mcc

mcc, 1 year ago to random

For the last year I've been semi-daily posting "What I'm Listening To Today" links in this thread:

https://mastodon.social/@mcc/108199886340178151

The thread is now so long it is increasingly breaking Mastodon, so I am making a new thread, starting here.

To recap, here's the entirety of the year-one thread in the most impractical possible format: A YouTube playlist containing 246 songs and running for just over 47 hours:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLIjft6ja7DP_GwDs3XuTbiFmHYTwJWa7

mcc, 7 months ago to random

I've been told people on this website enjoy me trying to think through computer problems out loud while in incredible pain, so good news: I'm taking my new Thinkpad T14 (https://mastodon.social/@mcc/111218408629532857) out of the box and I'm going to install Linux on it first thing. So expect a LOT of complaining.

mcc, 2 years ago to random

What I'm listening to today: "space jam"

YouTube has this incredible wealth of people performing little improvised electronic sets pieces in bedrooms and on kitchen tables with whatever equipment they have and this has honestly been most of my music diet the last few years. A lot of these pieces have like 20 views yet are breathtaking. This is a 30-minute(!) ambient piece that starts as repetitive humming tones but finds a captivating hypnotic groove like… 12 minutes in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MUkdU67-Gg

mcc, 9 months ago to random

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

mcc, 2 months ago to random

Today is my birthday!

If you'd like to do something for me for my birthday, would you please reply to this with—or by other means send me— something with colors you liked? Like an image or a video or a link. Music would also be acceptable if it gives you a strong synesthesiac association with color.

If this request confuses you, here are some examples of images with colors I found striking [Artists: Laurie Barmore, Vian Borchert, Erica Aurahack]. But your reply can be whatever colors you like.

Abstract art by Vian Borchert
Abstract art by Vian Borchert

mcc, 10 months ago to random

I put it off but time to open the box.

Last time I bought a MacBook I promised myself that it would be the last time I ever bought an Apple product. I am so sad right now.

mcc, 8 months ago to random

It is getting increasingly awkward that my only daily drivers are a Win10 machine and a laptop based on antiquated MacOS. I should get a simple Linux laptop.

Last time I tried to do this though it turned out any laptops that run Linux with full hardware support out of the box are pretty expensive.

mcc, 11 months ago to random

Computer just switched off at random, for the second time today. This time, it happened simultaneous with a power flux event (the air conditioner halting).

Maybe I need a UPS. :(

mcc, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago) to random

Here is a question about DIGITAL VIDEO

My wife has a monitor with Thunderbolt 3 input only. That's the "USB-C shaped" Thunderbolt.

She wants to plug a device with HDMI output into it.

She has, already, a card that can convert Mini Displayport to USB-C. But to use this we must convert HDMI to Mini Displayport. We have many Mini Displayport to HDMI cables, but not the other way around.

Cheapest HDMI to Mini Displayport cable we're finding is $60.

Is this surprising? How should we do this?

mcc, 7 months ago to random

I have just found, on Amazon, a USB peripheral which is a gearshift for a manual transmission car

Challenge: What is the funniest way you could utilize this peripheral in software

https://www.amazon.ca/Thrustmaster-Shifter-8-Gear-Compatible-Playstation/dp/B0C2JCX1TD

mcc, 9 months ago to random

So I've got this mac now, plugged into a KVM with my "real" computer, and I keep switching over to the Mac, starting very large downloads, and then KVMing back to Windows. And then later when I return to the mac I discover the download failed partway through. This has happened like 3 times. WTF could be happening? Is the mac going to sleep? How do I make it stop? All the useful options appear to have been removed from the Energy Saver control panel:

mcc, 8 months ago to random

Okay it looks like I'm going to have to plug in my second hard drive to install exactly two things, (1) the Intel Quartus FPGA toolchain and (2) Baldur's Gate 3, each of which is actually about the same size (150 GB)

mcc, 1 month ago to random

Looking into how to set up a bluesky server.

Noticed this bit here, in the documentation. That's an interesting way to spell "cannot"

mcc, 22 days ago to random

Hard to imagine a signal that a website is a rugpull more intense than banning users for trying to delete their own posts

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/stack-overflow-bans-users-en-masse-for-rebelling-against-openai-partnership-users-banned-for-deleting-answers-to-prevent-them-being-used-to-train-chatgpt

Like just incredible "burning the future to power the present" energy here

mcc, 1 month ago to random

2008, me: I love the idea of cryptocurrency

BITCOIN: The word "cryptocurrency" now means "financial scams based on inefficient write-only ledgers"

2018, me: I love the idea of the metaverse

FACEBOOK: The word "metaverse" now means "proprietary 3D chat programs with no soul"

2022, me: I love the idea of procedurally generated content

OPENAI: From now on people will associate that only with big corporations plagiarizing small artists and turning their work into ugly content slurry

mcc, 10 months ago to random

It is mind boggling to me how many websites make it difficult or impossible to express the idea you no longer wish to use an old credit card

mcc, 10 months ago to random

I rented a car and the rear view mirror is not a mirror at all but rather is a tiny LED screen showing the output of a camera. This is actually fucking terrible because I have no idea where the camera is, therefore I have no idea where this notional "mirror" is meant to be in space and therefore I cannot gauge distances, normally one of the main things you look into a rear view mirror to do

mcc, 10 months ago to random

"With a software death date baked into each model, older versions of these inexpensive computers are set to expire three to six years after their release. Despite having fully functioning hardware, an expired Chromebook will no longer receive the software updates it needs, blocking basic websites and applications from use…

[Pictured] A pile of Chromebooks with expired software sit in a classroom at Montera Middle School in Oakland, Calif"

https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/07/24/built-in-software-death-dates-are-sending-thousands-of-schools-chromebooks-to-the-recycling-bin/

mcc, 11 months ago to random

Entire Internet is dying at once https://www.androidauthority.com/youtube-confirm-three-strikes-policy-ad-blocking-test-3340826/

mcc, 10 months ago to random

Just went to the bother of taking 12 full-screen screenshots only to discover that if you take a full-screen window screenshot with Windows 10's "Snipping Tool" it is defaced with a single-pixel fragment of the Snipping Tool UI. Every time. All these screenshots are now potentially useless. This is the thing Microsoft aggressively deprecated the old "Print Screen" tech for.

I am continually shocked that Microsoft is a real company that actually delivers the software they deliver.

mcc, 11 months ago to random

Starting another little WebGPU project. In order to justify spending time on a doofy graphics demo I think I'm going to claim it's a "tutorial" and write a blog post when it's done

So far all I've got is about 1/2 of a Tanzanian flag

mcc, 11 months ago to random

Alriiiight so Musk finally took a step it didn't even occur to me he'd take. Twitter's gone completely private. You can't see any page unless you're logged in. Not tweets, not profiles. (Embeds still work.) You can't even see whether a profile exists without being logged in.

Or maybe it's a bug? Twitter has literally no messaging anymore even on huge policy changes.

Anyway, I'm giving them until July 30, if they haven't fixed it by then I'm hosting an offsite archive and deleting my Tweets.

mcc, 9 months ago to random

The thing I'm going to be focusing on, reading the indictment, is: Does the legal theory of the indictment suggest it is illegal interference for a candidate to publicly claim after an election that the election was stolen? Because it feels like buying into that idea will backfire if/when in future conservatives steal elections. It seems tho like they have lots of options for specific interference, EG, pressuring officials and whatnot, without going there. We'll see

mcc, 11 months ago to random

Okay I think for first attempt getting Linux running I'm just going to sigh and install Ubuntu 23.04. If it works ok and I establish a /home on the other drive I'll consider pop!_os later as an experiment in learning (or living without) kernel signing.

My goals:

• Fit on 37 GB spare partition
• Get Vulkan running and execute one webgpu program in Rust
• (win condition) Successfully support a sound card with 16 channels of IO
• (stretch goal) Get Wayland running

mcc, 1 month ago to random

For the last two years I've been semi-daily posting "What I'm Listening to Today" links here. Mastodon has some problems with threads containing hundreds of posts, so I re-create the thread once a year.

If you'd like to see, here's my "year two" thread: https://mastodon.social/@mcc/110266770603341546

Or, alternately, every song from year two in the least practical format possible: A 301-song, 38-hour YouTube playlist (note: video #1 contains flashing):

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLIjft6ja7DM_kacOW8zo2vtr-aWpTNX6

And here's the thread for "year three":