This journal entry is a personal commentary. It does not in any way represent the official positions of Fur Affinity or any of its staff, including the administrator authoring it. It's just personal (and probably barely coherent) ramblings.

---

Reusable passwords are a myth, a failing of basic security that makes every one of your accounts wide open to attack and complete takeover, and if that happens, you very likely have no way to prove that your account is yours.

What is password reuse? It's the tendency to use the same password (especially with the same username) for more than one site or account. It's like using the same key to unlock doors cities apart: If a thief manages to copy your key, you have to go to every single door to replace the lock, and you have to hope the thief doesn't beat you. Except that you can't know it happened until long after it's too late to do anything about it.

Your passwords are used as your keys online, and I know that too many people have been conditioned into believing they can get away with not having to make new passwords and remember only one for everything. This is a very bad practice, and it's responsible for account break-ins on dozens of sites that are otherwise not targeted for password dumps. A lot of Twitter and Facebook vandalism happened because users on compromised sites like Gawker, Sony music, movie, and game sites (especially PSN), and Hackforums (you idiots!) reused their passwords elsewhere.

Now I, having an administrator account, am quite a target. The mayhem that would be unleashed by my account being compromised would be significant. The simplest of all the defenses I have against such a compromise is to create passwords difficult to guess or brute force, to use that password for only a limited length of time, and to never, ever reuse that password here or anywhere else.

But what about you, I hear you asking. What could anyone else want from your account. Well, even if you have nothing stored in your account, the bad guys want your account itself. You have relationships with other users, and you've established trust with them to one extent or another. Imagine the secrets a stranger could learn from your friends if he could pretend to be you, or the secrets you'd share with that stranger if you didn't know your friend's account was broken into. Suddenly, that worthless account of yours isn't so worthless anymore, is it?

And the simplest thing you can do to protect it is not to use the same password everywhere.

Your password doesn't have to be an actual word. It can be a phrase or acronym that only you know. If you worry that you won't remember it, then write it down and guard it as closely as you guard your real keys and cash.

Personally, I think it's a tad less secure but loads more convenient, but you can also have your computer remember your passwords for you. Just keep your registered email address current, and guard the password to your email accounts so that you, and not someone trying to break into your site account, can use a site's password reset feature if you ever need to get back into your account that way. Here on FA, you'll need to give your registered email address as part of the password reset procedure, so take a moment right now to make sure it's current and what you think it is.

Reusable passwords are a big reason why a lot of sites are harmed by other sites being compromised. Reusable passwords are a convenience that actually harms security. Reusable passwords are a lazy habit, a bad habit.

If you have this habit, then don't say a thing, don't draw attention to yourself, and just resolve to yourself to break that habit.

Somepony needs to really make a poni-themed cover of "Windy" by The Association.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlqwpq7xycU

Who's peeking out from inside a mailbox,
Calling a name that's lighter than air?
Who's reaching down to give me a muffin?
Everyone knows it's Derpy!

Who's derping down the streets of Ponyville,
Smiling at everypony she sees?
Who's flying out to dash after Rainbow?
Everyone knows it's Derpy!

And Derpy has stormy eyes
Flashing at Fluttershy,
And Derpy has wings to fly
Above the clouds,
Above the clouds,
Above the clouds,
Above the clouds!

(Instrumental)

And Derpy has stormy eyes
Flashing at Fluttershy,
And Derpy has wings to fly
Above the clouds,
Above the clouds,
Above the clouds,
Above the clouds!

Who's peeking out from inside a mailbox,
Calling a name that's lighter than air?
Who's yelling down, "Oh give me a muffin"?
Everyone knows it's Derpy!

Who's derping down the streets of Ponyville,
Smiling at everypony she sees?
Who's flying out to dash after Rainbow?
Everyone knows it's Derpy!

Who's peeking out from inside a mailbox,
Calling a name that's lighter than air?
Who's reaching down to give me a muffin?
Everyone knows it's Derpy!

Who's derping down the streets of the city,
Smiling at everypony she sees?
Who's flying out to dash after Rainbow?
Everyone knows it's Derpy!

[Better lyrics, I hope. "Who's flying out to dash after Rainbow?" is a reference to "Sonic Rainboom," in which Derpy was a contestant who derped so hard her number was momentarily backwards. "And Derpy has stormy eyes flashing at Fluttershy" is a reference to "Green Isn't Your Color" when Twilight Sparkle was trying to ruin Fluttershy's fame. The muffin reference should be obvious; if not, watch the baked bads segment of "Applebuck Season."]

I made the mistake of answering a note asking me to treat it as a trouble ticket, and it was quite the mistake. I won't handle any incidents on FA coming in through notes ever again. If you need an admin, file a ticket, full stop. We're answering tickets reasonably fast and getting better. Don't even think of noting me with an admin matter. If you do, it had better be because I'm the only one who can do it, otherwise I'm deleting it and won't even bother to reply. Lesson learned.

Edit: The new batch of admins (which includes myself, though I can't claim a whole lot of credit) have reduced the volume of open tickets to just two pages, and virtually all of them have at least been answered. If you need the help of any admin, whether it's me or another, please file a trouble ticket.

Edit again: The exception is if I initiate contact on admin business through notes. In that case, it's perfectly reasonable to converse entirely within notes.

I have a couple of 'em now, and it's a bit addicting.

The name "arielmt" is already taken on Twitter. I've been searching for ages for a name both unique and meaningful, and they've all been taken, so I gave up and found one that was unique and meaningful to me, even though it's pure nonsense to everyone else: mof18202, pronounced "em of eighteen two oh two." If you have Twitter, you can follow me there.

If you don't have Twitter, or if you're philosophically opposed to Twitter but not opposed to microblogging, I'm also on the distributed and open source OStatus network now. I have a StatusNet site and account: arielmt@s.thornton2.com. If you have an account on a StatusNet site, such as at Identi.ca, you can follow me by either going to your account and adding my address as a remote subscription or going to my account profile and clicking on the Subscribe button.

Both of my accounts are bridged. Except for some replies, anything I dent on StatusNet is automatically tweeted, and anything I tweet on Twitter is automatically dented.

And so far, even though Twitter is far and away more popular right now, I'm liking StatusNet better.

It's getting there, the end of one year and the start of the next. I did way too much procrastinating when I wanted to get back into drawing (even if everything I draw is total crap).

So I'm resolving to draw just one image a day, even if it's just a crap doodle, and upload it if it's appropriate. I will upload in at least one of three places: DA, FA, and T2.

Someone gave my nephews Rubik's Cubes for Christmas, and I'm pretty much the only one in my family who knows how to solve them. (Hopefully, not for long.)

Once upon a time, I wrote a cheat sheet for solving them with just simple, easy to remember algorithms, but I didn't put it online and I forgot until today. It needs some typo clean-up, but the algos are sound.

http://thornton2.com/comments/thecube.php

Anyone who knows how to solve one quickly will recognize this as the ultra lazy beginner's method. Oh, well; it works.

[21:31] -Lymril/Wallops- FurNet is currently experiencing issues with a faulty server. We appologize for any interruptions to your regular yiffing sessions.
[21:35] --- Disconnected (Remote host closed socket).
[21:35] --- Received a CTCP VERSION from IRC
[21:39] -Global- [ShadowLab] Panther.furnet.org is currently having kittens. Please use another server for reliable service - we're working on it.
[21:45] --- Disconnected (Remote host closed socket).
[21:46] --- AwayMT sets modes [AwayMT :+iwx]
[22:02] --- Disconnected (Connection reset by peer).
[22:03] --- AwayMT sets modes [AwayMT :+iwx]

At least it hasn't netsplit me, disconnected me, and then left most of the network with no NickServ, which is sorta' required to join #FurAffinity and a few other channels. Oh, wait. That happened yesterday.

Edit: LOL updates.

From appearances, I'm as organized as a tornado's wake. But everything actually is organized. Into piles, but organized all the same.

Piles and piles of stuff to go through, and getting bigger with each emergency that keeps me from them.

So part of my job over on Fur Affinity Forums is to keep some semblance of peace and order, which is basically the point of being a moderator. There are some rules, and they can't possibly cover everything everyone does, but they do a half-decent job. That noted, being stupid is not against the rules.

A few changes were made to the TOS/AUP here on FA, and they're documented over on the forum. But one change in particular has caused drama. It has caused more drama in just one day than during the entire month that FA was down in 2008. Cub porn is banned. The reason doesn't matter.

All porn is banned on FAF, and I'm just a regular nobody on FA, so there's in theory no change to what's expected of me.

In theory, there isn't a difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is.

I am trying to keep up with the cub porn ban thread, and I'm only 30-odd pages behind now. But in the nearly 200 pages of posts that I've read so far, I have encountered so much stupidity and sheer lack of observation -- some deliberately refusing to observe -- that my intelligence quotient has dropped a few points. I have seen butchered in just that single thread: politics, the law, diplomacy, national borders, the English language, history, anatomy, artistic abilities, religion, morality, literary fiction, biology, geography, biography, cinematography, computing, the World Wide Web, logistics, business management, philosophy, physics, and even hard mathematics.

So far.

When I do catch up, I'm going to take a furlough to go soak in a nice bubble bath of cosmology, physics, and mathematics to wash off the stupidity.

My current avatar is Twilight Sparkle from the new "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic" TV series because I'm now hooked on it. It's not "oh no, I need to water my flowers!" anymore; now it's all "screw you, I'm taking away the sun forever!" My current avatar is facepalming because that's what I'm actually doing as I continue through that thread.

Well, that and popping aspirin, but drugs are bad mmkay?

One of the site admins,  witchiebunny, wrote a journal everyone who uses FA needs to read. With all the complaints about trouble tickets going unanswered for months while some get answered within hours or minutes, the best way to avoid being part of the problem is to make sure the ticket you file doesn't clutter up their ticket system by being a difficult ticket to answer, especially if you think the problem you're filing the ticket against should be obvious.

Source: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1826865/

And quoted below for one-stop reading convenience.

-ArielMT

---

How to write a Trouble Ticket

I see so many Trouble Tickets come through that are lacking vital information or are written badly and all of these hamper our ability as admins to answer them.

Here, then, is the FA user's Guide to writing a Trouble Ticket.

When writing a Trouble Ticket, please assume several things:

1. that the admin answering the Trouble Ticket has no idea who you are and has never heard of you before

2. that the admin answering the Trouble Ticket has not read any other Trouble Tickets you may have submitted and is therefore completely unfamiliar with your issue.

3. that the admin answering the Trouble Ticket is, in fact, fully interested in helping you. (You would be surprised how many Trouble Tickets come through and the user who submitted it is fully convinced that the admin has no interest in actually helping.)

A good guideline when writing a Trouble Ticket is to be concise and respectful. Raging in a Trouble Ticket is not helpful, and more often than not puts off the admin trying to help. Ranting about "as I said in my other Trouble Ticket" doesn't help. If you must refer to a previous Trouble Ticket, summarize the information presented in that Trouble Ticket, as odds are we don't have immediate access to that ticket.

Ripped or Stolen Artwork

For a ripped or stolen artwork Trouble Ticket, there isn't too much that's needed for us to act, but what IS needed is important:

-A link to the submission that is the violation
-A link to the original artwork, proving that it's a violation
-A short explanation of the situation.

Without the link to the original artwork, there is no way we can act on one of these Trouble Tickets, and we will only ask for that information before we act.


Account Issue

This can encompass a wide variety of things, so what we need is pretty simple:

-A link, preferably, to the account or aspect of the account that needs addressing
-a detailed explanation of the situation


Wrong Section

This is for submissions that are categorized wrongly, in one way or another. Needed for these Trouble Tickets are:

-A link to the submission in question
-How it is wrongly categorized

PLEASE NOTE: These do tend to come in at a lower priority than, say, art theft or harassment. So please do not badger about these. Also, do NOT bother artists about their categorizations repeatedly, as it can be considered harassment. users have been banned for this for extensive amounts of time.


Inappropriate Thumbnail

'S what it says on the tin. Here is what we need:

-A link to the thumbnail, which you can get by selecting image properties/information/whatever when rightclicking on the thumbnail
-A link to the image proper


Harassment

A big'un.

Bear in mind, that we are NOT handling third party Harassment Trouble Tickets except in extreme cases. Typically, we will step in in a Harassment instance if the following conditions are met:

-The user involved has tried to resolve the issue with the person they are at odds with
-If there has been no resolution, the user has blocked the user in question
-If there were comments or shouts made, that the user has taken the steps to remove those offensive comments and shouts
-If the person the user is at odds with has then proceeded to ban evade OR
-If the user has a history of harassment against other users of the site in general.

If the above aren't met, odds are we will ask you to do one of the above before we will step in.

Please note, Harassment is NOT a disagreement, or a user expressing a negative opinion of you or your artwork. Harassment can include, but is not limited to, the following:

-Artwork calling out a user or targeting them for the negative attention of others, either in fursona, use of their icon, or both
-A journal calling out a user by name
-A journal posting chatlogs with another user without their permission
-comments on a submission, journal or a shout of an extremely insulting or derogatory nature towards the user personally.

Keep in mind, two users having a disagreement is NOT Harassment, as users are allowed to disagree and express their opinions.

A Harassment Trouble Ticket should include the following:

-A link to where the Harassment taking place
-A quick explanation of what the Harassment actually is


Website Bug

This is for website bugs, basically a bug report where a technical aspect of the website that should be working...well, isn't. These may, in fact, go unanswered for a bit because we tend to refer these to our tech admins.


Other

This is a catchall for any other type of issue not addressed above. What's needed here is:

-A link to the issue at hand
-An explanation of the situation.


Follow these easy steps and odds are your Trouble Ticket will be answered quickly and efficiently.


*To be updated as I am able, and more occurs to me

I've done a meme. I've gone and corrupted my journal with a meme.

Anyway, go google for "you know you're from <city or state> when" and feel lucky. Copy and paste the list, and mark the parts that apply to you.

You know you're from New Mexico when:

1. You can correctly pronounce words like Tesuque, Cerrillos, Acoma, Buena, Ocotillo, Cochiti, Pojoaque, Socorro and Isleta (and you actually know what or where they are!).
2. You have been told by at least one out-of-state vendor that they are going to charge you extra for international shipping.
-- Cisco Systems once refused to ship a wireless access point to my company because of U.S. cryptographic export restrictions.
3. You expect to pay more if your house is made of Adobe.
4. You can order your Big Mac with green chile.
5. You buy salsa by the half-gallon.
6. You know what it means when they say it's from Hatch.
7. Your Christmas decorations include "red Chiles, a half-ton of sand and 200 paper bags."
8. Most restaurants you go to begin with "El" or "Los."
9. You price shop for tortillas.
10. You have an extra freezer just for green Chile.
11. You consider Billy the Kid a state hero. (?)
12. You think six tons of crushed rock makes a beautiful front lawn.
13. You think the biggest perk to running for state legislature is that you could speed legally.
14. You pass on the left because that is the fast-lane.
15. You think Sonic is "America's Favorite Drive-in."
16. Your swamp cooler got knocked off your roof by a Dust Devil.
17. You either have been or know someone who has been abducted by aliens.
18. You can actually hear the Taos hum.
19. All your out-of-state friends and relatives ask if they can drink the water when they come to visit.
20. When someone says "Las Vegas" you think of a small New Mexico town in the northeastern part of the state.
21. You iron your jeans to "dress up."
22. You don't see anything wrong with drive-up window liquor sales.
23. Your other vehicle is also a pick-up truck.
-- AWD Subies, not quite pick-ups.
24. Two of your cousins are in Santa Fe, one in the legislature, the other in the state penitentiary.
25. You know what it means when a waitress asks you whether you want "red or green."
26. You're relieved when the pavement ends because the dirt road has fewer potholes.
27. You see nothing odd when, in the conversations of the people in line around you at the grocery store, every other word of each sentence alternates between Spanish and English.
28. You've seen the bat flight at Carlsbad Caverns and have a t-shirt that says "Bats need friends, too!"
29. You know you are "special" because you're from the Land of Enchantment!
30. You've had Forts out in the desert or forest, which is also your back yard, so to speak.
31. You know what the night sky looks like full of stars and not pollution.
32. You've swam in an arroyo or an acequia..as a child or an ADULT!! LOL!
33. You've cooked an egg on the sidewalk.
34. You know what a horny toad is.
35. You can identify a quail, peacock, coyote, roadrunner, cricket, etc...by the sound they make.
36. You actually stop in the road when quail are crossing to wait for the whole "family" to get across.
37. Your Walmart sells snow sleds in the summer for the White Sands...but you can hardly find them in the winter.
38. You've slept outside either on the trampoline, the back of a truck, or just in the yard with friends.
39. When going to the store; you ask everyone in the vehicle if they’re going to “get down” with you.
40. You love the smell of rain in the desert.
41. You've caught tadpoles every summer as a kid.
42. One of your favorite past times is rock hunting.
43. Your High School Biology teacher taught you how to identify all of the desert plants that you could get high off of, and how to do it.
44. You've been to Mexico just to party.
45. You know that Christmas and weddings would not be the same without biscochitos.
46. You know what bartering is, and how to do it in at least 2 different languages.
47. You could totally win on Survivor, because you've been doing all that hunting, fishing, hiking survival technique stuff since you were 5 out in your own back yard.
48. Your city cousins from out of state come and visit you and don't get it when "going to do something" to you means to go hunting, fishing, hiking and theirs is hanging out at the mall.
49. You spent your 4 years of High School saying you were leaving this hell hole and never coming back; and when you left, you realized that there's no place like New Mexico, and will probably decide to retire back home.

 ponygirl and  michelelight made 100 La Brea figurines, and Ponygirl thought that she had sold them all at AC. As it turns out, she didn't. At the same time,  neolucky is in a medical bind and needs whatever help anyone can spare for her. In short, her kidneys are failing, she's on dialysis, and she needs a transplant.

To help her out any way she can, Ponygirl put the very last La Brea figurine on eBay and will be giving everything she earns from it to Neolucky.

eBay auction: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230512049828#ht_500wt_928

The last day of the auction was Sunday, August 22. The opening bid was $60.00 winning bid was $1,025.00. That's impressive, no matter how you look at it.

Ponygirl's journal: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1637972/

Neolucky's journals: http://neolucky.deviantart.com/journal/33641440/ and http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1637943/

Michele Light's journal: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1638155/

miupix's journal: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1637911/ - Neolucky helped miu out when he went through hospitalization not that long ago.

On Saturday, October 3, between 9:00 AM and 12:00 PM FST, a cracker broke into Furcadia and went in-game as a staffer. This user then broadcast usernames and passwords on the news channel. Fel posted a news article on the forum outlining Furc's official account of events and naming the users whose passwords were compromised.

http://forums.furcadia.com/index.php?furcadia_session_id=12546-nqqw-rzr&showtopic=63072

If your main or any of your alts is on that list, then follow the link to change your password.

If your password on Furc is similar to any password you use anywhere else, it's time to change not just that password but your password practices as well. Use a different password for everything, because if your password on one site gets compromised and the attacker knows you have accounts elsewhere, he's going to try that same password elsewhere. Use a different password, and if you have to write them all down somewhere, use a small pad or small book, and guard it as closely as you guard your checkbook and cards.

Link copied from  mifmaf's journal.

Buddhist Monk Recommends Video Games for Treating Aggression - Destructoid

Buddhist Monk: Games Satiate My Desire for Aggression - Kotaku

Video war games satiate my feelings of aggression - The Times of India

Disbarred and discredited anti-video game attorney Jack Thompson can't be too thrilled at this revelation.

I'm under siege by ants.

I woke up yesterday morning (Sunday) to discover ants all over my coffee pot and coffee cup. They weren't at all interested in anything else I had lying around in the kitchen, that I could see; they just wanted the coffee.

I battled caffeinated ants about four years ago in the house I just moved out of, and these ants looked like the exact same species: tiny black bodies with a footprint of about one by two millimeters. But I'll tell you what, on coffee they're fast little buggers.

I spent all day Sunday waging war against the ants, but the weapons I have are a can of Raid, a canister of Clorox pre-moistened sterilizing kitchen towelettes, most of a roll of paper towels, and a sink full of hot, soapy water.

They got into a coffee can I was using for another purpose (holding part of my junk drawer during the move), and I discovered it was because I hadn't quite removed every last speck of coffee grounds from it.

They were also fascinated with my microwave, even though they couldn't get inside it.

However, there was apparently a casualty on my side from the first day of fighting: the coffee maker they so desperately wanted. I normally pour a pint of vinegar instead of water into the reserve once every other month to clean out the brew path. Yesterday, it wouldn't pass a drop. I gave up and tried brewing water again, and it worked. So far, I've run three pots of water through the coffee maker, but I want to run a few more before I try coffee again.

But I found all the trails, and I found where they led, and I sprayed ant killer on them all. For good measure, I sprayed every edge I thought the ants were even thinking about using to conceal their trails. By nightfall, I had the upper hand.

The second day of the war saw renewed fighting, this time starting in the living room.

I ate pancakes at my computer desk a few months ago and spilled syrup on the keyboard tray. I thought I had cleaned it all up, but the ants corrected me in a very bold way.

However, they were after my coffee table as well this time. I still don't know why. I didn't eat at the coffee table, and I'm not aware of spilling anything in all the time I've owned it. Nevertheless, they wanted it. The whole thing, and everything I left on it, almost as if they wanted to be termites insted of ants.

Fearing that they may find something else, and also to see where all they were getting in, I ventured into the room I was keeping most of my belongings in during the move.

My fear was justified.

They swarmed all over my computer desk chair, but they showed no interest in anything sitting on it. I spent more of my can of Raid on the chair than I did in all the fighting up to then. I decided that if they wanted my chair so badly that they were thinking of moving their queen into it, then I couldn't afford to keep it.

The first confirmed casualty of this war is my computer desk chair. It's now sitting outside next to the trash bin, no longer attracting ants inside.

My can of Raid is almost spent, and I fear I may still be under seige within my own home. There was enough left to spray barriers around my doors and windows.

Tomorrow's battle will be fought with ant poison, Roach Motel-style cans filled with grains these ants will love and give to their queen, grains which are extremely toxic to these ants and their queen.

I only hope they don't find anything of interest in my bed or my teddy bear while I'm out.

I had Chinese from the local buffet for lunch today, and this is the fortune I got in the cookie:

You may be hungry soon: order a takeout now.

Anyone else get weird fortunes from cookies?

Today is the day that my phone and DSL services are transferred to my new home. The turn-up is scheduled to happen today, which means I will likely be offline tonight. I'll be sleeping in the new home tomorrow night, though. I'll be relieved when this move is over.

I'm still alive! (Not that it matters much to anyone else, but it's still better than the alternative.)

I'm moving into a bigger house by the end of the month. I really don't like moving, but things just fell together to make this a good thing for me. The house I'm moving into is still in the village, but in addition to it being a bigger house, I won't be on the highway anymore, and I won't be two doors down from the only bar in a 30-mile (55-km) radius anymore.

Anyway, the point is that, as much as I want to catch up on happenings here, I simply won't be able to until I finish the move.

I am trying something new, and so far I'm liking it. It's called Prism. It turns Web sites into desktop applications, essentially.

In Ubuntu, if the Universe repository is enabled, just go to Applications -> Add/Remove, and search for "prism".

I set mine up with a desktop icon to FA (and another to my DA), no location bar, and just a title and status bar. That leaves the entire rest of the window for the site. The biggest drawback is the loss of tabbed use of the site, but that's offset by the complete lack of chrome to clutter up the screen or distract me.

Prism uses Gecko and XULrunner on the back-end, which means whatever Web site you make a prism of looks and works just like Seamonkey or Firefox without extensions. Prism can use some extensions, according to the docs, but I haven't tested any.

Prism using XULrunner simplifies Web developers' jobs as well, as long as they remember not to assume their visitors have navigation buttons. Well-designed Web applications don't depend on them. If it works in Firefox, it works in Prism.

Also, if you decide you don't want a Web site in Prism, just trash the shortcut Prism makes.

The main gotcha, if you're used to staying logged in like I am, is that Prism keeps its cache and cookies in its own profile directory, and that includes session cookies. In plain English, that means signing in to a Web site through a Prism application signs you out in all other browsers, even Firefox.

But still, for the ability to use FA like a desktop application, and to keep up with happenings here, that's worth it.

The software you are installing for the hardware:

Batteries


has not passed Windows Logo testing to verify its compatibility with Windows XP.

Continuing your installation of this software may impair or destabilize the correct operation of your system either immediately or in the future. Microsoft strongly recommends that you skip this installation now and contact the hardware vendor for software that has passed Windows Logo testing.

Do you wish to continue installing software for this hardware?

---

[ Yes ] [[ No ]]

---

Ah, the joys of tech support. I encountered this message during a repair install of Microsoft Windows XP today, and I had to take a moment to laugh and be thankful I don't use Windows anymore. This has two kickers.

First, this was using the repair install feature of a genuine Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 compact disc: Genuine Microsoft software. What's a driver not passing Microsoft's own tests doing on Microsoft's own official RTM media?

Second, this is a desktop PC being repaired. What, the motherboard's real-time clock battery needs a driver now?

---

EDIT: The cause turned out to be one of the two memory sticks going bad. Because of the way they were installed, that put the bad memory range up at 800-1000 MB RAM range. Hooray for Memtest!

Just turn 'em off, or at least set 'em to vibe, and let the calls roll over to voice mail. Your life could depend on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCXZS2DoyZY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFuq01NvEnA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXNwXTIKL0c

This public safety message is brought to you by cell phone carriers and users.

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/410776/

This will just win.

This http://artie-p.livejournal.com/117027.html wins with pictures.