Computer General Discussion Thread

[Cisairse]

Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/434851/four-y ... rovements/

Two improvements I want to see before considering the Pro version: no ads and automatic app downloads, and no telemetry beyond the bare minimum needed for operating system updates.

That already exists.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... -new/ltsc/

They will never port those "features" to non-Enterprise versions of Windows because they make too much money.

[Minoa]

Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/437221/how-pe ... d-devices/

Unfortunately, this is quite an old joke, due to the fact that modern browsers let you set the User Agent: for example, I could make it appear that I posted this message from a Moleskine Sketchbook, despite the fact it has no electronic parts whatsoever.

[Corrian]

What is the best brand for motherboards? I'm pretty clueless about them.

[Cekoviu]

What is the best brand for motherboards? I'm pretty clueless about them.

Been a bit since I looked at motherboards, but I do remember that Gigabyte and MSI are good. IIRC Asus is one of the better brands too.

[Minoa]

I have no significant problems with ASUS and Gigabyte.

At the end of the day, it is quality that matters to me the most.

[Saiwania]

I'm quite thrilled about this project, if it ended up working in the long run. Newgrounds is working on this open source Adobe Flash emulator that is written in the Rust programming language- Ruffle. The plan is for it to be able to seamlessly run every piece of Adobe Flash content that'd otherwise be forever abandoned.

The old era of animations and games might well be preserved.
https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle

[Minoa]

I'm quite thrilled about this project, if it ended up working in the long run. Newgrounds is working on this open source Adobe Flash emulator that is written in the Rust programming language- Ruffle. The plan is for it to be able to seamlessly run every piece of Adobe Flash content that'd otherwise be forever abandoned.

I am thinking about whether Adobe should release the source code for Flash, but that idea has a mixture of advantages and disadvantages.

On one side, it could help a lot in preserving Flash animations, like the ones that Dave Jeffrey made back in the early-2000s (http://625.uk.com/tv_logos/flash.htm).

However, there is a danger of hackers going all-in, because the fact that Adobe Flash has so many vulnerabilities is hardly a secret.

[Saiwania]

However, there is a danger of hackers going all-in, because the fact that Adobe Flash has so many vulnerabilities is hardly a secret.

There should be no danger if the source code is released after Adobe Flash's End of Life date. Everyone is supposed to not use Adobe Flash anymore after that date anyways. But there will still be plenty of reason for emulators of it to exist if there is a ton of old Adobe Flash content out there online.

There should be no security vulnerabilities with Ruffle because it'll be a problem with the browser itself, and it'll be open source. With enough people checking over the code, any issues that come up will probably be fixed.

[Cekoviu]

I'm quite thrilled about this project, if it ended up working in the long run. Newgrounds is working on this open source Adobe Flash emulator that is written in the Rust programming language- Ruffle. The plan is for it to be able to seamlessly run every piece of Adobe Flash content that'd otherwise be forever abandoned.

The old era of animations and games might well be preserved.
https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle

Fuck Rust, but cool, I guess?

[Saiwania]

Fuck Rust, but cool, I guess?

What would you say is wrong with Rust? I'm just a layman, not a programmer. But I hear mostly only good things about Rust coding. How if you know how to code for that language, there are some very lucrative jobs out there that exist for it. Serious money. $60,000+/year at minimum. Maybe even six figures in the right circumstances.

On the surface, Rust would seem to be new and in demand and having a bright future. Lots of tech companies want Rust coders.

[Cekoviu]

Fuck Rust, but cool, I guess?

What would you say is wrong with Rust? I'm just a layman, not a programmer. But I hear mostly only good things about Rust coding. How if you know how to code for that language, there are some very lucrative jobs out there that exist for it. Serious money. $60,000+/year at minimum. Maybe even six figures in the right circumstances.

On the surface, Rust would seem to be new and in demand and having a bright future. Lots of tech companies want Rust coders.

I don't mind the language itself; it's mainly the compiler and package build system that bothers me (specifically, its use of the Internet and the issue of it being partially in Rust). Just use a normal ./configure && make && make check && make install system like every normal piece of Linux software, ffs.

[Cekoviu]

Unrelated, but I've switched from MATE to XFCE (for the increased stability and opportunities for customization) and it's more difficult than I expected to adjust. It's very different from MATE in some crucial ways.

[Valentine Z]

So... this is gonna be a talk about computer languages from me, your amateur computer science student, who is not-too-eagerly waiting for his next term!

I know C++ is arguably the best language out there, so... I'm trying to learn that as of now! So I know Python, Java, C#, and C++, in that order of confidence (highest to lowest). Mostly beginner level, can't really code something without a crapton of assistance from the others.

On another note, are there older languages that are still around and serving their own purposes? Maybe because it is working and there's no need for a change, or that the system only accepts that particular language? Specifically, I'm interested about FORTRAN. How's FORTRAN as of now?

EDIT: I realised that FORTRAN isn't capitalised or an abbreviation, but... I don't know why I wrote that way. Ah wells!

---

There's also another language that is pretty much used for Machine Learning, specifically when it comes to Linear Laws, Regressions, and stuff. But I can't for the life for me remember the name. It's not Matlab, either.

[Cekoviu]

So... this is gonna be a talk about computer languages from me, your amateur computer science student, who is not-too-eagerly waiting for his next term!

I know C++ is arguably the best language out there, so... I'm trying to learn that as of now! So I know Python, Java, C#, and C++, in that order of confidence (highest to lowest). Mostly beginner level, can't really code something without a crapton of assistance from the others.

Wrong. Brainfuck is the best language.
I'm slowly migrating fully to Linux now, which means my extensive C# experience is becoming irrelevant. It's very sad.

[Valentine Z]

So... this is gonna be a talk about computer languages from me, your amateur computer science student, who is not-too-eagerly waiting for his next term!

I know C++ is arguably the best language out there, so... I'm trying to learn that as of now! So I know Python, Java, C#, and C++, in that order of confidence (highest to lowest). Mostly beginner level, can't really code something without a crapton of assistance from the others.

Wrong. Brainfuck is the best language.

Oh yes, I heard of that one! Either Brainfuck, or Whitespace.

Whitespace could be a very, very sneaky language if you can slip it in between lines of C++ or any other visible languages.

[Saiwania]

I might potentially have a problem on my hands. I have an Acer Aspire E15 (E5-576G) as my new main laptop. It currently is on Windows 10 1803 but problem is, this version is approaching "End of Life" status for Home users, but my manufacturer is seemingly in no rush to meet the November 14th, 2019 deadline to make Windows 10 1903 available to it.

Windows Update previously offered it to my machine but it failed to install 5 times before it wasn't being offered again. Should I try waiting until next month for the driver issues to maybe be sorted enough for 1903 to be compatible enough to be offered to my machine?

If the 1903 update is never offered via Windows Update before 1803 expires, should I try using Windows 10 Update Assistant to try to get it installed anyways? This risks my machine having software problems as a result if the manufacturer drivers prove to not be compatible for whatever reason.

I also refuse to update my BIOS, because I know that if it fails for any reason, that I'd be dealing with a dead machine because of a bricked motherboard. I know where to get exactly the correct BIOS to go from version 1.47 to 1.49 but if I have no means of recovery from it failing, I'm unwilling to do this even if it might be relatively safe. Would bring a lot of peace of mind if the motherboard came with a backup BIOS chip that could flash a corrupted chip back to normal. The laptop doesn't come with this feature as far as I can tell. For most electronics, you have the one firmware chip where it that got screwed up, you're screwed.

[Cekoviu]

I might potentially have a problem on my hands. I have an Acer Aspire E15 (E5-576G) as my new main laptop. It currently is on Windows 10 1803 but problem is, this version is approaching "End of Life" status for Home users, but my manufacturer is seemingly in no rush to meet the November 14th, 2019 deadline to make Windows 10 1903 available to it.

Windows Update previously offered it to my machine but it failed to install 5 times before it wasn't being offered again. Should I try waiting until next month for the driver issues to maybe be sorted enough for 1903 to be compatible enough to be offered to my machine?

If the 1903 update is never offered via Windows Update before 1803 expires, should I try using Windows 10 Update Assistant to try to get it installed anyways? This risks my machine having software problems as a result if the manufacturer drivers prove to not be compatible for whatever reason.

I also refuse to update my BIOS, because I know that if it fails for any reason, that I'd be dealing with a dead machine because of a bricked motherboard. I know where to get exactly the correct BIOS to go from version 1.47 to 1.49 but if I have no means of recovery from it failing, I'm unwilling to do this even if it might be relatively safe. Would bring a lot of peace of mind if the motherboard came with a backup BIOS chip that could flash a corrupted chip back to normal. The laptop doesn't come with this feature as far as I can tell. For most electronics, you have the one firmware chip where it that got screwed up, you're screwed.

The solution is to install a Linux distro instead of Windows.

[Minoa]

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/ ... h-birthday

I know this story is more than 9 years old, but it caused me to remember an old Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com) radio advert from 2000, at a time when Google was not big in the UK. If I remember correctly, the radio advert had school children asking Jeeves (the fictional butler who was the mascot of the website at the time) various questions, and the last question that I remember best from the radio advert was “Can I go to the toilet?”

I am certain that the advert was real, but I do not remember the ad agency who did them. I cannot find anything about that particular advert on the internet, because I think that:

• The target audience was limited to London;
• The decision by Carlton and Granada’s to invest in Ask Jeeves was a really bad idea, given that their ill-fated G-Wizz project was Flash-heavy, and British internet users at the time had to make do with a 56K modem.

[Merni]

Unrelated, but I just wanted to let out my frustration somewhere...
I've been revisiting C programming (which I learned a tiny bit of a long time ago) in my spare time, and it's really weird and unintuitive from the viewpoint of someone who only knows BASIC.
wtf is

if (c == '\n')
    s[i++] = c;

(from an example from Kernighan & Ritchie's The C Programming Language)
And before someone says "everything is weird from a BASIC viewpoint", let me say that I've seen some Python programs and I can usually understand them pretty well when I see them—they don't have any of this weird %d's in the middle of printf and scanf statements and void main() { and treating strings as arrays of characters.

[Cekoviu]

Unrelated, but I just wanted to let out my frustration somewhere...
I've been revisiting C programming (which I learned a tiny bit of a long time ago) in my spare time, and it's really weird and unintuitive from the viewpoint of someone who only knows BASIC.
wtf is

if (c == '\n')
    s[i++] = c;

(from an example from Kernighan & Ritchie's The C Programming Language)
And before someone says "everything is weird from a BASIC viewpoint", let me say that I've seen some Python programs and I can usually understand them pretty well when I see them—they don't have any of this weird %d's in the middle of printf and scanf statements and void main() { and treating strings as arrays of characters.

Because Python is terrible, not because C is weird. And all strings are arrays of characters anyway.

[Cekoviu]

How's this as a logo for a package manager called Parrot? Too subtle?

[Minoa]

The logo doesn’t easily suggest a parrot: it took a bit of time for me to figure out that the top-left part was a parrot’s beak.

I recommend having a package box, shaped as a parrot. I imagine that it took a lot of time for Apple Inc. to develop the skeuomorphic icons back in the late-2000s, with the Mail app being one notable example that has not changed significantly since then.

[Cekoviu]

The logo doesn’t easily suggest a parrot: it took a bit of time for me to figure out that the top-left part was a parrot’s beak.

I recommend having a package box, shaped as a parrot. I imagine that it took a lot of time for Apple Inc. to develop the skeuomorphic icons back in the late-2000s, with the Mail app being one notable example that has not changed significantly since then.

I want to at least maintain the 'parrot puking a box' aesthetic, so maybe I'll just make the design a bit less abstract. Don't want to completely rework it, y'know.

[Minoa]

A parrot puking a box doesn’t seem suitable for general audiences…

…but then again, the internet can easily be considered unsuitable for general audiences, given the atrocious levels of toxicity in social media.

[Cekoviu]

A parrot puking a box doesn’t seem suitable for general audiences…

…but then again, the internet can easily be considered unsuitable for general audiences, given the atrocious levels of toxicity in social media.

It's not for general audiences, actually. It's part of a niche Linux distribution in development. And also, it's fun and you can't tell me what to do!