Mediamonkey doesn't recognise your device?

Give the device a name in Windows Explorer (right-click, properties, type something in the blank box and hit ok).

Mediamonkey seems to have trouble identifying devices without a name - perhaps because it can't tell different devices apart if they're all called "Removable Disk F"?

rwc crowd estimates - i don't buy it

Estimates of only 50k people to both the game and party central? These are implausibly...implausible. It makes much more sense to interpret this as estimation being cut to fit what the transport infrastructure can handle. Thus all involved can claim they're only to blame for mismanaging a specific event rather than comprehensively failing in the years of planning and preparations that have led to this point.

Windows Explorer Path Too Long - How to Fix

I wrote this up because when I searched for a solution, all I found were people trying to sell me a fix tool for what is a very simple problem that you can fix yourself.

Symptom

Can't do anything with one or more files or folders using Windows Explorer.

Possible cause

As I understand it, modern versions of Windows allow paths up to 32000 characters, but for some reason the Windows Explorer is only able to handle 256 character paths. So it's possible to get into a situation where a program allows you to create files and folders that you can't manage later with Windows Explorer because the path is too long.

Solution

1. Use a different program to work with files. You can often do this from the File:Open dialog box of various programs.

2. Install an alternative file explorer. I didn't do this, so sorry but I can't recommend one. There is a list here.

3. Use the Subst command to create a virtual drive with a shorter path that Windows Explorer can handle, so you can fix the problem.

Subst Example

Let's say you have a file c:\very\very\long\path\file.txt that has this problem.

1. Open a Command Prompt window (Start:All Programs:Accessories:Command Prompt)
2. Type subst x:
3. In Windows Explorer, browse to the file
4. Copy perhaps half of the file path (e.g. c:\very\very) from the text box at the top
5. Paste into the Command Prompt (right-click Paste)

You should now have the following text in your Command Prompt:

subst x: c:\very\very

Hit enter, and you should find that there is a new drive x: in your windows explorer, pointing to c:\very\very You can work with your files using this drive.

At this point it's up to you whether you use x: drive all the time to work with these files, or if you go through and shorten the names of the files and folders so that Windows Explorer can handle them from your original drive (c: in this example).

If you don't need the virtual drive any more, you can remove it with

subst x: /d

Space travel reality is stranger than fiction

Prior to space flight, science fiction writers imagined all kinds of horrors awaiting in space, from killer cosmic rays to space hallucinations that would drive you crazy to malevolent aliens that needed to be fought off with psychic cats. I doubt they could have predicted that a combination of budget cuts, poor politically motivated decision making and a dearth of planning would have largely put an end to human space travel. As stories go, reality is the most fantastical of all.

Radio New Zealand With Pictures

Truly exciting news. Hopefully this means no more of the uncertainty and wishy washy lip service to the charter that TVNZ offered.

"The Radio New Zealand board of governors has given the thumbs up to plans for televised versions of its content as the foundation for a new public service television channel.

The proposed new channel would replace TVNZ7 when government funding runs out next July."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10743011&amp

Official: Pastafarian strainer titfer is religious headgear

Pastafarians worldwide are celebrating after a landmark Austrian decision in favour of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster paved the way for its recognition as a full-fat religion.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/14/pastafarian_ruling/

Mana = Hamas?

The media keep harping on about how unpalatable Hone Harawira is to the wider electorate, but it's not the wider electorate that matters - this is all about the Maori constituency. The fundamental issue is - are Maori willing to make incremental (and possibly very slow) behind-the-scenes progress in achieving their goals, or are they so raddled with grievance that any hint of collaboration is unacceptable?

Taking the Palestinian electoral situation of Fatah/Hamas, it's clear that Hamas was able to take advantage of powerful feelings of national hurt and anger by taking a hardline stance.

From a disinterested observer perspective, it's hard to see strong similarities between the respective plights of the Palestinians and Maori. Israel is a loooooong way from showing enough guilt or remorse to introduce positive discrimination and ethnic political quotas.

Alien lifeforrm discovered on Europa

Pretty exciting news, but it hasn't been picked up by the majors yet which is surprising considering how old this article is. No date is provided but it was probably released at the beginning of April. I mean right at the beginning of April.

http://www.welshspaceagency.org/Cymru-III-Mission/alien-lifeforrm-discovered-on-europa.html

AFC Wimbledon

Feeling pretty damn excited about AFC Wimbledon being still alive in the playoffs as they attempt to make the step up into the Football League, and looking forward to the day when they finally face and take down the evil MK Dons. AFC Wimbledon has been a going concern for 9 years now, so unfortunately it looks like MK are going to be harder to hunt down and destroy than Osama!

How to really predict NZ's earthquakes and volcanoes

The "Moon Man" Ken Ring claims to be able to predict earthquakes using lunar cycles, but I have found a far superior predictor of tragic geological events: unMondayised holidays.

2010 was a year with two unMondayised holidays (Waitangi and Anzac Days) and a major geological event - the 4 September earthquake near Christchurch.

2011 has one unMondayised holiday (Waitangi Day) and one forfeited holiday with Anzac Day falling on Easter Monday. This bizarre alignment has resulted in the most tragic earthquake of recent times - the 22 February earthquake.

After discovering this correlation, I examined NZ's history of major geological events and was astounded to find the following:

1953 Tangiwai disaster caused by the eruption of Mt Ruapehu, 151 people killed - Anzac Day was on a Saturday.

1931 Napier earthquake, 256 people killed - Anzac Day was on a Saturday.

1886 Tarawera eruption, 121 people killed and the Pink & White terraces destroyed - Waitangi Day was on a Sunday and Anzac Day was on a Saturday!

Some might argue that neither Waitangi nor Anzac Days actually existed as holidays in 1886, thus destroying the theory. Au contraire, this should have been taken as an omen for future generations that mere mortals shouldn't mess with fate by dabbling in the unnatural abomination of unMondayised holidays.

Some might mention that in 1929 the unMondayised Two landed slap bang in the middle of the week which didn't prevent the Murchison Earthquake that killed 17. Well I'm not some Moon Man predicting every little tremor and aftershock, I only get out of bed for the big stuff.

After 2011 we can probably breathe easy for a few years. However 2017 is shaping up as another big one as the holidays align once again, so be prepared for earthquakes, eruptions and tsunamis by sleeping in a flat open field at least 250 metres above sea level and away from any boulder-strewn hills. Actually volcanic eruptions can trigger lightning storms so you're probably stuffed there as well.

This article is not intended to trivialise the Christchurch earthquakes or any other natural disaster - but it definitely is intended to parody earthquake predictions based on spurious correlations.

gmail app as a combined inbox

I switched to gmail, but I still have hotmail and yahoo accounts I don't want to get rid of. I was sick of checking three different accounts both on pc and android phone.

So I set up gmail as a combined inbox as follows:

1. Gmail can fetch email from pop3 accounts - see here for more info

My preferred settings:

Leave a copy of retrieved messages on the server, so that your legacy account retains copies of all emails fetched by gmail and can continue to be used independently - why have gmail as a single point of failure?

Label incoming messages - this is crucial to be able to differentiate the accounts that emails belong to

You can also set up the smtp side so that when you reply to a fetched email in gmail, the replies are sent from your legacy email.

2. Use account "views". Once you have set up pop3, your inbox will contain emails from multiple accounts which can be confusing to work with.

To view only emails from a legacy account, select the label on the left hand side.

Viewing only your gmail emails is a bit fiddlier. In the search box you can filter out all non-gmail labels by using the -label: operator.

Example: if you have set up the a@hotmail.com and b@yahoo.com accounts to be fetched into gmail, you can filter these out by entering the following in the search box:

-label: a@hotmail.com -label:b@yahoo.com

It's a pain to have to type into the search box every time, so luckily there is a feature you can enable in the labs to save this search as a "quick link".

Select Settings:Labs and Enable the Quick Links feature. Then go back to your Inbox, enter your filter search term and click Add Quick Link. A dialog box pops up allowing you to name the quick link (you could call it "Gmail Only"). Click OK and the quick link is created.

Now you can just click the Gmail Only quick link to filter out the emails fetched from other accounts.

3. Account "views" in the Gmail app for Android

The Gmail app for Android is not nearly as feature rich as the PC version. It does allow you to select labels to filter the view, but it does not have Quick Links. I was worried that Gmail would be unusable if I couldn't easily filter out legacy account emails.

Luckily it turns out that the Android version handles exactly the same search operators as the PC version, and previous searches are saved for reuse.

So you can key in the search above and it will be available for reuse as a recent search. This isn't as nice as Quick Links and it's possible you might have to rekey the search once in a while. But it's good enough for me.