ifixcoinops

ifixcoinops, 3 days ago to random

I've got a row of LEDs running across the front of my house that I turn on and reprogram at Halloween and winter solstice time, and I'd like to run them in Pride too but

1. I've probably only got a couple of years before people start making Assumptions about my lights having Pride flag colours rather than Progress flag colours, but
2. I don't have any brown LEDs

Fedi, how are you handling progress colours with RGB LEDs this year? Bonus points for folks running a single LED line 'cause that's what I'm doing, post pics pls!

ifixcoinops, 4 days ago to random

As many of you know (because I won't shut up about it) I've gotten back into enjoying bikes after a brief two-decade hiatus

During that time, youtube was invented, and bike mechanics are on it, and oof mate I watched a video the other day

Dude was complaining about bikes being a durable good and there being so many bikes around and the manufacturers have to come up with new things or they won't sell any bikes anymore and that'll be bad for the industry and this was just such an illuminating look into the other end of how people approach these machines

Like, bikes are free. They cost nothing. There are so many of them. People put them out on the kerb on bin night. People chuck them in skips. The river's full of them. Once you've scrubbed the rust off and spent a few quid on new tubes etc a bike that you found waiting for the bin van still goes as fast as a brand new bike from today because they're powered by sandwiches that you were gonna eat anyway. Zooming around on trash night laughing your arse off on a bike that still has the "FREE BIKE" sign flapping in the wind feels like sticking your middle finger up at capitalism

ifixcoinops, 4 days ago to random

Seeing the furries moving their IMs to a different IM thing and I'm at once nostalgic for Trillian over dial-up and also quietly astonished that we still basically need Trillian, the basic problem of instant messaging being that all your friends are on different services is still the same problem here in 2024

ifixcoinops, 5 days ago to random

Need some lights for my bike, I see they're all USB rechargeable now and the dynamo-powered ones are scarce and have crap reviews

I mean I figured in the twenty years I've been out of biking, what with LEDs and such, the new lamps would draw so little juice you'd hardly even notice the jenny was engaged, maybe it could even charge up a wee battery or supercapacitor on the downhills, but instead it seems we're all taking our lights with us and plugging them into the wall?

We just not doing dynamos anymore I guess?

ifixcoinops, 5 days ago to random

Brace yourself for the wide-eyed Linux newbies romping through their computers in unalloyed delight only to trip over the GNU Image Manipulation Program and faceplant into a stinking sticky pile of secondhand cringe

ifixcoinops, 16 days ago to random

Wanna guess what I'm making?

ifixcoinops, 19 days ago (edited 19 days ago) to random

Got a fawn on my lawn, Fedi. Not responsive. Breathing is sporadic but seems strong when it's here. Any advice?

(don't comment unless you know what to do. If you google this for me, you'll catch a block.)

Update: gonna leave it alone and see if its mum comes back at dusk.

Update update: yes, this is what the local wildlife rescue people say to do. Seems the mums stay away from the little ones a lot because the mums smell tasty and don't want their kids around the tastysmell. The fawn's superpower is not smelling like much. The mum deer just leave them in a place that seems safeish, which, like, fine, I guess I'll take as a compliment.

ifixcoinops, 20 days ago to random

Ooooh should Pinball Dad stick his toe in the Linux Discourse

I've been on it since 2010, I guess I should maybe?

How about I stick my whole entire foot in, maybe if I poison it with my footstink then it'll die down a bit

ifixcoinops, 20 days ago to random

Been sick the past couple days after making my annual Fan Shenanigans thread so I gotta catch up on the replies but in the meantime I'm scrolling through my TL and what do I see, two things, Linux Discourse and Trans Guys Talking About Masculinity, this is Incredibly Fedi of y'all

ifixcoinops, 22 days ago to random

Every winter: 🦝 ah, time to make the annual "Here's how to DIY an anti-SAD lightbox" post
Every summer: 🦝 oho, time to make the annual "Here's how to suck cold air in" post

ifixcoinops, 25 days ago to random

Got me a 27" Panasonic telly, it's a CT-27E13G. It's got some linearity problems.

In an arcade monitor, I'd twist the pot marked VLIN until it looked alright, but instead the manufacturers invented a new system where you try to find the codes for the remote control that you don't have so that you can get the damn thing into a service menu and seriously am I missing something or have we just totally dropped the ball on the whole infrared remote control codes thing

Like, it's 2024, I've got a phone in a drawer with an IR blaster in it, we've had websites full of remote codes for going on three decades now, how come none of them know how to squirt out the "Recall" button for a CT-27E13G

ifixcoinops, 25 days ago to random

Some folk are settling on "slop" as a word for AI pollution like we settled on "spam" for advertising pollution and dang, I was really hoping we'd just call it pollution

ifixcoinops, 27 days ago (edited 27 days ago) to random

Damn I gotta play my garden music more

(once she's gone, obvs)

ifixcoinops, 28 days ago to random

Got a CRT telly with a HDMI input a couple years ago as a Goodwill impulse buy for 99 cents. Works and everything, tested it in the shop.

It's sat under a pinball for two years while I find room to set it up, I never once tried plugging anything into it

Anyway I've found somewhere for it to live and started making plans for a stand and figured I'd test it and found out it's a piece of shit lol

ifixcoinops, 1 month ago to random

Periodic reminder that I'll advertise your weird hobby website to my Improbable Island players for free, no catch, https://www.improbableisland.com/hobbysites.php

Why? Because google doesn't like it when people give away what they're trying to sell, and fuck those guys lol

ifixcoinops, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Alright so you know how there are RGB LED strips, where each LED is individually addressable, right? How each LED has a little chip that waits patiently for its turn to get a colour instruction from the MPU controlling it?

Has some cleverclogs invented That But For Switches, where I can get a bunch of little switches with chips built in and just run them all to the same damn pin, or am I stuck building a switch matrix like a chump

EDIT: Cheers Fedi, think I'm on the right track now. Don't worry, I'm not gonna try and do anything timing-sensitive like a pinball machine or anything haha

ifixcoinops, 1 month ago to random

(last couple boosts) Folks, you got something important to share about a war or a protest or a court case or an election, you want it to reach as many people as possible, for goodness' sakes CW it. CW'd posts get boosted more, whether or not you think they should.

ifixcoinops, 1 month ago to random

Just put a new brush gearbox assembly in my 500-series Roomba, and gave it a bit of a service and ran diagnostics while I was in there.

Results:
Dirt detect LED failed
Outer right light-touch opto failed
Front left LT opto failed
Front right LT opto failed
Centre right LT opto failed
Castor stasis-sensing opto failed

Since this series of Roomba was released in 2007, all the floor robot companies have fallen over themselves to add room-mapping AI, cameras, wifi, all kinda stuff, while the old 500 series pop up on Craigslist for fifty-odd bucks

Right now mine is downstairs bumping its nose against walls and furniture with absolutely no idea where it's going or what it's doing because most of its sensors are busted

And yet my carpets are getting clean while I sit on my ass writing this post

ifixcoinops, 1 month ago to random

Yaknowwhat, it's not by any means ready yet but I'm heading out the door in a minute so I'm just gonna post my #gameDad website and see if it holds up under the Fedi Hug, here ya go lol

https://gamedad.club

ifixcoinops, 1 month ago to random

I'm at the movies at the mall and there are eight people here

ifixcoinops, 1 month ago to random

Damn I love trash night

ifixcoinops, 1 month ago to random

🦆🐰🐺🐇🐭🐨🐴 we're all gonna visit 🐧's site at once to make a link preview
🦝 ooo, you shouldn't do that
🐧 I'm going to serve each of you six whole damn megabytes
🦝 ooo I've got another shouldn't just for you
🐧 maybe I should post about why is my site so slow
🦝 furtling for crumbs at the bottom of the Shouldn't Bag ooooo
🦊🦅🐗🐫 let's post about how none of this is actually a problem for anyone
🦝 turning the Shouldn't bag upside down and shaking it oh god hang on one at a time ONE at a TIME

ifixcoinops, 1 month ago to random

Plugging in some new-to-me speakers later on!

Reminded of all the time I spent selling fancy cables at Comet years ago.

You wanna know the honest truth about audio and video cables?

Cable quality does make a difference in analog signals - but you hit diminishing returns almost immediately.

There's a very noticeable difference between a £2 SCART lead and a £10 SCART lead. Like, it's clear as day, you don't have to look for it. If you have a really good telly and you're looking really close, you just might be able to tell the difference between a £20 SCART lead and a £40 SCART lead. You'll never see a difference between a £40 and a £100 cable no matter how hard you look.

Speaker cable, same deal. Shite skinny wire that comes in the bottom of the box your amp came with belongs in the bin, you'll hear a difference if you spend twenty or thirty bucks on a roll of some nice thick stuff - but you'll never hear a difference between the nominally-priced stuff and the super-expensive audiophile stuff, that's all just stuff for audio weirdos to spend money on.

ifixcoinops, 1 month ago to random

I got a secondhand projector screen for like fifty bucks because it was supposed to be motorized but the motor was knackered.

Spouse: 😺 oh that'll be awesome, we'll be able to motor it up to reveal the bookcases behind
Me: 🦝 aye it'll be magic, just gotta swap out the motor

Well she's been very patient the past three or four years

ifixcoinops, 1 month ago to random

Kid, looking at the streaming menu: 🐁 Ooh, they have ten men.
Me, busying with dinner: 🦝 Ten men?
Spouse: 😸 It's pronounced X-Men hon
🐁 ohhhhh
🦝 yeah ten men is something else
🐁 what
😼 ...
🦝 it's like Five Guys, you know, the burger shop
🦝 but harder