VLC player bug - video going back and forth

VLC player is (in my view) by far the most practical and complete DVD player for Ubuntu. There is not one DVD I haven't been able to play on my computer since I started using VLC. Recently, however, after a low level clean-up of my Ubuntu packages, VLC player has been showing a very strange symptom: the video is was moving back and forth continuously on a half-a-second slice, while still playing ahead and the sound still being alright. Anyway, the only way to fix it was to go to the Preferences panel (inside Settings menu), Video, Output modules, tick Advanced options.

Spamassassin rules, or why my important e-mails get stuck in my anti-spam?

When using spamassassin, you might happen to realize that some important e-mail has been filtered out for some kind of wierd reason. The e-mail will be classified as spam and get an introduction like this:
Content analysis details: (32.9 points, 5.0 required) pts rule name description ---- ---------------------- -------------------------------------------------- 3.5 BAYES_99 BODY: Bayesian spam probability is 99 to 100% [score: 1.0000] 0.4 SARE_SUB_ENC_ISO2022JP Subject specifies display in non-English lang 1.0 GAPPY_SU

Howto stop a MacBook Pro from short-circuiting you

My girlfriend has read somewhere (I don't know where exactly) that the very light but very annoying short-circuits you get from the metallic case of a MacBook Pro sold in Europe is due to a failure of Apple's manufacturer to connect the earth (wire) inside the european plug, so that electricity overcharge is not removed by any other means than your arm. Well, I just tried the recommended solution: replace the plug with another one (the original cannot be reassembled once disassembled), this time connecting the earth (wire) correctly. I'm happy to say this worked out very well, apparently.