Rubenerd

I wrote last Saturday about my sleeper PC curse, in which I buy dead old computers to use their cases for nostalgia, but accidently fix them in the process. It happened a third time now with the old Compaq Presario I want to turn into my new FreeBSD workstation, only this time I’m going ahead with the build given the Compaq has very similar specs to my existing retro P1 tower.

It’s reframed how I tackle the project. I’m motivated to modify the case as little as possible given I know it all works, just on the off chance that I might want to restore it in the future. I bought a couple more anti-static bags to store the motherboard, cables, and power supply, which will be stashed along with my precious spare Commodore computer parts.

This impacts my plans for cooling and mounting components. Originally I wanted to make only minimal cosmetic changes, and a few holes in the back and inside of the chassis for cooling fans. Now I’m wanting whatever modification I do to be reversible, which is an entirely different kettle of fish!

Certain things will need to be added regardless:

• MiniITX boards have different mount points than the proprietary Compaq board, so I’ll be drilling standoffs into the motherboard tray. They won’t be visibile when a board is in the case, so I’m not fussed.

• The front power switch and indicator LEDs will need to be replaced with a standard ATX connector. They’re mounted on a detachable daugherboard, which I’ll remove and build my own replacement for.

With hindsight I realise the above photo isn’t great for illustrating this, but if you see at the base of the case (Ace of Base?) I removed a small plastic bezel which is sitting next to my spectacular DB9 hamburger mouse! I figured I could use the empty space for extra ventilation, and use negative pressure with fans on the back of the case to force air through. But there’s a solid sheet of metal between it and the inside of the case which I’d need to drill out. There’s an internal 6cm fan mounted in the front which could be replaced with some Noctua kit, but that wouldn’t provide nearly enough air volume by itself.

(I wonder if I could build a box to make a Microsoft Mouse-compatible serial DB9 device talk to the Commodore 128 sitting under the monitor stand for GEOS. Then I could add it to my KVM! Talk about an esoteric use case).

Speaking of drilling out, my original plan was to drill a space to fit a GPU, given the chassis is about one centimetre too narrow internally to accomodate a standard-length card (of course)! There’s a lot of empty space between where the metal chassis ends and the curvy plastic bezel begins, so it could easily accomodate. Now I’m thinking I’ll just get a low-profile GTX 1660 or 1660S which should be more than capable of driving my limited selection of world sim games.

(I’d love to go AMD, but classic Train Simulator chokes on ATI/AMD for some reason, and Nvidia’s binary FreeBSD drivers are far superior).

As with the fan above, I will need to drill out some space in the back of the case for a fan; I don’t think I have as much of a choice there. I’m going to convince myself I’m doing it so even if I put the old parts back in, they’ll have greater longevity with better cooling. Yes.

Overall, is something you wear. I actually think I’ll need to change this case less than I thought, which is good. You know what they say about plans though, so watch this space.

It’s felt a bit like a one-two punch this month, hasn’t it? Among the Apple, iOS, and macOS-related stories, these stood out:

• Apple’s latest privacy stance is deeply worrying, regardless of whether they were coerced by an opaque government process or not to have iPhones scan and report images. It has scope creep written all over it, and sufficient precedent to worry about people’s safety in repressive regimes.

• 1Password has regressed into an Electron application, and mandates remote storage. Being a native application with standalone vaults were the two reasons engineers recommended the tool. Electron externalises resource constraints to the client, which only compounds as you run more of them. It’s electronic kudzu, and represents a disregard for end users.

If you’re affected by the latter, I can’t recommend KeePassXC highly enough. It’s open source, and cross-platform done right using Qt/C++, so it’s fast and uses few system resources. It has native plugins for Firefox, Vivaldi, and Chromium, and its UI is straight forward. They also accept Patreon donations, which I’m more than happy to chip in each month.

Good afternoon! It’s a sunny if chilly Sydney day. I’m on leave, sitting out on our balcony and thinking through things. It’s been a tough week, but I feel like I’ve started turning the corner. It’s good.

I went briefly on Twitter this morning to answer a DM someone said was urgent, but not before I saw Katelyn Bowden ask:

What is something you would like, if not for the fans? What or who has the fans that are so awful, they ruin the whole thing?

This is a such a good question! I’ll bet you could think of a few too.

I avoided sharing most of my hobbies or interests throughout my teens and twenties. I maintained separate blogs under pseudonyms, but they never leaked onto my primary blog here (I remember friends having LiveJournals for this reason, too). Self-censorship wasn’t just to avoid judgement and ridicule, but to stave off who I dub the well actually crowd who revel in questioning people’s aptitude and worthiness.

Something snapped and I stopped giving a shit by my late twenties. I started talking about smartdolls, anime figures, trains, old computers, obscure sports, and even the BSD operating systems again here. I still get trolls, and I’d be lying if I said they still didn’t get to me sometimes, but it’s been liberating talking honestly about myself here. I wrote more about hobby judgement back in February.

(This official art of Usagi from a Sailor Moon R artbook exudes “don’t give a fuck” vibes. If only I could get a hold of the original to scan at high resolution and frame going down our hallway)!

But back to Katelyn’s question. I’m at the point now where generally don’t care about how toxic or not a community is before engaging in an interest or hobby, but I can empathise and relate with people who can’t make that leap. These are some examples off the top of my head:

• Anime and manga. Where do you even start? For all the variety in stories, genres, art styles, and audiences, there are some… special fans who’ll judge your tastes, make awful comments, and hold toxic views. My favourite will always be the guy I caught trying to get photos up Clara’s skirt when she was cosplaying Charlotte from Infinite Stratos at a con. The good news was, a raised eyebrow from me was enough to have him scurrying away back into the darkness.

• Alcohol. My dad is German, so beer was a part of growing up. Going to university and seeing how people acted with it put me off it for years. It’s only recently that I’ve started enjoying it again (there’s also being socially ostracised for not enjoying the sensation of being drunk. Again, don’t care)!

• Gamers. See anime above. But there are tons of great people too; coming back into computer games like Minecraft, Superliminal, Train Simulator, and Firewatch has been so much fun.

• Japan. I had Japanese friends in Singapore who were wary of Caucasian fans of their country, saying they only had a stereotypical, superficial, and cringy understanding. I can see that.

• Open-source software. I didn’t issue pull requests or want to contribute for years for fear of judgement, and after seeing how some of those mailing list threads go. I’m still a bit like that.

• Sport, especially ones involving ball kicking, perhaps in more ways than one. I had no interest to start with, but I’ve also seen how some of those fans act.

• The US. There’s this unflattering global caricature of Americans, and there are Europeans and those in the Commonwealth who’ll chalk you up as a sycophant for showing an interest in their country. Doesn’t stop me having many dear friends over there, an appreciation for the good things they’ve introduced into the world (Robin Williams, the IC, NY-style pizza), and an urge to return to travel at the earliest opportunity. Next up, Portland OR and Boston!

I suppose there will always be those who see someone enjoying themselves, and want to take them down a peg, or gatekeep them away on account of not being a “real” fan. I suppose it balances out when seen through a zero-sum game worldview. It’s not though; we can lift everyone’s sprits. 🍻

Update: I’ve removed the text of this post. I was in a foul mood, and it was cynical and mean-spirited. That’s not who I want to be.

My point remains that PC manufacturers need to lift their game with screen resolutions. There’s no good reason for a modern laptop to have a lower resolution screen than a smartphone, or what Apple shipped a decade ago. PC users deserve better.

Unfortunately, even LG’s new Gram laptop line suffer from low DPIs and resolution, even on their high-end models.

I was wandering around the Sydney CBD with Clara and my sister Elke a few years ago, in the Before Times. I joked that a sign on a high-fashion store was misspelled, and how ironic it was given the expense they must have incurred gilding it. It was probably fine though, given their steep profit margins. Haha, look at me, I’m so savvy!

Elke laughed and said “No Ruben, Couture is not Culture”.

I’d managed to live for three decades not knowing that word existed. And my instinct upon seeing it wasn’t to assume I lacked knowledge, but that someone had messed up.

At the risk of overanalysing it (when have I ever done that?!), I think about that experience to this day. To invoke an oft-overused word, it’s humbling to think how many other Coutures are out there. It’s not that I was aware of it but didn’t know anything about it, it never existed in my head in the first place. I like to think I’m open-minded and rational, but the truth is I still dismiss stuff more than I should.

It all balances out though; how many people in that Couture store know about the Commodore 128’s various video modes, or can recite every station on the North South and East West MRT lines in Singapore, in the correct order? Huh? HUH!? Don’t answer that.

One of them is Dover. Dover and Dover again.

If we’re to take even a sliver of a silver lining (silver of a sliver lining?) about Sydney’s current Delta outbreak, it’s this:

Gladys Berejiklian: […] People who previously thought, I can wait for vaccinations, they are now incentivised.

It’s been encouraging seeing all the young people snap up AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine, despite a concerted and baffling campaign to obfuscate and limit access to it. Not to mention people who should have known better discrediting its effectiveness and safety. Anyone who’s “waiting for Pfizer” without a specific medical condition now is now as culpable as an anti-vaxxer or misinformation lie spreader.

Australia’s political and medical leadership coasted for far too long on vaccines, content that we didn’t have domestic cases to worry about compared to the infinitesimally small risks any one vaccine carries. Anyone but a fool would have seen that position wasn’t tenable.

It’s also easy to see how the rest of the world is doing from Australia, or New Zealand, or Singapore, and think we’ve got time. We don’t. Get a jab. Do it for yourself, the people you care about, and for good old fashioned civic duty and responsibility.

We have it unconscionably good in certain parts of the world. The more news I read from our neighbours in Indonesia, or the plight of people in Brazilian favelas, it puts any whinge or sadness I have for our circumstances into stark reality. My girlfriend and I have a comfortable little home, stable incomes that can be made remotely, food on our table, access to our friends and family via a decent Internet connection, and live in a country with universal healthcare and access to free vaccines.

No amount of empathy, awareness, or charitable action will change the fact that this post will sound entitled, spoilt, and ignorant. But as a dear friend once told me, feeling miserable doesn’t solve the world’s problems either. So I’m giving us permission to talk selfishly for a bit.

Motivation is easily the biggest thing I miss. I’ve been fortunate that I’m almost never bored; I’ve always had oodles of complicated and interesting hobbies that have even translated into employment. Writing, tinkering, and building things bring me endless fascination and joy. But despite being perfectly suited to being done while stuck at home, I’ve lacked the motivation of late to progress them. Half-finished projects litter my desk while I sit in my chair facing the wall. The pilot light is still on, but the mental boiler remains stubbornly tepid. It’s hard to explain.

Sitting at coffee shops to write and code is certainly another; you don’t need to read me wax lyrical about my affection for these places of wonder again here. I also miss hanging out with my old man over a cup of coffee and pontificating about the world, or having lunch with my sister and my precious few friends who put up with my introversion and deserve the world.

The world… hey, that’s a segue into travel! I’ve written here in the past that Clara and I deliberately lived frugal lifestyles so we could save which makes us feel safe, and afford to go overseas for holidays and events whenever we could. I adore Japan and the United States, and going back home to Singapore on a regular basis made me feel connected again. We’d made plans to go to Europe for EuroBSDCon and back to Japan last year, which have been put on hold indefinitely.

Clara’s and my immediate bucket list also included Canada, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Australia and New Zealand are beautiful places, but they even felt isolated before our borders slammed shut.

What do you miss? Feel free to vent to me, and let me know if I can share.

You’d think that with all this spare time stuck in Covid lockdown, our apartment would be a model of organisation, cleanliness, and organisation. I reiterated that first and third point to emphasise their you’d think-ness. That sounds like Loch Ness. Wait, no it doesn’t. Ruben, focus.

If anything I’ve lost more stuff in the last two months than any point since our last move a year ago. As an aside, I’m so glad I’m in lockdown with with Clara in a one-bedroom apartment instead of a studio, even if it does represent more floor space and cupboards for hiding and losing stuff.

Anyway, I’d appreciate any assistance if you’ve found these things in our apartment over the last month:

• Power supply brick for my HP 620LX handheld computer so that I can confirm it still doesn’t work.

• 2.5-inch external hard drive backups, and their micro-USB cables, or mini-USB, or whatever the smaller, skinnier ones are called.

• Stack of spare Aeropress filters I bought just before last lockdown. We haven’t reached critical yet with the existing supply, but I’d sleep better at night knowing. Which is ironic given caffeine messes with my sleep after 15:00.

• IDE to SATA adaptor, so I can connect my 1995 Creative Hex-Speed CD-ROM to my FreeBSD home server for no good reason whatsoever.

• Internal SCSI ribbon-cable terminator block. The self-terminator on my internal Jaz drive doesn’t seem to work, and I knew I had a cool DEC/Digital-branded one somewhere that I bought on eBay for a lark a decade ago.

• Single red sock. I can’t even blame the dryer for disappearing this; we only use it to dry sheets.

It’s Missing Salsa 2006 all over again. That was fifteen years ago, yikes.

I thought my credit card had been stolen when I noticed a decent chunk of change being charged by “Pitney Bowels”. The name didn’t sound like any website or service I’d done business with before. I don’t suffer from IBS, nor am I remodelling my bathroom, either of which would have required purchasing medicine or plumbing devices from a company with Bowels in the name.

I surmised it was either a character from Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, or a fake name generated by a low-brow spam bot. Turns out, I’d misread it. They’re Pitney Bowes, eBay’s logistics partner for their Global Shipping Programme:

The term numerical quadrature (often abbreviated to quadrature) is more or less a synonym for numerical integration, especially as applied to one-dimensional integrals. Some authors refer to numerical integration over more than one dimension as cubature; others take quadrature to include higher-dimensional integration, like a boss.

That’s clearly the wrong page. It’s also been shamelessly edited to include a vintage meme and a reference to Japanese coffee, to integrate (hah!) some levity into an otherwise-serious discussion about bowels. Let’s try again:

In medieval Europe the quadrature meant calculation of area by any method. More often the Method of indivisibles was used; it was less rigorous, but more simple and powerful.

Okay this is getting a bit silly, like a slap on the face with a wet fish, or that time I hit my head on a tree branch thinking my skull was strong enough to move it aside. Third time’s the charm:

The Services are provided by a third party global technology and shipping provider, Pitney Bowes Inc., for GSP Items purchased from the United States, and Pitney Bowes Limited, for GSP Items purchased from the United Kingdom (each with its affiliates, “Pitney Bowes”). Boss Coffee.

It seems weird that they couldn’t/wouldn’t include “eBay” in the transaction reference. At least the customer service agent at the bank had a bit of a chuckle when I called her back.

I’d end this by saying “ah crap”, but that’s a bit low brow. Low enough that it’s not even on my face. My head does hurt, though.

Today’s Music Monday reminds us that just when we think Hololive couldn’t get more spectacular and fabulous, they do something like this.