Search results

  1. J

    dSLR thread

    Well, for video that makes sense. All that AI stuff can't be done well in real-time if you're shooting 60 or more fps. I know a larger sensor with the same number of pixels is better than a smaller sensor just from a pure light-gathering perspective. Obviously if I got more into photography I'd...
  2. J

    dSLR thread

    I'm not getting your point. I assume the pixel size is large enough that having more megapixels still adds to image quality. If not, why not just use fewer megapixels? What's better about larger pixels, other than maybe more light-gathering ability? Also, as far as I know, there are no...
  3. J

    dSLR thread

    Here's a $200 phone with a 50 MP camera: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/motorola-200-android-phone-looks-142613366.html
  4. J

    Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

    Been dealing with this since my late 20s at least, possibly longer. In part I blame it on the group punishment teachers used to give classes. I often had to write "I must not talk in class" 1,000 times in grade school because a few rowdy kids did. In any case by my late 20s working full-time was...
  5. J

    Something Random

    Did that multiple times. It worked in that it stopped one collection company from hounding me, only to be bothered by another a few years later. I'm pretty sure all these fees are illegal and wouldn't hold up in court anyway. I also noted the collection efforts got a lot more aggressive under...
  6. J

    Something Random

    Add in the cost of insurance and it gets even worse. Average cost of car ownership in the US is around $10K annually. For comparison purposes the grand total of all my expenses ( utilities, real estate taxes, home insurance, food, clothing ) is less than $20K. A car would basically increase my...
  7. J

    Something Random

    No, I never even had a driver's license. Not about to get one at 61 years old, either. I already mentioned I get car sick on all but the shortest trips, so car isn't a viable mode of transport for me. At all. Plus I have severe CTS. I just can't physically drive. Train is really the only viable...
  8. J

    Windows 11

    I didn't get my first PC until 1998 when I was 36. It was a used 386-33. After that it was progression of faster hand-me down machines. I basically went from the 386/DOS era to XP in the span of about a decade. I learned a lot. It was a hobby to me at the time. I don't regret it, either. I got...
  9. J

    Something Random

    I never owned a car or had a license. I'd be flat broke now if I had. My feet or my bike serve most of my transportation needs. Failing that, there's the subway, commuter railroads, and Amtrak. Keep in mind for about the last 12 years until my mother passed away going out beyond short local bike...
  10. J

    Something Random

    The batteries not lasting is nonsense. The numbers show otherwise. Once we move 100% towards LFP and sodium-ion the battery life will be even longer, probably many decades. Have you seen the prices of used cars lately? I'm glad I never needed to own a vehicle. I couldn't afford it, even a used one.
  11. J

    Something Random

    I think they're both ugly but my point is some people are broke and just don't have $40K to spend on a car. That's the market for these, not people who are doing better and don't mind spending a king's ransom on a car.
  12. J

    Something Random

    First off, that's right-wing FUD which I'm surprised you believe. The real-world experience is much different. Second, LiFePO4 lasts MUCH longer than regular li-ion. Calendar life can exceed 20 years, and they're good for 2,000+ charge cycles. They also don't explode or catch fire. They're...
  13. J

    Something Random

    I don't know. Their $10K EV is getting good reviews: https://www.fastcompany.com/91137050/china-is-awash-in-10000-evs-importing-them-could-have-changed-everything Granted, I think it's fugly but then I hate SUVs and crossovers with a passion. They look like giant roller skates. Something like...
  14. J

    Something Random

    I'm honestly shocked you get that kind of range at that speed. Yeah, they intentionally make things painful for cars in the Netherlands but the cities are much more livable as a result. It's a cycling mecca from what I hear about it. I didn't know they take your car for doing twice the limit...
  15. J

    Something Random

    Just a few more random thoughts on this: 1) I'm sure range anxiety is a thing but on the flip side I've read 99% of car trips are less than 40 miles. To a large extent people focus on worst-case scenarios. A guy on CPF who was a big proponent of EVs had this to say about range anxiety: "You...
  16. J

    Something Random

    To me people are making too big a thing of this. It's just another transition, the way we went from CRTs to flat screens, incandescents to LEDs, HDDs to SSDs, and so forth. By the time you might be in the market for another vehicle, there won't be any real downsides to an EV. Even now there...
  17. J

    Something Random

    The thing is once you have, say, 25% adoption of EVs, that will be enough to put a lot of gas stations out of business. Gas stations are a marginal business. They'll either have to add fast-charging stations to make up for the loss in gas sales, or fold. Enough will fold that it'll probably be a...
  18. J

    Something Random

    For now. If his dream of colonizing Mars ever comes to pass I can picture him being a real-life Cohaagen.
  19. J

    Windows 11

    Maybe. I know I didn't use '95 for long. As soon as I got a free copy of '98 I used that. Yeah, I got '98 up to 768MB on a 440BX. Can't be 100% sure about 1GB. If I tried that it would have been on my Athlon XP 3200 system (I think it was a Soyo M/B-Merc sent it to me with the CPU c. 2006)...
  20. J

    Windows 11

    Not sure of the exact reason but I think it may have had to do with not getting a "free" version from someone. I was broke at the time. My PCs were hand-me-downs. I couldn't afford another $100 or more for the O/S. So that basically means max out those two slots with the largest available...
  21. J

    Windows 11

    Keep in mind by the time I got a PC fast enough for '95 or '98 it was already in the mid 2000s. I could max out the RAM on those systems for maybe $100. Yes, back in the day you would probably be looking at $1K or more to do the same.
  22. J

    Something Random

    For a lot of people who started out in the 386/486 days, even a Pentium with Windows 98 is a "new" computer. Thankfully before the pandemic the idiot who kept bothering me about upgrading his 386 finally gave up. He used to get hand-me down video cards, RAM, and other stuff, and asked me if I...
  23. J

    Windows 11

    Sort of what I always do. At the time I built my present PC, 8 GB was probably enough but I put in 16 just to have a margin. A few years ago I went to 32 because it got cheap enough. A few times I had nearly maxed out the 16. I stopped using page files with Windows 95. Never looked back. Not...
  24. J

    dSLR thread

    For my purposes it's fine. It can take 12MP images, which is plenty for what I do. And the macro feature works great. Here I zoomed in on a quarter: Here's another of one of my circuit boards: I can easily resolve details to about 0.001" (i.e. the wider track is 0.025" for comparison...
  25. J

    dSLR thread

    I just checked the camera (Panasonic DMC-ZS7) I'm using now out of curiosity. I couldn't even find an option for RAW. Anyway, there's a very practical reason people save as JPGs. Before we had multi-gigabyte cards, you might get a few hundred JPGs on your card, but maybe only a dozen or two RAW...
  26. J

    Heat management: Water Cooling in an Apartment?

    I do but no central HVAC. The house was built in 1952.
  27. J

    Heat management: Water Cooling in an Apartment?

    Buildings have had central heat for probably well over a century. Heat is easier than A/C. No ductwork, just pipes and radiators. Central A/C started being a thing in office buildings first. Even now, a lot of relatively new residential buildings don't have it. You have cutouts in the wall for...
  28. J

    Heat management: Water Cooling in an Apartment?

    Yes, that's the model NYC is starting to install in housing projects. Believe or not some of the buildings were still using coal furnaces for winter heating.
  29. J

    Heat management: Water Cooling in an Apartment?

    Here in the typical hot, humid NYC summers they would be completely useless. The humidity is often already 90%. Can't add much more moisture to it. Me neither. So far with the much improved attic insulation I've gotten just about halfway into June without needing the A/C. There were only a few...
  30. J

    Windows 11

    Nope. Never edited video before. I'm thinking it might be something interesting to do in the near future.
  31. J

    Windows 11

    Is Pinnacle Studio worthwhile for editing videos? Right now I have nothing. Might be worth it getting the bundle just for that alone.
  32. J

    Here is a thread to talk about gaming

    Can't be any worse than the Deathsquitos in my yard right now. I get swarmed every time I go back there.
  33. J

    Here is a thread to talk about gaming

    I'm into simulators. Mostly train simulators, but flight simulators can be fun also.
  34. J

    Something Random

    I wouldn't expect it to be readable in 2,000 years. It would simply be an artifact of the times, like a spear tip is. In other news from 4,000 AD, Elon Musk is sending probes into intergalactic space. Yes, the research he funded in the 21st century to extend life was successful, and he's still...
  35. J

    Something Random

    Ironically their CDs are starting to become collector's items: https://www.ebay.com/itm/304346527642 I actually find this disturbing on a number of levels. People used to throw these things in the microwave for fun. If they're starting to get rare enough to be worth anything, then that means...
  36. J

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Every cat I've ever had would definitely be chasing that.
  37. J

    Something Random

    I haven't bought gifts for anyone in ages. Both my siblings fall into the category Merc describes. My mother wasn't herself for the last decade of her life, so gifts would have been pointless. She would have lost them or threw them in a closet. The only gift I've given for like the last ten...
  38. J

    Ryzen

    Also, NPUs might be able to supplement an iGPU. My understanding is they're designed for massively parallel calculations similar to a GPU, but for less than 64-bit or 32-bit math. Any graphics calculations that don't need 32-bit precision could probably take advantage of an NPU.
  39. J

    Video Cards

    Tell the repairman about RS-24. It's a drop-in replacement for R-12, which is getting ever harder to find, and more expensive, as they haven't made it in many years.
  40. J

    Mech keyboards

    My mother and sister both had the carpal tunnel release operation. It's not a permanent solution for everyone. Often, it comes back after a while, although maybe not as severely. I haven't had medical insurance since I was kicked off my parent's plan in college, so I haven't even had the...
  41. J

    Mech keyboards

    I've had it badly since my late 20s, to the point I was no longer able to work full-time from that point on. It runs in the family. My mother had it, my sister has it. I think my maternal grandmother may have had it also.
  42. J

    Need a Decent Phone

    I don't think so. One of two things will happen, maybe both. One, it will act as a Faraday cage, which is almost a certainty. Two, it'll start heating up when absorbing the output from the wireless charger, similar to an induction stove. As for carbon, consider they use it on bikes. By...
  43. J

    Something Random

    Which thread? I'd gladly post in it instead of here but I don't know which thread you're talking about.
  44. J

    Video Cards

    They should wait forever. Tariffs just hurt the common person. Lots of these products subject to tariffs are mostly made in China and won't be made in the US in the foreseeable future. The tariffs on EVs especially irk me. I want BYD to flood the US market with sub-$10K EVs to light a fire under...
  45. J

    Something Random

    I wish he had this judge when sentencing time comes: https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/b95d9252-7879-4c65-90a7-f564ed00fa5a
  46. J

    Something Random

    Sadly, people get the leaders they deserve. I saw firsthand during covid how ignorant and selfish a large part of the population is. This is Trump's base. He has the kind of momentum he does because these people want to be him. They want to get their way regardless of how it hurts others. We saw...
  47. J

    Something Random

    For a while after I switched to Verizon I was only getting ~100Mbps speeds, but around 400 to 500 Mbps when using devices with wifi. I didn't know why since I had connected the router to the 1Gb Ethernet port on my PC. I forgot exactly what I did, but it may have been a setting to get the port...
  48. J

    Something Random

    I hear you. Honestly, I wouldn't want to put a bunch of work or money into a place I don't own, either. I was suggesting your landlady pay for it, given it would make the place more attractive, as well as save energy. Where you are you obviously don't have to worry about heating given the...
  49. J

    Hard Drive Recommendations

    I think it depends on what you get. The very fast SSDs get hot. Heat is the enemy of all electronics. For me even the slowest SSD is worlds faster than any HDD. The thing here is HDDs are one bump away from data loss. Maybe I accidentally bump into my PC case. Now I'm looking at replacing the...
  50. J

    Hard Drive Recommendations

    Honestly, even new HDDs give me pause these days. The bit density has gotten way too high. If any one part of the drive fails, you lose data. I trust stored bits on a chip, instead of bits of rust spinning at thousands of times per minute, a lot more. The last HDD I purchased was a 2TB, 5400 RPM...
Top