BananaTrifleViolin @ BananaTrifleViolin @lemmy.world

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648

Joined

2 yr. ago

I use a Boox Note, and I like it a lot. Its an android based eBook reader so you have full access to android apps including side loading apps from other stores.

By default it does not have Google services set up but you can use the Play store should you want. But its not integrated to googles services. Obviously there is some integration to Onyx Boox services which is based in China. However infindnit is unobstrusive and you dont have to use their store or any of their tools.

Personally I use Calibre on my Linux PC to manage my books on the device, and I use fbreader as a reader (closed source) but you can install open source software if thats your preference. KOReader certainly works but I'm not a big fan of the interface personally.

I use ebooks.com to buy books (and calibre to remove DRM so I can use my preferred software), and you can install the Kindle app to access a kindle library if you haven't liberated your books yet. Ebooks reader works on the device too. Obviously DRM free books from any source and format can also be used.

My device - the note - has an nice crisp screen, is well made with a nice aluminium chassie and is comfortable to hold. I read books in portrait mode so you have 2 pages visible at a time. Its also good for a4 size documents. They do also have smaller sizes that match a kindle paper white.

Its probably just winXP running in a VM.

At this stage it will be challenged in the US courts as it is apparently unconstitutional and also illegal.

Supporting non-profits that use the legal system to hold the government to account is the way to go for now.

Also the scope of this remains unclear - it's possible that it will blow up in Trump's face when all the schemes that directly benefit voters disappear, including potentially medicaid. So everyone just needs to keep reminding people that "Trump did this" - make him own the shit that is coming.

So this isn't shrinkflation, this is a small size pizza that they're trying to claim is still as tasty as a full pizza?

Like, if you wanted a full pizza it should be pretty obvious it's a small 4.5" pizza from the box?

KDE config files can be changed on the command line using:

kwriteconfig

And viewed using

kreadconfig

Power management is in:

~/.config/powermanagementprofilesrc

And

~/.config/powerdevilrc

You can feed changes to the file via kwriteconfig via the command line OR create a duplicate file with different settings and use rename commands in a script file to switch back and forth.

E.g. rename the file to "powermanagementprofilesrc.backup" and create and rename a custom file with the settings you want like "powermanagmentprofilesrc.one" to "powermanagementprofilesrc". Rename them back and forth via a bash script to switch "profiles"

To apply changes you'd need to then run qdbus:

qdbus org.freedesktop.powermanagement /org/kde/Solid/PowerManagement org.kde.Solid.PowerManagement.reparseConfiguration

And then to load the new config in your current session:

qdbus org.freedesktop.powermanagement /org/kde/Solid/PowerManagement org.kde.Solid.PowerManagement.refreshStatus

So either use kwriteconfig and qdbus in a script OR make duplicate config files and a bash script to copy or rename the configs as needed plus qdbus to apply the changes to the current session.

There may be a much simpler way of switching profiles already actually defined within the exisiting config files (e.g. battery saver vs performance) using qdbus but I'm not sure how to do that myself. Possibly using:

org/kde/Solid/PowerManagement/Actions/PowerProfile

EDIT2: Sorry this is a very long post! Just to say if you're new to linux and want to understand a bit: qdbus is a tool for QT based applications (including almost all of KDE which is build in QT) to interact with DBUS which is basically the messaging system in linux between processes.

So when you run qdbus on it's own you'll see a tree of processes that are interacting with QT processes. Then if you run qdbus & the name of a process like "org.freedesktop.powermanagement" you'll see what QT processes are running with/under it. Then if you run dqbus and add that connected process like "/org/kde/Solid/PowerManagement" you can see what strings and options are available. Then you can run qdbus to see more detail or change a setting/string.

Hope that make sense!

Kbin was forked to Mbin which is community run. Kbin seems to have stopped development while Mbin continues. Most kbin sites have moved over to Mbin I think.

Not sure what's happened woth kbin.social though. Maybe its moving to Mbin? Still seems yo be running kbin currently judging by the landing page?

Is there enough space on your filesystem? That includes your home folder and main root file system?

If so then i'd deletenor rename folders associated with bottles and try again. If its a user level install check ~/.local/share/Flatpak/app and ~/.var/app and deleteor rename the bottles folder. If its a system wide install look in /var/lib/Flatpak/app

Then try and install it again. It will create a new set of folders.

I'm guessing it's automated stupidity. Meta has cut staff and we're seeing the results.

Much of the big tech companies have done this over the past year or two, and also been pushing "AI" to replace roles like moderation. I think we're seeing the results of over relying on AI and cutting staff to boost share prices.

Lets face it, Meta is dying; Facebook is declining, and Instagram seems to be in decline too, the pivot to VR failed and the pivot to AI will fail. It's best chance seems to be trying to get its hands on TikTok in the US and even that is hardly going to drive the company forward.

Sponsored by a wine maker. A bottle of wine a day - jeeze.

Its worth saying a GPU dock is just an eGPU. Often they use mobile GPUs and will make something more streamlined or portable. They often include a USB hub.

Most eGPU chassis are the same tech but often larger so you can install a larger desktop gpu, and have more space for cooling and even a dedicated PSU.

GPU docks have their own usefulness but you are likely to get more performance for the price by getting your own chassis and card, but less mobility and more bulky.

There are plenty of chassis available if you go looking. Some haven't been updated to newer models but remain available.

A chassis is fairly simple - its basically a bit of mother board with pcie and a thunderbolt 3+ connection. Thunderbolt 3 remains powerful enough for most uses, and ones with dedicated PSU will work with newer cards. I think the lack of new products reflects the lack of needing to change the products at the moment.

I haven't seen much about thunderbolt 4 reducing the overhead. It might do, but there are fundamental constraints in these devices as this is basically converting pcie to thunderbolt and transferring over a distance - thats not going to ever match a direct pcie connection into a motherboard no matter how fast Thunderbolt 4 or 5 are. Thunderbolt 3 may not be the main bottleneck.

The Razer Core X is still available for example. And there are loads of smaller companies woth offerings.

I think just the highest end cards would be out of reach for the popular existing chassis but there is not going to be much market for pairing cards costing 1000s with a laptop when you are far better getting a desktop. So there may not be the market to make lots of new thunderbolt 4 chassis with PSUs.

The most important consideration is your laptops ports and it's cpu. You will need Thunderbolt 3, 4 or 5 or USB 4 to get high enough transfer speeds and bandwidth between your eGPU and the laptop. You also need a decent CPU to get the full benefits - an eGPU paired with an old or low powered CPU may mean you dont get the full benefits of the eGPU as your CPU is still a bottleneck in running the software or games that would make use of the eGPU.

Then the eGPU chassis you choose will have specific limitations in terms of size of card that will fit. You need to check these carefully to ensure the chassis can fit and support the card you want. The bigger and better the chassis the more expensive it will be. Were talking a couple of hundred pounds / dollars on top of the card price.

But in theory there isn't a limit on the cards you can use. Any GPUs that fits the chassis would work as its a standard pcie slot. However i would contend that if you want to use a top end card like a 5090 youre better off getting an actual PC to enjoy the full performance. If youre spending 1000s on a GPU it should be paired with a high end laptop or far better in an actual desktop to get the benefit. You also need to ensure the chassis can provide enough power to the card you want.

You lose about 10-15% of the cards functionality in the overhead of the eGPU. Thats because as fast as thunderbolt and usb4 are, you are transfering that to/from a pcie slot in the eGPU chassis and also transferring data over an distance via a cable compared to a gpu plugged directly into pcie on a motherboard for a PC, with direct connection to the CPU and rest of the motherboard. Newer thunderbolt and newer chassis might have lower overheads but they will never be able to completely match direct plug into a motherboard.

So yes eGPUs work, if your device can support it, and you can get big performance boosts. There isn't a limit on the GPU but you should probably not go too high end as you'd be wasting money. A low end GPU would likely out perform any integrated card or graphics for most laptops and a mid range card would likely give excellent performance if paired with a decent specced laptop. But any eGPU set up cannot match the Max performance of the card in a dedicated desktop set up.

Edit: I know you have a surface but in case others read this and have a Mac - eGPUs wont work with Apples M1/M2 CPU chips. There is no way around this. AMD and Intel chips do although newer is better.

Amazon are getting bad about refunds and replacements plus have a major problem with counterfeit goods due to how they mix 3rd party and Amazon sourced goods in their warehouses.

They can't refund your house if it burns down because Amazon sold you fake electronics.

EBay is fine for the smaller cheap Chinese tat that you can find on amazon, and PayPal provides consumer protection. Go to other retailers for electronics - any site or shop that does not use third party sellers.

Yeah and anything of value I would not get from Amazon due to the risk of counterfeits. Amazon pools its stock for an item with that provided by 3rd party sellers in its warehouse - either can be delivered to a customer based on which is closest not who you think you're buying from.

So you can easily receive dodgy goods from 3rd party sellers that may he counterfeit or refurbished rather than new, when it says "sold and dispatched by amazon".

Get your expensive items from other retailers that dont have 3rd party sellers. Get your cheap random Chinese manufactured crap from EBay or Aliexpress. Get your digital content from other stores like ebooks.com where you can legally remove the DRM and keep your content forever.

Fuck Amazon.

I'd play videogames, depending how much use you have of the hand. If you can use a controller or a mouse without discomfort I'd game. You could complete a lengthy RPG like Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 or Baldurs Gate 3. Or you could learn and play Dwarf Fortress or try and get as far as possible in Stardew Valley or whatever games you like.

Id also go out and walk - explore your city, or go hiking if you have nature near by. Its free and it beats being cooped up in your house.

Or you could make a start on a new skill. Like coding with freecodecamp.org or start learning a language.

9 days is a luxury - I'd even enjoy just lazing about, catching up with friends and family. You dont have to do anything meaningful - you could have some me time.

Yeah if the primary focus is on Prevent then its scapegoating. Prevent is there to tackle people being radicalised - its not there to detect and police all violent people in society.

The real failings are in police, mental health services and social services - all of which have had resources slashed due to austerity.

Blaming Prevent is a distraction - counter terrorism is not the route this very violent and sick individual should have been caught before committing an atrocity.

I work in the NHS and the real question for me is how a very sick and dangerous child could have been allowed to walk away by child mental health services whose excuse has been that he "failed to engage". A child does not have autonomy to decide to engage or not - it is the mental health services and social services that failed to follow him up.

A child that was too dangerous to even be allowed on site at a specialist school - he was managed from home for staff and pupil safety - should have had heavy mental health and social service input. Prevent would be able to offer nothing.

The whole story is an indictment of the failure of the state over the last 15 years since the ideological nonsense of austerity has ravaged the UK public sector and services.

Infinite doesn't mean everything. Infinite can include a repeating pattern, even a huge repeating pattern which seems random at first. Not everything you could possibly imagine would necessarily have to exist in the multiverse.

And even if infinite and perfectly random, some things may just not be feasible and just not exist.

I have a linux desktop with dual 4K screens and I don't have problems with high DPI? The only problems I've come across is with Wine which is easly fixed within the winecfg.

I'm on OpenSuSE, using KDE in X11. I DID have scaling problems with Wayland which I avoid until it is fit for daily use.

Of course 4k is 4 times 1080p (or twice in X and Y dimensions) so maybe it's much easier to scale to? 2K on the Framework is an odd resolution so maybe scaling would be more troublesome? 1080p to 1440p would be 1.3x scaling.

Yeah I think this is a very important point.

I think people will need to learn to accept that there is no such thing as "free". The current social media sells you to advertisers, taking every bit of data they can get.

So for independent and privacy focused social media, we're going to have to accept we have to pay for it.

I've moved to paying for my email, my file storage, my VPN and my password manager - all for privacy and security. I pay for subscriptions for streaming to avoid advertising. So I would pay for social media.

In the early days of the internet, people accepted paying for things but then the "free" model came along. The fediverse will need to persuade people to pay for it. That may limit it from being the big everyone social medial, but it could be able to become the high quality version of social media that people pay for.

It says a great deal about the us political system that this was an executive order and not an actual law.