Gatanui

Auction is over for now. jchavoya, I was looking to sell the album for at least 100$. Does that sound like a reasonable price to you?

Aaand yet again, I am auctioning a complete BIONICLE lamincards collection. For those unfamiliar with lamincards: BIONICLE lamincards are collectible, playable cards made of high-quality plastic featuring BIONICLE 2009 motives. They were released for a very limited time in 2009, and only in a few European countries (among those Poland, Italy and Germany). A total of 210 lamincards exist (160 motives plus 50 glitter editions). For graphic reference, see the following pictures from my first topic: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gatanui/23398559966/in/dateposted-public/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gatanui/23342180411/in/dateposted-public/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gatanui/23424735515/in/dateposted-public/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gatanui/23056748319/in/dateposted-public/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gatanui/22796368754/in/dateposted-public/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gatanui/23398548946/in/dateposted-public/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gatanui/22796365504/in/dateposted-public/ Rules: General: The auction starts on 14th October, 2016 at 20:00 UTC and ends on 21st October, 2016 at 20:00 UTC.Bidding starts at 50$.The deal will only take place if my minimum price is met (minimum price will not be disclosed before the end of the auction).Payment: I only accept payments via PayPal.The shipping costs (see below) will be added to the cost at which the buyer acquires the album. The sum has to be transferred to my PayPal account for the payment to be considered complete. For maximum convenience, I encourage the buyer to send the total sum in one transaction.Shipping: I will ship as soon as the payment has entered my PayPal account. I will provide the buyer with a tracking number to track the shipping progress.By default, I will ship internationally in a padded letter or small box via DHL for 15,79 EUR (or 8,79 EUR, if you are a EU resident). If for whatever reason you desire the shipment to take place with a different shipping service, I will be glad to send you the set with a service of your choice That's it for now. Happy bidding!

I'd worship you forever if you could upload the Flash file like you did for the Lewa animation.

Why do you think so?

I love it. - Batman, The LEGO Batman Movie

Who did?

I voted for the Manas, my absolute favourite in this contest. I particularly liked entry #3 as well, though.

Do you mean one of these?

You think when kids have fun it's because they want to distract themselves from the thought of death?

Wasn't it Matau that misheard "Keetongu" in such an unconceivable way?

Respect.

Meanwhile. Guess what, if you actually try really, like really hard to prevent an operating system from doing even the most basic communications, it will just keep trying them again and again until it succeeds. Here is another analysis of the traffic generated by Windows 10. I really don't want to be the local MS apologist or whatever but when I told you in the other blog that I sort of know my stuff when it comes to this issue, I meant it. I barely had to search for those two stories because I already knew them and I already knew what your second link was about before I even clicked it.

The Cortana process running in the background is simply the app for search in the taskbar, which has the same frontend. Attempting to disable that will only cripple the functionality of your PC for, as I see it, zero benefit. Had Microsoft decided not to call that process "Cortana" but just "Search" there wouldn't even be this discussion, while in fact nothing would have changed.

You should get notified if a program is deemed incompatible before the upgrade takes place, in which case you can decide accordingly. Most often, it's antivirus suites that are affected by this, but reinstalling the latest version after the upgrade should always be possible. Your personal files including the desktop should not be affected in any way.

Macrium Reflect should create a backup image without tampering in any way with the drive you want to back up to - unless of course the drive needs to be properly formatted to be readable by Windows in the first place but unless the drive is being used by someone with OS X or Linux I don't think there should be a problem. You can set your connection as metered as a workaround, it just isn't a very good one. For one, only wireless connections can be set as metered, and second, this will prevent Windows Store apps from updating automatically - even if you don't download any apps from the Store, many programs that come pre-installed on Windows 10 are in fact apps that get updated through the Store, including but not limited to the default photo, music and video apps, mail, calendar, the Store app itself and even the calculator. Last but not least, the problem remains that even with this workaround there is no way to control beforehand which updates are going to be installed. However, I'd argue that for the vast majority of users, this should never be a problem but if you'd like the highest possible control over your OS then chances are you won't be happy with this (though then again, I'd question if Windows is indeed the right OS for you rather than Linux).

Shiny Chariot: Your link to the NSA collaboration is in fact precisely the reason why I carefully chose my words to say I don't see a compelling reason to take on another stance compared to Windows 8.1, as that was released in 2013 after the Snowden revelations, unlike Windows 7, which was released years prior. Now that is indeed a valid point you make, just not one that is concerning Windows 10 more than previous versions of Windows. In fact, all three Windows versions released before Windows 10 - namely Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 - were released after Microsoft joined the PRISM program of the NSA in 2007. Not sure what that story about Yahoo has got to do anything with what we're discussing here. Saying that "Microsoft has admitted that tracking can't be turned off" is a misleading statement. What cannot be turned off entirely are the transmission of diagnostics and telemetry data. However, what each of the three level of telemetry transmissions does is well-documented on TechNet (except for a few issues I do see with the highest level, which also happens to be the default level, which accounts for two of the greatest issues I personally see). The amount of data transmitted by the basic telemetry level is, in my eyes, small enough to an extent that I find it entirely acceptable but I do also accept differing points of view here. It is true that Windows 10 has more features that in order to work correctly, track usage data and collect personal information to an extent that none in Windows 7 do to my knowing, most notably the personal assistant Cortana. However, Cortana can not only be turned off entirely - it does in fact need to be turned on explicitly - a process during which the user is presented not with one but two privacy-related prompts before this is possible. So if we conclude that most of said features of Windows 10 can either be turned off entirely or toned down to a large extent, then what remains is mainly a distrust that Microsoft could have secretly implemented features to track user behavior that are not publicly documented. I'm not criticizing that distrust - trust is a personal choice and up to every individual - but Windows 10 is simply no different in this regard than any prior version of Windows. Actually, I'd argue for two points: One, that the fact that most of Microsoft's profit does in fact not come from any consumer software but from enterprises, which collectively uphold Microsoft to particular scrutiny, does make it very unlikely that Microsoft would secretly spy on the users of its operating systems, even more so considering they are a listed company and have to give a detailed breakdown of revenue, profits and losses every quarter, which in turn would make any unofficial profit stemming from selling user data difficult to conceal. And two, that since the launch of Windows 10 almost nine months ago, several investigations were launched concerning the operating system, including from Russian authorities, and none of them has yielded any result that would prove that in fact, Windows 10 can be, as you put it before, categorized as spyware. In conclusion, I stand by my point that you are entirely free to use whatever you want for whatever reasons you want, but if the reason you're not using Windows 10 is a distrust that Microsoft may be secretly spying on you, then a consequent execution of that reasoning requires a total renunciation of any other Microsoft software, first and foremost their operating systems, including Windows 7 and 8.1. Zox Tomana: Updates are installed automatically without user intervention (though an update to Windows 10 this July will allow for users to set "active hours" during which this process is never automatically initiated without user intervention), however, most updates also require an additional reboot of the computer. You have entire control over when this reboot is supposed to happen, up to one week after the installation began. The biggest problem with the behavior of automatically installing updates is that drivers also get automatically installed this way, sometimes overwriting your drivers with an older, less functional / more buggy version, particularly in the graphics driver field. It is possible to prevent this but it is cumbersome. You raise a good point about not choosing the automatic set-up, that is definitely something everyone should always do with every software. Thank you for bringing that up. WiFi Sense is not something you really need, it's purely for comfort, but a feature I've personally turned off since it's not particularly useful unless you have a Windows 10 Mobile phone save in some cases, which so far are a small subset of Windows Phone users which in turn are an even smaller subset of the smartphone market.

Except that last pic is a piece of total scaremongering ***. I could write a huge piece right now taking every single one of those captions apart and if you want me to. There are some privacy concerns around Windows 10 - some have been debunked (including that article on Forbes), lots have never been more than unfounded FUD (including that very last link you've posted before the edit), a few things are still not as clear as they could or should be (like the first link, or for example what's inside patches, as mentioned in the second to last link before the edit, though that's also outdated now as Microsoft has started posting patch logs months ago). There is certainly room for reasonable discussion - but I can assure you that that picture does not cover that, it does the exact opposite. The last thing it does is certainly "explain the situation well". I've literally spent hours reading research, contacting people at Microsoft and discussing this subject with people on the internet. I think I know what I'm talking about. There are concerns, some I don't agree with, some which are valid, but most of what I've found in the web is just scaremongering and FUD, including most of what Shiny Chariot has posted here (no offense). And that's a real pity because many of the better arguments and points just get drowned among all the bull there has also been floating around since months. My personal opinion is as follows: Windows has always been a closed-source operating system. Which means that the choice of using Windows has always boiled down to trust - nothing will ever change about that as long as Windows is closed-source. I don't see any compelling reasons to take on another stance regarding Windows and trust today than at the release of Windows 8.1. If you don't trust Microsoft enough to use their operating system, that's your choice and perfectly fine. But in that case, please be consequent and get rid of all Microsoft software you may be using, including Windows 8.1 or Windows 7. And while we're at it, if you're afraid of "spying" you better get rid of your Android phone as well, if you have one. The offer to address every single one of the points in the last picture still stands if you want it.

Sure, feel free to send me a PM if you have any more questions or hit any problems.

Probably but even if there isn't, it's pretty self-explanatory. You can choose which partitions to create an image of (if you aren't sure, just select all of them) and what drive or disk to save the image on. Speaking of backups, I strongly recommend that you at the very least set up the File History feature from Windows 8.1 and 10 so that your personal files will be backed up regularly.

According to Acer, your model is suitable for running Windows 10. Removing updates works about as easy as in 8.1 but preventing it from installing again is more cumbersome than in 8.1, you need to download a special tool for that, which Microsoft provides. The main problem with Windows Update in Windows 10 is that you cannot exclude updates from installing beforehand, you can only uninstall and hide updates once they've already been installed (or failed with an error). There are several tools to do manual backups but one tool I can recommend is Macrium Reflect Free, it's easy to use and creates one single backup file that you can easily move around.

Most crashes were due to driver issues rather than Windows 10 itself. There is a good chance many of those issues have been fixed but there is no guarantee. What computer do you have? I like it a lot overall, though there are of course people who disagree for various reasons, e.g. the lack of control over Windows Updates compared to prior versions of Windows. It's a valid point but I've never had issues with Windows updates before so I'm fine. Yes, there are actually features that make it stand out from Windows 8.1. Again, there are people who disagree but personally I find it better than 8.1 in almost every way. Some notable features include windowed apps (which of course sounds silly for Windows 7 users but is kind of more important for 8.1 users), virtual desktops and some minor but pretty cool stuff like Snap Assist (when you snap a window to either of the two sides) and the ability to change the width ratio of two windows when snapped to either sides. If you use pre-installed apps, pretty much all of them have improved significantly over 8.1, too. All in all, I'd say there is nothing for you to go nuts about but there are a couple of small and welcome changes - in my humble opinion. One thing you should be aware of is that Windows 10 is the "last version of Windows". Instead of waiting three years or so for major upgrades, Windows 10 will get regular, but smaller, feature updates. There was one in November and there will be another, bigger one in July. Windows Media Player is still supported, what is not is Windows Media Center. Windows 10 offers an inbuilt way to roll back to your previous OS during the first month of usage. However, a manual backup before undertaking the upgrade is definitely advised as a failsafe.

I've seen idiots complain about e.g. the lead of Rogue One being female again, but I really don't get these complaints (not just that, they anger me, though even that's probably too much time wasted with them). I'm a boring white cisgender male and I really appreciate diversity in the casts. Diversity can only make a cast more interesting and that's what I watch movies for.

Wow, awesome pictures. These are probably the best CGI representations of BIONICLE characters we've ever seen.

Seems like they removed the post as it was a prank and they didn't want people to mistake it for real. Too bad.

Excellent. Oustanding animation, which matches the music perfectly. I'm looking forward to seeing more work from you. By the way, if you made this as a Flash animation, could you also provide us with a .swf file for playback? The framerate on YouTube is less than optimal and the benefit of vector graphics is also lost this way.