Computer Forum Chat Thread

[apepi]

Your carrier only allows you to use handsets that you buy through them?

I go through Republic Wireless. They have bring your own device, but One Plus is not one of them.

[Alindra]

I think the Internet climate in general is growing increasingly cold and hateful.

I entirely agree with your opinion. I can make guesses as to why this is the case (anonymity, youth growing up with anonymity, self reinforcing groups/ideologies), but I've by no means researched or studied the phenomenon. Whatever the cause, it can be quite depressing. I wish empathy - the ability to put yourself in anothers' shoes without necessarily agreeing with them - was more valued. Without it, how can society exist? I don't just mean society in the country sense, a forum can be a society, too.

In other news, I got my second diagnose today finally. So I have got that going for me.

I have no idea what you're suffering from (and you don't have to share if you don't want), but I'm glad you're figuring out what it is. A relative of mine ended up in the hospital for several days after an undiagnosed case of diabetes revealed itself. Very scary not knowing what is going on within your body.

I normally tried to avoid it myself, I do read every now and then to see what people think about things, such as the new amd cpu or the new um... Titan xp...or um Titan TiXP....

My reaction was a literal facepalm at its name. Could they be any more confusing with their naming?

Anyways yesterday I accidentally potatoed my phone(moto x 2nd gen) and cracked the screen. Now I am thinking about upgrading, I am considering either the Nexus 6P or the Moto Z play, I am leaning towards the 6p, thoughts?

When in doubt, oneplus

Not available for my carrier. :/

Personally, I prefer buying phones directly from Google (so Nexus or Pixel) to cut out the number of middle-men. This means quicker Android updates from Google and unlocked phones for any carrier.

Personally, I'm still using my Nexus 5 (also cracked screen and a power button that can stick causing double clicks and boot loops), but I'm going to be upgrading to a 128 GB Pixel - when they come back in stock, anyways.

[BicycleMafioso]

Not available for my carrier. :/

Well, that's a bummer. Both it not being availible, and your carrier being that archaic.
I didn't even know some carriers blocked certain manufacturers. Or do you mean they don't offer it as a subsidised option?
I buy my devices up front because I like being in control and not having to pay as much.(which is why my monthly plan -- 60 calls, 600 texts, 2GiB full-speed data, strangled after [and any unused carries over, meaning I have 600 calls, 10000 texts which are the caps in those and 38 GiB data at my disposal] -- only costs me equiv of 3 USD per month)
But you're in the US or Canada, right? I hear they are very not user friendly all over the place.
Here, it's illegal to have carrier locked phones even.

I entirely agree with your opinion. I can make guesses as to why this is the case (anonymity, youth growing up with anonymity, self reinforcing groups/ideologies), but I've by no means researched or studied the phenomenon. Whatever the cause, it can be quite depressing. I wish empathy - the ability to put yourself in anothers' shoes without necessarily agreeing with them - was more valued. Without it, how can society exist? I don't just mean society in the country sense, a forum can be a society, too.

The people growing up on the Internet certainly contributes, but older people 'catch it' too. Some can be very vitriolic. And those in-between. But only really the younger ones thrive in the anonymity.
Fanatical and scary for me, either way.

I have no idea what you're suffering from (and you don't have to share if you don't want), but I'm glad you're figuring out what it is. A relative of mine ended up in the hospital for several days after an undiagnosed case of diabetes revealed itself. Very scary not knowing what is going on within your body.

Autism and ultra-rapid bipolar.
The latter was suspected for a while, but finally official due to how well I've responded to the medication, reigning it in significantly. I have had troubles with severe mood swings, anger, depression, lack of impulse control, paranoia, ruining my life on my manic periods, being manipulative and a general manipulative asshat.
These days, I'm just swapping between emo and happy, which is certainly an improvement.
And like you say, it's scary. I finally feel like I have a sense of control over my person. Not that it brings the people that I've alienated back.
But look at me being all depressing and emo.

Personally, I'm still using my Nexus 5 (also cracked screen and a power button that can stick causing double clicks and boot loops), but I'm going to be upgrading to a 128 GB Pixel - when they come back in stock, anyways.

Had the Nexus 4, its screen cracked while being in my jacket pocket whilst sitting in front of my computer once. Without pressing it into anywhere. Fun times. Cool phone, but overheated and no battery.
I'd love to try a pixel, had it not been for its price, its lack of availability and it not at all being sold over here.

[apepi]

Well, that's a bummer. Both it not being availible, and your carrier being that archaic.
I didn't even know some carriers blocked certain manufacturers. Or do you mean they don't offer it as a subsidised option?
I buy my devices up front because I like being in control and not having to pay as much.(which is why my monthly plan -- 60 calls, 600 texts, 2GiB full-speed data, strangled after [and any unused carries over, meaning I have 600 calls, 10000 texts which are the caps in those and 38 GiB data at my disposal] -- only costs me equiv of 3 USD per month)
But you're in the US or Canada, right? I hear they are very not user friendly all over the place.
Here, it's illegal to have carrier locked phones even.

It is more like to keep the bill cheaper. They use wifi when possible to make the calls, so it is much cheaper(my last bill was 11$). But because of that it needs certain software and such, but they don't have it for all phones. I also buy my phones full price.

[DeltrusDisc]

Autism and ultra-rapid bipolar.
The latter was suspected for a while, but finally official due to how well I've responded to the medication, reigning it in significantly. I have had troubles with severe mood swings, anger, depression, lack of impulse control, paranoia, ruining my life on my manic periods, being manipulative and a general manipulative asshat.
These days, I'm just swapping between emo and happy, which is certainly an improvement.
And like you say, it's scary. I finally feel like I have a sense of control over my person. Not that it brings the people that I've alienated back.
But look at me being all depressing and emo.

Feel ya dude. On Tuesday I'm actually seeing an autism spectrum/developmental disorder specialist, because I suspect some level of autism has been a leading cause of my inability to make some major changes in my life, my alienating others, among many other things.

Initial analysis by non-doctors? High-functioning Asperger syndrome since I am able to work and all, but mental breakdowns have and do occur for me, all too regularly. If situations at work get too stressful/pressuring? I will just break mentally and cry. That's how I got fired from my coffee shop job that I loved last year that was also providing me health insurance, 401k, etc. Now I've been at Starbucks for a few months and am getting health insurance now starting May 1, but still, I'm anxious things may repeat themselves. =/

[Alindra]

The people growing up on the Internet certainly contributes, but older people 'catch it' too. Some can be very vitriolic. And those in-between. But only really the younger ones thrive in the anonymity.
Fanatical and scary for me, either way.

Oh for sure, I'm not blind to the fact that older people (by this, I mean people who didn't grow up with ubiquitous internet & smartphones) can start to expose their inner asshats with increasing frequency and severity. I really wish I knew what we could to do to combat the problem, but I'm at a loss. I see it happen and I shake my head.

Why is common decency so much to hope for? :\

Autism and ultra-rapid bipolar.
The latter was suspected for a while, but finally official due to how well I've responded to the medication, reigning it in significantly. I have had troubles with severe mood swings, anger, depression, lack of impulse control, paranoia, ruining my life on my manic periods, being manipulative and a general manipulative asshat.
These days, I'm just swapping between emo and happy, which is certainly an improvement.
And like you say, it's scary. I finally feel like I have a sense of control over my person. Not that it brings the people that I've alienated back.
But look at me being all depressing and emo.

For what it's worth, if that's what you call being emo, then you're being pretty hard on yourself. Up until the last line, I read it as statements with no inkling of "woe is me."

Had the Nexus 4, its screen cracked while being in my jacket pocket whilst sitting in front of my computer once. Without pressing it into anywhere. Fun times. Cool phone, but overheated and no battery.
I'd love to try a pixel, had it not been for its price, its lack of availability and it not at all being sold over here.

I can't speak for the Nexus 4, but I've had my Nexus 5 for around 3.5 years now, without a case, and I've had very minimal issues with it... until I dropped it corner first on linoleum. I'm definitely not happy about the price, but I also don't like the idea of yet more middle men between Google and Android OS updates. (I've read some horror stories about, I think it was Verizon?) who were 2 or more major versions behind. With a device with as much personal data as a phone? I'll (unhappily) pay more for some peace of mind.

Coincidentally, the variety I wanted (128gb "Quite Black") was up for pre-sale today, so now I get to wait till mid May for it.

-----

In other news, after relearning how to solder last week, I finally assembled my Infinity Ergodox keyboard this past Sunday. It's funny how some minor changes (keys laid out in a fairly straight grid vs staggered vertically) can really mess with my muscle memory. In particular is the C, V, B area. I'm used to using my left index finger to hit all those keys, whereas on this I need to actually use my middle finger. So many typos! I also miss having little bumps on the F and J keys to anchor my hands while typing. I knew there were major layout changes, but it was the little things that took me by surprise.

I've just been tooling around with the default layout for now, but I see myself changing the layout a bit in the future.

I will say, after using the same membrane keyboard for around 15 years, these mechanical keys feel amazing (cherry browns).

[DeltrusDisc]

With respect to mental health care, I know I can't really relate. None of us chose our genetics and so "there but by the grace of god go I" and I try to be considerate. We don't blame people born without legs for being shitty basketball players, and we shouldn't blame people with similar misconfiguration in their head for the quirks they display. Undoubtably it's more difficult with respect to mental illness as the difficulty is not immediately visible as it is with missing limbs or blindness and so people are less inclined to be accommodating. I have some sense of the sorts of difficulty a person must experience—I have a neuroscience degree—but that's like saying "I know about life in 3rd century Rome because I've studied it in University": book-learning only carries you so far when it comes to human experience.

Hey, it's a lot better than most people out there!

And wow, neuroscience? Why aren't you doing anything with that? Just realized you weren't that interested, I take it?

And congrats on moving forward with the new job. ^_^ Being in a healthy place is the best!

Now I need to figure out what degree I'm going to go for with my tuition-paid-by-Starbucks online Bachelor's from Arizona State University. ;o

[DeltrusDisc]

Turns out neuroscience is 'completely unemployable' if you stop at the undergraduate level. Even at the Phd level work options are pretty slim, what you probably want is a neurologist which is a medical doctor with a specialization. I also have a BA in western philosophy (minor in wester religions) which has slightly better employment stats because most philosophy majors are aiming to go to law school when they're done. I took those because I just wanted to go back and study things I thought were interesting. I had some good luck during my early career and had the opportunity to take some time off and chase my curiosity rather than just living off the major I "fell into" (computer science) after high-school.

Originally I wanted to go to medical school after I finished neuroscience but it turns out I earn more as a programmer than I would as a physician. Over the course of a 30 year career the additional expenses of medical school, delayed start of a career, and other indirect costs are hard to overcome even if the annual salary of a doctor is 25%-50% higher. Law school would have been fun too but it makes even less economic sense.

I'm going to tell my best friend, who is finishing up his second year in med school this and see what he thinks. He knows there's better jobs out there, but I just have to wonder how he responds...

He's got his Bachelor's in science (I think it's biochem?) and then had to get a Master's because he didn't immediately get accepted to med school, so his Master's is in some sort of research to prove he was worthy of med school. He just turned 27 a little over a week ago.

[apepi]

Huh, when trying to transfer a folder of things from my phone to computer(through usb) it just turns into an unreadable file, any thoughts how I can fix this?

[BicycleMafioso]

What operating system? What kind of 'mode' do you have active when plugged in (eg, media copy or other)?
Is your phone unlocked during the transfer?

[DeltrusDisc]

Is your phone the devil? These are the important questions.

[DeltrusDisc]

Can you read the file 'on the device' (e.g. does your phone mount as disk, and if so can you open the file directly off of it?) If this was 2001 I could imagine it being a file-system quirk between (e.g.) Windows and Mac OS, but these days it's all standardized on exfat. I'm curious about the file-type too. Is this an issue of your phone saving 'raw' images but you don't have an image editor that can actually render them? I know android phones have started doing weird things with JPEG files and packing VP8 encoded frames inside of them - those don't open nicely in many programs.

---

Finally bought a car today. Originally I had planned to buy one brand but the dealership had the shittiest service. I waited at the reception desk for about 10 minutes before anybody even bothered to stop and say hello, when I finally got to talk to somebody about the car and it's options he bailed mid way through to go do something else for 10 minutes. When it came time to test drive they wanted two pieces of ID so I handed over my drivers license and firearms license (both are government issued photo ID) - they wanted a passport or something instead which I flatly refused. Who carries their passport if they aren't hopping on a flight out of the country?

Rather than fighting with salesmen who seemed more obstructionist than helpful, I decided to call it off and took an über to the obvious competitor. Apart from trying to sell useless upgrades like "electronic rust protection" the whole thing was seamless and easy. Picking it up Saturday. I hate retail shopping at the best of times, vehicles are the bloody worst. Now I just need to find a new place to live next week and I'm all set up to start a new life as a suburban 'salaryman'…again.

Oh, tell us what you got, won't you? :P

And why not the brand that failed?

And it seems you didn't get a Tesla, any reason why?

[apepi]

What operating system? What kind of 'mode' do you have active when plugged in (eg, media copy or other)?
Is your phone unlocked during the transfer?

Windows 10/Android. Mode is MTP. Would being unlocked matter?

Is your phone the devil? These are the important questions.

Yes, Yes it is.

Can you read the file 'on the device' (e.g. does your phone mount as disk, and if so can you open the file directly off of it?) If this was 2001 I could imagine it being a file-system quirk between (e.g.) Windows and Mac OS, but these days it's all standardized on exfat. I'm curious about the file-type too. Is this an issue of your phone saving 'raw' images but you don't have an image editor that can actually render them? I know android phones have started doing weird things with JPEG files and packing VP8 encoded frames inside of them - those don't open nicely in many programs.

Yes, my phone can read the files. My computer can read the files if I do each image individually, but moving a folder of images from the phone to the computer? Nope.

I have somewhat found a workaround. I just get each folder together and compress it into zip and move that and it is fine.....But it is still bugging me that I don't know how to fix this.

Congrats Evn.

[Remilia]

Just be like me and get a boring civic, >.>

[BicycleMafioso]

Unlocked as in, screen unlock rather than carrier unlocked. It always matter when I do it. Otherwise, sensitive information would be a whole lot easier to come by and no one would use a phone if someone else could just borrow it for five minutes and get the entire contents of it.

Also, these cars you speak of, I can actually drive one. Albeit not having the license, because I don't want to sink 1300 into the license, not to mention driving lessons I actually know how to drive. Manual and not automatic. The automatic gear lever modes makes no sense to me and I don't wish to learn it. Too complicated. Yes, I'm a strange person.

[Remilia]

Also, these cars you speak of, I can actually drive one. Albeit not having the license, because I don't want to sink 1300 into the license, not to mention driving lessons I actually know how to drive. Manual and not automatic. The automatic gear lever modes makes no sense to me and I don't wish to learn it. Too complicated. Yes, I'm a strange person.

Let me examine your brain cause that's like... not normal, lol.

[BicycleMafioso]

Let me examine your brain cause that's like... not normal, lol.

Hey, a car is either supposed to be in gear or not. And then it follows logic.
Letters however, I don't even want to know.

[Remilia]

Hey, a car is either supposed to be in gear or not. And then it follows logic.
Letters however, I don't even want to know.

P = Park
R = Reverse
D = Drive
N = Neutral
That's all you need to know D:

[Artorius]

P = Park
R = Reverse
D = Drive
N = Neutral
That's all you need to know D:

Wroooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong.

This is right:



Thanks.

[Alindra]

Another way to look at it: in the future, this debate is going to be moot when machines start driving for us. :P