@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

tomjennings

@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org

I make things.

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ai6yr, to worldwithoutus

Bids still only at $6000 for "Hansel" the Antarctic Hagglund

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@ai6yr

Yea, aneeda new everything in order to run again.

ai6yr, to random

Fascinating mapping going on here in South Dakota in OpenStreetMaps. #gis

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@ai6yr

This is what I was trying to recall.

The Dawes Act.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Act?wprov=sfla1

There's a lot more shenanigans than this of course.

tomjennings, to random
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

Post-lunch snooze on the squirrel highway. Old piece of gutter I put up as egress.

This old lady crosses a busy street multiple times a day, and for years now. I guess some squirrels do figure out the trigonometry of moving vehicles.

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@MLE_online

THEY ALREADY HAVE HANDS.

And boundless curiosity.

If they learn to cooperate, we're screwed.

Our only choice is to cooperate with them.

I intend to be low on the retribution list. I assume they keep those.

vga256, to random
@vga256@dialup.cafe avatar

those who have worked on CRT AC/Main circuits: has anyone ever successfully converted a 240V UK monitor to 120V US? is this even possible?

scenario: about 15 years ago, an incredibly gracious person from the UK sent me their Amstrad PC/2086. both the PC and the monitor are wired for 240V, and appear to use non-switching PSUs.

rebuilding the PC to use a standard north american AT PSU is simple, and takes about 10 minutes.

the monitor, on the other hand, is unexplored territory for me. I've never worked on the input side of a CRT before. i've done plenty of flyback and cap replacements, but never anything to the AC circuit.

any amount of thinking out loud from people who have direct experience with the HV side of the circuit would be appreciated!

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@vga256

Alas, it may not work even if you get the power part untangled.

There's the NTSC vs PAL or other electrical protocol business, but also that many systems use the AC line frequency for synchronization, since line power freq is so stable and known.

It will depend wildly on vintage... older more difficult; consumer vs pro different (quality of circuitry and possibly some concept of portability),

As a kid my TV hacking started with, in old tube sets, identifying the audio output chain (IF cans, tubes, to audio) (you can literally touch tube pins to listen for the buzz), find the deflection circuitry, then clip lead in a capacitor from audio out into deflection. Then the audio would make crazy lissajous like patterns on the tube (rapidly leading to horrible screen burns). Shocks were common. We though it was very fun while stoned.

tomjennings, to random
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

Dammitall. Somehow my roadster eBay thing got listed twice. I had to delete one, the real item is this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/204740495453

tomjennings, to random
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

I'm selling my roadster. It's an odd thing.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/204740507882

Not mentioned, but if anyone was interested, I'd include the complete electronic cooling system I designed for it. It's pretty goddamn cutting edge, no one has one AFAIK. 100% electronic control of engine cooling, 1-degree accuracy under all conditions, consumes 50 watts (really, not multiple horsepower), software and two pumps, no thermostat.

Also the redundant multiprocessor controllers. I ran that stuff for years, aircraft reliable (no not Boeing).

Presently installed is a conventional belt-driven pump for sale's sake,

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@MLE_online

Yes!

tomjennings, to random
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

This totally matches my experience. The sheer numbers are up, but toxic humans are not a modern invention.

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/04/11/no-the-internet-hasnt-gotten-worse-just-your-outlook/

pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Welcome to the 17th Pluralistic linkdump, a collection of all the miscellany that didn't make it into the week's newsletter, cunningly wrought together in a single edition that ranges from the first ISP to AI nonsense to labor organizing victories to the obituary of a brilliant scientist you should know a lot more about! Here's the other 16 dumps:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

1/

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@k_theory @pluralistic
Cool! I remember digex by name, but no solid memory alas... Glad you had them!

tomjennings, to random
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

I stumbled on this 1994 FidoNews, 14 mar 1004, 11/11 it's kinda hilariously amateurish. I really liked Sylvia, she was a great editor but you can imagine the old white guy crowd wasn't induced to write.

FidoNews came out weekly, for over 20 years, had a large readership, in the dialup BBS days. I don't think many not-for-profit newsletters had that duration.

They are not rare; there's archives all over. I think.

It's pure ASCII formatted text file, raw, not html, and firefox renders it great.

https://www.sensitiveresearch.com/temp/fido1111.nws.txt

textfiles, to random
@textfiles@digipres.club avatar

I Continue To No Longer Attend Vintage Computer Festivals

http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/5591

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@textfiles

Oh fun.

I too no longer attend them. Ok I only attended one, long ago. I used to hang out with Sellem, when I lived up there. I liked him a lot.

I was on a/the classic comp mailing list more or less until I got death threats from one guy because I implied his LSI 11 might not make a great Interneting device. Sellam and a couple friends and said perp did a conf call and convinced me not to call the police as I was about to do (threat was quite specific)

I decided, hmmm, maybe some of the crazy wasn't just aesthetic.

I read some of your post but my eyes glazed over at the minute complexity. That's what crazy folk do, make things very complicated. Feature not bug. So complex you can't really explain it without reliving it.

I suspect you get a lot more... attention than most. Sorry.

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@textfiles

Sure! Where is you body? Mine's in Los Angeles.

ai6yr, to random

Whitney Portal Road has... issues. https://ready.inyocounty.us/

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@ai6yr

Wow. Every year I've mapped and routed sports car drives in socal, lower Sierra's through yucca valley area, up to Santa Maria.

Each year keeping track of fires, rains, road damage etc has required months of planning and research.

We've driven a lot of "last time" roads. Last year it was Breckenridge road more or less 58 up to lake Isabella; it was officially closed and had to hug the hillside at the washed out road... Can't believe it survived the winter. Kennedy Meadows (from 395 side) probably impassable.

Desert and mountain road repair backlog is probably nuts.

tomjennings, to random
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

Climate change at a high level is quite simple: it is the major side defect of coal and petroleum use. Alternative power blah blah -- until petro use is severely reduced climate will worsen (not that AE is not necessary).

Halted tomorrow, the existing carbon in the atmosphere will still increase heating.

So we need to first essentially halt petro production, then some magic futuricians will figure out how to remove carbon.

But we have a planet full of corporations that already do terrible things to us if rate-of-increase of growth/profit isn't upward, never mind stop.

Am I reading this wrong?

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

Most of my local friends think I'm being all cynical'n'shit. That what's the point of living then?

Not that way to me at all.

First off, you have to actually accept that a problem exists before you do anything. Like, embrace it's terrifying reality.

THEN decide -- OK, what now?

tomjennings, to random
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

1994 websites: WPS.COM and CHRISTIAN.ORG.

Coincidentally re-found on the 30th anniversary of this backup snapshot. I doubt I have older, but it's not impossible; and maybe gopher contents.

Well given file size and complexity it too more time to write the wee bit of contextual description than it too to republish the site.

It's so damn small its laughable.

https://www.sensitiveresearch.com/Archive/old-sites/index.html

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

OK! I did it! The ZIP file containing the april 1993 backup of fido.wps.com is here:

https://www.sensitiveresearch.com/temp/fido.wps.com%20apr1994%20edited%20for%20export.zip

Inside is a directory tree of dirs and files.

Gopher and archie etc scattered about. I'd forgot how it was basically a "finger tree".

Couple hundred MB.

syslogs, some mail spools even, I went through them, nothing salacious, alas.

fido was the 386 DX machine, 386/BSD, Zyxel 16800 bits/sec modem, dialed in over SLIP.

tomjennings, to random
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

I found (...) an April 1994 copy of my website, complete. I'm moving off my Mac Powerbook to a Reform (going well except for me ruining things) and as the rsync was flying by I saw it.

I'll post it soon, but here was the hardware I had at the time.

I do recall that the 386/BSD installed from some 24 (each) 1.44 mb 3.5" floppies (sic) and took a couple days to compile. honk, honk, honk, ... And failures required restarts.

"I have two machines. One is a 40MHz 386, two IDE disk drives (540MB total), a mediocre color monitor, and my one "luxury" (sic), 16MB RAM. It runs 386/BSD unix, and X. It is connected to the Internet via the services of The Little Garden, which would cost me $70/mo (we're talking 24hr/day TCP/IP not dialup) 'cept for the fact that I'm the one that runs TLG on a daily basis. The link itself is a pair of ZyZEL U-1496E 16,800baud modems. This is the machine that the Web and Gopher servers run on.

The other machine is a 386SX with 4MB RAM and an older 140MB ESDI drive. It runs DOS 5 and Windows 3.1. The graphics tools on unix are basically non-existent, as far as input tools go. It is linked to the unix box via Ethernet and some TCP/IP software (about to change). This machine has the $99 handheld scanner. The biggest limitations are 256 level monochrome, and the 4.5"/11.5cm width. Otherwise, the quality is limited by how careful you are. "

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@vga256

It had the absolute minimum instruction set to run *nix. And 386/BSD was I think the very first real linux on the 386.

I can still recall the anguish "WILL IT DIE AGAIN???" during the compile (compile from source!) but my memory is filled with fondness for the thing.

jef, to random
@jef@mastodon.social avatar

All vehicles which did not pay the Gas Guzzler Tax on purchase should be required once a year to visit an inspection station and haul 1000 pounds of manure around the block. If they can't or won't, the tax becomes due immediately.

https://www.epa.gov/fueleconomy/gas-guzzler-tax

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@jef

"These taxes apply only to passenger cars."

The very vehicles that are oversized and overpowered are not passenger cars. Tunaboat passenger cars disappeared around 1978. Joke legislation.

openculture, to random
@openculture@toot.community avatar

How Photos Were Transmitted by Wire in 1937: The Innovative Technology of a Century Ago

https://www.openculture.com/2024/04/how-photos-were-transmitted-by-wire-in-1937-the-innovative-technology-of-a-century-ago.html

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@denspier @openculture

Facsimile transmission dates to the late 19th century, not the 1930s.

tomjennings, to random
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

Very nice. If only here...

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/blueprintforliving/blueprint-for-living/103511268

mekkaokereke, to random
@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

People on Twitter are debating whether a person using uncommon words like "delve" are trying to sound smarter than they are, or worse, are ChatGPT bots, because "normal" people don't talk like that.

You don't have to get upset, or embroiled in the debate. Not worth the time or attention. But I'll share some important context as your friendly neighborhood Nigerian 🙋🏿‍♂️

Many Nigerians have bigger English language vocabularies and better command of grammar than the typical American or English person

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@mekkaokereke

Wisdom is chasing her, but she is faster.

I'm still laughing. The precision and wordplay is wonderful.

ai6yr, to random

Texas Eclipse Festival in Burnet, TX cancelled (before the eclipse) -- (ps. seems like a bit of a fiasco, one way or another.) https://www.kxan.com/weather/eclipse/burnet-eclipse-festival-canceled-early-due-to-possible-severe-weather/

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@ai6yr

My local psytrance crew announced back in Dec or Jan they were attending this party in TX for the eclipse... I half considered it, sorta, then thought, huh, dance party, psychedelics, big crowds... Texass. Uhuh nope. Too far anyway and never wanna dance more than one night and morning.

I have friend who drove there, from Oakland (SF Bay) he was stuck a couple miles outside the event, then his flakey friend lost his car keys for a few hours, then the event was cancelled. I suspect they're shivering in a damp minivan right now.

Yowza. Ducked that bullet.

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