Windows 8 update KB2795944

OK, Microsoft has the Windows 8 Pro feature where they send out, and install, updates.

They don't care if your settings are set to "download, but do let me *choose* which updates to apply" -- they reset it to their "recommended" "Dang! If there is an update, install that thing anyway!" setting.

KB2795944 is a "cumulative" update, incorporating several other updates at the same time. A big "update", 19 plus Megabytes of download. In software, not video or audio or even document sizes that isn't much. In terms of updates to the operating system, it is a *bunch*.

When KB2795944 updates on my computer, it *kills* all audio. That means YouTube videos are silent. Adobe Flash crap is silent. Windows Media Player music and songs is silent.

I looked on the Microsoft "support" site (ha! Like calling the block long line at MacDonalds "Fast Food") at http://support.microsoft.com/find-solutions/windows/windows-8/. I quit looking at the Thirty First page of - get this - five - items per page. Without getting to a place to look for issues with KB2795944 or other updates that kill the audio on my computer. Demonstrably. Repeatedly.

And don't ask about the hours wasted, and work time lost, isolating this nonsense.

Apparently there are other issues of installing updates on Windows 8, including 8 and 12 hours waiting for updates to finish.

Sure glad I got in on the Windows 8 Pro offer.

Reactive gun control, prosecution, and mere gun ownership

Tam at View From The Porch found an article that twisted off the dial of Tam's *Doh!* meter.

Ohio's criminal gun law largely reactive

Tam's reacted,

I was unable to read this nice lady's column because of the title.

I read the article. Here is my response to Tam with my review of the article.
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Jessie Balmert's article says, to me, that more folk with prior criminal convictions (firearm ownership "disability") need to be rousted out, searched for firearms they shouldn't have, and be sent to prison for having those firearms they shouldn't have.
That gets kind of close to putting people in prison for what they are thinking -- the implication is that someone with a firearm, because of prior convictions not necessarily related to violence or guns, is about to use that weapon to commit crimes and mayhem.

And that crowds very closely to the contention of gun-control activists that having a weapon makes you more likely to be about to commit a crime with it.

I have to wonder, in a world where, when seconds count, the police are minutes away -- someone previously convicted, living a "clean" life, having "paid their debt to society", isn't as entitled to protecting themselves in the neighborhoods they are allowed to live in, and protect themselves from tyranny from government (and unwarranted police harassment), as the next guy.

This smacks of class discrimination, the way Rosa Parks was arrested for setting in the wrong bus seat.

The article you referred to advocates, whenever anyone is stopped for anything from warning about rushing through a yellow light to driving past a drug den (even if you live the next street over), to "looking suspicious" -- to investigate and search to check in case the convicted felon has a gun they shouldn't have -- which presupposed everyone has to satisfy the cops all the time that: a) They aren't felons or otherwise "disabled" for firearm ownership; and that b) They don't have a weapon that would make them suspect of about to commit a crime with it and might have a disqualifying factor.

And then I recall that the Supreme court held it would violate the constitution, to require[edit] convicted felons to register weapons (i.e., the "disabled" person would have to voluntarily admit breaking the law -- which is a bad thing to do to non-convicted people, and a morally corrupt practice for government or police to do to anyone).

The article reiterates what everyone should know -- that gun control regulations, like Prohibition, the war on drugs, the war on crime, the war on poverty, and other attempts to legislate "morality" -- just don't work. Criminals get guns, suicides and others get guns. What government "wars" and vendettas do accomplish is to create industries invested in harvesting flows of government spending, creating criminal empires that flourish on the banned article, and tie the hands of honest, law-abiding citizens.

So, the poor lady [writing the article] doesn't advocate more gun laws. Just violating the rights of selected classes, accepting any "spillover" intimidation and harassment of *legitimate* gun owners and non-weaponed "disabled" folk as acceptable breakage, I guess.

Actually, for the most part, I think repealing prohibition is the right example approach, that gun ownership is a matter of a person's thoughts, arresting anyone for possession, or even for using a weapon in a crime, is a matter of arresting for *what you are thinking*, and unconstitutional. The crime you use the gun for is a crime, and making murder and mayhem a crime is sufficient to protect Americans.

Maybe I am getting to be libertarian. I thought I just couldn't stand any of the Democratic President candidates since LBJ, so I must be Republican. But the Republicans today seem to accept so much breakage. *sigh* Because there is the whole rest of the victimless crimes thing, from statutory rape of able, consenting folk (largely unprosecuted), adultery (unprosecuted, where stil illegal), drunk driving (most of us know folk that never drove sober, live quiet lives, never had an accident), prostitution in all its varied forms up to and including gold digging and sex for favors and job security, not wearing seat belts and running stop signs and red lights and speeding when there is no accident, etc.