Farting around

Rude Websites

Most if not all second-hand car dealers in Slovenia work through www.avto.net (The letter V after a vowel becomes a W, similar to the English U. So awe-too.net). However, from South Africa, www.avto.net gives you a nice ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT.

Others are less subtle. www.offerup.com gives

The owner of this website (offerup.com) has banned the country
or region your IP address is in (ZA) from accessing this website.

So what is a geek to do? Assuming Windows (7, in my case), go to http://www.freeproxylists.net/eu.html , pick an IP / port combination that suits, Start / Control Panel / Network and Sharing Center / Internet Options at the bottom left, Connections tab at the top, LAN settings button at the lower right, tick Proxy server and put the address and port in the relevant blocks.

185.26.226.241 / 36012 gives me access to www.avto.net but I had to go find a proxy in USA to make www.offerup.com work. And the first three or four I tried didn’t work (I ended up using 35.240.29.142 / 3128). These guys are paranoid lemme tellya.

(And for the record, paypal.me uses similar fuckery, don’t ask me why. All it does is redirect you to paypal.com anyway).

2018-10-25 by wrm Computers Farting around 0

The joys of Slovenian

There are subtleties here which are currently beyond my grasp.

2018-09-07 by wrm Farting around Slovenia 0

PC Partner motherboard

Being the caring gentleperson that I am, I had to rescue the motherboard and power supply from this ex-PC.

Yea, I guess someone used it for a step, then lied to the boss and told him it had fried.

Because there’s nothing wrong with the motherboard, the PSU, or the memory DIMM that was kicking around loose inside the box.

This looks like a nice little motherboard for someone like me. It’s old enough to still have floppy drive support and new enough to have USB. It has an RS-232 serial port* as well.

But nowhere on this motherboard is there a part number of any type.

The BIOS is also not at all useful. CLE266-8235/M-6A6LUPREC-00 tells me the motherboard uses a Via Technologies CLE266 North Bridge and a VT8235 South Bridge, but this is not a Via motherboard, it’s a PC Partner. So with some more googling, turns out it’s a CLE266M-A68M800 (download the manual).

* The manual claims that there are two serial ports. On this motherboard, the RS-232 line driver and the header for COM2 is not fitted, so you’re out of luck there.

2018-09-03 by wrm Computers Farting around Geek 0

A Moment of Grace

Do go read. The Curmudgeon writes well.

2018-06-15 by wrm Farting around 0

A Neglected Anniversary

The 28th of December gets no respect. It’s just another day in the week most people take off to go to the beach.

But 100 years ago people sat up and noticed. Specifically, they noticed an article in the New York Evening Mail.

The Rise of the Bathtub
The first bathtub in the United States was installed in Cincinnati December 20, 1842, by Adam Thompson. It was made of mahogany and lined with sheet lead. At a Christmas party he exhibited and explained it and four guests later took a plunge. The next day the Cincinnati paper devoted many columns to the new invention and it gave rise to violent controversy.

Some papers designated it as an epicurian luxury, other called it undemocratic, as it lacked simplicity in its surroundings. Medical authorities attacked it as dangerous to health.

The controversy reached other cities, and in more than one place medical opposition was reflected in legislation. In 1843 the Philadelphia Common Council considered an ordinance prohibiting bathing between November 1 and March 15, and this ordinance failed of passage by but two votes.

During the same year the Legislature of Virginia laid a tax of $30 a year on all bathtubs that might be set up. In Hartford, Providence, Charleston and Wilmington special and very heavy water rates were laid on persons who had bathtubs. Boston in 1845 made bathing unlawful except on medical advice, but the ordinance was never enforced and in 1862 it was repealed.

President Millard Fillmore gave the bathtub recognition and respectability. While Vice President he visited Cincinnati in 1850 on a stumping tour and inspected the original bathtub and used it. Experiencing no ill effects he became an ardent advocate, and on becoming President he had a tub installed in the White House. The Secretary of War invited bids for the installation. This tub continued to be the one in use until the first Cleveland Administration.

And it’s been bouncing around the world and the internet since.