solarbird | Entries tagged with powerbook

holy hell that was a long march nightmare

but it’s working again! finally! for the first time in FUCKING MONTHS

not gonna bother with the fucktonne of other things i tried, gonna skip straight to the answer, which is in this guy’s reply to himself in apple’s support fora. this is the most critical part:

~/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local was the culprit. After deleting that package and the Calendar and CalendarAgent caches the old calendars no longer reappear. Both the list of calendars in Calendar.app and the sub-folders of ~/Library/Calendars only have the actively used calendars.

this does not include the needed reboot to stop finder from having the calendars in its sync window even after the entire cache was destroyed so that’s my extra note. Nuke SyncServices/Local and the other caches and reboot.

(I also had to export all my calendars, delete them all, do the above, then start re-importing them one at a time. But that’s where the evil broken cache was hiding the whole time.)

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

BEST THING: when your networked ancient but non-DRM laserprinter has been crashing on certain PDFs for months so you think there must be something new in PDFs and maybe it’s replacement time BUT

you discover your printer has room for RAM expansion so you check and it’s at minimum configuration so maybe it’s just running out of RAM so you buy some old compatible RAM off eBay BUT

before you install it you try to find some old PDFs that crashed the printer so you can know if new RAM actually fixed anything and you try printing them again before installing the RAM because you’re smart like that AND

…none of them crash it anymore.

goddammit printers

why

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

ANKER's 3D printer kickstarter - which they're running solely for publicity, they don't need this money - is going around with a bunch of paid videos (LTT is at least upfront about it, but I still don't like it) and I have to say... I'm not real impressed.

Given what's available now at what costs are now, I was really disappointed with that combination of apparent bed size and price. I mean, no, it's not an unreasonably small bed, but I saw the size of that base and was all, "You have my attention" and then I saw the print area and was, "...and you just lost it."

Plus, they are making some really inappropriate speed claims. Not because I don't think they can move the hot end that fast, but because that's how PLA works. (Or any of the other filaments.) They seem to be talking about just linear movement speed and that doesn't matter if your material can't cool that quickly.

I mean, I'm sure it's faster at defaults than my Ender 3 V2 but that's not hard, and at well over twice the price, I expect better.

And all those are big issues, but there's a bigger one, and that's the whole sales pitch.

They want a plug-in-and-forget 3D printer, and they're basically advertising this as one, focusing really hard on ease of assembly (great, I'm for it) and the included auto-leveller (great, those are common, I don't have one and don't need it, but they're good), and they're spending a LOT of time on what they call their AI-driven spaghetti/failed print detection.

And that's fine, but they're making it sound like those are the unsolved problems, when those are in fact the already solved problems.

And a big one is filament. Filaments are not consistent enough for this kind of approach to eliminate all the variables! Particularly not in an open / uncased environment, like this printer! If it had an enclosure, I'd be a bit a bit more copacetic about it, but not entirely, and it doesn't.

Does it have some sort of environment temperature sensor to make temperature adjustments based on ambient temperature? Not that they've mentioned, and I don't see one.

What happens when someone throws some HT-PLA+ at this thing, just to use a filament type I like to use. It can't tell that it's not standard PLA, but the temperature profile is going to be completely different, and not just for this type in general, but by the maker! Each company's HTPLA and PLA+ and so on - they're all different, and there's no way to communicate that to the printer from the filament itself, or the spool.

And changing filaments between jobs, too - it's using standard i3-style printer print heads, and those _need_ to be cleared between filament types. They just do. PLA to PLA generally isn't too bad, but changing colours is not just like popping in a new inkjet cartridge. I have some low-temperature black matte PLA and you need to get that head _squeeky_ clean between prints or you are going to learn new meanings of pain if you switch to something different! Particularly something that operates in different temperature ranges.

And that's just one example.

Here's another: nozzle types. I mean, I guess they can have some sort of hardened-steel plated copper nozzle and that's fine, and that will last a while and tolerate abrasive filaments like wood-infused PLA, but... that's at best a semi-solved problem. Changing those out isn't too difficult, but with that kind of hot end - exactly the same kind I have - you need to get up close and intimate with 200°C metal. (That's... 390° in Freedom units.)

Not to mention the adventures in cleaning it out. By going direct-drive they've eliminated the Bowden tube issues, but... well, we'll see.

Which is all a way of saying "great, they've solved assembly and they're including a levelling sensor with the kit." And they've got a spaghetti detector to stop you from wasting too much filament, that's nice. But that doesn't make it print-and-forget, not by a damn sight. There are all these other very serious issues that they haven't touched and which are not solved here. And in my experience, they're the bigger problems.

But they're kinda selling it as an "all problems solved, print and walk away" solution.

And it's really not.

Current Mood: unimpressed

While we're at it - see previous post - here's a decent way to measure a fan's speed without having access to specialised hardware.

Extract the fan and provision it for power, but do not start it yet.
Ready a sound recording device of any type, such as your phone.
Using stiff but not overly stiff tape - I used packing tape - construct an inverted T type tab and adhese the top of the T to one side of the centre portion of the rotating fan blade assembly so that the extended tab spans the radius on one side of the fan, and the tab portion sticks out, away from the fan. If any part of your assembly has any possibility of hitting any other part of the fan, you're putting it in the wrong place. The tab you've made should rotate with the fan blades, once per revolution of the blade assembly.
Using the same tape, construct a lightweight rod of, oh, 5cm length. Exact length doesn't matter.
Start the fan.
Position the rod so that it is continually struck, lightly, by the previously-made tab adhered to the fan. It should make a ticking sound, like a playing card in bicycle wheel spokes. Each tick sound will represent one (1) rotation of the fan.
Start the sound recorder, and record some number of seconds, making sure you get as light an impact on the tab you constructed as possible while making sure the tick sound remains clear. (This is so you slow the fan down as little as possible or not at all.)
Save the recording, then load it into any audio software of your preference that will let you display the waveform and zoom into a one second section thereof. Audacity is one such free software package, but there are many others.
Looking at the waveform, you will see a series of vertical lines, each one of which is a tick noise, which should be louder than background/air noise in the recording. If you do not see (or hear) this, you have a bad recording.
Count the number of these lines contained within exactly one second of time. That gives you revolutions in that second. If you are comfortable that this one second is representative, multiply by 60 for revolutions per minute (RPM). Alternatively, count across several seconds and do math accordingly. It's up to you.

Current Mood: thoughtful

In case anyone ever needs to know - and this is written a bit repetitively for searchability later, if someone finds it via web searches later you're welcome:

The stock Amiga A4000 desktop power supply (PSU) 12V (12 volt) fan runs at 3000 RPM ( 3000RPM ) by my measurement, moving 20-30 CFM (cubic feet per minute) of air according to what little data I can find online.

(Obviously, that's an outside-of-PSU measurement, as case affects airflow.)

It is a standard 80mm fan by measurement and can be replaced with a Noctua NF-A8 FLX 3-pin fan running on the low-noise but not lowest-noise cable, which gets you just under 25 CFM - at least in the current (2021) iteration of that fan's lineup.

This does not make the PSU run silent but does make it run a lot more quietly.

Current Mood: thoughtful

chonkyboi is my gaming PC, and since I built it, it's been pretty solid, but there've been a couple of small issues, mostly related to noise, and last night, I finally did did something about it.

I typed it into Discord while I was doing it, too, so...

ha ha HAAAAAAAAAAA I FIXED THE VBUS PIN

fuck the USB 3.0 header I mean it

i've been single-3.0 front-panel port since i built this thing

which wasn't rly a deal? because i don't use front ports much, not even for the controller

but it's bugged me and now it's fixed

[later]

the little fan that they have cooling the cpu power chips has been fucking loud 5eva

this is an X299 board so the power regulation chipset runs hot even for intel, right? so this mb came with this little bansidhe of a fan on its heatsink, it's been the nosiest thing in the case

i figured out that i can bring it down (RPM-wise) a lot because a fan that's embedded in the CPU block of my AIO water cooling is (by design!) pointed right at the same heat sink (so we have double-fan-coverage)

so i turned the bansidhe down to a quiet RPM and it's still completely fine

right now i'm doing overwatch play and monitoring PWM temperatures and it's staying at/below CPU which is what I wanted

[later]

i also changed airflow around a bit, i was doing negative pressure but too much and getting airflow fouling

so that's quieter too

and one of the fans was making a tic noise on startup sometime and it's good i found and fixed that because it was one of my GPU's onboard fans

(I have a little card brace (to prevent GPU sag)? it had slipped a little and was occasionally touching a fan on startup. now it won't.)

now i've got one more fan that i want to see if i can move from fixed speed to variable and get that quietened down too

this is a mesh case so it won't ever be silent (and it's never been like actually loud) but the closer i can get the happier I'll be ^_^

i used PCs in the 90s, those things were like fucking jet engines

when I rebuilt my old 1998 rig i replaced all the standard original fans with modern quiet fans and it's silent now but before that when i started it back up with the original fans it was like HI I GUESS I WORK AT BOEING NOW lol

[later]

HOLY SHIT I

okay i knew there was an RPM-controllable header on this thing but i didn't think i had the cabling to reach it and i wasn't 100% sure it would work

GUESS WHO HAD CABLE MANAGED THE CASE FAN TOO WELL

(i'd hid it under an SSD cover!)

it's so quiet now

I slowed the bansidhe fan down a bit more and the PWM temp is running a couple of degrees warmer but only a couple (38C peak vs. 36C peak) and I'm fine with that.

and it's so quiet

happy dance happy dance

[later]

huh it's finally showing me CPU temperature on the motherboard, I wonder what

(it's been showing this 9b I think and i never found out...)

oh FUCK ME that's hilarious

9b is "USB Reset" indicating a USB problem IT WAS TRYING TO TELL ME

(i mean to be fair i knew but it also knew and was saying stuff)

aAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

Current Mood: pleased

holy fuck you scratch the surface and it's TIME TO GO MINING

So this VR rig I got used a little while ago, to use it I've had to plug all the parts into a couple of different power strips every time because I've never finished setting it up right. That kind of sucks and is a barrier to use and all that so last night I decided to be all LET'S FIX THIS!

And while I'm setting it up with foot switches and stuff that's when I find that the UPS for my gaming rig is actually only backing up one (1) external soundbox, and the rest of the kit is just on power filters.

(The UPS is also really for another machine that uses that external soundbox - both the external soundbox and that CPU were supposed to be on it.)

And I then find out that while it's beefy enough for the other machine, it is NOT beefy enough for my gaming rig so I'm like "whelp I've got kind of a spare - one I can use anyway" and swap that in
and that involves digging a lot of stuff out of closets but that's okay.

So I plug the replacement UPS into the (heavy duty, 13A, three-prong) extension cord and the replacement UPS starts making new noises, ones I've never heard before and I'm like "uh, this is bad" and I'm thinking maybe it's just charging capacitors since it's been out of service for a while and that's... okay enough...

But then I see that it's not getting power despite being plugged in. It's running on battery except occasionally (I determine) it's not? And sometimes it's getting 120V and sometimes it's getting 0V and sometimes it's getting small random numbers of volts under 25?

So I'm like "I plugged this in and then put the connection back behind these boxes in the closet, did it come partially unplugged somehow?" and I retrieve the cord (which is for the record completely unstressed and was completely unstressed before, this is not a bendy cord issue)

...and it's making noises.

extension cords should

never

make noises

So I grab the end of it and see that depending upon how I put stress on the connection it makes different noises (and yes, it was completely plugged in) so I'm OKAY TURNING OFF THE UPS NOW and unplug it and I think, okay, this is probably the socket end of the extension cord gone bad but I can't rule out the plug end, let's go make sure nothing's wrong with that (which is easy, it's a short cord, it's just behind shit) and I move all the stuff in the way and I get to it and it's plugged in fine and stable

but

the outlet-mount power filter/line splitter it's plugged into is wobbly? And that's new? (And it has also been under no meaningful stress?)

So I unscrew the filter from the outlet and take off the outlet plate and discover yep it's the outlet and oh shit it was never screwed down properly by the electrician which is insane because it had been perfectly stable when I set all this up which is when I realise that's only because of the sprayed-on wall texture that's been holding it down.

So anyway I fix all of that

(that's like three levels removed from the original task at this point)

and put the plate back on and put the adaptor/splitter/filter/surge protector back on and plug the UPS into that and it behaves normally and if I put the extension cord back in series it's definitely the extension cord socket gone bad. It's really clear when you aren't bent over under shelves in a closet.

Anyway, that's what happens when you try to plug a VR helmet interface box's power plug into a footswitch.

Current Mood: sleepy

And relevant to nothing, does anybody know how the hell one gets xubuntu + xfce4 to pay any attention whatever to the settings you make in xorg.conf? I know it's reading it, if I put bad syntax in it fails to launch. So how the fuck do I make it pay attention to touchpad click zones?

(It's not that it doesn't have them. It's that they aren't the ones I set.)

Current Mood: frustrated

i've been involved in an archiving project that involves reclaiming email messages from the 1990s

it's involved lot of new c code

because it has had to

but if there is anything i know how to do in code it's rebuild clusterfucked email storage into something usable

and i just have to say

now that i have over 15,000 reclaimed messages from a collection of formats

(microsoft mail mmf, early-outlook pst, microsoft exchange client pst, amigauucp, xenix mtp, BITNET (in all caps because BITNET), early internet where nobody seemed to understand rfc-822 and i'm not just looking at you microsoft but i am looking at you microsoft, several thousand messages where the storage solution was apparently "select a bunch of messages and save as text file with an assortment of different line endings (dos/windows and amiga/linux/unix)" and more)

all sitting nicely in imap folders

all i can say is

holy FUCK email was a nightmare in the 1990s.

holy fuck.

how did anyone use this etc.

i mean

fuck.

Current Mood: sleepy

Remember that iNTEL64 nonsense I came up with? The Cartridge Computing System, from an alternate-history where cartridges never stopped being a thing? And of course I built one, partly because I like physical artefacts from alternate universes, but mostly to solve an actual problem.

Anyway, the primary 'cartridge port' has been a separate external unit (because it's really just an eSATA external drive harness), and that meant a separate power switch and separate power cable and separate data cable and all that.

So I decided external cartridge ports were stupid and made an internal unit. Fits in any 5.25" drive bay. It also takes both modern (2.5" SSD) and older, larger cartridges (3.5" hard drives.) Anything SATA, really.

The hardest part was modifying the antique (and weird) Compaq case to look like it had a faceplate made for the iNTEL64 CCS standard. But once I had everything else, I just... had to. ^_^

Current Mood: pleased

astolat posted: SignalBoost bookmarklet

Okay, here is the little bookmarklet -- it's pretty limited, but it serves my own laziness, so I share it FWIW and if anyone has the time and wants to upgrade it, go for it and drop me a comment and I'll (ha ha) signal boost any new versions!

holy crow, it works

GO INSTALL THIS MOFO RIGHT NOW AND YOU CAN SEMIREBLOG/SIGNAL BOOST ON DREAMWIDTH.

Current Mood: astounded

cartridge computing fucking rules

yeah i said it

not sure why i said it but i did

i decided upon a 'testbed' cartridge instead of 'utilities' because lol what utilities are tiny, but i actually do have a use for a testbed OS cartridge to test newer versions of ubuntu against studio software, particularly new LTS releases, and also 64 bit, because yeah I'm on 32-bit still because of concerns about plugins. but with a separate cartridge (hard drive and booting system) then i can try them without fear.

THIS ACTUALLY SOLVES A PROBLEM

and i hate that

it's so stupid

(if you're just catching up, i'm using an external eSata harness to have a cartridge-slot-like multi-boot system with different SSD hard drives, which, I realised, are basically cartridges like from the old Sega Genesis and before. so i'm running with it because that's the kind of shit i do.)

(the extra storage carts are for power-users with multi-cartridge-slot systems OBVIOUSLY)

Current Mood: conflicted

Okay, just to catch everybody up...

Introducing two cartridges for the intel64 Cartridge Computing System. These are actually real and actually work. I had a problem to solve with a multiboot system and after a lot of other things did not work, I realised just using multiple physical SSD drives and an external eSata docking station that doesn't cost me any drive speed in actual use would solve it, in possibly the dumbest way possible.

And that's when I realised I had basically reinvented cartridges. Just, you know, dramatically better ones.

The rest, well... it kind of just happened. Because it had to.

Branding is a mix of Commodore 8-bit era fonts (because they had cartridges), Atari 8-bit fonts (particularly 2600 and 5200, also cartridges), Sega Genesis graphics layout (they did that L-of-colour thing), and an old lower-case i for iNTEL. It's 64 because this is x64 code, obviously, and the big rainbow logo comes from both Apple and Commodore of the cartridge era, with the middle bar in the old Atari logo changed into an i, for, of course, iNTEL.

(I have no idea why the orange came out red in that one photo. Same lighting, same series of shots, same everything. Phone camera is just off on its own, I guess.)

It is so stupid, and yet, it actually solves an actual work problem, and I am so pleased with myself about it. （⌒▽⌒）

Current Mood: pleased

intel64 cartridge 1022 - series 1, cartridge 02, variation 2 (overwatch on windows 10)

Current Mood: giggly

intel64 cartridge 1012 - series 1, cartridge 01, variation 2 (ubuntu with ardour)

the important thing to remember here is that I am actually solving an actual problem with this. well... okay, not with the labels. but by setting up my system this way. I AM SOLVING AN ACTUAL PROBLEM GODDAMMIT.

Current Mood: amused

Remember that silly idea that actually solved a problem?

Well, if we're going to live in a world where cartridge-based computing systems are still important, there will obviously be branding, now won't there? I was having a hard time with it until I realised I just wasn't 80s-ing it up enough.

I have solved that problem.

(For those keeping track: That's Commodore standard typeset in the black and white, a variation on the old Intel i for the start of intel, the Atari 2600/5200 font in the NTEL part of intel, and, of course, this AU's version of the intel logo, featuring that lower-case I again, in an Apple- and Commodore/Amiga-like version of the old Atari logo. Because that's just the kind of thing I do.)

Current Mood: pleased

Introducing the new Intel 64 cartridge-based PC system! Done with work for the day?

Why then, just swap cartridges...

Hit power, and you're ready to game!

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧ ♥

(Basically, I gave up trying to get my old Win8.1 partition to take security updates, realised I had a clone of the current drive that I could play with safely, and started experimenting.

I tried to get it to upgrade to Windows 10, but that was also broken, somehow; tried to install Windows 10 as a replacement OS; that was also also kind of broken and fucked up the boot structure.

Then I realised I could just install Windows 10 on that disk, and boot flexibly using BIOS options for boot order, but turns Windows kinda hates having two separate physical bootable devices and was having no part of that nonsense.

I was going to give up, but then realised I could mount the drive externally in an eSata harness and not lose any speed, meaning I could just swap drives to swap systems if I really wanted to do this. And that was so stupid I decided I had to do this, so I did.

Now every time I turn it on, I hear SEEEEEEGAAAAAAA in my head. And I've decided that's... not really a downside. So now I have an Intel 64. Apparently. Ｏ(≧∇≦)Ｏ )

Current Mood: amused

This is Housemate Paul’s old first generation Nook e-reader. It's been dead for a while. The battery was bad, it still wouldn't boot with a new battery (though with the new battery, it would try again), and it still had Paul's old account data, and B&N dropped support for this device like a year and a half ago. That matters because it won’t factory reset if it can’t deregister itself, and it can’t deregister itself if it can’t talk to the servers, which aren’t up anymore.

BUT it turns out the internal SD card is NOT soldered down and (with an adaptor) mounts under linux so a few fscks and a lot of searching directories (and grep) and a bunch of hexedit and some SQLite later... ready for sideloads!

Also, it’s probably the only eInk web browsing device ever. Because WHY WOULD YOU? Because Barnes & Noble is why.

Anyway, it works again. VICTORY FOR GAZ! （⌒▽⌒）

Current Mood: accomplished

Due to stupid reasons, I find myself in possession of a WebTV from 199...6ish? 1998 maybe? It's Philips. I also have a second one, a second generation model, from the same person. I also have the wireless keyboard and remote.

Does anyone know an old-tech youtube person (or anything of the sort) that would want these for some video - or to hack?

Current Mood: busy

With bitcoin crashing, a lot of miners are starting to dump their GPUs, selling used as like-new or even returning. Be warned.

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収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

cheers, love - the cavalry's queer!

Entries tagged with powerbook

my phone is finally syncing with my compy again

goddammit printers

Anker's 3D printer kickstarter

How to measure a fan's RPM without special equipment

Amiga 4000 desktop power supply unit (PSU) fan

"i've done a LOT of shit tonight on chonkyboi"

what happens when you scratch the surface

bloody xubuntu what do i have to do for you, bleed?

holy god email

introducing the new intel 64's latest accessory

Signal Boost: SignalBoost bookmarklet

i'm back on my bullshit because why wouldn't i be

because sure why not (iNTEL 64)

i got another cartridge for my intel64!

physical artefacts from alternate histories are the best

cartridge branding and dress is critical

introducing the new intel 64

the rightful order has been restored

stupid hardware

gpu prices returning to normal, but...

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