mevinyavin's Thread of Random Randomness

[mevinyavin]

A collection of tech-related comments from various magazines. Probably appreciated only if you are in the field.

Header for budget processor review


From review of a server


Review of a truly expensive motherboard (see the right column, ignore everything else)


Comment from the end of life of W7








You're right but how many people have a screen that big?


From a review for an indestructible laptop made for construction sites and other on the job scenarios




I'll post some more a different time (if I get some likes).

[mevinyavin]

From an interview of a popular writer. At this point, I don't remember which one.

[mevinyavin]

This is a little too random (and big) for the random quotes thread.
Another (rather large) excerpt from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. You won't get it unless you read the real HP books. Note that this is alternate reality fanfiction, and edgy (frum-wise), and the Harry in this excerpt is eleven years old, brilliant but still eleven so gets into trouble.

“I should like to ask your advice about something,” Severus said, his voice casual. “I know of another fifth-year Slytherin who was being bullied by Gryffindors. He was wooing a beautiful Muggle-born girl, who came across him being bullied, and tried to rescue him. And he called her a mudblood, and that was the end for them. He apologized, many times, but she never forgave him. Have you any thoughts for what he could have said or done, to win from her the forgiveness you gave Lestrange?”

“Erm,” Harry said, “based on only that information, I’m not sure he was the main one who had a problem. I’d have told him not to date someone that incapable of forgiveness. Suppose they’d married, can you imagine life in that household?”

There was a pause.

“Oh, but she could forgive,” Severus said with amusement in his voice. “Why, afterwards, she went off and became the girlfriend of the bully. Tell me, why would she forgive the bully, and not the bullied?”

Harry shrugged. “At a wild guess, because the bully had hurt someone else very badly, and the bullied had hurt her just a little, and to her that just felt far more unforgivable somehow. Or, not to put too fine a point on it, was the bully handsome? Or for that matter, rich?”

There was another pause.

“Yes to both,” said Severus.

“And there you have it,” said Harry. “Not that I’ve ever been through high school myself, but my books give me to understand that there’s a certain kind of teenage girl who’ll be outraged by a single insult if the boy is plain or poor, yet who can somehow find room in her heart to forgive a rich and handsome boy his bullying. She was shallow, in other words. Tell whoever it was that she wasn’t worthy of him and he needs to get over it and move on and next time date girls who are deep instead of pretty.”

Severus stared at Harry in silence, his eyes glittering. The smile had faded, and though Severus’s face twitched, it did not return.

Harry was starting to feel a bit nervous. “Um, not that I’ve got any experience in the area myself, obviously, but I think that’s what a wise adviser from my books would say.”

There was more silence and more glittering.

It was probably a good time to change the subject.

“So,” Harry said. “Did I pass your test, whatever it was?”

“I think,” Severus said, “that there should be no more conversations between us, Potter, and you would be exceedingly wise never to speak of this one.”

Harry blinked. “Would you mind telling me what I did wrong?”

“You offended me,” said Severus. “And I no longer trust your cunning.”

Harry stared at Severus, taken rather aback.

“But you have given me well-meant advice,” said Severus Snape, “and so I will give you true advice in return.” His voice was almost perfectly steady. Like a string stretched almost perfectly horizontal, despite the massive weight hanging from its middle, by a million tons of tension pulling at either end. “You almost died today, Potter. In the future, never share your wisdom with anyone unless you know exactly what you are both talking about.”

Harry’s mind finally made the connection.

“You were that—”

Harry’s mouth snapped shut as the almost died part sank in, two seconds too late.

“Yes,” said Severus, “I was.”

[mevinyavin]

https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/asus-demos-an-rtx-4090-running-on-a-gpus-m2-slot
I thought this was a bit too obscure for the Interesting tech articles thread.

[mevinyavin]

[Randomex]

Some more random answers. Courtesy of the place where you can buy them on a shirt. Feel free to copy-paste when responding to random questions.

[...]



[...]

I don't get these. Also, that second one doesn't appear to be from a shirt - was it supposed to be something else?

(Also, your images are coming out contiguous with each other.)

[Definitions2]

I don't get these. Also, that second one doesn't appear to be from a shirt - was it supposed to be something else?

(Also, your images are coming out contiguous with each other.)

Beating around the bush

[mevinyavin]

I don't get these. Also, that second one doesn't appear to be from a shirt - was it supposed to be something else?

(Also, your images are coming out contiguous with each other.)

That last was not from a T-shirt but I thought could be on one (the paranoia line was an excerpt from a cybersecurity pro's article). It makes a good answer when someone accuses you of overthinking something.
Sorry, I'll space the images better next time. 

[mevinyavin]

Reads like an April fool's article.
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/1-bit-cpu-for-super-low-performance-computer-launched-sells-out-promptly

[Randomex]

Thank you (to both of you).

[mevinyavin]

There's something seriously wrong with this Best Buy listing.


For context, the Stealth is supposed to be lighter than the competition. 14" gaming laptops that are trying to be light don't pass four pounds. Even the heavy ones (Alienware x14 for instance) are only 4.5 lbs. Maybe because it has 72 hours of battery life, it is heavier?

[mevinyavin]

Another month of Lee Grant's article in PC Pro, another mention of Bitlocker...

[Excerpt]

In the
UK, we don’t have recognised
accreditation for professional tech
repair except at a manufacturer level,
and I’m delighted to say that I’ve
recently had a brush with greatness. A
repair professional came to work in
our shop.
A laptop returned to our shop with a
motherboard that had gone ping. Our
customer was decent about it despite
it only being sold a few months
earlier. The premature demise of a
major component isn’t good for our
customer, our business or the blood
pressure. Thankfully, the machine
was still within the manufacturer’s
warranty period, so we could spring
into conciliatory customer service
mode and handle the entire process
while the client vanished on a
conveniently scheduled holiday.
The machine had an on-site
warranty, which is a rarity for
machines in consumer land but
speeds up the repair process
considerably. Telephone
support concurred that our
diagnosis was probably correct
and they were happy to ship a
replacement motherboard
directly to the shop. I don’t
mind admitting to the
enormous pride in knowing
that a global manufacturer not
only trusted my diagnosis, but
was confident that I could
replace the part. We’ll gloss
over the bit where I’m saving
said manufacturer a fortune
by doing its work for nothing,
but it was a sacrifice I was
willing to make for us to
progress down the path of
repairability together, as equals.
Predictably, a dog with an upset
stomach had also crossed this path
and the manufacturer humiliated me
into scraping my metaphorical instep
on the grass verge of vanity.
It forbade me from touching the
spare part. The manufacturer would
send a professional to our shop to
complete the work.
One of the many tired tropes that
lobbyists throw at the decision makers
about R2R is that it’s unsafe. This can
be true, but so is crossing the road,
and this argument is usually followed
by another: that independent
repairers are untrustworthy, and only
official and approved repair agents are
worthy of taking a screwdriver to your
gadgets. This is definitely true.
Independent repair techs are
nothing more than opportunist
criminals, who live in the hope that
machines comes into their expensive-
to-run shops so they can upload your
photos to the web the moment you’re
out of the door. It’s our sole purpose
for existen... what? Oh! Apologies.
Our lawyers have asked me to clarify
that I’m referring to an incident when
a lady had her phone repaired by
Apple, not an independent repairer. My apologies
for making it seem like non-official
repairers are second-rate,
untrustworthy, charlatans hell-bent
on ripping you off, rather than
independent businesses who’ll bend
over to do their very best for you.
The professional arrived. He said
we had a nice shop (thank you) and
he’d never been in a proper repair
shop before. Flattery like this will get
you the kettle switched on. I’d cleared
a bench for him to work his authorised
magic and made polite conversation
from afar while deliberately not
hanging over him, grinding my teeth.
Around 20 minutes in, he emitted a
pained yelp. The manufacturer had
shipped the new motherboard
expecting the CMOS battery from
the broken machine to be reused. A
tick in the sustainability box, but the
professional tech had fumbled the
battery removal, stripping the wires
from the connecting jack plug. He
held the broken wires in his hands and
said: “I haven’t got another. What
shall I do now?”
Who am I to give my uneducated
opinion to a professional? Should I
keep my agreement with the
manufacturer and let it spend more
money dispatching a second
professional to fit the part, or should I
intervene? What would you have
done? Of course, I helped. He was a
fixer, like me and probably like you.
While I don’t have his certificates, I
have many more bruises accrued from
times when repair unexpectedly
punched me in the jaw. I grabbed
tweezers and a multimeter and
showed him how to re-assemble the
battery and test that the voltage was
coming through. It was a simple repair
for me, but a fresh experience for him.
However, he now has that bit of
knowledge too and maybe one day
he’ll pass it on and show someone
else. R2R needs skills to be shared.
Within the hour, he’d got it
wrapped up. The machine started and
asked for the BitLocker decryption
code. The professional looked at me
expectantly, but the person who had it
was lying on a beach somewhere,
utterly, but critically, unaware of
what BitLocker was. This is Windows
Device Encryption (WDE), which I
mentioned a few issues ago and
springs into life on most modern
machines when a
Microsoft account is
used at login.
Once again,
Professional Tech
Person looked worried.
In his normal arena of
business tech, either
the IT manager has the
code or the machine is
reset, losing the data.
In the consumer arena,
losing client data is
a heinous crime,
standing shoulder
to shoulder with the
other major felony of not recovering a
client’s data after they’ve already lost
it. As the Edinburgh philosopher Mark
Renton once said, “It’s a tightrope,
Spud. It’s a f*****g tightrope.”
I let him scratch his head for a
moment before telling him he was
free to go. The professional had
transplanted the motherboard and the
amateur would finish up. It’s easy
enough to unearth a BitLocker code
(tinyurl.com/353locker) once you
know where to look, but when
dealing with a fresh motherboard, be
sure to rinse out the TPM, otherwise
you’ll be asked for the unwieldy string
of digits during every boot. If this
sounds familiar, Dell has a nice tech
note (tinyurl.com/353dell) that you
may find useful.
The Professional Tech Person
was a great guy. He was young and
keen, with a fabulous attitude, but he
admitted that being a professional
for a manufacturer means he doesn’t
have to worry about breaking things.
He’s got access to endless parts. Sure,
he may get a kick from someone
up the chain, but ultimately, if the
client is happy, then all is well
with the world. Interestingly, he
told me the price of the
replacement board: £570.
Price that the customer
paid me for the laptop in
the first place: £550.

[mevinyavin]

One of those old rants about prebuilts. Raise your hand if you understand what they are complaining about. (A bit old, kamuvan l'mevinim.)

[mevinyavin]

So glad that the government is dealing with the world's important problems, one at a time.

[mevinyavin]

https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/155-million-toshiba-laptop-ac-adapters-recalled-over-fire-hazard
Okay, so 15.5 million Toshiba chargers were sold between 2008 and 2014. If you are lucky enough to have one of those, you can get a free replacement! Yay! The newest of these are ten years old. How many are still in use - especially considering that Toshiba laptops tended to overheat and die early...
Wait. What's a Toshiba charger?

[mevinyavin]

A collection of pics from the pictures thread, circa 2013.


























































So, as the OP of this pic pointed out, this is the entrance to Maalot Dafna and is not Chiloni. As the OP could never have imagined in his wildest dreams, the street is now in a different place, and if you were looking at it you wouldn't recognize this picture. (I checked Google maps and it is not up to date.)

Now @aygart explained the sign eloquently:

[mevinyavin]

[mevinyavin]

https://www.coderelay.io/fontemon.html

[mevinyavin]

So someone built a PC with a built in coffee maker...

[aygart]

So someone built a coffee maker with a built in PC...

FTFY