Nobody Cares: Technology-only Edition

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Windows sure made a number of attempts to make it hard to use anything but Edge today. I even resorted to the Task Manager to kill one of them.

 

[Caete]

Windows sure made a number of attempts to make it hard to use anything but Edge today. I even resorted to the Task Manager to kill one of them.

You'll want to watch your processes. The "new an improve edge" hit my system Tuesday. I've had 3 days in a row of "updates" hit (Tues, Wed, Thurs) and since then, I've had 1-3 instances of "MicrosoftdgeUpdate.exe" running upon start up. Killing the process seems to work until the next boot sequence. You'll find a folder in Program Files (x86) / Microsoft / EdgeUpate that it lurks in. I've done the old school rename the file trick just now and will updgate this if it reinstalls said file on the next forced, sorry I mean "On demand" update.

You'll also find 7 exe files in the build folder but I've not tinkered with them as of yet.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Friggin Edgelords.

 

[Caete]

A reboot resulted in nothing new happening. While ms are arses for forcing crap on their users that you cannot uninstall, you can rename the exes and the folders now when previously it said you needed admin rights and then would refuse to accept your admin rights and deny you access. Someone done typed a wrong thing, thanks microdorks!

 

[Noodles]

Windows 10 is trying really hard with things like the new Command Line and Linux Subsystem stuff to keep me interested but man it's also trying really hard to do a lot of annoying stupid shit in the background.

Like that Edge thing.

The one that hits the worst, and I get it on my laptop AND my Desktop, which suggests it's a Windows 10 thing. The file explorer will basically refuse to refresh.

So delete or move a file, it still shows up until I manually refresh.

Create a folder, it doesn't show, manually refresh, then it does. Then I type the name, and it takes it, but shows "New folder" until I refresh again.

WTF Windows?

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Intel is still smarting about having been outdone this CPU generation by AMD. Most recently Intel is under fire for an ad campaign in which they compare an Intel-powered laptop against a smaller Ryzen laptop with a weaker graphics card and claim the Intel processor is responsible for the increased "gaming performance".

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Intel should be thanking AMD. If it wasn't for AMD Intel would be scrambling to make the Itanic relevant for home computers, or convincing people that 32-bit segments paged into PEA address space wasn't nuts, as demand for 32-bit Pentiums plummets. AMD saved their butts with a competent 64-bit ISA compatible with the awful x86 ISA.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Tigar]

 

[Free]

The rise and fall of Adobe Flash

Before Flash Player sunsets this December, we talk its legacy with those who built it.

arstechnica.com

 

[bubblesort]

I just ran across a really weird hardware got ya.

I built my PC around christmas. Here's the full specs, but the important part here is that it's an ROG STRIX B450-F motherboard. I recently got a new video board for it, and I was thinking while I'm upgrading that, I might as well put in another M2 SSD stick, because right now I'm running 250Gb in one M2 slot, and I have a spare M2 slot. Then I thought, hey, I wonder if my motherboard can handle setting up two M2 SSDs in a RAID0, and get a big performance boost. So I do a little research, and it turns out, the second M2 slot takes it's bandwidth from my video board slot. Of course, I have been running my SSD in the second slot this entire time, since I didn't realize this would happen and just picked which slot I wanted it in at random. So I've had my video board at x8 instead of x16 this entire time and didn't notice, probably because my old computer was so old anything feels like an upgrade from that.

So I think I'll avoid using the second M2 slot and just get a bigger SSD instead of using both slots and giving up half my video card bus.

I should have read the manuals a lot more carefully when I built this thing.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

It's got two full PCI-E x16 slots, why not just put your video card in the second x16 slot?

 

[bubblesort]

It's got two full PCI-E x16 slots, why not just put your video card in the second x16 slot?

Oh yeah! I forgot about that. I'll take a look when I open it, but I think it doesn't fit as well in the second slot, because of the way I have my fans in the side of the case. I might have to take out a fan, but that would still be worth it.

Thanks!

 

[Caete]

 

[Noodles]

I have gathered up the parts to make a handheld Raspberry Pi Game Boy and boy do I kind of suck as soldering.

Well, sort of. Single connections come out ok but part of this involves soldering a ribbon cable connector header with a zillion pins all right next to each other and ugh it's a pain. I think I need to find some thinner solder.

Also FWIW, this is not my first time doing soldering, or even close quarter soldering, I made a ton of 9 pin serial cables at my previous job because all of the automation system ran off of 9 pin serial connectors and they were all custom lengths.

 

[Stora]

I have gathered up the parts to make a handheld Raspberry Pi Game Boy and boy do I kind of suck as soldering.

Well, sort of. Single connections come out ok but part of this involves soldering a ribbon cable connector header with a zillion pins all right next to each other and ugh it's a pain. I think I need to find some thinner solder.

Also FWIW, this is not my first time doing soldering, or even close quarter soldering, I made a ton of 9 pin serial cables at my previous job because all of the automation system ran off of 9 pin serial connectors and they were all custom lengths.

As you probably know a good iron and flux is your friend. I got a few practice soldering kits from eBay to brush up on my soldering skills before I even attempted any worthwhile projects. They are dirt cheap and can be fun.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Oh, I've done that before. Box-end wrenches work well too, though they don't ratchet.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

I can't find it now but there was a Swift program on github that implemented a balanced tree using first and third quarter moons for the left and right child pointers.

This one's just a demo:

Edit: also legit in recent C++:

 

[Free]

I once experimented with replacing indentation with line returns, so that 1 indent point = 1 line return. It was fun, but also made for a LOT of scrolling.