asciimov

If you have a lot to do, you're gonna want to spend some money on a good scanner, at least $400+.

I had the pleasure of using a Epson FastFoto FF-680W. I was very impressed with the color correction. It brought back some color prints from the mid-70s that I've never seen without their color fade.

In bash, if you set $EDITOR to your favorite text editor, you can send the current line to $EDITOR with ctrl-x ctrl-e. After editing the command you can save and exit for the command to execute.

Terminal feature discovery is hard. If you don't regularly use the commands it's easy to forget they exist.

Stateside a decade ago the Fiat 500 was a cheap garbage tier vehicle. Nowadays, they make an expensive car, that is likely still garbage tier.

Anecdotally, it has to do with people feeling safer around the super-sized trucks in an SUV than they do a sedan.

Yes, 6 or 7 years ago I went through and digitized my family’s dvds and cds (music, movies, data, games)

For factory printed discs, bit rot caused data loss in 8 to 10% of the discs. 2 to 3% were a total loss. Those loses were closer to 20-25% for burnable media.

90%+ lived a very comfortable life, climate controlled and protected from UV.

Hands down Apple products. They all work together well, last a good long time, and have good software coverage.

iPads are the best for those that just need the internet. The MacBook Air is good enough for the advanced stuff, and reasonably priced.

Roku is the one product that I don't think needs the Apple replacement. It is super simple to use, has a simple remote, was easy to tie into a sound system for them. They liked Roku so much that they replaced their older EOL TVs with Roku TVs. Also, I'll lump Sonos into this as they make a great sound product that easily connects to the TV and auto comes on, which is fantastic.

If you are peeing overnight on the regular, get your blood sugar and A1c checked to make sure you don't have diabetes.

Thanks for the detailed write up.

I don't have full notes for my last adventure into QEMU, but you are correct that it was mostly an issue with libvirt and getting graphics to render correctly.

> Well, given how long this post is, it certainly doesn't do anything to disprove the notion that Qemu is less accessible and intuitive to use for ordinary users than Virtualbox, that's for sure. And to be sure, I 100% agree and empathize with the fact that it is not, because it isn't.

That's really the rub, choosing to be an ordinary user. The older I get the less I choose to tinker with things that I'm not going to use very often. I like it when software just sets itself up and lets me get to work.

> Not sure what this means to be honest: [...]

As someone who also has similar frustrations as the author I can explain.

I don't regularly run virtual machines, but I have been doing it for decades now, for a long time the install process was: install VirtualBox (or equivalent), tell what resources to allocate including disc images, run the vm, install the os, and your good to go.

To install Qemu/kvm/lib-virt you first have to find an installer tutorial. Then you hit up your package manager (like apt or pacman) to put the software on your machine (notice I didn't say install), then you have to go about installing and linking together a mess of programs, gotta tell systemctl to start up some stuff, gotta configure some networking stuff, then hope it all starts up. And it doesn't, you need to get some other packages to fix something else that your tutorial never mentions. Get that installed, manually after finding a supposed fix on some random message board, then maybe lib-virt fires up without issue. You point it at the resources, get it started up to install the os, and find that your vm is dog slow. Now you find yourself installing more packages, configuring more files with hardware memory addresses, and adding kernel boot flags just to get graphics working better. You can easily spend hours on this if you hit the right hiccups along the way. All because you wanted to spend an hour or two on a different problem.

I too wish the install for qemu was just easier, it would be nice if the packages for it came with some sane defaults or an installer script to get you up and running with a minimum install.

Everybody would be making the same, but it would be apparent that your favorite band is the one asking too much for tickets.

This is an app store, not IMDB.

I don't like the idea of some "authority" picking the winners and losers in the open-source space.

What makes IMDB work and this not, is that Movies are static things. You aren't going to one day find the 1957 romantic comedy Desk Set[1], suddenly turn into a slasher film. Where as open source software changes, sometimes drastically.

[1]- You should watch Desk Set, it has Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. The main plot is about a computer taking over the job of information workers.

Helicopter parents and PTA Karens that just have to be able to connect to their kids at all hours.

But also, 80s/90s stranger danger and all the school shootings.

And for most of us, we had no say in those policies. Particularly when they were the consequence of previous generation.

You would have put some tape over the window to keep that from happening.

Also erasing takes like 15+ mins, it wasn’t quick.

Will this cover all those product "review" videos that are clearly reading some copy or amazon reviews?

In my area it’s mostly done by the water department itself. They have people that drive around documenting violations, and the owner is directly billed. This is mostly done overnight.

They also have a hotline for tattletales and HOAs and the police can also report you.

Yes the issues with the 737 Max 8 are significant.

Major malfunctions are not the norm on airlines.

You and your enjoyment is no longer center to the recommendations. Ads/money, engagement, and your time are the only metrics that matter.

Results these days seem worse then the old days of Altavista and Lycos.

> I believe the internet has gone full-circle…

One of the most annoying things about the internet is avoiding the great enshittification cycle. I want things to be popular enough that there is traction but not popular enough that the Ad people are salivating to squeeze another dollar out of it.

It’s neat how there can be vast differences both regionally and within social circles. Here in Texas (I’ve been in central, west, and panhandle) dropping by was common through even the mid-2000s. While I don’t do this much anymore, for my parents and their friend groups it is still done.

Of course there are some unwritten rules and some people that you do call ahead, but for many it’s still an acceptable practice.

> I wonder if we just started talking to each other less as well.

We have. Sadly people aren't allowed to be bored long enough to decide that they should see what other people are up to.

It used to be common to call or even drop by unannounced to check on people. Doing these things is now seen as some great sin.

It's like we are all eating plain ramen every day, and aren't getting our vitamins. Sure we are full but we have deeper needs.

It helps that stable versions lasted a lot longer back then, and things moved around a lot less.

Nowadays if you need to change a setting, you not only have to contend with major version but what biannual revision of windows you are using, and hope that someone at Microsoft hasn't decided to move that option in an update.

Yeah, it's amazing.

If I say buy an Apple iPhone and its very likely they turn up with an iPhone maybe not the one I told them but a new Apple iPhone.

But if I say Samsung Android, they are just as likely to buy some weird no-name Android because it was a color they wanted or size or something the salesman pushed on them cause "Android is Android right?"

Sure does. I have no problem with using android, but as long as I have to do family tech support, I'll stick to iPhones.

I know a lot has changed in 10 years, but I'm sure glad to be done with flashing an alternative OS onto my phone to get continued support or to rid it of bloat.

Sure I can do that.

It's a lot harder to tell older relatives, just go buy a Samsung Android. Likely they will come back with some low end android that the salesperson said was on sale.

Where as If I tell, go get an Apple iPhone. They can pick that up and get the "right one", which ever it is.

I wonder, can I sync my iPods with Apple Devices?

Updates. No guarantee that you will get the next OS update even on a brand new phone. Which stinks when financial apps require you be on the latest OS.

Yes, this happened to me a decade ago on 2 different Android devices. Since then I've moved my family and extended family to iOS and my ongoing tech support is dramatically reduced.

I’m surprised that the Sci-fi Channels Dune Miniseries from 2000 hasn’t been mentioned yet. While not a pretty as Villeneuve’s Dune, it does have its own visual charm and is able to tell more story in its 4.5 hour run time. Plus 3 years later they did a Children of Dune miniseries that also covers Messiah’s story.

For me Villeneuve was Part one story drags along taking forever to get to the point. Then there is this 2.5 year wait to get a part 2 release; during which I read the first 3 FH Books, waited 18 months and read the other 3 books.