Posts by Tim Roberts 1 205 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Sep 2009
I'll be honest and say that I've never seriously used Linux either, but have a win 10 pc at home and a win 11 laptop for work.
Why win and not Linux? My extracurricular interests and photography and ham radio, and while there are good Linux apps out there for both, imo those for win are better.
Having said that, win 11 does nothing extra for me than win 10 - I just bought it because that was all that was available at the time of purchase. As you say, the GUI is an effing mess, and quite frankly I don't like the intrusion into my private life by automatic uploads of my data to their "safe storage", with no uncomplicated way to turn it off.
There are definitely better astro photography devices out there, but as several people have noted, a telescope with an equatorial drive is virtually essential for planetary photos.
If you are just after "sky" photos, ie nebulae, constellations, sky timelapses etc., cameras such as the Dwarf2 and the upcoming Dwarf3 are very good - and there are others that I'm not very familiar with.
Forum site "Cloudy Nights" is a good place to start to get advice.
I was warned by farcebook of potential blocking when I posted to an astronomy page - which I'm an admin of - a local light pollution map for an upcoming stargazing evening.
The reason?
Because it might mislead people who see it!
Having said that, FB is a useful get-together resource for user groups, as long as there is a moderator who is on the ball and willing to deal with crap.
I'm very much an end user now that I'm semi-retired.
Back in my days as a teacher I had to log into the school network to do my stuff, and that had particular requirements of course.
So, my main computer now is win 10 - built for me by the grandson of one of my friends a few years ago. Very happy with it, and use duckduckgo as my browser, thunderbird for email, and am pretty anal about security and regular backups.
I mainly use it for my two interests, ham radio and photography - plus email and general browsing
On the other hand I bought a new lenovo laptop for the odd days I do relief at schools, and it has win 11.
Frankly I cannot see any advantage to win 11 at all. Even after turning off all the "extras" it can be very irritating.
I keep it installed because I don't use the machine for any important stuff, and my internet connection is vis a Ryoko wifi unit.
I'll probably be hammered from both sides for this but here goes.
I was a relatively early user of macs, with the encouragement of my Dad, owning a Mac Plus back in the day..
Over the years, in several iterations I graduated up to a Power PC G5 in about 2005.
This machine served me well. and eventually died a natural death. In 2019, I went over to PC, mainly on a cost/benefit basis, but also because the "closed shop" was starting to irritate me for the software I was interested in.
I have never owned an iPhone, and never will as I'm a very basic user - just for calls when I need to, so a cheap android one does me well.
The software for my win10 PC is serving me well in my interests of ham radio, electronics and photography. Stand alone, single purchase software for these is imho vastly better than what was available for my old mac.
Will I be upgrading to win11 anytime soon? Not on your nelly! I have it on a work laptop and frankly it's a piece of crap.
I have a w10 PC at home that is not compatible with w11.
I also have a w11 laptop that I use for work.
Frankly, if I thought it was worth the effort and cost, I'd change the laptop to w10.
Imo, w11 is a pain in the arse - it does nothing for my "productivity" and offers little to nil in "must have's"
As for edge .... Jeeze, don't get me started.....
Yes, same with my Brother MFC-8460, purchased a long time because it also has a scanner.
Don't do a lot of printing now, but did heaps when I was still working as a teacher.
Paper roller jammed a month or so ago, but a good clean and printer head was all that was needed.
My wife occasionally uses an inkjet to print photos/designs onto fabric for various quilting projects, but otherwise, laser rules in our house.
I don't claim to be any sort of Windows expert as I've only migrated over from mac's in the last 2 years - mainly a cost/benefit exercise if anyone cares.
So, my home PC runs win 10, and I'm gradually getting the hang of how to do things, and am able to work out all issues given a bit of time. When I do system updates, I get told that win 11 won't work on it.
My work laptop ( I own it but take it to work each day) is win 11. Really I see no advantage in win 11 for what I do.
Some text - I use Libre office, some internet - I use duckducgo, some email - I use thunderbird, some PDF, I use adobe, some photos - I use various bits of software depending on what I'm trying to do, but happy to use GIMP, some audio/video - I use Audacity and VLC.
Yeah yeah, I'm a boring old fart but win 11 is just not worth the upgrade effort for my home pc, and won't be unless it dies in the arse and I'm forced to upgrade.
Point is, I suspect I'm not alone.
I don't count myself as an expert by any measure, but I do have a win 10 desktop for home and a win 11 laptop for work - yeah yeah the old one died, and was not worth repairing.
I see absolutely no advantage to upgrading my 10 machine, and will resist the temptation until something that cannot be replace finally bites the dust. No, I'm not a fan of win 11.
Even getting there is an amazing achievement, so I hope the coulda/shoulda/woulda naysayers out there really have a good look at what was achieved compared to what was not achieved. There is nothing here on earth that is comparable to a mission to mars - no not even a mission to the ocean depths as there will be a cable to pull you back up.
Getting to mars is a success, not landing is a disappointment.
that NBN (Telstra in another coat) is deciding who needs what - the reality is that the current LNP government hobbled the NBN for political purposes ( note I did not say political gain, as I believe there will be none for them).
Thanks Scabbot, Turdball et.al. for sending Aus down an inferior internet path. No I won't be fucking voting for you in the future.
Quite! NAPLAN is a scam if for no other reason is that it purports to assess something that doesn't exist.
Until we get the National Curriculum properly underway - something I support by the way - NAPALM (deliberate miss-spelling) is a waste of taxpayer money.
Few parents realise that they can pull their children out of the test, and I believe that is an option for schools as well. If I still had school aged children they definitely would not be sitting the test.
The stress it causes some children at the school where I work is terrible.
Yes, the original mission did not go as planned - hey we are talking an extremely hostile environment in space.
The mission in my estimation was a success - but of course there will be the obese lounge lizard with a drone who coulda' - woulda' - shoulda' done it better if he'd been asked.
This kind of mission was the stuff of dreams in my boyhood and I'm stoked that I've been alive to see it happen.
Cut the mission operators some slack and if you think you can do better/cheaper then give Kickstarter a try!
As my old Dad would have said - " Well done that man"
My 2c worth - keep the change naysayers.
Several commentators have mentioned some of the issues here:
- The most critical time is at dusk when your own driving vision is close to it's worst
- some people believe that they hop into the road because headlights give them an illuminated path
- Red kangaroos - the biggest? - weigh in at close to 100kg ~ 200lb
- many can hop at over 25kph ~14mph and for short distances at 70kph ~ 45mph
- they can hop sideways as part of their path
- they seem to appear out of nowhere, so good luck with detecting something off to the side and deciding that it will hop in front of the car.
Oh and yes, Wombats can also be a problem despite their stature - in a previous life I drove small buses and hit a wombat one evening. The bus was un-driveable - buggered the steering and the wombat didn't make it either. Mostly however, wombats are significantly less common that roos.
Professor Tim... I like that, thanks! I wear that as a badge of success! Perhaps I should start my own poorly informed, uneducated, reactionary and shitty online blog to showt the evil, left wing, antichrist, anti-gun, degenerate, homo, lesbo, pinko, greenie hordes that I really mean business!
... and I'm not a fan of "piracy" sites but the US really fucked up in their pursuit of Kim Dotcom. You think you own the world? Wrong. You think you have jurisdiction in every nation on Earth? Wrong. You think you own the internet? Theoretically you do but it is becoming increasingly obvious that this won't always be the case - in fact probably really isn't the case now.
effing get a sense of humour, wankers! The joke is not about YOU...... chill out and get back to whatever you were doing before you saw the OFFENSIVE (not) robot pissing on an apple.. Jeysus .... I piss on my fruit trees regularly and am training my grandsons to do the same - nitrogen for those that wonder why we'd expose our willies to the cool evening air.
I remember my parents angst when they lent their reel to reel to a "friend" who snapped off the little wings that held the reels in place on one side of the machine.
Basically the machine was buggered despite my Dad's best efforts to replace the wings with pins through carefully drilled holes.
As for applying my schlong to aforementioned machine..... sorry I was a bit too young.
"Geoblocking content should be banned under international trade treaties, according to the Internet Society of Australia"
No argument here in my home.....
Is the the internet INTERnational - NETwork_( yes I admit I'm probably wrong with n my interpretation) really there to give individuals access to "stuff"
Companies that use geoolocking are scum because they use my (your) location to determine price.
I, who doesn't need it (live in the western suburbs of Brisbane) and have very good adsl connection with mostly very good VOIP, will get NBN before one of my friends who lives 40km from me - in the sticks as they say - and relies on mobile phone for his internet at home. My sister in Launceston and friends in Hobart tell me the same story so I'm sure this is echoed around oz.
WTF! The NBN has been bastardised by Turnbull et.al. and they should be pilloried at the next election. A world class system reduced to a deploy-where-it-pays system.
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