Irritating Youtube (about updates)

"Bill in Co" wrote in
m:

When I look retrospectively at what's become of society, and what "passes"
for society (sociologically speaking) these days, well, don't get me
started...



I sometimes think we're in for a big human cull, in any number of ways, but
even if we are, I think humans will survive it, and those left will have
enough among them to value what's left and avoid some errors so far not
avoided. Maybe the real reason nothing seems to change is exactly that: not
enough changes to compel people to manage things significantly better. One
thing I find with depression is that avoiding placing bets is a good idea.
Illusions of certainty won't get us though. I think we only need to do one
thing to guarantee we have some chance of a decent futu don't let some
rich greedy *******s get bases off-planet and enact 'Moonraker' on us. So
long as we can prevent that I think our chances, and those of people not yet
born, will amount to something interesting, maybe even fun.

Above all, I don't want to encourage a bad outcome, even as a vision. It's
not an accident that most of our dystopian outcomes were born of persistent
visions. Maybe it's better to thwart those who feed us such visions, by doing
something, anything, that doesn't make then preen on their self-fulfilling
prophesies while gaining at our expense. After all, that kind of manipulation
is by far the easiest way to erode a society, or an individual, so we ought
to be especially wary of it, no? '1984' is upheld and taught in schools as a
'literary classic', but it's actually a ****ing lousy vision to rear children
into. They cite it as something to avoid, but the real question is: why force
every generation to endure it, if they don't want us to accept the
'unthinkable? Better by far not to think it, and think something else
instead. I like to make stuff. No matter how helpless everything might seem
at times, that works for me. Just using what I have while I have still got
it. People seem to make so much virtue of the soldier's courage, yet think so
little of the old. We all age, we all have to live with fear of loss of all.
That can be the bleakest thing of all, the loneliest, but it also means we
never have to imagine anyone, in all of history, has a monopoly on claims to
courage and value in living. When it gets to me, I think like a kid. Not
childish, though I'm not immune. I mean find something to get into, obsessed
by, even, for its own sake. It's not so easy at times, but I don't think the
capacity to do it fails us till we're dead, and we can use it all the way.
Trying to know what 'society' is is a thing we do best at the peak of our
powers, so it's something we lose early. I try to stick with things I can
keep longer. (Which makes me an idiot, given that I like to write
computer code, but never mind...)

Don't ask me why I said all that, it just happened as a response to what you
said, as well as any thoughts I had up to that point.

Lostgallifreyan wrote:
"Bill in Co" wrote in
m:

When I look retrospectively at what's become of society, and what
"passes"
for society (sociologically speaking) these days, well, don't get me
started...



I sometimes think we're in for a big human cull, in any number of ways,
but
even if we are, I think humans will survive it, and those left will have
enough among them to value what's left and avoid some errors so far not
avoided.

"Survive", yes. Improve? I'm seriously doubtful. We rarely seem to
learn much of anything from the past, from what I've seen. So it just
cycles, and cycles, and cycles... So after one generation is gone, the next
one can (essentially) reinvent the same thing all over again. And so it
goes...

Maybe the real reason nothing seems to change is exactly that: not
enough changes to compel people to manage things significantly better. One
thing I find with depression is that avoiding placing bets is a good idea.

Not much of a bet here! I think it's a near certainty, based on the
history of mankind. :-)

Illusions of certainty won't get us though. I think we only need to do one
thing to guarantee we have some chance of a decent futu don't let some
rich greedy *******s get bases off-planet and enact 'Moonraker' on us. So
long as we can prevent that I think our chances, and those of people not
yet
born, will amount to something interesting, maybe even fun.

Above all, I don't want to encourage a bad outcome, even as a vision. It's
not an accident that most of our dystopian outcomes were born of
persistent
visions. Maybe it's better to thwart those who feed us such visions, by
doing
something, anything, that doesn't make then preen on their self-fulfilling
prophesies while gaining at our expense. After all, that kind of
manipulation
is by far the easiest way to erode a society, or an individual, so we
ought
to be especially wary of it, no? '1984' is upheld and taught in schools as
a
'literary classic', but it's actually a ****ing lousy vision to rear
children
into. They cite it as something to avoid, but the real question is: why
force
every generation to endure it, if they don't want us to accept the
'unthinkable? Better by far not to think it, and think something else
instead. I like to make stuff. No matter how helpless everything might
seem
at times, that works for me. Just using what I have while I have still got
it. People seem to make so much virtue of the soldier's courage, yet think
so
little of the old. We all age, we all have to live with fear of loss of
all.
That can be the bleakest thing of all, the loneliest, but it also means we
never have to imagine anyone, in all of history, has a monopoly on claims
to
courage and value in living. When it gets to me, I think like a kid. Not
childish, though I'm not immune. I mean find something to get into,
obsessed
by, even, for its own sake.

I might consider this "distraction" a form of "avoidance therapy", but at
least you can be productive doing something, while not excessively getting
depressed about what's going on in the world. So I'm not judging it. :-)

It's not so easy at times, but I don't think the
capacity to do it fails us till we're dead, and we can use it all the way.
Trying to know what 'society' is is a thing we do best at the peak of our
powers, so it's something we lose early. I try to stick with things I can
keep longer. (Which makes me an idiot, given that I like to write
computer code, but never mind...)

Don't ask me why I said all that, it just happened as a response to what
you
said, as well as any thoughts I had up to that point.

Thanks for the thoughts. It doesn't matter why to me, it's just nice that
you did. :-)

"Bill in Co" wrote in
m:

Thanks for the thoughts. It doesn't matter why to me, it's just nice
that you did. :-)


Well, the alternative really WOULD have been avoidance therapy.

Something that keeps recurring for me, a line from one of my own poems.. 'if
you want peace, don't fight for it, listen out for it, it's where the
battering isn't.'

Instead of risking leaving that looking like cryptic nonsense I'll spell it
out, although I guess it's not as opaque as all that... It basically means
that if **** is going down, those who (maybe like Kipling's dude who keeps
his head when all around are losing theirs) manage to keep silent, they
recognise the unusual silences around them and know they aren't alone in
their risk. It IS risky not to fight if everyone else seems to be fighting,
but I found that it works, even in real ones. (It is easier to disarm an
angry psychobilly at a punk gig by taking the chair he is about to try to
decapitate someone with, at the peak of its arc, when it's over and behind
his own head. And as he was so easily disarmed he was embarrassed into doing
nothing at all about it. I have this notion that those who make the biggest
fight are those who are the most scared of their own apparent insignificance.
I think it takes more guts to quit when you know it might get you badly hurt
by someone who thinks they need to use the advantage it gives them, than it
does to pick a fight in the first place. It took me a long time to stop
fearing that my place in the world might never matter in the slightest. Maybe
I'll never really get over it, but living with it beats forcing others to
live with it just because I might not have the guts to handle it alone. These
thoughts are the best antidote to depression I know. Given the choice between
thinking them, or agonising over a world I cannot save, I'd rather think them
because anything better that I might ever do would have to come from that
anyway.

For those who wonder why I am NOT silent, there is too much silence here. If
tech stuff isn't keeping things going, we might as well try something else to
pass the time. Feel free to displace this stuff with tech postings.

Lostgallifreyan wrote:
"Bill in Co" wrote in
m:

Thanks for the thoughts. It doesn't matter why to me, it's just nice
that you did. :-)


Well, the alternative really WOULD have been avoidance therapy.

Something that keeps recurring for me, a line from one of my own poems..
'if
you want peace, don't fight for it, listen out for it, it's where the
battering isn't.'

Seems pretty accurate. :-)
Maybe you're right - if you're not looking for such peace, you're looking
for a distraction, and that's the avoidance therapy part. I don't know -
I'm definitely not too good at this.

Instead of risking leaving that looking like cryptic nonsense I'll spell
it
out, although I guess it's not as opaque as all that... It basically means
that if **** is going down, those who (maybe like Kipling's dude who keeps
his head when all around are losing theirs) manage to keep silent, they
recognise the unusual silences around them and know they aren't alone in
their risk. It IS risky not to fight if everyone else seems to be
fighting,
but I found that it works, even in real ones. (It is easier to disarm an
angry psychobilly at a punk gig by taking the chair he is about to try to
decapitate someone with, at the peak of its arc, when it's over and behind
his own head. And as he was so easily disarmed he was embarrassed into
doing
nothing at all about it. I have this notion that those who make the
biggest
fight are those who are the most scared of their own apparent
insignificance.
I think it takes more guts to quit when you know it might get you badly
hurt
by someone who thinks they need to use the advantage it gives them, than
it
does to pick a fight in the first place. It took me a long time to stop
fearing that my place in the world might never matter in the slightest.
Maybe
I'll never really get over it, but living with it beats forcing others to
live with it just because I might not have the guts to handle it alone.
These
thoughts are the best antidote to depression I know.

Have you experienced it too? (it sounds like you have)

Given the choice between
thinking them, or agonising over a world I cannot save, I'd rather think
them
because anything better that I might ever do would have to come from that
anyway.

Well, I probably can't argue that point. :-)

"...the guts to handle it alone...".

Well, maybe that's it, although I'm not sure "guts" is the exactly most
accurate term, but, who knows. It may take more guts to at least be truly
concerned about it, than to not even care a whig about it (so as long as it
doesn't directly affect themselves, which I classify as being selfish).
But as you said, if one is truly concerned, but knows one's own limits, and
what one can and cannot do about it, that's a different story.

For those who wonder why I am NOT silent, there is too much silence here.
If tech stuff isn't keeping things going, we might as well try something
else
to pass the time. Feel free to displace this stuff with tech postings.

I expect the reason there's so much silence in here is that most have
migrated to the newer OS's. At least I've stopped with XP. :-) I
dread the day that the time comes that I may ever (possibly) need to get a
newer computer with a newer OS. In fact, if this one ever died and I
couldn't fix it, I'd rather take my chances on buying a used one with XP.
At least I could reinstall XP with a clean slate, and be sure the hardware
and drivers were still compatible with Win XP. I could still be using
98SE (and occasionally do on the other computer), except for a few nice apps
that won't even install on 98, and the fact that I appreciate the lack of
blue screens, a bit more "robustness", and the lack of any system resource
heap problems anymore. :-)

"Bill in Co" wrote in
m:

Well, maybe that's it, although I'm not sure "guts" is the exactly most
accurate term, but, who knows. It may take more guts to at least be
truly concerned about it, than to not even care a whig about it (so as
long as it doesn't directly affect themselves, which I classify as being
selfish). But as you said, if one is truly concerned, but knows one's
own limits, and what one can and cannot do about it, that's a different
story.


Well, I found it important to know what courage meant to me, not what it was
told to me by bullies when I was a kid. (It is hard to beleive in courage as
a concept when it is obviously on show as a means for the strong to pick on
the weak). I do know depression as experience, have had all my life, but then
again, defining it is like defining love, money, fire, the more we look into
it, the more we realise we don't understand. I just looked at whatever I
found hardest to live with and changed it, or my perception of it, to make
something useful come out of it. I don't think it's a route to happiness, but
it is a way to avoid a trap.

We're in an age of celebrity. Democracy is waning in importance in some
places, others shun meritocracy while others try to gain one or the other of
those. I decided that trying to gain celbrity in any way makes no sense to
me, so this automatically puts me at a disvantage because I also lack social
and family support, other than some small financial help. So what do I do to
make life bearable? Drugs won't work, except brewing poppy tea in the few
years where it interested me enough to persist in the months of work getting
them growing well in a damp cool climate. I don't drink, or smoke. Can't turn
on a radio (I have no TV) without some celebrity talking head in an
interview, with a new book on the shop shelves. I don't want to turn to
crime, I value my limited security too much. So what do do...? Only answer I
have is figure out what is important to me, and stick with it, make it
happen. Courage only comes from conviction. To me this is an important issue,
because it is either this, or waste my life jumping to the orders of others
who don't give a **** about me. So I ended up teaching myself enough to gain
a degree or two, but not for the having of it, but the ability to do. I'd not
have gone for formal education even if I thought they'd have had me, because
I didn't want to feel a burden of any more debt than I already felt. So I
quit doing all the things many take for granted, and spent what I had on
tools and parts that let me learn about things I might otherwise never have
got access to, like lasers, electronic music, etc. I did get some help at one
point, but made errors that cost me all of that help, so had to regain lost
ground my own way, and the time it took taught me a lot more than any
original help or schooling ever did. I considered publishing laser driver and
power meter designs on a forum, but quit that idea when I saw the infighting,
the claims, counterclaims, all the stuff that had little to do with science
as I was told it should be. So in the end I just make my small tenure in life
as solid as I know how, and follow whatever most interests me. I publish some
stuff in Sam's LaserFAQ because he only has one criterion: is it interesting
and useful, and relevant. No-one trying to rubbish a perfectly good idea
(often by citing a lesser one), or try to claim it's their own. In the long
run this is better, because that will endure long after the forum infighting
is willfully forgotten. it might not make big Google rankings, but it WILL be
there. I try to take the long view, given that the short one is about as
useful as understanding a pool ball's purpose by examining an electron
micrograph of part of its surface.

This time I do know why I'm saying this. I have no glib answers to dealing
with depression, or finding worth in being alive. So either I say what I do,
or say nothing. Only question is, if said, how much? Probably enough by now.


I expect the reason there's so much silence in here is that most have
migrated to the newer OS's. At least I've stopped with XP. :-) I
dread the day that the time comes that I may ever (possibly) need to get
a newer computer with a newer OS. In fact, if this one ever died and I
couldn't fix it, I'd rather take my chances on buying a used one with
XP. At least I could reinstall XP with a clean slate, and be sure the
hardware and drivers were still compatible with Win XP. I could still
be using 98SE (and occasionally do on the other computer), except for a
few nice apps that won't even install on 98, and the fact that I
appreciate the lack of blue screens, a bit more "robustness", and the
lack of any system resource heap problems anymore. :-)


Well, some new OS's branched out of old ones, otherwise given up for dead.
Linux, OpenBSD, I think they all grew out of abandoned forks in earlier
developments. to that end I'll post my last work on X98 right here and now. I
never did push to set up a network module, and anyone who wants this is at
the least going to have to do a right royal easter egg hunt just to be sure
they got the right files, but it's game on.... Post coming up ASAP.

Might get the tech postings rolling a bit if nothing else.

Lostgallifreyan wrote in
:

I'll post my last work on X98 right here and now.

Scratch that. Unless someone can find a tool that runs on W98, and lists all
the file version numbers (I found DirLister but it's useless, it only uses 10
chars for important numbers that often exceed that).

Also, by the time I post the list, and the batch scripts, and the registry
files, I can GUARANTEE that no-one including me will have the patience to
endure any of it. Given that part of it relies on proprietary files, maybe
the ONLY way I'll ever distribute X98 is privately to people who can post a
way for me to upload it. The 48-bit LBA support uses a file I shouldn't be
distributing anyway, the whole X98 thing is in Ghost files, and will never be
an out-of-box experience for anyone. I now think the best thing I can do is
probably to shut up about it because it will otherwise be a stupid promise I
can never deliver.

Lostgallifreyan wrote in
:

I'll post my last work on X98 right here and now.

Scratch that. Unless someone can find a tool that runs on W98, and lists
all the file version numbers (I found DirLister but it's useless, it
only uses 10 chars for important numbers that often exceed that).


Ok, I have figured out a way to get X98 out there without testing anyone's
patience.

First, I have found a good free host, and put my site up:
http://lostgallifreyan.x10.mx

If anyone finds that fails for them, let me know and I'll try to figure out
why.

Instead of the rediculous easter egg hunt method, I'll put up Ghost files,
and DOS-extractable PKZIP files, for each module. To keep it legal, I'll omit
two things: The patched ESDI_506.PDR file for 48 bit LBA, because mine is
patched by Rudolph Loew's PatchATA program, not public domain. You can find
an equivalent via the 48bit LBA site, easily found via Google. TEST it
rigorously, becase data security for big drives is vital, never rely on any
method till you test it, and know it works. The other omission will be that
tiny bit of registry that holds user registration data for W98. Without that,
X98 Ghost or ZIP files will be basically like those DLL caches found online.
The idea is that X98 should be legal in this form, and usable by anyone who
can transplant into it a valid W98 license.

It's not on my site yet, I'm still figuring out the neatest and fastest way
to make it happen, so no-one has to do stupid amounts of tedious work. When I
have something presentable I'll make a new thread for it.

wrote in message ...
Youtube is ****ing me off. It keeps whining and complaining that my
browsers are outdated, such as Seamonkey and Kmeleon. (Using win98se).
So I use Firefox 3.x and now it's whining that my plugins need to be
updated. On EVERY DAMN PAGE I OPEN. I do not get this warning on any
other website. Quite honestly, it's none of their goddamn business what
plugins I use, nor do I give a **** if they need updating. I use what
works, and have no intention to update anything just because they insist
that I do. I cant seem to find any way to block their nag screens
either. Turning off java script does not do it. In fact then they nag
about Java Sceipt being off. What really annoys me is that all the
browsers work fine to view their videos and stuff, after I shut all
their damn nag screens.

It dont tell me *which* plugin is the problem either and I have about 10
of them......

Any idea how to stop these nags?
(Yes, I have popups blocked too!)


Go with Old Version of Opera 10.63,
and update plug-ins for that

http://www.oldapps.com/category/browsers

Henry wrote:


I'm using IE8 with all updates on WinXP Pro SP3 and when I go to
www.youtube.com it says I'm using IE7 and should update to IE8 now because
they are going to discontinue supporting IE7. I tried writing to them but
get a message back saying they can't answer all emails.

Do they know what they are doing?

Yes.

If you wrote and maintained web systems - especially one doing some as
sophisticated as Youtube - you would have an idea what a huge pain in
the ass it is to try to make obsolete browsers behave properly. It
gets to a point where you're spending vast amounts of your time
supported a tiny proportion of your users. Eventually you have to give
up.

IE7 is definitely in that category. It's badly behaved, and not many
people are using it any more.

--
Tim Slattery

Tim Slattery wrote:

If you wrote and maintained web systems - especially one doing
some as sophisticated as Youtube - you would have an idea what
a huge pain in the ass it is to try to make obsolete browsers
behave properly.

That's a lot of horse ****.

I'm running Win-98se and youtube works perfectly fine using Firefox
2.0.0.20.

I have flash version 11.1.102.62 installed.

For the OP, I also have a registry key set so that Flash thinks I'm
running Win-2k.

Normally, my default user-agent would be this:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8.1.20)
Gecko/20081217 Firefox/2.0.0.20

But with user-agent-switcher I usually have the user-agent set to this:

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)

When I go to youtube.com, I see no warnings or messages that I'm running
something old or incompatible.

I also have a ****-load of stuff in my hosts file, which means that
sometimes some websites that are ad-heavy are rendered badly - but
that's ok because I can always still see what I want to see.

It gets to a point where you're spending vast amounts of your time
supported a tiny proportion of your users.

Again - that's bull**** when it comes to non-IE browsers.

For IE-6, yes, that abortion of a browser is and has been badly
incompatible with the web for many years, and required custom code to be
written by web-masters. But the same can't be said for the firefox 2
(and up) line of browsers.

If you're going to view youtube on a win-98 machine, and if you don't
want to get hassled with messages saying that your system or OS or
browser is "out of date", then you need to

a) install KernelEx
b) use Firefox 2.0.0.20 (or higher if you want) as your browser
c) install a new(er) version of flash
d) install the user-agent-switcher add-on for firefox

The version of flash that I have (see above) *might* be the last version
that installs and runs properly on a win-98 system with KernelEx. I
know there was a problem with more recent versions not installing or
running correctly.

You will not get this message:

================================================== ================
You are using an outdated browser, which YouTube no longer supports.
Since some features on YouTube may not work, you are viewing a
lightweight version of the video page. Go back to the regular page
================================================== =================

if you get the firefox add-on "user-agent switcher".