[X] My Assistant

up to 4G government could locate us with cellular towers within 100-300 metres easily.

With 5G you can be tracked 3mm to 1m.

Yay...

Pretty sure that's false. Triangulation was already good enough to get way closer than that or things like google maps wouldn't have worked right. Most cellphones don't have satellite uplinks.

up to 4G government could locate us with cellular towers within 100-300 metres easily.

With 5G you can be tracked 3mm to 1m.

Yay...

And the best, the arrival of the 6G is already seen!

I think it is very easy to convince people and let them be triangulated, because they will always put their safety above their freedom

People also tend value convenience over true freedom because it's a lot easier to be complacent and just say "well, nothing I can do about that, so I might as well just accept it" or "I'm just one person, what can I do?" and die cursing their fates.

Literally the plot of Phantasy Star II (profile pic and sig pic).

[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/xHE0FT4g.jpg)
Game has a fantastic ending. Not worth playing without any hacks to make it less annoying, though.
(I played without hacks on original hardware)

Oh yeah, and there are socioeconomic consequences to not accepting the status quo under capitalism. People are expected to use these services and might get fired or pay cut if they refuse to accept what management tells them to do.
And bankers and stock traders don't care about nerd shit like rights as long as they can afford their cocaine habits.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Sep 19 2021, 20:33

up to 4G government could locate us with cellular towers within 100-300 metres easily.

With 5G you can be tracked 3mm to 1m.

Yay...

they always like to bang on about transfer rates with higher frequencies but conviniently leave out the reach and penetration goes down each time you bump the frequency.
faster is not always better

they always like to bang on about transfer rates with higher frequencies but conviniently leave out the reach and penetration goes down each time you bump the frequency.
faster is not always better

Corollary:
Much of my immediate family are Red Sox fans; on cloudy days, we can get radio stations from Massachusetts in Illinois and Indiana because of atmospheric bouncing.

Also I just found a BoardView schematic for my desktop's current motherboard. So now if I wanted to install a TPM header and the support circuitry, I have everything I need to do that.

And i'm really happy it's a boardview file and not a PDF or something, because these are much easier to work with (I'd be pretty mad if OpenBoardView didn't exist, though).
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/35XEWwd.png)

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Sep 19 2021, 22:47

they always like to bang on about transfer rates with higher frequencies but conviniently leave out the reach and penetration goes down each time you bump the frequency.
faster is not always better

Beam forming is both problematic and epic. If you are not moving it works fantastic. My new wifi router performs as well as my older Ethernet network. Works fantastic for static computers...

Don't think I am going to both running Ethernet in my new place.

i would run ethernet just because it eliminates a common source of interference and is marginally more secure.

The fact checkers on soy-based beef products are kind of funny.

Snopes: "Eating four whoppers a day does not contain enough estrogen to affect male body"

Also Snopes: "they do contain enough phytoestrogens to affect the male body if you ate it every day"

Snopes conclusion "There is no evidence to suggest that eating soy based beef products is harmful, so you should eat it everyday cause Asians eat a small amount of unprocessed soy products every day without many issues"

Lab based meat was sounding cool, till they had to add loads of soy to it to make it commercially viable...

What is with America trying to find ways to pump people with estrogen and biologically similar compounds? '

Surely technology can progress to the point that we make a 1 to 1 copy of meat without issues.

The fact checkers on soy-based beef products are kind of funny.

Snopes: "Eating four whoppers a day does not contain enough estrogen to affect male body"

Also Snopes: "they do contain enough phytoestrogens to affect the male body if you ate it every day"

Snopes conclusion "There is no evidence to suggest that eating soy based beef products is harmful, so you should eat it everyday cause Asians eat a small amount of unprocessed soy products every day without many issues"

Lab based meat was sounding cool, till they had to add loads of soy to it to make it commercially viable...

What is with America trying to find ways to pump people with estrogen and biologically similar compounds?

Disclaimer: wrote this hot take at 2 AM on a Monday. Probably will wonder what the fuck I was writing when I wake up.

re: estrogen or whatever: IDK, but IDGAF about what I look like. I'm male just because it's more convenient given my genetics to present as male, but I don't really think I'd act too differently if I had been born a woman.
Also the thought of presenting one way or the other doesn't give me severe anxiety. Just acting like and looking like a guy takes significantly less effort.
I see myself as a human first and don't care if I look a tiny bit more or less feminine because of what I eat, as long as it's not dramatically increasing my cancer risk or something.
Anyway, i guess I'm just trying to ask why does it really matter if anyone looks masculine/feminine? I mean, I know some people feel intense discomfort about the idea of presenting one way or the other. But why should it actually matter?

re: snopes: yeah I just don't pay heed to anything anyone says anymore unless I can see empirical evidence.

Anyway, lot to unpack there maybe, idk. Sleepytime now.

Disclaimer: wrote this hot take at 2 AM on a Monday. Probably will wonder what the fuck I was writing when I wake up.

re: estrogen or whatever: IDK, but IDGAF about what I look like. I'm male just because it's more convenient given my genetics to present as male, but I don't really think I'd act too differently if I had been born a woman.
Also the thought of presenting one way or the other doesn't give me severe anxiety. Just acting like and looking like a guy takes significantly less effort.
I see myself as a human first and don't care if I look a tiny bit more or less feminine because of what I eat, as long as it's not dramatically increasing my cancer risk or something.
Anyway, i guess I'm just trying to ask why does it really matter if anyone looks masculine/feminine? I mean, I know some people feel intense discomfort about the idea of presenting one way or the other. But why should it actually matter?

There is a catch, medicine wise in the past 20 years our understanding of the endocrine system has become a lot better. Adding hormones fucks up the feedback systems and is really bad for health. Its why body builders often end up messed up by 40. Many of the HRT protocols for women are 30 years out of date. The pill causes a whole bunch of health problems for women that doctors and feminists don't seem to give a shit about.

The equivalent pill for men was found to crash mens endocrine system into the ground. Men have estrogen, but throwing more in causes more problems down the chain than simply growing breasts. Normally its the ratio between testosterone and estrogen that is important for me.

For one thing, endogenous estrogen can inhibit hair growth in men. There are probably other suppression issues. 30% of the women that go on testosterone therapy end up infertile. At least for men, it appears that the effect can reverse over time.

I mean, soy meat products may be a good population control measure?

Damn copper prices, the stuff for wiring in a pair of radios in the car ran some $120.
4x 15' cuts (2 red, and 2 black) of good 8awg wire
4x good ring terminals for it (2x 1/4", 2x 3/8")
pack of 8awg uninsulated butt connectors
2x 40A MIDI/ANI fuses
pack of M6 nylock nuts
spool of 18awg primary wire

Already have heatshrink, zipties, split look, small crimp terminals, a fuse holder for the small wire, etc.

I maybe could've made due with 25' cuts cut in half, but it was gonna be damn close.

I mean, soy meat products may be a good population control measure?

That's all I needed to hear to support it
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/o4b3Ckf.png)
We asked and we got it

Sorry, straying into FSZ territory.

Thought:
My laptop battery is dying when it reports 50% now.
There are two variants of the battery for this machine that can still be found; one of them uses all 18650 cells and is too thick to be able to put the laptop in a docking station when it's in use. The other is the same form factor as the OEM Lenovo ones and cannot be found from any US-based seller. It uses four 18650's and four of some kind of flat pack battery, IDK what they're called and the cells are not marked on the one I took apart.

So it's always a complete shit-shoot if the battery works on arrival, and shipping takes a month. Also a lot of sellers don't clearly communicate if they are selling the thick one or not, and some show stock pictures of an OEM battery even though they are selling the fat variant. So it's even possible to be shipped the wrong kind of battery.

I've had one that worked really well for ~two years, one that worked "okay" for a year, and one that was dead on arrival so far.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Sep 20 2021, 19:58

My laptop battery is dying when it reports 50% now.
There are two variants of the battery for this machine that can still be found; one of them uses all 18650 cells and is too thick to be able to put the laptop in a docking station when it's in use. The other is the same form factor as the OEM Lenovo ones and cannot be found from any US-based seller. It uses four 18650's and four of some kind of flat pack battery, IDK what they're called and the cells are not marked on the one I took apart.

So it's always a complete shit-shoot if the battery works on arrival, and shipping takes a month. Also a lot of sellers don't clearly communicate if they are selling the thick one or not, and some show stock pictures of an OEM battery even though they are selling the fat variant. So it's even possible to be shipped the wrong kind of battery.

I've had one that worked really well for ~two years, one that worked "okay" for a year, and one that was dead on arrival so far.

Is there a way to re-calibrate the battery?

Well, not sure if cheap third party batteries have that feature.

Is there a way to re-calibrate the battery?

Well, not sure if cheap third party batteries have that feature.

I've tried. Even when it was new it'd die while reporting 13% or so.

I've tried. Even when it was new it'd die while reporting 13% or so.

Sounds like they didn't make sure the cells charges were matched during production.

Ordered bits to try and make some custom cables for my arcane config in the car. At the least, I can tidy up the wiring some. I won't have 2 power connectors till Friday though.

I need to pick a different UHF GM300 out of the pile for the truck. The one I picked transmists fine, but is bloody deaf. If I use monitor to force the squekch open, I can just hear the repeater answer me in the mud. Somebody reported on the VHF repeater that I had good audio in. Repeating the experiment in a different county gave identical results...

Also modified the RJ45 mic switch in the truck. I cut a line from the switch contact only used for programming, hooked it up to the Hook line from either mic backwards, then strapped it's common to the common of the ground. Now the un-selected radio has it's hook connected to the ground of the selected radio. The mic being off the hook of the un-selected radio was causing issues with scanning..
The radios aren't remote head, and already have their grounds strapped by short power leads, the antenna diplexer, and the mounting bracket, so no noise issues.

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: Sep 21 2021, 15:21

nothing stopping you from manually reballancing the cells and seeing if they fuck off into a terrible mess again.
just charge them all to the same voltage, shouldnt drift too much nor report empty/weird capacities as a pack.

if they were infact matched when shipped but some were so badly shorted internally they dropped to different voltages than the rest of the pack its ofcourse still fucked.
but its worth an attempt, its often what ruins battery packs when they got wet and one cell discharged because of it got shorted for a while.

This post has been edited by cate_chan: Sep 21 2021, 19:07

nothing stopping you from manually reballancing the cells and seeing if they fuck off into a terrible mess again.
just charge them all to the same voltage, shouldnt drift too much nor report empty/weird capacities as a pack.

if they were infact matched when shipped but some were so badly shorted internally they dropped to different voltages than the rest of the pack its ofcourse still fucked.
but its worth an attempt, its often what ruins battery packs when they got wet and one cell discharged because of it got shorted for a while.

The official battery packs for this model have a 'suicide fuse' that kills the pack if it loses power (a sort of tamper detection "feature" I guess). Not sure if the clones do.
Thankfully this battery pack is one that already was poorly sealed - I almost suspect it's an OEM pack that some chinese factory took and re-celled but failed to sonic weld back together - so it should be pretty easy to crack it open without absolutely ruining the casing on it.

I also don't have a good way to charge them individually; like I said, half of them aren't even 18650's. And I don't have a standalone 18650 charger. And I don't trust myself to charge Li-ion cells without a control circuit unless I do some heavy research first.

Might still be able to drain them slowly by connecting them to an electric fan or something like that.

Sounds like they didn't make sure the cells charges were matched during production.

Probably accurate. Also there are two kinds of cells in these packs, four 18650's and four flat, sort of rectangular battery cells with rounded long sides. So that might have complicated things.
I was just happy it wasn't dead on arrival like the one before it, to be honest.
I guess it's also possible that these packs were made years ago and they're just selling off old inventory.

Been playing a bit of Metroid II; got it for a couple bucks at a garage sale a few years ago and never played it because I'd been told it didn't age well and really needed those remakes it got. But having actually played it for a bit now, I actually really like it.

This is tech related because I used it as an excuse to open up and clean out all the battery contacts on all the game boys I've accumulated over the years that use AA/AAA batteries.
My collection is four DMG's - two working, two with non-fixable screen problems for parts,- two GB Pockets, three GBC's, two GBA's, four SP's, two micros. Most of them had battery leakage from past owners to clean up (all but one or two, actually. And one of the ones that didn't had a bad speaker so it still needs to be worked on anyway).
Vinegar'd, scrubbed as much as I could, then alcohol to try to clean the acid off. Sort of hard to get under the springs though and they didn't want to detach so I just did what I could and said that was good enough.

Unfortunately I also broke one of the battery contact tabs off of one of my GB pockets; cheapest I can find them online is $4 before shipping, which still feels like a bit much for such a tiny amount of metal. But I'm in no hurry to fix it and I probably can find some other device I can harvest an approximately correct contact tab from.

Other than that, though, my game boys are looking good. I also took apart an SP that I'd been given and not done anything with yet, cleaned the dirt out of the cracks, and opened and blew all the dust I could out of the inside layers of the screen. Not sure how so much dust got in between the front bezel, which is adhesive'd down, and the frontlight element. But It's looking better now. Not 100% clear, but still much better than before.

I also need to figure out what sort of grease they used in the volume sliders on the SP. Sprayed contact cleaner in one of mine that was scratchy and the slider feels like it's grinding now. I temporarily put some electric motor oil in there (the kind you'd use for a model train or a CD spindle or something), but I don't think it's heavy enough and I can tell it's still got some undesirable static friction.

Despite the setbacks, I really like working on game boys for the most part. I don't really mod them or anything, just clean them out and such. I fixed one a while back for someone in exchange for computer parts; it was a good deal for me. They'd spilled fun dip in theirs years ago and I basically just had to open it up, bathe it in alcohol and give it a scrub to bring it back to life.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Sep 22 2021, 03:32

My collection is four DMG's - two working, two with non-fixable screen problems for parts,- two GB Pockets, three GBC's, two GBA's, four SP's, two micros. Most of them had battery leakage from past owners to clean up (all but one or two, actually. And one of the ones that didn't had a bad speaker so it still needs to be worked on anyway).

Are you going to upgrade the screens on any of them? The upgrade kits are a lot more straight forward these days.

I also need to figure out what sort of grease they used in the volume sliders on the SP. Sprayed contact cleaner in one of mine that was scratchy and the slider feels like it's grinding now. I temporarily put some electric motor oil in there (the kind you'd use for a model train or a CD spindle or something), but I don't think it's heavy enough and I can tell it's still got some undesirable static friction.

probably similar to the grease they still use on arcade machines. You can buy a small amount of the Japanese silicone grease for 50c to $1 or the tube for $5. The big tubes of Shin-Etsu Silicone Grease seem to be going for $20 USD. If You can get the smaller amounts for cheap though still.

Also there are probably equivalent cheaper products.

This post has been edited by EsotericSatire: Sep 22 2021, 01:08

Are you going to upgrade the screens on any of them? The upgrade kits are a lot more straight forward these days.

No; I have no desire to introduce tearing and make them unplayable in bright sunlight (and also make the colors way too saturated). I have an AGS-101 SP for that (all but tearing).
And the kits that don't tear look to be around $50, which is $20 over the maximum I'd spend on a game boy that wasn't near-mint with a box.
Not sure why so many people seem so eager to do it to them, unless they've got units with broken screens. IMO, the reflective LCD is the nicest thing about older game boys (especially the color and GBA), and the primary reason to pick one instead of some newer console emulating them.
I kind of get it with the Game Gear or Lynx, just to save power as much as anything (no CCFL/inverter).

The one thing I did ages ago was taking a frontlight element from a broken-in-half GBA SP and wedging it into a normal GBA. That was kind of fun.

The most I have ever considered otherwise was the backlight + bivert mod for the original game boy. But I decided against it because I like it right now for playing in sunlight when walking and the bivert would mess with that. The DMG also has the loudest speaker, and the four AA batteries last way longer than the two AAA's in the GBP, so it's best suited for playing outdoors of any of the revisions.

Might do something for one of the DMG's that hasn't got a fixable screen at present, but that's it. Ideally I'd be able to just get the screen out of a GB pocket and wire it in, though. That's been done before, and it's a screen actually meant to be used in a game boy that can be driven directly with no extra interfacing circuitry. It's also the right DPI and dimensions.

What would really be cool (and something I might buy) would be an active matrix reflective screen, like the one in the GBC, but with a lower DPI (the GB pocket and original DMG use a larger screen of the same resolution) and in monochrome. Then I could get a higher-quality reflective LCD for a Pocket or DMG. That's an upgrade I'd probably take. A front light element on top of that would be a cool bonus. Nintendo basically did that with the SP (before the backlit revision), and it was the most versatile handheld they ever made.
Reflective LCD's aren't a lost art, either; you basically just make a panel normally but without the black grid between subpixels, and then you put a highly reflective surface underneath the panel. Consumers just don't seem to want them or appreciate their merits when they can get something badged as "IPS" instead (ignoring of course that reflective IPS displays are possible).
Once again, Apple can be blamed for this; prior to the iPhone most smartphones were either using reflective or "transflective" panels. Apple showed that consumers don't give a fuck as long as they can have their shiny. And the beancounters must have realized they could cheap out and reduce their number of assembly lines by just eliminating the reflective LCD line.

probably similar to the grease they still use on arcade machines. You can buy a small amount of the Japanese silicone grease for 50c to $1 or the tube for $5. The big tubes of Shin-Etsu Silicone Grease seem to be going for $20 USD. If You can get the smaller amounts for cheap though still.

Cool; I'll look at that, then.

Also there are probably equivalent cheaper products.

Always are. The trouble is knowing what to look for (what a product has been relabelled from).

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Sep 22 2021, 03:56