swetland

swetland, 2 days ago to random

I keep wondering "why doesn't somebody else just build a good search engine?"

Seems like there's more and more opportunity for such a thing every day:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/google-search-adds-web-filter-as-it-pivots-to-ai-focused-search-results/

Suppose it's time for me to give duckduckgo another look (it's never amazed me before, but google results keep getting less and less useful, so who knows).

mcc, 3 days ago to random

This is a pretty basic, "and what's the deal with airline food??" kinda observation, but

It's just been brought to my attention that a Chrome tab takes up a minimum of 24 to 28 MB of RAM*, even if it's looking at about:blank or an empty HTML page. There are good engineering reasons it might work this way but I am also thinking about how my first computer-shaped computer** had 4 MB of RAM and that was like, an OS plus sophisticated full apps. Later we upgraded to 8 MB RAM and that was a big deal

lauren, 4 days ago (edited 4 days ago) to random

***** A few words about Google's future *****

At #Google I/O today, the firm is publicizing an array of new projects. Some of them seem flashy and relatively useless, others seem like they could be very worthwhile. How many of either category will still exist five years from now is of course a crucial question given Google's history.

But Google I/O is merely the gloss, in many respects what has become the so-called "lipstick on the pig". Because Google executives have permitted their race for the golden and in many respects false prize of "Artificial Intelligence" to cloud their vision, and to permit an increasing number of basic services that billions of Google users depend on every day to, in effect, rot away.

The collapse of Google Search, once a global technological wonder, has been profound. Often incorrect or even inane generative AI responses now often supersede links to the very sites from which Google is obtaining the raw material for their AI systems (usually without any form of compensation, while driving down user click-throughs).

A similar decline is obvious in various other core Google services.

Of great continuing concern to me is the very foundation of how virtually all Google users access most Google services -- Google accounts themselves. I continue to be flooded by persons who have problems with their Google accounts through no fault of their own, including lockouts and permanently lost crucial personal data, with Google's automated systems providing them with no resolutions, only horrific frustration. Google's frankly poorly conceived and rushed implementation of passkeys -- and the pushing of users to them who typically do not understand them and have more problems as a result -- is making matters even worse. What good are fancy new services when your Google account needed to use them may lock you out at any time with effectively no genuine ability to appeal?

Some groups of Google users -- such as seniors and other users with special needs who may not be technologically sophisticated -- are especially affected by these sorts of problems and suffer mightily as a result. I don't think Google actually "hates" these users -- I think Google simply does not want to make the minimal efforts required to help them, basically treating them with much the same disdain as you might flick a bug off your shirt.

There is so much that would be relatively simple for Google to do that would vastly improve the user experience for these users and others -- but Google seems to only care about the majority, and if you're in the minority, well, if you swing slowly in the wind locked out of your account, too bad for you. Google's got other fish to fry to keep the profit centers humming.

I could go on, but you get the gist. I don't hate Google. I still have major respect for the firm and especially for Googlers (Google employees) in general. But I am enormously disappointed with the direction executives are now taking the firm, and this seems to be getting worse at an accelerating rate.

And that's very, very sad to see. -L

swetland, 10 days ago to opensource

Goodbye #Sonos 2005-2024. You provided me nearly 20 years of audio playback, but this latest update was the last straw...

1. Install PiCorePlayer on a Raspberry Pi connected to speakers, add a DAC/AMP board and/or WiFi dongle as needed:
   https://www.picoreplayer.org/

2. Install LMS on a local server:
   https://lyrion.org/getting-started/

3. Install Squeezer on your Android device(s):
   https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.org.ngo.squeezer

4. Repeat Step 1 for Additional Rooms.

5. Play Your Tunes.

#OpenSource #HomeAudio #Upgrade #Sonos

Raspberry Pi 4B with HiFiBerry AMP4 in plastic enclosure.
Raspberry Pi 4B with HiFiBerry sitting on top of a pair of bookshelf speakers (the ones I used to use with my original Sonos ZonePlayer 100).
Android Squeezer Music Player, playing "No Escape" from the Hades Original Soundtrack.

swetland, 10 days ago to random

Okay, it is now way past time to ditch my #Sonos gear for something that actually works.

Been using their stuff since 2005 and for the first 10 years or so it was magical, every update made it better.

Sadly they reversed course on that and have been following in Adobe Acrobat's "you won't believe what they broke this time" model for software "improvements" in recent years.

This latest update nuked a bunch of daily-use features for me with no timeline for their return, among other disasters.

swetland, 13 days ago to random

Exploring restic for backing up my workstation (to local external volumes and probably "the cloud" too) at the suggestion of a friend.
https://restic.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Maybe just in time, because...

[605358.398403] nvme0n1: I/O Cmd(0x2) @ LBA 131640760, 1024 blocks, I/O Error (sct 0x2 / sc 0x81) MORE
[605358.398428] critical medium error, dev nvme0n1, sector 131640760 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x80700 phys_seg 88 prio class 2

Now I'm replacing the primary NVMe SSD tomorrow too...

#backups #restic #oops

swetland, 18 days ago to Anime

This week's Jellyfish Can't Swim In The Night has some of the best all-nighter energy I've seen since Eizouken...

#Anime #JellyfishCantSwimInTheNight #KeepYourHandsOffEizouken

Kanamori: So, were you able to finish?
Asakusa: I'd say it's less about finishing or completing the project,
Asakusa: and more the outcome of passion crashing against compromise and resignation.

mcc, 19 days ago to random

I need to figure out where on the internet I can ask newbie verilog questions the way I can go to the Rust discord and ask newbie Rust questions

danderson, 27 days ago to random

Doing electronics stuff without using a processor is getting weirdly difficult. I mean it was already quite a lot of work to do things that would take no time flat given any microcontroller, but I think it's now also harder than it was back in the day because all those specialty ICs in the niche between plain logic gates and processors are going away.

whitequark, 27 days ago to random

IEEE 802.3 having a normal one

image/png

swetland, 27 days ago to meta

Not sure if other people do this, but I use notifications of favorites/boosts as a discovery mechanism for accounts to possibly follow.

I mean it's a potential sign they have similar interests, so might as well visit the profile and see if they post interesting stuff you want to see more of.

I'll often favorite a few posts along the way too, which I hope doesn't seem too weird to people!

#Fedi #Meta #MetaFedi #FediMeta #Favorites #Discovery #RandomTags

swetland, 1 month ago to linux

Anyone have a recommendation for a scanner that works reliably with Linux (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS for preference), ideally using the scanimage commandline tool?

My goal is to scan some old photos at 1200 DPI. I picked up a CanoScan LIDE 400 and it is extremely fussy, stopping responding until I unplug/replug it every now and again (dunno if that's the scanner, the driver, or what, exactly).

Nothing's larger than 5"x7". Flatbed seems preferable.

#Linux #Photos #Scanning #Questions

swetland, 1 month ago to books

This keynote speech by @marthawells about writing non-human intelligences and Murderbot is fantastic.

https://marthawells.dreamwidth.org/649804.html

"There are a lot of people who viewed All Systems Red as a cute robot story. Which was very weird to me, since I thought I was writing a story about slavery and personhood and bodily autonomy. But humans have always been really good at ignoring things we don't want to pay attention to. Which is also a theme in the Murderbot series."

#books #murderbot

danderson, 1 month ago to random

Yesterday I ended up taking a random walk through "the rust memory model is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules".

Today I took a wrong turn and ended up on the LKML, in which I learned that the kernel has its own unique memory model, but also now contains rust code which follows the rust memory model (whatever that turns out to be), and also it's necessary to be able to exchange data back and forth between memory models.

Some days, I'm just amazed that computers sometimes work.

swetland, 1 month ago to ImmersiveSim

Was chatting with some folks this morning about how much I enjoyed Immersive Sim games (Deus Ex, System Shock, Dishonored, Prey, Control, Deathloop, Fallout 3, etc) and was reminded of the verticality and environmental storytelling that I really enjoyed in Dishonored 2.

So, have some screenshots of some witches having tea on a chandelier in a museum.

#Dishonored2 #ImmersiveSim #Screenshots #Gaming

Zooming in on a chandelier.
I guess if you're a witch with teleportation magic this is as good a place to enjoy a spot of tea as anywhere else in the building.
Discarded tea tray and stack of books on a ledge.

ktemkin, 2 months ago to random

important life lessons: a multimillion dollar company can, in years, almost approach the output of a ragtag group of lesbians working for two weeks