kano

http://www.osnews.com/story/30189/Windows_10_S_becoming_a_mode_not_a_version The crusade to convert PCs into shitty locked down consoles continues. It won't be long now until you need to buy a workstation class version to run programs that don't invade your privacy or that you wrote yourself without getting permission from someone else.

Personally I think about blowing my brains out from time to time. I'm not very interested in the direction that society is heading in. As I get older, the only things there are to "look forward" to, are higher prices and more of my freedoms being taken away every decade, not to mention natural medical problems that will crop up. I already have a severe vision loss, and it does seem to be deteriorating as I get older. The thing that many do not realize is that handicapped people are frequently preyed upon by society. For one example, if you're blind, it costs about $1000 for a program that reads the screen of the computer to you. Dealing with people taking advantage of you is worse than dealing with the impairment itself. I knew a guy in high school who did lose all his vision and so shot himself in the face some years prior. He survived, but has a speech impediment now. He was a friendly guy. If I ever end up completely blind, I would not hesitate to do the same to myself. A few months ago I went to the local gun shop to check things out. They're pretty expensive here. I think the 357 was $700 and the shotgun was $450. But I learned that shotguns can be purchased much cheaper online. Using a 357 to do myself in would probably be less foolproof since the projectile is smaller and would likely miss vital parts of my head. Using a shotgun would be more difficult to aim, but would definitely get the job done, as well as making one hell of a mess for the assholes to clean up. On the walk home I started thinking about how I would afford it, given bills that must be paid. But then it hit me that I wouldn't actually need to worry about paying bills that month anyway, and I laughed. Some people find satisfaction in starting a family. I have zero interest in doing that whatsoever. Another thing that brings people happiness are friends. When I was younger, I felt as though many people were my friends. But these days when I call or text them, they never ever answer or respond, even though they're all carrying around devices 24/7 that are constantly connected, so clearly they never were. I think if I'm still here by 50, that will be the time to call it quits. I'm 34 now. Definitely don't want to live to 80 or 90, though. There is one good friend that I wouldn't want to disappoint, but unfortunately they're almost double my age and that means at some point I will probably have to cope with losing them to the natural causes of aging.

Okay, found the stuff I need. I ended up using AC97 drivers that came on an old CD which shipped with a mainboard that I gave away ages ago. Everything is working except useless stuff like the webcam. Needless to say installing random drivers from around the web is the fastest way to get malware.

Trying to find drivers for an old Asus laptop. The official site only offers them for Vista, but I know the Core 2 Duo chipset, AC97 audio, and wifi are supported on XP, which is what I installed. Anyone know a free driver finder utility that won't come with more adware STDs than a cheap hooker? (This will be permanently disconnected from the Internet.)

Riddick did this really, really well.

I would love to see our thief get an animation upgrade, so that he doesn't look like he's catatonic whenever I walk in front of the mirror. But I am not skilled with character animation, sadly.

I recommend this. Kick-ass specs for the price, and you can (and should) put Lineage OS on it. It has official LOS support, and that means regular system updates. Coupled with a bloatware-free experience and the plentiful amount of memory (4GB) and NAND (64GB), as well as a MicroSD card slot, you can't go wrong for $160. https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2/135-3077437-1393152?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=zenfone+2 Sure the camera isn't the best in the world, but it is good enough. And ASUS didn't follow the brain-damaged trend of taking away the headphone jack that so many vendors are now doing (not just Apple!).

"People clicked the red X, but the free offer was about to expire, so we just forced it onto them." lol If I did that, it would be criminal. But corporations do not commit crimes, they only make mistakes. And it is only a "mistake" when their bad behavior doesn't earn them enough to offset the penalties (if any)!

Sorta OT, but sorta not. I was flashing a phone today with Lineage OS. I fucked up and needed to load the factory image. The official tool for this, AsusFlashTool, refused to flash without connecting to the Internet first, although the necessary files were pre-loaded into the appropriate folder. I was annoyed, because I try to stay off the net with Windows. And after installing the network drivers, AFT told me that there was a problem with the serial number and it refused to flash. When I messed up the phone, the S/N was showing as 01234567890abcdef). But who gives a shit about the god damn serial number, it was a factory sealed device and this program's job is to install the image onto the device and get out of the way! I wound up using fastboot on Linux to accomplish the task. Anyway, I'm tired of this intrusive "every piece of software must connect to the Internet for basic functionality" bullshit. It's bad enough that we can't have PC games anymore without bloated online clients being forced onto us like an unwanted STD; that's what made me cease buying games. What is a person to do when the company doesn't feel like running the server which the tool insists on connecting to, in order to work? At least as far as flashing is concerned, one can just use Fastboot. But when Valve, Ubisoft or EA decide to shut off their tyrant platforms (it's tyranny because it robs me of my rights to first sale), I would be screwed if I purchased content from them. So I don't.

Wow, that made a bigger bang than I thought it would. (also took longer to occur than I thought it would)

Reminds me of an enemy from another game, Redneck Rampage, called the turd minion. They would literally throw feces at the player. lol

https://www.amazon.com/ZE551ML-5-5-Inch-Unlocked-International-Warranty/dp/B00W94246I/ref=sr_1_3?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1512841427&sr=1-3&keywords=zenfone+2 After my experience with Shamsung and their lack of OS updates, as well as a puffed/overheating battery, I'm thinking about an upgrade. This Zenfone is a bit older, but it still has killer specs. And it has an easy-to-unlock boot loader, ensuring that I can install Lineage OS on it and (in doing so) get more than six months of OS updates on the device. I look at newer devices in this price range and most (all) of them have less memory and NAND than this Zenfone 2. Some are still shipping with 16GB! This bad boy from 2015 has 64GB of nand and 4 GB of RAM! So is there any reason not to get this ZF2? I did see one modern phone that looked attractive by LeEco, but it has no headphone jack, so I ruled it out. Another one that looks nice is the modern Moto G. But I don't think it has official LOS support, so I really do think that I would be better off with the ZF2. The only downside that I see with this ZF2 is that the graphics are PowerVR (proprietary) not Intel (which are open and part of the kernel). This means that they might have trouble updating it in the future if/when PowerVR doesn't feel like providing new binary drivers.

If I rode a bike, I would leave one of these tied to the handlebars. It would be my personal way of cutting down on theft. (whoever steals it winds up needing a new computer)

LXDE is kind of like Windows 95. There is a "start" menu. Things pop up and close instantly (or almost instantly) when clicked. Memory and CPU usage are minimal, meaning that it will run well on very junky machines. But I am using it on a Ryzen 8-core. The best part about it, I think, is the file manager PCManfm. Like the rest of the LXDE environment, it is really fast, much faster than the Nautilus file manager of gnome. This is especially evident with directories containing thousands of files. The only two knocks I have against LXDE are that you can't press a letter to select an item in a menu, like "I" for Internet, and in the file manager, when you traverse into a folder and then go back out of it, the folder is not still selected. These make using the system with a keyboard only somewhat annoying at times.

I love Knoppix, but it's not really intended to be a daily driver. It is intended to be installed to external media like a DVD or USB and then run from there. The system is compressed, making installing routine updates somewhat difficult to do when compared to a traditional system that is permanently installed onto a hard drive.

I use Debian with LXDE. But LXDE might be *too* minimalist for you. The MATE desktop environment sounds like it'd do what you want. I would try to avoid Unity/Gnome3/KDE, because (at least the first two) mandate the use of 3D acceleration for the desktop. That means less performance for games and 3D applications, because the desktop environment is sapping it away. It does seem to me that mainstream Linux distros are heading in the direction of Windows too much, with excessive bloat. The only thing that many (most) computer users want is a simple desktop that will run efficiently on as broad a range of hardware as possible. MATE does not require 3D acceleration to run and the requirements are not (too) high. This goes for XFCE as well.

On a kind of funny note, Google and Amazon are now fighting each other, (while putting customers in the middle). It goes like this. Amazon won't sell Google streaming gear, so Google is gonna block Amazon devices from watching Youtube! https://www.ghacks.net/2017/12/06/google-to-block-youtube-on-amazon-fire-tv/ It is funny, because the FCC is going to let the big ISPs sideline both of them by placing them at an artificial disadvantage to the respective video services that the ISP offers.

https://youtu.be/wLtUKi9pybw?t=282 Why oh why do people steer in the direction of danger, instead of the opposite way (to avoid it)? Note that I am not immune from this. When playing games, I frequently find myself accidentally strafing in the direction of projectiles when I should be moving the opposite way. This person would have been fine if they had viered left instead of right, into the oncoming path of the guy.

Sounds like either a graphics driver problem, or a damaged installation media. When you first boot to the Ubuntu disk, you can press F5 (I think) for some advanced options, One should be to use VESA mode. That should get you going and work around the graphics problem. But of course you're not going to want to use the VESA driver for daily activities. It is a vendor neutral driver with no acceleration, and that means shit performance. You might also want to try the option to test the installation media. Though my personal feeling is that it's a graphics driver problem. What graphics chip does it have? I've seen the Nouveau driver barf on some hardware, making the use of VESA necessary to complete the initial installation, at which point you install the NVidia binary drivers for 3D performance/gaming.

On today's episode of mega-meltdowns... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fop-OTS2HAU This guy is a marine. lol

ISPs won't target things like TDM forums with this scheme, because it would be a complete waste of their time. They will target competitors; the online video delivery services. Since the ISPs have merged with cable/satellite providers, they want you to be paying for and using their video delivery services, not third party ones online. They already charge you more for Internet service if you don't want a TV subscription to go with it.