Search results

  1. Mercutio

    Something Random

    Porn has a long, long history of driving technology forward that really applies to the entirety of human history.
  2. Mercutio

    Something Random

    $3500 VR Headset can't (yet) be used to view stereoscopic porn and dudes are mad about it.
  3. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    I disagree and anything less that full throated dissent is enabling their behavior.
  4. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    Swype with Dragon is the all time champion for on screen keyboards, but Microsoft bought it and killed it, and the APK can't be installed on the S24 (or Tablet S9) at all. It had free dictionary imports and stored and synchronized the words on your Swype account, which is massively important for...
  5. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    We have to advocate and educate, or the situation will only get worse. Windows has been the Free Software Foundation's hobgoblin for the last several decades, but iOS is many, many times worse and even fewer people seem to care.
  6. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    The problem is too many people are willing to go live in Apple's world, such that Apple's version of reality becomes the default for other people. If Apple's phone can't do that, or Apple's phone won't interoperate properly with any other, that is a problem for everyone, and this is technology...
  7. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    Apple actively degrades messages sent using SMS to the minimum spec. It does not offer the option of internet delivery for SMS messages while delivering full quality media to Apple users over its iMessage software. It even goes so far as to display messages sent by non-Apple users in a...
  8. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    I'm one of the monsters who doesn't use a phone case, although I have more misgivings about that since newer phones are often glass on all sides. A couple of my good friends are nerdy enough to follow the argument for Signal. It also helps that sharing quality photos is a major use case for...
  9. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    I finally conceded to Signal for communication with subhuman iOS users. I don't like SMS even a tiny bit. I have to tell people regularly that they are not entitled to my private phone number, so SMS is off the table and in any case Apple's malicious compliance with the barest minimum of MMS...
  10. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    For what it's worth, one of the reasons to NOT configure biometrics is that law enforcement can compel device owners to authenticate. I have a routine set up to remove my stored biometrics via Google Assistant to prevent a cop from going through my phone without my permission. I have had this...
  11. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    OK, new phone showed up. First thing is that the screen is definitely brighter than my S20. Not by some crazy amount, but definitely enough that I notice. Second thing is that the under-screen fingerprint scanner is so much better that it's upsetting. It takes just a tick longer than my old LG...
  12. Mercutio

    Something Random

    Apparently it is an Eastern Ribbon Snake. As I said, I have no responsibility for it. It's an object of fascination for the cats, but they can't really do anything to it or with it. I have no idea how it got out, either.
  13. Mercutio

    Something Random

    I have also found that my upstream speeds on cable are highly variable. I'm on a 2000/100 package right now, through Comcast's business service. I get substantially better uploads in the evening than I do during business hours, which I have always suspected is due to the usage pattern of other...
  14. Mercutio

    Something Random

    My partner bought a snake back in June. I'm not really a reptile person, so I don't pay much attention to it, but she's always liked them and there's not really a good reason not to have one. Its habitat sits on top of my server rack. Something we found out is that snakes can get out of their...
  15. Mercutio

    Home NAS

    It has two 1100W PSUs for a 1U PC. I only have one of them plugged in. My datacenter does not charge for power either. At least, they don't charge me. The RS630 is subjectively quite a bit louder than my RS550. It is NOT intolerably loud, but it is louder than for example a Supermicro rack...
  16. Mercutio

    Home NAS

    Yes. At home, my workstation is almost always doing something and my file server is, too. Consumer power rates in Northwest Indiana are very reasonable. I don't even think it's $.13kWh.
  17. Mercutio

    Home NAS

    The most important thing for me right now is getting high density U.2 support. As a someday feature, there's also a 10x EDSFF backplane that allows full nvme on all the bays and THAT is what I want to see in support of operations. 10x8TB high endurance drives makes a perfect TrueNAS setup to...
  18. Mercutio

    Home NAS

    The big problem I am seeing with the RS630 is what I'm going to do with these internal U.2 ports. The internal HBA that's connected to the backplane isn't the newer one that can run these, so these drives have to be direct-attached to their respective ports. U.2 drives get warm even though...
  19. Mercutio

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    I have a box of 12 of those drives sitting right next to my trackball here. I don't understand why you've never bothered to RMA that drive. It has a five year warranty. I'm sure it could still be replaced.
  20. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Is it? I suspect it's like the 1DXv2, a particular product for particular market segment, to the exclusion of all others. A sport camera isn't great for birders or portraits and Canon seems to emphasize sport shooting above all else. How that aligns to the company that makes the 28-70/2 and...
  21. Mercutio

    Windows 10

    I promise you that there is not a single SSD that works.
  22. Mercutio

    Windows 10

    Today in tales of oh my god I can't believe this exists, I have found a PC that is incompatible with SSDs. Yes, all of them. And I've gotten Pentium 2 PCs to boot Windows off SSDs on shitty $20 PCI (note the lack of an "e" there) Syba controllers. I mean this does not work. I've tried six...
  23. Mercutio

    archival storage options

    Tony still pops in here on occasion. We've mostly all known each other the best part of 25 years now. PC tape drives are a lot more expensive than VCRs. They're still helical tape systems, so the mechanical aspects are very well understood, but the tape heads and how they operate separate the...
  24. Mercutio

    Loss of Powers

    I'm sure there's a poorly made video of some Indian dude disassembling one that'll show you how to do an internal battery swap.
  25. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    It changes everything into a DNG. That isn't ideal of my workflow but there's nothing stopping me from passing my Raw files on to Lightroom for Denoising before I start messing with them in C1 on my PC. Capture One is perfectly happy to operate on the DNG files. Denoise is supposed to be the...
  26. Mercutio

    Loss of Powers

    That sounds like a laptop that has seen better days. Is it 7th or 8th generation Intel? That would probably be the factor in whether or not I'd bother to work on it.
  27. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Hopefully there will be an update to DeNoise soon. Adobe's noise processing truly is the best out there right now.
  28. Mercutio

    Loss of Powers

    I don't really let mine sleep like that. My laptops are usually off if I'm not using them. Past experience says it's not entirely unreasonable.
  29. Mercutio

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    I don't believe Samsung's tools, either. I was buying 850 Pros for a while that my back of napkin math suggested were getting around .7 DWPD and still showed something like 83% cell life after two years. That also seemed too high to to be trusted.
  30. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    Word makes giant stupid files, even after compression is applied. Sometimes, you just want to be able to put an image in what could otherwise be a plaintext document. And also you need Word or Google Docs or something to open .docx files, and accessing either of those might be out of bounds for...
  31. Mercutio

    Network the NAS

    If it's around over over 1GB/s, I don't think people can quibble much. Mellanox NICs like the ones I use at home are around $50 each, so $150-ish to get 10GbE point to point seems pretty damned reasonable to me.
  32. Mercutio

    Network the NAS

    This is probably relevant to some interests. 4x2.5GbE, 2x10GbE SFP+. $50 and runs on under 10W.
  33. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    Here's a pretty nice Wordpad Alternative, RectifyPad. It seems to follow current MS Office theming conventions but it does not open .docx files, which some past versions of Wordpad can.
  34. Mercutio

    Something Random

    Ukrainian Bradley gunner on taking out a Russian T90 that's about twice its size and with only a fraction of the armament.
  35. Mercutio

    Alternatives to Amazon

    I dropped Netflix last October. I had been continuously subscribed to it since late 1998. I used it for DVDs and very seldom for streaming and I just decided it wasn't valuable enough to keep paying, even though I was very happy to see it grow into what it is now. Amazon has The Expanse, but...
  36. Mercutio

    Alternatives to Amazon

    Amazon is awful for its workers, but it's sort of the same thing with Wal-Mart or any other company big enough to compete. They're all awful. Booksellers are the one place I'll go out of my way to buy from not-Amazon but as a general purpose retailer, it's so often the path of least resistance...
  37. Mercutio

    Network the NAS

    You can get a Visio product key from g2a.com for about $20.
  38. Mercutio

    Home NAS

    Guy from my old colo. He's still cleaning out the old building.
  39. Mercutio

    Home NAS

    I'm really going to have to think about how I want to set up this system. I could just make it another VM host that just has a lot more capacity than the other ones I have but what need for my systems is a place to put things. We're supposed to get a foot of snow this weekend so I have some...
  40. Mercutio

    Home NAS

    New. New. New SSDs. I still haven't had an Intel 4510 fail. They've been excellent for me.
  41. Mercutio

    AMD 8000

    Everything has AI in it now because how dare we buy things that don't have AI. I guess it's nifty that the things we want to play games and run video editors with are the things that make AI go as well. 8c/16t and moderately capable integrated graphics for $330 is nothing to sneeze at.
  42. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    Yeah. I have an S8 tablet I can swap in that gets $600 in credit, plus another $50 for reservation. The total to get an S24+ is $350 and the S24U is $500. The lack of SD card and overall reduced storage would be a pain but I have an S20 Ultra now and I think it's too goddamned big, and the S24+...
  43. Mercutio

    Home NAS

    In this case I was specifically making a point that the option is available and affordable. I'm getting one set up so I can beat on it before I put in my datacenter. If I can get more of those at that price, they'll be great replacements for the RS550s I have out there now. This is the cheapest...
  44. Mercutio

    Home NAS

    $400 got me an RS630v1. 2x Xeon 6136 for 24c/48t @ 3.5GHz, both 1100W PSUs, 4x10GbE, 10 front 2.5" bays and three internal u.2 ports. I have to put RAM in it but I am just fine with that; $800 will get me 512GB (the system will take 1.5TB), which should cover my needs for years to come. There...
  45. Mercutio

    Something Random

    Yes. And the Stainless Steel Rat.
  46. Mercutio

    Something Random

    I actually know a couple people who have been motivated to learn Norwegian because of Norway's prominence in fabric arts. Never heard of anyone voluntarily learning Swedish.
  47. Mercutio

    My mother passed away

    I am very sorry to hear that. It is hard to say goodbye to someone so central to your life. Set down your burden and rest.
  48. Mercutio

    Something Random

    The tools that are used to allow Hackintoshes can be used in a similar fashion to get old Macs on new versions of the OS. There are instructions all over the place for making it work. I mostly just want to have a working Mac around to have a Mac around, but right now I have a 2019 Mac Mini so...
  49. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    IIRC, getting a phone with a data plan in 2003 was probably still $60ish for most people. The Sprint employee plan gave me unlimited 3G service and a massive discount on a Windows Mobile phone at a time when both of those things were exotic. The only caveat in the time since is that I've always...
  50. Mercutio

    Home NAS

    An RS550s might be just the thing for you. sed. They're old, but they're cheap. Everything that goes in them is cheap, and a lot of the ones being sold now come in fully loaded configurations with a couple CPUs, redundant PSUs and a full set of filled DIMM slots. They're also very quiet other...
Top