[X] My Assistant

2022-02-24

- All the nodes of the third and final web shard have been swapped over. This was the last part of the site using older versions of the underlying software.

Look at this, it's all new and great and sparkly...

10 hours ago: Due to a network issue on one of the frontends, you may see some slowness and some archives being temporarily unavailable.

...and already broken?

(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Modernity and its joys.

Spoiler text - Highlight to read...

I know the above may just be bad timing and not so related stuff, but my thoughts don't have to reflect reality (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

The barrel plate on my oldest (and most beloved) model M keyboard just cracked. N, M, and enter keys stopped working. Tried to replace the rivet with a bolt and stint it back into place, didn't work.

Unicomp makes new barrel plates (sells them for $20), but now I'm going to have to drill ~100 holes into it and drive bolts through each and every hole.

Fuuuuck.

OTOH this is a good opportunity for me to get some support for my "space saver" board, and see if I can get them to send me a replacement controller without me having to mail the entire keyboard back (just the controller PCB so they don't have to know about the modifications I did to the main membrane assembly). This is the one with the controller that got noticeably hot.

On the bright side, unicomp's current tooling (judging by the feel of my tenkeyless) for their barrel plates is nice and smooth. My lexmark-era M's don't feel quite as smooth as my earliest board, and the unicomp feels closer to the early IBM made board than the lexmark ones.

It's such a blessing (and so strange) that Unicomp actually exists. But I sure am glad it does. Even if it has its issues.

Edit:
Considering putting some commonly used programs (and maybe my browser profile) on a ramdisk. It'd definitely be a tradeoff on my laptop with 8GB RAM though.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Feb 26 2022, 21:49

I should build that PC

Replaced the screen bezel on my thinkpad again.

I did it a few months ago after dropping it and denting the lid/cracking the bezel, but put the new bezel on wrong and it cracked. Stupid 10 year old plastic.

Anyway, a new crack emerged on it, so i decided to try again. Did it right this time, I think.

Decided to try to run a ren'py game on my powerbook G4 for lulz (Katawa Shojo).

Currently I am balls-deep in compiling python 2.7, pygame, SDL, and all the other dependencies for an old version of Ren'py to work. Mercifully, the Ren'Py people used to provide a convenient script and tarball containing all the build dependencies (they stopped doing that in later releases and gave people a list of git repos to clone instead). Had to bump Python 2.7 from 2.7.3 to 2.7.18 to fix an OpenSSL library problem, but now things seem to be going smoothly (if quite slowly).

I am currently building an old version of ffmpeg, since that's unfortunately a dependency of something. Edit: it was libav; also now that's done and I'm doing libglew.

I remember, years and years ago now, building FFmpeg for the very first time. I think it was one of the first programs I compiled from source code. I did it on a pentium 4, which was miserably slow, but a G4 is definitely slower.

I think the biggest program I've compiled successfully _on_ the G4 was probably GIMP. That took aeons. Although I've built ffmpeg on this before, too, so maybe I'm misremembering how long it takes. I had to do it for MPlayer.

Edit: I lied. It's not ffmpeg. It's Libav, that ffmpeg fork no one cares about that was a hot topic about a decade ago.

I remember fucking despising libav.
Mostly because those people broke the command line syntax; I didn't do C programming really at that point so I had no clue about API breakages.

Edit again:
Okay, that's done. Now Cython is probably going to take a year and a half (or two hours; one or the other.)

I've tried compiling stuff with cython before on the powerbook, and it's glacial. I also had to pass it the '-2' flag since the build system is assuming that cython defaults to python 2 (it doesn't).

Might be faster to just cythonize everything on an intel machine and figure out the magic words to cross compile it. I bet ren'py still runs like shit when this is all finished.

Update once again:

Okay, I got it to run. Starts up slowly, but it does "work." It drowns hard on FMV's so those probably need to be converted out of (I assume) h.264 into something more potato-friendly. Probably DivX/XviD MPEG-4. When not doing videos it manages to do 60hz if I turn my compositor off.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Mar 1 2022, 05:37

That certain software should be taken out back and shot.

I want a browser extension called No Kardashian that uses AI to remove all references to [CENSORED] from every site I visit.

Imagine using face recognition technology to automatically block stories about obnoxious shouldn't-be-a-celebs, even if the thumbnail is a picture of them that isn't yet in its database.

That certain software should be taken out back and shot.

Which software? Windows? Libav? FFmpeg? Ren'Py? Katawa Shojo?

Or by "that" do you simply mean "I think that certain software should be taken out back and shot," instead of "That particular piece of software?"

English is a stupid language.

Update:

Took apart my IBM board that was acting strange, looking at the membranes I can't figure out why it acted up. Putting it back together now (big pain in the ass due to how it was assembled originally). Maybe just cleaning it out will have helped.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Mar 1 2022, 20:00

I quite like renpy games as they pretty much always completely extract allowing you to mess with the source scripts, saves quite a few games by being able to fix the grind part of games

This post has been edited by cate_chan: Mar 1 2022, 20:26

Headphones arrived early. Hopefully the 1/4" adapter and earpads fit, and the pads are actually comfortable/seal well.

Edit: I lied. It's not ffmpeg. It's Libav, that ffmpeg fork no one cares about that was a hot topic about a decade ago.

From the perspective of a MPC-HC user, it would look the opposite, as in ffmpeg being a dead thing of the past, and LAV being the newest/updated version...unless LAV and Libav are not the same thing.
Maybe I want to save my brain and not know (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

From the perspective of a MPC-HC user, it would look the opposite, as in ffmpeg being a dead thing of the past, and LAV being the newest/updated version...unless LAV and Libav are not the same thing.
Maybe I want to save my brain and not know (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

ffmpeg's libraries are named libavcodec, libavfilter, etc.. libav (the software "suite") was the result of a failed takeover attempt.

Current libav* are all ffmpeg libraries. The "libav" project is abandoned.
I was confused, too. Here's [blog.pkh.me] a good explanation of what happened by an MPlayer developer.

I quite like renpy games as they pretty much always completely extract allowing you to mess with the source scripts, saves quite a few games by being able to fix the grind part of games

I've done that with NScripter games too.

You shouldn't, though; it reads like assembly. But it is doable.

Katawa Shoujo forces you to decompile its code, though, regrettably. Still doable, but you don't get any comments or anything like that.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Mar 2 2022, 02:43

The 1/4" adapter fits, and the pads and cord are in better shaped than the listing made them out to look. One major problem though. They smell fucking terrible. They reek like those scented pinecones that white women buy. I could smell it as soon as I opened the bubblewrap. 7506 pads don't fit them, and I can't even find mdr-7510/mdr-7520 pads. Zero hits on scamazon or ebay, and Sony wants $43 (unsure if per each or pair), but has them backorded with no restock date.
For now, I put them back in the box, sprayed a blast of Ozium in the box, and closed it up. If they still stink tomorrow, there's a non-trivial chance I'm gonna sell them for less than I paid for them.

If you let them air out in a garage or somewhere else that gets hot for a little while they should probably stop smelling. Especially if there's airflow. But if it's that pinecone smell, it'll take a while.
You could also consider taking them apart and soap washing them. The pads can probably be handwashed, whether velour or pleather/leather. That'd probably work nicely if you scrub them.

I'm happy with my monoprice headphones and replacement pads.

UPDATE
Looks like e-hentai galleries just got an (as for now still unannounced) update so that WASD work roughly like arrow keys for navigation in galleries.
This broke my user scripts that had bindings on those keys. If it broke anyone else's, here's a fix:

CODE

function listenBlock(obj, eventType, keycode){
  obj.addEventListener(eventType, function(event) {
    var key=event.which||event.keyCode;
    if(key==keycode) {
      event.stopPropagation();
      /* event.preventDefault(); */
    }
  }, true); /* true for event capture */
}
[ KeyEvent.DOM_VK_W, KeyEvent.DOM_VK_A, KeyEvent.DOM_VK_S, KeyEvent.DOM_VK_D ].forEach(function (a){listenBlock(document, 'keydown', a);});

Another update:

Just read a fantastic 19 year old flame war on the debian-devel mailing list about MPlayer.
[lists.debian.org] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2003/01/msg01676.html

TL;DR is basically this post. [lists.debian.org] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2003/01/msg01775.html

"However, many people beg for its inclusion in Debian. Why?" - Gabucino
"Because having new software in Debian is good." - Josselin Mouette
"Because having good software in Debian is new." - Gabucino

Since Debian re-removed mplayer in 2013, I've been having to compile from source ever since. It had a new release a couple days ago, btw.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Mar 2 2022, 21:31

It seems the term is 'potpourri', more specificly one based on fake cinnamon. Returning the things, and I'll just wait on another pair.

I did find a pair of nice looking pads on eBay- a UK listing that ships from China. *shrug* They'll likely take 2 or 3 months as China stuff does for me, so non-trivial chance I'll source cans with no scent before they arrive. I have confirmed an amazon listing for the right 1/4" adapter threads in any case.

I think my monoprice headphones must have "broken in" or something, because they sound more pleasant (less harshly tinny on the high end) now than they did on day 1.

I think my monoprice headphones must have "broken in" or something, because they sound more pleasant (less harshly tinny on the high end) now than they did on day 1.

Usually its just your brain compensating for the audio signature.

Usually its just your brain compensating for the audio signature.

Certainly could be. Almost definitely is at least partially true. But there are some sounds that were grating a couple weeks ago that seem bearable now. Either way I'm increasingly pleased. Changing the pads probably did a little bit too.
----
Edit: Been averaging 8K/s on a 10GiB torrent for the last two hours. Next highest are at 20% and 1%. Only the 1% guy (and I) upload at respectable rates.
The only guy with 100% completion I've seen in the last two or three hours is seeding at about 3K/s.

People who seed at ~5K/s are kind of jerks, but people who use the Xunlei client (Thunder) should be executed by firing squad. They always report 0% completion no matter how much they download from me, and never upload jack shit. Wish I was smart enough/cared enough to edit deluge/libtorrent to refuse service to them.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Mar 6 2022, 10:31

Usually its just your brain compensating for the audio signature.

I had that when I first switched to akg k240s, used to be very tinny and lacking of bass now they're fine and a lot of old headphones I used to be fine with sound muddy.
though bigger pads do help them along a lot

thought:
using openscad to draw out a front plate to hopefully get pcbway to be able to deal with the dxf and cut the sheetmetal, realy starting to make me wonder if this is the best solution for getting this stuff custom made, expecially since openscads export seems very minimal (just all one layers with lines only)

This post has been edited by cate_chan: Mar 6 2022, 15:42

Finally added a fan to my router after it overheated again while torrenting last night. Mounted with panel-mount RCA jacks and cotton swabs.

[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/h62HNJwg.jpg)

That wasn't what was causing my speeds; the router actually rebooted itself three times in about 15 minutes once there were a lot of connections active. I "verified" that it was overheating by aiming a box fan at it last night; it never rebooted after that.

It's on stilts because it's running at full 12V (soldered to the DC barrel jack and power switch), and it's really fucking loud unless I suspend it like that. I can't even hear it now (over the sound of my PC fans, particularly the stock Intel cooler - and multiple decade-old HDD's).

Temperatures are way down, too; I think the highest temperature reported by 'sensors' was something like 75-80°C before; now it's 53° reported by the Armada SoC, and the radios chipsets are reporting ~30°C instead of ~50°.

Thought: probably should add a diode to prevent reverse voltage. Unless modern PC fans usually have those built in? This is a 4-pin Arctic F8 PWM PST, btw.

Thought 2: Even though it's a rubberdome board (and not topre, either), it's kind of nice to use my Sun type 5 keyboard once in a while.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Mar 7 2022, 08:13