"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men." - Abraham Lincoln

Anytime you hear about a "Code of silence", or a "Culture of silence", it's always a bad thing, it hides abuse, it hides corruption, it hides many of the negative things in life. So why in this lifestyle, do we maintain a code of silence?

We build up a pile of "what happens here stays here" and we preach about not "outing" people. But why do we take it so far? It becomes a protection for the predators and fakes, and we know it does, but it still gets pushed and no one stands up to it.

"In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes." - John Ruskin

Why do we think we can do so much better than all of humanity has before us? Why do we in our misplaced pride, think we are smarter, better, more able to cope than other people?

We are not, we are human, we live, we love, we screw up. But to continue to make the same mistakes over and over, that is the height of hubris.

I have in the past been looked upon as trouble because I stand up and speak out, because I won't let things lie in the shadows. My view is that we as a community best grow up soon, or there won't be a community. Take some responsibility, don't be a coward.

"As soon as you see a mistake and don't fix it, it becomes your mistake."

As you may have noticed the web sites were down for a bit and then a bit on the odd side once they did come back. This is the result of a move to a new server, the new machine should be able to handle things a little better, and it seems to be running faster.

However... The new server did not get along with my blog software, so I moved my blog entries to a new software. The comments made on the old blog entries have been retained as a backup by me, but I have not made the effort to copy them to the new system.

One of the first things I do whenever I load a new PC is to make sure only to load what I need, the less overload on a system, the better it runs. Knowing which products I want to make sure to load is important, as it allows me to get what needs to be on there dealt with first.

So, here is the basic software I make sure to download:

• Avast - Antivirus
• Firefox - Web browser
• uTorrent - Distributed downloading client
• ffdshow - Codecs for playing video
• Media Player Classic - Streamlined video/audio player
• Foxit reader - View PDFs, much faster than Adobe's viewer
• Open Office - Word processing, spread sheet, etc
• Format Factory - Convert files from one format to another
• 7zip - Multiple format archive program

It may seem like a lot, but those program cover 99% of what we use a PC for, no need to spend money, and all are good solid programs.

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