michrassena's comments

michrassena | 1 year ago | on: QNX is now free for anything non-commercial, plus there's an RPi image

I hope the QNX can fix their antiquated password process on this site. Apparently I still had an account from the last time they opened things up, and I asked for a password reset. I received a six character temporary password by email and used that log in. Then when I changed the password (which wasn't prompted for when I logged in, I had to hunt down the change password option), I was limited to alphanumerics and 20 characters. Edit: I'll also add that the entire process of setting up an account, getting a license, granting yourself a license, then downloading the software center all just to download the Raspberry Pi image was a lot of roundabout steps for something I'm going to play around with on the weekend and never look at again. I know this is an exercise to gain customers, but still a hassle even for those familiar with the process. Ultimately it reads as if QNX is deathly afraid of giving something away.

michrassena | 1 year ago | on: FreeBSD: How Can We Make It More Attractive to New Users?

I can connect to wifi on my old Thinkpad running Haiku. There's no reason FreeBSD shouldn't have full support for wifi out of the box. Even OpenBSD has better wifi support. After many years, reasons start to look like excuses. Make it work.

But at the end of the day, if I work a long time at it I can get FreeBSD to do everything Linux can do. But that's kind of the problem. New users are casual users. What does FreeBSD offer that Linux, MacOS and Windows don't that isn't related to running services on big hardware?

FreeBSD just ends up being like another distro people hop to occasionally, find it doesn't support all their hardware or the software they're used to, and they hop to something else.

michrassena | 1 year ago | on: A RP2040 based DECstation 3000 emulator that can run DECWindows

I'm looking over at my Decstation 5000/260 with the burnt-out power supply. Maybe this is what I need to get that feeling back.

michrassena | 2 years ago | on: The Web Site to Remember National Semiconductor's Series 32000 Family

I was pleased to see a page with photos (and PDF documentation) of the Ceres systems which were used to develop the Oberon operating system.

http://cpu-ns32k.net/Ceres.html

michrassena | 2 years ago | on: Boot legacy PCs from NVMe storage

I'm doing something similar with the VisionFive 2, boot is on the SD card, the NVME does the rest.

michrassena | 2 years ago | on: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

I've ordered something now to at least get in the queue for the next time. Hopefully by then, some Zero 2 boards will be available.

michrassena | 2 years ago | on: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

It looks like it's not possible to order one unless you've ordered something from Pimoroni before 12 May 2023. The only one in stock currently is the Pi Zero. So unfortunately it's still the same story. Yeah, we had lots of stock, but it's gone now and you couldn't order it anyway. I hope it gets better soon, and all this pent-up demand doesn't collapse once stocks are full.

michrassena | 2 years ago | on: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

I think I've only ever used the row of GPIO pins on the Pi for UART, and for running the dog-slow screens that use up most of them. These days, I'd put Micropython on a Pi Pico or other MCU for GPIO.

michrassena | 2 years ago | on: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

I have a small stack of Raspberry Pi boards that I bought one at a time over the last few years. My issue with them is I could never buy three or four at once. I was always hit with the full shipping cost on something that weighs an ounce. As far as I know this has always been the case in the US.

I want to be able to buy a few at a time, like any other product.

michrassena | 2 years ago | on: Connect to your Raspberry Pi over USB using gadget mode

I'm currently trying to do this on my little stack of Pi Zero and Zero 2 boards. I remember at some point this worked great, and then I couldn't get it to work again. So far I'm not having any success. The Pi doesn't show up as a USB device using lsusb on the host. Working my way through a stack of micro-usb cables. Maybe they all are charge only. Anyone have recent success with 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS and Ubuntu on the host end?

michrassena | 2 years ago | on: Inferno-OS: distributed operating system where everything is a file

I'm disappointed to see that the binaries for the Raspberry Pi aren't available anymore at the bitbucket linked on https://github.com/yshurik/inferno-rpi.

I've run Plan9 in the paste on Raspberry Pi and found it to be a neat experience. Inferno I've only run under Windows, and which seemed kind of pointless.

michrassena | 3 years ago | on: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works containing material generated by AI

Is the lack of human authorship the gist of the argument? Can you claim copyright on the output from a compiler? Or is this like work for hire, where you just give instructions to the creative professional?

michrassena | 3 years ago | on: On Taking Photographs

I've encountered something like this attitude, though it's more a reverence for the newest, flashiest gear in online forums. Certain camera brands bring it out in people, like certain car and computer brands used to.

Oddly, photography is generally an asocial pursuit, at least as an amateur. So what does it matter what the photographic community thinks. If you're in business, they aren't customers, and if you show your work, they aren't the audience.

michrassena | 3 years ago | on: On Taking Photographs

I agree, Flickr has lost its spark. It might be dying, it might not. But whatever it had is gone.

michrassena | 3 years ago | on: Some Ubuntu security patches are now behind 'Ubuntu Pro', a paid product

It's a perverse incentive for sure.

michrassena | 3 years ago | on: Some Ubuntu security patches are now behind 'Ubuntu Pro', a paid product

Thanks, that explains things a bit better. It sounds like it's better to not use the universe repository at all in that case. I don't suppose I can just switch over to Debian for those packages, can I?

michrassena | 3 years ago | on: Some Ubuntu security patches are now behind 'Ubuntu Pro', a paid product

So is this in fact a good thing reframed as something negative because Canonical is asking for money?

michrassena | 3 years ago | on: Some Ubuntu security patches are now behind 'Ubuntu Pro', a paid product

So if I'm reading sources.list correctly, universe repositories don't receive security updates from the Ubuntu team. Is it now the case that they do, as long as you've enrolled in Ubuntu Pro?

That makes it sound as if Canonical has taken some kind of responsibility for making these packages secure at a cost for more than five devices.

michrassena | 3 years ago | on: The limits of "computational photography"

I don't think we're that point yet, but there's some amazing work on deconvolution for seeing around corners.

michrassena | 3 years ago | on: The limits of "computational photography"

I haven't finished the article, but it seems like using the flash on the iPhone might have been enough to lower the ISO for the photo. Lower ISO = lower noise. The end results look like a typical noise reduction process. For screen-sized images, the new phones do quite well. But zoom in and it's often a painterly-blur.