upbeatlinux

Is that why GitHub is always down?

Sacramento Fry’s off Northgate was my go-to store circa ’98. Whenever a friend wanted to build a PC, that’s where we went. The employees were great; the salespeople, not so much.

I still made the trip every holiday season until around 2017 but it had been going progressively downhill since about 2007. The expanded café, the drastic reduction in books and magazines, PC parts getting strip-mined and never restocked, audio/video media slowly disappearing; you could feel the shift.

I miss the SacBee flyer and the last-minute Christmas gift runs. Egghead Software, CompUSA, RadioShack, Borders (one of the only reliable places to find 2600), Tower Records...it was a different time.

Yes! It really was the best way to stay connected to friends on all the chat platforms from the 90s and early aughts.

This takes me back to 2004 when I inherited a NasRaQ, the original company file server, which had been replaced by a Windows Server 2000/2003 a few years prior. It became my go-to storage for Ghost and ISO images until the company gifted it to me around 2009. I may have had to replace one of the two drives while it was in service, but it was a rock-solid machine! Finally sold it on Craigslist in 2011, but I’m pretty sure it would’ve kept on trucking. Would've loved to try this out!"

A total recall

Amusing because it's kinda true; although there are a # of startups in the area where the pay is decent (not big tech salary or crazy RSUs by any means). IIRC Sysdig was founded in Davis before they moved to SF.

Tech meetups in general have lacked but non-tech related meetups have always been good - board games, etc.

I think people are more well rounded and realistic about work / life balance than Bay Area tech and that's what makes Sac seem a little sleepy.

All machines get extra lives!

- 2004 custom dual boot gaming desktop is running FreeNAS at a friend's house

- 2007 custom desktop survived until 2019 when a power surge fried the motherboard, memory and PSU. I repurposed the case and drives (which survived!)

- 2011 MBP is really one of the best. Replaced the battery, memory and display over the years. Now dedicated shared kids machine because parental controls are super simple for all adults

- 2015 MBP is my personal laptop for freelance work, learning, etc. Will most likely repurpose it as the kids shared laptop after I do a battery replacement. The 2011 will then migrate to storage until I'm sure I won't need things like a CD/DVD drive, SDXC card slot, Thunderbolt port, Firewire, Ethernet, etc.

- 2009 Samsung SyncMaster 23" is still used as a secondary monitor

- 2007 Razer mouse still used today

- 2012 (?) original RaspberryPi is my wireless print and scanning server

It blows my mind (in a good way) that people are still posting this to Hacker news. I remember writing code for MenuetOS in both my Operating Systems and Hardware classes in ~2002. Love it!

Introducing kids to multiple x's? Good on you! Be careful your gnu doesn't write an x-pose on it.

Isn't Codespaces essentially what Koding was doing ~10 years ago albeit w/less freedom?

I still have my Hobo sticker somewhere...I mean "vagrant" :/

I suppose we can take this further and say prop 47 attempts to address symptoms because of a failure to agree on what the problems are (what problems should we be talking about).

They don't. Their hand cuffed by Prop 47 and the apt but misdirected antics of defund the police.

I suspect you're asking whether you'll regret taking a job for a local company with an option to work remotely rather than holding out for a more "tech" focused company that enables better networking opportunities?

Why would you hold out if you're uncertain? Or are you hesitant you won't like it?

Who says you can't test the waters for a few months while looking for other remote opportunities?

I don't know what's important to you but I'd ask that first. Remote opportunities abound; there weren't this many remote opportunities 10 years ago. Find what works you and don't be afraid of change. You can always relocate when your personal life settles or you may decide not to.

Does Pidgin still store passwords in a plaintext file in your user profile?

A fork of Kanboard with metrics, productivity and "workflow" management is https://www.businessday.io/

Our accounting team found it useful to keep their team on track. Oddly I wound up using for all things personal related.

Only complaints are barrier to entry is high and plugins aren't yet supported.

Yes, OTR worked well for me years ago.

Although IIRC Pidgin also stored network credentials in plain-text file. Maybe that has been resolved in the past 10 years?

IIRC Incredible Universe have a McDonald's inside.

The Fry's PC builder section at Northgate was a mainstay for years. Sad days.

A week before Thanksgiving I went to the Fry's in Roseville. The Northgate (Sacramento) location has always been busy (haven't been back since 2018). Fry's has always been my go to for last minute electronics (i.e. I can't wait for next day shipping).

The entire computer/networking section was bare. They had a wireless IP camera and a $400 "small-business class" Cisco router (can't remember which model). No cable modems, no other routers, nothing. The only stocked shelves were media (CDs and Blu-ray). The Christmas shoppers were disgruntled they had made the trip.

A sales associate I talked to was confounded. When asked whether Fry's was going out of business he said they were told no. He mentioned there had been no deliveries in months and the storage they did have was empty.

I don't think it can be attributed to just Prime or better service at Best Buy. The market is saturated with tech. Everyone has a cell phone, laptop/desktop, TV, smart-device, etc. Fry's should've been downsizing about 10 years ago. It's possible they could've done more with their service department (the tire, car audio system installers always seemed busy)

I'll always remember Fry's as

- being packed during the holidays

- having ridiculous long checkout lines b/t 1998-2016 even an hour before close

- being able to find cool/rare last minute gifts

- massive selection of photography equipment

- in recent years (?) having price-match guarantee

> we need to rid ourselves of the idea that all ideas are equally valid and deserve equal amounts of airtime and consideration

What would you call this event? The genocide of ideas (by the righteous)?

Who decides which ideas are invalid or lack merit? Is there a social credit system to value / devalue those with ideas and prevent them from transmitting them?

At what point does it extend from the online world into every day life?

What happens to those people when they can't express themselves online or in real life?

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Really? In theory I think most Americans agree on freedom of speech but in practice it seems like everyone is offended by something these days. The offended (both sides of the aisle) band together and rally against contrarian view points trying to shut them down rather than deliberating or understanding.

The Chinese government isn't stupid. It knows people circumvent the GFoC. Damage control as usual. I think the US corollary is "all enemies foreign and domestic".

There's been some of talk of trying to own the "maker" space rather than fostering "maker" spaces. I suppose that's part of the problem.

I subscribed to Make for a few years in the late aughts but let my subscription lapse because I stopped having time to tinker. It was a great medium to learn until it wasn't.

I suppose many events coalesced over the years leading to its shuttering

- proliferation of YouTube DIY

- shuttering of print media and electronics stores

- cost decrease of prefab devices

- cost decrease in means of production

- bundled kits

- "democratization" of means of production (3d printing, etc)

- Make attitude shift from "hacking" to selling you shit / custom brands

This sucks for the maker community and Make folks but is a serious win for anyone still soldering on or trying to foster the hacker / maker mentality.

O wow. This takes me back.

For about 10 years there's was a pretty similar / reliable SaaS offering - ShotRunner (1). Looks like it's now defunct.

Looking to try this out over the weekend!

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20111107015621/http://shotrunner...

Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erysichthon_of_Thessaly

Agreed, The garage sale, family heirloom sellers were quite a gem.

FWIW the appeals process is awful. I've been scammed a few times as a seller when individuals cited inaccurate description after receiving the product (mismatch). In reality there were no inaccuracies just a buyer who wanted something for free or didn't actually read the product specs and was mad. I've been pretty much done as a seller since 2010.

Wow, this takes me back to 2004 or 2005.

I put together a compiz/beryl demo using the flame effects and cube switch in 2005 or 2006. It help converted a few friends over to run Linux on their home PCs (OpenOffice, Thunderbird, Firefox, Gaim (Pidgin) and Citrix).

The flame effects were really the wow factor that sold it. I think only one person stuck around past year 3 but it really help prove to me that non-tech folk could be somewhat productive on the Linux desktop.

It also legitimized a Linux loner laptop in the laptop pool of the company where I was working at the time. Not too shabby for 2006.

Would you like fluff with your PR waffle?

Why does four out of ten sound better than two out of five?