So, some random thoughts about technology, and not just information technology...
If Publisher's Clearing House or another contest called you to say you are a winner, would you actually answer because of all the spam and "extended warranty" call?
Just some thoughts on technological progress.. My original TRS-80 Model III had 5¼-inch floppy drives, with each floppy disc had a capacity of 178,944 bytes available, and a 5 MB hard drive cost you an arm and a leg ($2,000-$2,500), and no, I didn't have one. My first computer with a hard drive was a 386-33 computer with a 5¼-inch floppy drive (max capacity 1.2 megabytes), a 3½-inch floppy drive (max capacity 1.44 megabytes), and a 105MB hard drive. Nowadays, because of the data captures and the high amount of details on the data files, it is not uncommon for a file to be generated that is megabytes in size. It's hard to purchase a USB thumb drive with a capacity less than 1GB unless you want to purchase 20-50 drives at once, plus the price difference between a 1 GB USB thumb drive and a slightly larger capacity is miniscule.
To that grade school/junior high/high school teacher who insisted that calculators be banned and that we had to figure it out manually, with the reasoning that you would never carry a calculator around with you... how many scientific calculator apps are available for download now? Of course, because of cheating and such, there are only certain calculators that are approved for major exams (https://education.ti.com/en/resources/test-preparation), and they better have no WiFi connectivity.
Quote from: ZLoth on April 14, 2024, 09:04:38 PMIf Publisher's Clearing House or another contest called you to say you are a winner,
You mean they don't actually show up on your front porch with a giant check? My dreams are shattered.
Quote from: ZLoth on April 14, 2024, 09:04:38 PMTo that grade school/junior high/high school teacher who insisted that calculators be banned and that we had to figure it out manually, with the reasoning that you would never carry a calculator around with you... how many scientific calculator apps are available for download now? Of course, because of cheating and such, there are only certain calculators that are approved for major exams (https://education.ti.com/en/resources/test-preparation), and they better have no WiFi connectivity.
Not to mention that, in the real world, anyone that cares about your answers being right would absolutely prefer you to use a calculator rather than relying on your thirty-year-old memories of the times table. When I worked as a casino cashier they supplied one of those huge ten-key adding machines for each cashier window. We were encouraged to use it any time we had even a shadow of a doubt that we had the total right. Better to take a minute to punch up the total on the ten-key than to think you have it right and overpay someone.
Quote from: Scott5114 on April 15, 2024, 11:26:33 PMQuote from: ZLoth on April 14, 2024, 09:04:38 PMTo that grade school/junior high/high school teacher who insisted that calculators be banned and that we had to figure it out manually, with the reasoning that you would never carry a calculator around with you... how many scientific calculator apps are available for download now? Of course, because of cheating and such, there are only certain calculators that are approved for major exams (https://education.ti.com/en/resources/test-preparation), and they better have no WiFi connectivity.
Not to mention that, in the real world, anyone that cares about your answers being right would absolutely prefer you to use a calculator rather than relying on your thirty-year-old memories of the times table. When I worked as a casino cashier they supplied one of those huge ten-key adding machines for each cashier window. We were encouraged to use it any time we had even a shadow of a doubt that we had the total right. Better to take a minute to punch up the total on the ten-key than to think you have it right and overpay someone.
There is - at least should be - some balance between trying to do everything in you head and staring blank at $20+$1 for a $5.80 charge.
I still try to "make change" and work out things like multiplication/division tables in my head just to keep the dusty mathematician in my head happy. (Problem is, he obviously quit his job about midway through high school.)
If I need to look busy, I'll scribble out a math problem during things like expense reporting, or it's super useful for finding a good point to hang picture frames, re-arrange furniture, et cetera...when I need to sketch out the ideas and then the numbers just flow from there.
Technology-wise, there's still a lot of things I'm just stubborn or get forgetful. I sometimes forget the exact process for using our Fire stick and TV, because I might use it once every two months. Or recalling how to do things in Windows; I usually have to look up obscure features that I once used frequently 20 years ago.
And darn it, despite having loads of camera gear, I was mighty disappointed by my near-eclipse photos. I'll chalk that up to operator error, even though I've had my latest camera for over a year now. With so many more features and the camera over-thinking for you, sometimes there's moments you have to override several settings just to get exactly what you want out of it. Again, there's the humbling moment when I know others could probably get their desired results, because they practiced and learned for that moment and knew what to do, and I just winged it, and winged it some more. The best camera is the one in your hand, and the better camera is knowing to use it in that situation.
Quote from: kalvado on April 16, 2024, 09:09:30 AMQuote from: Scott5114 on April 15, 2024, 11:26:33 PMQuote from: ZLoth on April 14, 2024, 09:04:38 PMTo that grade school/junior high/high school teacher who insisted that calculators be banned and that we had to figure it out manually, with the reasoning that you would never carry a calculator around with you... how many scientific calculator apps are available for download now? Of course, because of cheating and such, there are only certain calculators that are approved for major exams (https://education.ti.com/en/resources/test-preparation), and they better have no WiFi connectivity.
Not to mention that, in the real world, anyone that cares about your answers being right would absolutely prefer you to use a calculator rather than relying on your thirty-year-old memories of the times table. When I worked as a casino cashier they supplied one of those huge ten-key adding machines for each cashier window. We were encouraged to use it any time we had even a shadow of a doubt that we had the total right. Better to take a minute to punch up the total on the ten-key than to think you have it right and overpay someone.
There is - at least should be - some balance between trying to do everything in you head and staring blank at $20+$1 for a $5.80 charge.
From a customer's point of view: Come on, give me my change.
From an employee's point of view: Procedures are to enter the amount I was provided. We've been instructed there's scam artists that will purposely try to trick cashiers. If I get an additional dollar after the fact, do I try to calculate the change myself? Will I get written up? If I give back the wrong change and my drawer is short, will I get written up?
Not everyone is a mathematician. And the customer's employment isn't on the line if the employee screws up.
I am naturally good at math, but I use a calculator all of the time. I care more about accuracy than anything else, and its not any sort of badge of honor to do things in my head or on paper when I can get a 100% accurate answer in less time.
I also stopped writing in cursive as soon as they allowed me to and don't think it should be taught in schools at all.
Quote from: ZLoth on April 14, 2024, 09:04:38 PMTo that grade school/junior high/high school teacher who insisted that calculators be banned and that we had to figure it out manually,
This was "that one teacher" of mine in seventh grade.
Quote from: epzik8 on April 16, 2024, 10:22:59 AMQuote from: ZLoth on April 14, 2024, 09:04:38 PMTo that grade school/junior high/high school teacher who insisted that calculators be banned and that we had to figure it out manually,
This was "that one teacher" of mine in seventh grade.
I don't know when you went to school, but I was never allowed to use a calculator in math class until I had a scientific one for trig in high school. This was the mid to late 80s.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on April 16, 2024, 10:29:12 AMQuote from: epzik8 on April 16, 2024, 10:22:59 AMQuote from: ZLoth on April 14, 2024, 09:04:38 PMTo that grade school/junior high/high school teacher who insisted that calculators be banned and that we had to figure it out manually,
This was "that one teacher" of mine in seventh grade.
I don't know when you went to school, but I was never allowed to use a calculator in math class until I had a scientific one for trig in high school. This was the mid to late 80s.
I wasn't allowed a calculator on tests in a classroom until my 12th-grade Physics teacher said it was okay. Mostly because it wasn't a required course (sciences were only required for the first three years of high school) and because he reminded us that the formulas and processes were the important things to remember.
Quote from: kalvado on April 16, 2024, 09:09:30 AMQuote from: Scott5114 on April 15, 2024, 11:26:33 PMQuote from: ZLoth on April 14, 2024, 09:04:38 PMTo that grade school/junior high/high school teacher who insisted that calculators be banned and that we had to figure it out manually, with the reasoning that you would never carry a calculator around with you... how many scientific calculator apps are available for download now? Of course, because of cheating and such, there are only certain calculators that are approved for major exams (https://education.ti.com/en/resources/test-preparation), and they better have no WiFi connectivity.
Not to mention that, in the real world, anyone that cares about your answers being right would absolutely prefer you to use a calculator rather than relying on your thirty-year-old memories of the times table. When I worked as a casino cashier they supplied one of those huge ten-key adding machines for each cashier window. We were encouraged to use it any time we had even a shadow of a doubt that we had the total right. Better to take a minute to punch up the total on the ten-key than to think you have it right and overpay someone.
There is - at least should be - some balance between trying to do everything in you head and staring blank at $20+$1 for a $5.80 charge.
The balance is to just pay with the $20, keep the $1, and accept the consequences for your own unpreparedness instead of foisting them on some poor cashier.
The first Apple Macintosh computer I used in the newspaper business in 1987 was a Mac Plus. It had 1 MB of RAM and a 20 MB external hard drive. The souped-up computer we used for ad composition had 2 MB of RAM and a 40 MB external hard drive. We connected to our Apple LaserWriter printer with PhoneNet connectors. The hard drivers were SCSI and the mouse and keyboard used Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) connectors.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on April 16, 2024, 10:29:12 AMI don't know when you went to school, but I was never allowed to use a calculator in math class until I had a scientific one for trig in high school. This was the mid to late 80s.
From my school experience in the mid-late 80's: calculators were forbidden in Algebra I and Geometry. In Algebra II, we had a few tests/quizzes where we did a few questions without calculators ("just so you remember how to do math without them"), before we were allowed to break them out for the rest of the test.
I think my Trig class was one of the first ones where we didn't have to learn how to use trig tables; we were just expected to use scientific calculators. (I was, of course, a smart-ass and brought a slide rule to my final exam.)
Random access technology: We were thrilled when FORTRAN got indexed sequential files. You no longer had to read the entire file to find the record you wanted. This would have been sometime in the late 1980's if I recall.
Quote from: GaryV on April 18, 2024, 02:48:44 PMRandom access technology: We were thrilled when FORTRAN got indexed sequential files. You no longer had to read the entire file to find the record you wanted. This would have been sometime in the late 1980's if I recall.
I'm pretty sure that VAX Fortran had ISAM (indexed sequenced access method) back in the late 1970s. By Late 1981, CDC was rolling out AAM (Record Manager advanced access methods) which improved its ISAM (VAX Cobol 5 was the first to use the new AAM, and the other languages could be retrofitted soon after). But I remember the kluge to get IBM Fortran to interact with VSAM (virtual storage access method) using a JCL shell (on both OS360 and OS370). Note that I "woren't gute at it", so I went on into the world of Control Systems. But I hung onto Fortran programming until the end of my software days.
I mean, from what you hear from the Unix old timers, neither Fortran nor JCL were any good at being programming languages, so I'm not entirely sure you should feel bad about not being good at them:
Quote from: the Jargon FileFortrash: /for·trash/, n.
Hackerism for the Fortran language, referring to its primitive design, gross and irregular syntax, limited control constructs, and slippery, exception-filled semantics.
JCL: /J·C·L/, n.
1. IBM's supremely rude Job Control Language. JCL is the script language used to control the execution of programs in IBM's batch systems. JCL has a very fascist syntax, and some versions will, for example, barf if two spaces appear where it expects one. Most programmers confronted with JCL simply copy a working file (or card deck), changing the file names. Someone who actually understands and generates unique JCL is regarded with the mixed respect one gives to someone who memorizes the phone book. It is reported that hackers at IBM itself sometimes sing "Who's the breeder of the crud that mangles you and me? I-B-M, J-C-L, M-o-u-s-e" to the tune of the Mickey Mouse Club theme to express their opinion of the beast.
2. A comparative for any very rude software that a hacker is expected to use. "That's as bad as JCL." As with COBOL, JCL is often used as an archetype of ugliness even by those who haven't experienced it. See also IBM, fear and loathing.
Quote from: Dirt Roads on April 18, 2024, 09:45:46 PMVAX Fortran had ISAM (indexed sequenced access method) back in the late 1970s
Maybe we were just late adopters then. I didn't start at the company until late 1981, and I know there were a few years at least before we had ISAM.
Quote from: Scott5114 on April 19, 2024, 06:39:17 AMI mean, from what you hear from the Unix old timers, neither Fortran nor JCL were any good at being programming languages, so I'm not entirely sure you should feel bad about not being good at them:
Actually, I meant that I wasn't good at getting IBM Fortran to interact with VSAM to keep oneself from having to load the entire database before finding a record at a known location.
To be honest, I didn't have all that much programming experience in my career. But I was proficient in the myriad of differences between FORTRAN3, FORTRAN4, FORTRAN77, IBM Fortran, VAX Fortran, MS Fortran, and Microsoft VisualFortran. Including the fact that Microsoft couldn't get their function calls for matrix multiplication to work with imaginary numbers (which are indeed required in calculating the power flow when trains are in motion). And yes, I still have my old JCL Programmers Card around here somewhere.
As for the UNIX folks, I can understand where most of them were coming from. Folks that used JCL and Fortran were geared for engineering calculations. Folks that used UNIX and the old C were wired for telecomms. I had one friend (now deceased) who was superb at both (he worked for both AT&T and a rocket propulsion simulation consultancy). I had several times that I needed to use UNIX, but even those were programming with Fortan77. Looks like I just got stuck in a rut.
Maybe I'm too darn young as a programmer, but I don't think I've ever run into a Fortran program. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the C libraries for mathematical calculations are imported Fortran code, though. I'm not sure what makes Fortran really good at math and only math -- apparently it has to do with almost everything being a vector, but the same is also true in C (except pointers which are integers, and structs which are their own mess; I think they're also pointers?). Never worked with non-Unix / non-Windows OSes; JCL strikes me as a walled garden with a lot of proprietary nonsense, since it seems only IBM uses that language.
I have taken an assembly programming class where programs can't be larger than 4 KB of RAM. I'm not very good at it, since trying to do tasks that are trivial in C (like sending data over a serial port) become an absolute slog in assembly. I never wrote programs larger than 700 bytes, but I can't imagine writing something like a game in assembly (but people have done it, and even in sizes smaller than 1 KB as an exercise).
Since I went to school in the Internet age, I've never been told "you'll never have a calculator in your pocket". Maybe in elementary school, but by middle school everyone had a smartphone. These days I rarely use my graphing calculator, since I'm usually doing algebra or looking up a Fourier transform, not calculations.
Quote from: noelbotevera on April 21, 2024, 10:29:26 PMI wouldn't be surprised if some of the C libraries for mathematical calculations are imported Fortran code, though.
Assuming you're talking about the standard libraries, I would be pretty surprised if they were—Dennis Ritchie was such a brilliant programmer he would have had no reason to use existing Fortran code as a basis for anything in C, and if he somehow got stuck, well, he hung out with Ken Thompson. (The one time I read Thompson's writing I had to give up on it because it was clear he was on such completely different level than I that I felt like an ant trying to comprehend the Apollo space program.)
If you mean third-party vendors, maybe, but I would imagine those have long since been replaced in day-to-day use by open-source libraries written by dyed-in-the-wool C hackers who would feel queasy at the thought of even reading through a Fortran source file, never mind porting it.
Getting started with C for me was the most unusual thing, because once it started clicking, I could feel it rewriting the way my brain worked, for the better. It's such a simple language (when I got to the end of K&R, I was like...wait, that's it? that's the whole language?), and yet so incredibly powerful. It's a little tedious sometimes, but it's actually kind of fun to mess around with in a way that other languages aren't (although Perl can be a lot of fun too if you enjoy the sheer syntax lunacy it will let you get away with).
Quote from: Scott5114 on April 22, 2024, 03:31:23 AM(when I got to the end of K&R, I was like...wait, that's it? that's the whole language?)
When I was in college, that book was (only half) jokingly referred to as "the Bible". I still have it after all these years, even though at this point the odds of me doing anything in C are slim to none. The C language does have a certain elegance that many other languages lack.
I pull it out and read it cover to cover from time to time, even when I'm not planning on writing any C any time soon. So many modern languages (especially the two I write the most code in, Perl and PHP) lean so heavily on what C does, that it's helpful to refresh my knowledge of C even if I'm not writing in it.
I remember long ago writing an in-house app using C and curses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curses_%28programming_library%29) to track satellite telemetry. It was text-mode only, with a spreadsheet-like interface, and a super crude "best effort" chart feature using line drawing characters and the 80x25 screen. And: a macro language using recursive descent parsing. The tools were primitive, but the job was great fun.
Quote from: vdeane on April 22, 2024, 08:56:08 PMQuote from: Scott5114 on April 22, 2024, 03:31:23 AM(when I got to the end of K&R, I was like...wait, that's it? that's the whole language?)
When I was in college, that book was (only half) jokingly referred to as "the Bible". I still have it after all these years, even though at this point the odds of me doing anything in C are slim to none. The C language does have a certain elegance that many other languages lack.
Quote from: Scott5114 on April 22, 2024, 10:27:16 PMI pull it out and read it cover to cover from time to time, even when I'm not planning on writing any C any time soon. So many modern languages (especially the two I write the most code in, Perl and PHP) lean so heavily on what C does, that it's helpful to refresh my knowledge of C even if I'm not writing in it.
Hey, I actually printed out this book to self study! I'm amazed at how it also teaches you to be a better programmer (like avoiding magic numbers -- replace fixed constants with symbols, so it's easier to change these constants later) while teaching you the language. Obviously some of it is outdated, namely anything involving floats being simplified with C99.
I think one of the neatest tricks with (Unix like) C is how basic system calls like read(), write(), open(), and close() can be used for both files and network sockets. What sort of witchcraft is being performed to make a network socket behave like a file? Makes file transfer really freaking easy in C.
Quote from: noelbotevera on April 25, 2024, 12:20:13 AMWhat sort of witchcraft is being performed to make a network socket behave like a file? Makes file transfer really freaking easy in C.
That's how Unix works—everything is a file, even devices. (Look in your /dev directory and there they all are.) You send data to a device by writing to the file that corresponds to the device. This means you can do some kind of amazing stuff very simply. You can make a white noise generator by reading /dev/random and writing it to the speakers, for instance.
Since C is native to Unix, it just kept the same metaphor.
What has me scratching my head is this from my TrueNAS Scale server:
(https://i.ibb.co/n8Zk9R0/chrome-2024-05-08-20-31-54.png) (https://ibb.co/93zY6Gv)
Okay, eno1 and eno2 (hey, what happened to 0) are my server motherboard's ethernet ports, but both are limited to 1 Gigabit which is what was available in my price range in mid-2016. enp1s0 is a 2.5 gigabit network card which I installed as part of a home network upgrade, as I replaced the switch with a 2.5 gigabit switch, while all three of the computers on the network support 2.5 gigabit LAN connections. I'm still scratching my head on the naming. enoX is short for ethernnet onboard. I'm guessing that enp1s0 is short for Ethernet Port 1 PCI Slot 0.
I just decommissioned my mother's old laptop after it was replaced with a mini-PC a few months ago and ensuring that there was no further need. (A backup is on my server "just in case"). A few years ago, I replaced the hard drive with a Samsung 500GB 840 EVO SSD drive. Just for fun, I decided to check online for the price, and was shocked. Amazon lists the SSD drive for $160 (https://amzn.to/3WxDlik) while NewEgg lists the drive for $198. :-o
The funny part is that you can get a more modern drive for much cheaper. Amazon lists the 870 EVO 500GB for $75 (https://amzn.to/3UPQaU5). NewEgg lists multiple 500GB SSDs (various specs) from $40 to $90.
Shrug. Into the "recycled for future use" box it goes. On the other hand, that box also had a 1 TB 2½" HDD that I pulled a year ago from my old laptop. I have no idea why I was saving it since, beyond my TrueNAS file server, I've banished hard drives from my life. I previously removed the partitions, and am performing a secure wipe now before it goes into the recycle bin.
From Smithsonian Magazine:
Cleaning Crew Discovers One of the World's Oldest Surviving Desktop Computers
The 1972 Q1 microcomputer could fetch $60,000 at auctionQuoteLast December, employees at Just Clear, a London-based house clearance company, were emptying a property when they stumbled across two decades-old computers.
At first, the workers were unsure what they had uncovered. They didn't recognize the items and couldn't find any relevant information online, Just Clear's founder, Brendan O'Shea, tells Live Science's Keumars Afifi-Sabet. After speaking with an expert, however, O'Shea learned that his team had found rare pieces of technology history: a 1972 Q1 desktop microcomputer with an internal printer and a 1976 Q1 Lite with an external companion printer.
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://markholtz.info/2us)
From Engadget:
Spotify's Car Thing will soon transform into Spotify's Car Brick
The company said it will stop working on December 9.QuoteSpotify's Car Thing, a limited hardware "test" the company began shipping only three years ago, is about to bite the dust. The company wrote on Thursday that the device, which brought Spotify to automobiles without Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, will "no longer be operational" as of December 9.
Car Thing was aimed at drivers who want to listen to Spotify in their cars but don't have modern systems with built-in streaming apps. The $90 device let you control the service with voice recognition and preset buttons, and it had a four-inch color touchscreen. However, Spotify had already discontinued it by mid-2022.
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://www.engadget.com/spotifys-car-thing-will-soon-transform-into-spotifys-car-brick-180208232.html)
Quote from: vdeane on April 22, 2024, 08:56:08 PMQuote from: Scott5114 on April 22, 2024, 03:31:23 AM(when I got to the end of K&R, I was like...wait, that's it? that's the whole language?)
When I was in college, that book was (only half) jokingly referred to as "the Bible". I still have it after all these years, even though at this point the odds of me doing anything in C are slim to none. The C language does have a certain elegance that many other languages lack.
I've still got my copy of K&R, which Kernighan and Ritchie were nice enough to sign for me.
C is very much like an assembly language with more modern syntax and control structures added.
Quote from: kkt on May 25, 2024, 10:11:22 PMI've still got my copy of K&R, which Kernighan and Ritchie were nice enough to sign for me.
That's probably worth some bucks.
Has anyone here been getting the ridiculous "AI Overviews" at the top of their Google search results pages? I haven't, but I've seen some screenshots of some real doozies, including some where the primary source appears to be The Onion.
Quote from: Scott5114 on May 26, 2024, 06:35:48 PMHas anyone here been getting the ridiculous "AI Overviews" at the top of their Google search results pages? I haven't, but I've seen some screenshots of some real doozies, including some where the primary source appears to be The Onion.
On occasion, yes.
Quote from: Scott5114 on May 26, 2024, 02:54:45 PMQuote from: kkt on May 25, 2024, 10:11:22 PMI've still got my copy of K&R, which Kernighan and Ritchie were nice enough to sign for me.
That's probably worth some bucks.
Perhaps, there probably weren't that many fans who got them signed. However, my copy is not a pristine condition or anything. I'm not selling anyway, anyone who wants it will have to negotiate with my heir.
Quote from: Scott5114 on April 22, 2024, 03:31:23 AM(when I got to the end of K&R, I was like...wait, that's it? that's the whole language?)
Quote from: vdeane on April 22, 2024, 08:56:08 PMWhen I was in college, that book was (only half) jokingly referred to as "the Bible". I still have it after all these years, even though at this point the odds of me doing anything in C are slim to none. The C language does have a certain elegance that many other languages lack.
Quote from: kkt on May 25, 2024, 10:11:22 PMI've still got my copy of K&R, which Kernighan and Ritchie were nice enough to sign for me.
C is very much like an assembly language with more modern syntax and control structures added.
I've still got my old copy of K&R also. I had one project group class where the focus was an EMAIL prototype. My part of the assignment looked pretty intense, but turned out to be only 91 lines of code when using C. The professor loved it, and I couldn't get any additional assignments. So that is the entirety of my experience with what was the defacto programming language used in my world of data communications (railroading and rail transit). Fortunately, decent skills in FORTRAN [somehow] ended up saving me in this career.
From How-To Geek:
After 60 Years the 4-Pin Molex Connector Is Finally (Almost) DeadQuoteFor the entirety of my PC building career, the 4-pin Molex power connector has been there. At one point it felt like everything on my computer used it, but my love-hate relationship with this common connector is almost at an end, it seems. So it's time to prepare the eulogy.
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://markholtz.info/2ut)
Thank goodness. Lord knows how many times I got frustrated because the pins were very loose in the connector.
Quote from: ZLoth on May 30, 2024, 12:43:35 PMFrom How-To Geek:
After 60 Years the 4-Pin Molex Connector Is Finally (Almost) DeadQuoteFor the entirety of my PC building career, the 4-pin Molex power connector has been there. At one point it felt like everything on my computer used it, but my love-hate relationship with this common connector is almost at an end, it seems. So it's time to prepare the eulogy.
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://markholtz.info/2ut)
Thank goodness. Lord knows how many times I got frustrated because the pins were very loose in the connector.
Now, for for someone to come up with a reliable and easy to use 12v power outlet plug connector for the car. :banghead:
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on May 31, 2024, 11:52:34 AMNow, for for someone to come up with a reliable and easy to use 12v power outlet plug connector for the car.
Like... uh.... USB?
Quote from: ZLoth on May 31, 2024, 01:47:34 PMQuote from: mgk920 on May 31, 2024, 11:52:34 AMNow, for for someone to come up with a reliable and easy to use 12v power outlet plug connector for the car.
Like... uh.... USB?
A*five volt* USB plug won't have the energy capacity to feed a 65 watt 120 VAC power inverter.
Mike
An über-annoying tech thought (such as in this and other forvms) - getting ready to click on an icon to see a deeper discussion page of interest and as you start pressing the button, an ad loads causing the icon to 'jump', resulting in a sometimes unknowable page opeming. :banghead:
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on May 31, 2024, 11:52:34 AMQuote from: ZLoth on May 30, 2024, 12:43:35 PMFrom How-To Geek:
After 60 Years the 4-Pin Molex Connector Is Finally (Almost) DeadQuoteFor the entirety of my PC building career, the 4-pin Molex power connector has been there. At one point it felt like everything on my computer used it, but my love-hate relationship with this common connector is almost at an end, it seems. So it's time to prepare the eulogy.
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://markholtz.info/2ut)
Thank goodness. Lord knows how many times I got frustrated because the pins were very loose in the connector.
Now, for for someone to come up with a reliable and easy to use 12v power outlet plug connector for the car. :banghead:
Mike
https://www.google.com/search?q=12v+to+110v+inverter+for+car
Avoid going over 300-400 watts in most cars and light trucks unless your alternator and battery can spare it (medium-duty vehicle applications).
I use a small 150W one for my car and a larger 400W inverter for long trips with the kids. No problems over 10-15 of use, though they're not used every day, either.
I love Linux, and I am never ever going back to Windows as a daily driver for any reason. It doesn't try to steal my data, there's no AI shit, and it is designed according to what theoretically benefits the user instead of what makes some shithead CEO more money. But the tradeoff means that every once in a while I have to deal with a hideous bug of some kind.
With the most recent Inkscape update, it will fail to start if a drawing tablet is connected. Like, just straight up instant crash and barf out a stack trace on startup. It's choking when trying to query the input devices, I guess. So the obvious thing to do is just disconnect the tablet when I need to start Inkscape. This would be mildly annoying with my old tablet, which just had a simple USB plug. But my new tablet pairs to the computer through Bluetooth. But I can't bypass the bug just by turning the tablet off, oh no. To get Inkscape to start, I have to completely unpair and purge the tablet from the system. Then it will start. And after that, I can re-pair the tablet and use it, even in Inkscape, just fine. Inkscape just can't be allowed to know while starting up that there is a drawing tablet, of any kind, anywhere in the Las Vegas Valley.
Of course, since unpairing/forgetting a device is probably a thing most people do once over the course of the device's lifetime, if that, the interface for this is kind of clunky and annoying to get to. So I'm trying to keep an empty Inkscape window open at all times, just so that any time I try to get some work done I don't have to play Bluetooth hokey pokey. But of course, periodically Inkscape will crash for other, unrelated reasons, so then I still get to take my tablet out, and put my tablet in, and shake it all about.
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 08, 2024, 05:24:20 AMWith the most recent Inkscape update, it will fail to start if a drawing tablet is connected. Like, just straight up instant crash and barf out a stack trace on startup. It's choking when trying to query the input devices, I guess.
Have you checked the Inkscape forums to see if it is a known issue?
Quote from: ZLoth on June 08, 2024, 10:29:14 AMQuote from: Scott5114 on June 08, 2024, 05:24:20 AMWith the most recent Inkscape update, it will fail to start if a drawing tablet is connected. Like, just straight up instant crash and barf out a stack trace on startup. It's choking when trying to query the input devices, I guess.
Have you checked the Inkscape forums to see if it is a known issue?
Yes, that's how I found out that it was the tablet doing it. (The nice thing about having a stack trace is you can usually just paste it into Google and, if your issue is known, it will be the first thing that comes up.)
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/issues/4649
Fixed in the development version (apparently it was an upstream issue that was fixed when they migrated library versions). But they haven't released a version with the fix included yet; it looks like the devs were waffling on whether they want to do an unplanned bugfix release to 1.3 or just wait for 1.4, which is in beta now. Given that the last comment here was about a week before the beta was released, I'm guessing they're just waiting for 1.4. Which, fair enough, but that does mean I basically have to wait in line while all of the 1.4 bugs are fixed.
At least there's all this transparency with open-source software, so I at least know the devs care about the problem and a fix is coming. If this happened with Adobe Illustrator, not only would I be giving Adobe all my money and data constantly, but I'd have no way of knowing if the company intended on actually fixing its product or not.
From Ars Technica:
Retired engineer discovers 55-year-old bug in Lunar Lander computer game code
A physics simulation flaw in text-based 1969 computer game went unnoticed until today.QuoteOn Friday, a retired software engineer named Martin C. Martin announced that he recently discovered a bug in the original Lunar Lander computer game's physics code while tinkering with the software. Created by a 17-year-old high school student named Jim Storer in 1969, this primordial game rendered the action only as text status updates on a teletype, but it set the stage for future versions to come.
The legendary game—which Storer developed on a PDP-8 minicomputer in a programming language called FOCAL just months after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their historic moonwalks—allows players to control a lunar module's descent onto the Moon's surface. Players must carefully manage their fuel usage to achieve a gentle landing, making critical decisions every ten seconds to burn the right amount of fuel.
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://markholtz.info/2v3)
From Reuters:
Japan declares victory in effort to end government use of floppy disksQuoteJapan's government has finally eliminated the use of floppy disks in all its systems, two decades since their heyday, reaching a long-awaited milestone in a campaign to modernise the bureaucracy.
By the middle of last month, the Digital Agency had scrapped all 1,034 regulations governing their use, except for one environmental stricture related to vehicle recycling.
"We have won the war on floppy disks on June 28!" Digital Minister Taro Kono, who has been vocal about wiping out fax machines and other analogue technology in government, told Reuters in a statement on Wednesday.
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-declares-victory-effort-end-government-use-floppy-disks-2024-07-03/)
From Tom's Hardware:
Japanese gov celebrates demise of the floppy disk — 1,000+ regulations requiring their use have been scrappedQuoteJapan's Digital Minister, Taro Kono, is celebrating the demise of the floppy disk. "We have won the war on floppy disks on June 28," Kono told Reuters earlier today. The milestone, decades after the storage medium's heyday, was reached as the scrapping of 1,034 official regulations that required the filing of floppy disks was enacted.
Back in January, we reported on the Japanese government's planned abolition of the floppy disk as it sought to modernize. Thus, these last few months have been the final hurrah for the iconic magnetic media format in Japan. As of June 28, only one official regulation requires a floppy to be filed—an environmental stricture related to vehicle recycling.
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/japanese-gov-celebrates-demise-of-the-floppy-disk-1000-regulations-requiring-their-use-have-been-scrapped)
From Japan Today:
Japan declares victory in effort to end government use of floppy disksQuoteJapan's government has finally eliminated the use of floppy disks in all its systems, two decades since their heyday, reaching a long-awaited milestone in a campaign to modernize the bureaucracy.
By the middle of last month, the Digital Agency had scrapped all 1,034 regulations governing their use, except for one environmental stricture related to vehicle recycling.
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://japantoday.com/category/business/japan-declares-victory-in-effort-to-end-government-use-of-floppy-disks)
I haven't used a mechanical external drive disk, including 'burnable' CDs, for data storage in nearly two decades. I do have a 'flash' thumb drive on my keychain as a backup.
Mike
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 08, 2024, 05:24:20 AMWith the most recent Inkscape update, it will fail to start if a drawing tablet is connected. Like, just straight up instant crash and barf out a stack trace on startup. It's choking when trying to query the input devices, I guess. So the obvious thing to do is just disconnect the tablet when I need to start Inkscape. This would be mildly annoying with my old tablet, which just had a simple USB plug. But my new tablet pairs to the computer through Bluetooth. But I can't bypass the bug just by turning the tablet off, oh no. To get Inkscape to start, I have to completely unpair and purge the tablet from the system. Then it will start. And after that, I can re-pair the tablet and use it, even in Inkscape, just fine. Inkscape just can't be allowed to know while starting up that there is a drawing tablet, of any kind, anywhere in the Las Vegas Valley.
I have come up with the stupidest workaround to this bug.
The least ludicrous part is that I downloaded the 1.4 beta, in which the bug is fixed. I have it as an AppImage, which is basically a self contained package that contains the executable and all of the dependencies, so that it will always run on every Linux system, regardless of what libraries it has installed and where. But anyway, it starts regardless of whether my tablet is around or not.
Now, the problem here is that I absolutely loathe the file selector Inkscape uses. I am used to being able to jump deep into a folder hierarchy by just typing the absolute path in a box, hitting enter, and then selecting the file I want. Inkscape uses the GTK file selector, which implements this in a way that's awkward enough that I would much rather just cruise around the file system in my file manager and click SVGs in that to open them. (This works better for my workflow anyway because I normally have to check the SVG into Git or run a script on it after I edit it, and the Dolphin file manager has a shell window that will automatically cd to wherever the graphical file manager is.)
Downloading an AppImage, however, does not update file associations. There's probably a way to update the file association to point at the AppImage, but I'd just have to undo that whenever 1.4 is officially released, so I don't feel like looking up how to do it. So anytime I click an SVG, an Inkscape 1.3 window opens and immediately crashes. But before it does...it apparently writes the file it opened into the recent files list...which is shared between the installed 1.3 and the 1.4 AppImage somehow.
So my stupid workaround is to open the file in 1.3, let it crash, then snag it from the recent files list in 1.4.
Discover the excellence!
My daughter has a car without an MP3 player nor AUX port, just a CD player and radio. She asked me to copy a few CDs from my collection, so the originals aren't lost. I dug around in some boxes, and found about two dozen unused CD-ROMs. She also had an old CD player in her room that was unused since she was about 4-5, but it still works.
I honestly forgot if it was called "ripping" or "burning" a CD, and I had to quickly look up how to do it on Windows Media Player; I hadn't made a copy (legal or otherwise) in almost 20 years, since acquiring an MP3 player in late-2004.
Quote from: formulanone on July 08, 2024, 10:49:04 AMMy daughter has a car without an MP3 player nor AUX port, just a CD player and radio. She asked me to copy a few CDs from my collection, so the originals aren't lost. I dug around in some boxes, and found about two dozen unused CD-ROMs. She also had an old CD player in her room that was unused since she was about 4-5, but it still works.
I honestly forgot if it was called "ripping" or "burning" a CD, and I had to quickly look up how to do it on Windows Media Player; I hadn't made a copy (legal or otherwise) in almost 20 years, since acquiring an MP3 player in late-2004.
"Ripping" is the term of pulling the audio from a CD to a MP3 file. Also, there were programs that would duplicate a CD to a burnable CD.
Without knowing the make and model, there are FM transmitters available that can rebroadcast the Bluetooth to a unused FM frequency, but the power is limited and is subject to interference. There are afternmarket solutions as well to add Bluetooth capability.
I use a couple of cheap AC powered amplified computer desk speakers thrown on the back seat floor to play an old-school iPod in the car. Works and sounds great - and I can listen to something else, like a game, on the car's radio at the same time.
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on July 08, 2024, 12:37:00 PMI use a couple of cheap AC powered amplified computer desk speakers thrown on the back seat floor to play an old-school iPod in the car. Works and sounds great - and I can listen to something else, like a game, on the car's radio at the same time.
Mike
That sounds noisy.
Quote from: Rothman on July 08, 2024, 06:27:58 PMQuote from: mgk920 on July 08, 2024, 12:37:00 PMI use a couple of cheap AC powered amplified computer desk speakers thrown on the back seat floor to play an old-school iPod in the car. Works and sounds great - and I can listen to something else, like a game, on the car's radio at the same time.
Mike
That sounds noisy.
Zip-tie the wires and cords together, works great, the speakers are shaped like triangular prisms.
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on July 08, 2024, 09:23:03 PMQuote from: Rothman on July 08, 2024, 06:27:58 PMQuote from: mgk920 on July 08, 2024, 12:37:00 PMI use a couple of cheap AC powered amplified computer desk speakers thrown on the back seat floor to play an old-school iPod in the car. Works and sounds great - and I can listen to something else, like a game, on the car's radio at the same time.
Mike
That sounds noisy.
Zip-tie the wires and cords together, works great, the speakers are shaped like triangular prisms.
Mike
That doesn't do anything about the iPod and the radio going at the same time. My brain would overheat trying and failing to pick one to focus on. Even worse if the radio is playing music, because then you have two different songs going at once that probably aren't even in the same key so they'd be making all sorts of discordant noise.
Quote from: ZLoth on July 08, 2024, 11:14:32 AMQuote from: formulanone on July 08, 2024, 10:49:04 AMMy daughter has a car without an MP3 player nor AUX port, just a CD player and radio. She asked me to copy a few CDs from my collection, so the originals aren't lost. I dug around in some boxes, and found about two dozen unused CD-ROMs. She also had an old CD player in her room that was unused since she was about 4-5, but it still works.
I honestly forgot if it was called "ripping" or "burning" a CD, and I had to quickly look up how to do it on Windows Media Player; I hadn't made a copy (legal or otherwise) in almost 20 years, since acquiring an MP3 player in late-2004.
"Ripping" is the term of pulling the audio from a CD to a MP3 file. Also, there were programs that would duplicate a CD to a burnable CD.
Without knowing the make and model, there are FM transmitters available that can rebroadcast the Bluetooth to a unused FM frequency, but the power is limited and is subject to interference. There are aftermarket solutions as well to add Bluetooth capability.
She has one of those for the car; but I think many in her generation are doing what many others have done before: a sense of nostalgia for things they didn't have or was just a decade before their times. To a small extent, they want CDs, film cameras, and 80s-90s fashion. The first two aren't going to overtake commonplace music and image/video distribution, it's cool they want to be part of something that would otherwise be entirely forgotten.
It's driven by the same way every teen-to-twentysomething is hawked curiosities, fashions, or arts/culture from 30 years ago, probably from the last 50-60 years or so. It just so happens we have a lot of that kind of stuff around the house.
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 08, 2024, 10:10:51 PMQuote from: mgk920 on July 08, 2024, 09:23:03 PMQuote from: Rothman on July 08, 2024, 06:27:58 PMQuote from: mgk920 on July 08, 2024, 12:37:00 PMI use a couple of cheap AC powered amplified computer desk speakers thrown on the back seat floor to play an old-school iPod in the car. Works and sounds great - and I can listen to something else, like a game, on the car's radio at the same time.
Mike
That sounds noisy.
Zip-tie the wires and cords together, works great, the speakers are shaped like triangular prisms.
Mike
That doesn't do anything about the iPod and the radio going at the same time. My brain would overheat trying and failing to pick one to focus on. Even worse if the radio is playing music, because then you have two different songs going at once that probably aren't even in the same key so they'd be making all sorts of discordant noise.
My mind doesn't work like that and adjusting the volume between the two is like a 'second nature' to me.
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on July 09, 2024, 11:02:57 AMQuote from: Scott5114 on July 08, 2024, 10:10:51 PMQuote from: mgk920 on July 08, 2024, 09:23:03 PMQuote from: Rothman on July 08, 2024, 06:27:58 PMQuote from: mgk920 on July 08, 2024, 12:37:00 PMI use a couple of cheap AC powered amplified computer desk speakers thrown on the back seat floor to play an old-school iPod in the car. Works and sounds great - and I can listen to something else, like a game, on the car's radio at the same time.
Mike
That sounds noisy.
Zip-tie the wires and cords together, works great, the speakers are shaped like triangular prisms.
Mike
That doesn't do anything about the iPod and the radio going at the same time. My brain would overheat trying and failing to pick one to focus on. Even worse if the radio is playing music, because then you have two different songs going at once that probably aren't even in the same key so they'd be making all sorts of discordant noise.
My mind doesn't work like that and adjusting the volume between the two is like a 'second nature' to me.
Mike
Wut.
From Ars Technica:
Intel is offering extended warranties for crashing 13th- and 14th-gen desktop CPUs
Intel's microcode fix won't help CPUs that are already damaged.QuoteIntel will be releasing a microcode update to prevent further damage to crashing 13th- and 14th-generation desktop processors sometime this month if it can stick to its previously announced schedule. This fix should be available via BIOS updates from PC and motherboard makers and from Microsoft as a Windows update. But it will take time for those updates to roll out to users, and Intel has said that processors that are already exhibiting crashes have been permanently damaged and won't be fixed by the microcode update.
In an effort to provide peace of mind to buyers and cover anyone whose CPU is subtly damaged but not showing explicit signs of instability, Intel is extending the warranty on all affected 13th- and 14th-generation CPUs by an additional two years, Tom's Hardware reports. This raises the warranty on a new boxed Intel CPU from three years to five. For processors that came installed in pre-built PCs, Intel says users should reach out to their PC's manufacturer for support instead.
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://markholtz.info/2vb)
:banghead:
From Ars Technica:
Sci-fi writer and WordStar lover re-releases the cult DOS app for free
"Compared to it, Microsoft Word is pure madness"—Anne Rice.QuoteWordStar's most recent claim to fame might be that it's the word processing application on which George R.R. Martin is still not finishing A Song of Ice and Fire.
But many writers loved and still love WordStar, a word processor notably good for actual writing. As computers moved on from DOS to Windows, and word programs grew to encompass features that strayed far from organizing words on a page, WordStar hung back, whether in DOS emulation or in the hearts of its die-hard fans.
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://markholtz.info/2vc)
Quote from: ZLoth on August 08, 2024, 10:43:03 AMFrom Ars Technica:
Sci-fi writer and WordStar lover re-releases the cult DOS app for free
"Compared to it, Microsoft Word is pure madness"—Anne Rice.QuoteWordStar's most recent claim to fame might be that it's the word processing application on which George R.R. Martin is still not finishing A Song of Ice and Fire.
But many writers loved and still love WordStar, a word processor notably good for actual writing. As computers moved on from DOS to Windows, and word programs grew to encompass features that strayed far from organizing words on a page, WordStar hung back, whether in DOS emulation or in the hearts of its die-hard fans.
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://markholtz.info/2vc)
I haven't used WordStar for over 40 years, but I've configured its main control character key assignments into other text editors and word processors ever since.
Yesterday was... interesting. Here goes...
- I had a power outage at my home where I discovered that the backup battery on my garage door opener as well as batteries for my two Uninterruptible Power Supply.
- I had it with my Dynamic DNS service that was offered through my router. The name was in the format example.asuscomm.com (substitute example for the name I was using), but was constantly dropping off the network with a two-minute TTL. I then discovered that there was a TrueNAS app called "[ddns-updater](https://github.com/qdm12/ddns-updater)" which will also the job. Cloudflare, as it turns out, has a free service for Dynamic DNS, and I'm able to use a full qualified domain name (FQDN) instead of sub-domaining off someone else. It was just a matter of finding the proper update token.
- Then I went through the headache of setting up [Nginx Proxy Manager](https://nginxproxymanager.com/) so that I can have a reserve proxy and SSL connections. However, I have to install it as root, otherwise it gets stuck at deploying. Only took about five tries.
- Oh hey, it turns out that Nginx can support subdomains so that https://app1.example.com points to http://192.168.1.2:10235 and https://app2.example.com points to http://192.168.1.2:3189 and have each https subdomain have it's own Let's Encrypt certificate.
- Of course, that means I have to update all of the configs of those two apps to point to those two domain names.
- OK, while I'm at it, I'll also go through the trouble is setting up some self-signed internal certificates for my server and install them on my computer.
Whee....
From Bleeping Computer:
Google warns uBlock Origin and other extensions may be disabled soonQuoteGoogle's Chrome Web Store is now warning that the uBlock Origin ad blocker and other extensions may soon be blocked as part of the company's deprecation of the Manifest V2 extension specification.
"This extension may soon no longer be supported because it doesn't follow best practices for Chrome extensions," reads the Chrome Web Store page for uBlock Origin.
The warning includes a link to a Google support bulletin that states the browser extension may be disabled to protect users' privacy and security.
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://markholtz.info/2w4)
I know this was coming. Oh well, I just deployed AdGuard Home (https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome) as an app on my server to serve as the DNS server to block the URLs instead. It was much simpler than I expected once I made the necessary DHCP modifications.
Gah. I really like uBlock.
Quote from: ZLoth on October 14, 2024, 08:50:21 PMQuotethe browser extension may be disabled to protect users' privacy and security.
YEAH, RIGHT!
Quote from: Rothman on October 14, 2024, 09:09:58 PMGah. I really like uBlock.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/
Quote from: Scott5114 on October 15, 2024, 10:22:49 AMQuote from: Rothman on October 14, 2024, 09:09:58 PMGah. I really like uBlock.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/
Unfortunately Firefox has missing features compared to Chrome and its derivatives. No reading list, for instance (Pocket fills a very different niche). And customizing the start page is a pain in the rear (and reverted after I tried). And middle clicking the links on the start page jumps to the new tab instead of opening it in the background (what if I want to open more than one?). And it manages to use more resources than Chrome when streaming video, resulting in my computer locking up when I tried.
My experiment with switching to Firefox over this issue didn't even last a day before I gave up and went back to Vivaldi (which does have a built-in adblocker, but it's not nearly as good as UBO; even UBOL is probably better).
Quote from: vdeane on October 15, 2024, 12:57:43 PMQuote from: Scott5114 on October 15, 2024, 10:22:49 AMQuote from: Rothman on October 14, 2024, 09:09:58 PMGah. I really like uBlock.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/
Unfortunately Firefox has missing features compared to Chrome and its derivatives. No reading list, for instance (Pocket fills a very different niche). And customizing the start page is a pain in the rear (and reverted after I tried). And middle clicking the links on the start page jumps to the new tab instead of opening it in the background (what if I want to open more than one?). And it manages to use more resources than Chrome when streaming video, resulting in my computer locking up when I tried.
My experiment with switching to Firefox over this issue didn't even last a day before I gave up and went back to Vivaldi (which does have a built-in adblocker, but it's not nearly as good as UBO; even UBOL is probably better).
I would guess "no adblock allowed" is a much bigger deal-breaker to most people than any of these very minor issues. (Other than the streaming video one which I haven't ever had a problem with, even when I was using my 10-year-old computer. Perhaps your graphics drivers are fucked?)
If the start page is really that much of an issue, you can always just put together an HTML page of whatever it is you want on it, saved to your home directory, and set that as the page that opens whenever you open a new tab. (My start page is basically blank since whenever I am opening a new tab it's because I already have a place in mind I want to go in it, so any sort of bell or whistle on the start page only appears for a few seconds anyway.)
I'm telling you, the day YouTube permanently breaks adblocking extensions for Firefox is the day I stop watching YouTube.
Quote from: LilianaUwU on October 15, 2024, 10:30:42 PMI'm telling you, the day YouTube permanently breaks adblocking extensions for Firefox is the day I stop watching YouTube.
I'm not sure they've even managed to keep Manifest v3 compliant extensions from blocking YouTube ads, at least not permanently, though I haven't tried them since Vivaldi's built-in adblocking was (mostly) fixed on YouTube.
Quote from: Scott5114 on October 15, 2024, 09:37:11 PMQuote from: vdeane on October 15, 2024, 12:57:43 PMQuote from: Scott5114 on October 15, 2024, 10:22:49 AMQuote from: Rothman on October 14, 2024, 09:09:58 PMGah. I really like uBlock.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/
Unfortunately Firefox has missing features compared to Chrome and its derivatives. No reading list, for instance (Pocket fills a very different niche). And customizing the start page is a pain in the rear (and reverted after I tried). And middle clicking the links on the start page jumps to the new tab instead of opening it in the background (what if I want to open more than one?). And it manages to use more resources than Chrome when streaming video, resulting in my computer locking up when I tried.
My experiment with switching to Firefox over this issue didn't even last a day before I gave up and went back to Vivaldi (which does have a built-in adblocker, but it's not nearly as good as UBO; even UBOL is probably better).
I would guess "no adblock allowed" is a much bigger deal-breaker to most people than any of these very minor issues. (Other than the streaming video one which I haven't ever had a problem with, even when I was using my 10-year-old computer. Perhaps your graphics drivers are fucked?)
If the start page is really that much of an issue, you can always just put together an HTML page of whatever it is you want on it, saved to your home directory, and set that as the page that opens whenever you open a new tab. (My start page is basically blank since whenever I am opening a new tab it's because I already have a place in mind I want to go in it, so any sort of bell or whistle on the start page only appears for a few seconds anyway.)
The proprietary Nvidia drivers should be fine, but not really sure how to make sure. All I know is that it didn't run well and my laptop would be even worse (though this test was done under Linux Mint 21, Linux Mint 22 is noticeably heavier and my laptop is always bogged down now; who knew when I got either that simple web browsing would one day require 8-16 GB of RAM?).
The start screen is because I always follow the same path on routine browsing, across ~4 tabs:
-Gmail (always open)
-YouTube Subscriptions (refresh at evening, then check my union email once that's done or I watch all new videos I'm interested in, whichever is last)
-Albany/Rochester Weather (Weather Underground)->morning Facebook check
-Inoreader->Google News->AA Roads->Travel Mapping Forum->evening Facebook check
All other browsing (except things like online banking) is done via incognito tabs, an old habit from when I was curating Chrome's "most visited" list on the new tab page that I haven't managed to break even though it's obsolete.
The reading list, meanwhile, is indispensable when reading fanfiction or online serials.
Quote from: vdeane on October 16, 2024, 01:01:11 PMThe start screen is because I always follow the same path on routine browsing, across ~4 tabs:
I handle this by using Firefox's "pinned tabs" feature to keep my routinely-checked tabs always open and at the front of the tab list. I also use an extension that kicks tabs out of memory if they haven't been used for 5 minutes. (This means that any time I visit one of my pinned tabs, it refreshes.) So my first six tabs, for example, are my four email accounts, the forum, and my AARoads Wiki watchlist.
I have no concept of a "reading list" feature, so I can't speak to how I'd solve that particular problem. For things like webcomics which only get updated periodically, I just...uh, pin the tabs for those and try to remember to check them every so often.
Doing everything in incognito tabs is wild. Couldn't be me—I've had to go on a deep dive into browser history to find a page I forgot the URL to too many times.
Quote from: Scott5114 on October 17, 2024, 12:16:12 AMI also use an extension that kicks tabs out of memory if they haven't been used for 5 minutes. (This means that any time I visit one of my pinned tabs, it refreshes.) So my first six tabs, for example, are my four email accounts, the forum, and my AARoads Wiki watchlist.
Interesting how different people browser differently. I had to install an extension to disable Chromium's built-in tab discard/refresh feature because I was tired of page content changing/resetting (thereby preventing me from continuing from wherever I was before I switched away) whenever I'd return to a tab. Although the fact that this feature was annoying the crap out of me should have probably been my first clue that web browsing takes a lot more RAM than it used to. Instead I thought the browser was just being way too aggressive with discarding RAM.
Sigh... the war against annoying ads continues. I love how they are including the obligatory "guilt trip" message "Continue without supporting", but one site which I was visiting from my mobile browser, when you click on "Continue without supporting", just freezes your browser window preventing you from scrolling. That left me with a choice... either disable the AdGuard home for about a minute to read the article, or take the option of "Never recommend articles from the site". I chose the "Never recommend articles".
Quote from: vdeane on October 17, 2024, 09:29:04 PMQuote from: Scott5114 on October 17, 2024, 12:16:12 AMI also use an extension that kicks tabs out of memory if they haven't been used for 5 minutes. (This means that any time I visit one of my pinned tabs, it refreshes.) So my first six tabs, for example, are my four email accounts, the forum, and my AARoads Wiki watchlist.
Interesting how different people browser differently. I had to install an extension to disable Chromium's built-in tab discard/refresh feature because I was tired of page content changing/resetting (thereby preventing me from continuing from wherever I was before I switched away) whenever I'd return to a tab. Although the fact that this feature was annoying the crap out of me should have probably been my first clue that web browsing takes a lot more RAM than it used to. Instead I thought the browser was just being way too aggressive with discarding RAM.
This particular extension won't discard a tab if anything has been entered into a form on the page, which would be my main concern. Any other site where a refresh would cause problems, I can add into a "never discard tabs from this site" list.
From The Register:
That hardware will be more reliable if you stop stabbing it all day
Knives and lasers don't mix ... until they do
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/15/on_call/)
Does anyone know why the iCloud control panel would not allow one to log in on a Windows 10 PC? This morning, for whatever reason, the iCloud control panel opened when I booted my PC. It hasn't done that in ages, at least a year or two. I noted that the new iOS password manager can apparently now sync to a PC using iCloud, so I clicked to enabled that and it told me to sign in. No big deal, I entered my password and then the six-digit code it sent to my phone....and then it became a problem because it dumped me right back to the password screen. Same thing happened multiple times. I checked the password and it's correct. Anyone know what might be causing this? I don't want to sign out of iCloud on my PC because it says it will remove the iCloud photo stream from the device if I do that.
From CNET:
Live in an Old House or Apartment? Your Gaming PC May Be a Fire Hazard
If you haven't had electrical work done in decades, you may need to worry about harmonics when using your gaming PC. Here's what to watch out for.QuoteAn electrical fire smells like fish. I learned this the hard way after my gaming PC with an RTX 4090 and Intel Core-i9 processor melted the outlet it was plugged into, along with the plug. The fish smell comes from the plastic and heat-resistant chemicals used in outlets, circuit breakers and wiring insulation overheating.
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://markholtz.info/2wo)
From ZDNet:
Linux drops support for 486 and early Pentium processors - 20 years after Microsoft
I can still remember when the 33MHz 486DX was the fastest chip aroundQuoteRIP, 486 processor. You've had a long run since Intel released you back in 1989. While Microsoft stopped supporting you with the release of Windows XP in 2001, Linux kept you alive and well for another 20+ years. But all good things must come to an end, and with the forthcoming release of the Linux 6.15 kernel, the 486 and the first Pentium processors will be sunsetted.
Why? Linus Torvalds wrote recently on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), "I really get the feeling that it's time to leave i486 support behind. There's zero real reason for anybody to waste one second of development effort on this kind of issue."
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://markholtz.info/2wv)
From ArsTechnica:
Self-hosting is having a moment. Ethan Sholly knows why.
We interview Ethan Sholly of the selfh.st podcast/newsletter/directoryQuoteSelf-hosting is having a moment, even if it's hard to define exactly what it is.
It's a niche that goes beyond regular computing devices and networks but falls short of a full-on home lab. (Most home labs involve self-hosting, but not all self-hosting makes for a home lab.) It adds privacy, provides DRM-free alternatives, and reduces advertising. It's often touted as a way to get more out of your network-attached storage (NAS), but it's much more than just backup and media streaming.
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://markholtz.info/2ww)
Our first home computer was a 386. My reasoning was, "Who would ever need a 486?"
Quote from: ZLoth on May 22, 2025, 08:42:14 AMFrom ZDNet:
Linux drops support for 486 and early Pentium processors - 20 years after Microsoft
I can still remember when the 33MHz 486DX was the fastest chip aroundQuoteRIP, 486 processor. You've had a long run since Intel released you back in 1989. While Microsoft stopped supporting you with the release of Windows XP in 2001, Linux kept you alive and well for another 20+ years. But all good things must come to an end, and with the forthcoming release of the Linux 6.15 kernel, the 486 and the first Pentium processors will be sunsetted.
Why? Linus Torvalds wrote recently on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), "I really get the feeling that it's time to leave i486 support behind. There's zero real reason for anybody to waste one second of development effort on this kind of issue."
FULL ARTICLE HERE (https://markholtz.info/2wv)
Take it easy. We'll always have NetBSD.
Quote from: kkt on May 25, 2025, 09:56:22 AMQuote from: ZLoth on May 22, 2025, 08:42:14 AMFrom ZDNet:
Linux drops support for 486 and early Pentium processors - 20 years after Microsoft
I can still remember when the 33MHz 486DX was the fastest chip around
Take it easy. We'll always have NetBSD.
It's Linux. It would not surprise me if it was used some older embedded systems that used a 80486 processor. You can easily strip down a Linux install to it's bare essentials and it works.
Just to show there is still a use for old technology... I put in an old nVidia 1080 video card into my TrueNAS server to help with Plex transcoding. After a few tweaks at the command line level, the card was recognized within my Plex instance. Now, I have hardware transcoding and, more importantly, my 4K material plays back smoothly on both my Android phone and tablet.
And, a few days later, I picked up a 8GB 5060 card for my secondary computer to replace the one that I pulled out. For gaming, it isn't a good card because it should have more memory, but for transcoding, it's what I needed. Of course, this is when I discover my great error: While Handbrake had the checkbox set in the Preferences → Video → Nvidia NVENC, I never selected it as an encoding option. When I did and saved the preset, my encoding speeds literally tripled.
A planned personal server upgrade went... sideways... today. The server motherboard that I received is bigger than my case, necessitating a new case order.
I just ordered a pair of new hard drives, external to provide mass storage for my laptop. 26 terabytes each, and two of them so they can be mirrored.
My first computer hard drive, back in the early 1990s, was huge - about 500 megabytes.
Quote from: kkt on July 03, 2025, 11:07:33 PMMy first computer hard drive, back in the early 1990s, was huge - about 500 megabytes.
My first hard drive was a 105MB. I was happy when I replaced it with a 305 MB drive for $300.
Quote from: ZLoth on July 03, 2025, 09:47:07 PMA planned personal server upgrade went... sideways... today. The server motherboard that I received is bigger than my case, necessitating a new case order.
The case arrived Tuesday, and I installed the new hardware in it. No drives were installed, as I ran memory tests to stress test the memory. The NVMe boot drive and hard drives were transferred over Wednesday night, and Thursday morning, the system was closed up and transferred to my closet.
One neato feature that I made sure to get on this motherboard is Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI). This is a seperate subsystem on the motherboard, including it's own network port, that allows me console access through a web browser. This including being able to turn on and off the computer as well as perform a reset.