bxparks

I was mostly objecting to the "perfectly" part. And I couldn't resist making a Princess Bride reference for amusement.

From the link: "Note: The inbuilt WiFi chip is not natively supported by FreeBSD, so you will need to (temporarily) use a USB WiFi or Ethernet dongle, or (as I will explain) copy some files from a different system to the Macbook. You could also just transplant a different chip into the system."

You say "works perfectly". I do not think it means what you think it means.

To be fair, Linux also has trouble with the Broadcom chip, the driver needs to be installed as a separate step on most distros.

It is significant if you remain healthy and employed with income.

But it is basically nothing if you get laid off at age 56, and you can't find another job due to age discrimination, your COBRA runs out after 18 months, but you are not 65 years old yet for Medicare . Obamacare may be completely neutered by then, so private health insurance may cost $30k/year for a 57 year-old. You still have a mortgage, you can't afford health insurance, so you take a risk and decide to skip it, because you are healthy. Then you get pancreatic cancer, and without health insurance, your chemotherapy completely depletes your 401k in one year. Then you die of cancer at age 59, because you cannot pay for the treatments anymore.

I felt this pain yesterday.

I use Open Core Legacy Patcher (OCLP) to run modern macOS on old Intel macs. The first time the computer boots after an upgrade (e.g. Sequoia 15.7.3 to 15.7.4), it is slow as a dog. Because the macOS upgrade clobbers all the OCLP driver patches.

By "slow", I mean each keystroke on the login screen takes about 20-30 seconds for the corresponding bullet to appear in the password box.

The login screen displays 13 bullets. My password is 18 characters long. (Scammers, don't get excited, it's a unique password that's not used anywhere else on the Internet...) So after 13 characters, I had no idea if the computer was actually working.

It seemed like there is a 6-8 character keyboard buffer limit. Or maybe I typed in my 18-character password wrong multiple times. I don't know. I would type 2 characters, then walk away, come back, then type 2-3 more characters. It took me about 4-5 attempts over 30 minutes to log in. Then I applied the OCLP patches and everything worked perfectly after that.

Yup. The MBA11 is probably my favorite laptop of all time. It's my daily driver. I have 4 of those now, running MacOS and Linux Mint.

I was really hoping for the Neo to be more like the MBA11.

The solution to turn off "load images" in the web email clients.

One side effect is that Capital One thinks that it has the wrong email address for me:

  "You haven’t opened an email from us lately, 
  so we’re checking in to make sure your contact
  information is up to date."

It keeps sending me that every month or two, which is kinda annoying.

How does nixos solve Firefox configuration on MacOS and Windows? :-) I use all 3 OSes daily.

I guess personal preference?

Image preview is slightly slower and has noticeable latency, compared to the text popup that is almost instantaneous.

And it is more visually distracting. I hate UI features that interfere with my workflow. I hate most UI animations. I turned animations off on my Android phone, and now the thing just flies.

Did not know about 'user.js', thanks! I guess creating a document that lists all my overrides was the first step. Now I have to figure out how to create a user.js that works on Linux, Macos, Windows, and maybe Android?

No kidding. I had to create a Google Doc document to remember all the little things that I have to clobber in Firefox to make it behave reasonably. Here is an excerpt of how I clobber the defaults:

  - Enable pixel-perfect smooth scrolling (Linux): MOZ_USE_XINPUT2=1 (why do we still have to do this??)
  - Enable: Ctrl-Tab cycles through recent used order
  - Disable: "Show an image preview when you hover on a tab"
  - Disable: "Use AI to suggest tabs and a name for tab group"
  - Disable: "Enable Picture-in-Picture video controls"
  - Disable: "Control media via keyboard, headset, or virtual interface"
  - Disable: "Recommend extensions as you browse"
  - Disable: "Recommend features as you browse"
  - Disable: "Enable link previews"
  - Homepage and new windows: Blank page
  - New tabs: Blank page
  - Disable: Web Search
  - Disable: Weather
  - Disable: Shortcuts
  - Disable: Recommended stories
  - Disable: Support Firefox
  - Disable: "Save and autofill payment info"
  - Disable: "Save and autofill addresses"
  - Disable: "Ask to save passwords"
  - Locations: Select "Block new requests asking to access your location"
  - Notification: Select "Block new requests asking to allow notifications"
  - Autoplay: Select "Block Audio and Video"
  - Virtual Reality: Select "Block new requests asking to access your virtual reality devices"
  - Default Search engine: DuckDuckGo
  - Disable "Suggest search engines to use"
  - Disable "Quick actions"
  - Disable "Suggestions from Firefox"
  - Disable: "Title Bar"
  - Default Zoom: 110%, 120%, depending on the laptop

I probably forgot a few things.

And I install the following extensions:

  - uBlock Origin
  - Privacy Badger
  - Facebook Container
  - Firefox Multi-account Container

I don't know what to tell you. I'm older than you. I've seen it happen 20-30 times in my life. I've seen batteries leak in flashlights, clock radios (the backup battery), wall clocks, calculators, cameras, remote controls, thermostats, wireless mouse, and so on.

A few years ago, I had an unopened pack of 8xAA Duracell alkalines. They had expiration dates on them, and had 2-3 years left. Two of the batteries were leaking in the pack.

Over the past 15 years, I have gradually migrated almost everything to NiMH. I don't see leaking batteries anymore in my house. But go to a thrift store, e.g. Goodwill, and open up the battery compartments of things. Many of them will have been destroyed by the leaking batteries.

Great in theory.

In practice, the Duracell alkaline battery will leak caustic fluids inside the remote control and destroy it, and you will have to mortgage your house to buy a replacement on eBay, if it's even available. (I pick on Duracell because they are the worst. They leak if you look at them wrong, when they are brand new, inside the original packaging, before their "expiration date". But all alkalines are bad.)

All my remotes get NiMH batteries, no matter what. I don't care if one charge cycle lasts 10 years. It's cheaper than having the battery destroy the remote.

Yeah, most of the devices using 9V are smoke/CO detectors which only accept alkalines. I don't use the few remaining 9V devices enough to justify buying a new charger.

Three things prevent me from eliminating all alkalines:

* smoke and CO detectors with low-battery voltage sensors calibrated to alkaline

* some older electronics (e.g. multimeters) using 9V batteries

* my non-contact voltage tester refuses to turn on using NiMH, for safety reasons presumably

Any chance you can prevent the left hand navigation floating widget of 10 bubbles (no idea what it's called) from rendering on top of the actual content? It obscures the text that I want to read, very irritating. [Edit: I see, it works at 100%. But my default zoom is 110% or 120%. Zooming seems to break your layout.]