On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:41:53 +0100, D wrote:

> Nigra? This group is a wonder of education! Something to study deeply
> tonight, as soon as I get off my current, delayed and very, very shitty
> ryanair flight back to eastern europe.

'Nigra' is sort of a southern thing in my experience. I think they're
really saying Negro. Or maybe Nigger. It's hard to tell.

On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 21:57:29 -0000 (UTC), Rich wrote:

> rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 12:06:05 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> On 10/01/2025 22:15, rbowman wrote:
>>>> On Fri, 10 Jan 2025 07:27:06 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The natural tendency in a free market is that the best technology
>>>>> rises to the top, becomes ubiquitous, and everybody uses it.
>>>>> Diversity in technology is not desirable,. Diversity in its
>>>>> application is, somewhat.
>>>>
>>>> Like natural selection I would say an adequate technology rises to
>>>> the top, not always the best.
>>>
>>> Well it depends on what 'best' applies to.
>>>
>>> Take VHS - technically inferior to Betamax but best marketed.
>>
>> I had that in mind -- along with the 8088 processors and MSDOS. IBM had
>> used the 8085 in the System 23 so were familiar with Intel and wanted
>> to use readily available and inexpensive 8-bit peripherals in a product
>> they didn't really believe in. And here we are.
>
> Other reasons that have been reported are:
>
> 1) IBM required any "outside IBM" chips to be second sourced. Intel
> already had AMD as an official licenced second source for the 8088 chip,
> Motorola did not (yet) have any second source for the 68000.
>
> 2) Intel had the chip on the market, and could supply the production
> volume (or so they claimed to IBM) IBM wanted. Motorola had
> "pre-production" versions of the 68000 available for 'breadboarding'
> but it had not yet entered full production at the time IBM was selecting
> a CPU to use (and IIRC, was not planned to enter full production until
> after IBM had planned to release their new "PC").

Both are believable. Even for the older microcontrollers Motorola had a
bad reputation for hanging you out to dry if they reverted to their roots
and got an order for millions of pieces from the automotive industry.

Another rumor at the time is IBM was in a pissing contest with Exxon.
Exxon had bought Zilog so the Z8000 was out.

There may have been other reasons also but it did start us down the path
with a chip Intel saw as an interim solution until they got the 432 going.
That, of course, never happened so more bandaids were applied to the 8086.

On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 19:38:14 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> The 8086 would have been better, but the extra wiring apparently
> would have pushed up the price too much according to some old
> interview with an IBM guy.
> They didn't KNOW it would be super-successful, so they kinda hedged
> their bets, split the diff. 640k banks were a hell of a lot better
> than 64k banks.

I think IBM stuck the project in Boca Raton and prayed for a rising sea
level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Christensen

Maybe apocrypha but the story went that Christensen sent a memo up the
ladder suggesting IBM look at the personal computer market. When the reply
came back down the chain of command he framed it and put it on his office
wall. The reply was while he was free to mess around with toys on his own
time there wasn't a market there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/23_Datamaster

That was where IBM was comfortable, a $9000 glorified Trash-80. I'm not
planning to attend the funeral services anytime soon but IBM has always
been extremely good at pricing themselves out of a market.

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:44:57 +0100, D wrote:

> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025, rbowman wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 13:04:20 +0100, D wrote:
>>
>>> There is also the mysterious "nigga" I've not yet come to terms with
>>> it.
>>
>> African-American dialect.
>>
>>
> Would it be ok for me to use it when meeting my local negro? Would it
> build a loving and spiritual connection faster than the more formal and
> strict negro?

Only niggaz can call each other nigga. Only Harry Reid could get away with
describing Obama as a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro
dialect, unless he wanted to have one'

https://www.laprogressive.com/racism/politicians-lightskinned-negro

Harris became a laughing stock as she worked her way through more dialects
than Meryl Streep.

On 1/11/25 9:02 PM, rbowman wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 19:19:56 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> As for the 16gb ... well, if it's not TOO much more expensive, may as
>> well have it. However 4gb has always been more than enough for
>> anything I've wanted to do with a Pi. Even the ancient 250mb ones
>> worked OK with Linux - though I never tried OpenSUSE/KDE on a Pi-1.
>
> https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/09/the_ultimate_pi_5_arrives/?td=rt-3a
>
> $40 is chump change for me but it wouldn't do anything for me. So far I am
> using the Pi to work with the Pico although I did get a GPIO extension
> board and may do something with the Pi itself. The extension board has the
> pins labeled which is a distinct plus. Counting holes in a solderless
> breadboard is a PITA when you don't have 20 year old eyes.

$40 ? Are you buying in the USA ??? Pi's are EXPENSIVE,
check Amazon US. Pi5 + CanaKit box, PS, fan ... you're
talking minimum $135 depending on options.

https://www.amazon.com/CanaKit-Raspberry-Starter-Kit-PRO/dp/B0CRSNCJ6Y?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.W5N9lppf7Ww6euC0QW7LizVaMqsTVa_ZF1ySG95x3DhLGJOeY4hNm7YIsSGkw4Tx-tDwimaCEao30Em8UViHPG4rroRGP7_ye5Z9brI1z3XMJSqxWWzf8C9ARJ0Jxdep_lO1YC7W-TkaDsZpMENZJ6UqWTflP6edM1bZMZvV1cVXBndhCgqza7SSWW8Moq-CZ-jLWX_oZW4GPuGtHLZX4RSe9A3SFjC8VRazQLOT2vOVhci3uVkf9o1GJybcDY7dCvVN6ta-20km-kNSWPMvJvjehuIAW8aZ_sStiefpr-Zx1H-PWxubnKGvKZ05STIcG_jqTtkPfq0TZ4vi0Xra37TNsvk5hiLMoOVXYdOQ3IM.MTaGyCwBB8MWoakywVSepd10p5Z8BLUYFwDewCr3vlI&dib_tag=se&keywords=raspberry%2Bpi%2B5&qid=1736650511&refinements=p_123%3A7183&rnid=85457740011&s=electronics&sr=1-1&th=1

UK price is lower but I don't wanna expose my card to
the international environment more than needed and
shipping would eat up some of the 'savings'.

Anyway, except for using a few Pi3's as security cam
servers (via 'motion') I'm not really doing anything
at the moment that requires all those I/O pins so
I've been buying BeeLink/BMax boxes instead (they
have an N-100 now for about $165)

On 1/11/25 9:23 PM, rbowman wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 19:21:58 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> On 1/11/25 2:52 PM, rbowman wrote:
>>> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 12:04:37 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>
>>>> Not a hundred different 'diverse' screw threads depending...
>>>
>>>
>>> Memories of a misguided youth working on British sports cars...
>>
>> Still have your Whitworth set ? :-)
>
> I never had Whitworth tools although I did have to buy the fasteners from
> a shop that specialized in Brit cars.
>
> It did bite me a couple of times. For installing the distributor drive
> pinion the manual was very specific about using a particular length of
> screw in the drilled and tapped hole, I'll say 2 1/2". I didn't have one
> that long so I used a shorter one. The extra length was so you didn't drop
> the whole mess into the sump. I hadn't put oil in the crankcase at that
> point but there were a lot of little cap screws holding the sump cover on
> to retrieve the pinion.
>
> What I do have are several sets of metric and SAE wrenches. Both the Ford
> and the Harley go metric in the strangers places. At least the Suzuki
> bikes and the Toyota are 100% metric.
>
> Then there are the Torx drivers, the weird little drivers used in
> electronics stuff that are close but no cigar. Damn them all to the fires
> of hell, starting with Harley. They use #25 and #27 Torx screws. #25 is
> just the right size to strip out a #27 head and a lot of the Torx sets
> skip #27.

Heh ... been there, suffered similar.

Even way back in the 80s, US cars started
mixing metric and SAE bolts - sometimes on the
same component like water pumps. Just insane.

Haven't seen any Whitworth in the USA (yet)
except on Brit imports.

And then, as you noted, those weird little 'torx'
and similar have their own threading universe.
Oh, Torx aren't always 'little'. They ARE likely
best for fully-automated assembly though, and
to hell with any humans who have to cope after.
They want you to buy a whole new whatever ...

I don't mind SAE, I don't mind metric ... but just
PICK ONE for yer product line and STICK with it.

Waiting for an 'AI' to design the 'most optimal'
thread spacing/depth/twist - and then we'll have
to buy yet ANOTHER big tool-set.

On 1/11/25 9:26 PM, rbowman wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:41:53 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> Nigra? This group is a wonder of education! Something to study deeply
>> tonight, as soon as I get off my current, delayed and very, very shitty
>> ryanair flight back to eastern europe.
>
> 'Nigra' is sort of a southern thing in my experience. I think they're
> really saying Negro. Or maybe Nigger. It's hard to tell.

Kinda half and half ... term heard most often
in Alabama and Mississippi.

On 1/11/25 9:46 PM, rbowman wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 19:38:14 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> The 8086 would have been better, but the extra wiring apparently
>> would have pushed up the price too much according to some old
>> interview with an IBM guy.
>> They didn't KNOW it would be super-successful, so they kinda hedged
>> their bets, split the diff. 640k banks were a hell of a lot better
>> than 64k banks.
>
> I think IBM stuck the project in Boca Raton and prayed for a rising sea
> level.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Christensen
>
> Maybe apocrypha but the story went that Christensen sent a memo up the
> ladder suggesting IBM look at the personal computer market. When the reply
> came back down the chain of command he framed it and put it on his office
> wall. The reply was while he was free to mess around with toys on his own
> time there wasn't a market there.

Someone up top must have seen an Atari-400 in a
shop somewhere ...

But, clearly, there WAS a large market for something
a little more 'dignified'.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/23_Datamaster
>
> That was where IBM was comfortable, a $9000 glorified Trash-80. I'm not
> planning to attend the funeral services anytime soon but IBM has always
> been extremely good at pricing themselves out of a market.

That much is true.

They rely on The Name a bit too much, it's supposed
to mean 'quality', 'the best', to customers. There
WAS a span where that was kinda true, maybe 1950 to
1970.

On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 22:19:33 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> $40 ? Are you buying in the USA ??? Pi's are EXPENSIVE,
> check Amazon US. Pi5 + CanaKit box, PS, fan ... you're talking
> minimum $135 depending on options.

$40 more than the 8GB version. That is the Canakit I bought. It wasn't
Black Friday but there was some sort of sale and I paid $136. I had been
thinking about getting one but the sale pushed me over the edge.

This Ubuntu box is a Beelink SER4 that I bought in 2022 for $389. It has a
Ryzen 7 4700U 8-core processor with 16GB of memory. Beelink has expanded
its offerings since 2022 and I don't recall what they had on the low end.
The SER4 has virtually the same specs as my Acer Swift 3 laptop so I knew
it was capable.

I've been concentrating on the Pico Ws, comparing CircuitPython,
MicroPython, and C but I did hang a DHT11 temperature/humidity sensor on
the Pi to test the GPIO using Python.

On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 23:00:11 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> And then, as you noted, those weird little 'torx'
> and similar have their own threading universe. Oh, Torx aren't always
> 'little'. They ARE likely best for fully-automated assembly though,
> and to hell with any humans who have to cope after. They want you to
> buy a whole new whatever ...

I think my largest Torx is a #50. I'd rather deal with that than a #4
Phillips although I have one of those for the air cleaner on the
Sportster.

I think my first go around with Torx was replacing a headlight on the '86
F-150. WTF? Again it was better than the crappy little Phillips screws
that had been in use.

I probably could scare up some Robertson drivers too. I used to do some
work in Canada and when you go down to Canadian Tire for some screws
that's what you get.

On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 23:08:26 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> They rely on The Name a bit too much, it's supposed to mean
> 'quality', 'the best', to customers. There WAS a span where that was
> kinda true, maybe 1950 to 1970.

As long as the customers have deep pockets. Typically PSAPs don't. The
RS6000s were nice systems but after about 2000 people started doing
comparison shopping. It wasn't only the base system. There are technical
arguments for SCSI drives but the sticker shock on a replacement from IBM
made plain old Western Digital platters look good.

DB2 is more of the same. It's good but talking to IBM for site licenses is
best done with your hand on your wallet.

On 11/01/2025 19:50, rbowman wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 09:00:04 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> So, for now, Manjaro and some Fedora. No one has yet made a clean
>> Just Works port of Fedora for the Pi-5 alas ... something's WEIRD
>> about that unit. They should drop it and make a "Pi4-Ultra" instead
>> with a peppier version of that chip.
>
> There's a new Pi 5 version with 16GB of RAM. It's not clear what the use
> case is. Windows on ARM?

Might be handy for a massivley multiuser web server

--
Renewable energy: Expensive solutions that don't work to a problem that
doesn't exist instituted by self legalising protection rackets that
don't protect, masquerading as public servants who don't serve the public.

On 11/01/2025 19:52, rbowman wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 12:04:37 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> Not a hundred different 'diverse' screw threads depending...
>
>
> Memories of a misguided youth working on British sports cars...

Or American ones.

We had Whitworth BA and BSF, you had UNC and UNF and everyone else had
metric

--
Renewable energy: Expensive solutions that don't work to a problem that
doesn't exist instituted by self legalising protection rackets that
don't protect, masquerading as public servants who don't serve the public.

On 12/01/2025 00:21, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
> On 1/11/25 2:52 PM, rbowman wrote:
>> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 12:04:37 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> Not a hundred different 'diverse'  screw threads depending...
>>
>>
>> Memories of a misguided youth working on British sports cars...
>
>   Still have your Whitworth set ?  :-)
>
Even I, as the ultimate Brit, don't have a Whitworth set. There might be
the odd Whitworth spanner (wrench) lurking at the bottom of a greasy
toolbox.

The old British nut sizes were imperial AF - across face. They simply
became metric 'near enough' but you can sill get a 5/16" AF spanner.

Etc.
https://www.sealey.co.uk/product/5637986191/imperial-combination-spanner-516
--
“The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the
urge to rule it.”
– H. L. Mencken

On 12/01/2025 02:23, rbowman wrote:
> Then there are the Torx drivers, the weird little drivers used in
> electronics stuff that are close but no cigar. Damn them all to the fires
> of hell, starting with Harley. They use #25 and #27 Torx screws. #25 is
> just the right size to strip out a #27 head and a lot of the Torx sets
> skip #27.

Oh those fuckers. Yep they pop up all over the place.

And there are other head styles that are similar

Here is a classic example of 'diversity'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives

--
"If you don’t read the news paper, you are un-informed. If you read the
news paper, you are mis-informed."

Mark Twain

On Sat, 11 Jan 2025, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> On 1/11/25 2:50 PM, rbowman wrote:
>> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 09:00:04 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>
>>> So, for now, Manjaro and some Fedora. No one has yet made a clean
>>> Just Works port of Fedora for the Pi-5 alas ... something's WEIRD
>>> about that unit. They should drop it and make a "Pi4-Ultra" instead
>>> with a peppier version of that chip.
>>
>> There's a new Pi 5 version with 16GB of RAM. It's not clear what the use
>> case is. Windows on ARM?
>
> There's clearly something very convoluted about the
> way the CPU and maybe some peripherial chips start
> up on the Pi5. You could run many Linux distros on
> Pi's up thru the Pi4. Then ... the factory Deb deriv
> is pretty much IT unless you wanna suffer a lot.
>
> If you've ever watched a Pi update, note ALL the
> damned messages about special fix-ups and kernel
> hacks - I mean there's LOTS of them. The BCM2712
> do NOT boot smooth like earlier versions. I'll
> still say the Pi3s were the "most generally useful".
>
> As for the 16gb ... well, if it's not TOO much more
> expensive, may as well have it. However 4gb has
> always been more than enough for anything I've
> wanted to do with a Pi. Even the ancient 250mb
> ones worked OK with Linux - though I never tried
> OpenSUSE/KDE on a Pi-1.
>
> I did turn one into a muzak system though - 4 hour
> loops of 'mall/elevator music' from the 70s that
> would switch once a month. Ran for like a dozen
> years ... probably still is, unless somebody finally
> found where I hid it and smashed the thing with
> a hammer :-)
>

I have a raspberry pi 3 still going strong as a TV computer after probably
7-8 years or so. The only problem is that my father forcefully unplugs it
every time he vacuum cleans, so every couple of years the memory card gets
corrupted and I have to do a full format/reinstall. But that doesn't take
long, and since it is only every couple of years and not an important
computer, that's ok.

On 11/01/2025 23:41, D wrote:
> Fun fact... when Ericsson built out cell phone
> networks in africa, they quickly discovered that every base station needed
> guards. If not, as soon as they were built, and the crew left, some
> local tribes
> dismantled it and sold it as junk.

Musk got that one right with Starlink. Kinda hard to pillage a satellite
60 miles overhead..

--
“Ideas are inherently conservative. They yield not to the attack of
other ideas but to the massive onslaught of circumstance"

- John K Galbraith

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025, rbowman wrote:

> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:44:30 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> This is the truth! Part of my christmas holidays were spent upgrading my
>> work laptop, my fathers laptop and my backup server to opensuse 15.6.
>> All went beautiful, quick, and without any problems at all.
>
> To give the devil his due I hit the 'download and install' button for 24H2
> and went for a hike. When I got home the laptop was up and running. A
> quick check showed my Python venvs were functioning.
>
> The Ubuntu 22.04 to 24.04 upgrade required manual intervention at two
> points and would have failed completely unattended. I lost postgres, the
> Thunderbird snap had to be manually installed and the venvs are hosed.
> There was also unexpected crap on the desktop.

Have you tried alpine for email? It is terminal based, but a very powerful
piece of software!

> Fedora 40 to Fedora 41 ran unintended with no problems and it didn't break
> my Python projects.
>
> I'll continue to live with it but Ubuntu and GNOME doesn't impress me.
> Several people on the ubuntu subreddit said they always do a fresh install
> because of the upgrade problems.

This is the truth! I am always afraid that upgrades will give me problems
for some reason, but I have never experienced this. Maybe it is because as
I've gotten older, I tinker and customize less, and perhaps that is why
upgrades now run very smooth.

A for gnome, maybe try xfce? I find it a nice balance of batteries
included and light resource use.

On 12/01/2025 02:26, rbowman wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:41:53 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> Nigra? This group is a wonder of education! Something to study deeply
>> tonight, as soon as I get off my current, delayed and very, very shitty
>> ryanair flight back to eastern europe.
>
> 'Nigra' is sort of a southern thing in my experience. I think they're
> really saying Negro. Or maybe Nigger. It's hard to tell.
>
>
It is heavily southernised negro. The consonants remain but the vowels
are mangled.

But nigger is far more common, especially amongst African Americans..

--
“Ideas are inherently conservative. They yield not to the attack of
other ideas but to the massive onslaught of circumstance"

- John K Galbraith

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025, rbowman wrote:

> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:41:53 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> Nigra? This group is a wonder of education! Something to study deeply
>> tonight, as soon as I get off my current, delayed and very, very shitty
>> ryanair flight back to eastern europe.
>
> 'Nigra' is sort of a southern thing in my experience. I think they're
> really saying Negro. Or maybe Nigger. It's hard to tell.

Ahhh... good to know! If I ever travel to the southern US, I'll fit right
in with a nigra or two! ;)

On 12/01/2025 02:10, rbowman wrote:
> Several people on the ubuntu subreddit said they always do a fresh install
> because of the upgrade problems.

Yes, it doesn't always work on Mint either which is Ubuntu with lipstick...
I am scared to change my desktop too much because the diver for my
negative scanner took some time to get working and I am reluctant to
change it

--
“Ideas are inherently conservative. They yield not to the attack of
other ideas but to the massive onslaught of circumstance"

- John K Galbraith

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025, rbowman wrote:

> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:44:57 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025, rbowman wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 13:04:20 +0100, D wrote:
>>>
>>>> There is also the mysterious "nigga" I've not yet come to terms with
>>>> it.
>>>
>>> African-American dialect.
>>>
>>>
>> Would it be ok for me to use it when meeting my local negro? Would it
>> build a loving and spiritual connection faster than the more formal and
>> strict negro?
>
> Only niggaz can call each other nigga. Only Harry Reid could get away with

Niggaz?? Yet another one!

> describing Obama as a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro
> dialect, unless he wanted to have one'

So Obama sometimes wanted to have one?

> https://www.laprogressive.com/racism/politicians-lightskinned-negro
>
> Harris became a laughing stock as she worked her way through more dialects
> than Meryl Streep.

Isn't Harris indian?

On Sat, 11 Jan 2025, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> On 1/11/25 9:26 PM, rbowman wrote:
>> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:41:53 +0100, D wrote:
>>
>>> Nigra? This group is a wonder of education! Something to study deeply
>>> tonight, as soon as I get off my current, delayed and very, very shitty
>>> ryanair flight back to eastern europe.
>>
>> 'Nigra' is sort of a southern thing in my experience. I think they're
>> really saying Negro. Or maybe Nigger. It's hard to tell.
>
> Kinda half and half ... term heard most often
> in Alabama and Mississippi.

Ahh! I know a thing or two about Alabama. I've seen Forrest Gump! =)

On 11/01/2025 23:44, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>>  You REALLY hate solar, don't you ?
>
> I personally am a huge fan of solar for my offgrid fortress of solitude
> during
> 8-9 months of the year.
>
That is fine. If youtr usage is low and there is plenty of sun - My
sister oin Cape Town relies on it to keep the house going during the
planed powercuts that characterise an ANC destroyed power grid.

Bit it doesnt work very well in wintertime, and the batteries are expsenive

> For the rest of the time, I wonder if small 2-3 meter wind turbines
> might be a
> thing?
>
Absolutely not. You might get a few hundred watts at best If you build
it talle ebough

> For heating I would use a wood stove or a pellets burner.
>
How not very green of you!

> Last time I was trying to calculate the cost of battery storage for a
> 100% solar
> it came out at 600k USD or so, that is... madness.
>
Now multiply it by the whole of california...

--
“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established
authorities are wrong.”

― Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV

On 12/01/2025 02:02, rbowman wrote:
> The extension board has the
> pins labeled which is a distinct plus. Counting holes in a solderless
> breadboard is a PITA when you don't have 20 year old eyes.

That's why I get my own PCBS made up!

I can count pins at a huge scale on the CAD drawings!

--
No Apple devices were knowingly used in the preparation of this post.