I’m not sure about happy, but this certainly made me laugh.
I just watched a YT short with Patrick Stewart on the Graham Norton show. It was a funny clip with Stewart talking about how he had always thought he was circumcised, until his wife told him he wasn’t. They argued a bit & Stewart eventually asked his doctor - who confirmed that he was not, in fact, circumcised.
The whole clip is funny and made me smile - Stewart tells the story way better than I could.
What made me laugh out loud though, is the top comment.
I get the house to myself for the next five days. Wife and kids are on the way overseas and I’ll be following them next week. I’ll get some much-needed “Me” time before I get back to work being a family man.
After wondering why the volume on things I recording with my computer was lower than it should be, I suddenly realized it’s because the sound is routed through the HDMI cable to the monitor’s speakers. I have to keep the volume at under 50% in most cases to avoid being deafened.
I thought the output volume to the speakers was separate from the recording volume. Nope. After a quick trip to a store to get external speakers, the Windows volume can stay at 100% and a dial on the speaker makes it comfortable to listen to. And if I need more than 100% volume at the speaker, the dial gives me what Windows can’t.
Update: The sound is different and crisper through the monitor’s speakers. I went with Logitech’s low-end two speaker unit, the Z150. It’s kind of like hearing music playing down a hallway instead of closer to you. But it’s what I need right now for recording and I’ll switch back and forth if necessary.
Mr. TM texts me and says “Do you have a minute? Can I call you?” I’m thinking “Great, what’s gone wrong now? Did somebody die? Did he get laid off?” Nope - they’re upgrading his work laptop and have given him a choice between two different models and, because he knows almost nothing about computers, wants my input on which he should ask for.
The new speakers brought with them two unexpected benefits. The first is while playing MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, the way the 'Mechs sound as they move is different. I’m calling it “big stompy 'Mech sounds”.
The second is the increased bass allowed me to hear something everyone missed. I was watching a clip of Babylon 5 from the first season episode “Infection”. It’s the part where Dr. Franklin puts an artifact in the medical scanner and finds out it’s made from organic technology. As the music for the scene comes in, just underneath it is a heartbeat. A double beat every 1-2 seconds for about 20 seconds, like what comes from the human heart. The episode had earlier teased the technology waking up, and later, it does.
I’d never heard that before because I’ve always had simple, generic speakers, including on my TV. These are also simple speakers, but they’re different enough for this one detail to come through.
Confirmed I was sick last week. I felt like crap since last Sunday and I thought I was just sleep-deprived or lazy. I had a big appetite too so I also thought I was gaining weight again. Fast forward to yesterday and this morning and nope, I feel so much better and lost a couple of pounds.
It’s not as good as I remember 7-Eleven’s chili cheese nachos being, but I found something that lets me get my nachos fix without going too far over a day’s worth of sodium. Tostitos lightly salted tortilla chips, turkey chili and whatever kind of queso sauce I happen to get.
But then again, those nachos were 40 years ago, back when I regularly drank a Double Gulp of Pepsi (64 ounces).
I have a four monitor setup because I really like being able to give programs their own real estate to sit in and three of the monitors are shared between the Windows and Linux computers.
On monitor 1, I use an HDMI cable for the Windows computer and a VGA cable for the Linux computer. Any application windows that are being displayed on it keep their position when I use the button to change the input.
Monitors 2 and 3 are fed by separate KVMs, with one KVM also handling the keyboard. As I switch between them, programs on these monitors start jumping to other monitors.
Monitor 4 is more of a scratchpad monitor that is only driven by the Windows computer. Anything that was originally on it stays on it. Program that were on monitor 2 or 3 may end up here when the KVMs are used.
Instead of running one mouse through the same KVM as the keyboard, I have separate mice plugged into the computers. It’s not elegant, but it gives me flexibility to mix and partially control what I’m seeing on both computers at the same time.
After two months of routing the sound from the monitor’s speakers to external speakers to solve the recording volume problem I talked about before, I suddenly thought, “I bet I can get the programs to stay put if I do the same thing on the video side. Skip the KVMs except for the keyboard and run cables directly to the monitor ports.”
Someone here had told me when I mentioned months ago about the KVMs causing programs to move monitors is due to the loss of signal as the button is pressed telling the OS on each computer the monitor is no longer available. Once again, I can’t find that post, but I’m happy I remembered it. After I verify I have the right cables, I’ll do a teardown of the computers, run the new cables, retrieve and clean up anything that fell behind the desk, and make a more serious attempt at getting rid of all the “board chow” that’s been collecting in the keyboard.
Received another out of the blue compliment about being a very smart person others go to when they need technical help. This time, I zeroed in on the answer almost immediately and I got it right.
This compliment catches me by surprise on each of the few times it’s happened. It’s taken several years to sink in that it’s accurate because I’ve always thought that it was just the way I am and it’s nothing special. But for the job I have, I think I have a unique set of abilities that allow me to tie disparate pieces of info together and apply solutions from the past to the problems of today.
That message was from October 2024, at the end of the exhibit, held in downtown Portland, Oregon and a few areas not that far away, but do require driving to get there.
Laika and Wild in Art are teaming up again for another outdoor art exhibit this year. This one will run longer, from August 26 to November 1st, overlapping with the premiere of Wildwood on October 23. It’s guaranteed that one of the sculptures will be again at the Pittock Mansion, as the Mansion is the seat of the government in the novel.
Found my old GPS navigation unit and found out Garmin still supports it and has updates. I think it’s a lifetime maps and traffic updates model.
I may get something better later, but right now, bringing this already paid-for unit back into service means I save that money and I don’t have to use data on my cell phone for navigation. New car doesn’t have a nav system unless you fork out for the highest trim level. The Garmin is also smaller than what I was planning to buy, which means it can be stored away more easily and less likely to be stolen.
First, late spring cleaning for the win. I still haven’t found the container with my rechargeable batteries (because, as per that Jeff Foxworthy joke, someone obviously broke into the house and took it), but I have found other things, including a sock that’s been missing for months. Just a little more excavation and the bicycle will be accessible again.
Second, I said there were two cost-saving measures I had available to me when the car conked out. One of them was giving up a cable TV subscription that isn’t offered any longer and would cost a lot more in the future to get the same amount of service. It’s been over a month since I canceled it and I’m not missing it as much as I thought I might. Between my books, DVDs, Blu-rays and a couple of streaming services, I’m covered. But if I need to, I can add another streaming service for a lot less than what I was paying before.
Done. The only KVM I’m using now just switches the “K”. All “V” switching is done at the monitors, and there’s no “M” switching as I’m running two mouses.
Had a little bit of troubleshooting to figure out why the Linux computer was suddenly crashing. I had plugged one of the cables into the VGA port of the motherboard to reduce the workload on the video card and it wasn’t stable.
For those curious, it’s an older Asus video card that only needs a heat sink to keep the processor cool. Now outputting three VGA signals via adapters on the DVI and DisplayPort ports.
The only downside is if I’m trying to switch to a computer that is booting, the monitors may see there’s no video signal (yet) and switch over to the other source. But if the application windows stay on the monitor where I put them, that’s more important than a rare annoyance.
Was able to confirm recently with a person that was talking with someone else about sharks and laser beams that ill-tempered sea bass are a viable substitute if sharks aren’t available.
The timing is fortuitous, because Dr. Evil is back with his newest scheme: Menace Mobile. Every evil thing all of the mobile carriers do, all under one roof.
