A random thread for small computing things that don't really warrant a thread of their own

[hellymedic]

The hotel wifi in this place in Majorca is MUCH faster than at the place we visited last year and it's FREE, unlike last year.
Which is nice.

[David Martin]

I am on the interview panel for a maths lectureship (I'm the external rep) and all the CV's and cover letters are beautifully typeset in LaTeX. Some with more craft than others. It's like sinking into a comfy 30 year old armchair..

[Mr Larrington]

This place (Pasadena Inn, Pasadena CA) has WIRED internets FTW

[barakta]

I am on the interview panel for a maths lectureship (I'm the external rep) and all the CV's and cover letters are beautifully typeset in LaTeX. Some with more craft than others. It's like sinking into a comfy 30 year old armchair..

Nice!  I haven't done my CV in LaTeX for years but I did get a compliment from a dyslexic interviewer who told me she couldn't normally read serifed fonts but she could read mine, and what the hell was it. I think it was Real Times TM.

[David Martin]

Playing with lemmings on the computer. https://youtu.be/xG-T2_2rPA0 3d reconstruction from photos. Have to redo this one as there are obvious flaws.

[T42]

My AVG was taking longer and longer recently, eventually reaching over 24 hours for a scan. On-line searching yielded nothing better than "if you've got a lot of files...".  Then 2 days back, which much tootling for their trumpet, they did a free upgrade.  Scan times are back to normal now.

So far.

[HTFB]

I know Facebook can identify all 7Bn humans on the planet from blurry mugshots just a few pixels wide, so I shouldn't be surprised that mid-twentyteens OCR with our new printer/scanner works. But it actually does. When did that happen?

Jt u5ecl t( givc 0utyut iii<e tnis, thc last tiine J tnecl dOwe5tic OCP..

[Kim]

I know Facebook can identify all 7Bn humans on the planet from blurry mugshots just a few pixels wide, so I shouldn't be surprised that mid-twentyteens OCR with our new printer/scanner works. But it actually does. When did that happen?

Early noughties IIRC.

In other news, voice recognition is almost usable these days, as long as it's reasonably formal text with proper sentences and things.  It's still shit for spodding, controlling the computer remains a black art, and it can't cope with barakta's speech.

[Mr Larrington]

I told the Ratmobile's voice controlled radio/phone/CD/MP3 wossname to shut up the other day, which it took to mean "Play the album 'Population Four' by the Cranes".  I had to reset both my iPod and the Ratmobile before it would stop.

[ian]

I'm looking forward to being the first person to download macOS today just so I can find something that doesn't work and complain about it on the web. It wasn't like this when uber-dick Steve Jobs was in charge, I'll bleat and tweet.

[Dibdib]

I'm looking forward to being the first person to download macOS today just so I can find something that doesn't work and complain about it on the web. It wasn't like this when uber-dick Steve Jobs was in charge, I'll bleat and tweet.

I don't know if I've just missed it, but have we managed to escape headphonejackgate here completely?

Christmas will be fun, with Little Johnny unwrapping his Shiny! New! Fruitphone! and his only-just-compatible Massive! Overpriced! Beats! headphones...

[Kim]

I don't know if I've just missed it, but have we managed to escape headphonejackgate here completely?

Didn't it get superseded with SillyExpensiveHeadphonesThatPingfuckitOutOfYourEarsGate?


TBH, I don't think it's really a big deal.  Everyone knows that FruitCo customers love buying dongles, and all the other manufacturers have just had their boring ordinary headphone jack become a positive selling point.

[Dibdib]

TBH, I don't think it's really a big deal.

Same here, especially as you get the dongle free with the phone. I'm enjoying reminding rabid Android zealots that the first Android phone (and a bunch of others on the market now) also ditched the 3.5mm port... ;-)

Didn't it get superseded with SillyExpensiveHeadphonesThatPingfuckitOutOfYourEarsGate?

The AirPods, on the other hand, do appear to be a pingfuckit-prone pile of toss. I'll be sticking to my (lovely) Phillips bluetooth noise-cancelling headphones for half the price, thankyewverymuch Apple.

[ian]

Yes, that all seems a fuss about nothing given there's an adaptor in the box. But hey, if a 3.5 mm headphone jack is a big deal, then buy a phone that has one. It's the same with people griping that an iPad doesn't have a SD slot. If it's a big deal, buy one of the many tablets that does.

I'll be sticking with Sennheiser £30ish earbuds anyway, cheap and cheerful. The concept of sticking my headphones on and finding they have no battery left isn't going to make my journeys by Southern Trains any more cheerful.

[Kim]

It's the same with people griping that an iPad doesn't have a SD slot. If it's a big deal, buy one of the many tablets that does.

Not quite, because if you want an IOS tablet, it's got to be an iPad.  Whereas if you want a proper computer with access to the filesystem it's going to have to be something else, which means you don't get to have IOS.  Which is a bit unfortunate for those who've already made half of that decision, but twas ever thus:  Cheap scanners don't always work in Linux.  You can't connect your Garmin to your iThing.  Nobody can find the hash key on a Mac.  You've got to suffer Windows if you want proper Excel.

[Jaded]

I'm sticking to my mega£ custom fitted earplugs as they fit my ears perfectly and exclude almost all other noise. I'll need the dongle, should I upgrade.

[Mr Larrington]

It's the same with people griping that an iPad doesn't have a SD slot. If it's a big deal, buy one of the many tablets that does.

Not quite, because if you want an IOS tablet, it's got to be an iPad.  Whereas if you want a proper computer with access to the filesystem it's going to have to be something else, which means you don't get to have IOS.  Which is a bit unfortunate for those who've already made half of that decision, but twas ever thus:  Cheap scanners don't always work in Linux.  You can't connect your Garmin to your iThing.  Nobody can find the hash key on a Mac.  You've got to suffer Windows if you want proper Excel.

And is there any way I can transfer photos directly from my Olympus camera to my fondleslab?

Why, no!  No, there is not!

[hellymedic]

I bought a Camera Conversion Kit from the fruit people, which meant that my David could connect his Canons to his iFondleslab or feed an SD card into a fruity30pin but he's lost half the kit.

Not quite direct but...

[Kim]

I bought a Camera Conversion Kit from the fruit people

Ah!  So there's a dongle for that!  *makes mental note because that's bound to come in handy*

So you can kinda-sorta do USB OTG on an iThing after all.  Although it doesn't do anything for the lack of filesystem access in IOS, so if you want to do anything other than transfer approved media files to the photo gallery wossname, you're still left wishing you had an Android.

[ian]

I don't think it supports USB per se, just cameras and cards. The iOS file system is a minor or non-existent niggle for most people. For the sort of person who wants to manually copy their photos into a nest of folders, it's probably not the device for them. Every just sticks the photos online these days anyway, nudity, incriminating activities and all. Last couple of holidays I confess the Canon has stayed at home anyway, we just use our phones. One less thing to lug around.

[HTFB]

There's a dongle for that!

Not quite as snappy as the original campaign.

[David Martin]

I wanted to send a movie to a colleague to play on her fondleslab. Not some pirated thing but a movie I had made, on a Mac. Could we work out how to actually do that?

[ian]

I wanted to send a movie to a colleague to play on her fondleslab. Not some pirated thing but a movie I had made, on a Mac. Could we work out how to actually do that?

Put it on YouTube or similar. Copy it directly via iTunes. Email it. Copy it using one the many apps that handles direct transfers, DB, iCloud etc.

It's a bit of a non-problem.

[Wombat]

One's options are somewhat limited if you don't have high speed internet access where you currently are.  Its one of my recurrent whinges, but we shouldn't have to rely on internet access to do something as prosaic as copy a file.  Can't beat a bit of wire...

This lesson is reinforced by a recurrent need to transfer photos when I'm stood in a field in Wales, with no mobile phone signal, let alone internet access.  This situation applies to far more of the country than many city dwellers realise.

My current main camera can transfer directly by wifi to another device, but a series of 85Mb RAWs is going to take a while, just as well the laptop has an SD card slot in it.

I recently video'd a performance of the 1812 overture, complete with real cannons.  Just under 7Gb, I'm not uploading that!

[Kim]

I don't think it supports USB per se, just cameras and cards. The iOS file system is a minor or non-existent niggle for most people. For the sort of person who wants to manually copy their photos into a nest of folders, it's probably not the device for them.

This is true.  Most people just use fondleslabs as media-playing devices and Facebook access terminals.

Not having access to the filesystem grates as soon as you want to carry more arbitrary kinds of data around with you.  I know I'm not a typical user, but I tend to have reference materials and copies of things I've been working on to hand.  PDFs, HTML trees, arbitrary text files, sometimes even source code.  And of course touring cyclists might reasonably want to manipulate GPX files in the (literal) field without internet access.

Thankfully, Google have cottoned onto this, and the latest revision to the Android security model gives you an exciting new annoying hoop to jump through when doing this sort of thing, breaking various useful apps (so you can't SFTP things directly to an SD card any more, for example).  Bastards.