Something Random

[sedrosken]

I think my backpack technically counts as a personal item as it'll fit underneath the seat in front of me, even on tiny little sardine-can jets like the Mitsubishi CRJ900. I wonder if that means I could take a smaller suitcase as a carry on if I can pack some clothes in the backpack too.

 

[ddrueding]

Normally shipping your luggage would cost more than the plane ticket, which to me implies that passenger airline QA is another loss of the price wars.

 

[ddrueding]

I think my backpack technically counts as a personal item as it'll fit underneath the seat in front of me, even on tiny little sardine-can jets like the Mitsubishi CRJ900. I wonder if that means I could take a smaller suitcase as a carry on if I can pack some clothes in the backpack too.

Absolutely. Just check the carry-on size spec for the airline you're on. Worst case they make you check it at the gate, which makes it way less likely to be lost and is free.

 

[ddrueding]

Louis Cole has been a key figure in one of my favorite musical genres for years. While it may not appeal to everyone, it could certainly resonate with some here.

He excels at high-quality musical shitposts. Having received formal musical training, he and his talented friends take great pleasure in taking the piss at the genres they play, including Metal, Jazz, Classical, and others. In addition to performing under his own name, Louis has a band "Knower" and is also behind the project "ClownCore."

 

[mubs]

Hi all, good to see you all still here and doing well. I've been visiting on & off without being logged in, but decided to say Hi now. It's been several years, but awesomely, my old login and pw worked immediately. Thanks Handy for keeping them alive!

 

[Handruin]

Hi all, good to see you all still here and doing well. I've been visiting on & off without being logged in, but decided to say Hi now. It's been several years, but awesomely, my old login and pw worked immediately. Thanks Handy for keeping them alive!

Heya mubs! Great to see you around! I hope you're doing well!

 

[Chewy509]

@time, how are going after the Cyclone? My family is doing fine, we just got power back after 6 days without power. Internet and mobile services are now coming back online in my immediate area now. Otherwise minimal property damage for my home.

For other members, Cyclone Alfred hit south east Queensland week ago, the first in 50 years, causing damage to the Gold Coast, Greater Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast areas. Most the damage was due to fallen trees, and flooding caused by the 6+ days of record breaking rainfall.

 

[Mercutio]

When I was a little kid, my house was about 1km off the path of a tornado. It blew through a corn field and the winds were strong enough to drive corn cobs clean through our garage wall. My parents weren't home when it happened, but my brother and I knew to get in the crawl space to wait it out. My mother has never, ever forgotten this, and now she lets me know when there's a tornado touchdown anywhere within about 100 miles of me, usually within 90 seconds of it making the news.

Hilariously, my office, while I was at work, was also near-missed by a tornado a few years ago. Again, only about a kilometer away. It wrecked the local holy roller church and damaged absolutely nothing else aside from a few cars. I expected to hear all about it, but since the news coverage said very specifically that only that one building was damaged, she didn't bother to call me over it.

 

[mubs]

Heya mubs! Great to see you around! I hope you're doing well!

Doing good, Handy. Life goes on. Standing by the sidelines, watching the world get crazier and still more impossibly crazier!

 

[Handruin]

Doing good, Handy. Life goes on. Standing by the sidelines, watching the world get crazier and still more impossibly crazier!

Glad to hear you're doing good! Sucks the world is getting a lot crazier these days.

I've been a bit less active here lately. I slipped on ice and fell about a month ago and broke my right arm and was in a cast for 3 weeks. I finally got out of that and into a temporary sling for at least the next 6 weeks or so.

Healing up ok but my right hand mobility is a bit slower making normal tasks a bit more awkward. It should hopefully heal fine over the next 3 months but such is life sometimes.

 

[ddrueding]

Sorry to hear of your injury Handy, but glad things are on the mend. This getting older thing sucks, but it beats the alternative.

 

[Handruin]

Thanks man. It'll pass, just annoying for now

How's life on your end of things? Hope all is well

 

[ddrueding]

I'm also experiencing some issues with this aging physical frame, but was recently assured that I am unlikely to die soon

Everything else is going well all things considered.

 

[Handruin]

I'm glad to hear you'll be around a while longer but sorry you're working through some aging stuff. I definitely know what you mean.

 

[sedrosken]

I already crave the surety of steel to my weak organic body. Hail the omnissiah!

In all seriousness, I'm supposed to be too young for knees to hurt me like they already do, but here we are. It's like having a barometer wired into the pain centers of your brain.

 

[mubs]

Glad to hear you're doing good! Sucks the world is getting a lot crazier these days.

I've been a bit less active here lately. I slipped on ice and fell about a month ago and broke my right arm and was in a cast for 3 weeks. I finally got out of that and into a temporary sling for at least the next 6 weeks or so.

Healing up ok but my right hand mobility is a bit slower making normal tasks a bit more awkward. It should hopefully heal fine over the next 3 months but such is life sometimes.

Yeow! Get well soon, Handy. We're all getting older. It's funny how one's mental image of oneself remains the same, but one is much, much older.

 

[ddrueding]

I haven't seen Handy in person since....2005? That day of wandering around San Francisco doing camera things. Therefore my mental image of him is slightly out of date.

 

[Handruin]

Wow yeah that was a long time ago but I remember meeting up with you and you gave me an awesome tour of the area. I enjoyed it and was nice meeting up with you.

Current day me would look a bunch different. I have a full beard and long hair down to my shoulders. Not too long back someone said I reminded them of Dave Grohl haha. Even my Facebook pic is way out of date

 

[ddrueding]

I may have gone a bit crazy ordering parts the other day and will be starting my new build in a few weeks once everything arrives. It is stupidly overkill, unnecessarily complex, and a bit of a risk. The specialty parts will take weeks to arrive, and the assembly will probably also take a week or more.

I also bought a very old BMW (1998 e39 528i Touring) as a project car. The intent is to make it legal and safe, then drive it to the Nurburgring and lap it for a weekend. If it is still alive I'll bring it back. The computer parts were more expensive.

 

[Handruin]

Sounds like a couple of fun projects. What did you end up getting for your computer build that was complex and unnecessary?

Can't wait to hear how the 528i does around the nurburgring

 

[sedrosken]

I've got a few active projects, currently:

- Precision M4400 (C2D P9700, FX 770M, 4GB DDR2-800, 512GB SSD, XP SP3)
- Latitude CPx H500GT (PIIIE-500, Rage Mobility M1, 256MB PC100, ESS Maestro2E, 128GB SSD, WinME)
- Biostar MB-8500TTD (430TX, 64MB RAM, Pentium MMX 233@262, CT3930 AWE32 w/ 28MB sample RAM, 64GB mSD to IDE, 98SE)

In the first and last cases, the machines themselves need work. I'm waiting on a new fan to come in for the Precision, and I'm replacing the RAM slots on the AWE32 as the originals used plastic clips that have since broken off. For the Latitude, it's already in pretty decent shape, the project there is finding some combination of PCMCIA WiFi card (so far I'm waiting on a D-Link card that's supposed to be based on the Ralink RT61 chipset that's known to work) and client software (looking like Odyssey Client) that will let me join a WPA2 network in Windows 9x.

I've put the finishing touches on a rebuilt Game Boy Pocket (new shell, IPS screen mod, new power regulator, rechargable battery kit, flash cart) and I'm currently making my way through the first couple generations of Pokemon with a couple faithful ROMHacks -- PureGreen in the case of Gen1, and a mod to enable capturing all 251 'mons and resetting the clock on every start for Gold since the flash cart I got doesn't have a RTC chip.

I'm waist deep in another playthrough of Morrowind, this time as a sneaky marksman since those are the two most scuffed systems in the game, my friends and I just had a game night last night (we called it a WAN party) where we played ReVolt, UT99 and Aliens vs Predator 2, a game on the Lithtech engine.

 

[ddrueding]

What did you end up getting for your computer build that was complex and unnecessary?

It started when I was able to get an order in for a Thermal Grizzly delidded 9950X3D. Every couple weeks there is an hour or so where the item is "in stock" and the rest of the time you are SoL. To properly cool the delidded CPU, I got a direct-die water block for it. That meant custom water cooling loop. And if I'm doing custom water cooling, I may as well also watercool the 4090 (not getting a 5090, that would be crazy ). My health issues also mean I'm spending a lot of time standing at my desk, so I got an electric stand/sit desk. Since cable management on a moving desk is a pain, I plan to mount the computer to the underside of the desktop so it all moves together. I picked a Silverstone RM52 rackmount chassis, as I think it will fit well. This led to getting 2x 360 radiators and running two separate cooling loops. There will likely be some fabrication to mount the 2x D5 pump/reservoir units, along with mounting it under the desk.

 

[ddrueding]

And for the car.... It will be a challenge. In Denmark there are regular vehicle inspections, if you don't pass the car cannot be driven. This car has 14 different failure points, from rusty body panels to rotting brake lines to non-compliant headlights. It also has 7 days until the inspection deadline.

This is why, in a country where a lightly used VW Golf costs $50k USD, I got this for $3500 USD.

I live in an apartment, don't have a garage, and haven't worked on BMWs before. Securing the resources is requiring creativity.

 

[jtr1962]

My brother redid the brake lines on two of his cars with stainless steel himself. He ordered stainless steel line and a flaring tool. Now he'll never have to worry about the brake lines rusting.

 

[ddrueding]

Since I plan to take the car to possibly the most demanding racetrack in the world, I plan to put on larger aftermarket brakes all around. New disks, calipers, and all the flexible hoses. Then flush the rigid lines and rebuild the master cylinder.

Replacing the front suspension also seems prudent, as well as all the suspension bushings. This car came with a height-adjustable rear airbag system that will require close inspection.

I'm tempted to replace the entire exhaust system, as over a decade in EVs has me really liking a refined and quiet cabin.

After that a transmission service and coolant system flush should be it?

Oh, and welding in patches to all the rusty spots. I kinda like that it looks super rough, but I want it to be mechanically right.

Here is a picture that gives a sense of the appearance.

 

[fb]

Looking forward to reports from both the computer and BMW projects.
Classic 6 cylinder BMWs are the best (according to me) and ~1990~2004 was probably when the fun peaked in the car industry.

 

[sedrosken]

Well, the D-Link card is a bust -- it's an Atheros 5211 like the SMC card I already have. That may or may not yet be convinced to do WPA2 under Windows 9x, I'm not sure. I have a saved search set for a card I know is RT61-based, but until then, tinkering is in order I suppose.

As for why I want it to do WPA2, when I already have a WEP SSID I toggle on and off as needed on my AP here at home, I would like to be able to use this with my phone's hotspot out in the wild occasionally, without having to downgrade its security to the point where it may as well not exist.

The machine runs ME because that's what its COA is for, and also because the sound chip is very DOS-compatible, so if I can get some mileage out of Screamer 2 or Carmageddon on it, all the better. (The source ports for Doom and Duke3D this can run are better than the DOS originals, or I'd have mentioned them.) I might consider a dual-boot with 2000 or XP if this refuses to bear fruit for long enough.

 

[ddrueding]

~1990~2004 was probably when the fun peaked in the car industry.

I would agree, and I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I was 10-24 years old in that window

That said, my friend has a nice collection of cars from the time. His Supra is in the picture above.

 

[Mercutio]

As for why I want it to do WPA2, when I already have a WEP SSID I toggle on and off as needed on my AP here at home, I would like to be able to use this with my phone's hotspot out in the wild occasionally, without having to downgrade its security to the point where it may as well not exist.

I'm 95% sure that there were in fact 802.11g USB adapters with 9x drivers. Is that a path you've followed or is there some reason you don't want to go that route? I'm thinking you might have better luck finding USB than something using a PC card slot.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm 95% sure that there were in fact 802.11g USB adapters with 9x drivers. Is that a path you've followed or is there some reason you don't want to go that route? I'm thinking you might have better luck finding USB than something using a PC card slot.

I thought I remembered a linksys one that I used the crap out of. Blue with a black stick antenna. Expensive at the time and worked quite well. Unfortunately all the text says 2k and XP only.

 

[sedrosken]

I'm 95% sure that there were in fact 802.11g USB adapters with 9x drivers. Is that a path you've followed or is there some reason you don't want to go that route? I'm thinking you might have better luck finding USB than something using a PC card slot.

There are plenty, sure, but they're roundabout as hard to find with, specifically, WPA2 support under Windows 9x as the Cardbus variants. That has to be supported at two levels -- the driver, and the connection client. The connection client is covered by virtue of my... acquiring... of a copy of OdysseyClient. Also, this is a 500MHz Pentium III I'm working with. I'm using Cardbus so I'm not stuck with USB 1.1 limitations -- both speed, though I doubt an 802.11g connection could saturate a USB 1.1 bus, and in terms of not tying up the CPU more than necessary on USB polling, which is actually a problem on hardware this slow.

 

[Mercutio]

Cleaned out my car today. There's a tendency in cold months for stuff to just get tossed in the back, and especially since I've been giving friends with kids rides all winter and car seats absolutely cause chaos in my life.

The prizes for this year's spring cleaning included a shrinkwrapp Beelink SER 5 and a 10th Gen i5 NUC, a loose RX 6700 I don't remember ever owning, a 64GB DDR4 SODIMM kit and 5x 16TB SAS drives. I did at least know they were in there this time . Also a new in box Kindle Fire I meant to give to one of those kids.

I found a pair of camera flashes I thought I left at a shoot, too.

My partner's car is immaculate but honestly I've had Taco Bell orders that would fill the back seat of her Mini.

 

[Handruin]

It's like you're a mobile tech station with all the surplus gear in there. Bits on wheels

 

[Mercutio]

Yeah. I wind up hauling stuff around a lot of different places.

My partner was roasting me over it until I suggested we go spelunking around her vanity next. I bet $100 I could find more expensive little tubes and jars on the floor than everything I found in my car. It's not entirely her fault. We do have cats and it's not like THEY know when they're batting around a $300-per-50g bottle of LaMer, but once you know a bottle of eye cream costs more than a decent CPU, that bet is easy money.

 

[sedrosken]

Yep, at any given time I'm carrying in my car a ladder, a stocked toolbox (including cabling stuff), several backup receipt printers and card readers for our point of sale clients, a 1000ft box of cat5e, a crate with lots of miscellaneous things like displayport to HDMI adapters, patch cables, USB cables for printers, replacement side swipe card readers (the earlier card readers are external EMV jobs from Verifone and Ingenico and similar), a little box full of spare 2.5" SSDs and a pair of USB to SATA adapters for imaging them, and for a time I was carrying an entire spare POS unit. We're winding down our involvement in the POS space, but I doubt I'll get to clean out my car for a while yet, and I'll still need to carry the toolbox and cable at least.

 

[ddrueding]

I remember from the last time I was driving beaters that the car insurance wouldn't cover the contents of the car for more than the value of the car. You both might be under-insured on that

My new car, at $3,600, gets liability only and has nothing inside at all besides a jumper box and a fire extinguisher.

 

[Mercutio]

Believe it or not, my renter's insurance policy includes the contents of my car up to a total value of $50k. I work with a lot of insurance agents and shopping for that was important to my choice of policy.

A few years ago I was blamed (not actually at fault, but blamed) for police vehicle being totaled. The cop did the thing where he flipped on his lights to run through an intersection instead of stopping on a yellow while I was making a normal-ass left turn. His lights were not on when I started the turn and it was January and the roads were essentially nothing but black ice. There was apparently video from a nearby gas station showing his wreck but not the state of the lights or road leading up to the intersection, but the dude skidded past me, between two other cars and then through some parking lot into a concrete barrier. I just got a letter indicating that 1. It was my fault (I didn't even know it happened) and 2. The value of the claim was within $6 of the maximum payout that could POSSIBLY be claimed on my auto insurance, including medical and property damage. Which suggests to me that someone at the insurance company communicated what my coverage levels actually were.

I talked to the cops about it. I talked to the city about it. I checked with a couple lawyers. The consensus is that since I didn't see the accident and didn't stop, there's nothing I can say or do to contest the finding.

End result of all this is that I watch my car insurance coverage very closely. Insurance companies are assholes.

 

[sedrosken]

I'm probably just about covered. I'd say I have less than 8k worth of equipment in my car and my blue book value is still 15k.

 

[sedrosken]

I've discovered a procedure by which I can in theory decouple the DOS drivers for the Maestro2E from a Windows 9x install. I may end up doing so and dual-booting the (illegal, but whatever) CDU distribution of MS-DOS 7.1 with Windows 2000 or maybe even XP assuming I end up actually needing it for some tools, namely OpenVPN. I'd prefer 2000 as I know it'll run a lot better, even with a 512MB RAM upgrade I feel like XP SP3 on a 500MHz CPU might be asking a lot.

 

[ddrueding]

Lake Garda at sunset is beautiful. I wish I'd brought some real cameras.