[Racer X 69]

You seem not to know the expression “blew a gasket” meaning “got very angry”.

Oh I know, but it went right over my head, sorry, eh?

[Racer X 69]

Been a while. I've been stuck in astrophotography land! I was looking for replacement cables for some of my astronomy cables and I think a review by Racer may have saved me from getting one brand of them!

Ohh, and where I live is a frozen hell.

Oh yeah, welcome back to the clubhouse Scotty.

Been a while.

[Racer X 69]

Also Sunday at the library we used a Live Hocir.

Actually I should be upfront and post the original, unedited version of the Live HociR.

[eddie1960]

I have had three mobile phones. First a basic Samsung. They annoyed me with poor customer service during warranty. So I will not buy any other Samsung product. Then an HTC my daughter got for MrsTim who declined the gift because it did not have a picture of a certain fruit on it. Then it got old, 6 years or so, and I got one with a picture of the famous fruit on it.

But I have never owned a computer. I have always been able to use my work one, for which I have administrator access so I can install stuff.

I have had various and sundry phones, until i left the industry they all came free from service providers (from a monster original Motorola flip in 1996 that i had 3 batteries to make it through the workday lol, to my final free one a blackberry. I have had 1 apple phone (stolen) 1 sony (horrible but cheap) and the last 2 have been Samsung (the current one is an s20 ultra.) my current job is paying the phone bill but I had to provide the phone. fair enough the bill adds up fast . Computers my first was in the 80s with dual 5.25 floppies and a green screen, before hard drives. spent over three decades using windows machines (and still do since my work one is windows) but I made the jump to Appl with a fully tricked out new macbook Pro , i should have switched years ago

[StiffLegged]

I have actually never owned a cell phone of my own; every phone I have ever had has been supplied by my employer. That is about to change when I retire....

Just remember there's a difference between the more budget-conscious models and cheap junk. My employer currently supplies me with an old model iPhone which works well (budget-conscious) while my beloved has a Nokia 2.4 (iirc) which is woefully slow and locks up for half a minute or more when asked to do something complex like read texts (really cheap junk). Your mileage may vary, but ours is as stated.

Computers? I assemble my own from the components* and avow SSDs are the most wonderful development ever.

(*obviously they aren't Macs...)

[VoiceOfReason]

Was that on Cloudy Nights?

I haven't been there in ages.

Not me.

I'll have to look it up later, but most places I am Racer X 69, usually with spaces. A couple places the number changes, and one Datsun forum it is just Racer X, with a space.

I'm RacerX6948 on Flickr.

Also, the most I've done with astrophotography has been wide field with my Pentax DSLR cameras.

The use of the CCD gear intrigues me, but I haven't had time to learn enough about it to buy equipment yet.

Maybe after I retire, eh?

When I'll have tons of time to work on my cars and fix up the house (it's nearly 15 years since I built it!), do more photography, and ............

Oh, wait, there's the honeydew Mrs. Racer has.

Never mind.

Get the gear, just don't tell Mrs. Racer what it cost! You can automate a lot of it too.

[tim60]

Just remember there's a difference between the more budget-conscious models and cheap junk. My employer currently supplies me with an old model iPhone which works well (budget-conscious) while my beloved has a Nokia 2.4 (iirc) which is woefully slow and locks up for half a minute or more when asked to do something complex like read texts (really cheap junk). Your mileage may vary, but ours is as stated.

Computers? I assemble my own from the components* and avow SSDs are the most wonderful development ever.

(*obviously they aren't Macs...)

There is a big market here for traded in phones. My daughter who was working at an NHS place, not for NHS, had her own iPhone10 bought outright. One of the NHS staff was really excited about a pending new issue iPhone5, relived. She was shocked but gradually came to realise that attitude to assets permeated the entire organisation. Sometimes the desktop computer would take 20 minutes to get through logon. Probably a machine the recycler paid them to take away because it was so ancient.

False economy.

[eddie1960]

There is a big market here for traded in phones. My daughter who was working at an NHS place, not for NHS, had her own iPhone10 bought outright. One of the NHS staff was really excited about a pending new issue iPhone5, relived. She was shocked but gradually came to realise that attitude to assets permeated the entire organisation. Sometimes the desktop computer would take 20 minutes to get through logon. Probably a machine the recycler paid them to take away because it was so ancient.

False economy.

It is crazy how that works, when I started where I am we had no IT person, the director of finance just outsourced it on a really low budget, and the building was filled with computers just like that - 7 years, a new Director of Finance and 3 IT people later and there is nothing in the complex that old or bad, in fact the pandemic put decent laptops in most hands so they could work from home. we are still stuck with copiers the previous director signed a ridiculous long lease on 2 months before he left (speculation is there was a retirement backhander from the copier guy ...

[tim60]

Where I work they provided old desktops that were as slow as a stagecoach bus driver which could not be moved anywhere. A few people had laptops enabling work at multiple places, I had one. When the lockdowns began many people were expected to use personal equipment to work from home. Gradually they have been increasing laptops so most people have laptops now, supplied by the employer. I got a replacement because the old laptop, which was 5 years old started to have many faults and had some parts, like the tracker pad physically broken, the fasteners were not Racer Specials and actually let go resulting in the pad nearly popping out of the laptop.

[eddie1960]

Where I work they provided old desktops that were as slow as a stagecoach bus driver which could not be moved anywhere. A few people had laptops enabling work at multiple places, I had one. When the lockdowns began many people were expected to use personal equipment to work from home. Gradually they have been increasing laptops so most people have laptops now, supplied by the employer. I got a replacement because the old laptop, which was 5 years old started to have many faults and had some parts, like the tracker pad physically broken, the fasteners were not Racer Specials and actually let go resulting in the pad nearly popping out of the laptop.

As we have to log in to the server via a secure login no personal equipment is allowed. I would much rather be working on my new Macbook than the Lenovo I have, but I cannot complain it is still a more than an adequate laptop for my workflow at the job, no need for mindbending rendering capabilities at work (the mac I bought with an eye to a longer life than usual it way exceeds the ability to deal with anything I have thrown at it right now - M1Max 64GB with 2 TB SSD )

[robtcorl]

Almost 50 F now, going up to upper 50s. Time for some snow to go.
Just put a fruit cocktail cake in the oven.

Fruit Cocktail Cake (from a Cake Mix) Recipe - Food.com

[RoxnDox]

I think you are thinking of the Maxwell of the newspapers and the recently famous daughter. The Maxwell of the equations knew Michael Faraday, who is linked to the Faraday cage.

Newspapers? It was supposed to be a reference to Maxwell’s Demon, tossing in some stuff from the gaming world about quests and so on. I guess you can see why I don’t make a living as a stand up comedian, eh?

[StiffLegged]

… I guess you can see why I don’t make a living as a stand up comedian, eh?

Well, there you two have something in common after all.

[tim60]

Well, there you two have something in common after all.

Guess so.

Our dress wearing Canadian should have heard of the Maxwell who knew Faraday but would have needed to take effort to find out about the newspaper Maxwell who fell off his boat, the Lady Ghislaine, named after his daughter who recently had a famous court case in US and seems likely to be involved in a case involving a famous Englishman later in the year.

When I was at high school we had a physics teacher who was photographed in a picture in our textbook in a Faraday cage. We were all amused and laughed at him.

[gaweidert]

Weekends are too short. Way too short.

Started a permanent weekend almost 6 years ago. I finally figured out what I really wanted to be when I grew up. RETIRED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!