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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • I started playing with Linux in the late 90s while I was in grad school. Slackware 3.x. I think I might have tried one or two others, but since I was somewhat familiar with Unix, Slackware was the easiest for me to learn.

    I got them via CD ROMs; I’m pretty sure they came with a book on Linux (I think it included several distributions on CDs). I don’t think I have that book any more; I likely got rid of it long ago as it was badly out of date. But my memory is that it was published by Que, a publisher that I had good experience with on other topics. (dBase III, for example) I’m pretty sure it was this one…leave it to Amazon to still have it.

    I recall recompiling kernel because it was “so much faster” (I cringe at myself now for thinking that - it probably wasn’t even true on my Pentium 133 machines). I also remember spending time trying to get X-windows configured, but I was successful. I think I was using fvwm95 window manager, a Windows-like experience. I started using Linux essentially full time pretty quickly.

    A few times I got frustrated with Linux and tried to switch back to Windows, but the headaches of Windows always quickly drove me back to Linux. Linux is not perfect, but Windows is even worse.








  • Yeah, we bought a new LG washer and dryer set when we moved to this house in late 2016. The washer has been trouble free. In fact, it actually saved us from washing delicate clothes in hot water (the handles on the spigots are reversed - the blue is hot; the red is cold) - it filled up, recognized there was a problem, and drained without doing anything more. I thought there was an issue with the washer at first, but then I realized how warm it was inside the washer, and I figured it out from there. I don’t think it’s technically a smart washer in the current sense (there’s no app or anything), but it’s definitely smarter than the ones I’ve had before.

    The dryer’s tension pulley failed, so I had to replace that, for ~$20 from Amazon. It was making noise for a long time, but like a dolt I waited until it actually failed to replace it. The replacement has been trouble free. I found a video on Youtube from someone that showed how to disassemble it to get to the part - it’s easier than it looks.




  • That is, ummm, interesting. Can their installed system do anything, though? There are so many restrictions, it seems like it would be a difficult installation to daily drive.

    And some of the justifications are really confusing. I realize some are probably typographical errors, but I can’t figure out what a few of them are saying at all. It reminds me of the people that invent their own lexicon and just expect everyone to understand what they are saying.





  • Your ceilings must be very low. If they’re very close to the ceiling, of course they won’t work well. But regular 8’ ceilings were fine with them.

    Many had a dimmer, are you sure yours wasn’t turned way down?

    I still have one, it’s in the basement, unused (kept it for use while we renovate that room). We have an LED version in our living room that is the primary light in that room, and it works fine for illuminating everything. I regularly read receipts and paper bills in that room without an issue.





  • I’ve been using this client on our DirecTV device, which is Android based, and I noticed an odd bug. I’ll have to check what version it is, though.

    When an episode of a TV show finishes, if you hit back to go to the episode screen instead of letting it play the next episode, on the bottom of the screen, where it shows the next up: It’s always skipping the next episode.

    For example, if I finish watching episode 12 and go to that screen, I’ll see episode 14 as next (and that’s what plays if I click on it). It skips episode 13. I’ve repeated this several times with different episodes, so I’m convinced it’s not a one-off. I haven’t tried on my Android tablet or phone to see if the bug exists there, too.

    I plan to write this up as an official bug, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.