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Ariel Millennium Thornton

Welcome to Computer Fairies, where the ✨​sparkles✨​ are lively fairy dust, not lifeless AI slop.

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Ariel Millennium Thornton

Don't blindly believe everything you read online, tempting as that is. Do your homework first. This video series will help you do it well: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8d

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Ariel Millennium Thornton

Remember to pop your filter bubble every so often. If you think you're not in one, you're trapped in one and in for a rude awakening.

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Jen Gentleman

I got a new shirt and immediately covered it in cat hair - I guess it sort of makes sense for this one though :P

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asie

"Is this repo manually coded? If it's manually coded you're being left behind."

Ma'am, that is a twenty five thousand LoC slab of C++ code. It targets a console designed twenty two years ago and discontinued twelve years ago. It is an amalgamation of the work of several developers, forked, patched, reformatted, strained, and ultimately inexorably joined in an unholy Make ruleset. Market economics had no hand in the creation of this abhorrence. The fact that this project exists proves that God is either impotent to alter His universe or ignorant to the horrors taking place in his kingdom. This prism of code is more than a story point. It is a physical declaration of mankind's contempt for entropy. It is hubris manifest.

We also have an SDL3 port if you would prefer that.

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iFixit

If your soldering technique includes holding your breath and leaning sideways, we have a project for you.

That wispy smoke coming off your iron is vaporized rosin flux, which irritates your eyes and lungs and isn't something you want to be breathing for years. Our DIY fume extractor pulls it into an activated carbon filter instead, and it's built from a cardboard box, a spare 12V computer fan, a few zip ties, a switch, and a 9V battery.

ifixit.com/Guide/How+to+Make+a

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pagetable

Final Cartridge III Calculator Easter Egg
pagetable.com/?p=1867
#retrocomputing #c64 #fc3

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Ariel Millennium Thornton

I lost sleep over this message, yelling more than once at it, "What do you think I'm trying to do?," because the replacement SSD kept testing good in both an external receiver and the obstinate laptop.

All because Windows failed silently and HP didn't document.

In fact, what HP put at the other end of the error message URL (hp.com/go/3F0harddiskerror) is so sloppy, it has a mock-up screenshot of entirely the wrong error message at its head.

(Also kicking myself for forgetting about Secure Boot.)

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Ariel Millennium Thornton

*beeps, then spins at 300 RPM inside a Sony Mavica*

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Ariel Millennium Thornton

The Windows installer gives up without an error message, leading folks to conclude the replacement SSD or system board is a dud.

The only way I found this out was by installing a Windows 11 ISO on a thumb drive via Rufus on an absolutely bonkers lark. It edited the image to show critical messages Microsoft won't:

[INFO] Starting Microsoft Windows bootmgr...
[FAIL] Windows bootmgr encountered a security validation or internal error

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Ariel Millennium Thornton

Since I needed to replace the booting SSD with another one, to install a new OS on, I needed to boot into the BIOS and:

1. Disable Secure Boot,
2. Delete the saved keys,
3. Reload the factory default keys,
4. Save and exit, then go back into the BIOS,
5. Re-enable Secure Boot, and
6. Save and exit.

Why does everyone document getting Windows on a thumb drive with the Media Creation Tool to install on a new SSD, while no one documents actually BOOTING the thumb drive?

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Laura :bongoCat:

By Robert Gonsalves

#Art #Painting

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Ariel Millennium Thornton

Please don't drag the "This PC" icon into the Recycle Bin. youtube.com/watch?v=o_XaJdDqQA

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MostlyHarmless

Me: It doesn't have a tail so I'm pretty sure it's a hamster.
Tech Support: Okay fine. Right-click the hamster…

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Tindra

I’m gonna need everyone in security to internalize this.

Hell, my local country fair (y’know, the place where you can submit your veggies to go on display and get judged and get ribbons and shit) is requiring online registration.

Guess how many people that’s locking out? How many of the people whose submissions are what keep the exhibitions going don’t have emails or cell phones?

If your solution doesn’t work for my friend who can only be reached via landline phone or mail, it doesn’t work.

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Ariel Millennium Thornton

It's been about 15 years or so since Microsoft's first version of the Windows Media Creation Tool, and the latest version STILL needs to run while logged into an Administrator account, even when downloading and writing to a USB thumb drive.

"Run as Administrator" from a Standard User account STILL isn't good enough.

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Ariel Millennium Thornton

Periodic reminder: Make backups, check that your backups are actually what you think they are, and test your backups.

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Ariel Millennium Thornton

For the first time in what feels like forever, or at least since HP brought Compaq all those years ago, I found an HP laptop that did NOT need me to remove, buy, and replace the rubber foot strips in order to take it apart! An HP Laptop 15-fc0037.

The bad news? It came to me because its SSD (M.2 NVMe) died so suddenly and so completely, out of warranty, that the firmware diagnostics said nothing was installed.

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maple "mavica" syrup [6502]

i made a new Amiga power supply with a meanwell RT-50B :))))

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toto

RE: mastodon.online/@mwichary/1169

Friends don’t let friends install Chrome.

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This Is My Glasgow

Every now and then on my wanders around Glasgow, I come across one of these upside down T-shaped keyholes on the door of a Victorian building. It's for an Odell Night Latch Key, of the type shown on the right.

Cont./

#glasgow #odelllatchkey #doorfuriture #keys #locks

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Nanoraptor

1960s: the computer when programmed correctly can perform trillions of operations without a single mistake:

Pentium fdiv bug era: in some rare cases excel may let a bug in the CPU slip past.

LLM era: we rolled 6x10E9 dice and days have 37 hours, finger count is random, your files were deleted lol.

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maple "mavica" syrup [6502]

ai genned posters are like the flora and fauna that evolved to appear poisonous to be avoided

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Computer Fairies

Computer Fairies is a Mastodon instance that aims to be as queer, friendly and furry as possible. We welcome all kinds of computer fairies!

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