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trogdor0

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Posts posted by trogdor0

  1. Three "PC mod" videos this week. I have to tell y'all that I liked every one. Of course, I really like clean/minimalist/stealth design aesthetics and generally dislike the flashy/"loud"/"gamer"/maximum-RGB styles that are common today, so...they all get thumbs up from me.

     

    Also, watching these videos really makes me want to buy a CNC router.

  2. Wow! Anxiety over expensive RED cameras sure went away quick. I mean, I know you were still sweating, but when you guys got your first RED, I remember a very different attitude about it than the one I see in this video. A couple years ago, I never would have thought you would have dared to disassemble one. I mean...maaaybe to do an out-of-warranty repair, but certainly not to mod one just for the sake of making a video.

     

    Disassembling/reassembling cameras is not something I personally would ever attempt without some reference. It took 3 attempts to get my brother's DSLR back together and functional after fixing it a few years ago — that was with comprehensive teardown instructions. I predict you guys will require a couple reassembly attempts minimum (if you even get to the point that the mod is "successful", that is). Good luck, Alex. You're going to need it.

  3. I wouldn't buy any of these. In my view, they are fundamentally flawed in their design. It's like they didn't do UX testing. The "smarts" should be in the switch, not the bulb.

     

    if the lights are in a ceiling fan, for example, and someone turns the wall switch off, you now have a "dumb" bulb. Congratulations! You spent $120 for 3 RGB bulbs that the LEDs themselves should cost less than $20 for all 3.

     

    If you are sitting a chair right next to a lamp you want to turn on, which is faster: pull out your phone, get into the appropriate controller app, navigate said app to the exact bulb you want and tap the on/off control on the screen OR call out "Alexa. tell Philips Hue to turn on the lamp by the recliner in the living room" OR just reach over and hit the switch on the lamp itself? (I think that last one wins.)

     

    Another reason the LEDs and the driving circuitry should be separate is that they don't last as long as the manufacturers advertise. I have to replace the LEDs in my iluminated house numbers every 3 years. It's not because they stop working; it's because the LEDs aren't as bright as when they were new, and they aren't ever even on for more than 5 hours each night (i.e. dusk till bedtime).

     

  4. I would call it either:

    Bertha McChippy - because it is big and makes a mess (Bessie McChippy could also work)

    or

    Fred - because it isn't the name of anyone that works at LMG (that I know of at least)

     

    I'm a bit torn between two thought processes: something explanatory, or something short and easy to say that is completely unrelated.

  5. If you need to do any electrical work with this project, you should put some serious consideration into putting in 240V for the PCs and monitors. It's worth it if you have more than 2 or 3 powerful computers in a room. I put in a new line and breaker in my parent's house last year for their computer room. The guy that built the house back in the 80's did all the work himself and cut some corners along the way. Before putting in the new electrical line, there were 2 desktop PCs, a server, a laser printer, a freezer, a washing machine, the overhead room lights, and an outlet in the garage (which was the most convenient place to put the radial-arm saw) all in the same 120V breaker. The lights would dim or flicker whenever the washer's spin cycle was going or when the saw was cutting through hard things or while the laser printer was going. Now since it's rewired, almost all the equipment (printer, PCs, monitors, etc.) that can run on 240V, is running on the 240V circuit. Most PC equipment can take 240V (and your PSUs even get a couple percent more efficient to boot), you just need the right plugs. IEC 60320 C13 240V power cables aren't as common, but are still readily available.

     

  6. I can truthfully say that having an iPhone is not status symbol for me. I loved my old flip phone (Sony-Ericsson from 2006). It had wonderful battery life (more than a week on standby); it worked in rugged terrain where, even though no one else had service on their smartphones, I usually had full bars on mine; it just worked and I didn't have to think about it. I would still be using it today if AT&T hadn't shut off their 2G service last January. I got an SE shortly before the shutdown because it is the cheapest model they offer; it is also the smallest-sized model they offer so that I can easily operate it one-handed. I have one so that I can be familiar with iOS, so that I can have some idea of how to help my parents when they have questions or issues with their iPhones and iPads. I am (and have been for a long time) the resident family tech guru. I maintain everyone's computers and the family servers and networking equipment. I am pretty much expected to know the answer when it comes to tech. 

     

    Now...for two of my brothers, it is definitely a status symbol — they also have to have Macbooks and Apple Watches. My other brother was vehemently against having anything other than an Android phone...then last year he got a job where he was issued BOTH an iPhone AND an iPad. So now my parents, all my brothers and their wives are all in the Apple ecosystem (to varying degrees).

     

  7. 4 hours ago, Tsuki said:

    in my experience, the ISPs is always slower and less consistent, but definitely run the benchmark to see best results

    Theoretically though, that shouldn't be the case. Your traffic has to go through your ISP's network, so you would think it should be faster to talk to DNS servers on your ISP's network vs. ones that aren't. But yes, there absolutely are ISPs running ancient hardware/software setups. There's even recent hardware/software setups that they haven't done a good job optimizing settings. But wouldn't it be nice if theory matched reality...

     

    5 hours ago, Tsuki said:

    do a video on setting up a squid proxy which will cache sites that you go to

    The thing is...there's much less traffic going over HTTP nowadays than there was say...5-10 years ago (e.g. before Snowden). So much of the web has gone to HTTPS only. I mean...it's good that it's a bit more secure/private, but it makes it so it's not cacheable. Beyond Steam game downloads and Windows Update downloads, there's not a whole lot of benefit for most general users. 

  8. If you are only concerned with speed, chances are, your ISP's DNS servers will be faster. GRC's DNS benchmark tool is very useful to help determine which server is the fastest for your particular Internet connection; everyone's connection will be different. You can add your ISP's DNS IP addresses if they are not listed.

     

    Also, unless you're on a fast fiber connection, your latency is probably much higher than the numbers shown in the video. In UT, there is fiber just about everywhere with great speed and latency. Back home at my parent's house, they are on a DSL connection and their ISP's DNS servers typically respond within ~27-29ms. and anything out on the Internet has a minimum ping of about 34ms. The best thing in their case, was to set up a DNS caching server on the local LAN. That improved speeds immensely when I set it up years ago. (This was in the days before most home routers had DNS caching as a feature.) If you are on a higher-latency connection, the best thing for you to do is configure your local DNS server to point to the fastest server for your connection and point all your devices (by default they probably already are) on your network to your local DNS server. Pointing all of your devices to a DNS server out on the Internet on a high-latency connection will actually be slower most of the time.

  9. 11 hours ago, Progressor said:

    I don't understand what the issue with ThePirateBay is? As I understand it only mines while you're on the page and it stops as soon as you close the tab, correct? How is this a bad thing? As a long time pirate I'd gladly support TBP by letting them use my CPU for mining while I browse the site. Infact I think this is a genius approach and an awesome alternative to ads that many sites should utilize. You say there is a way to support a site without them having to put third party bullshit on their page? Sigh me up. If you're only browsing you're not going to get much performance loss while only browsing pages. This won't work on sites that stream videos like youtube unless they find a way to make the script only use a percentage of your CPU. Anyway, I wish TPB made this permanently and removed their ads, I'd love to support them somehow but I refuse to turn my adblock off because their ads are the worst kind.

    I agree. To me, having a JS miner seems a lot more honest, direct way to support any website that you visit. Had TPB disclosed that they were going to do this prior to doing it, I don't see how anyone could really complain. As long as it can be turned off either via manual toggle or automatically after a minute or so (whatever amount of time is deemed as the cost incurred by a page-hit), I would have no problem with any website doing this.

     

    I think that it is appropriate for a website's users give back to sites that they frequent, in the manner that the individual user desires. Personally, I prefer to give anonymously; (being recognized for small things that I do for others has always made me uncomfortable). I do buy things from individual websites' merch stores on occasion. I'm really not a fan of how pervasive the ad monetization of the www is; it can work, but all too frequently I find it to be disingenuous. I like the idea behind Flatter, but that has never really taken off -- both in general as well as on most of the websites that I frequent. In the end, coin mining is a monetization option that I would be comfortable doing.

  10. This feels a little too "Richard Stallman" for my tastes. I mean, that isn't bad per se; it's just more trouble than I would want to deal with on a regular basis. Even though I am an engineer and don't mind futzing with things, a lot of the time I prefer it when things "just work." For those that don't know -- you should at least read his entry on Wikipedia, but I digress -- rms won't use a piece of hardware (or any technology really) unless all the software is open source; When I say all, I mean ALL SOFTWARE: applications, OS, BIOS/UEFI, firmware...everything. This seems like the kind of thing that he would want in a piece of hardware (i.e. complete control over all aspects of the device).

  11. Razer Blade 14. I like a bit more battery. I'd play some Civ and then maybe play a bit of Seasons after Fall. Offhand, I don't know what else to play because I'm just so used to gaming on a much larger screen with a beefy CPU/GPU and I don't know what would still look good.

  12. I like that it is reflected rather than pointing directly at the screen/wall. That makes it so that it can have a smaller lens because it is further from the wall. Most short-throw projectors that I've seen have a much larger lens. A smaller lens and the fact the reflector acts to shield the lens make it better as a portable device.

  13. Admittedly, I wouldn't want to use it as a traditional desktop. I would use it as either a Steambox/HTPC or load it up with pfSense and make a router out of it. The dual 2.5" bays would work well for caching drives and the dual network ports means it wouldn't need to have some kind of external adapter; one would be the WAN port and the other would be the LAN port. Being whisper quiet also helps in both of those situations.

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