Extra Power

I bought a mobile GPS for the motorcycle a year or 2 back, and really haven't used it since I got my new(er) phone which has a better embedded gps. This portable unit is waterproof, and transmits driver instructions on the FM band. There was a small receiver which you'd mount to your helmet etc. Overall it was a great unit, except the battery was complete rubbish, with virtually zero lifespan. It just wasn't functional without supplied power from the mount-bracket which was wired to the bike battery.

So I decided to add my own power source so the kids could use it when we go geocaching.


So many screws between me and getting this thing apart. It was built like a brick with nice solid rubber bushings for every component, and metal brackets compressing everything together.


Finally cracked it open. (this is an out of sequence photo, but you get the idea)


COMPLETE RUBBISH BATTERY!! 1000 milli Amp Hours. That's functional for MINUTES, maybe an hour when running a backlit LCD and Windows CE with the GPS application and receiver running. The spec is fine if the unit is idle...but worthless when in use while portable.


So I made my own battery pack. I couldn't find a triple-AA pack at Jaycar, so grabbed 3x1's and stuck them together with hot-glue on a small aluminium plate I cut out of an old computer CD enclosure. ;-)


Hot glued the battery pack assembly to the back 1/2 of the GPS unit.


...and fed the wires through a small hole I drilled through earlier. I then re-soldered and heat-shrunk the original battery plug


At this point the very straight forward job was done. Put it all back together and VIOLA, 7500mAh battery pack (standard rechargeable batteries are 2500mAh/ea), and go have some fun with the kids.

However...during the process I either nicked, pinched, shorted-out, or otherwise destroyed the LCD screen. I was certain the unit was "booting" because I saw it flicker once, and small debugging LCD's on the PCB indicated it was working in its on/off/sleep states. I was VERY VERY angry at myself. This was a really straight forward job. Simple in every possible way. I was having a rare moment of actual...happiness...listening to music as I did this. Then **BLAM** you broke your $200 toy. Idiot.

So I'm pretty angry now. I walk up and down the hallway eating cookies by the hand full, then order a pizza to drown my sorrows in its pure awesomeness. /dramatic-effect.

I figure there's no way I can reasonably expect to replace the LCD. During a post-op inspection, I actually make things WORSE by shattering the glass screen that the touch-digitiser is adhered to (this is a second component, not the LCD itself)

Wow...I'm on fire.

In a fit of desperation I get the magnifier on the part/s, and write down their bazzilion-digit part numbers and try to find them online. I was really surprised to find them indexed on Google at all. Even better, a few places were selling them wholesale to importers from China, but only in orders of 5 or more. As I dig some more, it turns out the parts used in this GPS are actually really common Gizmologist project components, but I still can't find a source for single units.

Ebay? Wow some dude is selling them!!...from China. I ask him if he's selling the touch-screen as well. But replies he doesn't. Oddly, I find another seller with the touch-screen...but he doesn't have the LCD. So I order both (cost me ~$40 total) and put the whole project on hold for 10 days while I wait for shipping from both guys.

And they arrive on the same day!! In the same boxes...with the same labels. And the same return address? I guess they were both drop-shipping. Oh well, can't really complain, I got the parts!!!


I plug in the new parts, and I see light :-D Very very happy now. So glad I didn't destroy the little computer unit. Running on USB power at this point.


MY first test with the new battery pack as source power. Works fine, as it should ;-)


The unit doesn't have a speaker, but as mentioned earlier it does transmit audio via FM. There is actually a little speaker-out port on the PCB, so I decided to test it out. Unfortunately I didn't really have any lower-power piezo speakers to test it with, nor an oscilloscope to properly test the port. So I gave up on that (for now).

In this picture you can clearly see the speaker port just down-right from the battery-port. Same style plug. The FM antennae can be seen top left near the black alligator clip, connected by a short piece of grey wire. The SD card is standard SD, not micro/mini.

I'm just simply amased that in this day and age it's cheaper to produce this kind of product with an off-the-shelf mobile computer PCB, with shelf display parts, to run an essentially dedicated GPS unit as an application within Windows CE, rather than as a static firmware circuit. All for $200 bucks at a grocery chain!! (Aldi) I've played around with WinCE on this unit when I originally got it. I'm boggled by how powerful this 7yr old operating system is, and I still wonder how Apple is in 2011 able to get any market share with their i-products. I'm running a GPS "app" on this unit, I can web browse (albeit really hard with this actual unit due to limited input plugs...not part of its sale-design), watch videos, slide-show photos, listen to music etc from this 2004 operating system. The original iPhone was a 2007 release and "swept the world" with what was really just "off the shelf technology". Try and keep up guys ;-)

So anyway. Basic job complete. This puppy has "UNLIMITED POWA' " for the kids now :-D

My first "favorite" Geo Cache

On the geocaching.com site, you can "favorite" one cache, for every 10 that you find. I certainly found my first favorite today. This was a 1.5(easy to find) / 1.5 (easy terrain) cache. But it's the clever ones that you'll always remember.


Errmm...that's a sprinkler right?


"This sausage looks very suspicious !!" I actually did this one on my round today, hence the glove. Yes I was geocaching "on the job". What a life. This was the SECOND time I came back here today. I couldn't find it the first. Rode off...had a think about it, and came back later. Couldn't let that little sucker beat me ;-)


"Official Geocache" I've edited the location label out.


At first I thought this might have been a pre-fab "to look like a sprinkler" cache, but these look like standard parts from Bunnings. The finders-log is rolled around a piece of coat hanger for easy handling. Another homage to the pure awesome of real wire coat hangers.

So in summary: Geocaching is really fun. Mildly addictive. Offers micro rewards. Had a range of difficulty settings. It includes all the elements of a great online game, 'cept you're getting your vitamin D and exercise out in the sun!! Git ooot' thar 'n have ye sum fun!! ;-)

My 1st GeoCache

I FINALLY went and did my first GeoCache. Given that I'd consider myself a bit of a techno-monkey and gizmologist, it's a little embarrassing that I'm so slow to the party. I've even had a GPS for a couple years now, and more recently on my phone.

There are LOADS of geocache listing sites on the net. I had a bit of a dig around, and it seems that geocaching.com is undoubtedly the largest site, with a number of GPS and phoneGPS apps that run with accounts linked to that site. It made sense to start there.

So I went and grabbed the phone app for my phone. You can use GroundSpeak, or Trimble's GeoCache Navigator. (there are others, the geocaching.com API is public) I'm on a Symbian phone so went with GeoCache Navigator. These apps actually tie in to your geocaching.com account. Very cool, but YOU DON'T NEED THESE APPS. You could just get the GPS locations from any site, and then go find the cache with whatever GPS you use. The apps are just cool tie-ins so you can use less of your brain getting (auto-send coords to your phone), and finding the caches (follow the arrow!!) :-D

So, from geocaching.com I did a search for close cache locations, and decided to go find a traditional one classed as 'easy' about 300 meters from my house!! You can scroll down the page on that link and see my log entry as "Mashee". :)

***Spoilers for this cache below. Unlikely that anyone I know will do this one anyhow****

The "clue" said look up, so I figure it's up in those trees somewhere.


Hmm, nope, this location is closer, and seems a more logical public spot. Etiquette dictates you scurry around for your cache covertly, not revealing its location to non-participants. A quick look around, and all is clear. Nobody around. Lets see if I can find this thing!! Looking up...yup, I can see something up in the framework!!


Got it!! This was very cool. Great choice of container, and a list of previous cachers have signed in. I entered my "FIRST ENTRY!!" notation, folded the log back into the mint container, and put it back where I found it :)

This was truckloads of fun. Doing this with a friend, or group would be awesome. You could easily make a great day out of this. I'm off to log a pile of these into the phone so I can pick a few more off as I drive around the local area when out shopping or coming home from work etc. Any kind of day-trip will prove extra fun with a few of these logged to find. The kids will go nuts doing this too. Can't wait!!!

notes: I've posted a pic of the actual location and container for this cache location here on my blog, but as a general rule you wouldn't do this on your geocaching.com account. Be discrete with images and keep it fun for other cachers etc.

additional notes: I bought Geocache Navigator from the nokia ovi store, not from the navigator site itself. I figured it would be easier to re-download the app in future from a site I've already got an account with. I'd suggest using your respective iPhone or Android store to do the same. This was a full-blown app that tied into geocaching.com's API, not simply a glorified HTML page, so I had no reservations about actually paying money for it. A rarity for "apps"

Some more pics from the following days.

Found my first trackable coin! Its travels are registered here. Found it at the Freeway Triple cache. Currently in my possession till I drop it in another cache.





Many, many trees. Most with great hiding spots. It was a total fluke I found this one.

Full Log!!

Gaming: about time we applied it

There have been years and years of studies and research links to indicate HUGE global reduction in various types of crime ever since the release of Doom-1. It's sickening to still hear weak fanatical media trying to blame individual and isolated events on game violence, when in fact the very opposite is true.

So this video goes a step further, to hypothesize and implement systems to utilise gaming as a means of super-collaboration for real world problems. It really outlines the mindset needed to turn around the "gamers are wasting their time" chant, into something nobody can deny as truly powerful. 20mins, but not boring by any measure.


http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html




This pretty much vindicates points of view I've been trying to explain to peers since I started at Post. My "spare time" is actually time I spend doing awesome stuff for my kids and peers via my skill set. Electronics fix it jobs, computer fix it jobs, handyman junk, toys and furniture for myself and my kids etc. You've seen some of it in this blog throughout the years. As much as I may sound like I'm miserable and ranting, I'm actually trying to get friends to enjoy what they're missing out on. Actual real world productivity that forms many seeds of growth within the circle of friends, which seeds a larger circle. Not just "busy work" in the form of achieving pretend housework goals.

Another example of real world gaming for global interests is the Folding-At-Home "Fold It" endeavour which I've been part of for years. Fold-It is a recent implementation of the folding@home goal that gets you to fold proteins with a purely human visual intuition means. The results are staggering against computational-brute-force, which the F@H team have been doing for years. edit: Actually I think FoldIt may now be independent of the original F@H from Stanford. I'm certain it was originally linked though I can't find the common person any longer. It's been a few years since it launched.

Give it a shot. It's fun, you inherently learn HEAPS through sheer curiosity, and it creates topics of conversation and competition that's genuinely fun amongst your peers and friends who are doing the same thing. Plenty of these style games around, go look. Give it a shot. Play some games.

A little extra from one of Janes older workshops:
http://vimeo.com/16227360 A lot of tongue in cheek, some of the same stuff is covered, but some great elaboration also. Bit of fun. LOL @ the Massively Multiplayer Thumb Wrestle Wars at the end :-)

Jane McGonigal homepage:
http://janemcgonigal.com/

Power Supply

I had a few old ATX power supplies laying around from a few PC's that ended up on the road side. Jordy is doing an electronics course this year, so figured he could do with a good lab power supply to juice up any gizmos he may construct throughout the year. Computer power supplies have a great range of DC voltage outputs, as well as a safe and solid circuit base to build on. Gizmologists can find instructions all over the net on the ATX specs, and what each output wire is for etc...



Crack it open and give it a good clean, they're always full of dust bunnies.



Cut off all the molex and ATX connectors. Almost every wire will be used. Simply sort them neatly into their color-groups after cutting the ends off.



HELPING HANDS!!! I finally bought myself one, after spending my entire youth asking for one each Christmas!! Every gizmologist needs one. Sort the colors out, and solder them together in groups. I only used 2 of each (for +3,5,12volts) as I don't expect more than an a couple amps for any given project he works on. More than that and he's probably going to blow his circuit before these heavy wires melt anyhow.



Crimp some terminals on where possible. (or solder) Drill holes in the case where appropriate, making sure none of your terminals will contact the power supply innards.



Nice n tidy.



Almost done, just going to put some LED's, a toggle switch and push switch, and all done. The switches and LEDs are just extra, not really needed. The power supply has an 240V on/off anyhow. I'm just putting in the soft-on switch driven by the power supply circuit itself. It could have been soldered always-on.



Finished Product!! The original specs sticker remains in place so he's aware of each rails amperage limitations. I've got a nice big 10mm Green LED in top left to show 240V input is LIVE. (STANDBY - outputs can be off though). A big red LED at the bottom denotes that his DC outputs are HOT if he's got it switched ON, or using the push-button. Pretty Spiffy!! Making one for myself now from the other spare supply :)

Marble Pump

A quick and dirty look at the marble pump in action on its own. I'm no cinematographer so you'll have to live with the phone-cam quality and text narration.

It's staggeringly hard to get 17mm drill bits (regular, spade, or forstner), and the same for router bits in Australia. I gave up and went with 18mm bits, despite the fact that marbles are 15-16mm.

The pump shown here is a little "loosey-goosey" as it was my 1st build. The others are a little leaner in action.

Great little gizmo anyhow.

************ EDIT *************
For some reason the Youtube Captions are intermittent. If you don't see captions then this will be duller than expected, trying to fix the problem. Try again later
*******************************

Just clean the fan

This is like every repair job on someone elses computer I've ever had to do. Loved this song :D



If the embed player is too narrow to show the whole player, check the youtube page here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OpCJzdWxEbQ

Refurb outdoor oven

I scored a somewhat weathered outdoor oven from a mate at work for a reasonable price. Still not sure why he got rid of it, but this thing is gonna get me through some sweet open fire marshmallow action for the rest of my life!!


"The Aussie, Est 2001, Heatwave". Fairly new. Looks prehistoric. Cast iron hates rain.


The base is in reasonable condition given water flows off the bead shaped oven and directly onto the ground instead of pouring over the stand.


The cover after a first pass with a wire brush. Looks like this will come up nicely with a little work.


The right tools for the right job. Nooks n crannies are no match for incrementally smaller tools!!


The big boy gets special treatment from my custom wire disc. A modified bench grinder brush with a custom dowel bushing and a whopping bolt jammed through it.


Ended up using sash clamps to hold it at the angle I was working at. The bulb-base made it difficult to work with otherwise. It's coming up really well.


Awesome. Prolly 2 hrs of stripping work. Took a lot longer than I realised. It should be noted this thing weights a TONNE.


Mat black exhaust enamel, also good for stoves.


Two cans of paint later.


Looks fantastic. The finished base is in the background also.





Like new.


"Suitable for radiators, exhaust systems, pot belly stoves, and barbecues". $20/can. Heat proof to 650C. Cures at 200C. Naked flame can exceed this to almost double, but the paint is not exposed to naked flame. I suspect the top rim of the stack will show signs of burning first if the paint isn't up to the job. We'll see how it goes but given it's a 3M product listed for such applications, I'm sure it will be fine.


Very happy with the way this came up!! Looking forward to its first marshmallow evening :)

Fun with left overs

Trav threw out his old bed base so I ripped it down and decided to salvage some of the timber. One of those fake-matress ones with castors that's essentially a timber frame with a material outer over a cardboard shroud. It's pretty ordinary, really soft knotty pine. Not quite good enough to bother dressing down for real furniture. So I knocked up a frame to become a weights bench of sorts for my clutter. The top rail is actually made up of two T-pieces with a 10cm gap between them, so that loaded dumbells can sit safely on top without rolling.


The other side of the room however, still needs work!!! I think a 2nd shelf, and possibly another rack entirely will end up in here soon.

Putting on weight for fun and err...no profit.

In the last 8 weeks I've been madly rushing to increase my weight to 80kgs. The pre-story is long, and the information I've learned along the way is a-plenty. I'll try and break it all down into factoids and snippets.

Pre story
- ~2008 my weight managed to drift from 75 to 85kgs. I'm a raging ectomorph with a swath of related cortisol issues, so this was a BIG deal.
- late 2008 stumbled into http://www.whatyououghttoknow.com/show/ which put me onto the book "Body for Life by Bill Phillips". Seriously, buy it. You need a starting point, and this is it.

- Began a beginners workout regime with some limited equipment, supplemented by a slightly curbed eating habit.
- Throughout 2009 this got more serious, including lots of reading and experimenting trying to get the eating and workouts right. This was REALLY hard.
- ALMOST ALL of the information available is built around success stories. Which evolves around the EXTREMES, which is generally WORLD CLASS title winners. These are ENDOMORPHS of the highest order, who have worked hard. Most literature is built around these guys and simply does NOT work for ecto's.
- I plumetted to 67kg's, learning the above information the hard way.
- Crappy relationship with a self destructive woman at the time was absolutely no help at all. Get rid of garbage people in your life. Your best friend will tell you when you're being a dork (Kudos Tux btw), without pulling you into the soap-opera-scene. Keep those people, ditch the rest.

- End 2009 I managed to scraaaaappe my way back up to 70kg's, but I'd lost a lot of the hard work I'd put in. The original goal was 80kg's and CUT. 2009 summer fail.

Picked up a fairly serious Smith Machine/Gym at the end of 2009 as I'd spent the better part of a year tripping over the beginners mistakes already. Garrick is pretty tough, as demonstrated here ;)

2010, correct the madness.

- Mid 2010 finally read enough literature to work out what was going on, and started to re-take control of insane gain and loss, and reclaim muscle mass I'd aimed for.
- stopped ANY cardio exercise. Almost no cycling for 6 months. (It's cold anyway)
- Switched to a 4000 calorie / day eating regime. Avg for most people is around 2000+ if they're very healthy eaters. Take-away food eaters blow this out of the water.
- Switched to a technically-simple compound weights plan here. This is a short term training plan, but a good mix.
- 4000 calories with clean low fat food is HARD. I took some advice and simplified this by mixing in some dirty-weight gain. Double Whoppers and Strip-Sub combos 3-4 times a week work FAST.
- increased protein intake from about 160grams/day to over 250. Getting enough protein daily is hard yakka, and also expensive. Best price/quality I've found is http://www.proteindirect.com.au/ which is about 3 times cheaper than supermarket/mainstream retail costs.
- increased omega fats from 2 to 3 grams / day via supplements. Decreased ratio of omega 6 due to take-out diet.

SO. Today (9.9.2010) I weighed in at 79.5kg's this morning at 7am. I bought 3 pizzas yesterday for dinner and have finished them off this evening. Dirty...dirty, naughty gain :D
- This was an exercise in weight gain while still maintaining a vigilant workout regime, not a specific muscle gain plain, though for the first time I've had the fat reserves to feed my body effectively.

What now?
- Essentially do what I did in 2009 for the next 12 weeks, but with a few revisions.
- Will aim to maintain just over 3000 calories per day of lean food.
- Sticking to ~250 grams or more protein.
- lifting Omega 3 to 2-4 grams, and keep 6,9 at around 1000mg as supplements on top of whatever the diet manages.
- Alternate between the 6-week progressive overloading plans, and standard weekly plans.
- Pick up the cycling (cardio) again in October.
- Stay above 77.5 kg after cutting. I think this is achievable given the protein, calorie and omega changes. I'm seriously going to cry if I drop below 75 as this will indicate muscle loss again.
- End Feb next year, switch to a massive calorie loading again and aim for an 85kg fat-fest, with a cut weight after that of 80kg by June.
- The long delay to gain again is because I'm happy to idle at a maintenance stage over the summer period, and I also need to measure the current eating plan over a reasonable period. Previously ~2500 calories / day was resulting in loss, but my protein intake was low, and my cardio regime was too intense.

A few tips and things learned.
- Double check the advice and material you're reading. There's LOADS of stuff that's written as "common sense", that is completely WRONG. If it reads as common sense, and makes logical sense from a non-technical standpoint, it is probably wrong!!
- Most of the material available is for cyborg tank men from planet Krypton. Read that stuff, but supplement it with data for your current build, weight, and body type etc.
- PILATES in all its forms is complete rubbish.
- The exception to the above statement, is if you're a 45kg skeleton with no muscular motor control, and need a starting point. That is the extent of it. (Kat says I'm not allowed to say it's rubbish. :P )
- advice from anyone without abs, and/or below the age of 28 is to be dismissed immediately. They don't know, and anything that comes out of their mouth is based on their own bodies experience...which is still in a nubile Kryptonian cyborg state of improbable good looks with little effort.
- You're doomed if you don't love chicken.
- It's not really about eggs. It's all about chicken.
- Frozen vegetables FTW. Fresh is too much work.
- Hungry Jacks Onion Ring farts will continue for 2 days. True story :)
- Putting on weight is harder than losing it while still working out.
- Losing weight comes with anxiety, because you're looking in the mirror for results. Keep long term viewpoints in perspective. Use fortnightly or monthly photos as reference, not what you looked like yesterday.
- Losing weight has mild headache effects with most people. Remove stress and learn to play computer games.
- Keep other hobbies in play and active. I'm so damn competitive that gaming sometimes reaches a point where it fails to reach the relaxation goal. Find a girlfriend who will play computer games with you. Hobba I hate you. :P
- You'll always feel tired if your sustained carbohydrate intake is low, and exercise activity is low, a perpetually catabolic weak state is bad. (really common if diet and exercise are poor.)

- Failure is an option. Expect to see huge results, and fall flat on your face a couple times. Your face looked like a dropped pie anyway. :D

- mmMm, pie.

mobile TV

The TV corner is getting out of control, cords, cables, plus the whole thing is immobile. When we were growing up our main TV was on castors and we would move it around the house to suit what we were doing, rather than commit to sitting in the lounge room to do nothing but view the screen. Time to remedy this error of the future.


Removed the rear panel, it adds a lot of light to the inside when viewing the DVD library now. Used some castors I'd salvaged from a bed-base that Skev was throwing out.


Support blocks required in the corners. The cheap castors are heavily supported by the plastic shroud.


I stained and varnished the piece of my desk that I'd cut out for the keyboard-well, and attached it as a shelf to the side of the cabinet. This will give me a spot to put the PC-TV-controller, and keep things mobile. Cut-outs were req'd for the castors. All the white dots are drill-holes from using this piece as scrap for a considerable amount of time. Other side looks new though :)


Mobile PC stays with the cabinet.



Came up looking great, and now zooms around the room. Very quick easy job!!

...yes...those are christmas lights that I've failed to remove...there are three christmas stockings still on my lounge room walls too!! :D

USB Laser Duck will end us all.

Not much to say really. Laser Duck is the embodiment of the future slavery of human kind as we know it.

http://www.instructables.com/id/USB-Laser-Duck/

Exponential function

I keep forgetting to link this video. Caught it a year or two back. Presents in laymans terms what you learned in highschool, but forgot to apply later...

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6A1FD147A45EF50D

edit: On the same topic; Wow, in the Age Newspaper today State Parliament proved they're failing to even look at our own growth statistics by proposing an irrelevant tiny expansion to the city boundaries. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/green-land-cut-back-as-melbourne-grows-much-bigger-20100729-10wvi.html?autostart=1

I've seen these before!!

So I'm in Big-W looking at the electrical stuff to track down an all purpose DC-output gizmo for various devices, and I stumble into this!! How completely awesome! Seems like I was making these over 2 years ago though :)

More Climate Denialist stuff

Sim sent me a great compilation of direct quotes from the world leaders in climate science, business, and the likes. It's kinda past the point where this can be "discussed" any longer, we're 20 years behind where we should be on the attack front.

http://logicalscience.com/consensus/consensusD1.htm

The other great, in fact AWESOME resource, is of course ye olde how to talk to global warming sceptic articles page. He's got a master page, with topics more easily categorised now also.

Don't forget to do something about it at home.

Please uninstall your Anti Virus Software

OK, so I've just finished an epic 12hr session over the course of 2 days fixing three peoples PC's. I've seen all 3 of these PC's before, I've worked on them many times in the past. One might surmise that I'm a crappy repair-man given the repeat work. It's really easy to simply re-install the Operating System and return a perfectly fine working machine. It's another situation entirely to return it to them as though nothing happened. There is however, one recurring theme that is out of any well buffed, good looking guys hands.

The abomination that is "anti" "virus" "software".

You're driving down a road in your Triple-A-Safety rated car. You drive off a cliff. Your air-bags deploy as designed when you hit the ground. You're dead anyway. Had you not been driving as though you were invincible in the first place, this never would have happened.

Over the course of my entire lifetime, the #1 biggest virus I have ever worked against is anti virus software itself.

- 100% if the time it has been the underlying cause of an imaginary sense of security.
- 100% of the time the user has CLICKED AND RUN something they should not have, which resulted in malware, spyware, phishing scams, loss of data, loss of privacy or otherwise critical system failures.
- 100% of the time anit-virus-software has been directly responsible for automatic updates being stalled, halted, broken or otherwise not working as a result of some sort of security settings alteration it has made (of which there are literally several thousand). I cannot express how common, serious, and disastrous this is.
- 100% of the time the anit-virus-software has MADE IT DAMN NEAR IMPOSSIBLE to remove the ACTUAL PROBLEM without UNINSTALLING THE anti-virus-software first.

There are long, oh so very long, lists of variation, complexity, and just blatant stupidity associated to all four of those bullet points. The most offensive component is when anti virus software has broken something first, which resulted in situations where the user was FORCED to click something they should not have.

This includes broken script warnings that weren't broken until false-positives are reported. Popup warnings, cautions, and the like. The end user becomes SO DISMISSIVE with the continuous clicking of "yes" to make warnings go away, that they lose any sense of discerning decision making, and will click on any old rubbish. No I mean it. Anything.

Without spending HOURS explaining some of the finer technical points of why anti-virus-software is by every definition, the worst virus of them all, let me finish with a few pointers.

- If the porn site you're browsing tells you that you need to "install a media player" of any sort, and you click "yes", it's already too late for you. You need CODEC'S, not PLAYERS. Once you're running their software, you're done. The only exceptions are the the big 3: adobe, sun-java, and apple plugins.
- You're browsing the local football scores webpage, and you see some sort of official looking window, message, or popup that says "you might be infected, click here to do something about it". The host of the web page does NOT have any means of determining your actual security status. Try and be a little discerning in future please!!
- If you click ANY file to run it, without knowing its extension type, you're done.
- Why did you download the virus in the first place? What did you think you were clicking on? Were you REALLY duped? So there were no indicators that the file you ran wasn't legit?

Everyone knows the rules about web browsing, secure connections, and porn. Stop making it someone elses responsibility to protect you from yourself. I have never seen a situation first hand where any virus software actually STOPPED, PROTECTED, AND KEPT THE PC UNHARMED. I hear about it all the time. Have you? If so, do you have the technical knowledge to determine if what it told you was true, and not a false positive? Like I said. Never seen it do anything but harm.

STOP DRIVING OFF CLIFFS !!!