I just got a note from @Microfix that pointed me to an interesting discussion from Ionut Ilascu at BleepingComputer:

After Microsoft ends support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 on January 14, 2020, 0Patch platform will continue to ship vulnerability fixes to its agents.

“Each Patch Tuesday we’ll review Microsoft’s security advisories to determine which of the vulnerabilities they have fixed for supported Windows versions might apply to Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 and present a high-enough risk to warrant micropatching”

Micropatches will normally be available to paying customers (Pro – $25/agent/year – and Enterprise license holders). However, Kolsek says that there will be exceptions for high-risk issues that could help slow down a global-level spread, which will be available to non-paying customers, too.

Many of you know that 0Patch has been issuing quick fixes for bad bugs in recent patches. In all cases, I’ve refrained from recommending them, simply because I’m concerned about applying third party patches directly to Windows binaries. That said, to date, they’ve had a very good track record. Whether they can continue that record with patches-on-patches-on-patches remains to be seen, of course.

I fully expect Microsoft to release patches for newly discovered major security flaws, even after January 14. Whether those will step on the 0Patch patches is anybody’s guess.

Definitely something worth considering….

0patch promises to keep delivering security updates to Windows 10 even after Microsoft stops next year. Should you use it? We help you decide. //

It’s a way to (likely) get some extra security on a Windows PC by blocking potential flaws from being exploited. But you’re also trusting an additional vendor’s security software. //

If you’re going to connect a Windows 10 (or Windows 7) PC to a network after it’s no longer receiving patches, you should take some security precautions. Ensure you’re using a browser that’s still getting updates on your operating system and an antivirus that’s still supported. And yes, 0patch could also be an additional layer of security against nasty flaws.

“In the short term, it is a good option to buy time, but eventually, the operating system should be upgraded to a regularly supported version,” said Kron.

Tilde is a plain text editor for the Linux console. The difference is that even if you've never seen it before, you already know how to use this one. //

In the bad old days of WordStar, WordPerfect, DisplayWrite, MultiMate, Arnor Protext and so on, every app had a totally different UI.

This was partly because they all came from different original platforms, partly because such things weren't standardised yet, and partly because once someone had mastered one company's program, it made them very reluctant to switch to anything else. WordStar, for instance, offered original WordStar, WordStar 2000 and WordStar Express, all with totally different UIs.

But then the Mac came along. All its apps looked and worked much the same, because in 1987, Apple published a big, detailed book [PDF] telling programmers exactly how MacOS UIs should work. IBM followed suit with its CUA standard and gradually PC apps fell in line.

Windows and OS/2 both followed CUA, as did Motif on UNIX, and for a few decades harmony mostly reigned. GNOME 3 threw a lot of this out of the window, but even now most Linux graphical desktop and apps broadly follow the system: a menu bar, with File and usually Edit menus, a Help menu at the end, Ctrl+S to save, Ctrl+O to open, and so on. You may never have heard of CUA, but you know how to use it. //

Macros, tips, and templates for Corel® WordPerfect® for Windows®

This is a WordPerfect "template" of the default Function key assignments (F1-F12) in the standard WPWin keyboard, in the form of a simple .WPD file.

Note that this is not a typical WordPerfect template file (*.WPT) -- it is simply a standard WPD document (8.5"x11") in portrait format containing two tables (F1-F6 and F7-F12) that you can print out and tape to the wall, or open when needed with a shortcut key (e.g., see "Add a specific folder or file to any visible toolbar" here).

Users of the WordPerfect DOS keyboard can modify the document's table to suit their needs. //

Update: Included with WordPerfect X8 (released in 2016) and later versions is a new Corel macro: CreateFunctionKeyTemplate.wcm located in your Default macros folder. This displays a small dialog of options and then creates a printable landscape-oriented table of the current keyboard's Function keys assignments. To play it just use Tools, Macro, Play and type its name.

WPDOS under Modern Windows and macOS, New Printer Drivers, Euro Symbol Support, and Added Features for WPDOS 5.1 and 6.x

A government-university partnership dedicated to improving the quality, usability and accessibility of data from Indiana's state agencies.

This is an age-old Christian debate and the confusion is based on looking at one side of the problem to the exclusion of the other. However, before we begin, let us remind ourselves of a couple of simple NT teachings:

1. Salvation is the Initiative of God alone
2. God wants all people to be saved by grace
3. God's gracious Will
4. Many reject God's will and offer of Salvation
5. Christian Distractions from perseverance

[Internal citations omitted]

Summary/Conclusion

We are saved by grace alone, through Christ alone, by faith alone and this is the initiative of God alone by the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit. However some refuse to accept this and reject the faith granted to them (Rom 1:18-23) and so become lost. It is by continuing to believe and trust in God and the divine strength He imparts that a Christian perseveres.

I was wondering the difference between WGS84 and EPSG:4326 (see this).

Can then WGS84 on its own be defined as a Coordinate Reference System? Or is it just a datum so that a Coordinate System must be attached to it to fully define a CRS? (see e.g. this document, figure below Sec. 6.4.1)

ANSWER:

There can be some confusion over the difference between a Spatial Reference System (SRS) and a Coordinate Reference System (CRS), and unfortunately WGS84 is often used for both. EPSG:4326 is merely the reference number of EPSG's database entry describing a CRS. Typing 4326 into their website here gives us this:

enter image description here

The things to note here are that 4326 refers to a Geodetic CRS (i.e. it uses latitude and longitude as coordinate units). It is made up of the WGS84 Geodetic Datum (EPSG:6326) and an ellipsoidal coordinate system (EPSG:6422). The datum itself is made up of the WGS84 ellipsoid, and a prime meridian. These are the SRS components.

So you can see in this instance, WGS84 could refer to three different things! But EPSG:4326 is unambiguous. The beauty of this system is that other geodetic CRSes can be defined in terms of EPSG:6422 (Ellipsoidal CS) and we'd always know it refers to an North/East longitude/latitude coordinate system.

In addition, projections can be built up from these geodetic CRSes, for instance UTM zone 30N looks like this:

enter image description here

Here you can see that it uses the WGS84 CRS as its base coordinate reference system, then defines the type of projection, its origin, and its false eastings and northings. So it can be viewed as a kind of "wrapper" around EPSG:4326, which is already well defined. It would be possible, for instance, to use the same projection parameters but a different geodetic CRS such as OSGB 1936 (EPSG:4277), which will define a valid coordinate system but one that would be of less use to other users. These sort of ad-hoc CRSes tend to be given high EPSG numbers, and often are just bogus ones invented for a specific use and not officially adopted by the EPSG. EPSG:900913 (Google's Web Mercator) was like this, until it was adopted as EPSG:3857.

• Google Earth is in a Geographic coordinate system with the wgs84 datum. (EPSG: 4326)

• Google Maps is in a projected coordinate system that is based on the wgs84 datum. (EPSG 3857)

• The data in Open Street Map database is stored in a gcs with units decimal degrees & datum of wgs84. (EPSG: 4326)

• The Open Street Map tiles and the WMS webservice, are in the projected coordinate system that is based on the wgs84 datum. (EPSG 3857)

So if you are making a web map, which uses the tiles from Google Maps or tiles from the Open Street Map webservice, they will be in Sperical Mercator (EPSG 3857 or srid: 900913) and hence your map has to have the same projection.

I'll like to expand the point raised by mkennedy

All of this further confused by that fact that often even though the map is in Web Mercator(EPSG: 3857), the actual coordinates used are in lat-long (EPSG: 4326). This convention is used in many places, such as:

• In Most Mapping API,s You can give the coordinates in Lat-long, and the API automatically transforms it to the appropriate Web Mercator coordinates.
• While Making a KML, you will always give the coordinates in geographic Lat-long, even though it might be showed on top of a web Mercator map.

A REVOLUTIONARY NOTE-TAKING, REFERENCING, & WRITING SYSTEM

What this is

This repo contains downloads of compressed disk images of bootable USB keys.

Version 1 is based on several upstream FOSS projects, plus some ancient DOS freeware applications. The idea is to provide a complete, easy-to-use, distraction-free environment for writers. It is set up for English with provision for US and UK keyboard layouts. If you want other translations, I welcome help!

To get your work off the key, just insert the key into a computer that's already running any more modern OS than DOS.

You cannot go online with the keys and there are no Internet tools. There are also no games included. Both are intentional.

What it contains: SvarDOS plus a menu launcher and a choice of freeware writing tools

The operating system is SvarDOS, the latest release as of January 2025. For source code for the OS, go to the SvarDOS website.

There are no build scripts or source code here. I did not use any. I did not compile anything at all. What I did was take pre-existing compiled code from SvarDOS and other projects, install it, and configure it. Then I worked out how to make bootable media in VMs, imaged those DOS-bootable USB media, and put the downloads here.

The main writing-tools key has a simple launch menu using the DOSShell menu from PC DOS 2000, which back in 2021 I made into a Virtualbox VM and published on my tech blog.

It contains three word processors, two outliners, three plain-text editors, and some other apps. These alls are all explicitly freeware or products from companies that no longer exist.

President Trump has struck a devastating blow at the legal theory that drives most of the race-centric litigation in the country. In his executive order entitled “Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy,” which aims to “eliminate the use of disparate-impact liability in all contexts to the maximum degree possible,” Trump orders the full weight of the federal government directed toward eradicating and what is essentially the racist contention that Black men and women are at a disadvantage when a race-neutral standard is used.

"Disparate impact" is a great example of how legislative authority devolved into an unelected bureaucracy making up rules to please interest groups with no reasonable basis in law.

The Civil Rights Act banned discrimination “because of” race, sex, and other prohibited characteristics. That language was written, intended, and understood at the time to outlaw intentional discrimination. Practices that had a dramatically unequal outcome on different groups might be supporting evidence of intentional discrimination, but nothing in the statute made it a substitute for proving discrimination. Other statutes written in that era, such as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (FHA), contained similar language.

As Justice Clarence Thomas has observed, “The author of disparate-impact liability under Title VII was not Congress, but the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).” The EEOC’s leaders felt that Congress had passed a “compromise” statute and that, through “creative interpretation,” it could be expanded to reach any practice that produced unequal outcomes. Deference to the EEOC’s position led the Supreme Court to adopt the disparate impact theory under Title VII in 1971, and later to engraft it upon the ADEA and the FHA, the latter in a 5–4 decision in 2015 from which Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito, and Chief Justice John Roberts all dissented. Trump’s executive order quotes the chief justice’s own words in another case: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

It is really hard to explain how evil the "disparate impact" theory is. This is from Heather MacDonald writing in City Journal:

"Disparate-impact theory holds that if a neutral, colorblind standard of achievement or behavior has a disproportionately negative effect on underrepresented minorities (overwhelmingly, on blacks), it violates civil rights laws. It has been used to invalidate literacy and numeracy standards for police officers and firemen, cognitive skills and basic knowledge tests for teachers, the use of SATs in college admissions, the use of grades for medical licensing exams, credit-based mortgage lending, the ability to discipline insubordinate students, and criminal background checks for employees and renters. It has been used to eliminate prosecution for a large range of crimes, including shoplifting, turnstile jumping, and resisting arrest; to end police tactics such as proactive stops (otherwise known as stop, question, and frisk); and to purge safety technologies like ShotSpotter and speeding cameras from police departments.". //

Ricardo Dale
3 minutes ago
This is the actual institutional racism the community organizers have been screaming about...

Regarding the possibilities and problems with defense advisory committees, I'd recommend these posts (here | here). Here's how I'd summarize them: For these boards to be useful, they need outside-the-box thinkers seeking high-impact solutions to critical problems. It needs Billy Mitchells and John Boyds. The problem is that no one in DOD wants to deal with controversial ox-goring solutions; they want more of the same, only a little better than before. By salting the committees with political adversaries of the party in power, you ensure nothing gets done.

These committees also serve as a source of leaks that damage the current administration and sabotage potential changes. Democrat members of the Defense Policy Board may have been active in trying to sandbag Hegseth.

The exception to that is the Defense Advisory Committee on Women In The Service (DACOWITS), which has single-handedly done more to destroy the US military than anything the USSR accomplished. This is a politically charged committee filled with feminist activists and deep links to powerful members of Congress. No matter how harebrained, its recommendations frequently become DOD policy because the SecDef usually finds it less painful to go along. To his credit, George W. Bush disbanded this committee only to relent and reestablish it toward the end of his presidency. //

Buddy
an hour ago
Why would you have a committee on women, when the Dems/leftist don't even know what a woman is? //

Captain Sweatpants
2 hours ago
“Well, if you’re a white male Christian cisgender macho MAGA man, you can be as dumb as a rock and be deemed qualified to serve as secretary of Defense. That’s apparently what we’ve learned from this episode,” Rice said

Susan Rice is a little bitter.

What Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor, is doing is essentially conceding the facts of the case (that Dugan did what she's alleged to have done) while trying to argue that it was improper for the Trump administration to arrest her because of the "spectacle."

Did Rossi ever make that case about any of the people around President Donald Trump who were frogmarched out of their homes by the Biden administration? Or what about Trump himself? If you're going to argue that judges deserve deference, didn't a then-former president deserve deference? Only now are these CNN flacks acting as if using measure exists, and that's a patently political complaint. //

JENNINGS: Let me tell you my view. The spectacle is important because the message has to be sent to everybody else, "We are not going to put up...you have been elected by people to uphold the law, and some of the laws that have been most flagrantly violated in his country are immigraiton laws. You've got to get on board with upholding all the laws. //

Yes, if the facts of this case are proven true, this judge committed a crime, but sending her to jail is only part of the equation. The other part is using her as an example and showing other judges and officials around the country that they will be treated just like every other alleged criminal if they break the law. There will be no special treatment. There will be no summons orders to avoid the cameras. //

Fishin'withFredo
2 hours ago
"Spectacle"? Let's not forget that this same network was CALLED and positioned by the feds to broadcast Roger Stone and his wife marched out of their home in cuffs at 0400.

The professional left is calling it a “bloodbath.” Former bureaucrats are lamenting that the division has been “completely refocused.” Good. That’s the point.

"Civil Rights" Has Been Turned Into a Weapon
For years now, the term “civil rights” has been weaponized by the radical left. What was once about ensuring basic equality has morphed into a political cudgel used to target Christians, undermine women’s sports, and blur the meaning of words like “discrimination” beyond recognition. Civil rights laws were intended to ensure fairness, not to create a hierarchy where certain groups are favored while others are trampled.

Under the Biden administration, the Civil Rights Division became an engine for the far left’s social agenda, aggressively targeting police departments, promoting gender ideology, and even weaponizing the law against Christian Americans. What Dhillon and the Trump administration are doing isn’t an abandonment of civil rights — it’s a return to what civil rights are actually supposed to mean: protecting the constitutional rights of all Americans, not just the favored groups of the day.

Another theme running through the establishment media's reporting is that career government lawyers are upset that their priorities have changed. To which I say: welcome to democracy. Bureaucrats (yes, even government lawyers) work at the pleasure of the President. They don't get to set national policy. The President does. That’s how our system works.

The complaints you’re hearing from these so-called “career civil servants” boil down to one thing: they don’t like that the voters elected someone who doesn’t share their priorities. They’re not neutral. They’re political actors, upset that the political winds have shifted against them. //

Steve W
@gr8giants
·
Which laws is the Civil Rights division enforcing when they protect cross dressing men in women’s bathrooms? Which laws is the Civil Rights division enforcing when companies adopt hiring practices based on skin color or sexual preference and identity? Maybe a change was needed.
9:33 AM · Apr 24, 2025

I was looking for a simple way to connect two laptops and exchange files without the hassle of endless configuration tweaks, and I stumbled across this amazing app from the PowerToys toolset called Mouse Without Borders. It’s free, and it revolutionizes how you interact with multiple machines. You can control up to four computers using a single mouse and keyboard, effectively turning them into one cohesive workspace. Here’s an easy guide to setting up Mouse Without Borders for connecting two laptops.

download Microsoft PowerToys from Microsoft's GitHub page or from the Microsoft Store and install it on both laptops. Make sure that you install the same version on both devices or update PowerToys on the device that has a lower version to be on the same page.

You also need to connect both laptops to the same network or Wi-Fi hotspot. Then, open PowerToys, look for Mouse Without Borders, and enable the feature on both devices.

The only step left to do is to actually connect the laptops. You will see a Security key field. Take the key from one device and press Connect on the other. Now, enter the security key from the other device and type its name; then, click the Connect button again.
https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

after you connect two or more (up to 4) devices, you will be able to work with them as they are one device. You will see that you can go with the mouse cursor from one device screen to the other and control both of them with one mouse and keyboard. //

You can simply drag and drop files from one device to the other with your mouse as if it were the same system. The files will be copied into a dedicated Mouse Without Borders folder, and you can use them from there. Moreover, you can share the same clipboard. So, if you copy images or text from one device and press Win + V (to open the clipboard) on the other device, you can simply paste it wherever you want. //

sometimes, it simply disconnects, and you have to refresh the connection. That’s not tragic because the app has a Refresh connections button, and pressing it fixed the problem immediately for me. //

Sea
Ive been testing all options available for windows and windows without borders was the 2nd best I found

I have 2 dual 4k 32in monitors on my desktop and wanted to easily connect my work laptop on 1 screen without a dock.

StarDocks Multiplicity has lots more nice features like KVM, SeamlessDisolay and audio relay. File transfers are a breeze.

You can even setup tailscale for accessing either machine while not on the same network

By 21st century standards, DOS is so tiny and simple that it can run on almost anything. It has a library of thousands of apps, including some very powerful tools. Many were shareware or public domain, and are legal to use for free. Even many formerly commercial apps are legally freeware now. As an example, there's a good assortment at the FreeDOS repo. FOSS was not a big thing in the DOS era – it predates the invention of the GPL, for instance – but DOS versions of some of the big-name FOSS apps, such as Emacs and Vim, do exist. //

There's one purpose where being the digital equivalent of a hermit in a cave in the desert is an advantage. A function for which a total lack of ability to connect to a WLAN and access the Web is a desirable thing: a standalone, non-networked, multimedia-free writing machine.

Early versions of many of the big-name word processors ran on DOS, including the classic WordPerfect and the original Microsoft Word. There are other writers' tools, too, such as Symantec's GrandView outliner. Not all are free to use these days, but a surprising number are. For instance, one of the most popular British apps from the 1980s boom times, Arnor Protext, is now freeware. Even some of the big names, when the last inheritor ceased trading years ago, as we described regarding MicroPro's WordStar last year. //

Microsoft Word 5.5 came out in 1990 and was the first DOS release with a modern CUA user interface – in other words, drop-down menus using standard keystrokes. It still works well and Microsoft released this version as freeware in 1999 as a Year 2000 fix for all previous versions of Word for DOS and OS/2. (Unfortunately, this doesn't apply to Word 6.0 for DOS, which was the final DOS version and is a little more pleasant to use.) //

The result of the holiday season at the end of last year is our USB-DOS project on GitHub. It's a – so far, very small – collection of images of bootable USB keys. There are both FAT16 and FAT32 images. The FAT16 image will fit on a 256 MB key, if you can still find one that tiny; the FAT32 image will fit on a 4 GB key with a lot of room to spare. The first release, version 1.0, contains MS Word, Arnor Protext, an outliner, and the WordPerfect Editor. It boots straight into a graphical menu that lets you run the apps without ever even seeing DOS's command line. The second release, version 1.1, is nearly twice the size, but that's because it adds in the DOS components from Robert Sawyer's WordStar 7 archive, including file conversion utilities, and substantial documentation as PDF files. For that reason, we also added Adobe Reader for DOS.

https://github.com/lproven/usb-dos

I find most war movies a bit trite and overly sentimental. Sometimes, war has a higher purpose than mere coercion, but I'd consider those occasions rare. Whenever you come away from a war movie feeling uplifted, I'd submit that you have been sold a product. To me, the story is the bonding of men facing death, the shared suffering and sacrifice endured when we ask men barely (and maybe not) out of their teens to take incredible risks and responsibility. I've always held "Black Hawk Down" to be the gold standard because it hit the sociology of an infantry unit pitch-perfect and hammers home the fact that young men take these risks and pay this price, now and in the future, for each other, not to make the world safe for democracy or any other slogan the political class uses to sanitize what is at once both the most brutal and transcendent of human activities. Former Navy SEAL and one of the main characters in this film, Ray Mendoza, and English screenwriter and director Alex Garland team up to turn Mendoza's autobiographical script into a masterpiece of what wars do to the young men we send to fight them. //

This is not a war movie; it is a movie about men at war. If you think anything militarily significant happened here, the ending will disabuse you of that notion. The short documentary segment after the fade-to-black for the movie really ties everything together.

"Warfare" is minimalist, but the emotions it conjures up are raw, and you feel them as much as you watch them. Go see it. It is a great film, and we need to support smaller indie studios, such as Angel Studios, if we want to change what movies look like.

Retired Professor tcgeol
3 days ago
I hope this isn't misunderstood, but sometimes Catholics who are otherwise socially conservative have what most of us would consider quite liberal views on things like immigration and welfare, arising out of a misguided notion that the government is supposed to play the same kind of role as the Church in helping those less fortunate. Of course, the only way the government can do that is by forced wealth transfers, which the Constitution never contemplated.