Daily Archives: May 1, 2015

Chaos Manor View Friday, May 01, 2015

Another day devoured by locusts, and it’s dinner time.

I am deliberately not commenting on the Baltimore situation. It’s clear we don’t enough. One thing is clear: not only is it a bad idea to throw excrement at an armed man, but it is general not a good idea to run from the police.

Back after dinner, I  hope.

Firefox reset

Hi Jerry.

Just want to thank you for posting the Firefox reset link:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/refresh-firefox-reset-add-ons-and-settings

My computer (a four-year-old MacBook Pro) hasn’t been behaving properly since some add-on I didn’t even know was installed (Trusteer) had tried to update itself in Firefox a couple of weeks back. I tried to stop it from updating, but…not sure what happened at that point. Everything was slow and clunky, and memory was always maxed out. Couldn’t get the recommended solutions to work. The reset link seems to have done the trick!

Thanks!

Mike Casey

I took the morning to try it myself. It took a while to reinstall colorful Tabs, Tab Mix Plus, and Close Button – the three add-ons that make it easier to use Firefox – but eventually I managed. One bit of advice: if you listen to the radio using the web, open it in a new window making it easier to find; and close that window before closing Firefox. That makes it easier for Session Manager to restore your Firefox. The Close Button add-on puts a small close tab button in addition to the Close Firefox button op on the tool bar, and if your eyesight is as bad as linr it makes it easier to close the current tab.

EM drive

The “test” of the EM drive reminded me of something from my undergraduate days.
A scientist reported that he had found a way to extract energy from a static magnetic field. His apparatus consisted of a magnet, a holder for a drop of some iron compound dissolved in water (I’ve forgotten the compound), and a microscope through which to view the drop. Indeed, the drop could be seen to be rotating. Everyone else who replicated the experiment got the same results.
Eventually it was determined that the stage light for the microscope was heating the drop and causing a convection current.
Ever since I’ve been cautious about accepting results when the “replication” uses an identical setup. It may simply be repeating the built-in error of the original setup.

Joseph P. Martino

Whatever it is it is not convection currents in a vacuum

Seems the EmDrive passed another test.

Evaluating NASA’s Futuristic EM Drive | NASASpaceFlight.com

Evaluating NASA’s Futuristic EM Drive | NASASpaceFligh… Follow @NASASpaceFlight Home Forums L2 Sign Up ISS Commercial Shuttle SLS/Orion Russian European Chinese Unmanned Other
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jd

email scam

I just encountered a very sophisticated email scam.

It would appear that the scammers have compromised 1 or more email servers.
I got an email purportedly from a friend that they were stuck somewhere and someone had stolen their luggage.
The “from” email was a hotmail account, but I know a yahoo account for that person so using another email system entirely I sent a query to the yahoo account.
The scammer responded with more cries for help. I began to wonder and called my friend to be sure.
Several others of his friends had got the same email.

I’m not at all sure how they could intercept my reply, but whatever they are doing, they are good at it.
Be careful out there. The bad guys are getting better at what they do.

Chris Barker

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.