FakeFlashTest is for testing the actual memory size of USB Flash Drives and SD cards.

This is a pretty slick and simple tool for verifying that you have the memory size you paid for. But that is not all; it can help prevent corruption; for example, a 32 GB SD card may only have 4 GB of memory, and once you fill that 4 GB space, it can potentially become corrupted, resulting in a loss of all the data stored.

FakeFlashTest includes two tests, and due to the nature of these tests, we strongly recommend backing up all data stored in the test subjects. The first is the Quick Size Test; it will check your drive and report the actual capacity and warn if the drive is fake - this test is destructive and the author states that you WILL lose files. The second is Test Empty Space; this one writes test files to the remaining free space on your drive - this test is not destructive, but if you do have a fake, then you could lose your data.

FakeFlashTest is designed to perform a quick check to verify if a flash memory device is fake (i.e., they have been programmed to lie about their size); it does not check all memory faults.

Last week, I hosted a two-day workshop on reimagining democracy.

The idea was to bring together people from a variety of disciplines who are all thinking about different aspects of democracy, less from a “what we need to do today” perspective and more from a blue-sky future perspective. My remit to the participants was this:

The idea is to start from scratch, to pretend we’re forming a new country and don’t have any precedent to deal with. And that we don’t have any unique interests to perturb our thinking. The modern representative democracy was the best form of government mid-eighteenth century politicians technology could invent. The twenty-first century is a very different place technically, scientifically, and philosophically. What could democracy look like if it were reinvented today? Would it even be democracy­—what comes after democracy?

His insane takes were fun to watch because Keith Olbermann became Keith Olbermann playing Ben Affleck playing Keith Olbermann. A parody inside a joke wrapped in a clown.

“That was the roughest 10-15 minutes I ever spent,” said one pilot. A squadron of B-24s had flown in one of the first days of Operation Argument. It had been a success. Only three crews didn’t return. It was the beginning of the Eighth Air Force’s big winter of 1944 push to cripple or crush the Luftwaffe ahead of the D-Day invasion. The crews called it the “Big Week”.

Jim had been promoted to Major. In comparison to most of the bomber crews, Jim was ancient. He was 36. On a cold February 24th in 1944 he watched from the tower as bombers returned. That day, it wasn’t his turn to fly. Half of the flight didn’t come back on February 24th. 12 crews were lost. He would lead the next day’s mission over Fürth. It would be his second mission of the Big Week.

The next day, German skies were filled with Allied aircraft. 754 bombers and over 200 fighters dotted the skies over Bavaria. Flying at 18,500 feet, with the bomb bays already opened, a sudden incalculably loud blast ruptured the air in the cockpit. Jim was in the copilot’s seat. Although he was strapped in, his body rocked upward and back down. An 88mm shell had blown a hole in the aircraft almost directly between Jim and the pilot. Both men looked at the hole and down at the German landscape below. The crew was on oxygen and wore wool flight suits to keep the intense cold at bay. It made little difference. 40 below zero air was sweeping into the interior. With a gaping hole in the middle of the Dixie Flyer, Jim watched in horror as other planes were hit by flak. Another B-24 took a direct hit and disintegrated before his eyes. One parachute. The rest of the crew, if not already dead, fell to their deaths. The Dixie’s parachutes were blown up with the 88 shell that ventilated their cockpit. No exit now. Jim and his pilot knew that they would either make it back or die. No parachuting into German and a POW camp.

At 18,500, ice was forming around their oxygen masks and on their exposed skin. The instruments were icing over and the two pilots had to collectively muscle their crippled bomber back home. They made it back as the Dixie, split almost in two, and came to a stop just seconds away from falling completely apart. Jim was “blue” from the cold and shell-shocked. He would fly again but he was “broken” for a few weeks.

Jim, Jimmy Stewart returned home to a film carrier that he thought was over. His hair had turned gray. Stewart rarely spoke about the war after he returned. He refused to do a movie about his life. His Distinguished Flying Cross was displayed in his father’s hardware store.

Before he was an actor, Walter Matthau was a radioman and gunner aboard a B-24 in the same group as Jimmy Stewart.

Most crew members weren’t famous or about to be famous like Stewart and Matthau. They were mostly “kids” who were 18 to 21 years old. Even pilots commanding a crew were usually in their early 20s. College-aged boys-to-men. Most bomber crews knew the odds of returning home were small. The Memphis Belle reached the magic number of 25 combat missions. Few did. Statistically, it was impossible to reach 25 missions and earn a ticket home.

How to Uninstall Windows 11

1. Navigate to the Recovery submenu of Settings. The fastest way to get there is to search for "go back to Windows 10" and click the top result. You can also browser to Settings->System->Recovery.

2. Click Go back.

Search for Go Back to Windows 10

3. Check off one or more reasons for your uninstall when prompted.

Click Go Back

4. Click "No, thanks" when asked to check for updates instead of rolling back. Microsoft would love to keep you on Windows 11, but if your mind is made up, it's made up.

Choose a reason and click Next

5. Click Next.

Click No Thanks

6. Click Next again when warned that you need to remember your password from Windows 10. This should go without saying.

Click Next

7. Click "Go back to Windows 10."

Click Next

The system will now restart and go through a restoration process that should take a few minutes.

Restoring previous version of Windows

When that completes, you're back on Windows 10.

• Start11 (opens in new tab): Our favorite Start menu replacement costs $5.99, but gives you the most Windows 10-like interface, along with the option to move the taskbar to the top of the screen or change the size of the icons. There's a 30-day free trial so you can see for yourself.

• StartAllBack: This $4.99 Start Menu replacement has more of a Windows 7-like UI, but it gives you some options that Start11 does not, including the ability to ungroup taskbar icons, or enable classic context menus, both of which you can do via registry hacks if you don't get this.

• Open-Shell: This is a free, open-source Start Menu alternative but it also proves that you sometimes get what you pay for. It has the most primitive interface and, since it hasn't been updated to work explicitly with Windows 11, offers the fewest customization options.

In terms of specifics, the lasers of the National Ignition Facility deposited 2.05 megajoules into their target in that experiment. Measurements of the energy released afterward indicate that the resulting fusion reactions set loose 3.15 megajoules, a factor of roughly 1.5. That's the highest output-to-input ratio yet achieved in a fusion experiment. //

Before we get to visions of fusion power plants dotting the landscape, however, there's the uncomfortable fact that producing the 2 megajoules of laser power that started the fusion reaction took about 300 megajoules of grid power, so the overall process is nowhere near the break-even point. So, while this was a real sign of progress in getting this form of fusion to work, we're still left with major questions about whether laser-driven fusion can be optimized enough to be useful. At least one DOE employee suggested that separating it from its nuclear-testing-focused roots may be needed to do so. //

Which gets into all the other problems that laser-driven fusion faces. Kim Budil, director of Lawrence Livermore National Lab, mentioned the other barriers. "This is one igniting capsule one time," Budil said. "To realize commercial fusion energy, you have to do many things; you have to be able to produce many, many fusion ignition events per minute. And you have to have a robust system of drivers to enable that." Drivers like consistent manufacturing of the targets, hardware that can survive repeated neutron exposures, and so on.

So, while laser-driven fusion may have reached major energy milestones, there's a huge list of unsolved problems that stand between it and commercialization. By contrast, magnetic confinement in tokamaks, an alternative approach, is thought to mostly face issues of scale and magnetic field strength and to be much closer to commercialization, accordingly.

The spurious case against an Alaska lawmaker’s eligibility to hold elected office represents a threat to free speech and free elections.

I've been banging this drum a while now. Prognosis still negative..

The First Amendment isn’t dying because state actors and a political party colluded with giant tech platforms and media outlets to censor speech and sabotage elections. All of that is just a byproduct of a corrosive trend. It’s clear to me that many Americans have stopped idealizing free expression. They don’t view it as a neutral value or societal good. Not even a platitude. They definitely don’t believe in counterspeech doctrine. Some people, in fact, are fine with compelling their fellow citizens to say things. //

The First Amendment doesn’t work because guys in powdered wigs wrote down words — as Scalia once said, every “banana republic in the world has a bill of rights” — but because society embraces its underlying values, as they did due process or property rights. The spirit of the thing matters. //

The illiberal ideologues being churned out by j-schools these days aren’t nervous about consumer blowback. I suspect reporters and producers at ABC, CBS, and NBC are not refusing to cover the “Twitter Files” because they’re trying to hide the truth, but because they can’t comprehend why social media colluding with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the White House to quash stories in the preservation of “democracy” is newsworthy to begin with. //

Throughout history, authoritarians have claimed that liberty must be subdued because of some perilous historical moment. That moment is now every time Democrats don’t get their way. If these people have no problem with the state and corporations that control the public square working together to dictate appropriate speech, how long is it before the idea of curbing “dangerous” “disinformation” through legislation is normalized?

Germany ranks third in the world for installed wind power capacity. In 2020, almost a quarter of the country’s energy came from wind, and the government has pledged to double that by 2030, designating 2 percent of Germany’s landmass to become wind farms. //

Turns out the researchers were spot-on. In a study of 2,055 German adults, they found a strong correlation between harboring a conspiracy mentality and being unlikely to vote for wind turbines near your community. This correlation held regardless of if the referendum on building the turbines was proposed by supporters of the wind farm or its opponents. And in another study of 2,155 other German adults, a conspiracy mentality was far and away the biggest predictor of voting against a wind farm, much more so than age, gender, education level, or being politically right-wing.

We may not know what the next chapter will look like or how we’re going to make it, but we can be confident that ours is a God who does indeed bring us through the fire and the flood. There will be twists and turns along the way, but a way will most surely be made. The end has been determined: God will walk us all the way Home. //

As one of the characters so perfectly says near the end of the series, when they’ve made it through the seemingly impossible, “Dawn has conquered dark since the Maker spoke the world. The night is deep, but light runs deeper.”

Our hope is secure. The promise is sure. The weary world has reason to rejoice, for the story is in good hands. Dawn is already on the way.⁣

We’re going to be okay. We know how the story ends.

The Republican Party is filled with grifter consultants, who make sure that they get their checks cleared before they’re worried about whether or not somebody wins. The GOP will not have any meaningful success until they can get rid of a consultant class that is more focused on the paycheck than victory.

The Democrats are in it to win it. The Republicans are in it to get paid. //

eburke
13 hours ago
Here's the process by which the consulting class loses elections for us, sports fans:

1) Individual files to run for statewide or federal office.
2) Individual starts raising money only to find out that, with rare exceptions, there aren't enough small donors to fund campaign.
3) Individual reaches out to national and state party organizations who inform them they will support them but...
4) they must use their fundraisers/media gurus/direct mail consultants/senior campaign staff and...
5) therefore, must never actually stand for anything remotely "deplorable" lest they make waves and embarrass said donor/consulting class while...

6) they funnel millions upon millions of dollars into the pockets of the DC beltway connected consultant wh*res who don't give a rat's posterior about our country, our Constitution or our freedoms.

If you think it sounds ugly and disgusting, once you've seen it up close and personal, you'll realize how nauseating it really is.

Homeschool
WITH A SMILE
Enjoy homeschooling with curriculum that is both academically solid and easy to use.

Shortwave retains a role in serving particularly difficult-to-reach audiences

Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine and its simultaneous blocking of Western media outlets has renewed public interest in shortwave radio broadcasters like the federally funded Voice of America. //

“In some areas shortwave is not considered as important as it used to be, mainly due to the proliferation of other media platforms such as internet and satellite-based systems and the media consumption habits of the target demographic in those areas,” Straub said.

“However, in other geographical areas such as Africa, shortwave continues to be very important, as evidenced by the addition of USAGM shortwave capability to this area.”

This is a position that makes sense to Dan Robinson, much as he wishes it didn’t.

“There’s a difference between what I would like to see as someone who was always interested in shortwave and saw the impact that it used to have, and what I think makes sense today,” he said. “At the same time, much of the shrinkage has been driven by VOA, BBC and other broadcasters pulling back from shortwave and their listenership falling as a result, not vice versa.” //

What remains to be seen is how the apparent drop of a new “Iron Curtain” across parts of Eastern Europe affects the West’s ability to reach listeners there. Even today, shortwave’s advocates say that SW remains the cheapest, easiest to conceal and hardest to block option for listeners in Ukraine, Russia and other countries of interest to Vladimir Putin.

Michael Shellenberger
@ShellenbergerMD
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FTX's plans were shocking in their ambition. It sought to radically alter the regulation of all commodities, not just crypto or finance, in ways that would benefit FTX. And it came very close to doing so.

Compared to the world, I’m wealthy. Compared to my neighbors, I’m not. So what does it mean to steward what God has given me?

Amy Medina November 30, 2022 //

I am compelled to think on these things, and I gasp for air, wrestling in the exertion of a fish out of water. I certainly fail, and grace always catches me when I do. But it’s that same grace, so lavishly poured out on me, that compels me to stay uncomfortable, unnerved, unsettled. May the tension keep me from bowing to a counterfeit master (Matt 6:24). If the throb pressures me to analyze every dollar, so be it. If the ache reminds me that America will never be my home, even better. May the burden excavate my true treasure—imperishable, eternal—and there also may my heart be found.

For a genius, Elon Musk sure got it wrong. He fell for the okey-doke. He took seriously what he was told when he arrived in America. That was a grave error because the story he was told – and the story those of us outside the ruling caste are told – is not the same story that the ruling caste tells itself. It should be, but it isn’t. All that stuff about hard work and free speech – that’s great stuff. But the hard truth is that those who would rule us do not believe a word of it. The hard work part applies only to us; the free speech only to them. And they were understandably baffled when Elon showed up and demonstrated that he fell for their scam. //

Making Teslas was one thing, but Twitter, well, that’s another thing entirely. Twitter operated with mediocre functionality – nothing detonated when Twitter went down except blue check’s heads. It operated while run by a bunch of spoiled brats living in San Francisco presuming to decide what the rest of us can see and hear. And they worked, sort of, three-hour days, often in their footie PJs, often at home or sometimes at an office that seems more like a playground for awkwardly adulting 20-somethings. But Elon did not get that reality. He thought Twitter was a business instead of a framework of sinecures for the sons, daughters, and non-binary otherkin of the ruling caste to act as cultural curators. Disgorged from overpriced colleges, these unaccomplished yet smug twits imagined their worthless credentials gave them some sort of divine right to rule, and also a free pass from actually working hard. //

But we should save our greatest gratitude for how his naïveté and innocence – for which he should be applauded for stubbornly clinging to – have revealed the rotten core of our ruling caste. Politicians were outraged that conservatives would be allowed to speak freely and threatened his businesses and even his freedom – notice how all these “investigations” suddenly happened the minute he challenged the liberal Borg? Under leftist pressure, other corporations withdrew advertising to try to kill off Twitter – such is their terror at one outlet not under their Birkenstocks’ heels. And the regime media melted down at the thought of “unmoderated” content escaping to circulate among the proles.

Guess who they think should be the moderators? //

Elon Musk’s crime is that he believed the lies that the ruling caste told him, but he went one step further and dared hold the ruling caste to its lies. That’s why they hate him That’s why they want to destroy him. And that’s why we should not only thank him but also have his back.

what3words is described as 'What3words encodes geographic coordinates into 3 dictionary words (for example, the Statue of Liberty is located at planet.inches.most). what3words is different from other alphanumeric location systems and GPS coordinates in that it displays 3 words rather than long strings of' and is an app in the travel & location category. There are more than 25 alternatives to what3words for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Online / Web-based, Linux, Mac and Android. The best alternative is QGIS, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like what3words are ArcGIS, GRASS GIS, FixPhrase and SAGA GIS.

Jonathan the tortoise celebrated his 190th birthday as he extends his run as the longest-living land animal in the world.

Jonathan first arrived in his current home on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic in 1882 as a gift to the governor of the island, which is a British territory. At that time, he was thought to already be 50 years old. //

Locals speculated as to why Jonathan has lived so long, exceeding the expected life of his breed, the Seychelles Giant tortoise, which is 150 years old.

Jonathan was five years old when Queen Victoria – Britain’s second-longest reigning monarch – took the throne, and he outlived both World Wars. He is older than the first photograph and has lived through the administrations of 39 US presidents.