The current free ebook is located at this link:
http://haggishell.com/ridgeproject.pdf

For details about the ebook, click here.

130913. This is another Minetest scene featuring characters by Jordach. It appears to be part of a family. Possibly a Father, a Son, and a Daughter. The shadow may represent a Mother who is not present.

The Son figure may be the artist himself. However, this is simply a guess. I haven't asked for the back-story.

130913. The image below is a transform that Shiing Shen wanted to experiment with. The associated MathML code is as follows:

f'(x) + f(x) = 3 (f(x) \geq f'(x))
= f(x) - \int f'(x) \mathrm{d}x
= f(x) - x + C
f(x) = x + C
\Delta f \Big |_{x}^{C} = 0, \text{ therefore } x = C

therefore
f(x) = x + 1

130912. The Kiralys dislike the poor, especially those who are attacked or injured or different. Whatever Christ is... Christ Himself dare not face them.

Do you feel that Good can stand up to Evil? If so, you are naive. Evil is the natural state of Man. Good needs to fight to exist. People need to do what they can.

Helen is a woman whose life has been difficult at times.

I've known part of her story for a year. The other night, she told me the rest of it. Here is the story of a woman who is doing what she can. She is a Coder. One of the people I've come to care about over Time. Edited for length.

<OldCoder> It is your first dress?
<Helen> that's correct. the red one was 'off the rack' as was the black one you've seen. the pink one was made to order (but is a little loose in places — I will adjust some time later). The silver one is hand-made by me.
<Helen> Next is metallic gold vinyl
<OldCoder> That will be... not subtle. Which is fine.

<Helen> it's a much stretchier, slightly thinner, and far more durable fabric that the silver-grey
<OldCoder> Adjust style to match, then
<Helen> yes

<OldCoder> I believe in Art
<Helen> *nod*
<Helen> when it comes to clothes, I go all out when I can
<OldCoder> Indeed

<Helen> REDACTED this “fade into the background” sh*t
<OldCoder> The idea of controversy or difficulty made you tired last year... I noticed
<Helen> yes
<OldCoder> So my blog was not enjoyable for you
<Helen> eh?

<OldCoder> That was my impression
<Helen> oh, naw
<Helen> not “not enjoyable”
<OldCoder> It is my Art. My way of REDACTED fade background. :-)
<Helen> more like “this is all right”
<Helen> if you know what I mean?
<OldCoder> Not really. I am literal. :-)

<OldCoder> Though I sing now. In text.
<Helen> I don't know how to say what I'm thinking
<OldCoder> It is fine.

<Helen> it's your work, it's interesting, but just not my specific field of interest maybe?
<OldCoder> I'm not referring to the technical site
<OldCoder> But to the one with poems and legal maneuvers and photos of cats and my family stalking me...
<Helen> right. that's the one I refer to.
<Helen> you've shown me posts from it.

<OldCoder> But it is not my “work”... the posts are about Phenek in Finland and his trip to Spain
<OldCoder> Mr. Meow and his kitty cat
<OldCoder> And what it was like
<OldCoder> To grow up hunted at home and at school
<OldCoder> It is not really “work” or a “field”

<OldCoder> It is the place where I have learned to sing again
<OldCoder> I can hear the song now

<Helen> right
<Helen> my memory sucks :P
<OldCoder> I assume that it's the medical issue. Hold on to what you can.
<OldCoder> Artwork or photos may help
<OldCoder> You are doing it right. Live the way you should now. Not in a future that is uncertain.

<Helen> my memory has been crappy since the 90's
<OldCoder> The medical issue?
<Helen> (carbon monoxide)
<OldCoder> Permanent damage?
<Helen> I think so
<OldCoder> You seem pretty sharp

<Helen> my mind's been fuzzy ever since
<OldCoder> You are a Coder
<Helen> believe me, this is nothing like I used to be
<OldCoder> What happened, then?

<Helen> it was winter, we were doing routine stuff in the shop, I was running a forklift that had a bad engine. no one realized that the carbon monoxide was building up until one of the guys started getting dizzy.

<Helen> I got nauseous
<Helen> went to go sit down for a while, but it only got worse, and fast
<Helen> I went to the boss to tell him I was feeling really lousy
<Helen> before I could get there, I started to hurt, like I was having a heart attack
<Helen> started to black out but stayed awake, blood pressure went into the 200/100 range or something equally ridiculous

<Helen> had hyperbaric treatments, didn't do much good
<Helen> been fuzzy ever since
<Helen> its gotten a little better over the years
<OldCoder> There was some permanent damage. But you can Code. And create Art of other types.
<Helen> yes

<OldCoder> Your Quality of Life is acceptable. You are glad to be here and you can create.
<Helen> yes
<Helen> in the meantime
<OldCoder> You can have friends, too
<Helen> I've taken a new opinion of life: don't give a sh*t if I stand out, and if I do, G*d damn it make it worth the looks :-)

130911. If I understand correctly, a newspaper has printed an article that mentions the Kiraly Cases.

This is unconfirmed, so I'll withhold the name of the publication. The odds are that the Kiraly Cases are discussed only in passing. Regardless, I'll offer some general remarks to the Press.

I hope to post the Kiraly Cases Deposition here this quarter. You may wish to review the Deposition; either on these sites or the filed copy.

Read the official version with the final edits. The Kiralys and Michael Bonetto of Hoge Fenton would prefer that you overlook the edits.

If you read the Deposition, you'll see something interesting. There is nothing that I recall about physical violence committed by me or threatened by me.

Or about anything specific and signficant that has anything to do with emergency anti-violence actions designed to put somebody in a violence database.

Instead, there is what appears to be a random fishing expedition that took advantage of my “Pro Per” status to badger me and to try to determine the legal strategies my attorney, who was not present, might be planning to use.

The random fishing expedition had nothing to do with physical violence. As near as I can tell, Michael Bonetto was hoping to demonstrate that I had hacked Gmail. I've written more about the Gmail issue recently. To read that post, click here.

You may also wish to read the Pleadings. They're discussed on these sites and will be posted here as well. Until they are posted, I believe that you can get them from the Court.

Look carefully... and you'll see that the Plaintiffs don't seem to be accusing me of anything specific and significant that would justify CLETS. As far as the violence part goes — and remember that CLETS is about a violence database — the Kiraly Cases are entirely innuendo.

Except for the part about both Plaintiffs, Jim Kiraly and Tom Kiraly, either committing physical violence against me in the past or threatening to shoot me in the head and laugh as I died.

In 2012, the Kiralys didn't even ask me not to call them. Or to do, or not to do, anything at all.

In the decades to come, I'm not likely to let these points go unremarked.

130911. On Wednesday 130910, my previous attorney, John Perrott, notified me, if I recall the wording correctly, that his office had been contacted by somebody representing themselves as a member of the Press. The person in question was interested in the Kiraly Cases.

John seemed to be expressing curiosity, though I don't think he worded it as a question, regarding whether or not I'd had anything to do with the matter. I sent him a letter in response. The letter is quoted below.

I don't know anything about the Press person. If you can provide their name or contact information, I'll look into it and report back to you. Right now, my thoughts are more on perspectives related to God, truth, and the ways that perspectives change things.

I do expect to look closely at the legal side. Everything on the sites about plans is accurate or believed to be such. But, in case you haven't figured it out, I've always told you the truth as I understood it.

I intend to be more useful to the World than you are. And certainly more useful than the Kiralys. To achieve this, I'll need to be as objective as possible.

What Michael did, your own actions, and the twisted steps that the Kiralys saw fit to take... the legal side is only part of the picture.

130910. This is simply a dog, named Chloe, in a dog's world. The picture is from one of the U.S. Flat States. Chloe has what is needed. For the moment, health. Open space to romp in. And a family to care for her and to be cared for. This little world... everything that can feel emotions should have this much.

130907. For attorneys who may be interested, it should be noted that any “gathering” of “information” associated with this post is being conducted for Legitimate Purposes; including, but not necessarily limited to, Legitimate Purposes discussed at the following link:

Legitimate Purposes for Gathering Information

That said, it appears that, as of Fall 2013, my Brother Thomas Evan Kiraly may be the Chief Financial Officer of a company named Sheridan Healthcare. Possibly the company by that name located in Sunrise, Florida.

Tom was a Vice President of Humana Corporation until Spring 2013. This change, if this is true, apparently came circa the end of the Kiraly Cases. And the change raises questions.

The use of Tom's photos here is believed to fall under Fair Use guidelines.

For some reason, I was surprised to see that he's gotten balder and fatter between the older photo to the right and the newer photo above. It shouldn't have been surprising. Time does things to all of us.

As part of the end of the Kiraly Cases, I agreed not to contact employers of Thomas Kiraly. Actually, I am permitted to contact such employers. Additionally, I am permitted to contact individuals who may, or may not, be employed by such employers; independently of contacting employers per se of Thomas Kiraly at the corporate level. However, communications must conform to reasonable standards.

The thing is, there's an agreement that was put into place as part of the Kiraly Cases. If I recall correctly, the agreement seems to indicate that Tom Kiraly is supposed to notify me, formally and in writing, of changes of employers.

This is a reasonable interpretation of demands Tom Kiraly made to the effect (a) that I not contact Tom's employers and (b) that I provide Tom with an address to be used for notifications of the type described above.

But, as of September 7, 2013, Tom Kiraly has not provided me with any such notifications.

There's at least two related issues to be considered:

1. I believe I'm presently permitted to contact at least one of the two firms, Humana Corporation and Sheridan Healthcare. The question is, which firm.

   Note: If Sheridan Healthcare is a “potential” employer as opposed to an actual employer, there are additional wrinkles; but this doesn't seem to be the case.

2. If Tom has violated the agreement, I may, or may not, still be subject to terms that are relevant to any violation that Tom has committed. In particular, I may, or may not, be permitted to contact both of the firms in question. This needs to be researched.

As a related note, if I happen to receive notifications of changes of employers, either timely or tardy, I'll most likely post them, analyze them, and use them in a number of reasonable ways.

It's possible that people involved may attempt to designate such notifications as “confidential” or as “intellectual property” protected by copyright or other mechanisms. If this happens, I'll show the point the non-existent respect that it's due.

One useful part is that such notifications will leave me unambiguously free, from the perspective of a reasonable person, to communicate with past employers.

However, it's my understanding that it's reasonable for me to communicate with past employers regardless.

130907. Shiing Sheng asks questions about compressions and receives suggestions without inflexions.

<ShiingShen> Started implemented the archive format in C last night
<ShiingShen> I know more C than I thought
<ShiingShen> Link redacted
<ShiingShen> I use atoi to convert ascii nums into chars

<ShiingShen> I wonder what the best lossless compression algo is. I might just use gzip (with zlib). also, I'm going to need to find a way to handle large amounts of data.

<OldCoder> The “best” algorithm depends on priorities. Speeds vs. compression ratios are typical comparisons. However, the decision may be based on whether or not operations can be parallelized. For example, see “pbzip2”; a parallel implementation of “bzip2”.

<OldCoder> Other factors might include simplicity of algorithms or attempts to explore new approaches. There is also the question of whether or not compression is domain specific.

<OldCoder> In other words, does one wish to compress particular types of data; or is the algorithm intended to work with data of random types? These are some of the points to consider when choosing, or creating, compression algorithms.

<OldCoder> I'll review the code now

<OldCoder> The interpretation of %c may vary. The code may therefore not be portable. I'd recommend using lower level I/O later to ensure that bytes are written as you expect them to be. I'd also add more comments. Aside from this, it is a fine start.

<ShiingShen> alright, thank you
<ShiingShen> Hey, OldCoder
<ShiingShen> I got a really clicky keyboard from 1984 (it's an IBM Model M) and it's really nice

<OldCoder> I owned about 100 of those. Literally. I figured they'd stop making them. So I purchased a lot.
<OldCoder> Lost the last of them this year. Regrettable. Never did get them to work with laptops though.
<ShiingShen> mine works just fine

130907. Phenek Philosophy from Phinland.

<Phenek> I was thinking to write a book based on my dreams maybe someday
<OldCoder> You should
<OldCoder> Someday comes and goes sooner than you think
<Phenek> they are so weird and psychedelic sometines
<OldCoder> You will need to see if...
<OldCoder> points can be captured in writing that are worth making
<Phenek> yes

<OldCoder> Dreams are subjective. If the mood can be duplicated. You may have something.
<Phenek> and if I'm skilled enough to express them that way
<OldCoder> That part may come
<Phenek> I told about them to REDACTED and she seemed genuinely interested in the story

<OldCoder> Try writing a one paragraph fragment for me sometime
<OldCoder> Just one paragraph as an experiment

<Phenek> I must learn first
<OldCoder> Learn what?
<Phenek> to express my ideas and feeling in writing, in an engaging way. to write. to understand basics

<OldCoder> But you have it backwards...
<OldCoder> How you *gain* those skills is to write

<Phenek> well, that was first part in learning
<Phenek> funny, did u get it? :)
<OldCoder> No, sorry :-)
<OldCoder> If there is a joke...
<Phenek> I said I need to learn. You said I was wrong, then you taught me

<OldCoder> Ah. Meta sort of.
<Phenek> yes
<OldCoder> Very well
* OldCoder mulls this over

<OldCoder> It is too much for this old brain ATM
<Phenek> :D

<Phenek> zenful
* OldCoder is zenful?
<Phenek> the thing about learning was
* OldCoder is not sure if zenful is a word. But it sounds good.
<OldCoder> All right
* OldCoder is tired but smiles

130906. It is a Cat in a Box. For this story all else is On Hold. We shall be Bold. Controversies Untold shall Unfold.

<OldCoder> classic cat not in a hat box talks cat that is fun
<MrMeow> its a shoebox
<OldCoder> He perceives this as a fortress
<OldCoder> The center of a mighty Cat Empire
<OldCoder> Would that we could all have fortresses as sound and secure

<MrMeow> i let the cat go in the box
<OldCoder> He seems content
<MrMeow> he likes boxes
<OldCoder> Who doesn't? Boxes are good

130905. This is a Minetest scene featuring a character, or skin, by Jordach.

130905. This is the recipe for Kappelin's Apple Pie. To view the pie itself, if the shock of the unknown may not be too much, click here.

If you wish to read the original KAppleIn Pie Post, click here instead.

Kappelin's Apple Pie (KAppleIn Pie)

Getting started:

1. preheat oven to 425

2. recommend that apples are of two varieties, one sweet and one tart

Crust:

1. Pillsbury pre-made refridgerated pie crust (2-pack, ready to unroll, see small photo)

2. (optional) prepare some icing to drizzle over the pie once it's finished baking and half-way cooled

Filling:

1. 6 to 9 cups of sliced and peeled medium sized apples. Leave some skin on and seeds in for authenticity

2. about 3/4 cup of Sugar in the Raw

3. 1 or 2 teaspoons of powdered cinnamon

4. 2 tablespoons of flour; use whatever type you fancy, but I use General Purpose

5. 2 teaspoons of butter (Crisco is unhealthy)

6. 1/4 teaspoon of salt

7. (optional) 1 cup tart-ish fresh blueberries; not the sweet ones in stores, but something for pies

Directions:

1. mix all the stuff for the filling together (butter should not be visible) and let sit for 15 minutes

2. mix everything up again (just to guarantee consistency)

3. get a 9-inch glass pie plate (must be glass); spray with cooking oil a bit to prevent sticking

4. unpack one of the two pie crusts in the box (it makes two pies worth) and put one sheet in the pie plate

5. pour the filling into this, making sure that you have room to put the top crust on it

6. be sure the surface of the filling is as EVEN as possible to ensure proper cooking

7. take the upper pie sheet and lay it over the filling so that the edges line up with the bottom one

8. pinch/fold/merge the two sheets so that they are stuck together

9. cut some small slits in the top to allow air to escape so it doesn't explode

10. bake at 425 for 15 minutes, then turn to 375 for 45-60 minutes

11. let cool for 60 minutes before eating or serving (hot, but more importantly, messy)

130905. I worked on a small Gmail-related task on Thursday 130905. I'll outline how it was done. I figure that an outline will help to demystify this sort of thing.

If you'd like additional details, ask any network savvy kid age 13 or up. Anybody who understands what onions symbolize in a network context should be educated enough to work out the steps in the list.

Which is the point. There is no magic involved.

If I remember correctly, my cousin, Puzzle, told me in Spring 2012 that my abuser, James Francis Kiraly of Walnut Creek and Pismo Beach, was planning to accuse me of “blackmail”.

This seems to have been part of a half-assed plan that Jim concocted with my Brother Tom Kiraly, former Vice President of Humana Corporation and apparently Chief Financial Officer of Sheridan Healthcare.

I didn't understand what was happening until Michael Bonetto of Hoge Fenton badgered me in a February 2013 deposition. By the way, Michael, the last time I checked, your voicemail at the office didn't seem to be working.

As a side note, primarily for attorneys in the audience, you may find the deposition interesting if you understand the context. Especially if you read the final version, the one with the edits that Michael Bonetto mocked in Court. I haven't had time to merge the edits but I hope to post the final version this quarter.

Jim Kiraly, Tom Kiraly, and Michael Bonetto accused me of “hacking” numerous companies and individuals... without actually accusing me of a thing. Instead, they implied again and again that “hacking” must have happened.

This was a key part of the Kiraly Cases. It led to thousands of dollars of extra legal costs.

The basis for this seems to have been the fact that I knew Jim and Tom were talking about “blackmail”.

What I didn't know at the time — I'm still not sure of the details — is that Jim Kiraly, Tom Kiraly, or both of these people, had apparently used the word “blackmail” in Gmail.

Jim Kiraly was furious because he thought calls I'd made to third parties were about abuse that he'd committed. His initial plan was apparently to turn things around by accusing me of “blackmail”.

One problem with Jim's plan was that I hadn't actually mentioned the abuse during the calls in question. Instead, I'd discussed Christ and Altruism. Oops!

Another problem for my abuser was that I'd never asked him for money. In fact, I'd told my Mother Grace Kiraly to take a hike when she brought up the subject of money herself.

But Jim Kiraly found a better way. One based on fear of the unknown. Fear of “hackers”.

After Puzzle told me about the plan to file false charges of “blackmail” against me, my abuser saw an opportunity and jumped on it.

Based on Michael Bonetto's actions during the February 2013 deposition, the idea was to imply that I must have hacked Gmail. The reasoning was supposed to be, how else could I have known that Jim was planning to accuse me of “blackmail” ?

The idea that a relative might have told me about the word “blackmail” was too complicated to think about. Surely “hacking Gmail” made more sense :P

There was more to the Kiralys' “hacking” idea.

I'd sent identical copies of a voicemail message to different people at Amazon Corporation. This was connected to an attempt to contact my Brother Ken Kiraly, who was the inventor of the Amazon Kindle and one of the technical leads at Amazon Lab126.

The Kiralys said, in hushed tones, “He sent identical copies of voicemail messages... it is hacking or witchcraft... they are the same thing... burn the witch.”

I was pleased with the wording of the Amazon message. Though it was probably the reason that one of Ken Kiraly's friends, or possibly Ken himself, came to IRC and told me that Amazon Corporation was going to “grease your ass”.

No “hacking” was involved, though. The Amazon voicemail system that I used allowed callers to forward voicemail messages by pressing a button. Surprisingly enough, I was at least as smart as a chimpanzee. Therefore, I was able to figure out how to press the button.

But the Kiralys played on the mystery and fear that the word “hacking” engenders. Used my naive belief that facts matter to hurt me.

To smash my life.

I know relatively little about “hacking” of the type the Kiralys talked about. The fantasy type from the movies and TV. Actually, for the most part, it doesn't exist.

Chloe of the TV series Smallville used to press a button and firewalls would lie down and die. And I remember seeing Secret Decoder Rings in movies that could defeat any type of security in moments.

In other words, in the past, TV and movies treated networks as magic. Despite scientific trappings, a force of the supernatural. Something for superstitious natives to fear.

But there's no such thing as magic. Not in this context.

The NSA has tools of this type. It isn't magic, though. It's mostly that they've added backdoors to everything. They designed some of the security algorithms that MS-Windows uses and put holes in them for later use. So all the gates are down.

The truth is... networks can be complicated but they're no more mysterious than any other example of technology. In fact, they're literally child's play these days.

Kids ride onions. Or they tunnel through home servers to bypass school whitelists. If they need other services, they run daemons themselves on netbooks. The daemons are ordinary FOSS code. No spells are needed to conjure them.

Netbooks are limited by modern standards. But they're a Hell of a Lot more powerful than the calculators we had 40 years ago.

Even a child's netbook is powerful enough to create entire worlds. Worlds that exist in network spaces. There are buildings made of crystal and fire that people visit 24 hours a day from around the globe. Geography means nothing in network spaces. People swim up and down TCP/IP to be where they wish to be.

Kids not only use, but create, IRC bouncers, proxies, security related tools, little VPNs, small CMSes. “Bots” for every purpose; they make their own obedient servants.

Anything is possible. To kids these days, networks are toys.

Yet the Kiralys were able to use fear of the unknown, fear of something that kids play with, to tear me to pieces.

The Kiralys were adults. In fact, the primary parties were Vice Presidents of major corporations. Tom Kiraly is apparently Chief Financial Officer of Sheridan Healthcare now. These people were educated. How much of the nonsense did they believe?

Did they believe any of it? But let's look more closely at a real-life example.

On Wednesday 130905 an associate of mine IRL received a letter from Google. Google said, “Beware. Off don't be slacked. You've been hacked. Security is cracked. An app has tried to log-in to your Gmail account.”

The IRL associate said to me, “Gee, can you see, if somebody is hacking me, who is he, stopping him what is the key.”

Google had included the supposed attacker's IP address in the company's letter to my IRL associate. I proceeded as follows:

1. I geolocated the IP address. If somebody isn't using Tor or a proxy, this is a simple procedure. Numerous geolocation databases are available. Note: If Tor or a proxy is involved, additional steps are needed.

2. Geolocation gave me Latitude and Longitude to three decimal places. This is usually sufficient to identify a particular building or residence. In this case, I used the geolocation coordinates to obtain the street address involved and a photograph of the building at the street address.

   To get the street address and the photograph of the building, I relied on a strange new tool known as “Google” :P My assumption is that the Kiralys would think of this new-fangled and odd service, “Google”, as witchcraft.

3. I used a database known as ARIN, or American Registry for Internet Numbers, to identify the owner of the IP address. This information was consistent with what I'd learned previously.

4. The owner of the IP address proved to be a company named Seven Networks which sold mobile network software. It was obvious, at this point, what had happened. However, I phoned the company to confirm my understanding.

5. The company told me what I'd suspected. They do aggressive testing of a product that supports Gmail accounts. If they make a mistake during testing, the product has a regrettable tendency to go rogue.

A second IRL associate seemed impressed by this research. He asked me if I'd used my own tools to do this. I told him no; and that the task was so elementary that kids could have handled it.

Then I explained how to use standard features of Gmail and Yahoo Mail to identify people like the fake “Old Friend” from Las Lomas High School who'd used throw-away accounts to write to me.

As though the use of throw-away accounts, an idea which I gather seemed brilliant to my “Old Friend”, makes a difference in this day and age.

I summarized my conclusions for the IRL associate who'd asked me to look into the Gmail issue. With the mystery removed, the situation was now ordinary as opposed to unsettling. I think that a lot of things are like this.

Including my own life. I understand people like the Kiralys better now. The Kiralys were cold, sarcastic, brutal, and violent. Not on rare occasions. This was what they were at heart.

Jim Kiraly, Grace Kiraly, Tom Kiraly, Ken Kiraly, and Scott Kiraly. Without exception, their core identities were about hatred.

The Boy Who Talks was afraid of the Kiralys. I'm a bit different. I've examined my feelings. As it happens, I'm afraid of many things. But I'm not afraid of people like these.

130905. I've been tired this week physically. The leg problem is better but the breathing-shock issue is worse. Posts are expected to resume on or before Sunday night regardless.

Things proceed as things do. And I tried Italian Gelatto, a dessert similar to ice cream, a few minutes ago. A caramel flavor. It was the first time that I'd tasted the dessert in many years. Or possibly ever. It was enjoyable.

130904. Most Linux distros support a feature known as Virtual Desktops. The feature allows developers or ordinary users to run two or more desktops at once, though only one is visible at a time.

As of Fall 2013, MS-Windows 7 doesn't seem to include the feature. However, I've been able to use the procedure described below to add the feature to a Windows 7 Professional laptop. If you have Windows 7 Professional, feel free to try this procedure. However, proceed at your own risk.

1. Read about VirtuaWin, a GPL-licensed Virtual Desktop system for MS-Windows, at this link:

http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/

2. Download the Portable version of VirtuaWin. I used the following link, which may or may not have broken since then:

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/virtuawin/VirtuaWin_portable_4.4.zip

You're free to use the copy mirrored at this link:

VirtuaWin_portable_4.4.zip

3. Create the following folder:

C:\local\moreprogs\virtuawin

4. Unpack the ZIP file into the folder in question.

5. Create a desktop shortcut to the EXE file VirtuaWin.exe which should be present in the same folder.

6. Run the EXE and get to the program's Setup screen.

7. Go to the General tab on the VirtuaWin Setup screen. Set Desktop Layout to 4 wide by 1 deep.

8. Go to the Mouse tab on the VirtuaWin Setup screen. Enable both of the following checkboxes: Enable mouse desktop changing and Only change when dragging a window. On the same tab, set Delay before changing desktop to the minimum possible value.

9. Go to the Hotkeys tab on the VirtuaWin Setup screen. Some operations and associated key combinations should be listed. Reassign the two operations listed below as indicated and press the Apply button to save the changes:

Assign the operation NAV: Move left to the key combination Windows plus q (lower case q) Assign the operation NAV: Move right to the key combination Windows plus w (lower case w)

You can try skipping this step and/or using arrow keys instead of the letter keys indicated here. However, key combinations involving arrow keys are reserved on some MS-Windows systems and therefore may not work.

The Apply button is likely to display error messages related to some of the default combinations. This happens due to conflicts with key combination mappings that are already in MS-Windows.

It may be safe to ignore the error messages as long as the two operations listed above are reassigned successfully. However, the messages may be repeated each time that VirtuaWin is restarted. As this may be annoying you may wish to try reassigning the associated operations to obscure key combinations that are unlikely to cause conflicts.

10. If things are working correctly, pressing the Windows key plus q or w should now move right or left between three desktops. Additionally, there should be a taskbar icon which shows the current desktop number (1 to 4). Right-click on the icon should bring up a menu.

It should also be possible, in most but not all cases, to drag a window from one Virtual Desktop to another. To try this, left-click on a window's title bar and drag the window left or right. Note: This does not seem to work for Command Prompt Portable windows.

11. Initially, VirtuaWin doesn't persist past reboots. There are two ways to restart the program:

(a) You can click on the VirtuaWin shortcut created previously.

(b) If you'd like the program to restart automatically, proceed as follows: Start -> All Programs -> Right-click on Startup -> Open

and then drag the VirtuaWin shortcut created previously into the Startup folder which has been opened.

130904. H.P. Lovecraft was a writer of the early 20th Century. He was apparently a racist and an anti-Semite, but he had an impact on popular culture and possibly on society as a whole; his contributions shouldn't be overlooked.

He started out as a Light Fantasist, inspired by Lord Dunsany. Moved from there into Horror, and finally into Science Fiction. His Horror stories inspired a number of movies and TV episodes that you may have seen. The Science Fiction output may have influenced John W. Campbell, who arguably helped Man to get to the Moon.

That is a separate story; but, for what it's worth, though Campbell evolved into something of an inflexible reactionary at the end of his career, the man was an idol to LittleCoder until he died in 1971 at about the same time as LittleCoder.

If you've seen either of the Thing movies, the 1950s black and white version or the 1980s remake starring Kurt Russell, they were based on a John W. Campbell story that may have been inspired by one of H.P. Lovecraft's novelettes.

To read one of H.P. Lovecraft's stories, a work in the public domain named The Other Gods, click here.

Mr. Wizard, a software developer IRL and an anime fan, has shared an illustration with me that's a promo for an anime series. The series is about Lovecraft's star creation, Nyarlathotep, a creature of immense Horror. The Japanese have apparently chosen to portray Nyarlathotep as a Kawaii School-girl.

H.P. Lovecraft was many things. But he was not Kawaii. This is just wrong :P

The promo is below. Lovecraft readers may judge for themselves..