hungariantoast's recent activity

  1. Comment on I just bought a 64GB iPad, anything I should know/do? in ~tech

    hungariantoast
    Link
    Procreate is an amazing art program. Even if you don't consider yourself artistic, but are interested in learning digital illustration or painting, I can't recommend Procreate enough. It's very...

    Procreate is an amazing art program. Even if you don't consider yourself artistic, but are interested in learning digital illustration or painting, I can't recommend Procreate enough. It's very well-designed, easy to learn, but still has tons of features. It's also incredibly popular, and so there's an endless stream of content on the internet that you can use for learning and inspiration.

    1 vote

  2. Comment on With Core One, Prusa's open source hardware dream quietly dies in ~tech

    hungariantoast
    Link Parent
    Where's the evidence that Prusa's previous "openness" has been incompatible with their ability to make a profit though? This article doesn't provide that evidence, and I didn't turn up anything in...

    I think that Prusa is trying to navigate a difficult line, which is attempting to stay as open, hackable, supportable as possible while still turning some kind of profit so that they can continue to build open, hackable, supportable products.

    Where's the evidence that Prusa's previous "openness" has been incompatible with their ability to make a profit though?

    This article doesn't provide that evidence, and I didn't turn up anything in a quick search on my phone either.

    I'm going to go out on a limb and say the excuse is "Chinese companies are using our open designs and leveraging their industrial advantage to outcompete us, while contributing nothing back".

    I'm getting this excuse from a blog post Drew DeVault (yes him) wrote about Prusa back in December. Though that blog post was about open source software, not open hardware, I think he had a good take (yes really) on why Prusa's troubles are more due to poor business decisions and, compared to their competitors, innovation shortcomings, rather than their open nature.

    https://drewdevault.com/2023/12/26/2023-12-26-Prusa-is-floundering.html

    Ultimately I don't know that though. I don't actually know much about Prusa at all.

    Except that, a few months ago, when my father was thinking about getting back into 3D printing and was reading and watching tons of reviews on printers, Prusa was consistently regarded as having worse products than Bambu and competitors.

    Cards on the table: I don't think open hardware is at fault here. I think this is ultimately just another in a long line of poor business decisions by Prusa.

    3 votes

  6. Comment on Should I stop using Kagi because they do business with Yandex? in ~tech

    hungariantoast
    Link Parent
    I updated the title. If you would like it updated again, let me know

    I updated the title. If you would like it updated again, let me know

    4 votes

  12. Comment on Auto-mute mode in ALSA might be the reason you can't use your speakers with headphones plugged in in ~comp

    hungariantoast
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Mostly so I could keep using pavucontrol as a graphical audio control interface. (Which is the recommended interface for PipeWire.) But also, when I first installed PipeWire years ago, some...

    Mostly so I could keep using pavucontrol as a graphical audio control interface. (Which is the recommended interface for PipeWire.)

    But also, when I first installed PipeWire years ago, some programs (like mpv) didn't support PipeWire natively. You had to also install one of the compatibility packages for them to work, because they only supported the ALSA or PulseAudio API.

    I've never uninstalled those compatibility packages to see if they're still necessary, because I've never had any overt issues with them.

    For all the problems with Linux audio that people post online about, and as complex and hard to understand as the stack is (it is), I personally, haven't had many issues with it (even for bluetooth audio).

    Also, while writing this comment, I was curious if there were any PipeWire-native alternatives to pavucontrol yet, and it turns out there is:

    https://github.com/saivert/pwvucontrol

    It's pretty neat. It's probably going to replace pavucontrol for me.

  13. Comment on Looking for DRM-free book recommendations in ~books

    hungariantoast
    Link
    New word discovered. Thanks! (The rest of this comment is about shadow libraries. I know you said you aren't looking for pirated books, so feel free to just not read the rest of this if you really...

    glom

    New word discovered. Thanks!

    (The rest of this comment is about shadow libraries. I know you said you aren't looking for pirated books, so feel free to just not read the rest of this if you really aren't interested. I waited until this topic was a week old so that hopefully me bringing this stuff up wouldn't get in the way of other recommendations.)

    For "traditional" titles I plan on still buying them on Kobo and then just stripping the DRM and transferring them over

    Look, you're not going to find more comprehensive libraries of DRM-free books than Anna's Archive or Z-Library.

    My advice would be to do what I do:

    Download books from a shadow library first. Read them. If you like them, then buy them somewhere.

    By doing things in that order, you won't have to worry about whether the place you buy the book from offers DRM-free files, because you'll already have one from the shadow library. It also means you won't need to spend extra time fixing DRM-encumbered files.

    Sure, maybe this process exists in a moral gray area. If you disagree with the existence of shadow libraries then is it really okay to utilize them? Those kinds of questions.

    (For what it's worth, I don't have any quandaries about them. I think their existence is an unequivocally good thing.)

    Whatever your opinion on the morality of shadow libraries though, it's hard to argue that they aren't the most practical approach to acquiring ebooks without DRM or other encumbrances.

    2 votes

  14. Comment on eBooks cost too much in ~books

    hungariantoast
    Link
    Read, then pay: Download a good-quality copy of the ebook from Anna's Archive or Z-Library Read the book If you liked the book, and want to give the author money: 3.1 Check if the author accepts...

    Read, then pay:

    1. Download a good-quality copy of the ebook from Anna's Archive or Z-Library
    2. Read the book
    3. If you liked the book, and want to give the author money:
      3.1 Check if the author accepts direct donations
      3.2 Shop around for a place to pay for the book

    If you download a good-quality copy of the book from a shadow library first, you can be less-selective about where you pay for the book afterwards. You won't have to worry about DRM or the quality of the ebook you're paying for, because you'll already have a file for it. You can also shop around to find a lower price, or wait for a sale. By using a shadow library first, then paying, you're no longer beholden to pay a price you disagree with.

    3 votes

  15. Comment on Auto-mute mode in ALSA might be the reason you can't use your speakers with headphones plugged in in ~comp

  16. Comment on Cycling typing in ~comp

    hungariantoast
    Link Parent
    One of my roommates in college would take his iPad down to our apartment's little gym and do math homework and even draw while walking or jogging. It was impressive. I, on the other hand, remember...

    One of my roommates in college would take his iPad down to our apartment's little gym and do math homework and even draw while walking or jogging. It was impressive.

    I, on the other hand, remember building a standing desk and having trouble maintaining focus, or generally being any kind of productive, after standing about an hour. I've had that desk almost four years though, and standing a few hours at a time doesn't bother me anymore. So it's definitely something you can train at.

    Standing has actually become a neat little hack for me. If I feel tired midday, or start crashing after lunch, standing usually helps me recoup a bit.

    Cycling seems like it's on a whole other level though, so I agree, kudos to them. I'd like to try something like this one day, but would need to design and print custom cases for my keyboard first.

    1 vote

  19. Auto-mute mode in ALSA might be the reason you can't use your speakers with headphones plugged in

    ~comp Text 244 words
    Problem: I recently switched back to a desktop as my main computer, and was surprised to learn I couldn't use my speakers if my headphones were plugged in. I don't use a desktop environment (just...

    Problem:

    I recently switched back to a desktop as my main computer, and was surprised to learn I couldn't use my speakers if my headphones were plugged in.

    I don't use a desktop environment (just Sway), so I rely on pavucontrol as a GUI to control my audio.

    I could use my headphones just fine while my speakers were plugged in, but when I switched to my speakers in pavucontrol's interface, they would not output audio. My headphones would stop playing (as expected), and pavucontrol's little "dancing bar" would indicate that the speaker's port was processing an audio signal (as expected), but no sound was actually being produced.

    Solution:

    The culprit ended up being something called "Auto-Mute" in ALSA. To disable auto-mute mode, you can either:

    1. Run the command amixer sset "Auto-Mute" unmute in a terminal
    2. Run the command alsamixer in a terminal
      2.1 Press F6 and select your sound card
      2.2 Ensure you're viewing playback settings by pressing F3
      2.3 Move the item selection over until you've selected auto-mute mode
      2.4 Press the down arrow key to switch it to "Disabled"

    That fixed my issue.

    For me, auto-mute mode stayed disabled after a reboot. You might need to run the command alsactl store to make the configuration persistent though. The Arch Linux Wiki article on ALSA has a "tips and tricks" section that goes into more detail:

    https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Advanced_Linux_Sound_Architecture#Tips_and_tricks

    17 votes