Random thoughts.... [Tech Edition]

[eizbaer]

With our upcoming move my wife will have her own office again… so I decided to order an asrock x300 for her with sorted bits and pieces (ram, ssd, 24“ screen) to inherit my amd 4650g APU, so that I can get me one of them sweet sweet 5800x3d

I still have to build the Desk though…

 

[NecroJoe]

I still have to build the Desk though…

Nah, just DIY it.

It's even height-adjustable.

 

[NecroJoe]

You guys laugh, but I've done that in hotel rooms.

 

[GRtak]

You guys laugh, but I've done that in hotel rooms.

We don't want to hear about your kinky hotel room fantasies!

 

[GRtak]

The leap second’s time is up: world votes to stop pausing clocks

How, and whether, to keep atomic time in sync with Earth’s rotation is still up for debate.

www.nature.com

 

[GRtak]

It's about more than pixels.

 

[Matt2000]

Techmoan did a video about that in 2016 and included this video from 1993:

It's impressive stuff, MiniDV (first commonly used digital video tape in cameras) didn't come around until 1995.

 

[jack_christie]

You too can make your LED Dance Pole
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/polefx-livens-up-acrobatic-dance-with-raspberry-pi-magpi-123/

 

[NecroJoe]

Is there a way to get a graph of the Google searches for a specific term over a specific time window? Like if one wanted to see a 5-year line graph for the term "GPU shortage" or "chili crisp" to see spikes and wanes. Is there a website or tool that will be able to put that together?

 

[eizbaer]

Is there a way to get a graph of the Google searches for a specific term over a specific time window? Like if one wanted to see a 5-year line graph for the term "GPU shortage" or "chili crisp" to see spikes and wanes. Is there a website or tool that will be able to put that together?

try this, maybe it does exactly what you want? https://trends.google.com/trends/

 

[NecroJoe]

try this, maybe it does exactly what you want? https://trends.google.com/trends/

View attachment 3567796

Yes! That's perfect! Thank you!

 

[Eye-Q]

Now that SSD prices are falling again and Black Week/Black Friday is a thing in Germany for whatever reason I'm thinking about replacing my ancient 4 TB HDD with flash storage. There are "just" 2.4 TB of data on the HDD, most of it is HD movies and TV series which I very rarely watch so realistically a 2 TB SSD as replacement should be plenty. A 4 TB Crucial MX500 SATA currently costs "just" 299 Euros, but when I go 2 TB the least expensive M.2 PCIe SSD with TLC NAND is 129 Euros so half the price, but the SATA protocol doesn't limit. Then again I don't need high performance for a drive which will be used only for bulk storage. I have a 500 GB Kingston A2000 M.2 PCIe SSD as boot and game install device so I don't need to replace that. With a 4 TB SSD I would replace the small 256 GB Crucial MX100 SATA which works as my photo storage as well.

I don't have and I don't need a NAS, I use just one PC and no streaming device so the choice is either 2 TB M.2 PCIe (the mainboard has one M.2 PCIe 3.0 x2 slot available) or 4 TB SATA. Backup is done via an external HDD which is stored in the basement, gets only connected for the time of the backup and then promptly taken down to the basement again.

Any other thoughts on this?

 

[eizbaer]

Any other thoughts on this?

4 tb mx500 for 299 seems rather expensive tbh… especially considering the much faster alternative is considerably cheaper.
Weird, but maybe that’s just the premium for sheer size in a single drive? … looking at price comparisons that does indeed seem to be the case. Poop.

 

[Eye-Q]

As I wrote: since that's going to be a drive for bulk storage so performance is lowest priority. That said, it's unlikely streaming will disappear so for me the need of huge amounts of local storage will likely diminish in the next years as well. I don't have any ambitions getting into editing video or something like that which requires huge amounts of local storage as well so it would make sense to go for the lowest cost per GB, and that's currently 1 or 2 TB at around 55 Euros per TB. The least expensive 4 TB HDD is 75 Euros per TB so the premium is more than a third for storage I likely won't need...

 

[Matt2000]

In the same situation I'd get two 2TB M.2 SSDs and a PCIe adapter that both SSDs can be fitted to. Something like this:

Use them separately or with software RAID to form a larger volume (I use Storage Spaces), the performance is better and you have much better disks for future use if things change. My SSDs always get handed down to other tasks and repurposed, spending less to get better performance and a more useful product over time makes me happy.

 

[NecroJoe]

I'm surprised there doesn't seem to be an audio solution meant to work in collaboration with most webcams. Like something minimal, up and out if the way on top of the monitor, maybe with an integrated USB port so it can share one cable and pc port with the camera.

Given that so much more online meeting situations depend on audio more than video, and most people don't want a microphone on their desk, or a boom arm, or having to wear something (like an earpiece or a lav mic), and given how so many webcams have suuuucky audio or NO audio...it seems like a no-brainer. Something like a unidirectional/shotgun mic with a really targeted field (to cover a similar area as a webcame) to help eliminate background noise etc.

Or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places...

 

[93Flareside]

I'm surprised there doesn't seem to be an audio solution meant to work in collaboration with most webcams. Like something minimal, up and out if the way on top of the monitor, maybe with an integrated USB port so it can share one cable and pc port with the camera.

Given that so much more online meeting situations depend on audio more than video, and most people don't want a microphone on their desk, or a boom arm, or having to wear something (like an earpiece or a lav mic), and given how so many webcams have suuuucky audio or NO audio...it seems like a no-brainer. Something like a unidirectional/shotgun mic with a really targeted field (to cover a similar area as a webcame) to help eliminate background noise etc.

Or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places...

Isn’t Apple trying to change this with their newest laptops and desktops?

 

[NecroJoe]

Isn’t Apple trying to change this with their newest laptops and desktops?

It could be. I'm in the position of already having a complete PC desktop system, and just looking to bump my audio up a notch or three without sacrificing deskspace or having to wear equipment.

I just stumbled upon the Samson Go Mic Connect that seems to hit almost all of the bases. I wish it were black, and while I do understand why it doesn't have it, a USB pass-through for a camera would be dope...

 

[Matt2000]

while I do understand why it doesn't have it, a USB pass-through for a camera would be dope...

You didn't specifically say the reason you understand it for so - thinking like a manufacturer I would want to avoid having products returned as faulty by (possibly dumb) end users when they're plugging in items from other manufacturers.

I agree it would be nice to daisy chain them though. I personally have a Blue Yeti mounted up above the desk on the cabinet I made, however due to using a TV as a monitor and it having a very thin bezel I have nowhere to properly mount a webcam. I use my work laptop if I really have to be on camera.

 

[NecroJoe]

You didn't specifically say the reason you understand it for so - thinking like a manufacturer I would want to avoid having products returned as faulty by (possibly dumb) end users when they're plugging in items from other manufacturers.

I agree it would be nice to daisy chain them though. I personally have a Blue Yeti mounted up above the desk on the cabinet I made, however due to using a TV as a monitor and it having a very thin bezel I have nowhere to properly mount a webcam. I use my work laptop if I really have to be on camera.

Ahh, yeah, I didn't complete that thought. I just figured that adding a USB port that could both pass through enough power to another device, AND make sure it was fast enough to accommodate the newest 4k 60hz cameras, and make sure that the weight of another devices camera wouldn't negatively affect the mounting system, would probably add too much cost to an item that in my head was targeting more of a value-minded customer.