wax66's recent activity

  1. Comment on Can old, poorly wired electrical outlets cause a PC to freeze? in ~tech

    wax66
    Link
    Weird anecdote, probably not what's happening, but similar. Way back in the days, my college got a brand new batch of around thirty 200MHz Pentium PCs. Most of them wouldn't boot, and if they did...

    Weird anecdote, probably not what's happening, but similar.
    Way back in the days, my college got a brand new batch of around thirty 200MHz Pentium PCs. Most of them wouldn't boot, and if they did they wouldn't stay on long before freezing. After a bit of troubleshooting, my broadcast engineering teacher fixed it.
    Using tools like an oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, etc, he saw that the power cords were acting as antennae, picking up signal from the very nearby police hq, at just the right frequency (or maybe harmonic?) to send a strong enough signal up the wire to interfere with the clock pulses (as far as I understand/remember... it's been so long). He put a ferrous donut at the end of each power cord, right before the power supply, and none of them had the problem again.

    2 votes

  2. Comment on Do you have favorite lighthearted or silly songs? in ~music

    wax66
    Link
    One of my favorites I first heard in a skateboarding video. I've heard almost everything in this thread, especially being a long time Dementite, but I've never heard anyone mention this song. I'm...

    One of my favorites I first heard in a skateboarding video. I've heard almost everything in this thread, especially being a long time Dementite, but I've never heard anyone mention this song. I'm a little on the older side, but this is even before my time.
    Leroy Pullins - I'm a Nut

  3. Comment on What's the most enjoyable part of your work? in ~talk

    wax66
    Link
    I'm in software QA, used to be a sys engineer, sys admin, and before that software QA. I found my love of scripting while I was a sys engineer and wanted more of it, so when I was randomly offered...

    I'm in software QA, used to be a sys engineer, sys admin, and before that software QA. I found my love of scripting while I was a sys engineer and wanted more of it, so when I was randomly offered another QA job that wanted me to automate testing, I jumped at the chance. Each day that I know I'll be automating stuff, regardless of the language, I'm excited! My latest is Python, but my first big job was with Ruby. I've dabbled in a bunch of other languages, and they've all been fun! AppleScript, shell, VB, expect, Perl, AutoIt, JS, k6, and others. I've tried programming a bit, even made a Blackjack app for the Palm Pilot back in the day, but for some reason I just find more joy in scripting actions. I find even more joy in combining the tools to make bigger beasts, and my sys engineering background helps me a ton.

    So each day I know I'll be scripting a new test, or even getting to watch my beastly regression tests pound away at our search engine, I get up a little quicker, start work a little earlier, and shut down a bit happier. I still don't understand it, but am thrilled I get to do it for a living.

    I really don't mind the fact that I gave up 24/7 pager duty that would wake my wife up more than me, but I still have to deal with being one of lesser valued links in the chain. Meh. I get to script!

  4. Comment on Nostalgia -- what programs do you miss? in ~tech

    wax66
    Link Parent
    Holy carp! I read that and immediately remembered mine! 4213537 Mind. Blown. (I have the worst memory and can't remember most of my past) That was a huge part of my life though. Met quite a few...

    Holy carp! I read that and immediately remembered mine! 4213537
    Mind. Blown.
    (I have the worst memory and can't remember most of my past)
    That was a huge part of my life though. Met quite a few people IRL through it!
    I MUST change my Slack message sound to "Uh oh" now.

  5. Comment on Without saying where you live, where do you live? in ~talk

    wax66
    Link Parent
    As they say, let's keep it this way!

    As they say, let's keep it this way!

    2 votes

  6. Comment on Without saying where you live, where do you live? in ~talk

    wax66
    Link
    This place, and the comedy show about it, is weird.

    This place, and the comedy show about it, is weird.

    15 votes

  7. Comment on The incredible latent abilities of living things — slime mould is amazing! in ~science

    wax66
    (edited )
    Link
    Such a fascinating read! Paging u-saddestofboys! Ohhh wait... dammit. I miss that treasure trove of slime mould knowledge. I learned so much from him.

    Such a fascinating read!

    Paging u-saddestofboys!

    Ohhh wait... dammit. I miss that treasure trove of slime mould knowledge. I learned so much from him.

    3 votes

  8. Comment on What are your favourite lightweight websites? in ~tech

    wax66
    Link
    https://news.ycombinator.com/ "Hacker News" It's mostly tech stuff like you'd get at slashdot, maybe a hair nerdier, and very lightweight.

    https://news.ycombinator.com/
    "Hacker News"
    It's mostly tech stuff like you'd get at slashdot, maybe a hair nerdier, and very lightweight.

    1 vote

  9. Comment on Do you spend more time creating a Tildes reply than on other platforms? in ~tildes

    wax66
    Link
    Yeah, but that's because of social anxiety and the feeling of being in a new place. It'll get better over time and I'll be bringing down the average intelligence of the comments sections soon!...

    Yeah, but that's because of social anxiety and the feeling of being in a new place. It'll get better over time and I'll be bringing down the average intelligence of the comments sections soon!
    (This is my 1st comment!)

    1 vote