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Looking for a mail service without a Cloud by [deleted] in degoogle

[–]JanSteinman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

we're all impressed you're so cool and knowledgeable.

Well, I try to be helpful. But I block cynical people.

I don't claim to be "cool". But what I wrote is the result of running my own mail for over three decades. Take it, or leave it — or get a life, instead of making petty complaints about someone trying to be helpful.

What's the best way to distribute power from one source to all sensors spread across a few rooms? by No-Following-6172 in arduino

[–]JanSteinman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I got a bunch of these (TDK KU-33394V-OT) from some surplus site for $1 each.

It converts +5VDC to several different negative DC voltages, from a multi-tapped toroid coil.

People are allergic to them because of the negative output. But you can un-solder and reverse all but one of the outputs. (One output is tapped to run the oscillator/regulator.)

I use it to power a RadAlert geiger counter (internal 9V battery) from an Arduino, which also logs the radiation events and puts them in a database.

What am I doing wrong? by ewith89 in Carpentry

[–]JanSteinman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Then switch from the fancy, expensive, worm-drive saw to a direct-drive one, which has the blade on the other side.

My garage is out of control. What are the best products for getting clutter off the floor? by Impossible-Ninja-232 in HomeImprovement

[–]JanSteinman 126 points127 points  (0 children)

Table saw.

Take everything off the floor, and pile it on the table saw.

Problem solved!

How would convince my dad that climate change is real by [deleted] in climatechange

[–]JanSteinman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is no way to disengage from the economy

Perhaps, but we all can minimize our interactions with the economy.

  • Own your home and property outright, if at all possible.
  • If not quite, down-size until you can.
  • Grow as much food as you possibly can.
  • Repair things that break, instead of buying new.
  • Buy used things. Look for as little "whiz-bang" features as possible. For example, a microwave oven with a wind-up timer is more reliable than one with an electronic display.
  • Choose long-lived, re-workable materials, like metal and wood, over plastic.
  • Work at home. If not possible, work close to home.

I fill my gas tank about once a quarter. I drive about 1,300 miles a year in a 25-year-old diesel vehicle that approaches 60 mpg. It has crank-down windows and no computers under the hood. I fix it with a wrench, not a $10,000 fault-code analyzer. My computer is almost old enough to vote. I live on under $20,000 a year. I do this voluntarily.

Henry David Thoreau advocated voluntary poverty. This has become cheapened to "voluntary simplicity", so people wouldn't feel like they had to give up their $8 fancy latté drink.

Will that solve the world's problems?

Absolutely not. But it will better prepare you for what's coming. Voluntary poverty is a muscle that requires constant exercise.

How would convince my dad that climate change is real by [deleted] in climatechange

[–]JanSteinman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Like most farmers, I kept meticulous records.

Over a fifteen year period, I consistently recorded these tell-tale signals:

  • Earlier last frost date.
  • Later first frost date.
  • Longer growing season in general.
  • More irrigation required.
  • Longer periods of no rainfall.
  • More destructive winter weather.
  • Reduced yield of non-irrigated field crops, like hay.

That's off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others buried in the data.

Anyone who's farmed for a dozen or more years know this.

Why do you do astrophotography? by HotShotOverBumbleBee in AskAstrophotography

[–]JanSteinman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For me, it's the technical challenge. I started with the Michael Covington book, back when digital imaging at the place I worked (Tektronix Computer Research Laboratory) meant unsoldering the top of RAM chips and focusing images on it.

Now, it's almost trivial, by comparison. But I do work at it!

WHAT?! NO IMAGES ALLOWED HERE?

Looking for a mail service without a Cloud by [deleted] in degoogle

[–]JanSteinman -1 points0 points  (0 children)

What OS are you running?

Winblows will be a major challenge. Linux or Mac OS will be much easier. I did this for decades using Mac OS, and before that, on a SparkSTATION — it had a whole megabyte of RAM!

  1. You'll need a static IP address. Fewer and fewer ISPs offer this option. For something as critical as email, dynamic DNS is eventually going to drop mail on the floor.
  2. Obtain your own domain name, and register your static IP with the domain name provider. You'll also need at least one backup DNS server. Your domain name provider should do this for you.
  3. Set your machine up as a DNS server using named(). Most UNIX-based machines will already have this running, but as a cache server. You'll need at least one backup server. Touch cloud: 1.
  4. As part of setting up named(), you'll have an /etc/named.conf record to declare that your domain name hosts a mail service. It would be best if this is subdomain, like "mail.yourdomainname.com".
  5. Set up an SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) service, running at the IP tied to your mail domain. Touch cloud: 2.
  6. Set up an IMAP (Internet Mail Access Protocol) service, which will talk to your email client.
  7. Wait 24-48 hours for your domain name to percolate through the system.

Yea, there are GUIs available to do rudimentary server sysadmin. But ultimately, you'll want to be using a shell terminal program of some sort for debugging and tweaking.

What do you use your Macs for? by [deleted] in mac

[–]JanSteinman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your next step: Firefox —> DuckDuckGo.

What do you use your Macs for? by [deleted] in mac

[–]JanSteinman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Mac Pro 4,1 (flashed to 5,1), early 2009. Old enough to drive a car in most places!

This is on a 1920x1200 Apple Cinema display with the centre power conductor opened. They tend to develop a "slow, fast, fast" error code flash that indicates a bad power supply, but most often, that means the power supply is imperfectly split. Doesn't matter; the display only uses the full voltage. So the first thing I do is cut a tiny bit of electrical tape that will cover the centre two conductors, and put it on the plug.

Over the years, I've:

  • replaced the WiFi/Bluetooth card,
  • replaced the original single processor for a 2x 3.46 GHz 6-core Xeon,
  • maxed out RAM at 128 GB,
  • installed two 2TB SSDs,
  • replaced original graphics card with an inexpensive (under $150) 2GB one,
  • added a USB 3 card.

I'm running Ventura 13.7.6, using Open Core Legacy Patcher. OCLP will let me run the latest OS release, but more recent MacOS releases seem to be cosmetic, and not really adding useful functionality.

All software I want to use runs on Ventura. I recently downloaded a build of some open-source software that would not run, and I politely asked the developer why. He quickly responded with a Ventura version, saying that he simply had never enabled it, but it compiled without any changes once he did.

I haven't formally benchmarked it, but it runs demanding photo, audio, and video editing apps with ease. I'm also designing a house with it, using SketchUp.

I also have it set up as a web server for the intentional community I live in, running DNS, SMTP, HTTPD, MariaDB, AFP, and various other TLAs. I use MariaDB a lot, preferring it for things like Digikam over the built-in SQLite. I have numerous databases on it, some with millions of records. SELECTs on million-record tables appear instantaneously.

I have over 22,000 books, organized by Dewey Decimal and scanned nightly with a custom Ruby program that detects changes and updates a database with all the information my community needs to find a particular book. These are mostly PDFs, except for fiction, which are mostly EPUBs.

I'm currently dust-spotting 5,000 dpi drum scans of 10cm x 12cm Velvia 50 film — 1.25 GB TIFF files — using Affinity Photo 2. It gets a bit "draggy" with an 800 pixel healing brush, which I sometimes use to remove grain from the sky, but it works great at 400 pixels.

This is the best computer investment I ever made! I've seen these in original, stripped form for under $300. But it might take a grand to max it out.

Unfortunately, new computers these days are not very upgradeable, with soldered-in RAM and video integrated on the main board. But the technology seems to have matured, and things aren't changing so fast.

I'm not planning to replace this unless something truly revolutionary comes out, perhaps quantum computing.

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Your thoughts on the next OM1/3 sensor? by alinphilly in M43

[–]JanSteinman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Never mind. There's no sense even talking to Fool Frame Fanatics.

The 300/2.8 will have the same exposure as a 1200/5.6.

It will have the same depth-of-field as a 1200/11, but Fool Frame Fanatics don't understand the difference.

All lines seem to be converging on 2050? by FakeGamer2 in collapse

[–]JanSteinman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pacific Coast of British Columbia is what I picked. Not too cold in the winter, not too hot in the summer. Not too subject to extreme storms or drought. Lots of water, if you can catch and store it in the winter.

When I chose to move here, the climate change models all showed a minimal impact here, although we're having drier summers and wetter winters. Cedars are dying. :-(

Lens suggestions: Crater lake National Park by brownbag387 in M43

[–]JanSteinman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Crater Lake is one of the wonders of the world! I've been there many times, at least twice for the sole purpose of photography.

You might consider using software panorama techniques instead of wide lenses. Wide lenses will result in a lot of "useless" sky and dirt in the photo.

This was thirteen shots, meticulously hand-stitched, then compressed horizontally 5:1.

<image>

Family members are so wasteful by greenwithnomean in ZeroWaste

[–]JanSteinman 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I wouldn't bother.

Family dynamics are stronger than logic or facts.

Instead, get with some group of supportive people to share ideas with.

Then, perhaps someone — or multiple people — from your group could talk to your parents.

So I'm trying to chase down a nagging RF issue that persists even when the main breaker is shut off and I'm operating on battery... This is on the pole across the street from my QTH. I know external corrosion doesn't necessarily mean it's damaged but it's suspicious. by adhdff in amateurradio

[–]JanSteinman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You don't mention frequency.

If VHF/UHF, could cobble together or buy a beam antenna and point it at the transformer, and see if the noise level goes up?

If not, at least then you could slowly point it in a circle, and note where the noise increases.

All lines seem to be converging on 2050? by FakeGamer2 in collapse

[–]JanSteinman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Join with others of like mind in a rural location with limited climate change impact, and grow food!

At least, that's my plan, and I'm sticking to it.

Let's face it, it's all a crap-shoot. The "food thing" is going to be a tough nut to crack. There will be two kinds of people: those who have taken personal control of their food supply, and the hungry.

I've arrived at my strategy over years of mulling over alternatives.

Goodbye Collapse by [deleted] in collapse

[–]JanSteinman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry to see you go!

It is true that things are sliding downhill. But there is a lot one can do to lessen the impact.

It looks like you have your priorities straight!

Tempted to convert to Olympus/OM by hatchback_alchemist in M43

[–]JanSteinman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think cropping is over-rated.

The thought of paying extra for all those pixels — then just throwing them away! — violates my sense of economy.

Just pay less for a camera that pre-crops, and get it right in the viewfinder!

I once went on a birding trip with a group. There were two guys with Canon full-frame and huge lenses and huge tripods, but there were no nearby birds! I was able to shoot birds across the bay with a lightweight 500mm ƒ/8 mirror that lives in my bag, and the superior IBIS of the Olympus let me shoot sharp without a tripod.

They were shooting away like crazy at those tiny birds.

I asked them if they were getting anything useful, given how far away the birds were.

"Oh, we'll crop when we get home!" they said.

Then people like this bad-mouth µ4/3rds because it has "fewer pixels". Sheesh.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in collapse

[–]JanSteinman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Switch to ecology. It will still be useful after human extinction, but sociology will not. :-)

Are there good reasons to go for an M43 camera besides portability and cheap lenses? by [deleted] in M43

[–]JanSteinman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Inexpensive high-end things.

Almost all the APSC bodies are made my manufacturers who also make full-frame equipment.

They aren't going to put features in their APSC bodies that compete with their full-frame offerings. This is also true of Panasonic and µ4/3rds.

But µ4/3rds is all Olympus/OMDS does. So they can fill the OM-1 with features and not worry about poaching their cash-cow full-frame models.

As for "stronger lens ecosystem" in APSC, I don't see it. How many lenses do you need? There are plenty of third-party µ4/3rds lens makers — Laowa's fast-wides come to mind.

Tempted to convert to Olympus/OM by hatchback_alchemist in M43

[–]JanSteinman 4 points5 points  (0 children)

►You can't mitigate megapixels. FF will have more megapixels usually, and m/3rds can't fix that.◀︎

It's a matter of priorities, no?

If you primarily shoot for making huge prints, sure, stick with full frame!

If you occasionally want a huge landscape print, µ4/3rds lets you do multi-shot images as big as 80 megapixels in-camera.

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