The Tech Random Crap Thread

When are the edge providers going to finally stop promoting the fiction that all of our ISP communication and entertainment needs CAN'T be supplied by one single cable?
Sigh. Probably not until mesh networking gets good enough that domestic ISPs are no longer a thing, unfortunately.

--Patrick
 
This morning I opened Terminal on my work laptop and it read this:

redminote4-redmi:

instead of this:

Name-MacBook-Pro:

What does that mean? Did someone remote log-in to my computer with their phone? I rebooted and everything is back to normal. I left my computer connected to a local university HPC server, but I do that all the time while jobs are running.
 
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GasBandit

Staff member
This morning I opened Terminal on my work laptop and it read this:

redminote4-redmi:

instead of this:

Name-MacBook-Pro:

What does that mean? Did someone remote log-in to my computer with their phone? I rebooted and everything is back to normal. I left my computer connected to a local university HPC server, but I do that all the time while jobs are running.
Was it left at work, in an area other people could get within bluetooth range of? I remember reading there's a security vulnerability in macbooks that people were gaining control of them over bluetooth...
 
Facebook is falling out of favor with people that aren't old already, I feel like the market will take care of that. Google has Apple in the cell phone market and if other search engines could stop sucking more people might use them. Microsoft tried so hard to get people to use Bing and Edge, except for doing the thing that makes them not shit.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Microsoft tried so hard to get people to use Bing and Edge, except for doing the thing that makes them not shit.
Well... uh... TBH, my useage of bing has really gone up this year. But only for images. I'd say 80% of my image searches I do through Bing now instead of google. I still google for pages, though.
 
Well... uh... TBH, my useage of bing has really gone up this year. But only for images. I'd say 80% of my image searches I do through Bing now instead of google. I still google for pages, though.
Most people look for pages though.
 
Inventor of the Web says Facebook, Google, etc need the Ma Bell treatment.
You mean break them up so that they have regional monopolies instead of national ones, making the service just as shit as ever due to the lack of competition? Then 30 years later, it'll re-form, just as (or more) scummy than ever, and still powerful and unchallenged?

If you break somebody up, they have to be forced to compete against themselves, since it's competition that brings out the virtues of capitalism, not the fact that the government isn't involved. Monopoly and/or cartels are the logical result of NO interventions, so ensuring (or enforcing) competitive practices is one of the few good actions a government can do in a capitalist economy.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
If you are searching Bing images for porn, I don't know what to tell you tbh. I thought you already knew the good places.
With bing image search, and safesearch off, you don't need to know the good places (and a lot of the so-called good places are shit for searching for something specific). You can just put in names, topics, whatever, and it does a jillion times better than google image search. You can even specify if you want animated gifs or not.

So if, for example, one was on Imgur and saw a picture of an attractive lady, and was provided a name... if they wanted to see more of that lady, the most efficient way would be to do a bing image search by the name.

Google image search, even with safesearch off, censors its results to attempt to be more advertiser friendly.

Bing DGAF.

Google tries to interpret what you need. Bing just gives you what you want.
 
Bing is actually notoriously good for searching porn. It seems like it's constantly brought up whenever I see Bing get mentioned.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
You are being way too defensive of Bing porn.
Anything to break google's monopoly :D

Just a little example here.. if you do a google image search, safesearch off, for "Asia Carrera" (a famous porn star), you get this blandly safe-for-work nonsense.

1541177385414.png


The results from doing the same thing in bing cannot be posted in this forum :D

Porn can break the blockade. Porn can decide the future. It's why VHS won over Betamax. It can be the spearhead that breaks through Google's armor.
 
Porn can break the blockade. Porn can decide the future. It's why VHS won over Betamax. It can be the spearhead that breaks through Google's armor.
I remember back when it wasn't a foregone conclusion who would win with Blu-ray vs HD-DVD that one prediction made was that Porn was going Blu-ray. And we know who won that format war too. That prediction referenced the earlier Betamax vs VHS format war as well.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
You mean break them up so that they have regional monopolies instead of national ones, making the service just as shit as ever due to the lack of competition? Then 30 years later, it'll re-form, just as (or more) scummy than ever, and still powerful and unchallenged?

If you break somebody up, they have to be forced to compete against themselves, since it's competition that brings out the virtues of capitalism, not the fact that the government isn't involved. Monopoly and/or cartels are the logical result of NO interventions, so ensuring (or enforcing) competitive practices is one of the few good actions a government can do in a capitalist economy.
I agree with you on the last part there, but even something is better than nothing in this case. If AT&T hadn't been broken up back then, they might be the only cellular provider today, if we even got cell phones by this point at all.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I remember back when it wasn't a foregone conclusion who would win with Blu-ray vs HD-DVD that one prediction made was that Porn was going Blu-ray. And we know who won that format war too. That prediction referenced the earlier Betamax vs VHS format war as well.
That's because in the debate of BD vs HDDVD, porn chose streaming.

Which also arguably won that debate, if you really get down to it.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
Just a little example here.. if you do a google image search, safesearch off, for "Asia Carrera" (a famous porn star), you get this blandly safe-for-work nonsense..
Including certain NSFW key words will get past that. It's still a stupid hoop to jump through, but FYI.

Porn can decide the future. It's why VHS won over Betamax.
While I think it was a factor, I think there's a lot more to it than that. The longer record times for VHS in LP and SLP modes made a big difference when selling machines to people who wanted to record TV.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Including certain NSFW key words will get past that. It's still a stupid hoop to jump through, but FYI.
I just don't like how Google thinks it knows what I want better than I do. I ran into another problem sort of like this a couple years ago, when Amy and I searched for the same thing with the same settings and got wildly different results.

(The search was butt related, yes)
 
Not a lot of porn on PS3. And I have a feeling that would have been the case regardless of if it used BD or HDDVD ;)
No, I meant PS3 being a Blu-Ray player (and one of the best on the market) helped swing things to Blu-Ray's favor, regardless of porn. I've also heard rumors that Sony paid off other studios, but those are just rumors.
 
Was it left at work, in an area other people could get within bluetooth range of? I remember reading there's a security vulnerability in macbooks that people were gaining control of them over bluetooth...
Yeah - our lab is one of those open floor plan / cube-farm things. I am in bluetooth range of at least 30 people. I just updated to Mojave earlier this week too.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Yeah - our lab is one of those open floor plan / cube-farm things. I am in bluetooth range of at least 30 people. I just updated to Mojave earlier this week too.
Maybe turn its bluetooth off, then. It doesn't even have to be paired for the exploit to work, just on.
 
This morning I opened Terminal on my work laptop and it read this:

redminote4-redmi:

instead of this:

Name-MacBook-Pro:

What does that mean? Did someone remote log-in to my computer with their phone? I rebooted and everything is back to normal. I left my computer connected to a local university HPC server, but I do that all the time while jobs are running.
The terminal prompt is something that can be customized to whatever you would like, but it depends on which user is currently logged in. You can use the whoami command to display the short name of the currently logged-in user (which should be YOU). I wonder if someone was using Bluetooth file sharing? Odds are pretty good that whoever it is has a Redmi Note 4, if I had to guess, and if this was really via Bluetooth, then a quick walk around your area might be all it takes to reveal the culprit.
I remember back when it wasn't a foregone conclusion who would win with Blu-ray vs HD-DVD that one prediction made was that Porn was going Blu-ray. And we know who won that format war too. That prediction referenced the earlier Betamax vs VHS format war as well.
My assumption was that Blu-Ray won out because HD-DVD got cracked first, so the studios dumped it.

—Patrick
 
And now there’s PortSmash.

Listen, I know your i7 probably set you back $100 more than an i5, but you might just want to entirely disable SMT for a while.

—Patrick
 
I ended up getting this after talking to the guys at the music store in town. It's good enough for what she needs. I'm still going to have to make PVC/blanket sound booth.
 
I ended up getting this after talking to the guys at the music store in town. It's good enough for what she needs. I'm still going to have to make PVC/blanket sound booth.
That looks pretty comprehensive, only things that look like they might be missing from the kit are a stand, filter/screen, and monitors (if she’ll need ‘em). I like the fact that the box has MIDI and room for a second mic.

—Patrick
 
Hmm. Will have to check once I get home. But if it has, this may be enough to spur me to finally revert my XP/10 machine to XP/7 like I’ve been meaning to before 7 finally sunsets.

—Patrick
 

GasBandit

Staff member
There has never been a single, solitary day where I thought "gee, I wish I had upgraded to windows 10."

There have been many, many days when I have though "Jesus, I'm sure glad I dodged the windows 10 upgrade."
 
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