Software Reviews

A.  Handbrake is a highly-recommended DVD ripping tool that does not work at all.  Originally made for Macs, it evidently needs to stay with them and not pretend to be Windows-compatible.

1.  It's default is to save to the desktop.  However, even if you tell it to save to the desktop, it simply goes through the motions without creating an output file.   The third time I tried, it actually did finally create an output file . . . in its own folder in Program Files.  The hell?

2.  The file wouldn't even play.   All I wanted was an .avi with Xvid encoding and it can't even get that right.

Handbrake thus officially sucks.

B.  All Text/Hex Editors suck, because they cannot handle significant but very simple search strings.   In my
case, this simply means that I was trying to divine a way to
search-and-replace section numbers out of a large number of text files.

So, let's say this was a fragment of my text:

text text text text

23

text text text text

24

text text text text

All I wanted to do was to remove the 23, 24, et cetera so it looked like this:

text text text text
text text text text
text text text text

However, remarkably, this is apparently something that the world's programmers have never considered.  Oh, I can remove the digits in one maneuver and then remove the spaces in another, but only at the risk of removing other useful digits in the text (e.g. a line starting with "56 times" or something might have the "56" deleted). 

You would think that there would be a simple way to tell a program to find "linebreak-linebreak-digit-digit-linebreak-linebreak" and remove it, but amazingly there is no such thing.   Oh, there's an "extended" expression type that makes finding linebreaks a little easier, but you can't find numbers at the same time.   The regular expression type won't let you find linebreaks worth a damn.

C.  RegexMagic is supposed to help with regular expressions . . . you're supposed to be able to input a bit of text and tell it how you want it parsed, and then it will come back with the regular expression coding for you.   I figured it might help me find a way to bypass the absurdity mentioned in B. 

However, it did not do crap.   I'm a pretty smart guy, usually able to operate even less-than-intuitive software with relative ease, but this was ridiculous.  So I spent an hour going over all of the instructions carefully, marking my text precisely, and yet all I found was that the software continued to fail to do anything of value.   Its big idea of the sort of regular expression I needed to use was to delete all of the text in the file.  Seriously!

Don't waste your money.   I'm glad I just used the trial version.

Leftist Trash vs. Glenn Beck

Sick and evil people are trying to start a rumor/whisper campaign on the internet against Glenn Beck.  Originating from a comedy routine of associating someone with insinuations, the original perpetrator and those who are spreading it are trying to hurt Beck by insinuating a violent crime in his past, though they are relatively careful about not actually making the claim.  However, by trying to spread the idea and thus bring it to the forefront of Google and the like, they are creating a myth which, if it took root, would be virtually impossible to dispel.

Leftists will think this a stroke of brilliance without ever pondering what it means or what it would be like to be the target of such a thing. 

Worse is their attempt to justify it, claiming that it was meant to flip the Obama birth certificate / citizenship questions back on the right wing, "using Beck's tactics against him".   Bull!

First, I don't even think Beck questions Obama's citizenship, but even if he did, what the hell is the similarity between the "where's the beef?" citizenship people (who have yet to be given the beef) and this insidious rumor campaign?   Proof positive is what the so-called Birthers are asking for, and the lack of it from Obama and Hawaii is the wind in their sails.  Obama has a very simple solution . . . have the damn birth certificate shown so these people will shut up.

However, in the case of this evil maneuvering against Beck, there is no solution, because the wicked rumor-mongerers demand that a negative be proven.  It's fallaciousness is similar, emotionally speaking, to the question-begging of "so when did you finally stop beating your wife", which presumes that you did.  You are thus in the position of having to disprove the claim buried in the question.

But how do you prove a negative?   Oh, sure, he could show he was somewhere else, or otherwise prove that every single bit of their claim was wrong.  But that's not the same, and is wrong for Beck to have to do that besides.  (e.g. Where was I in 1990?  Up yours!  I am a free man and owe you no
answer.  If you require one then "I was banging your mom" is your
answer, you trash.)

All that Beck's point-by-point response would do is to disprove the claims of the rumor-mongerers, who aren't even really trying to prove their claims as factually-based anyway.  And by even responding, Beck would be giving fuel to their fire.  And even if he was somehow able to do the impossible and prove this negative (that he did not commit the crime they claim), there is nothing to stop them from doing it all over again with another crime the next day.

It's just more sick behavior from leftist trash, and it's enough to make one wish for the existence of Hell just so there's a proper place for such animals.

Another LGF Classic Moment

Obama as Witch Doctor re: ObamaCare (e.g. making fun of his health care)

LGF calls this disgusting, racist, the creator a creep, and uses it to attack the Tea Party movement.

Now let's flash backward a bit . . .

Bush as Witch Doctor for no apparent reason

What's the difference?  Just because Obama is of African descent doesn't make topical fun-poking about his health care ideas racist, you twits, any more than poking fun of Bush as a European king-figure (from the same site as the Bush witch doctor pic) is racist.

So, LGF is getting to the point where they are cordially invited to eat me.   Too bad they won't allow new commenters as they continue to drive off the deep end.  Echo chamber, anyone?