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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Saturday, 09-Mar-2024 12:05:04 JST simsa03 Going to visit my sister this weekend to build a PC from scratch with my 10 years old nephew, using only spare parts. Suitcase packed with all the stuff (mainboard, PSU, CPU, RAM, graphics card, termal paste, cables, screws etc. etc.) and I'm a bit anxious whether we succeed. Anyway, It'll be the first major nephew-uncle-project and I'm looking forward to the time with him. - LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}, GeniusMusing and tinydoctor like this.
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tinydoctor (tinydoctor@mstdn.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 09:41:51 JST tinydoctor @simsa03 Wow, that's quite a project. Last time I "helped" build a what we called microcomputers back in the 8bit age was about 1978. It was based on a Z80 microprocessor. The big disk drive we got had about as much storage as...I dunno...a credit card? I was an uncle before I was a Whoopah (grandfather), but all my nieces and nephews are now in their 30s and 40s. Corrupt (enjoy) them when they're young, as the Jesuits recommend (sorta). It get more difficult and beautiful as you and they age.
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tinydoctor (tinydoctor@mstdn.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 09:44:56 JST tinydoctor @simsa03 I hope I live long enough to corrupt my great-grandchildren. Just a little bit.
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 09:50:35 JST simsa03 Well, he's rather going to corrupt me, and we'll both enjoy it. Anyway, given his somewhat drop-out parents the situation reminds me of a cartoon I saw in the magazine "Omni" many decades ago: Two cavemen, apparently husband and wife, stand in front of their cave door, facing a little guy in suit, hat, briefcase, and spectacles. Says the caveman to the cavewoman: "He (the boy in front them) says he wants to go to the big city and start an alternative life style." Thus the corruption I may impart on him may in fact turn him into a system devotee. Yuck! -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 10:01:31 JST simsa03 I wish you as much corruption as possible to bequeath on them. I guess your erudition will do the trick, as nobody can beat you on that terrain.
Which reminds me of Gregory Bateson and his "Metalogs" in his "Steps to an Ecology of Mind" (1972), wherein he has conversations with his daughter. The main trait of these conversations is that he never directly answers a question his daughter puts at him but always replies in an evasive but at the same time determined fashion, "No, no, no that way...". Mary Catherine Bateson must have felt very confused and disappointed at times, and it's a form of cheap game he played. But refusing the fundamental paradigm that questions have answers may indeed be one of the best sabotages of literalism people may achieve. Which opens the eyes to the images and imaginary, and that's all your ballgame.GeniusMusing likes this. -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 08:02:37 JST simsa03 Machine is set up and working! Nephew cleaned the motherboard with isopropyl alcohol, put thermal paste onto the cpu... we built the machine from scratch, using only spare- or second hand parts. Now it would be the right time to install W10 and all the drivers, but the 11 years old declared he doesn't want a W10 but reinstall his Linux Mint on the new machine. It fits his coding purposes better, he declared (game engine programming).You should have seen his face when the machine booted the first time and we changed into BIOS (no OS installed yet), when he saw how all the fans are working spotless, showing CPU, graphic card, RAM etc. working well. And he needled me with questions I couldn't give a proper answer to (which I conceded, obviously), e.g., if it is reall ynecessary to flash the newest BIOS when the older one is still pretty recent... It was much fun working with him and realizing that I was more unhappy with not installing W10 than he was made me grin brightly: 11 years old, and already so far ahead into the future than I am. I'm glad and happy to have such a wonderful nephew. It was a couple of great days. -
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LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1@nu.federati.net)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 09:24:45 JST LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} @simsa03 Wonderful news! I am glad that you and your nephew had such a great time ... and that you were able to leave him a reminder of your time together. simsa03 likes this. -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Thursday, 14-Mar-2024 12:21:44 JST simsa03 I forgot to tell the parallel story with my little niece who is now 5 years old and and very much into crafting and painting. When my nephew and I had finished setting up his new machine, the girl came to me to have her share of time with the uncle (how considerate she'd been to allow her brother to preoccupy their uncle for such a long time). She wanted to craft something and we went through the waste paper the family collects for recycling. We found a few boxes and cardboards and things pretty quickly turned into building and decorating a carton car. We took thin wooden skewers for wheel axles, cut carton for the four wheels, and decorated the carton box with coloured pieces of felt she found in the cupboard. She put a driver's cabin on top (for the queen and the king) and didn't forget to put a tiny doormat in front of it for all to wipe their shoes before they enter the cabin. Then we did a lot of colour decorations, direction indicators, headlights, and other elaborate structures we couldn't make real sense of. After that I pierced the carton box with the skewers for the two wheel axles and put a wheel on each side while not forgetting to fixate them with little pieces of felt left and right of them (so that they cannot fall off). My niece was very satisfied with the work and without much commentary she took the cardbox car in her hands and vanished from the room. I suspect she carried it into her children's room. I don't know if she already showed the car to mom and dad and her brother, she may or may not, depending on her mood. But at least she got something for herself – like her brother did. What a joy these kids are. -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Friday, 15-Mar-2024 22:00:07 JST simsa03 Nephew told me via phone that even his attempts to install packages for a Wifi dongle on Linux Mint have worked. He has access to the internet now and seems pretty happy with the machine.