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Progenitor of the Weird Knife Wednesday feature column. Is “column” the right word? Anyway, apparently I also coined the Very Specific Object nomenclature now sporadically used in the 3D printing community. Yeah, that was me. This must be how Cory Doctorow feels all the time these days.

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Cake day: July 20th, 2023

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  • Especially since the majority of computer users worldwide now no longer use a PC to do their computing. The average consumer now uses Windows only at work. Their personal device, whatever it is, runs Android or is some manner of iDevice, two platforms which have thoroughly eaten Microsoft’s lunch.

    It’s too bad for Microsoft that their mobile platform – Windows Mobile, er, I mean Windows 8 RT, er, actually it was Pocket PC, um, no wait, it was Windows CE, et. cetera – all bombed so spectacularly, and the most recent one mere moments before Google took over the world.

    I imagine Microsoft is no longer eyeing private users as a cash cow except purely as advertising targets.

    It’s only a matter of time before some brilliant dipshit over there manages to envision Windows as a subscription service aimed solely at businesses, and the days of Windows as a standalone OS will be over.





  • One of the things I learned as a wee waddler on my path to being a fully-fledged computer nerd (that was two bird puns in one sentence, I don’t know if you noticed) was that keeping a spare power supply or two around is always a good idea.

    A blown power supply can bring your day’s Unreal Tournament matches productivity to a halt instantly, and inevitably on a Sunday when all the stores are closed, too. To make matters more interesting, a partially failed power supply can cause all manner of strange and otherwise undiagnosable mystery issues. E.g. you’re telling me two of your hard drives, your RAM, and your video card all started acting flaky at once? More likely is your PSU’s +12v rail is wonky, or something. Swap in a known good one and see. A power supply is also the first in line of all your PC components that can be killed by external forces, e.g. dirty power or nearby lightning strikes, or maybe your dad just deciding to plug his 1970s vintage arc welder into the same circuit in the house, etc.

    To this day I have a generic 750w PSU sealed in its shrink wrap on the parts shelf in my basement, because you never know when it’ll get you or someone you know out of a jam. And eventually it probably will.



  • Highly unlikely. Even in bumpus old corners of Texas, the state is absolutely obsessed with doing anything to take away any citizen’s gun rights and will do so by nailing them with some kind of felony, and a negligent discharge scenario that results in somebody getting killed in normal circumstances would definitely qualify.

    People in Texas may love their guns, but the cops in Texas are the same as cops everywhere and if they had their way nobody would have the guns except them.

    This points to me that someone involved in law enforcement, someone involved with the government, or someone with very high level connections and/or a lot of money was the one responsible for this and that’s why it was swept under the carpet. If it were just a regular Joe there’s no way.



  • Amazon stuff sometimes arrives. For instance, it’s going on 7 months by now I think and they still haven’t found my camera.

    This is the sad reality of every company everywhere trying to turn their delivery operation into a “gig” position. Amazon does it, too. Their delivery contractors-who-are-totally-not-employees steal valuable items from deliveries all the time.

    Anyway, you are certain to win your chargeback. Banks side with their cardholders more often than not, and Best Buy is going to have to provide proof positive that you received your item. “We handed it off to Doordash and then washed our hands of it” is not going to cut the mustard, there.

    (We have to deal with chargebacks in my business, too. Defending ourselves is a pain in the ass because we have to provide indisputable documentation that the client’s order was fulfilled. The issuing bank always starts from the default position of their cardholder being a saint and all retail businesses automatically being scammers. A small subset of people will fraudulently dispute a charge for a big ticket purchase just because they feel this is a way to weasel out of paying for it, and usually they’ve been emboldened by the fact that they’ve tried it before and gotten away with it.)





  • I tend to upvote any display of anyone’s creative pursuit if I happen to scroll by it. Even if it’s not something I’m into. The marker-on-photo-paper guy whose name escapes me, people’s photographs in any of the photography related communities, any of the ink doodles, hand made stuff, or comics posted by their original creators.

    We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. The average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.




  • There was a specific version of the AOL installer back in the late '90s that would still let you install it and sign on even if you declined the EULA. It’s doubtful that anyone noticed or cared, but a friend of mine noticed it and I’ve pathologically tried clicking “no” on every EULA prompt ever since just to see if whatever piece of software will let me in anyway. Every once in a while I find one that does, but it’s pretty rare.

    I imagine in this case somebody fucked up and just copy-pasted the “yes” button on the form without bothering to change its action in addition to its text. Who knows how that would stand up in court, and probably nobody’s ever had the opportunity to find out anyway.








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