Posts by localgeek

Re: Alternative operating systems are available

MX Linux is a nice distro that still releases a 32-bit version of their software. I ran it on an old netbook until I sold it last year.

Re: Rent seeking

We bought a 65" Sceptre TV when we moved into our current house 2 years ago. It may not be a high-end device, but it works well enough for our needs, and it's dumb as a brick - like a TV screen ought to be. I use it mainly to watch the occasional DVD. While we do have a Roku connected, Pi-Hole does a decent job blocking ads there.

Warp Drive

They won't take any notice of us until we invent the warp drive. I saw a documentary about this one time.

I can confirm the accuracy of this statement. I once had the police called on me by a paranoid neighborhood watch captain. I was taking photos of random, innocuous things (not even people) in my own neighborhood with a vintage camera. They sent two officers to investigate my "suspicious" activity.

Re: The phone I want doesn't exist

I bought a refurbished Pixel 4a earlier this year for the express purpose of installing GrapheneOS. The installation is web based and went surprisingly smoothly. I think I paid around US $130 for the phone. So far, it's running very well.

Don't Blame Autism

I'm diagnosed on the spectrum, and can say definitively that Musk is an asshole because he enjoys being one. Autism / Asperger's is a social impairment, but his neurological differences don't fully account for his mistreatment of other people.

Re: "where they fill a room with LED screens"

That was my first thought, too. What better way to keep the population docile and distracted than through living in an immersive, fictional world?

Re: Scrodinger's Shredder

Unless, that is, one of the members of your household is a floppy-eared basset hound. I always make a point of turning off my small office shredder between uses to avoid a canine disaster.

Re: Instant karma

Great program. I use it (legally) as a Photoshop replacement. It also has the added advantage of not being rental software. Buy it once and own it.

Re: Panic? What Panic?

I have found one browser that still supports XP, and that's MyPal. It's based on Palemoon. I was poking around on my old Asus EeePC earlier today, and there was a new version posted in just the past few months.

Also, ClamWin still works with XP.

I'm on the spectrum, and don't have problems making eye contact in most cases. I'm more likely to trigger concern by failing to break eye contact at normal intervals. While I do try to approximate "normal" breaks, I'm not always successful at it. My facial expressions don't always reflect typical behavior, either.

In any event, this process of weeding out applicants via an AI evaluation is bound to end poorly for a host of people, and for a host of reasons.

The headphone jack on my LG V30 got worn out (I use it a lot), and it was difficult to make any plugs stay securely inserted. Thankfully, it was still under warranty, and I got the whole phone swapped out for free.

Re: Peak tech

Years before that, Edwin Land developed the groundbreaking Polaroid SX-70, a true SLR-type folding camera that required considerable creativity and engineering.

Re: Question

Judging from the alt text, I'd say it's almost certainly a stock photo.

Re: That's Chromebook right out of my buying list then

The key difference here being that you can't pay ANY price to get support for your Chromebook after the 6.5 years is up. Our house is over 70 years old, but we always have the option of hiring a plumber to fix our ancient pipes.

Re: Escaped

Another +1 for Affinity Photo. As a photographer, it does nearly everything I need for a standalone Photoshop replacement. I use it in conjunction with Alienskin's Exposure X4 software, which is a quite capable replacement for Lightroom. Between the two, I'm well covered for editing.

Re: On a similar topic ...

In the days when you could write in your own option, I would consistently enter "human" as my race.

Re: Damn

I live in the US, and have to admit I don't know anyone who uses WhatsApp, either. If they do, they don't talk to me about it. I think the first time I'd ever heard of it was when they got bought by Facebook.

Re: 2018 is the year of stupidly sized phones

I had to take the current A+ test last week. CompTIA is still touting any phone from 5-7" as a "phablet." Given that nearly all smartphones are now larger than 5", I'm thinking it's time to retire the designation.

My LG V30 is already unreasonably large to squeeze into my pants pocket.

Re: Beefed up Cortana

I disabled and hid Cortana immediately after installing Windows 10. I wonder if this "beefed up" version is going to override my settings and re-enable a tool I don't want or need?

I remember list.com fondly. A simple, but useful way to browse through directories and quickly view the contents of text files.

Re: Mutant 59

Companies love to double dip. Just look at all the commercials we now pay to watch at the movie theater.

A really cheap and easy way to do offsite backups is to buy yourself a large-capacity external drive, and rent a small safety deposit box. It's surprisingly inexpensive. I update mine every few months, which is a bit of a nuisance, but worth the peace of mind as a last ditch option to recover the lion's share of my data in the event that my other backups should fail.

Alternatively, you might try keeping a drive at the home of a friend of family member. This worked out pretty well for me until the in-laws lost my previous drive (encrypted, naturally).

Re: Obama was far worse than Trump WRT Silicon Valley

That may have been true at the time. If you go to Google now and try both terms, it will fill in some (mostly innocuous) suggestions.

Re: best "to buy a really old car that isn't super-connected"

If that had happened to me, I'd have insisted they remove the unauthorized "upgrade," and I'd be sure to notify the manager that this was not an acceptable practice.

Re: well that might be OK as an amateur

As I recall, author Piers Anthony uses all OSS for writing his novels. Maybe someone else drops it into Word later on, but he's certainly a professional writer.

Re: As far as I am concerned

Even if the image is of you, you do not own the copyright to the photo. The copyright always rests with the photographer. In the US, the photographer has great leeway in how that photo gets used. They could sell it as a print, include it in a photo coffee book and do a variety of other things with "your" photo. As long as it was taken in a place where you have no expectation of privacy and doesn't violate any laws, there's not anything you can say about it. The only thing they cannot do without your written consent is use it for commercial purposes (i.e., in an ad).

Re: No problem for me.

No major problems with the upgrade here to Xubuntu 14.04. The only glitch I ran into was a problem where Xfce didn't want to let me change my wallpaper. I'm not sure exactly what I did to fix it, but I think I mostly just logged off and back on the session and it magically went back to normal.

The same is true for us photographers. I have multiple backups and edited versions of a single file. While I can search for images in Lightroom, for example, I rarely use that feature. I have carefully organized my photos using a number of criteria that make sense to me.

Only rarely do I search for anything on my computer.

Re: Not just games

I'm one of apparently 3 people on the planet that remembers the name Duffy Moon. I've lifted some heavy rocks with his inspiration...

Re: Slight confusion here

If you really think that the faith grounded in fact amounts to "hearsay," then on what grounds do you accept any claims about ancient history, since you weren't there to obtain an eyewitness account?

I'm guessing you probably would attribute Plato's "Apology" to Plato (and, indirectly, to the teachings of Socrates), even though you never met the man and most likely are relying on a 20th century English translation of his work to read it. Absolute skepticism about every ancient claim will leave you with nothing meaningful to say about it.