wintel hell

windows & intel cannot even successfully update drivers on an old NUC 7 i3.

franz joseph

Now you've gone through the typical school training. In the high school I went to we covered in a half semester what are now full-year college courses. We either made the grade and covered it, or we flunked. There was no mollycoddling in my day. The schools were more than happy to flunk you and point out to your parents how much of an idiot you were. It's different now. I've seen three generations and I know that it's true.

Okay, so atomic power had scared us and there was no future. The hippies of the 60s showed that the young generation was completely disillusioned with our establishment. A young person could come out of high school all set up to beat the world, and after beating his head against the brick wall for ten years, by the time he's 25, he says, "Forget it! I'll drop into my niche and stay there for the rest of my life. We were promised a democratic society where everybody has life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--only it doesn't appear. It's a pretty dirty world and it's a pretty lousy world."

Somewhere after World War II this country went on a crazy binge. We gave up all our morals, our ethics, and everything else that we spent 100,000 years developing. Why, I'll never know.

The magic Star Trek had was that it showed that Earth and civilization had survived to three centuries. It showed that people in this time got what they were promised: survival and fulfillment. That's what I think has got to be the Star Trek attraction. Regardless of bad filming, production, or anything else, it had stories of survival and promises come true. I think these are two ingredients that stand out in the original episodes and in the work that's being done on an amateur level.

some EVAR books

star trek star fleet technical manual

codex seraphinianus

any m. c. escher book

6502 assembly books (mike smith's?)

terran trade authority

Rifts

the dream machines

dark lego

hardwired

MSFINGT

it is "funny" how bad Microsoft office (including Teams of course) products really are. not just in big ways, but also death by a thousand cuts small ways.

(funnily enough, i think the iOS YouTube ux is a close second in terms of pure frustration.)

time keeping des ne

I was excited to get a Casio Wave Ceptr watch. But it turns out to be kind of a usability nightmare. And if you don't live within like 10 miles of Fort Collins, the radio sync feature is useless. Caveat emptor. 

usability fails abound

The NLS Bard audiobook reader hardware is... at least for some use cases, completely terrible. Tragic, given how much content there could be made available. Fundamentally it needs to be updated to be an AI voice interactive chat bot, in this day and age.

aaaand OMFG google home speaker couce even with Gemini is dog shyte UX. 

fudging ux heck

how much of Apple services, web sites, do not work if iOS Lockdown is enabled, do ya think?

El Ultimo

Blame! is the most bestest sci fi manga evar by far. Gantz! is a close second. Biomega was also not bad. But KoS was very meh for me. 

death of culture

riddle: what am i?

"f*ck. f*ck. f*cking f*ck. f*cker. motherf*ck." etc.

a: apple tv!

a: netflix!

a: f*cking everything!

strooth

> The first hour of play hits you with so much tedious factional politics it makes the opening crawl of The Phantom Menace look like Serious Sam. Most of the dialogue is people moaning about their bosses or their charges. Everything is broken. People are starving and miserable, bereft of doctors and medical supplies. It’s basically 2025 but in space.

failure is job one

funny how even when you mostly cede the car console to carplay, it is all still kind of terrible. like, lag. and, like, you certainly didn't learn anything about ux from (the better, bygone, days of) apple when it comes to your own-brand parts of the infotainment head unit. again, just basic stuff like oh i dunno the entire radio ux being a train wreck, eg any restriction on the number of favorited radio stations less than something like MAX_INT_32 is highway robbery. 

omfg

some toyota cars have a glossy, reflective finish on the flat horizontal area around the shifter. 

just so i can be randomly blinded by sunshine every time i drive during daylight hours? (norcal! always sun! no clouds!)

f"ux"ing

any ui that has capricious reversals of contrast is stupid and evil, plain and simple. 

eg ios clock app. 

eg ios maps app modes. 

eg tutorial sites where the code blocks are reversed video colors. 

apple quality user experience

definitely advantageous to make all the hardware very slippery. genius. patent that shyte. 

tap of poo

meh. i'm not a big fan of Valve, when it comes to anything other than the original Half Life which was of course completely awesomeness.

steam is bad and kind of evil, both as a consumer & a publusher, but that's capitalism for ya. 

steamdeck is... problematic in so many, many ways. etc. And the pass people give them is annoying. If any other $500+ product has a constant wide-spread long-term problem with its touchscreen, there'd be trouble on the internet. 

rocket science

playing the radio is now rocket science beyond the ken of toyota, apparently. 

>>>

This is a known software bug in Toyota's current infotainment system. Other 2025 Toyota owners have reported the exact same symptom — no sound on FM or AM, but SiriusXM works fine — and the issue comes and goes intermittently. The fact that SiriusXM still plays tells you the amplifier and speakers are fine; the head unit's terrestrial radio tuner module is glitching.

Here's what to do, from quick fixes to longer-term resolution:

Immediate fix when it happens: Press and hold the power/volume knob for about 10–12 seconds until the Toyota logo appears. This performs a soft reset of the head unit and can clear temporary glitches. This is the fastest thing to try mid-drive.

If the soft reset doesn't work: Turn the car fully off, wait 3–5 minutes so the system completely powers down, then restart. Multiple owners report that cycling the ignition resolves the issue, at least temporarily.

Nuclear option (hard reset): Disconnect the 12V battery for about 30 minutes to force a full system reset. This has resolved persistent glitches for some owners. You'll lose your radio presets and some settings, but it can clear deeper software issues.

Take it to the dealer: Toyota has issued Technical Service Bulletins (TSBs) that allow dealers to update the infotainment software, and many rebooting, freezing, and audio issues can be resolved with these updates. Since your car is a 2025 model, it should still be under the factory warranty (3 years / 36,000 miles for the basic warranty). Tell them the symptom clearly: FM/AM/HD goes silent while SiriusXM continues to work. Even if it's not acting up when you drop it off, the dealer can check for applicable TSBs and apply any available software updates.

Document it: Each time it happens, note the date, time, what station you were on, and how long it lasted. This helps the dealer reproduce or escalate the issue if a software update alone doesn't fix it. A video of the "no signal" HD display with silent FM would also be useful evidence.

This is almost certainly a software problem rather than a hardware one — the tuner and the satellite receiver are separate signal paths in the head unit, which is why one can fail while the other keeps working.

commerce fails

grainger: not so good at user experience. or getting your order right. hard to retain and train good help? hard to make digital systems that assist in getting orders right? 

user experience fail

>>> The short answer: Metabones’ naming is inconsistent, and your frustration is justified. But there is a coherent underlying structure — it’s just buried under overlapping labels (“T”, “Ultra”, “XL”, “CINE”, “II”, “II+”) that Metabones reuses in different ways.

🧭 The real naming matrix (the part Metabones never explains clearly)

Dimension A: Mechanical housing

• T = current housing

• (older non‑T housings discontinued)

Dimension B: Optical formula

• Ultra = 0.71×

• XL = 0.64×

• Super16 = 0.58×

• Smart Adapter = no optics

Dimension C: Electronics

• Mark I

• Mark II

• Mark II+ (same processor, more memory)

Dimension D: Market segment

• CINE = video‑centric firmware + housing

• Standard = photo/video general use

Dimension E: Mount

EF→MFT, EF→RF, EF→X, EF→BMPCC4K, etc.

Metabones combines all of these into one long name, which is why the naming feels chaotic.

🧨 Why listings look contradictory

Retailers often shorten names incorrectly. For example, B&H lists:

• Metabones Canon EF Lens to RF‑Mount T CINE Speed Booster ULTRA 0.71×

• Metabones T Speed Booster Ultra 0.71× Adapter for Canon EF→RF

Both are “T Ultra” adapters — one is CINE, one is not.

The “T” is not a variant of “Ultra”. It’s just always there.

🧵 TL;DR (the part you actually want)

“T” and “Ultra” are not competing labels. You can have both because:

• T = mechanical generation

• Ultra = optical formula (0.71×)

• XL = different optical formula (0.64×)

• II / II+ = electronics generation

• CINE = firmware/housing variant

So a product named:

EF–MFT mount T Speed Booster ULTRA 0.71× II

means:

• EF→MFT

• T‑series housing

• Ultra optical formula (0.71×)

• Mark II electronics

Nothing contradictory — just terrible naming.

mouth of babes

The corruption creep — a nearly flat path that drifts so slowly the reader almost doesn't notice. No dramatic swings, no obvious turning points. Just a gradual, relentless drift toward the dark endpoint.

document it, and they will come

Yokoyama: I also remember that at our first location test, at a game center by Nishiogikubo Station, none of the people I saw playing were using the dual fighter ability!

[shmuplations] Ah. Yeah, I do remember it being like that at first.

Yokoyama: Everyone was just dodging. And we had gone to all the trouble of putting that instruction card up! I thought that would have explained it, you know. (laughs)