Cool and damp, warming later, low to mid 90s by afternoon. Hot in the sun, but cool in the shade. For values of cool, like 84F…
Did my doctors’ appointments yesterday. With one in the morning and one in the afternoon, I didn’t get much else done. Still using my NVR linux box to do all my daily computing since I can’t get my normal daily driver to boot. Hopefully I can sort that out later today.
One of my pickups is a PC that looks like about a 90-100% match for my daily driver. It’s local and I should have it by noon. With any luck I can just swap in my drives and be back in business. Since I don’t know if my issue is MB related or PSU related, that seems like the fastest and safest choice, if win7 will register on new (to me) hardware. I won some other stuff in the same auction (a going out of business auction) that should be handy too, mostly cleaners, paint, bug poison, and hardware. That stuff really adds up when you buy it separately.
After dealing with that, I need to load up and do another auction drop off. That should get one small storage unit to the half way clean point. Progress. Baby steps. Hopefully I’ll be able to pull some from another unit too.
Then I need to figure out how to disassemble and move a pool table. Wife wanted one for the BOL, and I got one… I’m supposed to pick it up on Thursday, but my normal helper buddy isn’t available. I’ll be scratching my head pretty hard today, trying to come up with help.
——————-
My imaging yesterday was normal. Barium, it’s what’s for breakfast! Yeah, not horrible, but not tasty either. Meeting with the GI specialist has me scheduled for a much more invasive procedure, in fact one from each end. All y’all were on my case to get that done, and now I will. Next month. But the looksee, snatch and grab fest is scheduled. Getting older isn’t for the weak. I realized that after a 3 year break without seeing doctors, all my new docs are younger than me. Kinda mind F-d me when I realized that. So far I like them all. My primary care doc called me yesterday to review the stuff he’s received from the specialists and the imaging. Never had a doctor initiate anything like that before. Kinda liked it. There was one thing in the CT scan that he wants a more detailed look at, so I’ll be making another appointment later today with yet another guy.
Keeping in mind that everything so far has been negative for issues, and that I’m mostly working a grab bag of things I’ve been putting off for years, it’s worth doing and getting a clean report- especially as things around us fall apart. It’ll be a reassurance to know that the corpus isn’t likely to become a corpse through something I neglected or overlooked. It’s a prep.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the passing of a great friend and mentor of mine. He went in with a complaint of swollen and sore belly, left with 6 weeks to live and a diagnosis of stomach cancer. He made it about 5 weeks. It’s been about two decades and I still miss him. RIP Butch.
Stack up the material goods,but don’t neglect the intangible. You’ll need to be health, and strong in mind body and spirit.
nick
Apple owns CUPS (Linux/Unix printing service) now so basic detection/install is better.
Now try setting up sharing for the printer via Samba.
Sharing has been broken on my home server for about a year due to some default changing in either CUPS or Samba in a recent Fedora release.
Wake me when the AI can play Minesweeper perfectly every game on “Expert” level.
Which systems were they actually able to get delivered?
The power and cooling requirements for the boxes are scary.
My parents installed a commercial grade indoor/outdoor pool table in the enclosed porch of our first house in Florida. The table went in before construction was finished and got sold with the house since it wasn’t coming back out without disassembly of one of the walls.
I remember several people being involved with getting the table from the truck around to the back and onto the porch.
I wonder if it is still there. 46 years. Who knows. Probably not, but, amazingly, the house only changed hands once since my parents sold it in 2000, probably when the buyers retired.
Pre US Home Arthur Rutenberg. I think we dealt with the man himself building the house.
Minesweeper was proven NP Complete, reducing to Planar SAT, more than a decade ago.
I have a canned hour lecture on the paper I delivered in grad school. The problem is my argument for P ≠ NP.
I always consider a Masters in CS on a resume to be fair game for questions about the candidate’s position on P vs. NP in an interview, but a MSCS with a GPA below 4.0 in the US, even from a “good” school as of late, is just about the paper in many cases so I get a blank stare most of the time.
Most of the early 70s Rutenberg houses in Clearwater, FL still stand as do his later US Home houses in Carrollwood and Countryside.
Stucco cr*p shacks they were not.
Get help.
Scratch that. My parents sold in 1978. The house last sold after that in 2000.
Disassembly isn’t hard. The slate top should be in 3 pieces. I wouldn’t worry about trying to save the felt – I don’t think it’s possible, at least from watching the guys who installed mine. Unbolt it all and transport. Hire pros to come and reassemble, level, install new felt and Bob’s your uncle.
Is there a Home Depot near by? Si, Senor.
That’s what I was thinking of for disassembly and stowage into the truck.
Reassembly, I’d hire a pro.
But I’d talk to a pro before hiring the day workers to make sure there’s nothing special to watch for in disassembly. Keep in mind the trope of the guy bringing a bag of parts to the gunsmith.
Somewhat on that topic, some of you may recall my grumbling about my disassembled sewing machine, a while back. I never did get the bobbin holder mechanism to go back in, stay in place, and rotate as needed. I conclude that the mother-in-law lost a piece. Not worth fixing; it was a low-end unit to start with (decent quality and good robustness but low on features; it was intended for home ec classes and the like) and it’s 25 years old. Haven’t thrown it away yet because I’m lackadaisically looking for someone who might want it for parts.
From yesterday:
@nick:
I had some experiences like that, but they were rare. I added one printer as you just did, but could never get another to work correctly.
My biggest failure was networking. Had two experts coach me. The claimed guru level expert bombed. The humble one actually helped me gain independence, but I still had random failures, usually when I needed it badly. I have given up.
Too bad, because I still think desktop Linux has touches of brilliance. Those touches kept me going for about seven years, but it cost me too much of my life. When I went back to Windows, it was instant productivity. Not perfect, but good enough. The rough edges are easy to live with, and M$ actually helps a lot. So does the community.
Sure, because MS works with manufacturers to make sure that every printer works with Windows, every bluetooth dongle works with Windows, every monitor… They have a budget for providing technical assistance and they’re a single-source known entity with “partners” contacts, making it easy for vendors to reach them.
Contrast with writing Linux drivers for your new whatsis device. Good luck with finding whom to ask for technical assistance.
Microsoft has stated that they are going to dial back on trying to support every printer on the market. I forget where I read that, but it was recently.
Other device drivers have required certification through WHQL going back at least to 64 bit Vista. The OS will not load with an uncertified hardware driver.
Vendors pay for the WHQL process to certify their drivers.
I always consider a Masters in CS on a resume to be fair game for questions about the candidate’s position on P vs. NP in an interview, but a MSCS with a GPA below 4.0 in the US, even from a “good” school as of late, is just about the paper in many cases so I get a blank stare most of the time.
You need to teach the rest of us, gotta remember that I am just an old mechanical engineer practicing chemical engineering. I fake all this Fortran and C++ stuff.
Huh? That’s weird. Granted, my theoretical CS is rusty, but it seems to me that a simple rule-based system should be able to solve it in polynomial time.
Any simple explanation of why that’s not true?
@SteveF
“I’m lackadaisically looking for someone who might want it for parts.”
check eBay completed to see if any parts have sold
If not, chuck it and go on to the next thing.
I just ordered an iPhone 15 from Xfinity. I will be getting $830 in trade for my old phone. Apple was only offering $450 or so. The phone will ship Friday, probably have it by Monday.
Xfinity has my account screwed up because I used a SIM in Europe. I have to get the phone as new, with a new number, then go to the store and get my number from my old phone transferred to the new phone and the new number retired. There is a flaw in their system where the IMEI gets associated incorrectly when an additional SIM, physical or eSIM, gets added to an existing phone. Their system cannot handle two IMEIs even though one of the numbers is not Xfinity and one of the numbers is not active.
It was difficult to pass up that much in trade-in on my current phone when I only paid $1,200 two years ago. $370 for 24 months works out to about $30.00 a month to use the phone. I can pay out over time with $20.00 added to my phone bill for 24 months.
Gaack, I failed basic math. It works out to about $15.00 a month.
Oh, I also doubled my storage with the new phone, 512 Gig.
Good job, NYFS Guv, supporting small businesses in your state…
https://www.wbng.com/2023/09/19/mom-and-pop-shops-around-state-already-feel-effects-new-gun-laws/
Geez, Garland needs to get a dose of Plugs’ “bug juice.” And he’s only 70.
Actually, I have had more trouble with printer drivers on Windows than on Linux. That is because I have a LOT more experience with Windows. On Linux, I used pretty generic printers, and they worked fine or not at all.
With Windows 10, I had to use a WHQL driver for an older version of Windows for an old HP laser printer, because W10 never will have a driver. Works fine, but then this is a simple printer. I am aware of the need for a Microsoft approved driver, and will only use such.
My issue with Linux is software, or lack thereof. I found most of what I needed, but some of it sorely needed polishing, and more useful features. I suppose this will always be an issue, but with Windows even the freeware is better in my experience.
I will note that my photo editing software, digiKam, had a better Windows version than Linux when I switched, and these are as close as possible the same versions. Maybe this was just a one-version anomaly. My point is that the software was originally created for Linux, and later made available for Windows. Maybe this is the only instance. I don’t run the Linux version anymore, so it is unfair to attempt to compare.
All software has some issues. There is no perfection here on earth.
This is the key paper. If you work out a simple system to solve it in Polynomial time, there is a $1 million dollar prize still up for grabs since you would prove P = NP.
http://www.minesweeper.info/articles/MinesweeperIsNPComplete.pdf
Pearls Before Swine: Telemarketers
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2023/09/17
Oh my.
I have a proof but it’s too big to write down in this margin. And who needs a million dollars anyway.
“Way Station” by Clifford D. Simak
https://www.amazon.com/Way-Station-Clifford-D-Simak/dp/1504013212?tag=ttgnet-20/
A standalone science fiction book, no prequel or sequel. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback that was published by Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy in 2015 that I purchased new on Amazon. The original book was published in 1963.
Enoch Wallace lives on his parent’s farm in the 1960s in a remote area of the state of Wisconsin. Enoch never leaves his farm but people still know of him even though his only daily contact is the mailman. But nobody remembers that he fought in the American Civil War, for you see, Enoch was born in 1840. And he appears to be 30 years old, maybe even younger. But now the USA government has found about Enoch and they are watching him.
Enoch has been the caretaker of a Way Station for a friend for most of Enoch’s life. His friend came along one day soon after the Civil War ended and Enoch’s parents had passed away. His friend asked Enoch to let them set up a Way Station in his house for aliens passing on their way to other star systems. Enoch agreed and has met many aliens over the years in his house. And, Enoch does not age in his Way Station converted house.
There is a much better review by James Nicoll at:
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/the-anti-lovecraft
My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars (8,405 reviews)
I have a new favorite beer: Blue Moon Belgian White. Good stuff. I had three of them at my conference.
https://www.bluemoonbrewingcompany.com/en-US/currently-available/blue-moon-belgian-white
Wikipedia has a decent article about P vs. NP. The example section using Sudoku is brilliant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_versus_NP_problem
I had three classes on the material across two grad programs. The only practical application is to make 3.0 GPA MSCS students sweat in interviews.
The last candidate I used it on didn’t have an opinion on the topic, which was kinda surprising — MIT Biology undergrad, NASA JSC contractor via KBR, MSCS from U. Houston Clear Lake, 3.75 GPA.
I’ve been faking it my entire career. The Masters was about having something to do when I moved to the Northwest at 41 without a job in hand and had to rebuild effectively from zero.
As one recruiter put it, “I’d have an easier time explaining that you went to prison for seven years.”
This evening’s pre-dinner entertainment was the annual wrestling match with the Exploder’s engine air filter box cover following replacement. Specs on the gaskets of the after market filters are all over the place so some make the seal more challenging to obtain than others.
While messing with the filter, I noticed the coolant level had dropped below the min level on the reservoir. Ruh-roh. We just had the water pump replaced last year, and that is a $3000 job for a $150 part. If the pump is leaking again, the Exploder is history.
Oddly I was just thinking about that book last week. I can’t recall why. And ”The Goblin Reservation”.
I was musing on old books that might make good movies, I think.
It may not be solvable, just a thing that Godel‘s Theorem says modern math has to live with. Call it an Axiom and move on.
There isn’t a right answer, but a Masters graduate in Computer Science should be able to offer an opinion.
The NASA/MIT guy was a foregone conclusion about hiring before he showed up for the interview.
When we visited my aunt before she passed, she had a nuisance call about every hour all day. She was 100 years old, and did a lot of contacting by phone, so that seemed an explanation. I taught her how to say, “Please put me on your Do Not Call List.” Not sure if that worked for her, but it does for us on our landline.
We sometimes had to contact her HMO, and did it by phone, because nothing else was set up, and we didn’t want to mess up her phone access. What a PITA! I had forgotten how time consuming it was to do contacts by phone back in the day. Of course, everything is now automated, so it is a slower process. I had to listen to all sorts of advice, which I couldn’t figure out how to skip. Also had to give various ID and other information each time. Thank the FSM for the Internet.
I finally found a Taylor Varga in html and split up into chapters:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/7830346/chapters/17874580
Not as pretty colours as the wordpress site though.
https://excessverbosity.wordpress.com/fiction-2/fanfiction-list/tv-intro/tv-chapter-1/
Oddly I was just thinking about that book last week. I can’t recall why. And ”The Goblin Reservation”.
I was musing on old books that might make good movies, I think.
I read Simak’s “The Werewolf Principle” a year or two ago and liked it more than “Way Station”.
https://www.amazon.com/Werewolf-Principle-Clifford-D-Simak/dp/1504051068?tag=ttgnet-20/
I have “City” and “The Goblin Reservation” in my SBR (strategic book reserve).
I went through something similar with AT&T. In my case, I started an upgrade on their web site, and it somehow got messed up. I called the 800 number, and was told I would be issued two new phones (wife and me) with new numbers so we could have uninterrupted service. Then, I could fix it by calling back. That worked fine, but the billing got all messed up. I took everything into our local store, where the lead guy is very capable. I should have started with him. It took him two or three visits and a couple of months to get everything right. He spent a total of three hours doing this. I told him several times that he went above and beyond anything I could have imagined. He said it was just what he has to do sometimes.
Lesson learned.
My cousin just sent me a picture of her 18 year old son by the front door. He has to duck to go through the front door now. It is a 6’8″ door …
“Dell PowerEdge XE9680 Review: My Favorite Server Ever Tested”
https://www.storagereview.com/review/dell-poweredge-xe9680-review-my-favorite-server-ever-tested
This is the Dell AI server review that I was talking about …
I think it is bigger than the 16 user Vax VMS refrigerator that I had over 30 years ago. Probably boots a 100 times faster. The 8 inch 300 MB hard drive had a two speed gearbox on it, I never got tired of hearing it wind up and shift gears. “K-thunk”.
Yeah, that’s the one that runs your ChatBot.
Nvidia. Intel.
No ARM.
3000 W idle.
Screw your
freedomsgreen computing.Toast?
@Lynn
We had the Simak discussion last year. Cliff has been gone 35 years and they are still farting around publishing his short story collections and doing a crappy job from what I can see. At twenty plus for the dead tree and eight for each kindle, I have no doubt that they will be available elsewhere if they are not already.
There’s a new listing for 17 paperbacks on daBay (one duplicate) that includes later printings of Werewolf and Way Station and a pb first of Goblin. 19.99 + 9.99 shipping. I know exactly where my Simak box is so I’m not tempted.
Nvidia A100 specs say 400 W Max. and that server as tested uses the A100. My bad.
8 GPUs = 3200W Max.
The H100 TDP maxes at 700 W according to Nvidia docs so that is the one you want to get to make toast.
I love the casual reclip move:
https://twitter.com/DAMNINTERESTlNG/status/1704616573032649078
Wife and children fed. Did birthday dinner tonight because of heading to the BOL on Friday night. I made surf and turf. It’s the wife’s favorite. Nothing on the menu was on sale, but it was still cheaper than a night out in a place that serves comparable food.
I didn’t pull my main PC yet, but I did pick up the auction one and it really does look like the exact same machine. I really hope I can get it to boot just by swapping the drives. That will have to wait though, I’ve got to pick up SWMBO’s present.
And I should try to get to bed earlier tonight. I don’t have my bookmarks to waste time on the internet with my friends…
n
>> Calling cutting edge computer software AI is deceptive. As has already been proven, it’s not really intelligent at all, and in many cases is not even a modestly successful imitation of intelligence.
And just wait until the lawyers get (more) involved…a lot of people sucking data from the internet into their LLMs seem to forget about something called copyright.
Oh wait, more are already involved…
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/20/books/authors-openai-lawsuit-chatgpt-copyright.html
>> There is no perfection here on earth.
Huh? What about @SteveF?
@SteveF IS the exception to perfection.
Or something like that. 🙂
>> I didn’t pull my main PC yet, but I did pick up the auction one and it really does look like the exact same machine. I really hope I can get it to boot just by swapping the drives.
Does the auction PC POST / boot?
Boot the machine with a Linux USB and run the torture tests in Prime95 from Mersenne.org for at least a couple of hours to make sure the memory is solid and the cooling is sufficient.