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I talk to spam callers. I've just come off a "Your bank card has been used to buy an iPhone 11 from Amazon for $1100. If this was not you, press 1 to talk to an agent ...". No, I did not press 1; I just made fake concerned drivel like "Oh dear! Not again! The previous ones you told me about in the past few days still haven't arrived. Never mind, I'm notifying the police about it and I hope they will be sending folks round to you to sort out fake callers." Hint: If you do similar, do not use the words 'Yes' or 'No' and do not give your name - they can use the recordings for authenticating that they are you in voice recognition purchasing systems.
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Rich Leyshon wrote: So, is there anyone who doesn't talk to their machine and for those that do, what are the most common phrases?
Many times. Usually starting with  . The latest, when a (forced) Windows update wiped my desktop. I don't have a lot of stuff on my desktop, but what is there, is there for a reason - it's what I use, day in, day out!
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I talk to them, cajole them, coax them, whisper sweet nothings at them, and when that doesn't work I swear at them.
Real programmers use butterflies
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The only device I talk to frequently it seems is the Roomba. It sometimes feels like it's making additional passes, or otherwise just hanging out where I happen to be. After a few bumps, I'll occasionally do a, "You're doing that crap on purpose. Shoo!"
"Rex" the Roomba is a delightful assistant otherwise, and gets treated pretty decently any other time though. 
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I confess I've done some stupid things to past systems...hit the monitor, kicked the CPU under the desk when they misbehaved. Monitors have become more fragile/light and the CPU is away from my feet. The most I might do these days is shoot it the bird with a bit of swearing or a quick victory dance depending on the situation.
Computers are a lot more stable these days, and I'm a bit mellower. (thinking back to my first laptop with ME and VS6...I learned to save often...then I found W2K and all was well)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
"Hope is contagious"
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Plants do prefer Classical over Heavy Metal.
And for whatever reason, I have a 40+ year old cactus that flowered at least 4 times this year (sometimes 2 at a time), and as recently as a month ago. Quite the deal since the flower only lasts one day. Previously, It would do one flower a year maybe, and in only the last 10 years or so.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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Of course I talk to my computer. Amongst non-human things, I also talk to my two dogs (greyhounds, retired racers), my car, other drivers even though they can't hear me, the self-checkout registers in stores, salespeople(*), and so on.
The dogs (Bacchus and Hera) are the only ones who give intelligent responses.
(*) I'm sorry, but I believe most salespeople should be put in an industrial food processor and sprayed over fields as organic fertilizer. For that reason I don't classify them as human.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Nobuo Uematsu - Dancing Mad[^]
Time for a classic game soundtrack, but properly performed by an orchestra.
I still listen to Final Fantasy soundtracks A LOT, but lately it's mostly the orchestrated versions from the Distant Worlds albums.
And so I rediscovered Dancing Mad.
This epic song is the final boss music for Final Fantasy VI, from 1994, and with almost 18 minutes in its original version it's the longest boss theme to date.
In this orchestrated version you can hear just how great the composition is, with an organ and a choir (yeah, that doesn't sound so well on the original SNES version ).
In the third stage it even transforms into progressive rock that would not have been out of place on a 70's rock album!
And with ten minutes quite a bit shorter than the original!
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Took a while, but then, it's still night time in Canadia! 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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The hours of lost productivity around the world as tens of thousands of developers twiddle their thumbs waiting for the fora to come back up...  wrecked my morning schedule.
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It broke mine and cost me money too - I had to buy a new set of batteries and charger for my rechargeable drill.
If the site had been up, I wouldn't have known they were ![Elephant | [mastadon]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/elephant.gif) ed!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I felt a great disturbance in the Bytes, as if millions of programmers suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly greeted by a BSOD. I feared an update had happened.
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Upset minister meets queen and two cardinals (7)
modified 11-Dec-20 7:17am.
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Reverse ?
Minister = Rev
Queen = er
Two cardinals = se
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Yep - well done.
Originally I had a "backward vicar" but thought that was too easy; I was worried "upset minister" might be too hard but evidently not 
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I always try and punctuate a clue before I start trying to understand the definition. So I read your clue as ; Upset ( could be an anagram indicator ( but the letter count didn't match ) or the definition ) , minister immediately gave mr Rev or DD, Queen is almost always er, and that only left two of NEWS - but I'd guessed it by then. Nice little clue though I like the relation between minister and cardinal. 
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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'Cardinal' threw me off the scent. My thoughts were Cardinals are Bishops. 2 Bishops + 1 Queen - sound like a side in Chess. But what has a minister to do with chess?
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Thanks  Yes, I liked the grouping of minister (I had vicar originally) + cardinals, and throwing in the Queen too. And I originally had "backward" rather than "upset" but the latter is less obvious and, as you say, a clearer misdirection too. (I also quite liked "Vicar speaks Gaelic backwards" for the same solution...)
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pkfox wrote: Two cardinals = se
I'm totally confused about this bit! 
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South and East - Cardinal direction - Wikipedia[^]
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Every day's a school day! Which makes up for missing so many of the real ones, I guess! 
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Noooooooo!
Real programmers use butterflies
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To clear up some shelf space, and ease retrieval, I am copying all my DVD/BD discs to hard disc. For now, I keep them in the same file structure as on the original (i.e. VIDEO_TS / BDMV directories), so I can select audio /subtitle track, titles and chapters at play time. The player must recognize the directory structure. PC players of today do, but you never know about the future. I do not know about smartphones and other non-PC devices that people use for watching movies.
I sure can extract each title to a e.g. a plain H.264/H.265 video file. Then I must select a single audio track and either hard-sub one subtitle track (burn it into the image) or OCR subtitles to .srt files. (DVD/BD subtitles are not character codes, but text images!) All subtitle extracting programs I tried make so many errors that proofreading / correcting easily takes more effort than playing the movie and typing the subtitles as they pass by, even if I have to pause the movie many times. (Text rippers do give me the .srt time stamps, though.) I consider that an emergency / non-viable solution.
Are there alternate video container formats that handle multiple audio/subtitle tracks, and preferably title/chapter structures? Are there tools available for converting DVD/BD structures into this format without loosing any such information?
I obviously look for a format likely to live significantly longer than DVD/BD formats, available on a wider range of playback devices, today and in the future.
From .mkv lie sheets, it might look as if MKV is designed for (some of) these requirements, but I never found a DVD/BD-to-MKV converter (or disk-to-MKV ripper) pretending to support it. Or it was so deeply hidden in the options that I overlooked it. Or my MKV player software doesn't support it. If MKV is The Answer, tell me what software to use (both for converting/ripping and playing)!
[Bonus question to those using their smart phone to watch movies: Can smartphone video apps play back DVD/BD directories? All of them? Some? None?]
[Bonus question 2: When DVDs were introduced, the option to provide multiple camera angles, aka parallel video tracks, was heavily boosted in marketing. None of my several hundred movies make use of this facility, and it would obviously be incompatible with broadcasting or movie theater screening. Has any of you ever seen a commercial DVD/BD movie (excluding demos for showing the mechanism) allowing you to select camera angle?]
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