TIL - Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
That reminds me, so is SCUBA, RADAR and MODEM…I miss the old History Channel shows, especially Modern Marvels
SCUBA: Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (Blew my mind for some reason when I learned that)
RADAR: Radio Detection and Ranging (I’ve watched alot of WWII documentaries)
MODEM: Modulation Demodulation (I’ve worked in tech)
It’s part of an IR Blaster setup. That looks like the “blaster”, aka the IR LED Transmitter. Most receivers have multiple ones to catch reflections and such
The buttons on suit jackets are a holdover from a time that buttons were new, and therefore fashionable. Well to do sorts had buttons all over their suits, even in places that would be considered silly these days.
Karl Marx got drunk one night and, after being kicked out of a bar in London where he got drunk, went around London and almost got arrested sabotaging the lamp posts with rocks with his colleagues who were also drunk.
Are you making a crossover cable or installing it for the government? Those are the only places that I know of that A is used regularly. Nearly everywhere else uses B in my experience.
Really? I wasn’t sure which one I “should” use so I looked at a cable that I had laying around (probably came with a cable modem or something?) and was able to see the wire colors through the connector and it was A. So that’s what I’ve been using when making patch cables or wiring my house.
I guess my question is what’s your experience with where B is used? Mostly I’m just curious, it probably doesn’t really matter for me since I only do networking work in my house.
It shouldn’t actually matter. It’s strictly by convention that the US (and probably North America; unclear about beyond) almost exclusively uses B. The big risk is that people will assume it’s B, and the other end is B, which can cause issues when they e.g. replace a receptacle and make all of your connections crossover. But even that shouldn’t matter much these days.
There’s also some very limited issues switching from A to B on the same line (A in wall, B in patch cable), but this is very rare. If you saw A, it was probably either a crossover, or you live in a place that uses A.
So I learned all this almost 2 decades ago so the details may be off…
There’s crossover cables, which are a-b and used if you want to connect one computer to another-the tx and rx are flipped from one side to the other, so two “client” devices (like 2 computers) don’t speak and listen on the same line
There’s rollover cables, which are flipped on one side, that were used to connect to the console port of a router
Aside from that, nothing about the configuration really matters except being standard. The reason they’re not just in stripe-color color order is to separate the tx and rx to minimize interference
I’m pretty sure all of this became moot after hundred gigabit Ethernet became a common thing anyways - they multiplex electrical signals across each of the wires, so they have to negotiate the method or fall back to a simpler protocol from the start. I’m not sure how robust it is to randomly shuffling the order on each side individually (I wouldn’t try it on hardware I wasn’t willing to risk)
So really, all that matters is that it matches. And since we’ve been doing it a certain way for so long, doing it differently is a bad idea. A vs b makes no difference, but you could make green the split pair and it’d be identical. You could use the same arbitrary order on each side and you’d probably not notice much difference, although you might get a lot more errors from minute interference
And FWIW, I think b is the more common standard across the world… But any advantage or disadvantage probably died back when we stopped using those trunk lines with dozens of pairs split out on a punch down block that goes to a bunch of different homes
Laptops haven’t gotten that much better in the past 8 years. The one I’m using right now was made in 2011. Install Debian on your 8yo laptop and you are good to go. Question is though, what do you want to do with it? CAD? You mean like for 3D printing, or something more serious? You don’t need a desktop per se, but a big monitor plugged into the laptop can help.
While I agree with most of what you said, I don’t think it’s a great idea to recommend Linux to someone who appears to be out of his depth in terms of computers.
What you need for CAD is a mouse; trackpads are just too fiddly and imprecise. I use a Logitech MX Master, which works great over Bluetooth to a laptop.
I’ve had my MX Master for about 4 years now, best mouse I’ve owned. Tracks on almost every surface, easy enough to open and replace the internal battery, and feels great in the hand. The dual friction scroll wheel is amazing for scrolling through large webpages, folders, and lines of code.
Really wish it was at least a bit open source though. It’s capable of so much with the extra built in buttons and additional scroll wheel, but outside of Windows and Mac they are not very programmable
There is github.com/libratbag/piper for Linux which seems to support the my master. It is definitely more limited than Logitech gaming software, but allows me to configure my g600 just fine.
Desktop vs laptop doesn’t matter much for any given CAD software. Just make sure you hit the recommend specs of whatever software you’re looking to use.
The bigger thing will be if whatever CAD software that is is Windows exclusive or not. I’d check that before deciding to go the Linux route (which most people on here are going to try to steer you towards.)
I’ll say as a cad professional, the linux space was abandoned by the largest companies a while ago. Unless you go browser based (onshape) your software will either be less mature (Freecad, solvespace) or straightup script based (openscad).
Or you will have to use a dedicated VM but IMHO it’s not worth it when you can just dual-boot.
Desktop vs laptop doesn’t matter much for any given CAD software. Just make sure you hit the recommended specs.
There’s truth in this, but also caveats. I work with a bunch of mechanical engineers. In the warmer months, while working on really complex drawings, they need to take frequent breaks.
It’s because laptops are designed to be compact, by sacrificing airflow. So when they run anything heavy, the CPU would heat up and start throttling itself.
On a desktop, easily solved by slapping on a semi-decent cheap cooler. On laptops, well, you take frequent breaks.
If the CAD package can leverage GPU computing, then an eGPU is a good compromise. That way you can have plenty of power and airflow at the desk for intensive tasks, but you don’t need to lug all the hardware to the floor for interfacing with plc’s or to meetings. Although systems with good eGPU support are often expensive enough that keeping a separate desktop workstation and a lightweight laptop is competitive.
High single core cpu clock speeds and lots of ram should be the first priority for cad. Solidworks, for example, does not handle running out of ram gracefully at all.
A library PC is not likely to let you just install whatever productivity software you want, nor is it even guaranteed to be able to run it if you could. Not to mention OP mentioned being paralyzed and there may be accessibility options with getting to a library that they’d rather avoid.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I am not physically paralyzed; there are so many details to getting a computer system that I am suffering from “analysis paralysis“!
Where can a Boomer catch up on current computer/software technology? What are the most reliable ones now? Do I need a desktop for CAD? Pros and cons of operating systems (and where do I find them?) Browsers ditto? Where do I find answers that aren’t just product marketing?
The library is where OP can find answers that aren’t just product marketing, to all the above questions, including catching up on technology, and there’s absolutely no reason he needs to physically be in the building to find them. However, if he’s in my city, and can get to the branch, we have workstations created in partnership with Easterseals that likely have many of the accessibility technologies and tools he’s used to using at home as a person who is paralyzed.
“Where can a Boomer catch up on current computer/software technology?”
“The library” is a valid answer to where you can find information, though I doubt computer purchasing info would be that great.
“I have an eight-year-old laptop that needs replacing and I’m paralyzed.”
If I understand correctly, “paralyzed” is being used metaphorically here to describe an inability to make a purchasing decision.
However, libraries are one of the best places people with disabilities can go. They are usually set up with accessibility in mind and run by caring people.
Good point. I live in a rural area whose librarians are enthusiastic but emphatically not trained. However, I live about 40 miles from a university; I could pop by there maybe.
Libraries and librarians are great. I agree they would likely know where to point OP for info, but I meant they probably don’t have the resources to test a wide variety of products themselves.
Lemmy, reddit, find groups (but even those are far from full proof) sadly the internet as a hole is now a corporate marketing suspit. Learn what you can about the core components of computing, look at spec sheets rather than reviews (reviews can be coloured by bias, the publisher may want to stay in the good graces of the manufacture or is just ill informed) although reviews can be helpful and not coloured.
asklemmy
Oldest
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.