General Computer Thread

[JirinPanthosa]

**** XCode and the way it makes me clear out 50GB of my hard drive every time I need to update it.

And also **** Xamarin for every version being so dependent on a specific XCode version that I constantly have to do this.

 

[publiusr]

Anti-hacking breakthrough?
https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/rel...e-algorithm-to-ward-off-hacking-attempts.html

New way to find defects
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-team-sensitive-transistor-defects.html

Electrical control over designer quantum materials
file:///C:/Users/clayw10/Downloads/2021-10-electrical-quantum-materials.pdf
https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2411061201434/electrical-control-over-designer-quantum-materials

GPS replaced?
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-device-usher-gps-free.html

Metaverse and more
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-10-metaverse-1.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-10-internet-browsing-today.html
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-accuracy-limit-tes-detectors.html

Video games good
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10-action-video-games-players-learners.html

Panasonic has the 4680 batteries for Tesla

Braille tech
Imagine an iPad or a Kindle for the blind, with inflatable braille that changes shape under a user’s touch. A Cornell-led collaboration has made a crucial component for such a technology: a haptic array of densely packed actuators that cause silicone membrane “dots” to pop up when triggered by combustion.

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/10/combustion-creates-braille-display-electronics

Breakthroughs
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-interband-bilayer-graphene.html
https://phys.org/tags/metal+halide+perovskite/
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-10-memcapacitor-devices-neuromorphic-applications.html
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-chip-quantum-headache.html

New quantum liquid--superconductivity
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-raindrops-roof-technique-reveals-quantum-liquid.html

Teaching AI?
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-10-cohaptics-wearable-haptic-robot-6dof.html
https://publishing.aip.org/publications/latest-content/teaching-robots-to-think-like-us/
https://news.yale.edu/2021/10/26/machine-learning-reveals-brain-networks-involved-child-aggression
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10-memories-stages-encoded.html

Storage
https://scitechdaily.com/5d-optical...-pack-500-terabytes-into-cd-sized-glass-disc/
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-ultrabroadband-entangled-photons.html


A new way to produce light
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-pre-existing-defects-semiconductor-materials.html
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-sequester-perovskite-solar-cells.html
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-visible.html
https://techiai.com/tiny-lasers-acting-together-as-one-topological-vertical-cavity-laser-arrays/
https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Trapping_light_with_disorder_999.html
https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Controlling_light_with_a_material_three_atoms_thick_999.html
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-strategy-enable-coherence-properties-emitted.html

Researchers at Tampere University and University of Eastern Finland theoretically demonstrated a strategy that could grant exceptional control over the coherence of light beams emitted by lasers. This strategy, introduced in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, is based on the use of an enhanced epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) mirror, a known metamaterial (i.e., synthetic composite with properties that are not generally found in natural materials).

https://phys.org/news/2021-10-energy-diamond-crystal.html
Recent work at MIT both created and characterized new quantum systems demonstrating dynamical symmetry—particular kinds of behavior that repeat periodically, like a shape folded and reflected through time.

De-rezzed
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-10-big-low-resolution-citizens.html

Help for parents
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-10-google-tool-easier-minors-images.html
Google has rolled out a new tool making it easier for kids and teens to yank images off of search results.

 

[Non Sync]

 

[Santaman]

^^ good one..

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I found a handy little fix if you can't extend a disk volume where you have unallocated space on a disk but the recovery partition is in front of that preventing you from extending the working disk volume.

What I did from an admin command prompt


Diskpart

list disk

select disk 1
select partition 3
delete partition override
Then exit out of diskpart and command prompt.

go into disk management and voila the recovery partition is gone and can now extend my disk to take up the rest of the disk that I could not access.

The actual numbers of partitions will vary from system to system but I found this method works just as well.

 

[Colonel Midnight]

I read where Windoze 11 requires one to have and sign in to a Microsoft account just to use it, unless you’re running the ‘Pro’ version. Even then, the ‘offline accounts’ option is pretty buried/takes some digging around to access.

Screw you, MS… I don’t need you tracking my keystrokes, etc.

Linux just earned another user, permanently.

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[Marc]

I read where Windoze 11 requires one to have and sign in to a Microsoft account just to use it, unless you’re running the ‘Pro’ version. Even then, the ‘offline accounts’ option is pretty buried/takes some digging around to access.

Screw you, MS… I don’t need you tracking my keystrokes, etc.

Linux just earned another user, permanently.

Cheers,
-CM-

The account doesn't track your key strokes, it simply provides and authentication function and it's been this way even with Windows 10 for quite some time now.

With Windows 10, you could get around it by not connecting the computer to the internet until after the set up process has been completed.

Not sure whether that trick works with Windows 11.

 

[Santaman]

Any M$ OS that is currently still supported is spyware unless you do something about it, even on my last Windows machine, which runs 8.1, I have to disable the whole tracking and spying crap again after the monthly destabilisation and unsecurity "updates"

 

[Marc]

Any M$ OS that is currently still supported is spyware unless you do something about it, even on my last Windows machine, which runs 8.1, I have to disable the whole tracking and spying crap again after the monthly destabilisation and unsecurity "updates"

Though I think for many people, any tracking crap from Microsoft is probably the least of their worries given the amount of crap they post on facebook.

 

[Colonel Midnight]

The account doesn't track your key strokes, it simply provides and authentication function and it's been this way even with Windows 10 for quite some time now.

With Windows 10, you could get around it by not connecting the computer to the internet until after the set up process has been completed.

Not sure whether that trick works with Windows 11.

Understood, but from what I’ve read on PCWorld and similar sites (granted, prob not the best spots, but still), that ‘trick’ is totally absent from Win11 Home edition. The only way to ‘get around it’ is to upgrade to Win10 Pro, set up/use offline accounts on the local machine, then migrate to Win11 Pro.

It’s not that much a big deal, I suppose, but still it’s a personal red line to me. YMMV. I’ve been toying with going to Linux for a few years now, so it’s the final nail in the proverbial coffin.

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[Santaman]

Though I think for many people, any tracking crap from Microsoft is probably the least of their worries given the amount of crap they post on facebook.

^^ Oh agreed.
I'm not on any social media, if I use an search engine for my real name nothing comes up, and that's the way I like it.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Like Dave Gorman, I share my first name and surname with several other people. None of us appear to have done anything disreputable enough to be noted online.

The Dave Gorman Collection (TV Mini Series 2001– ) - IMDb

 

[Marc]

an reddit for anyone who's ever done techsupport and dealt with the PEBCAKS, PICNICS and ID10T errors.

https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/new/

I'm glad that in 30+ years I've largely avoided such people otherwise and managed to contain myself when I have come across them or there would be a trial of bodies.

Have come across some corkers though - like the one who plugged her printer in the docking bay port on her laptop. Not sure how she ever became a lawyer but her name was right - she was a bird brain.

 

[John Clark]

Have come across some corkers though - like the one who plugged her printer in the docking bay port on her laptop. Not sure how she ever became a lawyer but her name was right - she was a bird brain.

Work with a lot of IT staff so I've heard the stories but how in the hell did she get the printer cable to plug into the docking port on the laptop?

(OK, I've only experience with two types of docks at our office, and the main one doesn't come close to any of the printer cables I've used in the last thirty or so years.The other dock is a usb3 one nowadays)

 

[Unicron]

"You think, 'okay, THIS is an ideal use case for hardlinks!' but then six months later you're doing some extremely cursed Google search like 'javascript.ext4' and wondering where things went wrong."

 

[Marc]

Work with a lot of IT staff so I've heard the stories but how in the hell did she get the printer cable to plug into the docking port on the laptop?

(OK, I've only experience with two types of docks at our office, and the main one doesn't come close to any of the printer cables I've used in the last thirty or so years.The other dock is a usb3 one nowadays)

This was back int the early 90s when parallel printers were still at thing. It was a NEC Versa laptop and come to think of it I'm not sure how she even thought it was the correct port.

pictures of a similar unit.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/234257194162?mkevt=1&mkcid=16&mkrid=705-154756-20017-0

 

[Santaman]

I've dealt with enough 12o clock flashers and other non techs.. even one who managed to stuff an AGP card into a PCI slot... or someone who put heat paste onto the plastic sheet that covers the heat paste that already was aplied to the bottom of the heatsink.. you know, just peel off and install the heatsink.. and one person who managed to mount a SLOT A CPU "the right way" into a SLOT 1 mainboard..

 

[Marc]

I've dealt with enough 12o clock flashers and other non techs.. even one who managed to stuff an AGP card into a PCI slot... or someone who put heat paste onto the plastic sheet that covers the heat paste that already was aplied to the bottom of the heatsink.. you know, just peel off and install the heatsink.. and one person who managed to mount a SLOT A CPU "the right way" into a SLOT 1 mainboard..

I'm not sure I even want to know....

 

[John Clark]

This was back int the early 90s when parallel printers were still at thing. It was a NEC Versa laptop and come to think of it I'm not sure how she even thought it was the correct port.

pictures of a similar unit.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/234257194162?mkevt=1&mkcid=16&mkrid=705-154756-20017-0

Ok, our work laptops that were old (and I was still on the DT's at that time) didn't come with the docking port, though I do remember the parallel ports for the printers and couldn't imagine trying to slot even a parallel or serial into the docking port I have on my current works laptop.

All I'm going to say is ouch

 

[Noname Given]

Though I think for many people, any tracking crap from Microsoft is probably the least of their worries given the amount of crap they post on facebook.

Or if they use ANYTHIING from/of Google.