Free Republic

At the end of 2014, Nikon issued a notice saying that fake D800E DSLRs have been discovered during service center repairs. Technicians found that the cameras were actually ordinary D800 DSLRs (a few hundred dollars cheaper) that had their covers replaced with D800E shells. Nikon issued an update today saying that other models are being faked as well, namely the D610 and D4S

Life is good (LG) is what you may say out loud when using LG stuff. Unfortunately, today I have to tell you that life is horrible. I recently upgraded to an ultra wide LG screen which comes with split screen software. While I am happy with the hardware, I am utterly disappointed how LG treats security. The TL;DR version is that instead of writing software properly, they just disable UAC upon installation in order to make their software work. I received my monitor some time around last week and quickly installed the software. Nothing special has happened during the setup...

[ ... Dufresne is by no means out of the woods for her exploits. Neither is Respess. They both still face criminal charges for their roles in a threesome with the same, unidentified student. ... ] [I read it was a marathon session at 9 hours.]

At a recent Windows Hardware Engineering Community summit in China, Windows chief Terry Myerson revealed a number of newsworthy tidbits about Windows 10,... At the very end of the news items, almost as an aside, came word of a unprecedented trial that Microsoft is undertaking "in partnership" with popular Chinese handset manufacturer Xiaomi. According to Myerson, a select group of Xiaomi Mi 4 owners (power users, he calls them) will be invited to test out a custom Windows 10 ROM on their devices. Devices that ship running not Windows out of the box, but Android. Let me restate that, so...

eading restaurant reviews on Yelp is a popular local pastime, but the site's reviews of local jails, police stations and prisons are a much more fertile source of page-turning insight from the inside. "What is this, Belfast in 1970?" asks one user in a review of Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. Their writeup contains a useful warning to wear layers to your next protest or drunk evening out because they say the holding cells at Santa Rita are "freezing and squalid." Oh, and you'll probably lose your shoelaces as well. Potential minor law-breakers in the Mission District might similarly like...

I'm still thinking about gardens, and vegetables - especially summer squashes. I found the following in the Smith and Hawken 'Gardeners' Community Cookbook' (a great recipe book!) Summer Squash with Spinach Filling For the Squash: Boil 2 large or 4 medium, whole Summer Squash until they can be easily pierced by a knife tip, but are still firm. Allow to cool slightly, and then split them lengthwise, and remove the seeds with a spoon. Set Aside. Spinach Filling for Summer Squash 1 large bunch spinach, using leaves and tender stems, coarsely chopped and well-drained (3/4 lb.) (often I just buy...

I'm glad I went to see this movie. I almost didn't. I usually prefer movies with a more coherent storyline and message. I like dialog that is clear, cogent and concise. I approve of special effects that are both sublime and based in reality. I expect to see a straight line of cause and effect to some degree. Furious 7 is none of those things. The premise is illogical, where a no longer needed British spy 'Deckart Shaw' goes rogue and seeks revenge against Dominic Toretto and his gang family for the death of his brother, a well known criminal....

Do you need to crank your home network to warp speed? This model of Star Trek's original Starship Enterprise hides a surprisingly practical secret: It's a functioning Wi-Fi access point. Even better, this nerdy DIY creation by Germany-based Trekkies Christoph Kauch and Rol Schwarz uses mostly off-the-shelf parts. So if you're in the market for a way to extend your home network and are willing to shell out a few more Federation credits than usual, you too can create a Starship Enterprise that doubles as your door to the World Wide Web.

Almost one in 10 Americans has a history of impulsive and angry behavior and ready access to guns, new research indicates. The serious mental health issues that would legally prevent someone from purchasing a gun -- such as involuntary commitment to a psychiatric ward for schizophrenia or bipolar disorder -- only account for about 4 percent of U.S. gun violence, noted study author Jeffrey Swanson. "There is a potentially much larger group of individuals in our society who struggle with pathological impulsive and destructive anger that would not normally turn up as serious mental illness on a background check," said...

Microsoft loves to use codenames and from the past few years, there are two in particular that you may recall; Blue and Threshold. With Windows 10 (Threshold) coming to market sometime this summer, Microsoft is already starting to work on the next update for the OS. Microsoft has said multiple times that Windows will be moving at a faster cadence than in the past and they are already working on a release for 2016. The codename for the project is 'Redstone', a popular item in the recently acquired game, Minecraft. At this time, not much is known about Microsoft's plans...

It’s not every day that someone gets bitten in the head by a shark and lives to tell about it. But that’s what happened to 70-year old Rick Neuman, 200 stitches later. Neumann said he was spearfishing in about 40-feet of water off the coast of Jupiter on Friday when a bull shark came out of nowhere. “I think the shark got confused and just lashed out and hit me like a freight train,” said Neumann. “It’s not the shark’s fault, he got confused, the water was dirty, and things can happen. Neumann said he has no hard feelings against...

The recipe: 10 lbs Munich Malt 8 oz Black Patent 8 oz Caramel 20 8 oz Chocolate 8 oz Carapils (for head retention only) 1 oz Challenger pellets @60 mins 1 oz Challenger pellets @30 mins 1 oz Wilamette pellets @5 mins Safale S-04 Mashed for 90 minutes @ 157°F using Brew-in-a-bag. Mashed-out for 10 minutes @168°F. 60 minute boil. Fined with Irish Moss @15 minutes. Held in primary for a week; secondary for 2 weeks. Kegged @10 lbs. The numbers: Pre-boil SG: 1.045 OG: 1.054 FG: 1.024 ABV: 3.94%

In order to provide additional and enhanced credit card protection for consumers, credit card companies will soon implement new rules that will change the way credit and debit card transactions will be processed. All major credit card companies are issuing new EMV (Europay, Mastercard and Visa) cards or “smart cards” that contain embedded microchips that provide transaction security features and other capabilities not possible with current, traditional, magnetic stripe cards. (Note: Smart cards are not new. They have been around a long time and most of the world has already migrated to EMV technology. The United States is one of...

Its spring time in America - a time when the musky marxists residue of a long winters night is washed away by the cleansing flood of purer more forgiving capitalism. So as you begin searching for plants to purchase for your landscape, lets discuss: -New and exciting plants for the landscape -Ways to recover from freeze damage -Techniques for planting trees, shrubs, perennials and other plants -General lore, tall tales, and history of gardening

Just over a year ago, we introduced Office Lens for Windows Phone—and over that time the app has become one of the most popular free apps on Windows Phone, with an average rating of 4.6 stars (out of 5) from more than 18,500 reviews. Today, we’re releasing Office Lens for iPhone and Android phones. Office Lens is a handy capture app that turns your smartphone into a pocket scanner and it works with OneNote so you’ll never lose a thing. Use it to take pictures of receipts, business cards, menus, whiteboards or sticky notes—then let Office Lens crop, enhance and...

Video Link: 1975 AMC Gremlin: The Legend Revisited! - Ignition Ep. 129

The tyrant, who lives in luxury while his people starve, is recruiting beautiful young females to cater to his every sexual whim, it has been reported.A South Korean newspaper has reported that the tyrant, who lives in luxury while his people starve, is recruiting beautiful young females to cater to his every sexual whim. It is believed Kim disbanded the group who entertained his father Kim Jong-Il when he came to power in 2011. But now Kim, who is married to singer Ri Sol-ju and has a daughter, has resurrected the tradition and sent out his officials to recruit "tall...

Late last month a mysterious patch suddenly appeared as an Optional entry in the Windows Automatic Update chute. At the time I wrote: Conjecture at this point: It's somehow related to the ability to upgrade directly from Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10. But of course, the official documentation doesn't say anything of the sort. The crows have come home to roost and, thanks to a German researcher named Gerard Himmelein at heise.de, we now have a more thorough understanding of exactly what Microsoft's dishing out (a Google English translation of the post is available). Yesterday Jan Willem Aldershoff...

Version 4.0.0 of Mono, the FOSS implementation of the .NET Framework, has been released. This is the first release of Mono that replaces various components of Mono with code that was released by Microsoft under the MIT license. Microsoft itself is working towards .NET Core: a redistributable and re-imagined version of .NET, which has two code drops: CoreFX and CoreCLR. Mono at this point continues to provide an API that tracks the .NET desktop/server version. This means that most of the Mono code that has been integrated from Microsoft comes from the ReferenceSource code drop. ...

[VIDEO] is a shortened and edited version of the Qu8K rocket launch. [Includes video onboard the rocket as it climbs 20 miles above the desert launch site and into the upper atmosphere nearly one-third of the way into space.]