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captain_aggravated

@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works

Linux gamer, retired aviator, profanity enthusiast

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captain_aggravated ,
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Of all the things that should decimate call centers...

captain_aggravated ,
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Been ready since before Win 10 was announced. I went 100% Linux 10 years ago.

captain_aggravated ,
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Flight instructor here.

I've seen autopilot systems that have basically every level of complexity you can imagine. A lot of Cessna 172s were equipped with a single axis autopilot that can only control the ailerons and can only maintain wings level. Others have control of the elevators and can do things like altitude hold, or ascend/descend at a given rate. More modern ones have control of all three axes and integration with the attitude instruments, and can do things like climb to an altitude and level off, turn to a heading and stop, or even something like fly a holding pattern over a fix. They still often don't have any control over the power plant, and small aircraft typically cannot land themselves, but there are autopilots installed in piston singles that can fly an approach to minimums.

And that's what's available on piston singles; airline pilots seldom fly the aircraft by hand anymore.

captain_aggravated ,
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Flight instructor here. The flying and driving environments are quite different, and what you need an "autodriver" to do is a bit different from an "autopilot."

In a plane, you have to worry a lot more about your attitude, aka which way is up. This is the first thing we practice in flight school with 0-hour students, just flying straight ahead and keeping the airplane upright. This can be a challenge to do in low visibility environments such as in fog or clouds, or even at night in some circumstances, and your inner ears are compulsive liars the second you leave the ground, so you rely on your instruments when you can't see, especially gyroscopic instruments such as an attitude indicator. This is largely what an autopilot takes over for from the human pilot, to relieve him of that constant low-level task to concentrate on other things.

Cars don't have to worry about this so much; for normal highway driving any situation other than "all four wheels in contact with the road" is likely an unrecoverable emergency.

Navigation in a plane means keeping track of your position in 3D space relative to features on the Earth's surface. What airspace are you in, what features on the ground are you flying over, where is the airport, where's that really tall TV tower that's around here? Important for finding your way back to the airport, preventing flight into terrain or obstacles, and keeping out of legal trouble. This can be accomplished with a variety of ways, many of which can integrate with an autopilot. Modern glass cockpit systems with fully integrated avionics can automate the navigation process as well, you can program in a course and the airplane can fly that course by itself, if appropriately equipped.

Navigation for cars is two separate problems; there's the big picture question of "which road am I on? Do I take the next right? Where's my exit?" which is a task that requires varying levels of precision from "you're within this two mile stretch of road" to "you're ten feet from the intersection." And there's the small picture question of "are we centered in the traffic lane?" which can have a required precision of inches. These are two different processes.

Anticollision, aka not crashing into other planes, is largely a procedural thing. We have certain best practices such as "eastbound traffic under IFR rules fly on the odd thousands, westbound traffic flies on the even thousands" so that oncoming traffic should be a thousand feet above or below you, that sort of thing, plus established traffic patterns and other standard or published routes of flight for high traffic areas. Under VFR conditions, pilots are expected to see and avoid each other. Under IFR conditions, that's what air traffic control is for, who use a variety of techniques to sequence traffic to make sure no one is in the same place at the same altitude at the same time, anything from carefully keeping track of who is where to using radar systems, and increasingly a thing called ADS-B. There are also systems such as TCAS which are aircraft carried traffic detection electronics. Airplanes are kept fairly far apart via careful sequencing. There's also not all that much else up there, not many pedestrians or cyclists thousands of feet in the air, wildlife and such can be a hazard but mostly during the departure and arrival phases of flight while relatively low. This is largely a human task; autopilots don't respond to air traffic control and many don't integrate with TCAS or ADS-B, this is the pilot's job.

Cars are expected to whiz along mere inches apart via see and avoid. There is no equivalent to ATC on the roads, cars aren't generally equipped with communication equipment beyond a couple blinking lights, and any kind of automated beacon for electronic detection absolutely is not the standard. Where roads cross at the same level some traffic control method such as traffic lights are used for some semblance of sequencing but in all conditions it requires visual see-and-avoid. Pedestrians, cyclists, wildlife and debris are constant collision threats during all phases of driving; deer bound across interstates all the time. This is very much a visual job, hell I'm not sure it could be done entirely with radar, it likely requires optical sensors/cameras. It's also a lot more of the second-to-second workload of the driver. I honestly don't see this task being fully automated with roads the way they are.

captain_aggravated ,
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What's the solution to malware and virus?

There are anti-malware packages for Linux. I generally haven't felt the need to use one on a desktop. You're the biggest security risk to your PC; don't go to shady websites, don't download anything suspicious, etc. Your email provider will run a virus scan on email attachments for you (if they don't, get a new email provider).

On basically all Linux systems, software is installed from central repositories, basically the app store model. Packages are cryptologically signed to verify their source, it's a lot safer than the Windows model of "just download and run a .exe from the vendor's website."

The old argument of "no one runs Linux so no one writes Linux viruses" doesn't completely hold up to scrutiny, but on the other hand a lot of attacks that would be meaningful to desktop users are indeed written with Windows in mind; malware you'd run on Linux tends to target server applications that you probably won't run.

All the options and sub-options for installing and managing things feels so daunting!

This will become less of a problem with time as you become accustomed to the Linux ecosystem and discover the native ways to do things. On a system like Linux Mint, there's a thing called the Software Manager which provides an App Store like interface for finding software from both the standard repository and from Flatpak/Flathub. You may find that there are options from both, what I tend to do is just try them both and keep the one that is more functional for me. Give it a try in a virtual machine or from a liveUSB to see what I mean.

Microsoft does things like have Windows fuck up the bootloader on purpose so they scare you into not trying to take ownership of the computer you bought so they can keep abusing you. If you're too scared to break your main computer that you rely on, maybe go to Goodwill or eBay and pick up a cheap old used computer to experiment with. Grab an old laptop or something. I learned a lot about Linux using Raspberry Pis, which I didn't rely on for anything so it might have been inconvenient if I broke anything but not mission critical, I could just re-flash the OS and be on my way, though these days it's probably easier to just pick up an old used machine and maybe stick a cheap SSD in it. That freedom of "this isn't a precious machine to me, if I kill the OS I can just reinstall it" makes you more willing to try learning things.

captain_aggravated ,
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Everything has worsened, Leatherman isn't the company it used to be either.

captain_aggravated ,
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One other fairly important detail in that 99% off the shelf parts 1% copyrighted BIOS: IBM contracted with Microsoft for the operating system, PC-DOS. And for some reason this deal was non-exclusive, so if someone else built compatible hardware, you could just buy a copy from Microsoft without the IBM branding on it and it'll run. Which is exactly what Eagle, and then Compaq, did.

captain_aggravated ,
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When it comes to line breaks on Lemmy, one is none, two is one.

captain_aggravated ,
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Yeah I'm pretty sure PC standing for Personal Computer was at one point a trademark of IBM. The IBM 5150 PC launched into a world full of different and incompatible microcomputers, even those that shared processors weren't software compatible with each other. Hell, one of the things that sank Commodore was nearly none of their own machines were compatible with each other; most code written for a VIC20 wouldn't run on a C64, etc.

It was IBM designing a machine from off the shelf components, buying an OS from Microsoft, and relying only on the copyright on the BIOS to keep the machine proprietary that led to their ubiquity even 40 years later. Compaq wrote a non-infringing BIOS and was able to put to market a machine compatible with the PC's software library. And now, for the first time in microcomputer history, you had a de facto industry standard. Build an 8086 machine with ISA slots, write or license a BIOS that MS-DOS can talk to, and now you too can run that growing software library.

This was not a decision anyone made. The 8086 was quite literally slapped together because the engineers didn't think it was going to be much of a big deal, IBM didn't set out to create a standard that would stand for decades after they gave up all involvement with it. The modern x86 PC was metastasized as much as it was designed.

captain_aggravated ,
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S10e owner here, still running the stock Android. The display looks factory fresh. Battery is slightly tired but still quite functional, I just wish they'd keep sending updates.

captain_aggravated ,
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also his name probably isn't Sue.

captain_aggravated ,
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So I just learned this mere seconds ago messing around in the terminal because of this thread. You know toilet the big text program in the terminal that does kind of ascii art text? A major difference between it and figletis it can do colors, and there are two color presets guaranteed to be available. Try toilet "hello there" --gay

captain_aggravated ,
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To turn on your new space heater, open a terminal and type dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/null

captain_aggravated ,
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Again it might be that I pretty much don't play competitive online games because if there's anything that ruins gaming it's random strangers, but I have had practically no problem playing games over the last ten years.

captain_aggravated ,
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Universe was the Sci-Fi SyFy channel seeing Battlestar Galactica's success and demanding a "grimmer, darker Stargate show." It sucks pink eye.

captain_aggravated ,
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So here's the thing about Stargate canon:

There was the movie. Roland Emmerich planned to make a couple of sequels turning it into a trilogy, but that never happened. Bill McCay wrote a short series of novels based on the premise of those sequels through the late 90's.

The TV series Stargate SG-1 treats the movie as like 96.7% canon. There are some very minor things directly retconned, for example in the movie the nameless planet they go to is said to be in the "Kaliem galaxy" where in the show the same place is named Abydos and is located in the Milky Way galaxy, but beyond a few details like that it is treated as established fact.

TV show picks up from where the movie left off, then takes a 27° right turn and heads off in its own direction compared to where the books went. It kind of feels like the writers were given nothing but the theatrical cut of the movie to study with no other context or creators' notes or anything, and then told to make a TV show out of it. And then they did a very good job with this assignment.

You know how some shows have a first season problem? Like, Babylon 5's first season is a little rough and it really gets good in Season 2, or how you should introduce someone to Star Trek TNG at Season 3? SG-1 has some early installment weirdness in the first six episodes or so but they're watchable, and then by mid-season 1 it finds its groove.

captain_aggravated ,
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I don't think SG-1 started off as rough as, say, Star Trek TNG did. They were making overall good television even in the first episode of SG-1.

The first two seasons especially had the Torchwood problem of trying to be very emphatically a show for adults, which is why there's that infamous full frontal scene in the pilot episode. I think they realized that there's money in syndication on basic cable so they produced most of the rest of the show to kind of a PG rating which stabilized the tone.

captain_aggravated ,
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Tesla's cruise control that steers sometimes is basically the opposite of those radar activated brakes some cars have.

Some cars will detect a potential collision and will apply the brakes, possibly before the driver (who is in full control of the vehicle) might react, averting the collision entirely or reducing the energy of the collision. It errs on the side of caution slightly more than the driver does, and will take control of the vehicle pretty much only to bring it to a stop.

Teslas intend to take full control of normal operation, expecting the driver to watch out for unsafe conditions that either the driving environment or the car itself create, and then take control in time to avert an accident. Drivers aren't trained for this. This isn't how the system is marketed. This shouldn't be legal on our roads.

captain_aggravated ,
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I'm referring to whatever the hell is in the videos I've seen of Teslas accelerating toward pedestrians. My '03 Chevy hasn't made that decision once in a quarter million miles of driving.

captain_aggravated ,
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I gave a keyboard wrist rest a 3 star review because the pad is this weird shape that gets narrower in the middle. From the images on Amazon, it looked like it was more or less rectangular. Rounded ends but with a consistent width throughout. The seller started harassing me to change my review to 5 stars. I reported them to Amazon. The emails from the seller stopped, I haven't bought something from Amazon since.

Sellers that demand or worse make up 5-star reviews are the ones who sell shitgarbage products and need to go out of business. Seeing 6 5-star reviews that all say "Great product! Would purchase again!" pretty much means the product will give you glans cancer and the doctors are going to have to cut off all the nerves that make it possible to orgasm.

I want to see a product get negative reviews by idiots. That's how you know the product is good and the source is genuine.

Give an example: I bought a little inverter that works with my power tool batteries. It can deliver 110V60Hz AC at 150W from a drill battery, plus it has USB ports. I've run a desk lamp from this during a power failure, or charged my cell phone. Works fine. I knew it was legit when I read people's reviews saying "Doesn't run my hair dryer. 0/10." Because there's plenty of idiots in the world who don't know how electricity works.

captain_aggravated ,
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Which...fine. Don't build your business on a faulty model.

captain_aggravated ,
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5 star reviews are mostly worthless, they have a strong likelihood of being fake, or for people who only ever post 5 or 1 star reviews. A product with fewer 5 star than 3 star reviews will likely make me shy away, if for no other reason than the dissenters are drowning out whoever the vendor hired to fake reviews for them. That's noteworthy.

4 star reviews are more worth reading. There is a set of folks who thinks 5 stars should be reserved for extremely good exceeded expectations, and merely "as expected" should not get top marks. These are more likely written by people who bought the product and care about what they're talking about.

3 star reviews will have actual good consumer information in them. "I was looking for a box to hold my Shark Model no. 24352097ASDF0872RSD vacuum cleaner accessories in, and this box does okay but the wide brush attachment thing doesn't fit anywhere." Okay, if I have that model of Shark, I know this might not be the box to buy for my vacuum accessories. It's not that the box is a bad box, it's just this isn't the correct use case. Thanks fellow citizen!

2 star reviews are almost never written because you seldom dissatisfy a customer below the middle of the scale without completely pissing them off.

1 star reviews come in a wondrous variety. Anything from "product never arrived" which you're warned is wrong to leave in the product review because so many of these platforms are designed to separate the product, seller and delivery service for maximum customer violation, but okay. You'll get "Product wasn't as advertised at all, ordered a coffee grinder got a salad shooter" which can sometimes happen when dropshippers misuse the listing sub-options menus. You know how if you order a T-shirt from Amazon you get one listing on which you select size and color from drop down menus? Or Duct tape: 1 pack, 2 pack, 5 pack? I've seen sellers who probably don't speak English as a primary language market completely different products like this, which leads to dumb shit like reviews for several different items mixed together. If I see a lot of 1 star reviews, and many of them are "soldering iron did a terrible job curling my hair" I take that as a good sign, because the seller feels legitimate enough to let those remain up. Illegitimate sellers can't tolerate low review scores and will try to have them removed or hidden. Or, you see a pattern of "flashlight power button quit working after 3 months" in which case you know to legitimately avoid this flashlight because it legitimately isn't well made.

captain_aggravated ,
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Sounds about right for James Hetfield. When off stage the dude is one of those Mossy Oak weirdos.

captain_aggravated ,
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One is not about the horrors of war, Mr. Hetfield? The song you wrote with lyrics that include

Landmine has taken my speech,
taken my sight, taken my hearing
taken my arms, taken my legs
taken my soul
Left me with life in hell

I guess it was one of those civilian peacetime landmines?

captain_aggravated ,
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Not too long ago it came to public attention that there were a lot of Republicans listening to Rage Against The Machine. Which is hilarious.

They don't seem to consider what anything means as long as it sounds white enough and has an angry enough tone.

captain_aggravated ,
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As if life would just give you lemons.

captain_aggravated ,
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Wasn't there one guy who ate a stupid amount of microwave popcorn a day who actually got popcorn lung from the consumer side, but yeah it's mostly factory worker?

captain_aggravated ,
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In this context, it means to coat the cast iron with oil and/or fat and heat it until the oils polymerize as a thin film stuck to the surface of the pan. This prevents the cast iron from rusting and presents a non-stick surface. It's honestly more like varnishing the pan than "seasoning" it.

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    captain_aggravated ,
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    There's not much in SteamOS that isn't available to the rest of the ecosystem.

    captain_aggravated ,
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    Playing with a Raspberry Pi inside my own home network with nothing important going on and I turned the Pi off when I'm done. Like why worry about it at that point?

    captain_aggravated ,
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    I was in the penumbra, and around here I would say the entire event took an hour and a half, from "any of the sun at all is covered" to "none of the sun at all is covered." I'm sure our local solar panels did dip in output, probably to the point of producing no useful power for several minutes as it got noticeably darker.

    captain_aggravated ,
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    This is why I like a neutral riding position with the pegs below my hips, I can stand out of the saddle and let the bike bump over whatever. Cruisers with the pegs too forward to stand on, or crotch rockets where you're doing a pushup anyway, don't easily allow for that.

    captain_aggravated ,
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    I've been a Linux Mint guy for the last ten years.

    By default, the Menu is able to explore the file system. I turn that off. I want that for launching applications. I use Nemo, the file manager, for browsing and opening files.

    captain_aggravated ,
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    Thing is, I think Microsoft has a vested interest/legal responsibility to their shareholders to make sure the Windows Store is as constipated as possible.

    They can't have Firefox or Chrome in there, they have to push their browser, Edge, because their shareholders will sue them if they facilitate installing someone else's spyware instead of their own. They don't put old versions of Solitaire or FreeCell in there, because the new ones run ads. Third parties are either as evil as Microsoft, or they won't touch their store with a barge pole.

    So what's in the Microsoft store? Office, Minecraft Bedrock Edition, and a bunch of worthless crap you've never heard of.

    captain_aggravated ,
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    Does anyone else wonder which medication Steve Ballmer was prescribed but didn't take? He always struck me as a walking check engine light.

    captain_aggravated ,
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    Oh was he an alcoholic? See I got more cocaine vibes out of the man.

    captain_aggravated ,
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    looks at stack of back up hard drives physically unplugged on the shelf

    k.

    captain_aggravated ,
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    It should be Windows's Subsystem for Linux.

    A better acronym might be Windows' Linux Subsystem.

    captain_aggravated ,
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    Does Merkuro mean something in another language? Like Krita means Crayon in...Swedish? Norwegian? Scandahoovian? And for some reason they didn't call it Krayon?

    captain_aggravated ,
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    I bought a commercial TV, you might see them sold as "sigital signage." it is my last "television".

    captain_aggravated ,
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    Quick off the top of your head, what's a third of 9.5mm?

    captain_aggravated ,
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    Well I'm building a table right now, and it was pretty easy to choose a size for a mortise and tenon in my 3/4" stock, a third of 3/4" is 1/4". If I wanted half its width, that's 3/8". Mental math is a lot easier than "What's a third of 19mm." In the wood shop, I rarely have to divide things by five or ten. I have to divide things by two, three and four a lot.

    captain_aggravated ,
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    You know what really gets me about these threads? Everybody being like "Can you believe Americans are stupid enough to comprehend fractions? I'm too smart to comprehend fractions."

    captain_aggravated ,
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    I'm building a shaker table out of white oak. I milled all my stock to 3/4" thickness.

    Just today, I resawed a board to 3/8", or half its original thickness. I glued two boards together to make 3/2" (1 1/2") thick table legs, and I cut mortises 1/3 the thickness of the stock, or a nice even 1/4".

    I'm familiar with the metric system, I learned chemistry and physics in metric. I prefer woodworking in fractional inches because metric seems like a bigger pain in the ass

    captain_aggravated ,
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    Wait a hectosecond.

    captain_aggravated ,
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    Although the Panama canal is a problem too, because Gatun lake is running low. Every cycle of the locks loses a tremendous amount of water.

    captain_aggravated ,
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    My solution is: They've got those big ponds where they can somewhat reuse some of the water. Practical Engineering has a video on it (That's the channel with that guy, Grady, right?) Okay, cover those with solar panels. 1: Less evaporation from there because the panels will block the sun and keep them cooler. 2: energy to run some pumps to at least partially pump some water uphill so less is lost when lowering the outermost locks.

    The big brain am winning again. I am the greetest! Now all we need is the umpty frillion dollars to build it.

    captain_aggravated ,
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    Run this on Adult Swim and I'll consider watching it.

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