Re: Bits and PCs - a Computers and Tech Miscellany
Not sure if it was a US prison or elsewhere (her bio suggests human rights in Africa), but I guess my thought that prisons should teach inmates life skills, especially when they're coming up for release and have been in for a long time, is hopelessly naive and liberal.
Re: Bits and PCs - a Computers and Tech Miscellany
I block scripts by default and keep running into this dumb error message on shitty local news sites saying that I have to allow scripts for usability purposes, with a link.
So today, I decided to click that link, and it led here. To a subscription service that apparently makes your website accessible to people who use a wheelchair.
My most stolen project ever was a little tool that I'd leave with clients to maintain their sites with CSS designed for accessibility. I gave it a copyleft license and was super-clear about that, but I caught a few different clients slapping their own copyright on it. I should have kept updating that and monetized it, because it seems like a pretty big ripoff to have that as a subscription service.
Re: Bits and PCs - a Computers and Tech Miscellany
I’ve been looking to get a cheap modern PC (not mac) for 3d graphics work, I originally had a sub $1000 build my own speced out with AMD and an Nvidia gpu. With the new graphics card releases I figured either buy a new card and cheap system then update the system around it, or buy a previous gen card for dirt cheap.
Haha!
Well if you haven’t heard there’s a graphics card shortage on! Chip fab shortages, Scalpers and cryptominers have made sure that not only are the latest cards unfindable, the price for old gen cards has sky rocketed. So now I’m mulling over sub $1000 pre-built systems with no upgradability and old intel chipsets because they also include a graphics card, at no additional price and currently you can buy a whole prebuilt computer for less than the going rate of the graphics card inside that computer.
Re: Bits and PCs - a Computers and Tech Miscellany
Look for a second hand gaming PC. Lots of gamers spend big bucks to build cutting-edge machines, and then a year or two later, they want to upgrade to cutting edge again, and they sell off their old machine for whatever they can get.
I picked up one such machine on Ebay a couple of years back. I paid much less than a quarter the cost of a new machine with the equivalent specification. Okay, it's second hand, and I took a bit of a risk - but the PC's performed fine ever since, and I can afford, were it necessary, to buy another three similar machines and still have money left over, compared with buying new.
ETA a few further thoughts; it isn't that Fujitsu shouldn't have produced a buggy system (it would be better if they hadn't but shit happens); it isn't that the Post Office shouldn't have gone live with a buggy system (ditto); it isn't that the PO shouldn't have prosecuted franchisees they believed guilty of fraud (ditto); it's this ...
How did the courts hearing the original prosecutions not discover the software problem and throw the cases out? I can only assume that either the defence lawyers didn't contest the Horizon evidence or the PO produced experts from Fujitsu who offered some astoundingly dishonest testimony*. And I can only assume that the PO entered the computer evidence without disclosing the complaints of bugs in the system that they had received from users.
Either way, it seems to me that people from the PO and/or Fujitsu should now be up on criminal charges.
*
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... it's just an idea
Last edited by mickthinks; 04-23-2021 at 04:12 PM.
Re: Bits and PCs - a Computers and Tech Miscellany
Why are McDonalds ice cream Machines always down? A monopolistic repair scheme for
To sum up the video, Taylor Brand soft serve machines (basically *the* brand) is extra buddy buddy with McD and has been with them since the beginning. McDs corporate repays them by forcing all McDonalds franchises to purchase a very specific McD’s model.
This type of soft serve machine needs to go through a 4 hour heat cycle that must complete successfully or the machine locks you out from use, however the McD’s models were specifically designed to give the most obtuse error codes on an unlabeled interface so that the only real solution is to call one of Taylor’s authorized repair centers to dispatch a worker. Better yet, technicians have access to secret menu they have hidden from franchise owners, so actual details about why the machine is broken are only seen by technicians.
Oh but wait, there’s more, this is in the Tech thread afterall. Some guy started poking around and discovered he could read the data without needing their interface and created an app connected device that gave a human readable reason for why their machine stopped viewable from their phone. Franchise owners loved this, a one time app to save on what sounds like multiple technician visits a month! McDonalds will have none of this! Telling franchise owners use of the app is dangerous and will void their warranty, no worry though, McDonalds is in the process of working on an approved crippled version with Taylor.
Which is why, despite most fast food places using a Taylor Machine, only McDs will continue to be down (I guess, I haven’t been to a McDonalds in years).
This was a good investigative video if you want to watch the details.
Re: Bits and PCs - a Computers and Tech Miscellany
It's those bitcoin miners, yeah, that's it.
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