Been following/hoping for the ultimate battery for... a few decades now I think. Donut reads as a home run of sorts. However... during those decades reading about "new tech" that promised great gains, all ended up in the dustbin of history. I really, really hope Donut is for real. Breath. Not. Holding. HTH, RF
ps: Just ordered two new dog collar lights cause the relatively new ones we had fully discharged while the mutts were outside. Now they wont charge. Jesus I hate LiOn.
When Coffee People was just one shop in Portland, went there every day before work. (B4 internet or phones.) Loved the shop, but they played pretty aggressive rock. Not adverse to it, but first thing in the morning... Anyway was a regular. They played music via a CD player. I noticed they often silently mouthed the lyrics to the background music. Talked them into including a CD I gave them: Cecilia Bartoli "Heroines" (Rosinni). Over time it made it into the regular rotation. I noticed after a while the staff would also silently mouth the "words" being sung. Good times. Long ago.
1000% agree with this. Been using Macs for decades, but now prefer Linux. But Mac hardware is just so much better. Funny note: Sorta just for fun I bought an old Mac Mini ($25) and installed Mac, Windows, and Linux Mint on it. Fun device that is actually pretty useful with a KVM letting me use it seamlessly with my main Mac (also providing a shared external drive). Fingers crossed that the next leader at Apple after Tim has a Nadella-like moment deciding that Linux can be a friend not a foe.
M$FT increased 365 student monthly charges from $7 to nearly $20 per month automatically to cover CoPilot for 2026. Evidently did not inform the college about this. Just sent yearly charges for nearly $200 to gob-smacked parents. We canceled the next day. WTF M$FT.
They say you will get refunded in you cancel within 30 days of the yearly charge. We did so, but I am wondering if M$FT simply and reliably does the refund. Or will I need to spend hours on the phone talking to a M$FT AI Customer Rep trying to get what is promised. Sincerely... I would appreciate others experience. I could do a charge-back in the next few days if the "promised, easy route" is not available. TIA, RF
My kid needed Windows and Office for school. I went through the pain of installing the system for her while avoiding creating a Microsoft account. As for Office, I bought a perpetual license. I believe these are the last months while these two options are still available.
Daughter in the Material Science Phd progam at major state university with "world class" MS program. Vast majority of her peers are from abroad. Met some. All were the nicest, smartest folks you have ever met. I guess a benefit is that the probability of them leaving may help to increase the teamwork aspect in the program. But that is a guess. Great group of folks who hopefully might help change the world. Went to the recent Phd presentation where recent Phd graduates were honored. Let me tell you... hard to describe how inspiring these folks are. (MS is a pretty hard subject, with amazing applications. You may be thanking one guy who recently got his Phd should you ever get cancer.) Glad our universities welcome talent not demographics. HTH, RF.
I get so frustrated with the damn "are you a human" checks for Google search. My default search tool from Brave. I had gotten in the habit of searching quickly for something while reading a web page, etc. Worked find for years. Now some days I get results directly. Many days, though, I am getting 2-3-4 prompts. Getting pretty used to jumping over to Edge to do my searches now. On Starlink in a rural spot. Not sure why Google has flagged me. Do not care I guess. Should probably set my Brave default to Bing, but I do find Google's AI summaries helpful. Just not enough to do a bunch of "find the bicycle" "find the bus" "find the traffic light" captchas. One less Google search customer is not a concern of theirs methinks.
Often, the "are you a human" checks, are to force people to turn off privacy protections, so that they can clearly fingerprint their potential customers. When they sell your information or spy on you, they may want to make sure they have properly identified the target.
Welp Gemini got me. Using G3 to improve what I write, generate specific images, and use NotebookLM to dive into some research materials. Tried to do a bit each day with my free credits, but hit the limit too often. G2.5 was not nearly as useful. So I upgraded my baselevel Google workspace plan. Recently spoke to someone who is also using G3 a lot with good results. YMMV re: G3, but Google hooked me, and now I pay more. However I think it is worth it for what I do. G3 is my helpful, nerdy work mate. I never plan to use agenic AI. Not using ChatGPT much if any at all anymore. Sorry Sam.
I use a bank of eight Noctuas to vent from the rooom with our wood stove to the main hall. Then use more units with two sets of Noctuas ganged to move from the hall to various remote rooms. Been using them for more years than I can remember. Silent, never failed yet. It has been great vs. using house fans (my initial approach). BTW: Our local thrift store has a huge amount of various DC power supplies from donations. I sift thru them to find the right volts/amp combo needed for the ganged units, and generally spend about a dollar per supply. HTH, RF.
ps: Just ordered two new dog collar lights cause the relatively new ones we had fully discharged while the mutts were outside. Now they wont charge. Jesus I hate LiOn.