@John@socks.masto.host
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

John

@John@socks.masto.host

I am retired in Southern California after working on the computational side of chemistry, medical electronics, environmental monitoring, motion pictures, and even some web commerce.

I am interested in hiking and the outdoors, exercise physiology (especially for someone in my age group), gardening, and old man projects in general.

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John, to random
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"Huy Fongโ€™s Ex-Supplier Makes Its Own Srirachaโ€”But Is It Good?"

One secret to Vietnamese food is that there is a little sugar in things that you might not expect to have sugar, like the dipping sauce for your egg rolls(*). The same is true of Huy Fong Sriracha. It is a chili sauce that has both more sugar and more garlic than you might expect.

    • if you make the dipping sauce yourself you use bottled fish sauce, a little lemon juice, a little sugar, water, a little ๐ŸŒถ๏ธ

https://thetakeout.com/huy-fong-sriracha-new-recipe-vs-underwood-hot-review-1851318284

John, to random
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"In Defense of RAM"

Crazy article. I mean on one level it makes sense. 8G is kind of low for base memory in a $1500 machine. I think Beelink will give you 32G for about $800.

But .. all these stories about macOS gobbling memory are themselves a bit confounding.

I run 16G on Linux, and when I check I have about 2G in use. That's with a browser up, music playing, and some light programming going on in vim. Possibly "Monk like" per the article.

But still.

https://www.404media.co/in-defense-of-ram-on-apple-silicon/

John, to random
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"Dell's new workstation is crazy fast, thanks to a 96-core Threadripper processor"

I was wondering who needs a workstation with 96 cores, then I realized that it's those dudes with 96 open tabs.

But seriously, I think we've entered a funny age where the median pc for sale far exceeds the median needs of users.

What would a serious study of the installed base show? 1, 2 or 3 percent utilization?

But sure, buy something "scary fast" and open another couple dozen tabs.

https://www.xda-developers.com/dells-new-96-core-workstation/

John, to random
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@W6KME @ai6yr @ascentale @sam Ones I've seen are kind of a bottle type plastic (jug-like), but yes with more color.

John, to random
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Crooked Timber has a new and good (well researched) take on Marc Andreessenโ€™s recent โ€œtech optimist manifestoโ€

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/11/13/the-religion-of-the-engineers-and-hayek-its-true-prophet/

John, to random
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I am looking at this picture trying to decide if it is a real sander or another example of bad AI.

It doesn't quite make sense right? It's not a belt sander, but it could conceivably be some weird kind of drum sander. I've never seen anything real like it.

I was just agreeing with Bruce Sterling that this isn't a time of high innovation .. but this is something. Here I am, already questioning what is real.

John, to random
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"Seven reasons why the world should say No to Sam Altman"

Is this post unnecessary? I guess I assumed it would be. Now I hope it would be?

It should be completely obvious to everyone that when a man asks you for trillions of dollars to pursue his dream he has lost track of the horizon.

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/seven-reasons-why-the-world-should

John, to random
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Spotted down in Orange County, California.

John, to random
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"Microsoft has published guidance on how to download and install Linux. In other news, Hell freezes over and pigs fly south to their winter feeding grounds."

It's true, apparently.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/11/microsoft_documents_installing_linux/

John, to random
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I do the usual homeowner stuff and a fair amount of woodworking.

I have never owned a cordless tool.

I'm not sure why that is. I'm sure stubbornness is part of it, and the idea that I can get out an extension cord whenever I need it. Or the fear that batteries would die before I actually drilled that many holes.

But since everybody seems to be using cardless now I decided to give it a go. I watched YouTube reviews to find the best. And I discovered a funny thing.

1/

John, to random
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Others don't like this image. I have to admit my first reaction was negative. My second was that maybe it was all right, ironically. My third was that maybe it should be embraced in a Tomorrowland way?

If big TVs make people happy, and keep them off the road, maybe they are not bad.

At least he's not wearing goggles.

John, to random
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Cumulative advantage, what might be called more humorously the Justin Timberlake effect, is huge in all digital products and services.

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15wwlnidealab.t.html

The second thing to know though, is that all providers of digital products and services know that. They will consciously try to be the first mover, or sometimes the second mover, to sieze mindshare and advantage.

That's the old reason startups would get heavily funded in cash and run at losses for years, trying to gain advantage.

John, to debian
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The recent announcements about Plus were interesting. I have not used one, but I think I'm pretty open to the idea.

The thing is though, they risk a bit of a crossover. When you Plus a Chromebook it might be more expensive than a low end (and higher spec?) notebook.

i3 notebooks with 8/256 can be found pretty easy for $200-250.

I think for moderately technical users that invites comparison to a (really pretty easy) install. Run default apps, get updates, don't worry?

John, to random
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The California DMV has gone a bit nuts and is torturing the olds with dumb questions:

"John Suggs, 76, of Scotts Valley in the Santa Cruz Mountains, says he got a test question about 'how far your chest is supposed to be from an airbag. The answers I had to choose from were 8, 10 and 12 inches, with 10 being the correct answer. That level of specificity was laughable.'"

Whatever reputation the DMV had recovered over the years seems blown.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-10-07/column-for-drivers-70-and-older-the-road-rage-over-dmv-test-questions-continues

John, to random
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I really get a kick out of zoomable online images, like those made with OpenSeadragon and related tools.

I wonder why they didn't become more of a thing?

http://openseadragon.github.io/

John, to random
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The new Dell XPS gets the Copilot key and .. holy smokes, no esc!

Did this just happen, or have keyboards been losing escape when I was not looking?

  • signed, a nervous vi(m) user

https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/dell-xps-13-14-16-intel-core-ultra-price-specs-release-date

John, to random
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I periodically share my rss/atom feeds. I use these with "Feeder" on Android.

https://www.theregister.com/headlines.atom
https://m-cacm.acm.org/news.rss
https://spectrum.ieee.org/feeds/feed.rss
https://www.science.org/rss/news_current.xml
http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdotMain
http://techcrunch.com/feed/
https://www.technologyreview.com/feed/
http://rss.sciam.com/ScientificAmerican-Global
https://www.tomshardware.com/feeds/all
https://www.ft.com/alphaville?format=rss
https://knowablemagazine.org/rss
https://www.pewresearch.org/publications/feed/
https://crookedtimber.org/feed/
https://news.nononsenseapps.com/index.atom
https://www.techdirt.com/feed/
https://feeds.feedburner.com/shorpy?q=rss.xml

John, to random
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"Wait, wasnโ€™t layoff season meant to be over?"

"Big companies arenโ€™t spared: Itโ€™s not strictly startups โ€” a few of the bigguns are laying off employees too, including Amazon, TikTok, Microsoft/Activision and Google."

Best wishes to all those looking for work in a tough environment.

"Tech" has been insatiable for talent because they considered themselves in a high growth environment, competitive growth. But what if they start considering themselves mature industries?

https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/26/wait-wasnt-layoff-season-meant-to-be-over/

John, to random
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@mmasnick has written an interesting article:

"A few years ago, we wrote about Joe Bernsteinโ€™s absolutely fantastic long read on how weโ€™re probably all looking at the concept of disinformation wrong. As our title said, โ€œmost information on disinformation is misinformation.โ€ The underlying thesis is that tons of people seem to believe that disinformation is this all powerful force that drives people to do things they never would have done otherwise, in absence of the disinformation"

1/2

John, to random
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"Working Remotely Can More Than Halve an Office Employee's Carbon Footprint"

It has taken much longer than I expected for technology to kill distance, but it's slowly happening.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/working-remotely-can-more-than-halve-an-office-employees-carbon-footprint/

John, to random
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

Thinking about handing down my Subaru Outback and becoming a Prius* guy again.

It is a reduction in ability but it might fit my current actual lifestyle better**.

    • had 2005 Prius, considering 2024 Prime SE

** - Prius and Miata as 2 car solution. Hyde and Jekyll?

John, to random
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I wonder what this is, near downtown LA.

John, to random
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

On a lighter note, has anyone else noticed a tsunami of "please rate our service" emails? They seem legitimate, even if misguided. Get a car service, get an email. Buy something online or in person, get an email.

One followed up with "we noticed you haven't taken our survey," and then "last chance to take our survey."

The saddest was when I paid my home insurance and I got an email saying "hey, we noticed you paid your insurance how about taking our survey?"

Do they think this engenders love?

John, to random
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Never in the history of science fiction has artificial intelligence meant "as smart as the dumbest crew member."

John, to random
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

"I used ChromeOS Flex on an 18-year-old MacBook โ€” and it worked"

A computer restomod.

It might be fun to try with something otherwise headed for recycling.

https://www.xda-developers.com/i-used-chromeos-flex-18-year-old-macbook/

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