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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • When I had my house reinsulated last year I took the opportunity to run cables from every room to a small closet, and then a run from that closet to the router. Had some… experience, learning how to wire in the sockets, and right now only my office is connected with a bit of patch instead of the switch I’ll eventually need to get the other rooms live, but it’s so much more reliable than it was with WiFi or poweline. Not to mention that those technologies only just kept up with the 36Mb VDSL I’ve been stuck on for the last 10 years. Having ethernet means I’ll actually be able to get the most out of the 500Mb FttP I’m getting next month.




  • I have a purpose made device for that job. It’s a clear plastic cone with a hollow handle at the point. Half the open end is closed off. Inside there is a semicircular ‘door’ with it’s own handle that sits inside the hollow one.
    You place it over the creature that’s getting evicted, then rotate the inner handle so the door rotates over the opening, sealing it (taking care not to trap any legs).

    Then go outside and reverse the process to release it.
    Personally I don’t mind spiders and would rather have them around than the pests they eat, but wifey is incredibly arachnophobic, so they have to go.


  • Same! I installed W10 in 2016 too, when I built a new Intel 6th Gen system. Just kept on working until earlier this year when the motherboard died. Got a new 12th Gen chip and motherboard from a different vendor, stuck my seven year old boot drive in, entered the bitlocker key, and… it just worked. New drivers installed once I was back online and I just carried on as before. It genuinely surprised me how robust 10 is.

    Eventually I ruined things this summer by accepting the 11 upgrade. I was tempted by windows subsystem for android.
    11 worked ok and I found the UI changes tolerable, but after a month I started getting bluescreens I couldn’t fix, so this week I finally gave in and wiped my antique install from the boot drive and installed a fresh copy.
    It bluescreened pretty quickly, I figured the issue was almost certainly due to a particular piece of software I used. Removed that and it’s been stable since. I could probably just restore my last backup, remove the problem program and continue. But I guess I was due a clean install, and while it wasn’t laggy or slow before, it does feel a little snappier.



  • If you cut your own hair, it won’t grow back. That was a lie my mum told me (after I experimented with the scissors). I believed her for years because there was a gap in my hairline. Eventually I realised “how would the hair know who cut it?” The gap in my hairline was just my parting.

    I believed LCD screens in digital watches were made of mercury (they were silver after all), which I knew was toxic. I thought that if you touched the display directly, you’d die. One day, I’d disassembled a cheap watch to see how it worked - I took everything apart back then, eventually I got good at putting them back together again. Drove my parents mad, but these days they always have something for me to fix whenever I go round.
    Anyway, I had this watch in pieces, handling the innards like an IED, but disaster! I brushed the back of the screen with a fingertip.

    I was dead. It was just a matter of time. I didn’t cry or run for help, nothing could be done, I was resigned to my fate.
    After about an hour of continued existence I began to doubt my assumptions. It dawned on me that something so frighteningly lethal wouldn’t be simply handed to children with nothing but a cheap, press fit case! That said this was in the 80s, and back the I also believed it was both safe and fun to help demolish an asbestos cement outbuilding by jumping on the sheets to smash them into little pieces. That one might still get me, we’ll see.



  • I’m fully WFH right now. Company policy leaves office attendance to each team, although almost no one is expected in full time as they’ve shed a significant number of desks. The pandemic is the reason it went that far but they were headed for hot desking and partial WFH in late 2019 anyway.
    Personally, I’m not expected in at all except for monthly (local) team briefings, because the scheme I’m working on is based in an office at the other end of the country, and so I’d be remote working regardless of visiting “my” office.

    WFH suits me, but to be honest I do sometimes wish I could go in. I miss having people to idly chat to, but I can’t. The office I want to return to isn’t there any more. I used to have my own desk, set up my own way, with neighbours from my (discipline) team, co workers and friends.

    Now it’s a sea of souless hot desks, each identical to the next, same shitty misaligned monitors plugged into the same cheap hub, no dividers at all (it wasn’t quite cubes before, but there were half height dividers that absorbed some of the noise) resulting in an almighty din. Those friends who didn’t retire, quit or transfer might be sat near me, but probably won’t. I can’t even get a coffee unless I plan ahead because they no longer stock non-dairy because apparently it’s too much trouble now they don’t know who’s coming in when.

    Eventually I’ll have to give up my home office because it will be needed as a bedroom, and I’ll have to go in, but until that day I’ll stay where I am.




  • Sounds like your algorithm is pretty badly poisoned.

    It’s my primary video entertainment service. I have a premium family plan so I don’t have to deal with ads on any device and neither do my wife kids or parents.

    I don’t see any crypto scams. I do occasionally see clickbait BS in the suggestions, but I’ve gotten pretty good at avoiding it. Even creators who put out things I like, I’ll delay watching stuff with clickbait thumbs or titles so as not to reward it. I found the Veritasium video on clickbait informative. (Funnily enough he’s now on my shit list for clickbait)

    An inexhaustive list of my follows off the top of my head:
    Gaming:
    Many a true nerd, mainly for the fallout stuff but I like their other content.
    T90official, for AoE2 match coverage, the nearest I get to watching sports
    Best Guest (he deserves more subs, with his surreal challenge runs) SorcererDave.
    Karl Jobst

    Science:
    PBS space time.
    Anton Petrov.
    Sabine Hossenfelder.

    Legal commentary:
    Leonard french.
    Steve Lehto.

    Tech:
    Linus Tech tips (although they’re all in on the clickbait titles & soyface)
    Gamers Nexus
    Der8auer EN
    Louis Rossman (I’ve become less of a fan over the last few years, but not enough to drop him)

    Other
    Meatcanyon/papa meat
    Rainman rays repairs (the algorithm offered him up, and I’ve found him fixing stuff pretty compelling lately)

    There are more but that all I want to type out right now. Some also broadcast on Twitch, but I’m not a fan of that platform. I like some editing, and can’t stand the “look at me, look at meeeee” aspect of twitch chat (or any ‘live’ content)


  • There’s a “cash converters” style store in my town (like a pawn shop, but they don’t do loans or deal in jewelry). Once, years ago I saw a game controller (Logitech wheel) that I was after in the window . I tried to buy it, and was told it was “reserved” It’s still there, along with everything else. They don’t seem to have any stock turnover at all, and they’re still open.

    After talking with coworkers, it’s generally assumed to be a money laundering front.