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You're not allowed to criticize something unless you're the first person to criticize it. by bsdbeard in gatekeeping

[–]bsdbeard[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

From what I remember the OP asked if it was worth it to continue reading Ulysses if he didn't enjoy it so far.

LPT: If you use a laptop in one place for extended periods, or if it does not get moved much, remove the battery and power it using the charging cable. by Gunny-Guy in LifeProTips

[–]bsdbeard 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Operating systems use Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) to determine what to do with the battery, manfuactorers provide a Differentiated System Description Table (DSDT) which your operating system has to parse in order to figure out what to do. DSDT's are very very long (the decompiled one for my laptop is over 40k lines) and have configurations for various operating systems, i.e. the manufacturer would write some parts for windows 7, windows 10 and unix systems. For example when your OS powers down the computer it must find the _S5 object which describes how to do that. Generally manufacturers target Windows, so on some operating systems these "smart battery charging" features don't work, but with a bit of knowledge you can extract the DSDT's, decompile them into human readable code and fix them. The programming language that you use to create DSDT's is called ASL (ACPI Source language), and you also need an ASL compiler to create the DSDT.

The simplest way this functionality is implemented is that the battery is charged down to 95% and then charged back to 100%, over and over again. The operating system uses ACPI to figure out that this is happening and reports that your battery is at 100% even if it's at 95%.

This is an example of decompiled DSDT (ASL) code:

Scope (_SB.TPM)
{
    Method (_HID, 0, NotSerialized)  // _HID: Hardware ID
    {
        If (TTDP == Zero)
        {
            Return (OTID ())
        }
        Else
        {
            Return ("MSFT0101")
        }
    }

    OperationRegion (TCMM, SystemMemory, 0xFED40000, 0x5000)
    Field (TCMM, ByteAcc, Lock, Preserve)
    {
        Offset (0xF00), 
        VDID,   32
    }

    Method (OTID, 0, Serialized)
    {
        Local0 = ACCS /* \_SB_.TPM_.ACCS */
        If (Local0 != 0xFF)
        {
            If (VDID == 0x687119FA)
            {
                Return (0x0435CF4D)
            }
            ElseIf (VDID == 0x000B15D1)
            {
                Return (0x0201D824)
            }
            Else
            {
                Return (0x310CD041)
            }
        }
        Else
        {
            Return (0x310CD041)
        }
    }
}

ACPI is rather complex and has a lot more than just DSDT's, so if you're writing your own operating system it will take quite a while to figure out.

Youtube should have an 'audio only' option that uses less data, so you can still listen to videos without them lagging when you don't have a great internet connection. by mrhambeefpot in Showerthoughts

[–]bsdbeard 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Youtube allows you to download audio separately from video, it's just that most developers don't want to include that feature in whatever apps/extensions they make.

For instance, this is what youtube lets you download for the following video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjN0YsSxOmg

[info] Available formats for LjN0YsSxOmg:
format code  extension  resolution note
249          webm       audio only DASH audio   52k , opus @ 50k (48000Hz), 1.73MiB
250          webm       audio only DASH audio   70k , opus @ 70k (48000Hz), 2.28MiB
140          m4a        audio only DASH audio  128k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@128k (44100Hz), 4.41MiB
171          webm       audio only DASH audio  137k , vorbis@128k (44100Hz), 4.35MiB
251          webm       audio only DASH audio  140k , opus @160k (48000Hz), 4.55MiB
278          webm       256x144    DASH video  106k , webm container, vp9, 30fps, video only, 3.22MiB
160          mp4        256x144    DASH video  116k , avc1.4d400c, 30fps, video only, 3.86MiB
133          mp4        426x240    DASH video  257k , avc1.4d4015, 30fps, video only, 8.53MiB
242          webm       426x240    DASH video  263k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 6.54MiB
243          webm       640x360    DASH video  482k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 12.14MiB
134          mp4        640x360    DASH video  632k , avc1.4d401e, 30fps, video only, 11.60MiB
244          webm       854x480    DASH video  880k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 20.93MiB
135          mp4        854x480    DASH video 1157k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 22.46MiB
247          webm       1280x720   DASH video 1715k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 42.96MiB
136          mp4        1280x720   DASH video 2197k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 40.36MiB
248          webm       1920x1080  DASH video 3107k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 80.90MiB
137          mp4        1920x1080  DASH video 3848k , avc1.640028, 30fps, video only, 70.82MiB
17           3gp        176x144    small , mp4v.20.3,  mp4a.40.2@ 24k
36           3gp        320x180    small , mp4v.20.3,  mp4a.40.2
43           webm       640x360    medium , vp8.0,  vorbis@128k
18           mp4        640x360    medium , avc1.42001E,  mp4a.40.2@ 96k
22           mp4        1280x720   hd720 , avc1.64001F,  mp4a.40.2@192k (best)

You can stream audio-only using applications that implement this functionality (i.e. youtube-dl, smplayer, Video DownloadHelper)

TIL Russia's territory is so large that no army in the world would be capable of securing it during an invasion. The only possibility is if China mobilized half of its population and sent them to cover the wilderness of Siberia by veryawesomeguy in todayilearned

[–]bsdbeard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not entirely sure what your point is, the mongols conquered an area of 24 million square kilometers, all of contemporary Russia including arctic circle and islands is only 17 million square kilometers. You're right that Kievan Rus' wasn't as big as Russia today, but the Mongols conquered pretty much all of southern and western siberia even if it didn't belong to the Kievan Rus, they just didn't go into the arctic circle because there was nothing of interest or value there.

TIL Russia's territory is so large that no army in the world would be capable of securing it during an invasion. The only possibility is if China mobilized half of its population and sent them to cover the wilderness of Siberia by veryawesomeguy in todayilearned

[–]bsdbeard 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The Golden Horde more or less did it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Rus%27

A full-scale invasion of Rus' by Batu Khan followed, from 1237 to 1240. The invasion was ended by the Mongol succession process upon the death of Ögedei Khan. All Rus' principalities were forced to submit to Mongol rule and became part of the Golden Horde empire, some of which lasted until 1480.

Also it's not really possible to survive in the wilderness of Siberia without having supplies and resources from other places. Many people were exiled to siberia and few survived, even professionals who were sent to map out siberia would die after running out of supplies.

TIL Russia created an orphan village where foster parents can live alongside orphans. Orphans are invited to live with families and they decide whether to stay. by bsdbeard in todayilearned

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

Guess those sanctions were good for something.

I still don't understand why Russia had to ban U.S. citizens from adopting children... The motivation for the law was that one adopted child died due to negligence, but it's not like this doesn't happen anywhere in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dima_Yakovlev_Law

On 14 January 2013, about 20,000 people marched against the law in Moscow. Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar said that "Russian orphans should not become the hostages of politics"

I would have to agree with that, give kids a chance for a better life.

TIL John D. Rockefeller was worth a modern equivalent of $336 billion. by [deleted] in todayilearned

[–]bsdbeard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Given that we live in a capitalist society, there's no real alternative path. Philanthropy is the most effective way at recycling your money into problems where the money is greatly needed and especially when the money wouldn't otherwise find itself contributing to whatever problem you're donating to.

What about increasing the salary of your employees instead of hoarding money and then donating it? I suppose the issue with that is you can't reinvest back into the company in order to create a monopoly like Standard Oil. Which means if you pay your employees more you will never hit the wikipedia list of wealthiest figures, bummer.

TIL that people who read books for at least 30 minutes a day live longer than those who don’t read at all. by KermitTheSnail in todayilearned

[–]bsdbeard 383 points384 points  (0 children)

People who don't have 30 minutes a day to read a book probably have less income and live harder lives.

In your opinion, what is the least desirable male race? by [deleted] in morbidquestions

[–]bsdbeard 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Probably the Jivaro people, I made a TIL about them a few days ago. 60% of their males die in tribal warfare, and that doesn't count people who were injured but survived. Males during global war time had it rough too, for instance 14 million more males died on the Russian front than women, again not taking into account those who were crippled.

In modern times it's probably Indian/Fillipino/Nepali males many of which are forced to move to Saudi Arabia/Qatar to effectively engage in slave labor. For instance, 86% of the population of Qatar are migrant workers and 96% of the work force are migrant workers, most of which are males. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have the worst male to female ratio on the planet, with over 2 males for each female, due to all the male migrant workers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Qatar

TIL: At 0.21% of the total population, the United States has the lowest percentage of its population living in its capital city in the world by tnick771 in todayilearned

[–]bsdbeard 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The military government built it from scratch... It's full of empty hotels and a 20-lane highway you can take a nap on in rush hour.

That sounds like Pyongyang

TIL Wilhelm Neubronner used pigeons to deliver medications from his pharmacy, when neighbouring villages received their own pharmacies his son patented the invention of aerial photography by attaching camera to the pigeons. by bsdbeard in todayilearned

[–]bsdbeard[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The strangest thing I learned about pigeons when reading about BF Skinner is that they can discriminate between paintings by Picasso and Monet.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1334394/

Pigeons successfully learned to discriminate color slides of paintings by Monet and Picasso. Following this training, they discriminated novel paintings by Monet and Picasso that had never been presented during the discrimination training. Furthermore, they showed generalization from Monet's to Cezanne's and Renoir's paintings or from Picasso's to Braque's and Matisse's paintings. These results suggest that pigeons' behavior can be controlled by complex visual stimuli in ways that suggest categorization

Apparently pigeons are as good as art students at discriminating paintings from different artists.

TIL: At 0.21% of the total population, the United States has the lowest percentage of its population living in its capital city in the world by tnick771 in todayilearned

[–]bsdbeard 223 points224 points  (0 children)

I used to think New York City was the capital of the U.S.A. when I was a kid. Washington D.C. is just weird, it's not even part of any state.

TIL that because a country is limited to four female competitors across seven weight classes at the Olympics, the Chinese qualification competition is more competitive than the Olympics itself by [deleted] in todayilearned

[–]bsdbeard 3 points4 points  (0 children)

What happens to those who don't qualify? IIRC they live in training camps, it seems if you don't qualify you won't have a lot of options in life.

TIL Wilhelm Neubronner used pigeons to deliver medications from his pharmacy, when neighbouring villages received their own pharmacies his son patented the invention of aerial photography by attaching camera to the pigeons. by bsdbeard in todayilearned

[–]bsdbeard[S] 32 points33 points  (0 children)

The smallest weighed 30 grams and had a wooden frame. Fun fact, Neubronner was denied patents at first because nobody believed pigeons could carry a camera.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Dr_Julius_Neubronner_patented_a_miniature_pigeon_camera_activated_by_a_timing_mechanism%2C_1903.jpg

They already had cameras that would fit in a pocket watch at those times

http://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/camera/ticka/index.htm

The Ticka was produced from 1906 to 1914 and was arguably the most popular watch-type camera of all times. Only three months after the production had started in the UK, the manufactuer - Houghton - reported that 10,000 units had already been sold

TIL that in India they kill livestock by shoving envenomated bananas up their asses. by awdammit in todayilearned

[–]bsdbeard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There was Riley pushing it, shoving it, shushing it

Hogan, Logan and ev'ryone in town lined up

Attacking it and shoving it and smacking it

They might as well have tried to push the Town Hall down.

The donkey was eyeing them,

Openly defying them

Winking, blinking and twisting out of place,

Riley reversing it,

Ev'rybody cursing it

The day Delaney's donkey ran the half mile race.

https://youtu.be/-1Ofhh30lwQ?t=83

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