25 January 2014

Updated: Google Chrome: Flags you should enable

To edit your flags, go to chrome://flags/


Here's a list of flags that I use and would recommend. This is as of Chrome 58 - if using a newer version, the "default-ness" of these may have changed (it isn't clear what it means by 'Default' sadly). This focuses on Windows ones only. I've ignored any flags that are to do with purely experimental HTML and Javascript elements because they probably aren't in common use, are unstable, or could be insecure.

Link here for non-embedded version.



Some recommended articles with more:

5 January 2014

Should you upgrade to the Nexus 5 from the Nexus 4?


  • No: bugs/issues with handset - resolved
  • No: battery may be worse due to higher cpu - seems ok
  • Yes: if don't upgrade, then current nexus 4 will lower in value. But, nexus 5 should become cheaper as well?
  • Yes: 32GB storage
  • No: cnet review http://m.cnet.com/reviews/google-nexus-5/35828372
  • Maybe: size is actually same as Samsung Galaxy s4, which doesn't seem too large
  • Yes: WiFi ac, LTE (though not supported fully in UK yet)
Overall review on deciding yes:

  • Considerably and noticeably faster
  • Possibly better battery, definitely charges faster
  • Much lighter - a feather compared to the Nexus 4 which feels like a brick
  • Sell the Nexus for the "remainder" of how much you bought it for, divided by 24 months (normal length of a phone contract) and minus how many month's you've already had it

Google Glass questions


  • What if everyone on the train had one, and was talking on it, you wouldn't be able to hear yourself?
  • Could anyone's voice work with it just by walking past you?
    • Voice control would have to be built in - but what about people who can imitate your voice?
  • Is it waterproof? For wearing in the rain?
  • How much does it compare to Sixth Sense?

30 December 2013

Free Stuff, Discounts & Offers

Here are some places I recommend for discounts and free stuff

Cards/in-store
Online/Apps
Free Music
Free eBooks


Mobile/Android only
Free trials
Harder to get
  • Burger king vouchers - sometimes ask in-store for vouchers
  • McDonalds - Metro sometimes has them
  • Vodafone - Vodafone do a discount for employees of certain companies
  • Apple - student discount at university
In Reading only
  • Domino's uni vouchers (Fresher's Fayre)
  • Subway uni vouchers
  • Nandos free meal (Fresher's Fayre)
  • Sizzling Spice (multiple visits in-store and you'll receive a £10 off voucher)
  • Pizza Hut (in the post/on delivery)
  • Bed Bar Member card - for a few places in Reading
Christmas only
  • iTunes 12 Days of Christmas/Gifts
Utilities/Insurance
  • Compare The Meerkat - free meerkat toy
  • Southern Electric - iplan 7% discount
Other links to check out

5 November 2013

Dependence on Technology

There is a really old post (like, 2006) that was on IMDb that I posted, can't seem to find it at the moment, but I saved a copy.
I think I was replying to some guy about a film where we are nearly dependent on technology.

Does technology make us lazy?
I agree exactly, technology is there simply to make things easier for us to do - they automate our processes (hence automaton, 'automatic' prefix to everything). For example, washing machines, self-checkout services, pacemakers. Technology in this sense both protects and extends our lives without it.

Will we ever become dependent upon technology for survival?
I feel that for certain ways of survival this is true - for example, any medical system e.g. pacemakers, life support systems, kidney filtration etc. This also extends into the secondary field of technology which enables you to survive, e.g. if you need an organ transplant, the tightness and agility of the communication and transport technology is essential here.
As for being fully dependent - this begs the question of how much of us is really human - take the game Deus Ex, the film Blade Runner and the Sprawl Trilogy (Neuromancer etc.) by William Gibson - which detail on cybernetic humans - however in these forms the human is still in control. But in both cases, without technology, people (if you can call them that) cannot live.

Designer babies
This begs the question, if people can design their own babies, why can't they choose a baby that is not a 'normal' baby, e.g. one that has 3 heads, red eyes and tail? Once we have the ability to play God like that, who is to say that people won't try to make something out of the ordinary. Just watch an episode of Fringe and you'll understand.

Meaning of life
This goes into another big question about the meaning of life - the meaning of life in general being 'to survive'. Viruses are so powerful and dangerous because of their ability to adapt to new environments and harness the nutrients of its environment - a suitable reference point here being this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7DkeQ0roAM ("A Virus Walks Into A Bar") - "it completely takes over the cell to it's own uses - your cells under new management". Through natural selection the most different and capable ones survive. With humans, if you don't adapt, then you reject it.
What I'm trying to get at here is that it is vital that we adapt, doing whatever is necessary to survive. Technology is a step in this direction as with research we can find new ways to survive - some of this may be fringe science perhaps (e.g. cryogenics, uploading your consciousness to a computer). Any episode of Stargate or Fringe can take you in this direction. I am certain that in order to survive the death of our sun, we will need technology to leave our planet, assuming we haven't killed ourselves by then, asteroids haven't come to kill us etc, this is all discussed on here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risks_to_civilization,_humans_and_planet_Earth
And then what do we do when the heat death/big crunch happens? How do we survive beyond that? Technology and science go hand in hand in this area and will undoubtedly play a large role in our future.

What has science fiction taught us about our dependence on technology?
The danger of the dependence is highlighted in various science fiction entries. The Matrix, Ghost in the Shell, iRobot, Terminator etc.
In The Animatrix, The Second Renaissance Part 1, you can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAjdlwnTg5w
"Man made the machine in his own likeness. Thus did man become the architect of his own demise." Like happened in iRobot, a robot kills a human. "Who was the say the machine, endowed with the very likeness of man, did not deserve a fair hearing?"
This shows us that if we give machines too much power and artificial intelligence to be like us, and humans remain stubborn, robots will do the same. If we become far too dependent on technology, we may become slaves to it. And in many ways we are already slaves to the "cold and emotionless rule of machines" as we work and spend a lot of our lives just getting technology to work (technical support and database engineers to name only a few). But what is the gain of this? On such a micro scale such as having access to the Internet, there are still a lot of problems such as viruses, spilling coffee over laptops, electrocution and fire by overheating batteries that have to be recalled (there are many sources on all of these e.g. http://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/, http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/10/30/sony-battery-recall-idUSN3030020920081030) And with the threat of cyber security, technology and the Internet in general are extremely dangerous. When your military of defence or NHS laptop (http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/security-management/2011/06/15/nhs-laptop-loss-could-put-millions-of-records-at-risk-40093112/) is stolen or hacked, there is a great threat and technology is the catalyst in the equation. Technology has therefore become a "double-edged sword" (reference to Jeremy Clarkson again). It gives us great power but it is not to be played with irresponsibly.

Technology is a good slave for us, but only a slave. As a master, it is unpredictable and full of danger. Imagine what the risk management forms would look like working for Cyberdyne Systems (Terminator).

20 October 2013

Existential Thoughts on The Meaning of Life


Wrote this and left in draft about 2 years ago, just a mind dump really. Finally decided to clean it up a bit and publish. I will add some pictures and diagrams when I can be bothered.

Why do we want to be happy and why do we bathe in sadness?
Why do we exist in this universe?
What is the point of being alive?
Why do we have all these intricate emotions and feelings?

How do we exist beyond death?
If we died, what would be be, would it be like Amnesia where we float in another dimension and are able to meet other souls who can communicate with us, would that be the rest of our lives? In that case we had emotions, but emotions are human, they are neurotransmissions sent around the brain to stimulate a reaction, invoke a memory and therefore craft a response or change the internal structure of the neurons by creating and adapting new memories. How could you possibly have this in a soul that doesn't have a body?

Senses are the things of living creatures, not of spiritual soul beings. It would not be possible to interact with the world unless there really are things such as ghosts, the flotsam and jetsam of Torchwood that seeps through from the beyond and touches with our reality - but that is just a fantasy idea to make us believe there isn't nothing after the end of our lives.

So why do we exist, why do we have this capacity for free will and choice and knowledge and emotion and a desire to be intelligent, the intelligent people are more likely to survive and adapt to situations and make sense of the world rather than an ignorant fat lazy cow sitting in some council flat thinking about Big Brother and her hair and her kids and all the taxes and her husband and candles are the most important things in the world.

So what can we actually do when we are interacting with the rest of the world when we are dead. Nothing. We could be sitting in darkness. But consciousness is an entirely human thing is it not? How would something like that transform into another state and exist our bodies or live on and what would happen after millions and millions of years. Maybe the reason we have happiness is just an extra extension that we have evolved and there is no afterlife.

Then why are we actually alive? What real difference will it make if we were actually all dead right now? What if the entire universe didn't exist. What if nothing existed? Why do we exist? Why do things have to be this way? Is our goal to keep ourselves and the rest of the species alive as much as possible? Like with food and so on. Can we get to a point when we don't need food or bodies anymore? Imagine yourself being dead right now, how would that impact the human race and the rest of the world. It doesn't matter how it affects people because they are just people, they will live. There are so many people, why does it make a difference?

Why do we have banter and why do we have sadness? Is sadness meant to keep us going and make us a better person so that we can be stronger next time? But why do we bathe in it and let ourselves be upset and not do anything about it? Why do we stay single? What is the point in being happy?

Is there a point in being really rich or very poor, surely if we wanted to keep as many of our numbers alive as possible we would need to give money from the top rich people and give it to the poor so that as many people as possible can survive in the world, and then we would have to make sure food supplies and drink can derive. Will we really end up at a point when some of us start dying off like any other bacteria because we cannot live in our environment anymore, or will it be the environment we have to worry about more, re: are we actually a sustainable species or not?

Why do we need any money at all, why are we so caught up about £10?

What if we stripped our bodies down to be like that of another creature, like a whale. All whales do is eat, search around for food, communicate with others, and breed offspring. It's a basic life. What about dogs, they have a lot of energy, maybe they have emotions as well. Maybe they can feel happy and sad. Maybe all animals can feel happy and sad, but why do we need to feel happy and why don't we do anything about being sad? Or are there lots of people who just don't give into sadness?

Why starve yourself - it helps you to adapt to situations where there is little food

Why do gays exist in humanity - why does it exist in other animals - one example because some species i.e. lizards can reproduce without any male counterpart, they can survive on their own

A picture of how many gays there are in the world (5%) and how many curious people there are in the world (10%), how much would it fill a country, are there still 7 billion people in the world.

...insert picture...

Urges
We get urges because they are calls to enable our bodies to survive, they are things we don't get a lot of control over, we can postpone them and keep ourselves occupied but they do indeed are the prime source of all behaviour
Eating
Sleeping
Sex
Cleaning

Everything else is secondary - entertainment, music...
Why do we need to be happy? What does it enable us to do?

How small we are in the universe

...insert picture...

Explain survival of bacteria, we are a lifeform that has covered the planet, a very successful life form being able to live in a multitude of environments.

.insert explanation...

Why are we so small in the universe?
Maybe each sun and black hole is an experiment, an individual test to see if life can survive there.
Maybe we are meant to extend our reach to the edge of the universe an exit a great big round sphere that someone else has in their lab.
But then why do they exist, are there other instances of life that exist somewhere else in the universe - probably yes but far far away from us in entirely different circumstances

Show a timeline of the history of the universe then when life probably began one earth then the dinosaurs then humanity and how much longer our earth and sun will survive and when the predicted end of the universe is
Put in the end of the dinosaurs as well as other threats to us like asteroids and sun flares and polar changes etc

.insert picture...

We are so small, there is just us on earth and a space station and people who've been to the local area
But there is just so much space between planets and stuff, maybe we are not meant to be able to travel to the edge of the universe, maybe there is a reason everything is so far apart, maybe we are just fumbling in the dark, or maybe we need to try and drive as long as we can, maybe we are a test.

18 September 2013

Treatment

After a whole year of waiting since last September, finally the NHS have removed a small sore lump of tissue from the base of my spine, this time done by a hospital, and removed properly, than by my GP.
There have been many nights that I have just cried myself to sleep because of how painful and helpless I've felt about it.
In many ways I am upset, relieved and angry that it had taken this long to remove something that could have become much worse, when it actually could have been properly treated within a couple of weeks of first diagnosis.
After my stitches are removed next week, I hope very, very dearly that it doesn't ever return. Being able to sit or lie down again without any pain is absolute bliss right now and I hope so much it stays like this.
This really makes me think that if surgery needs to be done, it should be done immediately - on the same day if possible. It is less of a risk to perform treatment immediately once a couple of doctors have successfully diagnosed it, rather than your treatment put onto a waiting list that may actually never get back to you, leaving you suffering and allowing your conditions to get worse.
I really do think that treatment should be performed immediately, to decrease risk, decrease suffering and ensure better communication between the whole chain of healthcare.

22 June 2013

Workplace Pensions - how much will you really save in 40 years time?

Right, so this automatic-enrollment for workplace pensions, let's figure out how much would actually go into the pot.

I'm 23, and the default retirement age is 65, but most people retire for their state pension between 61 and 68.
So this gives me a default of 42 years.
Pension is only taken out from one month of payroll, so this means there would be 42 x 12 = 504 contributions.

Now, you wouldn't have the same salary for 42 years, but let's establish a baseline:

The minimum contribution is 1%, with a company contribution of 2%, and you get a small tax relief.
This tool can help you figure out what the contributions from yourself, your company and the government will provide in total:
https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/tools/workplace-pension-contribution-calculator

I've taken my own details for one year from the page linked, and then just calculated what it would be for the rest of my life.




So looking at this, if I did save the minimum contribution into a pension instead of an ISA with 2% interest, I would get double the amount I saved.

9 June 2013

Fix Most Common Windows Problems

I'd just like to outline some steps everyone should take when trying to troubleshoot their computer. He are some of the most common things I get asked.

It doesn't work
Performance/speed issues
  • Install all Windows (operating system) updates - both recommended and optional (no need for language packs, Bing or Security Essentials if you always have AV)
  • Update all installed software and plugins
    • Use FileHippo, SUMo and any Software Updaters already installed
    • Update Microsoft Office from File - Account - Update.
  • Update all drivers from your OEM
  • Disable or uninstall toolbars for your browser
  • Uninstall unnecessary software e.g. a second antivirus scanner, old versions of software
  • Clean temporary files, caches, logs, recycle bin, registry etc.
    • Use C-Cleaner, Cleanmgr (delete your old restore points)
    • Something both of these miss out is the C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution folder
    • There are many software products out there than advertise as cleaning, decluttering and optimising your PC, many of them make things seem worse than they really are and some are more damaging than they are worth
  • Defragment disk - Defraggler or the Windows version will do
  • Check for problems by running sfc and dism /restorehealth
  • Delete old files that you definitely don't need anymore to save disk space
    • This includes setup files in the C:\ drive
  • Install free Soluto software to help keep track of things slowing it down and any updates available
  • Install free Acronis Drive Monitor to keep an eye on hard drive failure (computers often slow down when the hard drive starts to fail)
  • Install 'Core Temp' which shows the temperature of the processor in the bottom-right of the screen (if it gets hotter than about 80 degrees there might be a problem with the cooling which might help identify why it would slow down)
  • If still having issues, try doing a refresh install of Windows, or completely fresh install.

If you think you may have a virus/malware
  • Update your antivirus product and scan the whole computer
    • If you don't have one, get one!
Free
  • Microsoft Security Essentials
  • Avast
  • AVG
  • Comodo
  • ClamWin

Paid

  • Norton
  • Kaspersky
  • McAfee
  • Trend Micro
  • Dr Web
  • E-set
  • Others
Temporary free antivirus
Download, install and run a temporary antivirus solution (even your prime antivirus can become compromised

Also as a recommendation
  • Install free 'Prey' software to help locate the computer if it is stolen

26 May 2013

Windows 8: WTF's

Seriously Windows 8, I mean, seriously, come on.
Will not use this crap operating system as much as I can.

Fail 1: My password changed on my wireless account, when I try to connect to it, with Windows trying to use the old password, it doesn't tell me the password has changed. Windows 7 normally does this - it just asks for a new password to confirm. Windows 8 just gives up entirely.




Fail 2: Apart from my connected WiFi, there is no way for me to tell or configure WiFi access points manually. I can modify ones I have saved, if I right click them, but there is no separate menu in either this UI, or available via the Network & Sharing Center, to change them. Windows XP was the first to introduce this, and Windows 7 is quite good at managing them I would say. But this is just going plain backwards. From this list, I can't tell which one's I've saved (successfully connected to before). This is like going the way of Apple and just abstracting out too much information.



Fail 3: Somehow, this Travel app costs about 1/3rd of a gigabyte. I've never even used it. What could it possibly have in it? A travel encyclopedia of the world like Encyclopedia Britannica? Photos from every country? A streetmap of everywhere in the world? I hardly believe so.
Also, Minesweeper says it needs 142MB - really? It's like 2MB game in all previous editions of Windows, I mean seriously!



Fail 4: Windows Update has "a problem" checking for updates. Doesn't give you an option to try again, just says there is a problem, doesn't even say what kind of problem. All previous Windows, I've never had a problem with checking for updates, let alone installing them.



Fail 5: Right-clicking the Start screen previous brings up some shortcuts, in a seemingly completely random order. Useful but not so useful.


Microsoft, get your act together. For the sake of all desktops and tablets everywhere.