Folks,

MG:

Thanks for reading all that stuff and for your kind reply.

It wasn't long ago that, in business at least, there was little you couldn't do with just a pencil, calculator and a legal pad that you could do with a computer. Today if you shut down the Internet most commerce might stop altogether not to mention so many other vitally important parts of our infrastructure. IMHO we have too quickly embraced somewhat unprotected technology and now we find ourselves and our way of life dangerously vulnerable to acts of God and those men who wish us ill.

Thank you also for the link. I have "The Making Of The Battle of Britain" in paperback form. That was a good read. The screen is big on the phone however not quite big enough for these old blue eyes. I will now watch the documentary on the ancient XP box with additional pleasure thanks to you.

If anyone across the pond is interested, I can tell you that Boston and parts north are really taking a beating from Nor'easter Juno today. I just heard a meteorologist say there could be as much as 3 feet to 40 inches of snow in New England. The heavy snow missed us. Down here getting a yard of snow simply means your yard is covered with an inch or so of snow. Last night we had rain that left us wet but not frozen. We finally had a few snow flurries this morning but the sun came out by 3 PM.

Dux:

Thanks for another well clawed and chewed post from your wild and remote region of darkest Derbyshire.

Don't be too sure about our differences chum. I deactivated all my social media a couple of years ago because of privacy issues. Nothing I've seen in the news since then has indicated I should not have.

Memories are wonderful treasures yet sometimes they are deceiving. The older I get the more perfect the past seems to have been. Back then I was in such a hurry to get to here I must have missed a lot. In some cases the past hasn't changed but it is we who have changed over the years and we may see things through different eyes.

In other recollections we could be seeing through a glass darkly and this has a smoothing effect eliminating the sharper edges of reality. Also, at our age we can look back over so many years and compare them with today. This informed perspective tends to make those younger years of great expectations, robust health, little responsibility and manageable stress seem to be so compelling.

Sometimes I catch myself remembering the past the way it 'should' have been rather than how it really was. That is one of the privileges and pleasures of advanced age my friend. Everything seems to be enhanced by the deep and soothing emotion we call nostalgia. I recall a 60's Tommy Edwards tune, "It's The Good Times We Remember".

One day when we are beginning our second hundred years due to great technological advances in medicine, we may even look back on the first 2 decades of the new century with a pleasant longing we can't possibly imagine today.

Here's an idea. Let's all return here on January 27, 2044 and compare notes....

Chaps,

Rog, Jens,

Looking through Jens' video, I certainly recognize many of those locations at Duxford. There is a photograph somewhere which I must seek out and post. The Station Flight hangar appears intact because it would be 10 years before the Battle of Britain vandals destroyed it for special effects.

Back to our past. If there is one single observation I can make which condemns the myth of social progress and better times it is simply this. As far as many here in the UK see it, woman and girls could walk the streets in the evening and children would 'play out' locally without fear of insult, molestation or worse. At the age of around 8-10 years, give or take a few, groups of us, boys and girls would range far and wide over the countryside in pursuit of berries or a particular location or just for the pleasure of an adventure walk. Nowadays, parents would turn grey within the hour if they learned that their daughter was several miles away, somewhere over hill and dale and unlikely to return for quite a few more hours. If 'M' and her friends of similar age went unattended into the quarry wood where we used to play...well, it just wouldn't be allowed to happen.

In the light of what I think is going to happen throughout Europe in the next 5-6 years we may well look back and wish for good old 2015!

Folks,

WARNING! OFF TOPIC RANTS AHEAD
Dux:

Ahhhhh, social justice. Would that improvement in social justice came right along with technological advances, or any kind of justice for that matter. I am now almost convinced that there is far too much unjustness and very little real justice for any but the most powerful and independently wealthy in this life. Our government might correct this. Unfortunately the members seem to have more fun playing partisan politics instead and they get nothing done. Where are the statesman from our past? As the humorist Will Rogers quipped, "The US has the best government money can buy."

Normally appearing optimistic, you seem disillusioned and gravely concerned about the future. Were you wrong about Mr. Cameron's ability to solve Britain's problems? Or is it the continent of Europe and the common market you mostly worry about and their negative effect upon the UK?

In the second half of the last century, though under threat of thermonuclear annihilation, kids like me growing up in small towns all over the southern US had it made. It seems now to have been a kinder gentler life for old and young. It may have been a simpler life but there were good things to do. We had double feature westerns or horror movies on Saturday and radio adventures to listen to and dream of doing daring deeds and saving damsels in distress. To this day, to my great regret, I have yet to save any damsel from anything. I did save a kid from drowning once. And though worthwhile that isn't quite the same thing is it?

By the mid fifties most families had TVs. The console radio at my house stood forlornly in a corner for a while unused by anyone save my grandpa for weather reports. Then one day I came home from school (only 3 blocks away) to find it had completely disappeared. It was replaced by a bigger TV.

No one had need to lock their doors or windows in those days. Kids could ride their bikes anywhere they could return from by supper. If a kid was a little late no one called the cops, they called a neighbor or two and had the kid sent home. Most moms stayed home in those days and they all watched out for each others kids. I felt completely at home in any house within a 3 block radius.

Today we're all locked up day and night and are fortunate indeed if anyone on the same block knows our name much less the names of our kids. We do know our nearest neighbors these days and they are nice people but if you go a few houses down the street the neighbors could be Martians for all we know. Like Dux, I'm a bit of a private minded person so unless prompted by money, or irresistible beauty I tend not to seek out many contacts.

I spent so much time in the past dealing with all manner of people, office politics and all that, constant phone calls and the like. Now I don't have to rub shoulders with the great unwashed multitudes as much and I don't like crowds or go looking for them. I do continue to enjoy good conversation with interesting people like those I find here.

My son's new brother-in-law is just such an interesting person as is his wife, my daughter-in-law's sister. I enjoy every conversation with them and look forward to more.

In writing and reading here today it has occurred to me that at least one reason a man's life span is limited to 3 score and ten or a little more is because most folks just couldn't cope with all the changes if they lived much longer.

Wow guys! I'm impressed how you guys have kept this thread going....Horrido!...I mean..Tally HO...

Gents,

JagdNeun,

Nice of you to drop in - and welcome!

JRT,

What! You and I flame! The very idea!

I doubted Cameron's ability to solve anything which is why I didn't vote Conservative. Membership of the European Union is now a major voting issue with most people wanting out but that is only one of several concerns that are now concentrating the minds of voters throughout the tottering EU - not just the UK. In fact, I would venture that it is the very least of our worries compared to the major political changes which are going to take place throughout the member states.

Those who remember only the good times are those with only good times to remember. I can remember the bad times in equal measure, and more vividly. Due to dad's absence in WWII, we moved around regularly as did many families and not to some places that were particularly cheerful. When peace broke out we experienced infant mortality, mum's TB and mental illness, years in children's homes and situations that required eleven different school placements in ten years which resulted in a fragmented education. Whatever our ages, we had to cope with all of it and more. Most of that was due to family circumstances rather than the effects of a Britain that used to be - and one which I would readily return to.

Gents,

This morning, I peered out to watch the grey veils of hailstones as they lashed the treetops of a distant wood, powered by a 40 mph wind at least - which is exactly what was forecast. Well done, chaps!

The sodden Union Jack on the Town Hall was stretched to its very limits, pulling vainly against the flexing pole. Just a few minutes later, all was relatively serene but not for long I fear. There remain many weeks for the chance of heavy snowfalls.

Even as I type, there begins a distant rumble of thunder and flecks of snow escorted by more hail are arriving...

Mind you...there are worse places to be. Putin has started to invest Mariupol as was expected back in August.

Hello JagdNeun! Happy to see you here.

No wonder you are surprised to see us still finding new subjects to discuss, and new twists to old ones.

Gents;

I was going to remark on the film I posted that the intro, where people are being asked, in 1969 or thereabouts, the replies were already dire sh**e; implicating that even in 1969 we were heading for hell in a handbasket. The sheer historical ignorance is astounding.

Further, I experienced a sensation of an Escher like exploration of boxes within boxes when seeing the state of the art 1940's radar network and aircraft being described in 1969 and recreated for the cinema using 1969 state of the art technology. Watching it using 2015 state of the art communications technology I accept your invitation Roger, for meeting up in 2044 and ponder the years that have gone in-between.

As you say Roger, Three score ten or perhaps four score must be enough for any sensible human being. As science "progresses" towards expanding the human lifespan I fail to see the attraction of everlasting life. (Here I must make an exception for those loved ones who were taken from us far too early due to illness or accident)

Did any of you by any chance see the video suggestion that in the future, ones' memories, experiences and sensations could be uploaded to a central storage site, so that the consciousness would "live on"? The rub was, that the more you paid, the more of "you" would be stored. And if you had to chose the free version, you'd have to agree to your consciousness being subjected to various advertising once in a while, or being shut down occasionally if server demand was high.

Jens,

I wouldn't want anybody to gain access to some of my memories or experiences.

I can't remember who said it but someone once remarked that the best thing we can do with this life is to end it. Clearly, he chose to ignore his own advice because he expired at the age of 84.

JRT,

The mystery of the Norway captives has been solved - at least to our satisfaction. They wore the triangular patch of the 1/5 Leicesters who had just been captured at the battle of Tretten and explains why they looked so cheesed off.

Folks,

JagdNuen:

You still live! I echo Dux's friendly greeting. I've had some unavoidable stretches of computer crashes and Internet interruptions the last 2 years. We can credit Dux, PV1 and MG plus a few others for carrying on this long running thread.

MG:

I enjoyed watching the video very much. Michael Cain was just beginning what would be a long and distinguished career. I think he had made only his debut film "Alfie" and maybe "Zulu" with Stanley Baker previously. I may have missed something.

Wow! what food for thought you have brought to this table. If our total consciousness, the very essence of what we individually refer to as "I", can be safely enhanced and uploaded in some way then it is reasonable to assume it could also be downloaded as well, minus advertising I'd sincerely hope.

At that point, death and serious illness might be abolished and with likely advances in human cloning this might mean that we each could theoretically get multiple new births while retaining all knowledge of previous lives. Just imagine the social ramifications and individual possibilities. Has anyone read a si-fi novel or seen a film that deals with this?

Dux:

Flame!!! Surely not. My dear friend, I would never flame you for any reason and certainly not in this flame-free zone.

Nor would I ever even consider anything you wrote to me to be a flame, only an honest difference of opinion.. It would go against our very grain to flame. Besides, we are too much alike to greatly disagree on very much and far too civilized and mature to sink to such sophomoric depths. Over these many years I have come to greatly respect your good judgement and your informed opinion.

Into each life some liquid precipitation must descend. My mom and dad divorced when I was 3. I was reared by my maternal grandparents. Here's another amazing coinkidinky. My grandfather died of Alzheimer's disease. He lingered unaware and bedridden for several years in our home. Back then our elderly parents were kept at home not in some assisted living facility or nursing home. It nearly killed my grandmother looking after him but she loved him so and that was what you did back then. Mercifully she was a full 15 years younger than he and in good health.

Yes, we have more in common than sometimes seems reasonable mate.

Gents,

JRT,

You are so right! Coincidence abounds and I'm sure it won't be long before there is another!

Somewhat alarmed this afternoon however.... I've had two attempts to find that photograph I mentioned but without success. Hardly surprising though with the detritus of many years still piled up. I need to be quite hardened to the fact that most of it needs to be cleared out. I rarely use or refer to it nowadays and I can't imagine that it would be a benefit to anyone I am likely to leave it to. So little room, so much crap.
A large glazed bookcase would be very useful but where to put it!

Folks,

Dux:

The stored up fruits of a long life can sometime defy us to locate them. A scene in a WC Fields movie comes readily to my cluttered mind for some reason. Old WC is fired from his job. However, mainly due to his completely unorthodox and hilarious filing system (contained in a large and well stuffed roll top desk) the business grinds to a halt without him. So when no one can find anything without his help he is reinstated. Here I gladly bow to our resident WC Fields experten MG for additional details. Hello Denmark, are you there?

I use a program titled Advanced Disk Catalog to keep up with my ever growing collection of CDs and DVDs containing archives of software backups, documents and photos. It has served me well for many years. There is a plethora of open source database programs available online as well. Of course the drawback is we have to input the information on a regular basis and that can be tedious. ADC will read from your disk so that all you really need to do is add a few comments as to what is being archived for future reference.

Of course if we dangerously assume that you do not have your photo collection scanned onto disks and until you do ADC and the like won't be of any help. In that event we must wait until that vast catalog churning away between yer shell-like ears spits it out.

Chaps,

JRT,

I don't know if I have mentioned this before but I am using Windows Movie Maker to assemble, edit and upload my videos to the My Videos or similar storage file. One problem is the amount I can hope to upload because the programme crashes after about 15 minutes worth of clips. I got round this by doing the obvious and breaking up the uploads into shorter assemblies. Maybe one has to do that with the majority of movie editing software?

Another problem when loading the finished video to DVD is that some clips appear with pixel breakdown which can last sporadically for the duration of that particular section ( even though it always appears perfectly in WMM) and then clears up on the next one. In some cases I have deleted the faulty section and again uploaded the applicable section from the library. Some times it works and sometimes it doesn't. Does this indicate an overall shortage of PC memory, I wonder?

I have had no such trouble when loading the complete video to memory stick but have become aware that some USB ports on the front of the PC are not as reliable as others at the rear. Until I can solve the DVD problem I will continue with memory sticks which now have about ten completed videos on them.

Finally, I would prefer an editing programme that offers a greater and more artistic text availability - even if I have to pay for it. The Panasonic one which came with the camcorder was soon rejected because it appeared crude and clunky.

The one with W.C. Fields' amazing filing system is called Man on the flying Trapeze. I had to Google it because I must admit I can't remember seeing the movie.

Which again ties into our discourse on "then and now": As I noticed on an ocasion where the dinner party was discussing some item of trivia like the royal succession or other, the answer was readily available through the mobile network and Google. Blessing or curse? because now you have to find other items to discus, when attending dinners. Cellphones have killed small-talk!

Folks,
Cecil B. DeDux:

My son and I have discussed your post. After much scratching of heads and pacing of floors we came up with the following:

We also have used an older version of WMM (the new version won't work with XP). We have put videos on both flash drives and on DVDs without too much trouble. We'd say some of the trouble you have stems from the editing and conversion programs you're using. We use a free editing program titled WAX and a conversion program titled X to DVD. I'd also look at what Adobe has to offer in paid programs.

I hope this helps a bit.

MG:

Thanks for the info. I could have looked that up myself but, knowing your love of old WC, I figured you'd have the name of the film right there on the tip of your tongue. Sorry you had to Google. I know how you Danes hate technology.

I've never been all that good at small talk. After the initial pleasantries we begin a few long minutes discussing the weather. If my companion(s) don't readily come up with something actually amusing or slightly interesting by the time we determine the statistical likelihood of precipitation of any kind falling on a particular spot on the earth, my eyes sorta glaze over and I suddenly remember I am desperately needed someplace else.

Now that I have a phone strapped on my hip I can use that as an excuse to wander off for a private conversation with an imaginary caller. Of course if anyone should actually call me and just want to talk at that moment, as soon as I get over the shock of being called, I'll be in an uncomfortably tough spot again.

Gents,

Rog,

Thanks for that. The previous Sony cam had a good edit programme but obviously wouldn't work with the Panasonic. I'll have a look at WAX. I no longer trust Which for recommendations about anything. F'rinstance - they put WMM at the top of their list!

I was reading the comments by someone on a troubleshooting site who had the same problems and was advised that it was because he was using WMM!

More snow through the night. Some council cretin was clearing a nearby car park at 5AM, waking everybody up with clattering and banging. After said cretin had left, it snowed again to the same depth.
To guarantee the collection of car park revenue the council are keen to keep the car parks clear but are careful to ignore the side roads which are equally, if not more important to motorists and delivery vehicles.
I have concluded that a necessary qualification for our borough councillors is a full frontal lobotomy.

It has been reported that Tesco offered a FFL to customers who bought a four-pack of spaghetti in 1999. Probably untrue.

Mummy: "Jimmy! You've hardly said a word since your FFL"!
Jimmy: " Mmhhuaaghh!"

Folks,

Dux:

Video Dub is a free open source editor many people rave about. I've never used it so I cannot personally vouch for it. Try Gizmo's site. Me has a lot of info and best picks for almost every software category you can think of. I don't always agree with him on his 'best' picks but it may be a good place to start looking. Often using that site as a jump off point I have run across something not even listed that I liked.

You'll find Gizmo here: http://www.techsupportalert.com/

We had a chill last night and at 8 am this morning the temp was still in the low 20s F. OK, OK that's nothing like you have and I admit it but if we had what you have we'd be in deep something else and more disgusting besides snow.

Like yours we have reached a sticky point where our governments sometimes seem to take more care of themselves than their constiuants. Sigh.

Rog, if one can't Google a bit for friends, well what will the world have come to then?

I was happy to learn that the filing system used by Fields was the Standard System as Adopted by Academicians, Engineers and Literates (or ess-ess-a-a-eel). I've seen it in practical use and it is rarly beaten for speed and accuracy by modern computers.

Being on the subject of literacy, you enquired about Sci-Fi stories relating to Stored Personae - has a nice marketable ring to it; StoredPersonae(TM), hasn't it - whereby personality, thoughts and consciousness would be preserved even after life and I've remembered that Greg Bear's stories set in the Eon/The Way universe involve such a plot line (Eon, Eternity, Legacy, The Way of All Ghosts).

I shall not divulge too many spoilers, suffice to recommend the series to inquisitive minds, and record the fact that in the books Ralph Nader has become a demi-god with his followers calling themselves Naderites.

Can we think of other books exploring the concept of StoredPersonae(TM)?

Folks:
On the matter of stored personas and Science Fiction, the book "Time Enough For Love" by Robert A. Heinlein comes to mind. I am presently reading it.

Folks,
Reading? I dunno guys, considering the current topics posed by MG and me, should we read an old school analog paper book or a modern e-book?

I will just register here my contention that any
idea of storing and reconstituting a consciousness
in a machine is utterest nonsense; to do that they
would first have to understand the nature of
consciousness, and as neuroscientist David Eagleman
says "for the most fundamental questions we have,
like consciousness, we not only don’t know the answer
but we don’t even know what the answer could look
like".

So, yes it seems that consciousness is something
that can be confined to, and generated in, a wet
blob of human brain matter. Well, that is if you
don't perceive the world as George Berkeley did, built
outward from consciousness and comprising only
experiences - after all, that is just the logical
extension of the scientific method of observation,
discarding every unfounded assumption and seeing
only what is clearly there in front of you. If you
consider that these two statements: "the universe
exists", and "I am conscious at this instant" are
different ways of saying exactly the same thing,
then you will better see what I mean.

It is my contention that it is possible that one
might be able to construct a machine which is
conscious; but only, and without exception, if
the central workings of that machine which conjure
up consciousness are fundamentally, by their nature,
forever beyond the reach of human investigation and
detailed understanding. Because, humans understand
things by logic. They build models out of concepts.
But logic is a tool for manipulating the implications
generated from postulated premises; it is incapable
of creating those postulates out of nothing, it
only addresses their results. A perfectly logical
world would be one that could never begin.

Thus, as the universe exists, it is clearly pre-logical,
and trans logical. And likewise, so is consciousness.
One must thus say, as it seems we are here, that
regarding logic "all bets are off" as it were. If
things exist at all, that is beyond logic, and thus,
a mechanism for generating postulates, prior to logic,
manifestly exists, of whose rules we have no knowledge,
if there even are any - for all we know, anything is possible.

If you have a scheme which you completely understand
and have fully modelled, then it cannot be conscious,
because consciousness is out of reach of logical
models. It is constituted of fundamental paradox
at the most initial central point, and necessarily
comprises infinite quantities of infinities, resolving
Godel's infinite regression of hierarchies with fully
self consistent systems which demonstrably exist, all
out of reach necessarily of our sorry little logic and
its finite limited scope.

So, how likely is it that people will be able to figure
out how to build something that they of necessity can
never understand (and thus might therefore be expected to
be completely outside their control, as well)? It may be
possible, but I'm not holding my breath. I expect we'll
need a whole new math, first, at a minimum.