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Some of the YouTube vloggers that Katy watches are interesting. "Oh no, it's a holiday but I accidentally set my alarm [and also accidentally set up the camera to record myself being woken up by it]!"


So, once I'd becone reasonably proficient with the #soroban, my next step was going to be learning how to use a #SlideRule. Unfortunately, it seems as though nobody makes the latter any more.
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

Yes quite a useful tool at the time but 55+ years ago for me and knowledge has faded. Calculators were banned as being economically elitist. A basic calculator could cost as much as a term's tuition.



in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

Hooray! Now it won't crash if you try to drink a beverage you're not holding, or if you leave the bar with unclaimed items in the boat.


Argh! Why is @Nextcloud 📱☁️💻 not telling me that there's a new version out? I'm on 29 and it's telling me it's up to date.

Maybe it's a PHP thing because I'm still on 8.2.20, but that should be supported.






Samsung Health really does not like to make that "Download Data" button easy to find, do they?


So it looks like I'm tied to Android for the time being (unless I want to go to iOS). Otherwise, I can't fully access my bank accounts.

Time to go yell at my bank.



Without fail, every time I boost a post about discrimination on the fedi, I end up seeing a bunch of white guys trying trying to minimize it and telling the original poster why they're wrong and/or being unreasonable.

I'm getting the impression that just maybe the people complaining about this aren't making it up or something.

Weird, right?

Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. reshared this.



slightly doxxing myself
I just realized that I am 16161 days old today.


Ooh, I can become an "AWS Certified AI Practitioner", because maybe if we throw enough meaningless words together people won't realize it's all bullshit.

I mean, why not? It works for the AI models themselves, right?



I think my phone is finally starting to give out. God, I hate having to pick (and pay for) a new one.


Hang on, tripod.com websites are still a thing?
in reply to Jeremy List

@Jeremy List I was on GeoCities by the time I learned about them. Didn't see a point in moving at the time.


Filed under the category of "things I didn't expect to find while thrifting":


ph, food

Been trying to stock up on healthy snacks because my blood sugar situation is slowly degrading.

I forgot how much I love hummus.



Our TV has a wonky HDMI port. When the cable gets bumped the picture on the screen goes to high-res static. This is not the behaviour I would expect from a digital signal.
in reply to buoou

@uoou Sadly, best I can do is 1080p, which I guess is fine since my eyes aren't 4K anyway.
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

I'm actually hearing a few people going back from 4k to 1080. 1080's certainly enough for me.




I've been using a web site for #soroban practice that generates exercise sheets. They offer a service where they'll send you a worksheet by email on a scheduled basis, and I finally signed up for that. When I did, I was presented with a captcha. I normally despise these, but I think I'll let this one slide.






How do I know I'm getting old (and boring). I literally got excited about a new pill organizer.


As useful as GnuCash is, I wish it had a TUI. There's really no reason for it not to.


weird shower thought/rant about abacuses

A while ago on a whim, I did a somewhat deep dive into the abacus. I thought it would be interesting to learn about a device that is sometimes credited as an ancestor of the modern computer.

I've come to be of the opinion that it's not really a fair comparison though. An abacus is not a computer... at least not a full-fledged computer. It doesn't compute anything. Your brain does that. I think it is fair however to compare it to memory, though.

An abacus is essentially an array of memory cells. Instead of storing bytes, it stores digits, but that's a trivial distinction. You even have to allocate those memory cells to accommodate the structure of the data you are operating on, just like you would with the memory in a computer.

reshared this

in reply to drhoopoe

weird shower thought/rant about abacuses
@drhoopoe I've had a very similar thought. I didn't know it had a formal name.


I hate that modern ICs aren't hand-solderable. I mean, I get why that is, but I still hate it.

Edit: typo



Can anyone recommend a #RasPi alternative for #embedded #electronics projects? There's the #Arduino, which is nice, but sometimes you need something with a little more oomph.

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in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

esp32 and esp8266, the latter is cheaper and would work fine for most of your needs.


My mother-in-law overestimates my command of the Spanish language (though knowing French is admittedly helpful).

She claims that I understand 80% of what I hear. It's closer to 30%, but I can piece a lot together through context.

Shannon Prickett reshared this.



I love that every single time we order cat food, we get a tracking number after it's arrived.


Why does @Nextcloud 📱☁️💻's web app work better than the actual official Android APK for editing files? That's kind of bonkers.



Just got a push notification on my phone:

To receive nearby offers and coupons, you need to agree to the location service's Terms and Conditions.

Um... no, thank you?

Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. reshared this.



pH: medication

Just took my first dose of metformin. The only thing I had on hand to take it with was Coke

This was not well planned out. I'm clearly off to a great start.

Shannon Prickett reshared this.



Great. The pharmacy's changed suppliers for one of my meds, and now I have two pills that look very similar. I can no longer tell them apart at a glance.


I'm sometimes envious of people's cool custom mechanical keyboards, but I need a full 104 key layout. I feel cramped on anything else.
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

If I don't have a numpad, I feel like I'm missing a finger or two. The odd location of Backspace/Delete on my System76 keyboard also still messes me up when typing in the dark, even though I've been using it for nearly a year (I think).
in reply to Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.

@Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. The machine I use as a daily driver is a laptop. Most of the time it sits on a stand with a peripheral keyboard for exactly this reason.


In the world of computers, no matter what tool you use, someone will hate it and tell you you're an idiot for using it.

Don't worry about those people. Use the tool that works you.

(This advice probably extends beyond computers.)

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in reply to Adam Hunt

@Adam Hunt I was on Ubuntu for years simply because it was popular (the very reason many hate it).

When I finally switched, I went to Debian for similar reasons.

in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

I run mint on my nearly antique daily driver desktop (this one) and manjaro on my way more modern laptop.. My servers run whatever I want .. mix of unix and proxmox..



mh: adhd
Had my first appointment with my new family doctor. Apparently, he's not fond of $adhd_medication, but he refilled the prescription anyway. Hopefully this isn't going to become a problem.


Well, the filter I set for the string "vance" just got triggered by the word "advanced". Guess I've gotta re-think that one...

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