asciimov

I do miss the old internet; back before the AD-men got rich, took it over, and claimed everything as their own.

I miss the niche little websites, the ones built by people just trying to share something creative without trying to sell you something.

Thanks for this! Back when TNG was on TV on the regular my wife would play a game with me, she’d flip over to TNG and pause the video, then I had to describe the episode well enough to match the guide description. I could usually get it as long as it wasn’t just a still of the Enterprise.

Most of these I can get in one or two guesses through key word search, I do not have all the episodes titles memorized.

For those wondering about the use case for touch screen, anytime you are showing info to someone and need to scroll the screen it’s much easier with a touch screen. I’ve encountered it most at doctors offices. Also scrolling through pictures with a client, or going through excel sheets with payroll is just easier using touch while sharing.

And let’s be honest, I bet those of us that use touch screens often enough have instinctively touched their laptops screen trying to scroll it on more than a few occasions, I know I’m guilty of it.

Back in the day this would have been a “One more thing…” announcement. Apple must be upset with the hardware prices to bury this a late October press release.

Goodness, Apple is going back to the luxury item category... thanks ai

Teach your children about the things you love. Partially because children often don’t fall far from the tree, and mostly so they can learn how to enjoy something.

Isolation from the main system, other services, and other dependencies.

Easy to migrate to new system.

Easy to upgrade and downgrade. When a new version causes an issue just restart it with an older version.

One directory to backup and restore that contains all the services and their settings.

Companies have been trying to figure out how to get people to rent pcs for a while. Unfortunately the AI boom has shown them how, buy out all the capacity of the ram manufacturers, pay them enough consistently and the manufacturers have no reason to expand their capacity. No cheap ram means companies and then home users will have no choice but to come to you and rent their pc.

You’ll never run code locally, and only run the official version off their server. Their lawyers will shut down the clones, and their cash reserves will make sure you can never afford pc parts again.

If mega corps have their way the pc on your desktop is the last you’ll ever own. These days they just might have the money to make that happen.

Without knowing your big box store options, going with a DC motor fan, that is well rated and easily returnable is a good starting point. A fan that looks like a traditional fan, not like the ones shown in this article.

I used to recommend the house brands at lowes (harbor breeze) and home depot (hampton bay). But they both had a big quality drop post covid.

I've tried some of the well rated fans from Amazon and they've been ok too.

I would tell you to look at the installation guide before buying. You can always find them online links are usually on the store website. What you are looking for is ease of installation. Some models are stupidly complex with how they go together, making it impossible to remove or adjust the blades without completely taking apart the fan. Others have minimal screws and snap on blades. Easy to put together doesn't mean a worse fan.

Growing up in Texas, I have always had a fan up and running. When living in apartments and houses that didn’t come with them I’ve put them up (likely breaking a stupid lease rule). At this point I’ve installed dozens of fans and have enough strong opinions on ceiling fans that I could write a lengthy blog post on the subject.

Don’t buy any of these junk fans. Get a normal looking fan, with a quiet DC motor, that takes standard light bulbs with a medium base (e26 in the USA).

Skip modern AC motors, nobody today can seem to build one that doesn’t whomp when it runs. Older AC motors weren’t so cheaply made and don’t usually suffer this problem.

If you have an older fan 25+ years old, you can often rebuild them and end up with a better fan than anything you can buy today.

If you’re building a new house (or doing a rewire) put two light switches in every bedroom, one for the fan the other for the light kit.

If you’re getting a fan with a remote, get one that will let you change the spin direction from the remote.

Get the correct size fan for the room.

Friends don’t let friends buy Hunter Fans, they are all hot garbage. Though they do follow through with their warranties.

By the time 56k was out most new entry level machines came with at least 32 megs.

It’s a nice tribute, but it’s all off. Glad I’m not the only one that knows the modem sounds are off.

For me it was ‘02 when I moved to college and got that sweet dorm room internet. Some of my friends had aim via text messaging.

2012 is a good date for roaming internet, although for the plans and places I’ve been it’s only been the last 3 or so years that roaming internet has been mostly reliable.

If even half of the toxic communities go away to LLMs, maybe AI will be a net positive after all.

You would think so, but most of the low hanging fruit has already been rewritten and replaced. The biggest hurdle is hardware lock in, ISA boards, hardware keys, or other hardware interfaces that can’t be easily connected to new systems. Never mind the problem of verification. That app that takes days to rewrite can annoyingly take months to verify.

Use a hosts file to block every website you don't need access to.

Gotta be first to get the patent, a blanket cancer cure would be worth trillions.

I wonder who’s research they scooped this time.

In Linux if you enable the compose key it’s the compose key followed by 3 dashes.

I used to think this way, but now I know better.

My dad passed a few years back, this past year I spent a considerable amount of time helping my mom and sister tame all his junk. So much junk was tossed or donated, very little was kept and even less sold. Not wanting to burden my family with all of my junk I started working on my own hoard this summer. Letting go wasn't easy, but once it was done I felt less burdened by it.

And yes like clockwork a week after tossing it all I needed some random cable. I spent a couple of bucks for one at Walmart of all places, but Amazon and ebay would have had my back if that cable hadn't been there.

If you have a similar junk box, you have my permission to just throw it away. Don't look in it, don't worry about it, just toss it. You do not need to be carrying so much junk. You do not need 20 year old ethernet cables, 30 year old scsi and ide cables, or 40 year old audio cables. You can buy new ones, in new condition today, most of which are reasonably priced and wont produce random errors or noise due to internal faults.

tl;dr- You don't need it, toss it and do it today!

In the AI era the internet is not for human consumption.

For me it’s about human connection. I want to know the thoughts of others somewhere else to learn or share in their experiences.

Star Wars went dormant in the late 80s through the mid-late 90s where there was no merch or toys in stores, no cartoons or shows on tv, and no comic books. Cable and home video wasn’t yet ubiquitous, for a cohort of kids born in the 80s and early 90s it’s quite possible to have missed out on it until you were older.

I was 7 or 8 in the early 90s in Texas before I heard about Star Wars. I was playing play sword fighting with my dad, when he mentioned my broom handle looked like a lightsaber, I was like “what’s that?” My dad then proceeded to delight me with the story. It would be about 6 months later when an aunt lent us a VHS player that I would get to see it.

Pen(cil) and Paper. I keep a stock of mini memo pads in various colors for record keeping. This lets you track what you need when you need it. If you find yourself needing more room get an thin a5 notebook.

Nearly a decade ago I digitized my families cds and dvds. The stamped discs had about a 10% failure rate, which was higher than I expected.

Fortunately the vast majority of discs people own aren’t particularly rare, so if they loose a disc from a top 40 artist, they can easily get a replacement.

Factory stamps are still not immune to bit rot, even when stored in ideal conditions.

Hearing the vroomvroom isn’t the same as feeling the vroomvroom.

My dad worked for HEB for 35 years. He never planned to stay there when he started in the late eighties, but they had better hours than his prior work as a photojournalist and treated him a whole lot better.

HEB believes that if you treat your employees right, that they will in turn treat their customers well.

As someone that has spent years living away from HEB they are just a great store to have access to. Better prices, store brands that are often better than national, and they usually have a good produce selection. When we moved to the San Antonio area a decade ago, having access to HEB again was one of the most exciting parts of the move.