Ghost Hunters S08E13

First show since Grant left.


Grant edited wholesale out of the opening credits now.

Steve becomes the new Grant.
Love the "did you hear the huge noise?" (nothing at all was audible)
Then Steve & Jason go into the corridor. Then they cut to Adam & Amy (notorious for clumpy shoes) on the floor above them.

Oh, and FYI neither Jason or Steve appeared to be carrying any kind of eqpt right at the start apart from their lights & what ever J had on his shoulder?
Headcams finally?
IR lamp and some tiny camera by the looks of it. Didn't look capable of video tho?

Nice to see Tango straight into lying in less than 11 minutes?
"Go for Britt & Dave"
"Where are you?"
"We're both in the van".
Actually, Dave, Britt JUST went in the building.

So either you are lying or the editors are making you look like a liar with the way they cut.
Britt helpfully reappears in the very next shot.
Way to make Tango look like a complete prat there though, editor!

And STILL screwing around playing stupid practical jokes on each other?
Please to note Britt (Mr "I've been fired once already") suggested it but his sidekick was Idiot boy Tango who always causes trouble.

Again I will say, Brian Harnois was fired for less than that.
In fact it's worth repeating to see if it might sink in. Brian Harnois was fired for less than that.

Hagar? Not very horrible ;-P
Couldn't resist, sorry.
Oh, and thanks for showing us Amy's clumpy boots (CONFIRM!) and that another woman, also possibly with heavy shoes is with them.


Hagar scratched off camera. Calling fake right away on that, sorry.
Someone we've never seen before is mysteriously scratched twice?

Here's how her interview to get hired probably went:- "You wanted interns for your tv show, what will I do?"
"Oh, you protect Amy, make sure Britt doesn't do anything stupid and lie when we ask you to."

Jason "I'm gonna go in with Amy in just a minute."
Then Steve ruins the mood by dumping on the pregnant woman by saying "We worry for your safety, Hagar."

Translation:- "We don't give a toss about our pregnant team member"

Amy has conversation that's interupted by an off camera walkie talkie.
No-one tags it. Very unprofessional to not only screw up an active shot but to ruin any potential audio for evidence.
Anything recorded audio-wise after this is suspect.

Britt looks VERY guilty when asked if he was inside after Amy is sure she saw something.
Frankly Amy should have bailed a whole lot earlier, I'd have left her in the van at Command Central.

Voices after Adam says "Where's that coming from", sounds female and a long way away.
Keeps on even as Britt says "something moving" pointing off camera.

Hagar scratched off camera yet again tummy, neck and back. Totally disregarded as fake by now.

Shadow passing light seen off camera.
Yet Britt is clearly pointing HIS camera that way.
Again the editor making them look stupid and unprofessional.
Either use Britt's footage or just edit that scene out wholesale.

Adam "The tapping behind you is new." And made no sound at all, Mr Super Hearing.

"Why are you scratching me." As we then catch Hagar scratching her own arm. BUSTED.

"We tried to keep the amount of people down to a minimum." Jason outright lies to the client.
At one point only Britt & Steve were the only 2 team members NOT inside.
And each team has at least 1 camera and sound guy and we now know someone from production too.

Things may have changed but a lot has stayed the same.

The mystery of the self replicating file (hopefully) solved!

For the last 7 or so days I have been struggling with a folder that suddenly appeared on one of my USB drives.  I didn't put it there, I didn't give it permission to be there so I was most put out.

The source folder was called qtcurve

So I did what most people would do, I deleted it.  But it came back.  So I deleted it again.  And it came back. Again. So I Googled it so see what caused it.  Google says possibly Linux.  As I'm a Windows XP user who has never even SEEN Linux I say not likely.

So I have to use my memory (not easy for me, my short term memory is TERRIBLE) and try to remember what has been installed or updated recently. Then I remember I've recently updated Quicktime. qtcurve, QuickTime. 

Hmmm, suspect. 
The alarm bells start going off.

So I Google "Is it safe to uninstall Quicktime"?  Turns out its used for  Mov files (pretty much obselete now) and Itunes which I don't use.  So off it goes.  Then the folder comes back.

So I do a more detailed check, bits of Apple software are still lurking.  I uninstall all of them, I've already checked I safely can.
And it STILL comes back. So now I'm thinking virus or spyware.  So I do a search of my main hard drive to see if the folder exists there too.  Several minutes later. 

DING DING DING! We have a match!

It's part of ebook convertor & reader Calibre.
So as a very annoyed person I ask on Facebook how to get rid of the annoying little git.

preferences -> look and feel-> interface style-> default.
According to the very nice and very helpful person on Facebook who I apologise to for sounding sarcastic.  I was literally about to bin my PC at that point.

So I've followed those instructions & hopefully won't be seeing any more of that folder.
If you have the same problem, hopefully this will help you get rid of it quicker than I struggled to.

Amazon Kindle ebook download problems?

Are you finding that no matter what you do Amazon won't send you AZW files any more? It's defaulting to the "will be delivered via Whispernet" message?

Well, It seems that I was the very first person to have or report this issue to Amazon UK and it appears that the problem is caused by your "My Kindle" archive being full so there's no space to back-up the book you are buying to.

The archive will hold 500 ebooks and no more.
So if you aer having these problems then you need to delete at least 50-100 titles from your My Kindle archive.

And then you will be able to download AZW files as normal.

Problem solved.

William And Sly 2 Map

This map shows the locations of all rune stones, frost fairies, ahmni posts and fire posts. I have also marked the location of home and the fox den. It doesn't show all elemental boxes because I'd already found 2 and unlocked them before I started making this map.

IRC Undernet G-lined Virus

Recently I was having problems connecting on IRC to Undernet, it as reporting that I had a virus and I kept getting g-lined and instantly disconnected.

Did a sweep with Hijackthis, nothing out of the ordinary.
Did a sweep with Spybot S&D, nothing found.
Did a sweep with Ad-aware, also nothing found.

So I assumed it was a false positive, decided I couldn't use Undernet any more & switche d to IRCHiughway.

Then last night before going to bed I decided to run my antivirus software over my main hard drive.

THAT found something. 5 infected files were found.
3 hidden in Documents & Settings/Network Services (A folder that doesn't even exist!)
2 hidden in numbered subfolders inside my Sun/Java area.

I told Avast to put them into the virus chest, then I deleted them from the chest.

Tried to reconnect to Undernet, no more error messages about viri.
Clearly I WAS infected then.

I've written up this post so if anyone else has the same issue, they can look in the same places and find the virus more easily.

I Don't Like Farmville (with apologies to Bob Geldof & The Boomtown Rats)

I Don't Like Farmville (with apologies to Bob Geldof & The Boomtown Rats)

by Raymond Daley on Thursday, 01 July 2010 at 19:12

The silicon chip inside their head
Gets switched to overload.
And nobody's gonna get to plough today,
Their going to make them go offline.

And daddy doesn't understand it,
He always said it was good as gold.
And he can see no seasons
'Cause there are no seasons
What season do you need to be shown?

Tell me why?
I don't like Farmville.
Tell me why?
I don't like Farmville.
Tell me why?
I don't like Farmville.
I want to shoot
The Zynga staff.

The 'net machine is kept so clean
As it skypes to a waiting world.
And mother feels so shocked,
Father's world is rocked,
And their thoughts turn to
Their own little farm.

Sweet 16 ain't that peachy keen,
No, it ain't so neat to admit defeat.
They can see no seasons
'Cause there are no seasons
What seasons do you need.. ooh-ooh-ooh

Tell me why?
I don't like Farmville.
Tell me why?
I don't like Farmville.
Tell me why?
I don't like Farmville.
I want to shoot
The Zynga staff, staff, staff... shoot all the staff

All the farming's stopped in the farmground now
She wants to farm with her toys a while.
And harvests early and soon we'll be learning
And the lesson today is how to die.
And then the bullhorn crackles,
And the captain tackles,
With the problems and the hows and whys.
And he can see no seasons
'Cause there are no seasons
What season do you need to cry, cry, ooh...ooh?

The silicon chip inside their head
Gets switched to overload.
And nobody's gonna get to plough today,
Their going to make them go offline.

And daddy doesn't understand it,
He always said it was good as gold.
And he can see no seasons
'Cause there are no seasons
What season do you need to be shown?

Tell me why?
I don't like Farmville
Tell me why?
I don't like Farmville
Tell me why?
I don't like, I don't like, I don't like Farmville.
Tell me why?
I don't like, I don't like, I don't like Farmville.
Tell me why?
I don't like Farmville.
I want to shoot
The Zynga staff.

Opening an Agfa Snapscan scanner

I did this with an Agfa Snapscan E50 but by the looks of it all the snapscans will open the same way.

You may well get to a point where you want to clean inside the glass of your snapscan. Its not easy but its possible.
Opening it WILL void your warranty (if you still have one) but if you are beyond that point and are willing to give it a go then here is how its done.

WARNING/CAVEAT - Attempt this at your own risk. If you break your scanner trying this its not my fault.

Firstly don't bother looking for screws to unscrew, there aren't any.

Start by removing the lid (unplug the power lead, usb lead and lid power lead and open the lid, tilt the hinges and it should eventually come away from the scanner.

Secondly get yourself a slim flatblade screwdriver or other strongish flat impliment. Turn the scanner upside down and start at the end with all the lead holes.

Insert your blade into the plastic between the white and dark grey parts just below the hinges, you should see a little retaining catch that you can pry loose, theres another where the other hinge is.

On the front the catches are to the right and left of the control panel, be careful when you lever those loose as theres parts that can move inside the scanner so turn the whole thing right side up and remove the white cover that holds the glass.

What you should have is 2 bits, the white bit with the glass on and the dark grey bit with all the electronics on.

Wipe the inside of the glass with a dry cloth (a glasses cleaning cloth is ideal).

Replacing the cover just reverse what you did, lever the front catches in first then the rear. Replace the lid and replug in all you leads. One clean scanner glass.