the16bitgamer

This doesn’t sound like an issue for those who use Fusion frequently, however you may want to find ways to get local files, just to be safe.

So I am moving 14 hours to a new place with my SO, and got into a debate with my Dad about fuel efficiency. I argued that since we were towing the car it would be more fuel efficient than driving the 2 vehicles separate. He disagreed that it would be less since the truck would be working harder since it’s pulling both the car and the trailer. Especially since the vehicle we are towing is a Yaris.

Since we were picking up the trailer in the next state over, we got both data for driving both vehicles and towed.

So I just crunched the numbers, on hilly terrain pulling the truck was 11% more efficient.

While on flat terrain it was 20% more efficient.

While I was happy to win my bet, my dad decided to sour my victory by changing one parameter. Did we save money?

Since we knew the ratio of how much more efficient the moving truck was to the car, we could estimate how much gas the Yaris would’ve used to drive the distance.

The result: Car would’ve sucked back $60 worth of gas while the trailer rental cost around $200.

So while I won the bet, I lost the war. 😭

Well this was a fun way to start my day. I was trying to install Davinci Resolve on my Mint PC (since Mint 22 broke some of Resolves dependencies), and it was still giving the warning of missing dependencies.

One of the dependencies libasound2 couldn't install but apt recommended 2 others. Tried both and non worked. So I decided to uninstall both, and then Cinnamon Setting disappeared. I tried to fix it by reinstalling Cinnamon itself, but yeah... on reboot it would crash on the Mint file check.

However after trying the Recovery mode to get access to the terminal. I was able to access Timeshift, get the backup from yesterday and I'm back up and running.

So happy I enabled Timeshift. Hurray for safety nets actually working to protect me from myself.

I just got an email about this today. Here is more context:

To our valued Linux users:

After a great deal of internal discussion, we have made the difficult decision to sunset Linux support following the upcoming release of LightBurn 1.7.00.

Many of us at LightBurn are Linux users ourselves, and this decision was made reluctantly, after careful investigation of all possible avenues for continuing Linux support.

The unfortunate reality is that Linux users make up only 1% of our overall user base, but providing and supporting Linux-compatible builds takes up as much or more time as does providing them for Windows and Mac OS.

The segmentation of Linux distributions complicates these burdens further — we've had to provide three separate packages for the versions of Linux we officially support, and still encounter frequent compatibility issues on those distributions (or closely related distributions), to say nothing of the many distributions we have been asked to support.

Finally, we will soon begin building LightBurn on a new framework that will require our development team to write custom libraries for each platform we support. This will be a significant undertaking and, regrettably, it is simply not tenable to invest our team's time into an effort that will impact such a small portion of our user base. Such challenges will only continue to arise as we work to expand LightBurn's capabilities going forward.

We understand that our Linux users will be disappointed by this decision. We appreciate all of our users, and assure you that your existing license will still work with any version of LightBurn for which your license term is valid, up until LightBurn version 1.7.00, forever. Prior releases will always be made available for download. Finally, your license will continue to be valid for future Windows and Mac OS releases covered by your license term.

If you are a Linux-only user who has recently purchased a license or renewal that is valid for a release of LightBurn after v1.7.00, please contact us for a refund.

Rest assured that we will be using the time gained by sunsetting Linux support to redouble our efforts at making better software for laser cutters, and beyond. We hope you will continue to utilize LightBurn on a supported operating system going forward, and we thank you for being a part of the LightBurn community.

Sincerely,

The LightBurn Software Team

I’ve been buying games off of eBay before I’ve ever owned a credit card, and its web page could render on a PSP. Over the years I’ve purchased consoles, rare games, and common guff for my game library with virtually no issues.

Obviously eBay is full of scams and I’ve purchased my fair share of crap from china which either didn’t work, or never arrived, and grew to look at local sellers with returns or a good reputation. I’ve always saw the eBay Buyer Protection and thought it was neat, and that I’d never use it. Oh boy was a wrong.

Last month I found a console going for an insane price, not too low that it would’ve been an immediate red flag, but good though that I didn’t worry about the sellers non existent returns. The system looked good in the photos and the seller feedback looked legit. The only weird thing was the description was written by AI (eBay is pushing it and it’s as useless as you can imagine), but the condition was used, so I got it.

When it arrive the console was dirty as it was in photos. But nothing that a bit of elbow grease can’t fix. Then I noticed the ports were a bit dirty, and there was signs that it was opened by an ape before I got it. So I got my new cables, purchased separately since it wasn’t coming with any, plugged her in and… nothing.

No light, no life.

Took the system apart myself and the insides of the console was a complete mess. Rust and corrosion everywhere, so much I thought it was used as a boat anchor at some point. Or the side of the road in the rain.

So I contacted the seller and asked them for a refund. They offered to exchange it, and thought to play ball… 2 days later the other system was missing. Suuurreee.

I gave them an offer for a partial refund. Saying hey, this is so broken it’s not with the return shipping. Why don’t we compromise and you give me a return minus the amount it would cost me to return it and we’ll call it even. I paid $92 and I offered $67. They then offered me $27.

Nope going full refund. Then they went silent with no messages or instructions.

I escalated it with eBay, who gave them 3 option, pay for return shipping and refund me when it arrives, I pay for shipping and they reimburse me, then I got the rest of the money back, or we figure something else out.

They opted for the first option. I printed the label and I waited for their currier to pick it up. The seller also gave no instructions but thankfully tracking had enough info from the tracking label I knew what was happening.

Then the day arrived for the parcel picked up, and the currier was a no show. I checked the label and the address was wrong. Despite it showing up. Informed the seller, and they canceled the label. But ghosted me again.

EBay got back to me and told me the case will default in 3 day if it was not picked up. Then 3 days passed and I had to reach out to eBay again, who tried to restart the process. At this point I was frustrated and told them it’s been 3 weeks since I started this return claim, please either refund me or escalate this.

I got my refund that afternoon.

What I learned about eBay buyer protection is this. It works, but it’s work too. It’s quite fair to the seller, but its resolution is heavily in the buyers favor. My only advice is for buyers who’ve been scammed like I was, is to keep on top of your eBay rep, as replies are handed in a shared pool, and the support agent is not going to look back on the case history.

TL:DR got scammed on eBay, got money back from eBay buyer protection, however it took 3 weeks and keeping on top of eBay support.

Jokes aside. I wanted to do a fun numbers game and see if I could get an Xbox One and Rare Replay for the price of the N64 copy of Conkers Bad Furday. And it turns out I can.

Conkers Bad Furday on N64 costs around $150-$175CAD (before tqx) given the condition and its shipping location.

Meanwhile I was able to pick up Rare Replay for $10CAD at my local EB Games, and I was able to find Xbox Ones for as low as $100CAD, but on average around $140CAD.

This particular Xbox One was $160 at the end of the day, a bit over budget, but I love the colors and design. Even if I don't play Halo.

Totals

Xbox One - $121.39 + $25 Shipping + 21.96 tax = $168.35

Rare Replay - $7.99 + $1.20 tax = $9.19

Total - $177.54 CAD

Got the games years ago for the GBC, and I've always love it. But I always got stuck in a handful of dungeons. Level 3, level 4, level 6, and finally the black tower.

But I was finally able to solve it myself with no hints! This is in my view one of the best Zelda games.

So I wanted a small, and thin friction hing for another project, and I couldn't find the metal ones that they use for the iPad's Magic Keyboard case. So I design my own the parts I had on my desk.

The smallest nut that I had was 4mm wide which really limited how thick the design can be. The result is this

It folds flat at measure at a maximum thickness of about 10mm

It works a lot better than I thought it would, especially since this is my first prototype print. Need to figure out some things, like to stiffen the arms and to prevent/reduce twisting.

But as a basis to start from this works nicely. I think if I add a TPU washer on the back end, I might be able to get it stiffer and more consistent feeling. But I'll do that at another time.

So a very long time ago now, I upgraded from my ancient AMD FX 6100 to a Ryzen 5 1600, and now I am on my 3rd CPU with an Intel i3 12100f.

Why did I go with an i3 and not the i5? Simple, I was on a budget and I couldn't justify spending more than $250 CAD for this upgrade. I could've squeezed in the 12400 if it was in stock, but it wasn't.

Why didn't I just get a new AMD CPU and slot it in? Well I tried, but my Gigabyte motherboard (even with updates) refused to play nice with the 5500 I tried to upgrade too. If I was keeping with AMD I'd need to buy a new Motherboard and if I was buying a new Motherboard for this I might as well get the best bang for my Buck.

So what did I get.

Motherboard: MSI PRO B760M-P since it had the IO I wanted (2x M.2 slots and a USB C Port on the back)

CPU: Intel i3 12100f

And the results are... honestly surprising. Despite loosing 2 core and 4 threads, I gained in performance everywhere, or I was GPU limited with my 3050. 2 minutes off of my 10 minute handbrake render, 50fps extra in Doom 2016, and a doubling in Geekbench single core performance which I need thanks to my work in FreeCAD. FreeCAD is still slow, but the models I am loading are demanding.

Overall I am happy with my upgrade, and the best part is, since I am buying my Motherboards at the end of a socket generation rather than the beginning, it means when I want to upgrade in a few years, it should work with intel 13th and 14th gen CPU's.

Geekbench before: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/6614622

Geekbench after: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/6616466

TL:DR Emulators installed via Flatpak won't recognize steam inputs during remote play, However AppImages will work. So if you want to play PCSX2 via Steam Link from your main rig, install the AppImage version.

So this whole journey started when I wanted to play PS2 games from my PC on my Big Screen TV. Years ago I got a Steam Link, and outside of it forgetting my Bluetooth devices it's been quite reliable.

However when I switched over to Linux and installed my emulators via Flathub, I could start the emulator, but outside of mouse inputs, the emulator refused to recognize the inputs outside of those directly connected to the PC. I presume it's due to how Flatpaks work.

Reported the problem on the Steam Linux Beta github page, but that still left me without a solution. It's not like there exists a *.deb for every emulator, and if there existed one, it was out dated, so it was hit or miss if I could start a game with a controller.

However when I tried AppImages, it worked! I presume it's due to the fact that the AppImage runner is a locally installed package, which means it can hook into the systems inputs, like Steam Input. Thus far I've tested PCSX2, DuckStation and Retroarch, and everything appears to be working beautifully!

I think I saw parts of the engine a little while back.

Running Linux Mint, with the latest updates on both my iPad and my PC. And it just worked. Needed to put my password in to trust my device, but duuude! It just works. So nice.