Mystery hardware fix, bonus health issue

The ethernet interface built into the motherboard of a PC failed a few weeks ago, so I plugged a new $10 one into a PCI slot & all was happy again.

Then the switch the PC was plugged into (a 15yo KingMax) died, & actually shut down (not killed) every ethernet interface plugged into it (each device needed power cycling to fix) so I grabbed a new $25 TP-Link switch & plugged everything through that. No worries.

A day later, the dead motherboard interface revived itself, but of course was not plugged into the switch so failed to connect. Figuring out that the flaming thing had fixed itself took me nearly an hour. )-:

Harbouring dark suspicions, I’ve left the PCI card in place for an easy fix next time (hmmm, should have taken an extra Cat5 cable along to plug it in also).

Meanwhile, back at health, events which I shall not describe have turned my hair reasonably grey.

A friend recommended — for unrelated reasons — that I take B6, B12, Folic Acid, E & I threw in some garlic. To my pleased surprise (about a month later) when I put some tea-tree shampoo through my hair (which I’ve been avoiding out of habit since “management” constantly complained about it) said hair turned out to be remarkably darker, less grey.

Hmmm. Maybe I should remember & turn over more complaints?

Comments

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b...

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

Plantagenet Penguinista

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