Random thoughts.... [Tech Edition]

The TPM 2.0 requirement is just a way to force upgrades, as far as I can tell. Cheap tactics. We're in no rush to upgrade to Win11 at work but do use TPM.
 
On the left, Windows Update tells me I can't install Windows 11 and to check why not with the "integrity tool" (lol). On the right, said integrity tool tells me, that I should be able to install Windows 11. Thanks Microsoft, go home, you're drunk!
talking about W11: it seems my windows sobered up and now tells me I'm all good to go for W11! But it can't tell me when I'll be in line to download/upgrade/whatever.
I'm in no rush either, especially looking at the scheduler problems with ryzen systems that still plague gaming performance especially. I'll give it half a year at least to iron out at least some of the early stuff.
 
Well I guess my old PC with it’s Core i7 3930k is dead in the eyes of Windows 11 then… ?
 
The TPM 2.0 requirement is just a way to force upgrades, as far as I can tell. Cheap tactics. We're in no rush to upgrade to Win11 at work but do use TPM.

I mean...There is nothing wrong with wanting to push mainstream computing to be more secure. Lord knows people less interested in tech will use old and grossly insecure software if given the chance.

I'm still not updating for a while. Especially if my plans come through and my Windows PC gets demoted to "Wintendo"
 
I mean...There is nothing wrong with wanting to push mainstream computing to be more secure. Lord knows people less interested in tech will use old and grossly insecure software if given the chance.

I'm still not updating for a while. Especially if my plans come through and my Windows PC gets demoted to "Wintendo"
But wouldn’t you then also push people to actually use the TPM instead of just mandating it to just be there?
 
Sooo, a while back I bought a broken 37" Philips TV from Ebay for a project. Fixed it up (with no monetary investment), and decided to skip the project and straight up use it as a TV. And that held up for a couple years, I didn't use it much, but it fulfilled the function of the necessary decor in my living room. Not bad at all for 14€. Later on added some Edifier stereo speakers, and it was actually alright to watch a movie on occasionally.

---

Skip to a couple months ago. I'm walking home, as I notice a huge TV sitting outside a neighbors' house, in a pile with some obviously scrapped electronics, destined for specialized trash pickup next morning. I come closer, look it all over - no visible damage, no cracks or big scratches on the screen (one small scratch, barely even noticeable). I think to myself, "well, worst thing is this doesn't work at all, and I just bring it back out to the trash" - and promply took it in, which took some effort since the thing was bloody huge and a bit heavy.

Looking more closely at the find, it turned out to be a Sony KDL-65W857C - a 65" LED-backlit LCD TV from 2015, running Android TV (!). Only a 1080p panel, not 4K, but still rather nice. As expected, it was broken - but not completely, and after an evening of online research I decided I can probably get this fixed and have myself a free 65" TV.

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The thing would fire up, briefly show the Sony logo for half a second or so (assuring me the guts and most importantly the panel were basically alright), but then shut down and blink the red LED 6 times repeatedly. Looking up some service manuals and online tutorials, 6 blinks could mean a variety of things, but most likely backlight failure.

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The backlight consists of 18 LED strips mounted behind the LCD panel and some diffuser plates, split in two halves of 9 strips each wired in series. Series wiring means, if one LED on one strip dies, half the screen goes black. Apparently the LEDs do tend to die of overheating when the TV is run at high brightness for very long periods of time.

This was confirmed a couple days later, after I spent 15€ on a dubiously-looking LED tester device recommended by some of the repair videos, and it showed exactly the symptoms from one of the videos: when testing one of the two connectors, the backlight turns on and is visible through air holes in the back of the case, but the other half stays dark and the tester shows an open circuit. This meant the backlight needed replacing. Good news is, this likely meant all the PCBs and other components were alright, since the thing booted up and even tried to display something, until the PSU noticed the open circuit on one of the backlight connectors and shut everything down.

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Also in good news, the specific LED strips for the backlight can be found on eBay, and aren't that expensive - I spent 40€ on a full set, even delivered from Germany. However, the job of taking apart the TV, removing the panel and the diffusor layers, then replacing the LED strips and reassembling all of it is a bit tedious and needs more than one pair of hands, so I put it off for some weeks.

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Yesterday some friends came over, and we finally got it done. Until the very end, I gave it a 50-50 chance of just plain not working anymore - there were some sketchy moments when removing a couple adhesive strips, lifting out the panel, or securing the T-Con wire strips out of the way...

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It lives! And it's fucking huge. And awesome. The size is almost comical after being used to my old 37" in the same spot, and the speakers needed wall mounting since there's no room on the shelf next to the TV anymore - but I like it :) Android TV also totally works fine, with built-in Chromecast, the usual streaming apps and all the stuff. For 50€ and some beers, really quite neat I think.

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Speakers mounted up, all done for now. Maybe some cable management still to do.
 
That is properly awesome! Nearly free tv replaced by bigger better nearly free tv!

I’m quite scared of opening a tv up but the idea is sound, and if it’s free, you don’t have a lot to lose.

I myself was gifted a free 43 inch Tv a while back so I guess I can’t complain
 
Repair all the things!
 
But wouldn’t you then also push people to actually use the TPM instead of just mandating it to just be there?
TPM is activated at the BIOS level. You could try to activate it through a BIOS update, relying on people actually willingly going through that. You could also provide a guide for enabling it, which Microsoft does, but it's rather useless as everyone calls it somewhere different and has it somewhere else on BIOS. This also relies on interest on the part of the consumer.

With this in mind, I can see why they would let it run on TPM 2.0-capable hardware (it reduces the chances of even further confusion between people with ostensibly identical systems but one can run it and one can't), and soft forcing people without it to new devices, which would have it enabled by default.
 
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Good to know that Apple's $19 microfiber display cleaning cloth is compatible with the iPod Shuffle 4th Gen (as listed in the Compatibility section)...which doesn't have a screen.


At least there's free shipping.
 
I used to have the product page of both the Mac Mini G4 and iBook G4's on a poster board in my bedroom growing up. I so wanted the 100GB HDD and 1GB, 1.5GB of memory. :|
 
If it was a full rewrite, maybe, but it isn't. I'm still five clicks away from a Windows NT interface.

I’m not a windows user at home but I have to deal with it at work. I still raise an eyebrow every now and then when I’m digging around windows 10 settings and come across an oldschool Control Panel or whatnot. They literally just put the flat windows 10 interface on top. Are you saying this still is the case in 11?
 
I used to have the product page of both the Mac Mini G4 and iBook G4's on a poster board in my bedroom growing up. I so wanted the 100GB HDD and 1GB, 1.5GB of memory. :|

I had the last version of the PB G4 12” they made. I was so late to the game that Apple announced the Core Duo MacBook Pro in the time between me ordering and actually taking delivery. In hindsight it was a good looking but terrible laptop with shoddy wi-fi reception that got hot to the touch when you asked it to even the smallest of things. A great OS trapped in terribly outdated hardware.

Windows Media was also still very much a thing and saying that the official Mac player and plugin was a steaming pile of excrement would be an insult to excrement.

How far we’ve come.
 
I’m not a windows user at home but I have to deal with it at work. I still raise an eyebrow every now and then when I’m digging around windows 10 settings and come across an oldschool Control Panel or whatnot. They literally just put the flat windows 10 interface on top. Are you saying this still is the case in 11?
I'd be very surprised if they changed anything. I still use the old school control panel apps daily so I'd be disappointed if they messed with them. I really think Windows 11 is just the next big Win10 update with a new name. Y'know, that thing they said they would never do.
 
I had the last version of the PB G4 12” they made. I was so late to the game that Apple announced the Core Duo MacBook Pro in the time between me ordering and actually taking delivery. In hindsight it was a good looking but terrible laptop with shoddy wi-fi reception that got hot to the touch when you asked it to even the smallest of things. A great OS trapped in terribly outdated hardware.

Windows Media was also still very much a thing and saying that the official Mac player and plugin was a steaming pile of excrement would be an insult to excrement.

How far we’ve come.
I ended up getting an iMac G5 iSight for Christmas 2005 and January was when intel macs were announced…
 
I'd be very surprised if they changed anything. I still use the old school control panel apps daily so I'd be disappointed if they messed with them. I really think Windows 11 is just the next big Win10 update with a new name. Y'know, that thing they said they would never do.
Yeah, from the few first look things they’ve kept a lot of the old interfaces. Which seems super lazy if I’m being honest… I mean it’s fair to keep the content and everything, but at least slap a skin on it so it looks like W11? now It just seems like they weren’t finished…

tbh same was also already true for W10.
 
Yeah, from the few first look things they’ve kept a lot of the old interfaces. Which seems super lazy if I’m being honest… I mean it’s fair to keep the content and everything, but at least slap a skin on it so it looks like W11? now It just seems like they weren’t finished…

tbh same was also already true for W10.
It's a continuous game of fooling people into thinking they're getting something new. From a corporate perspective we only take any notice of the end of support dates so I really couldn't care less about changes as long as it runs the software we need. Same at home I suppose, it really wouldn't bother me if Windows 10 or 11 still looked like XP.
 
It's a continuous game of fooling people into thinking they're getting something new. From a corporate perspective we only take any notice of the end of support dates so I really couldn't care less about changes as long as it runs the software we need. Same at home I suppose, it really wouldn't bother me if Windows 10 or 11 still looked like XP.

It's funny how people react to new Windows versions.

I've been around since Windows 3.1. I remember thinking Windows 95 was a huge upgrade, and Macs weren't a thing unless you were one of those weirdos that had one, so I didn't know the entire "desktop" was a Mac ripoff. Then came Windows 98 which was more of the same. Windows ME was universally regarded as shit by everyone except one friend of mine that happened to have a computer that ran better on ME than it ever did on 98.

I jumped on Windows 2000 starting with a pirated Release Candidate 2 and never looked back, but some people still clung to the DOS based versions. Then came Windows XP, the first "consumer" NT. which I thought looked like a Playskool designer did it, thankfully there was a "classic" theme to make it look like a proper OS again. Everyone I knew used classic, unless you were one of those that just used the default, thisisfine.jpg.

Windows 7 was another good OS, but after that it seems like people stopped caring. Everyone just uses whatever their new computer comes with and that's that. I'm a bit interested to see what happens when Windows 11 starts rolling out.
 
The Windows desktop is not a Mac ripoff, they both ripoffed Xerox.
 
The Windows desktop is not a Mac ripoff, they both ripoffed Xerox.

I get what you're saying, but we both know Apple got a proper software product out first. But in this case I was actually referring to the desktop with files on it much like your real life desk has paper on it, something PC's didn't have until Windows 95. Before that we had the Program Manager which wasn't the same thing.
 
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