We are proud to announce that both Tom Doherty Associates (publishers of Tor, Forge, Orb, Starscape, and Tor Teen), and Tor UK have made the decision to begin publishing completely DRM-free e-books. Learn more about the reasons behind this move, and how it will affect your future e-book purchasing – here.

via Tor Weekly Newsletter Template.

What’s most amazing about this article is the fact that Amazon, who continues to display anti-trust behavior towards traditional book publishers, is not named or under scrutiny with regards to its practices… but Apple and the “Agency Five” are sued for forcing Amazon to accept a new pricing model?

In the theme of new PC’s, I had to migrate my Windows virtual machines over to the new work laptop when the old one died. Then I had to figure out how to get access to them when previously the VM didn’t prompt for login credentials (it just automatically logged in).

Turns out that enabling integration features will cause your VM image to fail to logon unless your VM machine’s login credentials are the same as your primary OS.

WinHlp32.exe is required to display 32-bit Help files that have the “.hlp” file name extension. To view .hlp files on Windows 7, you need to install this application.

It doesn’t get simpler than that. Occasionally I upgrade computers. Recently, my work PC died and I had to install all my apps onto a new PC. Along with that joy came the joy of remembering where to find the WinHlp32.exe was located on Microsoft’s website.

Note to self for the next PC replacement/upgrade I have to do.

The Netgear PS-110 (discontinued) Wired Print Server has been my friend for around 10 years now. I’d originally purchased it to make my HP LaserJet 2100 printer available to my roommate (rather than sharing the printer through Windows sharing. Which required that my PC be on, and blah blah.) I’d purchased it in an era of Windows 98/ME/2000.

Today, the thing still works like a champ with Windows 7, but I occasionally need a reminder of how to configure the thing. Thankfully, Netgear still operates it’s discontinued support FAQs and they have an knowledgebase article on how to manually set up a printer.

(Replicated here, in case they ever take it down… which assumes my trusty little PS110 will keep plugging along.)

1. Click on Start, then Control Panel, then Printers and Faxes. Right click on the Printer and select Properties.
2. On the printer properties window, select Ports tab and click on Add Port
3. Select Standard TCP/IP Port and click on New Port.   
4. This will bring up the Add Standard TCP/IP Printer Port Wizard, click Next
5. In the field for Printer Name or IP Address, type the IP address of the print server and click Next.
   Note: You may check other computer’s printer port to verify the IP address of the print server.
6. Select Custom and click Settings button.
7. Under Protocol field, select LPR. For Queue Name, type L1 depending on what print server port is the printer connected to.
   Note: if you’re print server that has 2 or more printer ports, like WGPS606, type L and the number of the printer port used. Example printer is connected to port 2 then you must use L2.
8. Click Ok, then Next, and Finish.

There’s a few problems with this video, some of which are located in the comments of the Youtube recording. But these are superficial in nature. Pamela claims that certain facial expressions cannot be voluntarily replicated, and that you can’t find certain people, etc. Put that aside for a moment…

The “science of liespotting” is interesting and widely used: police, espionage, politics, news reporters, etc.

On a personal level, I find the whole process fascinating. A lot of the tells for lying are natural behaviors for me… (stoicism, excessive staring, formal speech, to name a few.) When I saw this, it was on TV (Science HD) and it was after watching another TED talk about how synesthesia works (how one section of the brain can be overly connected to another, causing the senses to synthesize unexpected results. e.g., people who connect colors to numbers or sounds). Likewise, if you have a disconnect in the brain, you can’t make certain metaphorical connections like other people.

I’ve studied people’s behaviors over the years in an effort to display more natural behavior. I don’t suffer from Asperger’s, or any form of autism disorder, but I often feel like I do… I don’t always understand “normal reactions.” At least, not without substantial thinking about it post-event. I’ve built up a wealth of interpretations over the years, a working crib-sheet if you will, if X then Y. I’ve practiced behavior to make myself fit in socially, when I might otherwise not.

The first and most important lesson I had to teach myself was to smile, and how to smile naturally and believably. Which brings me back to the video above: Pamela claims that it’s impossible to consciously contract the muscles that cause crows feet (i.e., smile lines), but I’ve learned how. I had to in order to fit in socially. (My original smile was really more of lifting of the muscles between the corners of my mouth and my ears, but no other muscles. I believe my original reason for not developing a “natural smile” was because I was teased as a young boy for having irregularly shaped teeth, and because my mother was too poor to afford braces and the dental work needed to make my smile “more normal.”)

When the computer came back, I had a bit of a scare. One of the water conduits, the one between the two video cards, started leaking. Turns out the conduit expands and contracts, and when I was removing the packing pillow from inside the computer (the pillow is intended to hole all the internal components in place during shipping) I squeezed the video cards together a half inch or so. This caused the conduit (which telescopes to allow for varied distances between video cards) to squeeze one of the O-rings inside the conduit and drip coolant. It took me about 10-15 minutes to get up the courage to extend the telescoped conduit. As soon as I did that the leakage ceased.

Learning experience.

Anyway, long story short, too late: I didn’t have my computer for 3-4 weeks. No updates. And I’m about to take another hiatus shortly.