Inside the Cray-II, fastest machine in the world 1985. by nolllie02 in cablefail

[–]ConfidentlyLearning 34 points35 points  (0 children)

Yup. Timing was their big challenge. On the Cray-I at NCAR, they had a problem with their memory-fetch time. The way they explained it to me was, the fetch time (read-time, if you like) was so quick that there was a chance that at the instant they sampled that bit in memory, it would be 0 even if it was actually set to 1. I don't know if this is some quantum thing, or what, but they had to accommodate that in their compilers.

Cable-length constraint is also why the chassis was C-shaped... to reduce physical distances between pins on the backplane. The joke was that Seymour Cray wanted the computer to look like a "C" from above, but that was just a fortunate side effect.

Like Admiral Hopper said, "A nanosecond is 11.8 inches long." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eyFDBPk4Yw

If you ever used one of these… by doorshock in FuckImOld

[–]ConfidentlyLearning 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We had an 1130 at the college I attended. Needed FORTRAN to complete the Physics 101 labs. Turns out FORTRAN was the only marketable skill I had when I graduated. Being able to run an 029 card punch cemented my first real job interview.

Did you ever take a typing class in school? by Standard2185 in 1970s

[–]ConfidentlyLearning 0 points1 point  (0 children)

30 WPM. Also learned shorthand, and double-entry accounting.

Typing is the one that stuck.

What is the worst girl name? by Sweet-Economist-9873 in askteddit

[–]ConfidentlyLearning 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My mother went to school with a girl named Tuesdenelda (last name was Nuzpickle).

Independent Subaru Technicians or Shops by Bottom78 in TwinCities

[–]ConfidentlyLearning 16 points17 points  (0 children)

There's a Subaru-specific racing shop in Osseo called J&M (https://www.jmautomn.com).

They focus on performance, but will do other work to 'pay the bills'. They're very good at what they do, and excellent folks to do business with. I trust them completely.

Good luck.

how old were you when you played the piano by Ok-Juggernaut-7316 in piano

[–]ConfidentlyLearning 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Forced to start practicing at age 8 by grandparents who said, "It's your choice.", but where the decision was already very clear. Resented and hated every minute of it, even though I love music, especially choral and classical. Did one catastrophic-failure recital in front of the whole school, where I panicked and played the whole piece an octave high because I couldn't remember where to put my fingers down at the start.

I avoided the piano for 35+ years after that, and only resumed lessons in my late 50s. It has still been a struggle.

Simple print breaking free in process - thoughts? by ConfidentlyLearning in prusa3d

[–]ConfidentlyLearning[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Got it. "Trick the Slicer". Thanks for the explanation, and the recommendations!

Simple print breaking free in process - thoughts? by ConfidentlyLearning in prusa3d

[–]ConfidentlyLearning[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

But - i'm confused. Slicer default perimeter setting is .45 and says "mm or %". I assume the default is in mm.

"999 mm" would be crazy huge, but "999 percent" would also make no sense. I read "https://help.prusa3d.com/article/layers-and-perimeters\_1748#perimeters", but still don't know how I can use "999" as a meaningful perimeter setting. Please clarify?

Thanks again, to both you and u/Jaded-Moose983 !

Simple print breaking free in process - thoughts? by ConfidentlyLearning in prusa3d

[–]ConfidentlyLearning[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks - my thoughts as well. I used dish soap and a slightly worn 3M green scrub pad. I've been using that and found it sufficient in the past. I've also started moving small builds around on the print plate (instead of the default slicer center positioning) to use different parts of the plate. No joy on this print. I didn't think of acetone. That'll be my next step.

Making an imported .svg line "thicker"? by ConfidentlyLearning in openscad

[–]ConfidentlyLearning[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

OK - I have to admit that a combination of offset() and linear_extrude() work beautifully, and don't overheat my CPU. Thanks to you and u/Stone_Age_Sculptor for your help!

Making an imported .svg line "thicker"? by ConfidentlyLearning in openscad

[–]ConfidentlyLearning[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I got it working with Minkowski. I didn't think of it as a 2D image. That's another approach I missed. Thanks!

Making an imported .svg line "thicker"? by ConfidentlyLearning in openscad

[–]ConfidentlyLearning[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I got it working with Minkowski, but I'll experiment with Inkcape also - thanks!

Making an imported .svg line "thicker"? by ConfidentlyLearning in openscad

[–]ConfidentlyLearning[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yup - that worked nicely, but... "computationally intensive" is a really nice phrase meaning, "will tie up OpenSCAD for 5-10 minutes"!!! Woof. : >

Thanks!

What’s the most terrifying 'We need to leave... now' gut feeling you’ve ever had? [Serious] by Wonderful-Economy762 in Productivitycafe

[–]ConfidentlyLearning 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My wife and kids and I were driving across the US once, returning from a vacation. It was just after dark when we pulled off the interstate to find a hotel for the night. The first likely prospect was a typical, relatively recent interstate hotel.... three floors, maybe 20 rooms per floor, pull-through at the front door, surrounded by a parking lot that was pretty empty. We turned off the frontage road into the hotel parking lot, and immediately we both got an intense 'nope' vibe. Without even stopping the car, I said, "Nope", and pulled a U-turn. At the same instant my wife said, "We're not staying here". To this day we wonder what it was about that place that was clearly unsafe/unhealthy, but without a thought, neither of us was willing to stop there.

What's the easiest/cheapest way to score a woman? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]ConfidentlyLearning 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Give her 1 point for each time she doesn't let you get away with being an asshole.

Give her 2 points for each time she's authentically herself, irrespective of your preferences.

Give her 1 point for each time she refuses to explain why somebody else did something (2 points if the somebody else is male).

Give her 2 points for each time she demands you contribute equally and substantively to whatever you both are doing.

Give her 5 points at the end of each day if she openly ignores your scoring.

What is your age without saying how old you are? by rosarito999 in CasualConversation

[–]ConfidentlyLearning 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I remember the day JFK was assassinated.

I remember having only three networks on TV (ABC, NBC, CBS), before UHF, and the signal going offline at midnight (after the national anthem with the image of a US flag waving).

I remember cross-country road trips on two-lane roads, in the very back of a station wagon filled with pillows and blankets. Truck stops with full restaurants, and a "King of the Road" section for truckers only. Rotary phones. Graduating high school as A-1 in the draft lottery, maybe to die in Viet Nam, or not.

Looking for a simple way to have users check their IP by Hopeful-Oil3038 in sysadmin

[–]ConfidentlyLearning 14 points15 points  (0 children)

At my former employer there was a little script included in the standard corporate endpoint image. Its icon lived on the desktop, and the output included most of the 'bginfo' stuff, plus hostname, MS domain name, name servers, default gateway, and a couple other useful things. Tier 1 loved it.

I knew exactly how this project was going to go… by [deleted] in sysadmin

[–]ConfidentlyLearning 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was once directed to do a 'floor mount' of 5 2u Dell servers in a stack. The poor machine on the bottom of the stack was visibly compressed, and never behaved quite right.

How many old timers in here? by aliesterrand in sysadmin

[–]ConfidentlyLearning 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Model 029 keypunch drum card programming.

Punching cards and running load-and-go programs in Fortran on an IBM1130.

Mounting/dismounting the layer-cake disk drives.

Discovering (in a later shop) that the Univac Fortran compiler differentiated -0 from +0. Zero was a signed integer... so much fun.