What have you done with an early Intel recently?

[eyoungren]

Dunno how people work in factories, doing repetitive work much like a machine.

Speaking solely for myself…its an analgesic. You don't have to think.

I did seven years for UPS in the Ontario, California air hub. My actual job required a bit more thinking than what UPS hires for, but was repetitive nonetheless.

I was hired as an unloader. Basically, the trucks and air containers roll in, you go inside and unload it on to a slide or rollers that connect to a belt. It's simple, all you have to pay attention to is making sure you aren't tossing packages. When that's done, you unload the next. You aren't really thinking about it.

I got into physical shape fairly quickly, but they (UPS management) decided to put me somewhere else about three weeks into the job. They put me on Irregs/bulk. This is stuff that can't go down the belts. Car parts, wood or metal boxes, styrofoam boxes, coolers, tires, oversize boxes, fishing poles, etc, etc.

You stand at the END of a belt or slide for this stuff and you load it on to a bulk train (five carts connected to an electric engine). When it's full you drive the train out and deliver it to the air containers on the other side of the hub, unload it at each belt or truck station and then return for more. It meant knowing the 'sort', the zipcodes that determined destination.

Once I learned the sort and how to drive and I already had the muscle memory and physical strength of moving the packages, it was all as you said 'machine'. I could think about whatever I wanted because everything was automatic. I clocked in and my brain checked out. I got paid and didn't have to remember much about what I did to get paid.

Which is one reason I avoided load side. On load side, you have to think. You're loading air containers and it's a 3D jigsaw puzzle with packages constantly coming at you.

 

[mortlocli]

Some of those thinking jobs are really tiring..a different form of tiredness to physical work, but tiredness just the same.

I wasn't much good at those jobs where ones safety depends on thinking or concentration. Lineman working on live wires (240 volts) , retreading tyres in hot moulds, forestry tree felling..some of those guys have ugly chainsaw scars ..being bit of a dreamer so twas only a matter of time before my mind would wander. Luckily I got out before any mishaps..except for a burn while doing tyres

 

[eyoungren]

Some of those thinking jobs are really tiring..a different form of tiredness to physical work, but tiredness just the same.

I wasn't much good at those jobs where ones safety depends on thinking or concentration. Lineman working on live wires (240 volts) , retreading tyres in hot moulds, forestry tree felling..some of those guys have ugly chainsaw scars ..being bit of a dreamer so twas only a matter of time before my mind would wander. Luckily I got out before any mishaps..except for a burn while doing tyres

I ended up in Graphic Design as I've always liked working with computers. My son, BTW, is 19 and in his second year of college for an IT degree.

If I had it to do over again, I think I probably would have either joined the Coast Guard or tried to become one of those wrecker drivers. I mean the big semi-truck type with the rotaters, the kind they use to get semi trucks out of the ditch.

None of that was anything I knew about when I was first out of highschool.

 

[mortlocli]

I ended up in Graphic Design as I've always liked working with computers. My son, BTW, is 19 and in his second year of college for an IT degree.

If I had it to do over again, I think I probably would have either joined the Coast Guard or tried to become one of those wrecker drivers. I mean the big semi-truck type with the rotaters, the kind they use to get semi trucks out of the ditch.

None of that was anything I knew about when I was first out of highschool.

That's the thing about when at high school - not knowing wot you really want to do.

I think I got that job at uni cos I was the only applicant who had used photoshop.. Not many folks had in 1992.

..I only had cos I knew a WW2 vet who had bought a Mac LC2 (pizza box Mac) without telling his wife and wanted to hide it at my place for a weekend til he thought up a good story to tell her. He said I could use it..

 

[TheShortTimer]

..I only had cos I knew a WW2 vet who had bought a Mac LC2 (pizza box Mac) without telling his wife and wanted to hide it at my place for a weekend til he thought up a good story to tell her. He said I could use it..

How long did you have it?

For some reason, I suspect that he never managed to think up a good story and it ended being yours to keep...

 

[mortlocli]

How long did you have it?

For some reason, I suspect that he never managed to think up a good story and it ended being yours to keep...

Lol..no we stuck too the plan..oh - maybe a couple of days longer than the weekend. He was an antique arms dealer and the walls in his house were covered with all sorts of weaponry. He'd been a morse code radio operator in the pacific during the war...wot they called the field service.

When he heard I'd got the job, he wanted to come visit. So he could use the Internet. I'd never heard of it at that stage..and wondered wot he as talking about.

 

[m1maverick]

It blew my mind to discover that Microsoft supported Win 3.x up till 2001, the embedded version of WFW 3.x till 2008 and that Symantec supported their DOS & Win 3.x anti-virus software well into 2003.

Most likely due to their low resource requirements making them suitable for low powered systems (such as embedded controllers). DOS was especially attractive in such circumstances.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Once again, my MBP 2011 with High Sierra comes up trumps. I wanted to create a snippet from an audio file with my favourite segment from the track and Audacity helped me to achieve that goal.

My only gripe with Audacity is that editing the top and tail of audio files doesn't feel quite as precise as I'd like. If anyone has recommendations for other sound editing software - be they free or payware, please share them.

 

[wicknix]

editing the top and tail of audio files doesn't feel quite as precise as I'd like

Have you tried using Audacity's "zoom" feature? Command + 1 to zoom in, command + 3 to zoom out, command + 2 brings your back to normal view. Zooming in really helps you see the exact spot you want to start / end a clip.

Cheers

 

[TheShortTimer]

Have you tried using Audacity's "zoom" feature? Command + 1 to zoom in, command + 3 to zoom out, command + 2 brings your back to normal view. Zooming in really helps you see the exact spot you want to start / end a clip.

Cheers

I'll give that a go. Thanks.

 

[eyoungren]

I HATE RESTARTS!!!!!!

Anything can happen and not a lot of it good!

Forced to do this this morning to fix font caches (browser showing question marks for fonts). This is the Mac Pro.

Slow restart, but I got there. 6TB drive in the fourth bay is not mounted. Dropbox complains. Yeah, I know. This has happened before. What solves it is to shut down the Mac, pull the drive sled out and push it back in.

So I do that and voila, everything is back to normal and font problem is solved.

I still DON'T LIKE IT!

I've managed to get the majority of my shared drives to pop back up on logging back in, but this is just a big hassle. In the past, this is the moment monitors drop out or the OS becomes a giant PROHIBITORY symbol 😡

Fortunately, none of that happened this time and I'm good (for however long before I need to restart again).

SMH, this is one reason I leave my Macs on 24/7.

 

[mortlocli]

I HATE RESTARTS!!!!!!

Anything can happen and not a lot of it good!

Forced to do this this morning to fix font caches (browser showing question marks for fonts). This is the Mac Pro.

Slow restart, but I got there. 6TB drive in the fourth bay is not mounted. Dropbox complains. Yeah, I know. This has happened before. What solves it is to shut down the Mac, pull the drive sled out and push it back in.

So I do that and voila, everything is back to normal and font problem is solved.

I still DON'T LIKE IT!

I've managed to get the majority of my shared drives to pop back up on logging back in, but this is just a big hassle. In the past, this is the moment monitors drop out or the OS becomes a giant PROHIBITORY symbol 😡

Fortunately, none of that happened this time and I'm good (for however long before I need to restart again).

SMH, this is one reason I leave my Macs on 24/7.

Sounds a little like Russian roulette, eyou.
I'm the opposite..quite keen on evening shut downs and morning reboot..even on my iPhone but I guess, unlike you I don't have work loads being conducted over night? Just like giving that computer a good flush out and getting rid of any debri or conflicts with a fresh start.

 

[eyoungren]

Sounds a little like Russian roulette, eyou.
I'm the opposite..quite keen on evening shut downs and morning reboot..even on my iPhone but I guess, unlike you I don't have work loads being conducted over night? Just like giving that computer a good flush out and getting rid of any debri or conflicts with a fresh start.

I'm lazy.

That's it. 🤷‍♂️

I don't like waiting for computers to boot up, server shares to reconnect and apps and windows to open. When I press the spacebar to wake my Mac up I want to see screens come on and my desktop. I've always been that way, way back to my Commodore 64. I hate waiting when I go to use the computer.

All my computers back up overnight as well - so if nothing is running, no backups. On the weekend all the computers take turns backing up to a hard drive on my Mac Pro. Those backups go up to Dropbox. If the MP is not on…again, no backups.

It took my wife years to get used to this habit, but she did eventually.

 

[mortlocli]

I'm lazy.

That's it. 🤷‍♂️

I don't like waiting for computers to boot up, server shares to reconnect and apps and windows to open. When I press the spacebar to wake my Mac up I want to see screens come on and my desktop. I've always been that way, way back to my Commodore 64. I hate waiting when I go to use the computer.

All my computers back up overnight as well - so if nothing is running, no backups. On the weekend all the computers take turns backing up to a hard drive on my Mac Pro. Those backups go up to Dropbox. If the MP is not on…again, no backups.

It took my wife years to get used to this habit, but she did eventually.

Lazy??
I was thinking the opposite - here's a guy without a second to waste!! Lol.
That's quite a system you've got working there.

I always thought boot up times was when you should be thinking about wot you're going to be doing..or when to make a coffee.

 

[eyoungren]

Lazy??
I was thinking the opposite - here's a guy without a second to waste!! Lol.
That's quite a system you've got working there.

I always thought boot up times was when you should be thinking about wot you're going to be doing..or when to make a coffee.

LOL!

When I go to use the computer I already have something in mind. As to coffee…well, if I'm working, that gives me a chance to walk away (and not be working).

 

[eyoungren]

Photoshop work done the other night on the Mac Pro

Another image for @TheShortTimer to dissect,



Yes, that's Kate Kennedy on the far right.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Photoshop work done the other night on the Mac Pro

Another image for @TheShortTimer to dissect,

View attachment 2192740

Yes, that's Kate Kennedy on the far right.

HMmmmm, a visual challenge! Let's see how well I do with my visual semiological analysis.

Would I be correct in assuming that these women are all bound by the themes of Sci-Fi, technology, exploration, travel and adventurism? There appears to be a direct connection between the pair who are pictured on the centre left and right via seemingly electronic circuit tracks.

Or could it symbolise historical progression because the attire noticeably changes from the past, to modern to futuristic from left to right? Beyond that, I'm stumped.

I look forward to discovering how accurate I've been!

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

GitHub - maharmstone/quibble: Quibble - the custom Windows bootloader

Quibble - the custom Windows bootloader. Contribute to maharmstone/quibble development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

It mentions WinXP . Any volunteers here?

 

[eyoungren]

HMmmmm, a visual challenge! Let's see how well I do with my visual semiological analysis.

Would I be correct in assuming that these women are all bound by the themes of Sci-Fi, technology, exploration, travel and adventurism? There appears to be a direct connection between the pair who are pictured on the centre left and right via seemingly electronic circuit tracks.

Or could it symbolise historical progression because the attire noticeably changes from the past, to modern to futuristic from left to right? Beyond that, I'm stumped.

I look forward to discovering how accurate I've been!

Well, I will explain…

The center orb represents creativity (mine). I am drawing inspiration (influence) from Miss Kitty Russell (Gunsmoke, Amanda Blake) and Alice Kramden (The Honeymooners, Audrey Meadows) as my primary sources. Those sources being (in this case) both themselves as actresses and the characters they play (are most known for).

That's passed to Cortana/The Weapon which represents the computer/programs and all the calculations. What comes out is passed to Kate Kennedy, who because of her character in Halo the TV Show, executes the commands I've given to the computer/app.

In the broader connection to the rest of my desktop that execution is filtered through Polgara (from the Belgariad/Malloreon, David Eddings) and Moiraine (Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan). These are my two primary fantasy influences and both female characters are strong.

The environments we find all these characters/actresses in aren't what is important to me. Who they are or who the character they play is, is what is important to me.

The end result is what ends up in my documents after all that.

Told you it only made sense to me.

 

[TheShortTimer]

@eyoungren That's a profound level of symbolism!

Thanks for breaking it down for me.

Told you it only made sense to me.

It makes perfect sense to me now that I have the context.

 

[eyoungren]

@eyoungren That's a profound level of symbolism!

Thanks for breaking it down for me.



It makes perfect sense to me now that I have the context.

Oh so many years ago a friend of mine encouraged me to try my hand again at being a DM for AD&D. By that point I had a PC and a word processor. Having learned, via a few highschool term papers, that typing would save me a lot of time I used that to create what I needed.

At some point though, as player-characters started to live longer than one or two gaming sessions, I realized that I really needed to have some coherency. It also became important to start keeping track of things. People get confused when you keep changing things. And, it looks bad on you.

That meant keeping files. And printouts. Which meant organization. Which meant (all of a sudden) when I sat down at the computer, there was a purpose to be there. Which meant influences (I've ripped off a lot of fantasy writers in my AD&D/Rolemaster campaigns) could affect things. The environment I was typing in, a program I'd just watched, etc.

By the time I got serious about doing something with all of this, it was 20+ years later and I had a Mac with six-screens that I was sitting at for hours at a time each day.

I want the desktop imagery on my Macs to reflect what I do with them. Because it influences what I write and your creativity comes from your influences. But the influence(rs) have to mean something. There's no point if they don't. It's just a random pasting of 'cool' pictures I like that have nothing to do with what I'm doing.

Fortunately, my day job has provided me with enough (just enough) skill to get close to what I'm actually aiming for in Photoshop. Things would be very different if I actually knew how to draw/paint/create digital artwork.

PS. This display wallpaper will change. I still haven't gotten it quite right. Once I do, like the rest of my desktop that'll be all I use for a very long time.

 

[MultiFinder17]

I've made an effort recently to revive one of my favorite Intel MacBooks, a pre-unibody 15" MBP. I have two in fantastic physical condition, one with a 3,1 lobo in it and another with a very dead 4,1 lobo in it. I've since spent some time combining the best parts of both into one beautiful machine!

Here's a mid-2007 15" MacBook Pro in fantastic working order! The case is in beautiful shape - I'll get some pictures of it when I get home and have good lighting. I've put a matte display on it, and swapped out the top case for that of the 4,1 so I have the full multitouch trackpad that's a delight to use! With 4GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD on Snowsemite, this machine is incredibly snappy.

The battery in this machine also works well - it's an Apple original from 2012 with 48 cycles at 84% health after calibrating it. I can get a solid couple of hours out of it if I'm sitting there typing and listening to music, which is what I mostly use this machine for these days.



The logic board also has one of those little green stickers I've read so much about, and I'm taking it as a good sign of health. Fingers crossed this machine will live a long, happy life still to come

 

[mortlocli]

Oh so many years ago a friend of mine encouraged me to try my hand again at being a DM for AD&D. By that point I had a PC and a word processor. Having learned, via a few highschool term papers, that typing would save me a lot of time I used that to create what I needed.

At some point though, as player-characters started to live longer than one or two gaming sessions, I realized that I really needed to have some coherency. It also became important to start keeping track of things. People get confused when you keep changing things. And, it looks bad on you.

That meant keeping files. And printouts. Which meant organization. Which meant (all of a sudden) when I sat down at the computer, there was a purpose to be there. Which meant influences (I've ripped off a lot of fantasy writers in my AD&D/Rolemaster campaigns) could affect things. The environment I was typing in, a program I'd just watched, etc.

By the time I got serious about doing something with all of this, it was 20+ years later and I had a Mac with six-screens that I was sitting at for hours at a time each day.

I want the desktop imagery on my Macs to reflect what I do with them. Because it influences what I write and your creativity comes from your influences. But the influence(rs) have to mean something. There's no point if they don't. It's just a random pasting of 'cool' pictures I like that have nothing to do with what I'm doing.

Fortunately, my day job has provided me with enough (just enough) skill to get close to what I'm actually aiming for in Photoshop. Things would be very different if I actually knew how to draw/paint/create digital artwork.

PS. This display wallpaper will change. I still haven't gotten it quite right. Once I do, like the rest of my desktop that'll be all I use for a very long time.

Tis interesting how 'we see wot we wanna see'. All of that was over my head, but wot I was focused on was which page layout design principle was applied. We were taught seven back in the late 1980s (or maybe it was early 1990s?) by an American professor. It was a very strictly structured way of design that formed a frame work for when starting with a blank page. There was one principle I never truly got the hang of 'placement relative to edge of page'. I couldn't visualise the grid system in your design, eyo..so took the lazy way and pigeon holed it in there.

Yeah.. I know.
My school reports were full of '..should try harder!!'

 

[eyoungren]

Tis interesting how 'we see wot we wanna see'. All of that was over my head, but wot I was focused on was which page layout design principle was applied. We were taught seven back in the late 1980s (or maybe it was early 1990s?) by an American professor. It was a very strictly structured way of design that formed a frame work for when starting with a blank page. There was one principle I never truly got the hang of 'placement relative to edge of page'. I couldn't visualise the grid system in your design, eyo..so took the lazy way and pigeon holed it in there.

Yeah.. I know.
My school reports were full of '..should try harder!!'

This particular display is an outlier. It's not really 'connected' to the rest and I wanted to make it so.

But it sits lower than the others. I primarily use it for drive icons and some windows.

Here's the Photoshop file. If there's any sort of 'grid' it's the guides.



The guide coming down from the top is primarily the most important. It lines the burst up with the burst on the vertical display (as you'll see).

The guide to the right of Kate Kennedy (black dress) tells me the area where I have my drive icons in.

As far as the rest, I have to work around things… so basically, anything behind the stuff on the desk is not going to be seen.



I'm using the circular arcs in the background as 'connectors' so from Kate Kennedy it arcs back to the left and over to the vertical display.

Placement on my primary displays is pretty much to avoid palettes.



So, if I do have a grid system, it's beholden to physical constraints.

 

[mortlocli]

Aha - that's the word: 'constraints'.
Landscape architecture..site survey - a process of finding opportunities..and constraints, when working with those.

A blank page (or screen) : no constraints (apart from the edges) so a grid system makes some. Though you've sorta found a different way and worked with that.

We were taught to strictly follow the rules..til we got to know them and understand them. Then we were told, 'OK - you know the rules..so now you can break them. '

Still had to give good reasons for breaking them in the critiques though.
Critiques are fun..you get to see how people think and how ideas are made.
Their thought (design) process.