@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

tomjennings

@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org

I make things.

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

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

You may die, but you'll still work for them.

Not a joke.

“HI EXCUSE ME, I just found out the the prof for this online course I’m taking died in 2019 and he’s technically still giving classes since he’s literally my prof for this course and I’m learning from lectures recorded before his passing.” In a follow-up tweet, he wrote, “I mean, I guess I technically read texts written by people who’ve passed all the time, but it’s the fact that I looked up his email to send him a question and PULLED UP HIS MEMORIAM INSTEAD that just THREW ME OFF A LITTLE.”

https://slate.com/technology/2021/01/dead-professor-teaching-online-class.html

vga256, to retrocomputing
@vga256@dialup.cafe avatar

we usually post our retrocomputing successes here, but failures are usually more useful.

two years ago i bought two dead OLPC XO-1 (one laptop per child) machines from ebay.

as predicted, they were bricked due to a terrible firmware/clock bug in which, if the clock battery died, rendered the machine totally un-POST-able.

the solution is to connect to a serial pinout on the motherboard using a very tiny micro molex 4-pin female connector, and connect that to your PC (via a USB-to-TTL FT232BL in my case), and reset the clock.

With the right molex connector, this is a 5 minute job at most.

I decided that rather than ordering a specific $6 molex connector for this one job, that i'd rather just solder temporary bodge wires to the 0.1mm pins...

... which I failed to do, several times over a two year period, each time taking me 2 hours of retries due to the infinitely tiny space i was working in with a comparatively massive soldering iron tip...

in the end, not only did i manage to burn/melt the connector housing, the bodge wires were so brittle that they fell off once i connected them to the USB-TTL device. 😩

at 11am i yelled "oh fuck you!" at the board, walked over to my PC, and ordered a $6 pre-wired molex connector from aliexpress 😆

the sad part was that it wasn't even about the money. it was because I thought waiting 2 weeks for a connector in the mail was madness.

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@vga256
Sometimes it sucks being human.

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@vga256

Nor mine! lol or probably most...

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

I don't personally have an opinion on the xz thing. Should I try harder?

ukuku, to random
@ukuku@mstdn.social avatar

There was a time when only the biggest dipshits drove jacked up trucks. Are there 100x as many dipshits in the world now?

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@ukuku

yes, there are 100x as many diptshits it stupid vehicles now. Any they pay extra for the dipshit machine.

MLE_online, to random
@MLE_online@social.afront.org avatar

Beginning my long journey from El Monte to Santa Clarita via public transit.

It has started off well with a guy at the bus station complimenting my DIY bicycle headlight system.

"You make this? I like this. Very smart. Not easy to think so smart."

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@MLE_online

Seriously, how much effort would good signage be? It's not like it's wasted money.

ai6yr, to Plumbing

Dishwasher detour! My rather unconventional attempt.to fix dishwasher drainage issues. Air gap is on right, but entry to disposal is on left. The prior install was too tight, so the tube would kink. Put in a longer line which takes a long non-kink detour around the bottom of the sink. I am sure a plumber is crying somewhere.

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@ai6yr

I just (month ago) fixed a drainage issue with our disposal; water coming out the air vent when the dishwasher drained.

The issue was the excess length of the drop from the air gap to the disposal drain; it looped down then back up. I tend to want to leave slack for usually good reasons.

Here, the loop, drop them back up, causes enough back flow resistance to create a small head, up at the gap.

See if having the line from air gap to drain be a single, simple drop fixes it.

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

Are FIDO hardware security keys already passé? I can't figure out which browsers support them, beyond Google chrome and Firefox. Are there any others? What a PITA this all is.

foone, to random
@foone@digipres.club avatar

bad idea: A mouse cursor that's not just a simple floating pointer, it's a cat/dog paw... but it stretches all the way to an edge of the screen like it's a really long leg

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@foone

No, yes, this is one of the best bad ideas I've seen in a long time.

MLE_online, to random
@MLE_online@social.afront.org avatar

My neighbor who previously made me "Mexican Jewish spaghetti" for jump starting his car made me "Mexican Chinese" for giving him a ride earlier.

Unusual but good.

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@MLE_online

Lol that's great. Crazy LA food. This is a great food city.

There's now or soon, an Armenian taco place in Echo Park.

vga256, (edited ) to random
@vga256@dialup.cafe avatar

those with extensive CRT repair experience (edit: please, for the love of sweet jebus, don't reply if you are just guessing and haven't worked on a tube)

i picked up this Sony KV-8AD11 a while ago and it has been sitting on the repair pile. while i've recapped and restored a couple of dozen arcade & tube tv's, diagnosis isn't my strong suit.

what's causing the green hue running along the left side? it remains there even after the chassis has warmed up, and switching between RF and composite input makes no difference.

interestingly, the green hue does not show up on snow/static screens. is this something adjustable via the internal potentiometers, or will it require some PCB work?

my thanks 🙏

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@vga256
Magnetic deflection error, most likely due to alignment/adjustment issues, rather than busted parts. That's the good news. Bad is it might be obscure to adjust.

If you can find a repair manual, of if the design is generic enough you can probably adjust it with the right tools (generally those little plastic jobbies that look like swizzle sticks. They're often called that!)

High voltage adjacent but not high voltage itself.

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

A minibike gang just passed by. Minibikes like from American 1960s, two feet high, open frame, lawnmower engine. They stopped at the corner for a few minutes, and pulled out noisily after the pulling of many handles ropes. Those old Briggs and Stratton recoil windup things.

Totally illegal. I love our many peculiar tiny vehicle subcultures; there's many most are deeply peculiar and idiosyncratic.

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

I have a very small number of old white guy car friends, who are civilized enough to at least STFU (most seem at least marginally better-behaved than that, but we're talking low standard here). I make it a point to let them all know I'm gay/queer.

This is the sort of thing that crowd is passing around. Just FYI.

I take it as a nice temperature-taking from scenes-not-this-one. No one is happy with this shit.

A man calls Pizza hut to order a pizza...
CALLER: Is this Pizza Hut?
GOOGLE: No sir, it's Google Pizza.
CALLER: I must have dialed a wrong number, sorry.
GOOGLE: No sir, Google bought Pizza Hut last month.
CALLER: OK. I would like to order a pizza.
GOOGLE: Do you want your usual, sir?
CALLER: My usual? You know me?
GOOGLE: According to our caller ID data sheet, the last 12 times you called you ordered an extra-large pizza with three cheeses, sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms and meatballs on a thick crust.
CALLER: Super! That’s what I’ll have.
GOOGLE: May I suggest that this time you order a pizza with ricotta, arugula, sun-dried tomatoes and olives on a whole wheat gluten-free thin crust?
CALLER: What? I don’t want a vegetarian pizza!
GOOGLE: Your cholesterol is not good, sir.
CALLER: How the hell do you know that?
GOOGLE: Well, we cross-referenced your home phone number with your medical records. We have the result of your blood tests for the last 7 years.
CALLER: Okay, but I do not want your rotten vegetarian pizza! I already take medication for my cholesterol.
GOOGLE: Excuse me sir, but you have not taken your medication regularly. According to our database, you purchased only a box of 30 cholesterol tablets once at Lloyds Pharmacy, 4 months ago.

1/2

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@FrankauLux @nafmo

It also doesn't have to be approached as all vs nothing. You can incrementally reduce your exposure. Not falling for "convenience" which is often superficial anyway.

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@FrankauLux @nafmo

Frankly, anyone travelling off major routes and without paper printed physical maps is foolish.

There's a lot weirdness in our culture of consumption thinking that newer is always better. It's simply not true.

I've done fairly elaborate experiments room in long drives throughout the desert with all combinations, mainly for their effects on how I approach and experience being outside and present, ... It was intere5and informative. I need to write it up as a project. This has come up before so I guess I'll commit to doing that soon.

As always, redundancy is key.

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@FrankauLux @nafmo

Yes!

And I apologize for my too early in the morning post ("foolish") I meant to be discussing my own behavior not intending to imply anything about others.

Electronic maps provide amazing opportunities and breadth. I use them all. I do sports car turn by turn route sheets and solo deep desert crazy unplanned stuff. Electronic maps are amazing.

But "brittle". Failures when miles from networks can be literally fatal. Theres not much wrong that can go with a paper map, as last resort.

But consumer technophilia also blinds people to the amazing affordance of dumb old paper maps. On road trips (FUN trips) at a decision point (intersection, scenic pullover) nothing beats a big paper map spread on the hood of the car, and a look-see to decide the next route leg. The expanse of a half square meter can't be done on a phone.

The corporate idea that new automatically obsoletes old is just wrong. Each one requires a detailed decision.

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@FrankauLux @nafmo

Oh your son will probably get it when he's out there and NO SIGNAL and you ask him for the next direction!

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@FrankauLux @nafmo

Wow nice so there's three android alternatives at least.

E.foundation
Grapheneos
Calyxos

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

In 1994 I faked putting a live camera on our toilet. It got a brief mention in TIME magazine on how the Internet is ruining things.

https://www.sensitiveresearch.com/Archive/ToiletScam/index.html

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

I cleaned up my News page, links to non publicly-traded sources. It's somewhat ordered now and looks better on a phone.

http://www.sensitiveresearch.com/News/index.html

If you have suggestions send 'em.

I'm not a blog reader generally speaking but that might be next. Teri Kanefield will def be on it.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

When Ranch is just too Spicy!

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@RickiTarr

Umm... Do you have any Light mayonnaise?

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

I made a list of news/information sites, plain HTML, here:

https://www.sensitiveresearch.com/News/index.html

No publicly traded corporations.

pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Another characteristically brilliant Kashmir Hill story for The New York Times reveals another characteristically terrible fact about modern life: your car secretly records fine-grained telemetry about your driving and sells it to data-brokers, who sell it to insurers, who use it as a pretext to gouge you on premiums:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driver-tracking-insurance.html

1/

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@pluralistic

And don't forget, the 1988 VPPA was only pushed through because Bob Bork was the victim of a video store leaking a VHS rental ...

Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”), 18 U.S.C. § 2710, a statute enacted in 1988 in response to the Washington City Paper's publication of a list of films that then-Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork had rented from a video store.

ParadeGrotesque, to random
@ParadeGrotesque@mastodon.sdf.org avatar

Let me get this straight. At this stage, we may have:

  • Total nuclear annihilation (the 70s called, they want their MAD doctrine back),
  • Strangulation by micro-plastics,
  • Boiled alive by runaway climate change,
  • Dystopian life servitude to a billionaire ruling class with nostalgic return to brown & black shirts on the side (for good measure),
  • Black Plague returns (aka Covid-24 + Ebola or some such),
  • All of the above.

Can we all agree that Terminator style AI is an outside bet?

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@ParadeGrotesque

Also, I wonder if it was such a good idea to put all those plaques and things ("vault plates") on space craft... Masterfully created spacecraft with instructions how to find us, we drop civilization back to foraging, aliens descend and lift off all the water and metals from an apparently unoccupied planet. OH WELL.

maxleibman, (edited ) to random
@maxleibman@mastodon.social avatar

Is it ethical to use ad blockers and anti-tracking technology?

Here’s my stance: in print media, was it ethical to flip past a magazine ad without reading it?

Anything that makes skipping ads harder than that—or that gives advetizers one byte more data about me than they would have had when I picked up a magazine off the newstand—is an overreach, and fair game for me to block or evade by any means necessary.

tomjennings,
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org avatar

@maxleibman @maxleibman

In old print trade tags, eg Electronic Design News, etc, the ads were actually meaningful. When Analog Devices or whatever has a page on a new chip, it's worth a look even if it's not your field of interest.

Of course all that's gone for manifold reasons tl;dr, but somehow that cultural memory of "ads are ok-ish" (mal) lingers.

Electronic advertising was never useful, even in the banner ad days. It needs to be eradicated. Hard.

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