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mplayerMuPDF

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    The strangest thing just happened: I had closed my Apple Music tab and when I returned to music.apple.com (still logged in, mind you) everything was in Chinese (confirmed by "cn" in the URL). I tried going to music.apple.com (no "cn" in the URL) and got the Chinese version again. I have never been to China in my life or used a VPN with servers in China. I don't have any connection to China at all.
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    I swear I have the worst of luck. Why did I decide to replace my main system? Continuing (minor) USB issues. What just happened with my new main system? Complete and utter USB failure. USB WiFi stops working. USB keyboard stops working. SSD connected with USB SATA adapter quits working. FML
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    mplayerMuPDF
    Also got to love the fact they don't bother providing an integrity hash for the UEFI update... Because the UEFI firmware is exactly the kind of thing you want to download a corrupted or tampered with version of...
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    mplayerMuPDF
    Flashing the latest UEFI (December 2022) right now. At first it refused because the "power status" is "inadequate" (no battery installed) so I had to use the "/forceit" option, which people warn you should not do. I wonder how these people update the UEFI of their desktop PC?
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    mplayerMuPDF
    Running MemTest86 from an MXLinux Live USB
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    Netgear GS305v3 5-port ethernet switch arrived today: Made in Thailand. Another electronics device that I own that was *not* Made in China. Don't believe people who say "everything is Made in China; there is no way to avoid it"
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    Tomorrow the base of my new system will be arriving. The X470 disaster shall finally end. Good riddance.
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    mplayerMuPDF
    I know that I have been harsh on Skylake and derivatives in the past but it has redeemed itself in my eyes. For all its flaws, there is no microarchitecture that has been studied more closely for transient execution vulnerabilities. Excavator and Puma cannot compete in that aspect. What truly amazes me is that Haswell is somehow immune to retbleed.
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    mplayerMuPDF
    SGX is not great but it does not actively make the security of the CPU worse. HyperThreading sucks but it is turned off by default in Linux nowadays. Despite all the (additional) mitigations, I am pretty sure that Skylake and derivatives still compare very favorably with Excavator performance wise. I will do some benchmarking to verify this as I still have my A10-8700B powered EliteBook 725 G3.
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    Ok never EVER even attempt to bind the hot/function keys on your keyboard to the wireplumber (pipewire) volume control!!!
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    mplayerMuPDF
    Second time I thought, "better bind those keys to safe commands", so I decided to just bind them to two fixed (absolute) safe volumes, which is better than nothing. Having done that (or so I thought...) I naturally decided to test it, and this time in a safer way, by only trying the "lower volume" key with music playing. However, for some reason this, again, set the volume to some multiple of 100%...
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    mplayerMuPDF
    ok turns out I forgot to restart IceWM (my window manager) before testing the second configuration, so the first configuration (attempt) was still active and that is why it blasted my ears and hardware again...
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    mplayerMuPDF
    but f*** the Arch wiki for lazily copying settings from a completely different program without even briefly testing them
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    Turning off the internal ODD of my 645 G1 in the UEFI seems to shave 0.4 W off the idle consumption
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    lexluthermiester
    lexluthermiester
    What's your specific model number? Let be do some hunting to see if I can find you one for a decent price.
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    mplayerMuPDF
    Just installed a brand new, sealed genuine HP CA06XL battery (manufacture date December 2019) in my 645 G1. Was lucky to find a seller on eBay who is selling these. So far there seems to be a noticeable improvement in battery life compared to the battery it came with (manufacture date February 2016).
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    mplayerMuPDF
    I have been leaning pretty hard on this ol' laptop lately. It remains my favorite computer despite how underpowered it is. There just is so much to like about it.
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    lexluthermiester
    lexluthermiester
    Why would the chipset matter? Linux kernel thing?
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    mplayerMuPDF
    As you may know I have been experiencing USB issues on my Ryzen desktop. The Promontory chipset (including my X470), or at least its USB part, was designed ASMedia. I am not very keen on ever owning any other ASMedia-chipset based device for this reason...
    lexluthermiester
    lexluthermiester
    Fair enough. I've never had any problems with them.
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    My main system (still X470 for now...) is finally back in operation. I had removed a damaged DisplayPort cable from my WX2100 (in preparation for a change in my main system, which I have been hinting at) and bought a replacement (DisplayPort-DisplayPort) cable. Then, it arrived and I when attempting to connect it I realized that my old Iiyama does not have a DP port...
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    IMG_0943.JPG


    It's just one of those days again... Replugging into the same port fixed it again. Can't wait to finally say goodbye to X470 later this year.
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    My ProBook 645 G1 feels ridiculously snappy with the new Atheros WiFi card installed (running my ultra lightweight Linux setup + uBO in Chromium, which keeps the CPU usage due to JavaScript down) despite its anemic single module, dual core Richland APU (of which the boost is not even working in Linux because it is broken and AMD never fixed it)
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    I am still amazed by my old Llano-based ProBook. Thermally it behaves like a quality desktop. It idles at 32 C, even during extreme heatwaves and with all 4 cores running full tilt (compiling a Linux kernel module) the temperature tops out at 66-67 C!
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    mplayerMuPDF
    My Ryzen desktop idles at 38-40 C. That old ProBook has a seriously rugged build and serious cooling system in particular. I just can't wrap my head around newer laptops that are "supposed" to hit 100 C... I get worried at 80 C.
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    6th day at home with COVID (managed to avoid getting it until now). Symptoms have not really been bad at all (but then again, not surprising considering my demographics and the fact that I am triple vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine) but I just tested positive (again/still) this morning so getting very annoyed at this point. If you see me being a bit grumpier than usual in the forums, then you know why...
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