stoy

joined 2 years ago
[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 24 points 1 day ago

You should reach out to the manufacturer and ask.

Send an email explaining the situation to their marketing department, that is usually a good way to establish contact, and just say something like.

"Hi, this is a quite weird question, and I was wondering if you could pass it along to the relevant team.

I live in an apartment building with a communal laundry room, we have one of your devices in use on the wall, specifically the model X, and the button feel of the buttons are just utterly amazing.

I am now looking for the same type of buttons for my own project, and was wondering if you can speak with the product team and help me figure this out.

Thank you very much for you time!"

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 50 points 1 day ago (12 children)

I hate the huge SUVs you see all over the roads, I have a 2021 Seat Leon FR PHEV hatchback, and around here the Kia EV9 is really popular.

While not as large as the stupid Ford F-150s, the EV9 is fucking huge.

The bonnet of an EV9 reaches almost up to my Leon's roof:

https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/seat-leon-2020-5-door-hatchback-vs-kia-ev9-2023-suv/

It should be illegal to have a car with the headlight at the eye level of a driver of a standard WV Golf type car.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 day ago

Google might build the perfect unbreakable crypto, but as long as it remains closed source, I will press X to doubt.

One of the most annoying things about IT is understanding that for the vast majority of users, even if you have the source code, it is absolutely impossible to verify that a specific program is actually running on your hardware and has not been modified.

Your code may be clean, but then you compile it, how do you verify that the compiler doesn't add secret functions? Ok, so you used an open source compiler, like GCC, but how can you trust the GCC binary, you don't know how that was compiled.

And so on.

So for your own sanity, you lower your security standard to be able to actually get work done.

It sucks, but the best thing to do is to adopt an increased risk, to a point.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There are plenty of answers in this thread that lists applications that have kept being updated over the years, which I don't know if it is a valid answer, it depends on the definition of the question, and how you interpret the software of Theseus.

I am going to be semi pedantic, no binary updates but config updates and compabillity layers are ok.

I still play Unreal Tournament 2004, I have three copies, one on CD, one on Steam and one on GOG, it is an awesome game, that even has an official native Linux version with an installer on the CD.

It is fantastically fun, well balanced and just amazing.

You have to edit the config files to support modern resolutions, and make it connect to the community master server, but that is a one time change and then you can just start blasting.

The game is available on Archive.org.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 17 points 1 day ago

I hate it.

I am an IT guy, and AI has just about killed my enthusiasm for tech, I made a post about it a month or two ago, and it is still valid.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Look for the most common model in your area, and get one in the most common color.

Then forget about running, focus on evasion instead.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago

I have said it before, and I'll say it again, if Norway find managing the oil fund to be too annoying, then I can step up and reduce yhe strain.

I'll happily take 0.01% off their hands.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 20 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Swede here, I love driving, 100% love it, I don't drive in the city unless I need to (last time I had to was three time last summer), we have excellent public transport, there very limited need to drive in the city.

My favorite roads to drive are suburban and rural roads, they are fun and interesting .

I have a 2021 Seat Leon FR PHEV Hatchback, a great little car, and I hate the massive pickup cars from the US.

Just look at a comparison between my car and a F-150:

https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/seat-leon-2020-5-door-hatchback-vs-ford-f150-2017-4-door-pickup-supercrew-5.5-raptor/

(This was the only F-150 model that was closest to the year my car was made.)

The F-150 is insane, the bonnet is at the same height as my car's roof.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

We never had these when I grew up, but we did have these:

These are also a classic, there was always a rumor that one of the bigger kids managed to swing around the top, yet never any proof... There was also a variant that had a single attachment point at the top and could swing in all directions:

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I seem to recall reafing that smart TVs have a list of default passwords they use to try and connect to the to wifi networks they find...

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 84 points 4 days ago (4 children)

I can't take an article that calls the BBC "MI6 Media" seriously, I get that there is plenty of people with good reason to dislike/hate the BBC, and using insulting names for organizations is funny in forum posts, but in an article where you claim to work with facts, you should stick to the facts.

I may call Trump "the Drumpfster" or Putin "Putte" in informal conversations, but if I am making an article about them, I will use the proper names.

If what is claimed happened, this sounds more like a reporter with a history of similar behavior working for the BBC inventing a quote, which the BBC retracted once it was found out to be bullshit.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 week ago

It absolutely might, but you should still keep an eye on the battery's physical condition.

 

Abracadabra was a children's tv show on Swedish state television between 1997 and 2001, it followed Doris the cow and Gösta the badger on random adventures.

Ahlgrens Bilar is a marshmallow type sweet, shaped as classic cars with a mild fruit flavor, there are made in three colors, white, pink and green, they are hugely popular across all ages in Sweden.

This picture shows Doris visiting the factory where Ahlgrens Bilar was made.

This photo was taken by a staff member at the factory, and was later donated to the regional museum, sadly the name of the specific photographer has been lost to time.

It is licensed as CC-BY-SA.


I remember seeing this program on TV, it was aimed at younger kids than me.

 

I am back!

I remember there was a few requests about more control rooms when I started posting here last time, so I thought I might honor the request even if it doesn't show much of the room part...

Anyway, this is the fully automated control panel for the rail yard at Uppsala Centralstation in Uppsala, this photo was taken on 1938/05/11 and published in the local paper, Uppsala Nya Tidning, the day after.

This machine controls the switches and signals of the rail yard at the station, a similar model can be found operational and in use at the local heritage railroad.

Sadly I don't know what the indicators mean, or how to operate it, I just think it is cool!

This photo was taken by Paul Sandberg, and is in the public domain.

 

Just a normal walk, nothing special

 

I am an IT guy and have a lot of USB cables and chargers.

As the world consolidates on the USB-C connector, regardless of what cable is actually used, it becomes more important to verify the specs of a cable and chargers.

Just because they might say USB3 doesn't mean that they are USB3, they might USB2 with USB-C comnectors, or they might be a hybrid solution with a low data rate and a high charge rate.

How do you know?

A real USB cable analyzer costs a shitload of money.

I have three tools that can help me get and idea about what kind of cable or charger.

  1. The USB data lines tester - this tool shows if a USB cable has all pins connected, a quick and dirty test to verify the design of the cable, if not the quallity.
  2. USB Power meter - This is probably the most useful tester you can get for everyday use, it shows the current power draw when connected in series with a carger/powerbank, cable and device, you can verify that a device is actually charging and how fast it is charging. You can verify that a charger is supplying the correct amount of power and even see a diagram of how the charge rate over time.
  3. USB power load tester - This allows me to force test a charger's output, it also tests if the charger can support fast charging protocols like QC or PD, the model linked does not seem to support PD testing, but mine from joy-it.com does.
 

1000pcs and, damn, amazing way to just zone out before bed.

I listened to an audiobook at the same time

 

I started my IT career in 2011, I have enjoyed it, I have got to do a lot of interesting stuff and meet interesting people, I will treasure those memories forever.

But, starting with crypto turing general computing from being:

"Wow, this machine can run so many apps at the same time!" or "Holy shit, those graphics look epic!" or "Amazing, this computer has really sped up that annoying task!"

To being:

Yo! Look at how many numbers I can generate!

That brought down my enthusiasm severely, but hey, figuring out solutions to problems was still fun.

Then came AI/LLMs.

And with it, a mountain of slop.

Finding help about an issue has gone from googling and reading help articles written by something with an actual brain to mostly being rephrased manuals that only provide working answers to semi standard answers.

Add to that a general push to us AI in anything and everything, no matter how little relevance it holds for the task at hand.

I also remember how AI was sold to the us at first, we were promised to do away with boring paperwork, so we could get on with our actual job.

What did we get? An AI that takes the fun and creative parts, leaving the paperwork for the workers.

We got an AI that we need to expect to be stealing our work and data at every point, giving us shit work back, while being told that we should applaude it and be grateful for it.

And the worst thing, the worst thing is that people seem happy with it. I keep getting requests to buy another Copilot license or asking for another AI service to be added to our tenant, I am sick of it!

We got an AI that somehow has slithered onto the golden throne and can't be questioned.


I am not able to leave the tech market at this time, but I will focus on more tangible hobbies going forward.

This year, I have given myself a project, I will try to build a model railway in a suitcase. That will be a Z-scale tiny world in a suitcase.

I have never done anything remotely like it, but I feel like I need something physical to take my mind off tech.

Sorry for the rant, but I just came off of a high from realizing and putting words to my feelings.

 

This is an interesting one, this is caisson lighthouse built between 1957-1958, it was shipped out and installed in 1958.

During the winter of 1969, eleven years later, the lighthouse was shorn off it's foundation by the pressure of the ice around it, this caused it to fall over.

The lighthouse fell over (not very typical), and electric light went out, but the backup gas powered Dalén light turned on and worked!

Here is a diagram of the lighthouse showing the shear point, with helpful text in english:

https://fyr.org/wiki/index.php/Fil:Nygr%C3%A5nCrack.jpg

A new lighthouse was built and installed in 1970.


The picture is as far as I can tell licensed as CC-SA-BY, but I can't find any photographer information, the only ownership information I can find is that it belong to an archive maintained by a person called "G Kjellgren"

 

Engineer Salomon August André believed he had the answer to exploring the arctic back in the 1890.

Balloons!

Yes, he came up with a concept of using a hydrogen filled balloon, and draglines to explore the arctic.

He managed to convince several financiers of his idea, among which was Alfred Nobel (yes that Alfred Nobel) and the king of Sweden at the time.

He designed and had a balloon constructed, the Eagle, and designed a system of drag lines to try and implement some kind of steering.

In 1896 the first attempt was made, it is from that attempt this photo is from, it show the hydrogen gas generator apparatus used to fill the balloon.

This attempt was aborted when the balloon was found to be leaking too much hydrogen through the approximately 8 million holes in the stitching of the balloon, while waiting for suitable winds

The balloon lost about 68kg of buoyancy per day.

So they gave up that attempt.

But next year, in 1897, André made a new attempt!

One of the earlier members had left and been replaced, and this year, the winds were far better.

On the 11th of July the proper wind finally arrived, and it was time!

The lines were cut and the balloon slooowly lifted from the ground and flew out over the sea.

The problems had already started...

Remember the draglines?

Yeah, they caused so much friction and weighed so much that they started dragging the balloon down into the surface of the sea.

They also started spinning, unscrewing them from their mountings, and soon the balloon had lost 530kg rope.

At the same time the expedition members released 210kg sand to compensate for the seawater that had entered as the basket hit the surface of the sea.

740kg were lost in the first few minutes of the expedition, this caused the balloon to shoot up 700m.

This was just the start of the expedition.

These guys never made it home alive.

 

These are Löjtnanterna Wilhelm and Eric Carlberg, the two best members on the Swedish team for group shooting in the Olympic Games of 1912 in Stockholm.

The photographer is unknown, but the license of the photo is CC-BY

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