Something Random

[ddrueding]

I had one friend help me both times I've had a move with stuff. Same person had to move and didn't call me. I've only helped a half-dozen people move. I don't mind so long as they are prepared; I once arrived at a friends place on moving day to discover no packing had taken place. She didn't even have boxes, and had been living in the same place for 20 years. That was a project.

 

[Handruin]

I spent the weekend helping a friend move. And that's what I'm going to spend next week doing, also. I don't know why I do it. I know no one I help would help me in return. For the exercise, maybe.

I've found more as I've gotten older that I concern myself less with the one for one balance and equality of things like this. I understand why and how it can feel frustrating but people need different things at different times in their life and small or medium acts on your behalf can mean a lot to a person.

Maybe some day this friend or someone else can be there for you in a different way and they won't need to be "repaid" for their actions. I find it's a good exercise of not getting yourself stuck in the mental thought process of "I don't know why I'm doing this for a person" but rather lend yourself out there and do it because someone needs something more than you. It's not an easy mental shift if you've been thinking this way for a long time but faking it until you make it does actually work.

 

[snowhiker]

EPA Accuses Volkswagen of Dodging Emissions Rules

All brands with 2.0L diesel affected - VW, Audi, Skoda. What scumbags. They ought to be kicked in the nuts so hard this never happens again ever, anywhere.

I agree.

But. Many of the emission requirements/test are BS. Forget to tighten your gas cap, emission computer throws an error code and BAM you fail emission testing. And depending on how varied you daily driving is, it could take a week for the "error code" to reset. So an emission computer "cheating" to help you pass a test is........not OK, but not terrible either.

The fine I was hearing was $18B? That certainly counts as a kick in the nuts...

The lawyers are already salivating.

I spent the weekend helping a friend move. And that's what I'm going to spend next week doing, also. I don't know why I do it. I know no one I help would help me in return. For the exercise, maybe.

This. So much so. I don't help any NON-family move anymore. Period. Well, I'll do it for $20/hour paid-in-advance. And some have paid as they know I'll help get things done.

I've shoveled my next door neighbor's snow many times for the exact same reason. I figured with snow on the ground I wasn't riding, so might as well do something aerobic. After an hour shoveling snow, I felt like I had a better work out than riding.

Moving, especially a HOUSE full of shit, is the ultimate workout. Everything hurts after such a move. I suspect shoveling snow is just as bad.

I had one friend help me both times I've had a move with stuff. Same person had to move and didn't call me. I've only helped a half-dozen people move. I don't mind so long as they are prepared; I once arrived at a friends place on moving day to discover no packing had taken place. She didn't even have boxes, and had been living in the same place for 20 years. That was a project.

OMG this. The "not prepared" part. I've immediately left and said I'll come back when the actual moving starts. That usually motivates them to get their butt moving

I've found more as I've gotten older that I concern myself less with the one for one balance and equality of things like this. I understand why and how it can feel frustrating but people need different things at different times in their life and small or medium acts on your behalf can mean a lot to a person.

Maybe some day this friend or someone else can be there for you in a different way and they won't need to be "repaid" for their actions. I find it's a good exercise of not getting yourself stuck in the mental thought process of "I don't know why I'm doing this for a person" but rather lend yourself out there and do it because someone needs something more than you. It's not an easy mental shift if you've been thinking this way for a long time but faking it until you make it does actually work.

/golf clap.

Very sensible attitude. And at the very least it builds up some good karma for yourself. As long as the person being helped doesn't have a track record of taking advantage of people.

 

[jtr1962]

Moving, especially a HOUSE full of shit, is the ultimate workout. Everything hurts after such a move. I suspect shoveling snow is just as bad.

I don't know if you followed the weather in the northeast last winter but we were getting piled on with snow on a practically weekly basis. No sooner had I cleared the sidewalks then another storm put the snow back. Cumulatively, this had to have been a bigger workout than helping someone move.

On another note, I'm at the point where my next move will be feet first. I have so much shit I dread the prospect of even contemplating a move.

 

[Handruin]

Oh year....last winter I had considerable strength training every few days. I don't own a snow blower so it was all shoveled.

 

[DrunkenBastard]

Will need to clear a 100 ft downhill gravel driveway with a 20 ft turnaround this winter. I'm thinking of one of the Honda 2 stage snowblowers with tracked drive. For the vehicles, Blizzak snow tires (switched to Nokians for several years but they seem to do better for high speed cruising than real crap conditions, for deep snow I find them lacking). Only downside for the Blizzaks is rapid tire wear.

 

[Handruin]

I'm running Blizzaks also. I have their LM 32 Wintersport tire and it did great in last year's record-setting amount of snow here. On the worst of days I had no issues getting to/from work. I chose those over the Nokians because those had much softer sidewall and lower top speed rating for my size/weight (255/35/R19).

 

[sedrosken]

I spent the weekend helping a friend move. And that's what I'm going to spend next week doing, also. I don't know why I do it. I know no one I help would help me in return. For the exercise, maybe.

I do it just to feel like I'm doing something productive.

Moved the Phenom II from the SFF case to an ATX mid-tower, manually wiring the power switch and front-panel LEDs as this case's headers were meant for a specific mobo and the mobo's header looked like an inverted USB header. Cut max temps from 70-75 C to 63. "Acquired" an HP Notebook 2000 (AMD E2 clocked at 1.3GHz with Radeon HD 6310, 2GB DDR3 RAM, 320GB HDD, ~5hr battery life, full travel keyboard, 15.6" 1366x768 TN panel) for use with school as they're handing out Chromebooks for those of us who don't have a laptop and barring the fact that I don't want their damn crippled laptop they'd make me pay $50 to use it. Yeah, definitely not the best of specs, but with Arch Linux it's livable. The stock install of Win8 chugged from a clean install.

Just to be clear, the machine cost me nothing, lest you think I wasted my money. Given the choice I'd definitely take a Core 2 Duo or even a Pentium Dual-Core over this. It comfortably handles what I need it for, though, and for any heavy lifting I have the Phenom II just downstairs.

 

[Stereodude]

I think someone needs to stage an intervention for me. I seem to have picked up the habit of 3D Blu-Ray buying. On a whim I bought a 3D Blu-Ray movie and a 3D Blu-Ray player to see what it was all about since my TV is a 3D set. I've concluded that 3D movies at home are excellent and have been trolling eBay for 3D Blu-Ray deals for a couple of weeks now. I'd guess I have about 25-30 3D movies so far. :cheers:

 

[LunarMist]

Am I the only one who calls the moving company?

 

[ddrueding]

I think someone needs to stage an intervention for me. I seem to have picked up the habit of 3D Blu-Ray buying. On a whim I bought a 3D Blu-Ray movie and a 3D Blu-Ray player to see what it was all about since my TV is a 3D set. I've concluded that 3D movies at home are excellent and have been trolling eBay for 3D Blu-Ray deals for a couple of weeks now. I'd guess I have about 25-30 3D movies so far. :cheers:

Unfortunately I seem to be one of the people that has a bad experience with the current tech (active shutter glasses). I've also had mixed results ripping them.

 

[ddrueding]

Am I the only one who calls the moving company?

I will if I have to again. The last time we moved was right after buying our first house, and there was no money to spare. Then again, my wife and I boxed in one day, moved in one day with the help of one friend, and unpacked in 3. It would be very different now.

 

[Stereodude]

Am I the only one who calls the moving company?

That's what I'm going to do next time I move.

 

[Stereodude]

I've also had mixed results ripping them.

Ripping to what? 1:1 ISO is no problem.

 

[Handruin]

Am I the only one who calls the moving company?

In the past I've never called a moving company. Last time I moved it borrowed a friend's truck and moved myself. It was very tiring and if I have the means I won't do it this way again. Next time I'll probably consider a uHaul and pay their people to help. A friend of mine did that recently and it seemed to work well.

 

[sedrosken]

The plan right now is, once I get a job and money with which to buy a new computer, I will get a mid-range laptop with GOOD (but not so good that they're overly power-hungry) specs (something like a 15.6" A10, or i5 with discrete graphics, >=8GB RAM, [probably aftermarket] 512GB SSD, hoping for a built-in optical drive but it's not essential as I can buy an external) and drop the biggest, beefiest battery I possibly can in it for maximum battery life. Then I can reassign the Phenom II to dedicated folding/file server duty.

Sorry to derail the topic, had to get this down somewhere so someone can hold me to it because otherwise I won't do it.

 

[ddrueding]

I should switch to ISO, I've been using various compression/stripping tools.

 

[Stereodude]

I should switch to ISO, I've been using various compression/stripping tools.

3D ISO playback is not trivial. The open source software generally doesn't play nice with 3D. Mainly because FFMPEG doesn't support MVC deciding.

Rasp Pi 2 can playback MVC with its hardware decoder. Unfortunately 3D ISO handling in Kodi is not there yet. MKV and m2ts apparently works fine though for MVC.

 

[Mercutio]

With regard to calling movers: my friends tend to be of the young and broke variety rather than comfortably well off and settled in their lives.

The plan right now is, once I get a job and money with which to buy a new computer, I will get a mid-range laptop with GOOD (but not so good that they're overly power-hungry) specs (something like a 15.6" A10, or i5 with discrete graphics, >=8GB RAM, [probably aftermarket]

I think what you'll find is that anything with an AMD CPU is going to qualify as low end and anything with an i5 and discrete graphics is either going to be an expensive business portable or a gaming waste-of-money.
And if you do buy a gaming laptop, be prepared to have your heart broken when its cooling system proves to be inadequate.

 

[sedrosken]

Actually, I found an Acer Aspire E E5-573G-52G3 on Newegg for about $520. Has an i5 5200U, GeForce 940M (2GB VRAM, more than I need, though there is a 4GB VRAM option as well for more money) w/ 1080p display, 8GB RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. As a matter of fact it's a shell shocker deal for me today, though the shell shocker price hasn't been revealed yet. Not that I can buy it yet anyway.

Here's a link.

 

[DrunkenBastard]

Watch out for those U (ULV) cpus, they are pretty gutless (tho good for battery life).

 

[snowhiker]

I don't know if you followed the weather in the northeast last winter but we were getting piled on with snow on a practically weekly basis. No sooner had I cleared the sidewalks then another storm put the snow back. Cumulatively, this had to have been a bigger workout than helping someone move.

Helping someone move a house full of stuff is a crazy hard workout. Maybe worse than shoveling a yard full of snow? I don't know for sure as I've never had the "pleasure" of shovel snow. But I would definitely agree with you that the cumulative effect of shoveling any amount of snow on a weekly basis is way worse than any single house move.

On another note, I'm at the point where my next move will be feet first. I have so much shit I dread the prospect of even contemplating a move.

There must be something quote-worthy hidden in that tid-bit of knowledge above. Something along the lines of, "If even the thought of moving your household produces deep-in-the-belly dread then you definitely have too much shit" or something like that.

 

[snowhiker]

Sorry to derail the topic, had to get this down somewhere so someone can hold me to it because otherwise I won't do it.

How can you derail "Something Random?" Your "random" post is, well, ON-TOPIC. LOL.

Actually, I found an Acer Aspire E E5-573G-52G3 on Newegg for about $520. Has an i5 5200U, GeForce 940M (2GB VRAM, more than I need, though there is a 4GB VRAM option as well for more money) w/ 1080p display, 8GB RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. As a matter of fact it's a shell shocker deal for me today, though the shell shocker price hasn't been revealed yet. Not that I can buy it yet anyway.

Here's a link.

That link comes up as $480 for me.

As far as moving companies go, don't go too budget. Or else your stuff will be held hostage as an additional $2500 fee suddenly pops up.

 

[ddrueding]

For all of you with 8k screens complaining about no content, YouTube and Scott Manly have you covered.

[video]https://youtu.be/BKKg4lZ_o-Y[/video]

 

[CougTek]

Oh thank you so much! Because having no content for 8K screens was a great source of anxiety for me.

 

[sedrosken]

Watch out for those U (ULV) cpus, they are pretty gutless (tho good for battery life).

Can't be any worse than the dual-core 1.3GHz APU (if I had to rate it I would put it somewhere between an old Atom and a Celeron M) I'm using in my current laptop. In fact I imagine the new laptop will handily run rings around even my Phenom II. As for battery life, with me that's kind of the point behind going with a portable system. Buy the largest battery possible and optimize the machine so I have to charge it as little as possible.

 

[sedrosken]

According to a recent review, apparently said laptop is locked at the bootloader level. Maybe it can be unlocked but I'm not buying one to find out.

 

[Stereodude]

Anyone using Block access for USEnet? I've been paying monthly, and it seems like I could save a fair bit moving to the pre-paid "block" model.

FWIW, this was definitely the right thing for me. I'm a few days less than 1 year in and I've used ~20% of the block I bought. Now I will admit to being a bit more selective in what I use my block for, but even if I threw out the other 80% I'd still have cut my yearly spend in half.

 

[timwhit]

What are you downloading?

 

[Stereodude]

What are you downloading?

stuff

 

[timwhit]

stuff

Sounds interesting.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm more of a torrent sort of a person, but the machine doing the downloading will only talk to the internet through its dedicated VPN. NNTP is (mostly) below the radar for stuff-downloading, but I've been able to set up an impressive level of automation and I'm not relying on the retention policies of a particular entity for access to content.

 

[mubs]

The stupidity continues: RFID chips in driver’s licenses

 

[LunarMist]

So now I will need metal in plastic underwear to block the signals?

 

[ddrueding]

RFID blocking wallets are already a good idea.

 

[jtr1962]

The stupidity continues: RFID chips in driver’s licenses

This is even more stupid when you consider the only time the government might need to read someone's license remotely is when they're driving, but RFID won't work when you're surrounded by a metal car!

 

[LunarMist]

This is even more stupid when you consider the only time the government might need to read someone's license remotely is when they're driving, but RFID won't work when you're surrounded by a metal car!

I don't think the windows are all glass yet.
What if there are five people in a car?

 

[jtr1962]

I don't think the windows are all glass yet.
What if there are five people in a car?

I'm pretty sure remote reading won't work in a car despite the glass.

Five people (with 5 licenses?) would make reading even more difficult.

There are uses for RFID but I don't think a driver's license is a good application.

 

[snowhiker]

The stupidity continues: RFID chips in driver’s licenses

/conspiracy theory mode=ON

"Woe to you, oh Earth and Sea, for the Devil sends the beast with wrath,
Because he knows the time is short...
Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast
For it is a human number,
Its number is Six hundred and sixty six."

/conspiracy theory mode=OFF

Whenever I hear about RFIDs on late night/early A.M. radio driving home from work it's always some plot by the gubbermnt to control us and/or "mark-of-the-beast" talk.








Edit: Can't edit/preview this post without losing all text in edit box. sigh.

 

[ddrueding]

[video]https://youtu.be/UkZqFtYtqaI[/video]