Skip Navigation

InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)WE
Posts
0
Comments
2,107
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • You spent a few evenings downloading a hundred or so 1.44MB floppy imges over a 56kbps modem. You then booted the installer off one of those floppies, selected what software you wanted installed and started feeding your machine the stack of floppies one by one.

    Once that was complete you needed to install the Linux boot loader "LiLo" to allow you the boot it (or your other OS) at power on.

    All of that would get you to the point where you had a text mode login prompt. To get anything more you needed to gather together a lot of detailed information about your hardware and start configuring software to tell it about it. For example, to get XFree86 running you needed to know

    • what graphics chip you had
    • how much memory it had
    • which clock generator it used
    • which RAMDAC was on the board
    • what video timings your monitor supported
    • the polarity of the sync signals for each graphics mode

    This level of detail was needed with every little thing

    • how many heads and cylinders do your hard drives have
    • which ports and irqs did your soundcard use
    • was it sound blaster compatible or some other protocol
    • what speeds did your modem support
    • does it need any special setup codes
    • what protocol did your ISP use over the phone line
    • what was the procedure to setup an tear down a network link over it

    The advent of PCI and USB made things a lot better. Now things were discoverable, and software could auto-configure itself a lot of the time because there were standard ways to ask for information about what was connected.

  • If somebody has been diagnosed with a mental disorder it doesn't give them a free pass to be harmful to others. Their actions are still their responsibility. The diagnosis is there to help her explore options for managing her condition, getting treatment or medication. It's not there to give her an excuse for being a bitch.

  • It's interesting when America tries to make British panel shows (like the recent HIGNFY one). The competition aspect and the points, which are only a conceit in the British version, start having importance. They care who wins and it destroys the comedy. The right answer becomes more important than the funny answer.

  • Permanently Deleted

    Jump
  • Trump is certainly the wrong model, but they do need to communicate better. In particular I think they need to communicate the reasons behind their decisions.

    • Why aren't we standing with countries like Canada in response to Trump's sabre rattling?
    • Why haven't they just told Trump to get fucked in trade talks when his administration is asking for changes in our laws?
    • What are the cuts on winter fuels and disability benefits paying for?
    • Why are we not looking to rejoin the customs union to remove barriers to trade with the EU?

    Etc, etc, etc.

  • It's the ignoring of people's issues that's the key problem. If the people are hurting and the government aren't doing anything to help them, preferring to bail out corporations or enable their exploitation of their customers/employees, then the people will look for alternatives to vote for.

    All the extremists need to do is pay lip service and they have a ready made electoral platform.

  • To get them to stop they need to lose both the original sale and the additional advertising revenue. Right now their thinking is:

    • People are buying our TVs
    • Putting advertising on them isn't causing our sales to drop
    • Therefore it's costing us next to nothing to do.
    • It often gets us extra revenue if they connect to the internet.
    • If they don't connect, we still more than covered our costs.

    There is no downside for them. Only upside. The equation needs to change for them to stop doing it.

  • They're industrial boxes with a screen. Not aesthetically what I want in my living room. The displays are chosen for their longevity, not their picture quality. They're often actively cooled with fans, so adding a noise level to their operation.

  • I agree, but with TVs (or large displays" we're at the point where there are no good options. Commercial displays are over engineered for the home and lag in technology Vs home TVs. So they're not an option. Lg and Samsung are the display technology leaders, but their TVs are full of crap— so no. Monitors don't go large enough for the living room.

    Guess I'm stuck with what I have.