@etchedpixels@mastodon.social
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

etchedpixels

@etchedpixels@mastodon.social

Retired Linux hacker, gamer, retrocomputing, model trains

ESO: EtchedPixels & PenguinOfEvil (Wombles, Greymanes, Chill Mode)

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

mike, to random
@mike@flipboard.com avatar

The big problem with Tesla that this article misses completely is that many of Tesla's most enthusiastic customers (like I once was) no longer want to support a person who is actively promoting hateful conspiracy theories and providing nazis and Russians with a platform to disrupt the upcoming U.S. election.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/05/chaos-at-tesla-what-analysts-think-about-elon-musks-cuts-and-layoffs/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into AC/DC AI @ac

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@t_mkdf @mike @ac BYD are already discussing where they will build their EU and NA factories. They are well aware that they'll have to do some production in other markets to keep the politicians onside just as Japan did. NA looks like it will be Mexico so they can use NAFTA to avoid tariffs, EU not yet clear.

glynmoody, to ireland
@glynmoody@mastodon.social avatar

#Ireland plans to send #asylum seekers back to #UK under emergency law - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/28/ireland-plans-to-send-asylum-seekers-back-to-uk-under-emergency-law "Taoiseach wants to reduce arrivals through Northern Ireland amid concern that Sunak’s #Rwanda plan is driving people to Ireland" this is going to end in tears...

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@glynmoody Except that the UK is no longer a safe country due to the Rwanda law so he won't be able to send them back any more. Something I am quite sure the UK government has factored in and intended.

etchedpixels, to random
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

Every time some wannabe economics nut starts explaining how people should be economically rational explain that economically rational people would look at their pet cat when it needed the vet and conclude that since new cats are basically free it's not economically rational to repair the existing one.

jwildeboer, (edited ) to Bulgaria
@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net avatar

Here's a pattern to observe: Whenever a directive (which MUST be implemented in national law) is perceived as a net positive, the national governments will claim it is THEIR success when they (after max 24 months) implement it in national law. They will almost never mention that it was the EU that did it. When a directive is perceived as net negative, the blame goes to Brussels. The EU can never win and show how much good they do. That's why I use .

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@jwildeboer It was that way when I first got involved in it. Plus being an absolute cess pit of unregulated lobbying and dodgy dealers.

Worse than the "EU did it" side was that there was systematic policy laundering going on where policies that would be unpopular were trundled by national governments through the EU so they could then blame the EU for them,

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@jwildeboer The EU is very corrupt and broken. It's less corrupt and broken than many of the alternatives however but things like lobbying need fixing badly.

It's what happens when you retrofit a trade scheme as a government and then don't actually redo the system design because nobody can agree whether it's supposed to be a trading scheme plus or a united states of Europe and each members position changes every few years. Plus half the the time they hate each other and it's only there by need.

NanoRaptor, to random
@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar

You get to make one change to any single genus of animal that’s immediately applied to all of its members worldwide.

What do you change for maximum chaos?

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@NanoRaptor I'd make humans genetically incapable of lying, then sit back with popcorn.

1br0wn, to ai
@1br0wn@eupolicy.social avatar

‘The head of Indian IT company Tata Consultancy Services has said artificial intelligence will result in “minimal” need for call centres in as soon as a year, with ’s rapid advances set to upend a vast industry across Asia and beyond... its pipeline of projects doubled quarter over quarter to be worth $900mn to the end of March.’ https://www.ft.com/content/149681f0-ea71-42b0-b85b-86073354fb73

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@glynmoody @1br0wn Or to judge by a certain airline lawsuit - a lot better, because if you can persuade the AI to promise something you can then go see your lawyer next.
Whole marvellous litigation farming business opportunities await

etchedpixels, to random
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

Today is cat to vet day aka open warfare. This time the cat has made a pre-emptory first strike by vomiting all over our bed

Joy

etchedpixels, to random
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

The total of Amazon in one screenshot. Pages and pages of random letter names selling what appears to be the same product at wildly differing prices with no way to tell which if any are real, are authorized distributors or selling product that might conform with UK/EU safety regs.

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@larsmb You either go to aliexpress which is cheaper and you've got more chance of finding the real supplier, or you go somewhere else so you can get it from a reputable source and if it's junk take it back

po3mah, to homeassistant
@po3mah@mastodon.social avatar

Yes, it is the DNS.

Today is the fourth day of the Mitsubishi's MELCloud outage. This means their heatpumps and AC units all over the EU can not be controlled remotely. Their communication about the issue is a shame, again.

The quick temporary workaround is to add the following entry to your local DNS (router or Pi-hole or similar):

production.receiver.melcloud.com 52.49.107.93

It is high time to legislate local access to 'smart' devices.

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@po3mah Sadly hardly alone. Ecoflow batteries and power stuff talks to China all the time and all the remote control goes via that. Just what you need for an appliance that is supposed to be used in a power cut

etchedpixels, to retrocomputing
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

Motorola people really seem to have had fun with instruction names. Every knows the 6809 has a SEX (sign extend) instruction but did you also know that the 68HC08 has NSA (nybble swap accumulator) and the 68HC12 has an EMACS instruction ?

ChrisMayLA6, to VideoGames
@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar

While its good to see that books still hold their own (in revenue generating terms) with films & music (they outperform both), the big news is that video games generated more revenue globally than books & music combined.

As someone who has never played a video game, but reads a lot of books, I'm not sure how I feel about this... but it tells us something about where the globe's creative & receptive energies seem to be spent.


@bookstodon

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@ChrisMayLA6 @Strider @bookstodon Particularly amongst independent developers but also increasingly mainstream there is a lot of focus on storytelling games which avoid reactions, timing and all that stuff but let you just explore the story, on adding 'I'm only here for the story' easy modes to story based games, and also on so called "cozy" games. Several of the big roblox games for small kids like Royale High simply don't have combat/fighting elements or I win so you lose games at all.

euronews, to random
@euronews@flipboard.com avatar

Solar balconies are booming in Germany. Here’s what you need to know about the popular home tech
https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/04/21/solar-balconies-are-booming-in-germany-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-popular-home-?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Green @green

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@jbenjamint @euronews @glynmoody You are allowed 600W in the UK with an approved system which is actually enough to make a difference. There are also options with battery although the payback is less clear. No MCS means no feed in tariff though (except some Octopus experiments)
As the restriction is 600W to the grid it's also possible to go way bigger providing your kit can also feed any extra power to its own sockets and cap the grid as some setups can

sjvn, to linux
@sjvn@mastodon.social avatar

Linus Torvalds takes on evil developers, hardware errors and 'hilarious' AI hype https://zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-takes-on-evil-developers-hardware-errors-and-hilarious-ai-hype/ by @sjvn

The latest from creator Linus Torvalds and his buddy Dirk Hohndel.

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@sjvn "My fear," confessed Torvalds, "Is that RISC-V will make all the same mistakes that everybody else did before them."

They already did, the RISC-V exception handling is hideous

Extelec, to random
@Extelec@mstdn.social avatar

I think I've found the problem with me and printers.

They don't understand sarcasm.

Maybe I aught to teach it sarcasm, with a large ball peen sarcasm teaching implement.

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@Extelec I have found that leaving a large screwdriver close to the printer in a menacing fashion is extremely effective.

Nobody tell me printers are not sentient

etchedpixels, to 8bit
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

Any fans staring frantically at ebay and waiting for the Computers For Schools 1996 carrier bag can stop looking. It's going to the Centre For Computing History collection instead.

I am going to enjoy the conversation in the post office
"For the purposes of security what does this parcel contain"
"A carrier bag"
"What's in the bag"
"Nothing"

etchedpixels, to retrocomputing
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

From Littlefuse/Zilog

"Dear Customer and/or Distributor,

Please be aware that our Water Foundry Manufacturer is discontinuing support for the Z80 product and other product lines. Refer to the attached list of the products affected

Last time to buy (LTB) Orders will be accepted until June 14th 2024."

Sic transmit gloria mundi Z80 and Z180

etchedpixels, to random
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

Various people have suggested putting "before 2023" in searches to avoid all the AI crap and this really works well.

Even better put "before 2014" in any news searches and the news is much better too

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@Extelec Not when you check the prices for a 512K RAM upgrade or a hard disc 8)

hedders, to random
@hedders@mas.to avatar

Advice needed from PC gamers who run Linux, please!

I’m thinking seriously about ditching Windows on my main PC. The only reason I haven’t done so years ago is gaming. I have a massive library on Steam and I really don’t want to kiss that goodbye.

I understand Linux gaming has got wildly better in recent years. Can anyone point me in the direction of a good primer on the subject? Debian or Debian-like focused preferably, as that’s what I’m most comfortable with.

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@hedders Depends a lot what you play. There is a continued problem with some often very dodgy anti-cheat systems in certain online games.

Perhaps follow @gamingonlinux and @heroiclauncher (Heroic is a launcher for various non-steam game stores)

Primer wise, install steam, install game as on windows, hit play. There's really not a lot to add to that for most games. Some need a bit of tinkering.

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@sleepybisexual @hedders Most stuff you get similar performance, sometimes better (ESO for example runs better on Linux than on Windows). Does seem to vary a lot. I've not hit any problems but Ghostwire Tokyo and Thief are probably as hard as I've pushed the graphics card I have.

etchedpixels, to retrocomputing
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

Interesting bit of and an illustration of how much of a problem throw away carrier bags are

This is a 1996 / Computers For Schools bag in perfect condition. It's nearly 30 years old but and probably rather rare in this form but also illustrates just how long those bags last in a dark corner.

Wonder if I should ebay it for an acorn fan ?

revk, to random
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

Monmouthshire have to be going for some sort of record here!!!

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@revk Don't forget the local government ombudsman if you've not already started formal complaint proceedings.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

WHERE THE WEB IS GOING: The convergence of LLMs and web advertising will lead to "ads" consisting of several hundred gigabytes of javascript containing a (weighted) neural network designed to generate unique per-user video advertisements—generated on your computer at your expense to ensure the imagery is unique and evades AI-based ad-blockers.

"AI spam" is an entire AI, squatting on your CPU and making it glow dull red as it works out how to capture your attention.

Welcome to the spamularity.

etchedpixels,
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social avatar

@cstross Advertising is already a failing model by most measurements because the amount being spent on it exceeds the measured value to the advertisers in almost all analysis done. (Some of that is obviously from new advertising for yet another failed product and business going under of course).

At some point it will be more lucrative to require that idle time on your computer is owned by the OS provider and will be sold to clients for AI processing as part of your OS conditions.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • provamag3
  • InstantRegret
  • mdbf
  • ethstaker
  • magazineikmin
  • GTA5RPClips
  • rosin
  • thenastyranch
  • Youngstown
  • osvaldo12
  • slotface
  • khanakhh
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • JUstTest
  • Durango
  • everett
  • cisconetworking
  • Leos
  • normalnudes
  • cubers
  • modclub
  • ngwrru68w68
  • tacticalgear
  • megavids
  • anitta
  • tester
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •