Category Archives: Weird

My New Keyboard

So I bought a mechanical keyboard. It was reviewed as a good value for someone who wanted it for typing (though it’s also a gaming keyboard). I like the action on it, but it has a big problem. See the key to the left of the right Ctrl key? It seems to have the same function as a right click, but I have no use for it.

Unfortunately, where it’s placed means that I’m often accidentally hitting it with my palm just below my right pinkie, at which point it screws up whatever I’m typing, by inserting text or something else, which I have to then undo with ctrl-z. It would be nice if it could be reprogrammed but even if it was a Windows key (as it was on my previous keyboard, that would screw thing up in Linux by going to the workspace menu. I didn’t have the problem on my previous keyboard because the key profile was lower. I guess I’ll just try removing the key and see if the problem goes away.

[Update a while later]

In the process of trying to figure out how to delete the mapping on the problem key, I discovered this amusing document. “Before you read this, please understand that I never wanted to write this document, being grossly under-qualified, but I always wanted to read it, and this was the only way.”

The Unbearable Whiteness Of Being An Academic

If there is so much racism in America, why do white people want to be not white? Why are they giving up their supposed “privilege”?

I heard an interview with Mike Shellenberger the other day in which he pointed out that if he declared himself to be a woman, his lefty friends would encourage him, but if he claimed to be black, they’d denigrate him. Yet (as he pointed out) he has a much more biologically in common with a black man than with any woman.

New Computer Problem

That is, it’s a problem with a new computer build. When I hit the power-on switch, I just heard a pop, and then I smelled burnt electronics. Fortunately, I didn’t see or smell any damage to anything else in the chassis. Never had a PS fail right out of the box like that, but it’s clearly dead, because the fan won’t start when I jump 15 and 16 on the main connector. Guess I’ll have to RMA it to Newegg.

[Update after a trip to Best Buy]

New power supply (Corsair) fired up with no issues, all fans running. Now to figure out why it’s not doing a POST.

[Sunday-morning update]

OK, the machine is not providing video output. It’s not the graphics card, because I swapped it out with a known working one. So now I have to suspect the motherboard itself, though it is starting, and the CPU fan is running.

[Late-morning update]

OK, I went through this checklist, and now it won’t run at all. Nothing happens when I hit the power button.

[Update a while later]

OK, here’s the situation. There is an eight-pin and four-pin ATX connector next to each other on the board for the CPU. The new power supply doesn’t have a four-pin connector. It has an eight-pin, with several other eight-pins with a detachable two-pin (making them a six-pin). I tried plugging the six-pin into the four-pin connector, and that’s what made the motherboard fail to start. If I remove that second connector, and reset the CMOS, it will start again. How essential is getting power to that four-pin connector on the board, and how do I do it with this power supply? It clearly isn’t getting graphics from the existing set up, even though the fans and LEDs are running.

[Update a few minutes later]

For the curious, this is the board.

[Update a few more minutes later]

OK, in doing a search, I found this discussion at Reddit. It’s not very encouraging.

[Update a while later]

This seems stupid, but if I were to buy this Athlon, maybe it would solve the problem long enough to update the BIOS?

[Update mid-afternoon]

I read the first page of reviews on the board, and no one mentions this problem (though a lot of complaints about the LAN connector and the BIOS-reset button).

[Monday-morning update]

I’ve given up on the machine. I’m going to RMA the motherboard back to Newegg, and get an MSI at Best Buy.

[Bumped]

“Transphobic” Lesbians

This is getting ridiculous. If I don’t want to sleep with a guy who thinks he’s a woman, it’s not because I’m “transphobic.” It’s because I am extremely heterosexual, and have not only zero, but negative interest in physically interacting with, or even looking at male genitals. Now if it’s an attractive woman who thinks she’s a man, that’s a different story, but it doesn’t seem like a good idea to engage in sexual relations with people who are funny in the head.

Weird Internet Issue

My desktop has quit communicating with Slack (slack.com). I can access it from a laptop, but not from my desktop. It acts like a DNS issue, but I can ping everything except it. It just started doing this a couple hours ago, and I didn’t change anything. Any ideas?

[Update a while later]

[root@localhost ~]

# ping slack.com
PING slack.com (54.87.197.95) 56(84) bytes of data.
^C
— slack.com ping statistics —
14 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 13292ms

Same thing happens when I ping the address directly. So it’s not a DNS issue. Very strange that I can get to it from the Windows laptop, but not the Linux desktop.

[Update late afternoon]

It’s back up. I guess I was one of the one percent.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Aaaaaaand it’s down again. At least now I know there’s nothing I can do about it, and no point in wasting time trying to figure it out. I just have to hope that they’ll get it sorted.