Interesting and entertaining. 3/5 stars.
-- mfw@wyle.org | 1.425.249.3936
Saturday, August 18, 2018
Thursday, August 16, 2018
Magic smoke escaped Zino's power supply
Long time readers of my blog (all 2 of you) will recall that in 2009 we bought a Dell Zino small-form-factor computer with blue ray optical drive, max memory (4 GB), most-expensive video card, and the fastest available processor. It was the only device attached to the 1080p projector in our home theater (15-foot screen, amazing surround sound with monster subwoofer). For 8 years, the boyos gamed on it, shaking the house and the family watched / streamed great movies. In 2016, Microsoft bricked the device with a mandatory win10 patch, so it ran Linux with Mint desktop and no one noticed -- VLC still worked; chrome ran fine, DVD's and BlueRay disks still played perfectly. Zino was a survivor!
However technology and planned obsolescence in the technology industrial establishment march forward, and the poor little device could not decode Matroska containers with highly-compressed 1080p H.264 MPEG4 content in real time. So I needed to transcode these files with handbrake before we could watch them and transcoding took 5-8 hours per file; transcoding also heated the house and made a loud fan noise. This practice lasted a few years until last month, when we replaced the home theater device with a new, low-end, inexpensive win10 machine that can drive a 4K monitor. But the little Zino sat in the man cave and I used it there for little linux / chrome tasks such as streaming, browsing, coding, email, & document editing.
Early this morning (0300 Pacific), we woke to the smell of a burning power supply. The magic smoke had finally emerged from Zino's power supply. But he "died with his boots on," churning through a major Ubuntu upgrade process. Farewell friend, you served us well and we shall miss you.
How to fail at almost everything. . . by Scott Adams
I enjoyed this one. The repetition, and non-stop disclaimers were very annoying. A little bad (older, debunked) science. I think young people could get a lot out of this "self-help" style book, with his emphasis on "systems" thinking and revelations about cognition / perceptions. I may even look at his blog now. 4/5 stars.
Saturday, August 11, 2018
Proteus Unbound by Charles Sheffield
Fun story, but the whole "form change" stuff is unappealing to me, 3/5 stars.
Zahltag, Kommissar Magnus
Extremely well-scripted, tight murder mystery exploring the misery of the working poor, 5/5 stars.
-- mfw@wyle.org | 1.425.249.3936
Web between the worlds by Charles Sheffield
Fun, colorful "golden age" space opera in the vein of Heinlein or Asimov, with bigger-than-life engineers, driven by their technology goals and interesting B story mystery, 5/5 stars.
-- mfw@wyle.org | 1.425.249.3936
Saturday, August 4, 2018
Bordbuch Delta VII by Mark Brandis
Great story, fun space opera, awesome characters and drama, a little dated now, not so much awe and wonder. 3/5 stars.
God's Debris by Scott Adams
Bad science, poor scholarship, silly thought experiments, good writing, 1/5 stars.
Trader's World by Charles Sheffield
I didn't like this one. The tech was bad; the AI was awful. The world was bizarre and silly. 2/5 stars.
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