RedEye9 wrote on Nov 24, 2024, 09:42:
In the name of the Turkey, the Gravy and the holy Pumpkin Pie
I hereby call a moratorium on all bad dad jokes until after thanksgiving.
Signed,
🍗🍴🦃🥣🥧

I do not recognize this heresy! Well, except for the gravy. Gravy makes everything better.

In the name of the Turkey, the Gravy and the holy Pumpkin Pie
I hereby call a moratorium on all bad dad jokes until after thanksgiving.
Signed,
🍗🍴🦃🥣🥧

Or it could just be that galaxies suck...

Mr. Tact wrote on Nov 24, 2024, 06:49:
There is no "direct" evidence of dark matter, ie.. no detection of a material or energy which can be shown to be dark matter. But there is plenty of indirect evidence. There is more gravity in galaxies than can be accounted for. Basically the Milky Way and other galaxies should spin apart, there isn't enough known matter to cause enough gravity to hold them together. Hence, there must be some other "thing", matter or energy also causing gravity to hold the galaxies together.

It's the power of friendship.

You see, it isn't the distance that galaxies hurtling through the ever expanding, infinite void have covered. It's the friends they made along the way.

Cutter wrote on Nov 23, 2024, 23:23:
And even today I find the presumptive rush to proclaim something as fact without evidence - e.g. dark matter - pretty funny. Then - insert X amount of time here - the tools get better and more refined and that "fact" turns out to be bunk. 'We don't understand why this doesn't add up so we'll just make something up that sounds sensible.'

There is no "direct" evidence of dark matter, ie.. no detection of a material or energy which can be shown to be dark matter. But there is plenty of indirect evidence. There is more gravity in galaxies than can be accounted for. Basically the Milky Way and other galaxies should spin apart, there isn't enough known matter to cause enough gravity to hold them together. Hence, there must be some other "thing", matter or energy also causing gravity to hold the galaxies together. "Dark matter" is simply a name placeholder for something we can not identify but know must exist. Also, we have seen light from distant galaxies bent as would be consistent with the theories of how much dark matter there would be around the galaxies in between us and the source of the light being bent. Something is there, we don't know specifically what, but we know it is there.

Well, that or our understanding of gravity needs a major overhaul. People are working on that angle too, but so far every experiment shows our current understanding to stand up pretty well.

Our ability to take ideas, innovations, theories, and inventions from all over the world and communicate them

Well, a majority of top research journals are locked behind extremely high paywalls that many universities can't afford, and researchers in many parts of the world have serious access issues, even in the West, but your point is still good.

Quite a few have to resort to basically illegal means to get access, if they can.

The thing that amazes me about science in the last two centuries is how much resistance and pushback new theories encountered. Einstein, Bohr, et al. met just insane amounts of resistance to their theories. Violently so in some cases. It's not like, 'Hrm, that's interesting. Let's do the math and see if this measures up.' It was all more, 'You go to Hell! You go to Hell and you die!' And even today I find the presumptive rush to proclaim something as fact without evidence - e.g. dark matter - pretty funny. Then - insert X amount of time here - the tools get better and more refined and that "fact" turns out to be bunk. 'We don't understand why this doesn't add up so we'll just make something up that sounds sensible.'

Mr. Tact wrote on Nov 23, 2024, 19:24:
It is amazing that until 1924 we thought the Milky Way was the entire universe. I did know this already, but it still boggles the mind.

The last 100 years in particular are just nuts to look at from a science and history stand point. Our ability to take ideas, innovations, theories, and inventions from all over the world and communicate them in seconds has changed the speed at which knowledge processes throughout the species. Humans have been experiencing non-linear innovation for most of our existence. Tribes would invent or discover something, usually out of need, that nobody else had. Then, sometimes, they would be conquered or done in by nature before it was shared with anyone. That innovation would then have to be rediscovered later in time, if at all. That probably can't happen anymore. It would take a global catastrophe, in which case the next discovery would be the least of our problems. Now we are just constantly building off of everything all at once. Combine that with an increasingly global availability of resources, education, and opportunities for more people of various backgrounds and it's really ramped up the speed of knowledge gain.

As great as that all is, I am genuinely concerned that we haven't evolved fast enough to keep up with our growing understanding of our environment.

It is amazing that until 1924 we thought the Milky Way was the entire universe. I did know this already, but it still boggles the mind.

thanks all, picked up acronis, trying to run it. don't know if it is hanging or just taking a long time, lol. Does look like Macrium is the next best choice.

update: acronis did work. for some stupid reason it does not have a progress bar or anything when it is doing the copy. had to view task manager to see it was doing anything. oh well, I guess that is what you get when you go "free"

This comment was edited on Nov 23, 2024, 18:44.

Jim wrote on Nov 23, 2024, 15:01:
Hey, you guys are smart. What is the best (free) way to upgrade to a larger SSD? I know acronis used to have software that came with new drives and did the job well, now it has to be purchased. Windows also has a utility, but... you have to muck about with partitions afterwards and it seems that some apps have issues....TY
And for anyone asking, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D9WTM2TH

The Flying Penguin wrote on Nov 23, 2024, 15:29:
Many drive manufacturers offer a free cloning utility on their website.

It looks like it you have a new WD drive installed and detectable you can use the Acronis WD version from their website for a limited time.

https://support-en.wd.com/app/products/downloads/softwaredownloads

Many drive manufacturers offer a free cloning utility on their website.

Clonezilla is a free open source cloning utility. Never used it, but I know lot's of peeps who have and swear by it: https://clonezilla.org/

Free version of Macrium Reflect 8 will work, and it seems you can still download the installer here (grab it while you can):
Link

Macrium just went to version X and a subscription model, and no longer offers a free version. That said, Macrium X has does have free 30 day trial, I dunno if you have to give them a credit card though. 8 still works fine. You'll need to install it on a Win 10 or 11 PC and then choose the option in the app's menu to create a Rescue USB. Then you can just uninstall the app if you want. Boot with the USB on the system you want to clone drives on.

I have several Macrium 8 lifetime licenses, and no desire to pay for their new subscription model. Hopefully they'll change their mind.

I went to Macrium because it's GUI is very much like the older versions of Acronis, before they dumbed it down for the masses. I find it easy to use, and very reliable.

If you're cloning from an NVMe to another NVMe, then you'll need a mobo with dual NVMe slots, or an NVMe USB enclosure.

Hey, you guys are smart. What is the best (free) way to upgrade to a larger SSD? I know acronis used to have software that came with new drives and did the job well, now it has to be purchased. Windows also has a utility, but... you have to muck about with partitions afterwards and it seems that some apps have issues....TY
And for anyone asking, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D9WTM2TH

My 4 year old Surface Pro 7 just developed a dead band in the screen touch across two sides (and yes, spent a day trying every suggested fix, including recalibration and even a clean OS install). Still perfectly usable as a Core i5 laptop, but not so fun as a tablet, as I primarily use it.

Bit the bullet and ordered a new Surface Pro 11 Snapdragon X Plus, and I have to say I am extremely impressed. Looks like Qualcomm has finally come out with a great ARM CPU for Windows, and MS has implemented it well.

It feels faster than the Surface Pro 7. It can actually play CorridorDigital.com streaming videos at full resolution without choking (the old Surface would stutter playing their videos unless I dialed the video quality down to 1080p).

Windows 11 for ARM is working great, so far, and Win64 emulation has been flawless. I really can't tell I'm running ARM. I have installed a couple of dozen regular Windows 64 bit apps, some of them very old, and they all installed and run perfectly, as if they were running on a Win64 PC. From a user's perspective, there is no way to tell you're running ARM. Everything in Windows 11 looks and works the same.

The screen is stunning, and much brighter than the old tablet. The speakers sound even better and louder than the already good speakers on the Surface Pro 7.

Battery life is AMAZING. Brand new, the old Surface Pro 7 easily ran out of juice after 4 - 4.5 hours of my heavy web browsing and Youtube watching, with the screen bright enough to make me happy. I often had to plug it into a spare USB-C charger to continue working. I have yet to see the battery level on the new tablet go below 70% after the same amount of time.

Only snag I ran into was making a recovery drive. It's not documented, and the recovery creator app will not tell you this, but you need to format the USB stick (must be 32GB or larger if you include the installation files) as NTSF. Creation of the recovery drive will fail with a non-informative error if the stick is formatted as FAT or EXFAT, which is what they usually come formatted as from the factory by default. Had to run down a few Reddit forums to find out that trick. MS needs to address that by either giving an informative error message, or better yet, just formatting the flash drive for you as NTSF.

Overall, after a week of use as my morning read tablet, I'm very happy with it,

Tesla’s autopilot can’t do roundabouts and the brakes leave a lot to be desired, but that’s not all.
While doing 70 mph it slammed on the brakes for no reason at all and Tesla tried to gas light him.
JayEmm on Cars https://youtu.be/NsVOc8U-xUs?si=Fo4i19bJQTU1tMmA

RIP Alice. I had the great pleasure of meeting and chatting with Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seegar when I did lighting for a show of theirs back in the day. Super nice guys. I used to love smoking a bowl on a rainy Sunday afternoon and sit back and listen to Alice's Restaurant.

Mara added he was “disappointed” at the quick dissolution of the team’s relationship with Jones, who signed a four-year $160 million contract in March 2023 after leading the Giants to a playoff berth.

I will never understand why NFL teams consistently do this. Some rookie has a lucky season and then they throw some stupidly high contract at him without seeing if he can consistently deliver for a few years in a row.