It's been a couple of long weeks again. 10 hours+ per day. I'm glad that I got two days off next week.

@JaredBusch said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@dafyre said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Feeling very oddly at the moment... like I have stepped into an episode of the twilight zone or something.

Was my sexiness too much for you? Want another picture?

We're all shocked, Adonis. Please, go on

@scottalanmiller said in Overclocking classics:

I'm pretty sure that I've never overclocked anything.

Overclocking in the early years was like... maybe like the rush for gold in the US It was fun to get your 80486 from 33 MHz to 66MHz just by changing the clock source crystal which is just a tiny quartz oscillator that costs $1 or so. Like this one:

https://www.reichelt.de/?ARTICLE=13721

The biggest issue was that you had to keep an eye on the busses (ISA, PCI, VLB etc), because they where using the same clock source.

@MattSpeller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@gjacobse said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Need to post this on the wall ....

When you order parts to build a project - Order two. That why when you ( @MattSpeller it) smoke the first one, you have one to do it right with....

At least 3 of you know exactly what that smells like.

I love the smell of solder-flux in the morning? Wasn't that a movie?

Finally... Just got a mail that my order is picked and packed and will be shipped on Monday.

Took them nearly three weeks to put a CPU + watercooler block, mainboard, RAM, SSD and a few other items (like fans and a small sound system etc) in a box. There are absolutely no exotic parts in the order.

Still sick. Haven't slept much during the last couple of days and my nose is looking like a clown's one.

@gjacobse: Any updates about your kid? Hope he's doing better?

Extra... activity? Are you drunk?

No, seriously, I'm married, got a pretty large family, close friends to hang around with, playing some guitar here and there, love to play games on PC and "offline"... wait, here's a picture of a sideboard exactly 50cm away from me:

There's enough to do apart from PCs and IT. But I think it's pretty much an essential part of my life.

Just built a new PC for my wife. Nothing big, but I got a serious problem with the mainboard: It won't boot if a graphics card is installed in the first PCIe x16 slot. Boots fine if I use the other x16 slot, but the second one is only wired as x4.

What now? RMA that thing? Just keep it? ....

@MattSpeller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@thwr said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@RojoLoco said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@thwr RMA that sucka. Or check the HCL to make sure the GPU is fully supported.

Ordered a new one, same brand, another model. Arrived today and it's working pretty good. No issues with the GPU.

Will RMA the other and see how much the vendor pays back. They are allowed to reduce the price when something is used here and when you're sending it back just because "you don't like it".

I could've avoided that by sending the old board back first and get a replacement, but that would take weeks.

That's called a "restocking fee" here - also known as extortion!

I call that highway robbery.

@dafyre said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@thwr said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Selling some stuff on eBay like DSLR lenses, DDR2 RAM etc.

I always forget how much work it is to create the auctions.

Bonus points if your DDR2 ram actually sells, lol.

Just got the first bid for the first kit. The auction is online for 45 minutes now.

@dafyre said in Home automation - light switch:

@JaredBusch said in Home automation - light switch:

@scottalanmiller said in Home automation - light switch:

Do they still sell Clappers?

Yes. Still on late night commercials too.

But wait, there's more!

What's else is there? "Premium hotlines"?

@gjacobse said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@thwr said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Yes! Vacations! Today was my last work day for 2016. What a year... my load average was like 2.5 - 3.0* during the last couple of weeks (months) and I absolutely don't know how I managed to get through all that stuff. Felt like running through a minefield, blindfolded.

Anyway, it's Christmas time now and I won't be back in the office until January 4th.

Time to do some fun stuff. Sadly, my dad doesn't have time this year to work on the model train project. But I've got some pretty interesting ideas on my list regarding communication between Arduino's and more high-level systems (x86/amd64, Raspberry Pi's) using MQTT on my list.

any *NIX admin should get it

Model trains - COOL

I'm not exactly a model train fan, but: AC-based (Märklin H0, M-track) model train tracks controlled by Arduinos, Pi's, C&C Notebook, RabbitMQ and MQTT. Now that's cool

Fighting some weird issue with VirtualBox 5.1.10 r112026, Linux guests (Ubuntu, Mint) and some applications (Atom IDE and chromium for example) that just draw a black screen instead of their expected content. Other applications (firefox) are working just fine.

Maybe a broken version of the guest additions.

Just stumbled upon this one: A partly booted CPU which is powered via a USB power bank and used as a... hand warmer / pocket oven.

Youtube Video

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

Sam Fisher would be proud

Breakfast with friends

Hamburg Town Hall

Café Paris

@RojoLoco said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@DustinB3403 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

I need some of these for those long flights across borders...

The fourth suitcase doesn't contain anything illegal... but man, do the TSA workers look at you funny...

The fourth is by far the best

@MattSpeller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@thwr external tracking? from beacons etc in the room?

No, the cam tracks the IR diodes which are attached to the headset. I like this method the most, because it works almost independent from environmental lighting.

@wirestyle22 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@thwr What are you doing this those?

I want to evaluate them as low level / low cost MQTT slaves. Like settings GPIOs via simple network commands.

@Minion-Queen said in If you are new drop in say hello and introduce yourself please!:

I always welcome new members via Chat but rarely remember to come over here and say hi too!

Welcome everyone!!

Uhm, I only had a chat with SAM when I was new here. And to be honest, he's not half as charming