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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
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completely blind computer geek, lover of science fiction and fantasy (especially LitRPG). I work in accessibility, but my opinions are my own, not that of my employer. Fandoms: Harry Potter, Discworld, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Buffy, Dead Like Me, Glee, and I'll read fanfic of pretty much anything that crosses over with one of those.
keyoxide: aspe:keyoxide.org:PFAQDLXSBNO7MZRNPUMWWKQ7TQ
Location Ottawa
Birthday 1987-12-20
Pronouns he/him (EN)
xmpp fastfinge@im.interfree.ca
keyoxide aspe:keyoxide.org:PFAQDLXSBNO7MZRNPUMWWKQ7TQ
blog https://stuff.interfree.ca/
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@quanin @mcourcel The problem is...I...don't know? I don't always leave the laptop on all the time, obviously. And sometimes, of course, Windows just crashes for one reason or another. Or it installs an update overnight or whatever. And then the first few times I noticed it I went "Huh." and rebooted before I noticed the pattern. And of course it's my secondary drive, so I only notice it's gone when I go to play a game (it's where Steam installs all the games); if I'm just browsing the web or whatever it could be gone without me even noticing. October is when I noticed the pattern, started leaving the laptop on 24/7, and checking the drive frequently.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@quanin @mcourcel Well, why would a connection on the board die after 24 hours? And then be fine the minute I shut down the machine and power it back on? Neither make sense to me. But if I run Forza at the max settings, I can watch the battery discharge even while the laptop is plugged in. It's fun! It makes me wonder about some kind of power management thing in the BIOS? Framework did release a BIOS update recently, that lets the laptop charge to a max of 80 percent for battery protection if it hasn't been unplugged in over a week.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@quanin @mcourcel I don't even have another 180w USBC adapter to test with. And these things run super hot! So...I'm also giving this adapter a side-eye. I don't have a meter handy. But if I did...I wonder...
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@quanin @mcourcel I'm also starting to wonder about something being underpowered. The USBC adapter is 180w, but at full load the machine pulls 240w. In theory, it should pull from the battery to make up the difference until the load goes back down. But, well, you know. Theory. I'm also grabbing myself a 240w USBC adapter, and I'm interested to see if that changes anything.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@quanin @mcourcel Yup, and that would be annoying. But the motherboard has two drive slots, so it wouldn't be the end of the world. Somehow, though, I doubt it. I installed the drive in January and it worked perfectly until October. That kind of connection doesn't usually just die. Or if it does, other things on the board usually die alongside it.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@quanin @mcourcel I've had the laptop for a year. I don't actually need to upgrade the motherboard; I'm only doing it because I was otherwise going to build a media PC anyway, and this way I get two for the price of one. I wouldn't recommend any other blind Framework 16 owner to upgrade unless they have some use for the old motherboard. The second hard drive that is having issues is one I installed in January myself. So if I wasn't upgrading the laptop, I would just replace it and things would be fine. Nothing else is wrong with the machine. And if it was, all of the ports are expansion cards that I can replace for between $5 and $15 depending on the port in question.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@quanin @mcourcel See, I have that with my macs. But every Windows laptop I've ever had, even though the CPU etc are still fine, something always goes wrong by between three and five years. Sometimes it's the fans, or the keyboard, or the screen hinge, or the USB plugs get wonky, or the headphone jack stops working, or...something. And then it's out of warranty so it'd cost so much to fix it I might as well just get a new one. I've tossed so many perfectly good components for that reason over the years that it makes me cry.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@quanin @mcourcel The Framework is...not bad to work on, for a laptop. So still bad and horrible obviously. But it's worth it to have a laptop I can actually upgrade; I'm sick and tired of a new laptop every three years. And I wanted a media PC anyway, so reusing the old parts fits perfectly into my life.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@quanin @mcourcel Yeah, that's the next step. I got myself the upgraded motherboard and graphics module, so once they arrive I'll be opening up the machine again anyway, so I'll do more drive testing at that point. I intend to reuse the old motherboard to build a little media PC, so I might just put a new drive in the laptop, and put this drive in there and see what it does. That way if it is the drive it'll be easier for me to access, and I need a drive for the media PC anyway.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@jscholes I mean I was one of those people until the start of October! I got the Framework 16 the day it came out, and installed the hard drive a couple months later. So I had a long time of perfect service.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@mcourcel I did! I'm on the latest Windows update available, and my understanding is that this was fixed at some point? I installed the second drive back in January, and this only started at the beginning of October. So...I'm baffled. I'm also bothered, bewildered, bamboozled, and buffaloed.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@mcourcel Yup. I thought that might be the issue, so I set it to always on for the hard discs. But there was no change. I also turned off sleep and hibernate, in case those were causing problems.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
I also don't love that I had to install two firmware updates on my 16: one for the number pad, and one for the keyboard. But I was able to do so without an admin prompt! What firmware does this thing run? What can it do? How does it communicate with the system? Can someone just install a keylogger directly into my keyboard firmware without me even having to grant any kind of permission or be admin? This is...worrying. github.com/FrameworkComputer/qmk_firmware/releases/tag/v0.3.1
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
The bug where after being on for 24-36 hours, the second hard drive on my 16 laptop just...disappears...is getting really, really old. I thought it was temperature, so I started logging that. But nope. It's not an issue with the flash, because the data always comes back just fine, and there are no read errors or anything. It just gets tired after a day and decides to go for a nap. This is the problem with a fully repairable laptop: I installed it, so whatever's wrong, it's now my problem. I can't just go bother Del or whomever. It's running 11 because screen readers on Linux are still terrible, so anyone suggesting "install Linux" as the answer gets blocked. But I really don't think it's a Windows thing; it's not in device manager, or anywhere. Only fully powering down the machine and turning it back on again helps. A restart isn't enough. So it has to be a hardware thing!
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@fionasboots It would; thanks for the good info!
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
re: Christmas @feld @JamminJerry The big ones are mushroomfm.com, hkcradio.com, the plague, and radio free dish nuts. I don’t know any sighted folks who listen to any of them though.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
Question for the fediverse tech folk: work has asked me to learn Google’s Big Query. Does anyone know how it is with a ? And where is the best place to start for someone mostly familiar with small scale postgresql deployment?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
Christmas @JamminJerry Yeah, I am the only blind person on the internet without my own radio station.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
Christmas Every year around this time, I start tuning into the various Music options I have access to. This year, at least for background listening, it seems like Apple Music's Holiday Hits wins Christmas. Decent variety of styles and artists, the promos and transitions are good, and it's ad free. Then, of course, for more intentional listening, my playlist of tens of thousands of rarely played Christmas songs. Other options: iHeart has too many ads and not enough variety, sky.fm hasn't updated the Christmas offering in like 15 years, YouTube Music is just AI generated playlist slop, and all of the public streams I know of are either low sound quality, full of ads, or low variety. LiveOne, as every year, is a close second; good variety, few ads, and that radio sound I enjoy at Christmas. CBC Music and Stingray Music are also good, but unfortunately they have way too many different Christmas channels, resulting in not enough variety on each one, and too many choices for all day work day listening. Where are you getting your Christmas this year?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@chris They well might. I’ve never asked because I can’t go anyway.
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