best guess is he is an alternate account for someone. I wish there were some mechanism for letting someone know why you foe'd them (or friended them). Just curious.

I've asked the question and so have a lot of slashdotters... Given a slashdot ID, when did it become active? Okay, this is less than perfect, but after a couple hours reviewing December 31 story postings for the past 14 years, I have a pretty good idea of which Slashdot ID's were active by end-of-year.

Date Highest ID Source
12/31/2011 2537066 http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2597818&cid=38540924
12/31/2010 1968314 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1931212&cid=34724780
12/31/2009 1711968 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1494398&cid=30626214
12/31/2008 1435429 http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1074965&cid=26264019
12/31/2007 1210278 http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=402646&cid=21872504
12/31/2006 1045190 http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=214364&cid=17417768
12/31/2005 942449 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=172606&cid=14371693
12/31/2004 840443 http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134485&cid=11229842
12/31/2003 735991 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=91126&cid=7847024
12/31/2002 636838 http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=49387&cid=4989860
12/31/2001 545364 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=25495&cid=2769167
12/31/2000 267378 http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9653&cid=1419014
12/31/1999 131305 http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3140&cid=1427714
12/31/1998 ??? No posts in 1998, yet I see a usre id of 170,000+ on 1/1/1999. Does not correspond with 12/31/1999 findings.

So on the main page, there was a story about cognitive decline starting as early as 45. As a 44-year-old, I can testify personally that it starts much sooner than that, though it's in baby steps.

There's nothing I can't do now that I couldn't do when I was 20, but it's somehow different. Learning new things requires a little more effort on my part, and it takes a little more time. Nothing too onerous, but it's certainly a change. I'm still a sponge for new knowledge and skills, but where I used to be a dry sponge, I'm a fairly damp sponge.

What about you?

ps - It took me 10 minutes to find how to write in my journal. Is that due to cognitive decline, or the stupid interface that puts the "Write in Journal" only at the bottom of my list of journals, completely breaking the temporal organization of the page? Presumably, any journal I wish to write now will be more recent than any journals I've already posted, at least until I perfect that time-traveling web browser I've been working on (homepage set to powerball.com, natch).

Checking out multiply.com. Just got http://chacham.multiply.com

But for anyone who might have missed it, You can connect with me on Google + by putting together my user name here and my user id number (6314), and turning that into a Gmail address. Shadow Wrought's departure reminded me that people are indeed fleeing from here faster than Mensa members from a Pauly Shore Film Festival, so hit me up if you like.

I also have a metric ton of invites for it, so if you're actually still not part of THE NEW SOCIAL NETWORKING SENSATION (/me spits a little bile up), and would like to be, I can help.

Is it just me, or is everyone else having this problem, too?

I think I like this better.

I'm looking to post more JEs, but not here on slashdot, it just isn't my style anymore. I'm thinking of using Blogger or Wordpress, or whatever fits my style. First thing to be looked for is preview showing me the editable copy without me having to go to another page to edit it, like it used to be here. Any ideas?

RIFT is holding a special Allies of the Ascended event. As my chosen ally, you can use this code to join me during the dates below, free of charge! Heed my call, and together we shall battle the Blood Storm!

Event Dates
10am PDT April 8, 2011 through 10am PDT April 11, 2011
Ally Code

ZDHM-R9WC-MLT9-ZNG9-MCJM

Visit www.RIFTgame.com/en/ally instructions on how to apply your Ally Code and to download the RIFT patcher.

Decided i should write a JE just to let people know i'm here. But i kept holding off. Seeing the new slashdot design, i'm glad i did. Not only is it ugly, it's hard to find anything. Oh well. Computers are passing me by. I don't care about these sorts of things anymore. First it was MTV, now Slashdot. Guess i'm finally over the hill.

Anyway, just went to google to search for "average gestation first pregnancy". First link was wikipedia, so i clicked and was greeted by a picture of a naked pregnant woman. Absolutely disgusting. I ranted in the past about the circumcision picture (i'd link to it, but i'm too lazy to figure out how to find the full JE listing in the re-design). Wikipedia has an agenda. I don't care who or what. Of course i'm wrong, just ignore me, i'm a loser who likes to rant.

I've been playing Rift. I canceled by subscription (Tomorrow would be the first month they charge for, game opened last month with one-month included in purchase price). As a keyboarder, i find the mouse use too much. I was hurting my back reaching for it. It's a young game, i know. They're fixing things, i know. You need a mouse for games like this, i know. Nonetheless, the fact is my back was hurting. The AH and mail system are a pain to use extensively, and they do not allow add-ons. Also, PvP was fun at first (i'm horrible at PvP, i always lose, and yet i liked it in this game) but after level 20 it was all about the stuns (baby). So, i'm back to being horrible at PvP at don't like it. And Stonefield was drabby and the rain just made me not want to play the area. They did a great job on Sanctum and Meridian, stupid design, but it did look real nice. Silverwood and Freemarch were nice, but all the other areas were blah. Not interested.

The clincher was the 1.1 patch. What did it add? More rifts. Yay! And more scantily clad female NPCs. I mean, really. Of course the head of the Defiants, the strongest women in the game, doesn't wear too much armor. And why do traveling merchants need clothes? Alsbeth, she's dead already. Dead people don't need clothes. Unless they're male, they grow clothes, naturally, of course.

Rift is a pretty cool game and has a lot of potential. It's definitely worth checking out, and i have a good feeling the developers are going to make it better, as they have been doing so far. It's likely i'll come back to the game soon enough, but for now, i'm taking a break.

So, that's that. I'm still following JE titles in email, interesting/informative titles might get read, which means i ignore 99% of the JEs i see, which is almost nothing nowadays anyway. If i read it, i'll almost always try to give you a moo, unless you're being useless or disgusting. I'm a cranky old man and best left ignored.

Anyone want top purchase a 3 digit uid? :P

[Arg! Can't see the edit text and preview at the same time? What sort of idiots are designing these things anyway?! Well, that pretty much settles it. Don't expect anymore JEs from me. It's just too frustrating. Sorry about the quality of this JE. This interface is not inviting.

Where's my typewriter anyway?)

Went back to the doctor to check on my cholesterol. After about four months, my weight dropped from 186 to 153 (might have taken my shows off last time, however) to the point where after comparing the nurse weighed me a second time. Then a small conversation ensued, basically: "How do you lose all that weight?" "Eat less." "Fair enough." I'm also down to a 38" waist from 44 +/-2, so things are looking good.

On the cholesterol front, all the readings dropped: Total from 230 to 134, HDL from 56 to 32, LDL from 149 to 78, and triglycerides from 124 to 120. So, all is good except the lower HDL score. The doctor ought to be calling to discus the results this evening.

Someone just asked me about Excel. She works on a sheet that has English and Hebrew words. If she edits any existing Hebrew entries, or enters any Hebrew herself, when she reopens the file the Hebrew letters show up in reverse order (Hebrew is RTL). Any idea what could be wrong?

Continuing on my mother's computer , i took Com2kid's, Cyberdyne's, and Bill Dog's advice, and checked PIO Mode. I had no idea how to check what mode it was in, but it was set to "DMA if possible". A little googling and checking the registry, i reset the error counts, rebooted and all was better. Thanx!

Continuing the support of a local organization's computers, we're implementing a whitelist. The office itself uses B-Secure. But an open computer implements a whitelist which is desired by the users as well.

IE was blocked following what the last guy did, by setting up a bogus proxy.

I installed Firefox and started using ProCon Latte. It does the job mostly, but, it's per user (perhaps i installed it wrong?), if a whitelist is used a blacklist cannot also be used (to block out some aspects of an allowed site), and the list has no order.

To implement a blacklist to remove some specific pages i installed some filter (i don't remember offhand, i'm guessing it was FoxFilter).

Google is blocked, but can be gotten to via maps.google.com which is allowed. That was fine until Google added the sidebar. Images and videos can be quite inappropriate and needs to be blocked. But because of the way google shows the images, adblock seems ineffective. Gmail is also allowed and uses google.com for login, so google.com itself cannot be blocked.

To block the sidebar, i installed greasemoney and a script i found online. That worked for a bit until the links showed up on top of the google page as well.

Currently, there's over 100 sites allowed, and there is an approval process in place to allow more, as required. People who might not use the Internet otherwise are ok with this computer, so there's positive progress being made.

There's mainly one user on the computer. But there are three others as well. One for kids to play games (no Internet access allowed), one for a another person with more applications, and one for the admin. I wanted to remove the kid's login, but that's a no go as it's for the office admins kids. It's workable though.

I can block all image from google via Firefox itself. But that removes even the google logo itself, which is not a desirable option.

I'd really like a better more manageable solution. The ideal solution would work for all users, allows both a whitelist and a blacklist simultaneously, organize the list (alphabetically or the like), handles the bookmarks as well (otherwise each site must be managed in two places), and handles google's images.

I'm neither for nor against this form of filtering. I do, however, want to help them reach their goal.

Well, my mother's computer runs slow or freezes now and then. Also the mouse periodically jumps around. Ignoring the mouse issue, i decided to check out the slow downs.

There were some slowdowns on startup, and after then when IE was running. IE running slow is probably what most people consider XP's sluggishness.

Uninstalled old programs, removed startup items via Autoruns, and checked out processor time in Process Explorer. The slowdowns are hardware interrupts which means drivers(, hardware settings,) or hardware.

Disabling or unplugging hardware made no difference. Shutting IE8 made all the difference. My guess is its the hard drive. Windows is notorious for thrashing the HD on startup and IE isn't too good either. Firefox had the issue to a lesser extent.

To verify this, i'd have to disable the HD. So i'm not quite sure how to continue. I could just get a new HD, but i could be wrong and just wasted $100 or whatever. I'm debating whether booting off a USB key of CD would make sense as a test.

My Printer, an HP LaserJet P1006 is low on toner. Pages are coming up partially blank, or at least close to it, and the driver issued the warning. The replacement cartridge is CB435A.

Replace toner with a chip, is just under $20, a knock-off cartridge is slightly more. The few comments i have read say the knockoffs are never perfect.

HP has one at $67.99 or two at 121.99.

Amazon has the Dual Pack at $108.30 (it was $106.18 moments ago, reloading that tab also shows the new price), which has a $15 credit toward a next Amazon purchase. I use Amazon often enough to consider that a real $15. This means it's 2 at $93.30, or $46.65 each.

The Amazon price would be approximately twice the knock-off price, and i would have to buy two, which i don't go through too often.

Ebay has a few listed for about $53 with free shipping.

Buying the two pack on Amazon and selling the second on Ebay, sounds interesting. Assuming shipping is $4.90 though, (My cartridge weighs 18.25 ounces. Parcel Post prices for not-over-two-pounds to zones 1 and 2 is $4.90) making the total $51.55, leaving a dollar or two profit. Considering ebay's final value fees of 9%, however, makes it non-profitable even before ebay's listing fees and ebay's paypal fees.