Geek Stuff category archive

One of my computers died of old age (stuff wears out), so I now have a new toy. It’s my third ThinkPenguin, and they fulfilled my order in a most timely fashion.

It is a very nice piece of hardware, thank you very much. As an aside, I am not a fan of touchpads, but it does have one of most functional touchpads I’ve yet encountered.

I ordered it specifying Ubuntu MATE as the installed distro (ThinkPenguin lets you pick your distro, within reason), but, as I’m not really a big fan of the MATE desktop environment (actually, that’s not quite correct–I really like Plasma, but I don’t like Kubuntu, primarily because I loathe their package manager, so I went with Ubuntu MATE because the guys at Going Linux recommend it and I’ve used it before and it works quite nicely), I’ve already installed the Plasma desktop and am in the process of tweaking it to my preferences.

Eventually, natch, I’ll put Fluxbox on it, because Fluxbox is the ultimate combination of light-weight, configurable, and eye-candiability.

Of course, after I’ve installed Fluxbos, I will still be able to use MATE or Plasma. With Linux, you can have multiple GUIs installed and switch among them as you wish, something you can’t do with Windows or iJunk.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Mitch Abblett explores the seductive power of the algorithm, as it trains us to keep looking at “social” media feeds for the next little thrill. He calls it “nexting.”

Here’s a tiny bit, in which he explains how dopamine turns us into dopes:

Research, such as that reviewed by Taber et al. (2012), has delved into the neural underpinnings of this behavior. The research suggests that the environment cues up anticipation of rewards (through some sensory signal like a smell, an ad, a notice on our phones, even a single word choice) and this activates the brain’s dopamine system, fostering a cycle of habit formation because of the reward this chemical release provides. This neurochemical response explains why “nexting” can become “addictive,” as the brain associates the mental (“I want that” or “If I could just…”) or emotional (i.e., felt urges) or behavioral (e.g., adding unneeded items into your Amazon cart) acts of anticipating with a pleasurable reward.

Follow the link for some suggestions as to how to reclaim your life from the algorithm.

Real life is not a good place for laboratory experiments.

During an Aug. 7 meeting to discuss safety concerns around autonomous vehicles, San Francisco Fire Department Chief Jeanine Nicholson told the commission that her department had already recorded about 55 reports of driverless cars driving dangerously close to first responders, obstructing travel or blocking stations.

“And you might say well, 55, that’s not a lot. Well, if it’s your family, it’s a lot,” Nicholson said. “And for me, it’s not just your family, it’s everybody’s family. I’m responsible for everybody in this city. And so if we don’t get to one person, that’s one person too many that we didn’t get to.”

Afterthought:

Methinks one of the synonyms for “hubris” is “Tech Bro.”

Bad Voltage episode 3×60. It starts with an interesting discussion of “artificial intelligence” and “Large Language Models.”

If you are looking for good tech podcast, Bad Voltage is worth a listen. The podcasters know what they are talking about and they have a sense of humor.

In other geek news, my Zareason Media Box died after many years of faithful service. As Zareason is no longer with us (they were a victim of supply chain issues in the early years of the pandemic), I’ll likely replace it with a ThinkPenguin machine, as my ThinkPenguin laptop works very nicely thank you very much.

I must say, though, I miss Zareason. I’ve had several Zareasons (I’m typing on one now); they did quality work.

This site was broken for a few minutes.

Thanks to the WordPress help pages, I was able to diagnose the problem and put a bandaid on it by disabling one of the plugins from the backend by renaming it in the phpMyAdmin file manager.

Whew!

Emma and the crew find themselves somewhat skeptical of “self-driving” cars because, well, they don’t do what they are promised to do (Warning: Mild language).

. . . And Jim Wright has finally reached his breaking point.

Bruce Scneier comments on the Zoom lens. Read his article, entitled

Zoom Can Spy on Your Calls and Use the Conversation to Train AI, But Says That It Won’t

Aside:

I’ve participated in a few Zoom meetings.

Take it from me, Zoom meetings are not inherently a training ground for intelligence, artificial or otherwise.

Mageia v. 8 with the Fluxbox window manager. KeePassXC, Thunderbird, and Firefox are shaded. Thunderbird and Firefox are joined in a tabbed window (the ability to tab windows is one of the things that keeps me using Fluxbox).

At Above the Law, Joe Patrice reports

. . . researchers have trained an AI to use an iPhone mic to detect and translate the sounds of user keystrokes.