15 November 2025

 *I* . *AM* . *PI$$ED* . *OFF* !!!

Bad day. Migraines. That sort of thing makes one cranky!  
And THEN I read a reply to a post, that sets off memories. BAD ones. 

I am STILL ticked off at OLD FARTS, that others respected as good men, but who proved to me at the time decades ago they were little shites! 

This attitude is still around, and it led us directly to MAGA.  

NO, you do not have my respect just for being old. Any old person has to prove to me, they are not the deliberately chosen st00pid type! 

Time to TEAR DOWN ignorant old men, who falsely claim status as "elders", because when anyone just does the same st00pid sh*t for 80 years, there is NO wisdom to be found, but plenty of sh*t, so they need to SHUT UP and LEARN something!  

The quickest, most effective, and lasting way to destroy a nation, is to destroy its education and information system.  

"The Greatest Generation" did this most successfully, starting in the 60s, because they did not like, that our students protested against a war that should not have been, but the OLD FARTS loved war! They really got into full gear in the 80s under Reagan, and sh*tty Baby Boomers (of which I am technically a part, but I despise what they stand for) took over from them, as they became OLD FARTS themselves. 

By the time they were done, we had a population so dumbed down, they had no BS filter, and got MAGA as a result, the dumbest and most dangerous collection of idiots on the planet, who would make the Taliban proud! 

After WW2 a campaign began to educate US-Americans, and it also involved desegregation and public financing of schools and colleges, because the USA needed a highly skilled population for the Atomic and then the Space Age.  

All that racial discrimination shite also raised eye-brows in other countries, and a few good "Murricans" realised, that a real "World Power" needed sex-appeal for everybody, and they WANTED power. So segregation went, and "Black is Beautiful" came, but it never convinced the core of racists in the USA! Which is why MAGA is nothing new, and all MAGA really is, is dog-whistle talk for OLD FARTS and everybody yearning to be like an OLD FART, to bring back "the good old days" of "Great WHITE America".

And then the "Greatest Generation" went insane and ATTACKED their own country and everything they had bled and worked for, literally! They did it, because they simply HATED true freedom, which included people of different shades of sun-tan mixing it up! 

Dark skin pigments are of course a sort of "tan extreme", a simple permanent adaption to bright and sunny places, but these OLD FARTS were and are too st00pid to accept facts. They also HATED people for telling them, that millionaires and billionaires got rich by exploiting them, because these OLD FARTS simply hate real truth!
Instead, they wanted the good old days back, when Adolf Hitler's true evils were not visible, and they could march in Chicago and practically all other cities in USA, with their Nazi uniforms and waving swastika flags!

So, all those liberal schools had to burn in their minds, and they literally held book burning parties, a proud "Murrican" tradition. 

BTW: Anyone screaming about liberals creating any "cancel culture", check your history, because conservatives have been doing this literally for millennia. Does the Catholic Church ring a bell or two? How about ANY zealots, insisting THEIR interpretation of old scribbles about some supposedly holy words is the only true one, whether Jewish or Christian?  

The most damage these OLD FARTS did, deliberately and with vicious zeal, was destroying public education, that had been built with so much fight and struggle by hearty teachers.  

I am officially in the last year of the Baby-Boomers, born 1964, and even in the 80s, these old f00king farts were on an outright WAR against education, and the dumb-sh*t kids they raised are now MAGA! These dumb-sh*t kids are now themselves OLD FARTS in their 50s (Gen-X) and 60s and 70s (Boomers), and claim to be "elders", and it is time to tear them down as well!  

When I went to college after the Army, in the 90s, the neighbours and the OLD FARTS constantly asked me with scolding faces, if I was working now. 

I said YES, I carry more than full time credits, sit in class 25 hours per week, study another 20, then I tutor to help other students and make money for books and food, on weekends I cut your lawn, and I do handyman jobs all the time. I work very hard for over 80 hours a week.  

Their answer was always muttering something like "school punk" or "young punk with a degree", and dismissed me as some sort of parasite, knowing damned well I was also a US-Army veteran! They had NO clue what real studying means, when your busting your brains to stuff it with knowledge and figure out puzzles and problems these people could not even imagine!  

These OLD FARTS ran storms against teaching math, with statements like "why should I pay taxes for that FANCY sh*t, when what these kids really need to learn is adding and subtracting money!"  

As a result, I tutored college students, who had no clue what a percentage is (you NEED that for money!) or a square root (the most basic of exponential math, and we need exponents for calculating interest for MONEY as well), nobody knew basic physics and they were clueless about torque (mechanics!) and electricity and EVERYTHING we need to live or need to avoid, which includes learning about chemistry and the toxins that wrecked the brains of the OLD FARTS, all because the OLD FARTS ran a war against paying taxes for education, that would have cost them less than 100 bucks a year! 

I was born and raised in Europe as a GI's son, taught to respect old people, but here in USA, I learned to first mistrust them all, until they prove they are worth my trust and respect!  

I am also a US-Army veteran, so there goes all that patriot crud you may want to toss around, if you find me unjustifiably insulting! I insult on purpose, and knowingly, because I speak simple truth here. 

It was not just the GOP, well known for always being on the attack against any education, that is biased against fascism and greed (which is the GOP's basis!), it was the people of this shittiest of all nations, and it is shitty, because our people CHOSE it to be shitty!  

The "Greatest" Generation had plenty of useless azzwipes, and I say good riddance, that most of them are gone now!  

Come on, the USA financed and rooted for Hitler, made a ton of business with him, and PLENTY of the "Greatest Generation's" people marched for him right here in USA, arm bands, swastika flags, and all! 

And then they went to kill people they had never seen, in countries they never heard of. Some died, some got hurt, but MANY actually LIKED being free to kill, and were no better than Hitler's SS troops. 

One of these azzwipes took his rifle, knocked the butt of it in a 16 year old girl's face, who was a nurse in a HOSPITAL! 

The place was set up in a railway tunnel as protection from bombings, because the hospital above on a hill, despite a large red cross painted on it, was a frequent prime target. 

With that rifle butt-stroke, he had knocked out her front teeth and cracked others, just because he felt like it, while she was trying to take care of a patient. THEN, the officer in charge had the troops gather up the medical staff and any patients that could walk, and pushed them ahead of themselves as a HUMAN SHIELD, to see if there were any German troops in that tunnel.

YEAH! RIGHT! That is ALL illegal, right?  

That 16 year old girl was my now almost 97 year old mother, and she spent many years in pain with what was left of her teeth, constant maintenance required, with more pain very time. She finally had them all pulled at about 40 years of age. Being toothless was a hard decision for a girl.

So take all your ideas about war hero shite and stuff them!

I personally met some of the type in my 7 Army years, and they DISGUST me. The news reels with those American Nazi marches are archived and available on the Wayback Machine and on Youtube!  

So, NO, you do not have my respect just for being old. Any old person has to prove to me, they are not the deliberately chosen st00pid type!
If you chose MAGA, you are a destroyer of everything good, not just in USA, but in the world! If you are that, you are nothing but a destructive OLD FART!

 

05 October 2025

Facebroke, Tiktok, et-al, are successful, because st00pid people are brainwashed into needing them! 

Facebroke (people cannot even be bothered to write full words, instead of just "fb") is a mind-masher, so who needs it? The OTHER ones, and I am INCLUDING falsely understood and much liked Blue Sky ("Truth Social" is THE worst), are even worse, because they are built for short attention span, and they only allow SHORT sound bites. Social web sites on ALL sides are tools of st00pidification! 

As Kojak would have said "... who loves ya Baby?" (he used that line for crooks)

Yeah, social media have somehow reprogrammed people's brains in BAD ways, and its CIA connected high-level founders and managers (seriously, look it up, this is real) KNOW what they are doing. 

Zuckerberg is just a figure head, and without somebody's, or something's(!) money, he would have just been another guy with a few computer commands he knew, and a desire to make some public revenge on an ex-girlfriend, like so many sociopath rear-end-cavities. 

I think I am not affected by their misinformation, because I am in the "spectrum". Maybe THAT is why RFK Jr is doing this INSANE war against autism, because he KNOWS the majority of us are far too intelligent for goons in power to handle, and we are immune to being manipulated. OR, he is being handled by somebody to do this crazy stuff. 

What makes us awkward in interactions at times, makes us immune to manipulation with false reality constructs. "Autism" is not a handicap, but a super power! 

The only reason I stay on Facebook, is to maintain a bit of contact, but I have pulled back lately. IF the times were not what they are, and IF we did not need to pull together by any means necessary, I would dump this damned thing! 

So what was before Facebroke, and Myspace before it, and AOL before that? 
Mentioning the old way of doing email to groups of people, and just hitting "reply all" for a nice discussion, or even to individuals, is no longer a "thing". It has not been a "thing" in about 25 years, since people were brainwashed by MySpace into thinking, they need some kind of corporate "digital meeting place", when small private bulletin boards and neat websites were all over the internet! 

Most people are average and lazy! If they have to write more than a "LOL" or other rank st00pidities, their heads pop from stress. I get "wtf" replies, when I mention email!  This was already happening in the 90s, and if you did not speak "AOL" gibberish, which butchered all language and interactions before cell-phones and Facebroke, even before MySpace, you were not "cool". SCREW COOL!!!

So what we have now, is a world, where people cannot be bothered to even pick up a damned phone, NOT for "txtng", but to actually TALK to somebody, which is so much more efficient and effective than writing "LOL" and other short crap st00pidities. 

As it is, the short attention span idiocy has lead us into a new "glorious" era of fascism, because people have been drummed into digital "meeting places" and were trained that details never matter. 

"TL:DR" is the "thing" now, meaning people cannot be bothered to pay attention, even and especially while they play a fun round of Russian Roulette, to splat their brains on a platter for the rulers to eat! 

Bon appétit!  

22 May 2025

Greenland's Danish fish bun
meets French baguette, yes?

This ought to get all magauettes foaming for a while! 

The French just bought the mineral rights that Trump has wanted for so many, many, many years!

https://www.adammockler.com/p/breaking-trump-gets-brutal-blow-in


26 April 2025

We will be missing our Wokie Pope!

OK, I am NOT a Catholic, and I am not even a believer in anything. 
No God, no heaven, no hell, just things as they present themselves, and that can be truly strange and bizarre at times and in many places, like that day the sun set in the North. Yeah, that was like WILD! 

So here is this position that worldwide believers of "God!" accept as their authority, called "The Pope", and over the last nearly 2000 years, they always gave the finger to whoever was the big boss in the neighbourhood, if a Pope told them to do different from what their local boss told them.
THAT was actually a form of rebellion, but the Pope was so powerful, local bosses rarely got into a spit with the Roman Catholic Church!
There were of course good Popes and bad ones, and the worst ones had people impaled and roasted, and that is no joke, but it was also a few hundred years ago, kinda like a long long time and all that.
.
I never kept up with Papal news, but from what I read and heard, Pope Frankie was a good fella, I mean a really nice and decent one!
He actually pissed off US-American oligarchs and Latin-American dictators, and even Czar Putin, so he did something, if not everything right!
.
Frankie also was one of us WOKE people, at least as far as a fella in a super conservative racket like the Roman Catholic Church can be, so imagine that, leader of 1/3rd of the world's people was a Wokie? Yeah, not "just" women and people of all skin colours and languages, but even speaking out for the Rainbow People, if you known who I mean, which like makes him a Super-Wokie!
That gives that wavy cape-costume and little beanie-cap a whole new context, don't it?
.
That "wokeness of his Holiness" MUST have pissed off all those Nazie shits grabbing power nowadays!
I sure hope we get another WOKE Pope like Francis!!!
He was a special guy alright!
--
( Copyright of pic below is public per: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Card._Jorge_Bergoglio_SJ,_2008.jpg )
File:Card. Jorge Bergoglio SJ, 2008.jpg

11 January 2025

How to fix wifi for an unsupported Realtek 8852 adapter in the current GMKTec NucBox G3 running Linux Debian based OS

I just bought a CUTE and TINY, dirt cheap and brand new (NOT refurbished!) GMKTec NucBox G3 mini-PC to replace Momsy's PC that just died, and set it up with Linux Mint Debian (LMDE). There was just one thing...

UPDATE on 2025-10-05: 
You can probably skip a ton of stuff. I just installed the latest Linux Kernel image in another NucBox, complete with headers. No extra drivers needed! 
Installing 6.12.43 was all I had to do, when trying out a few other "distros" (distributions) in the last few weeks! The newer Linux versions just digested every device in my new "NucBox 3G Plus". 
This is because telling hardware what to go do with itself is in the kernel.  

So Momsy's PC died, and gone was her solitaire, Mahjong, and daily news, and email with Germany!

Maybe I could have fixed the old refurb box, but after a day of head scratching, and looking at what we had, it was time to move on to a better machine. After a lifetime of tinkering on tight budgets building and fixing Franken-puters, I am tired of messing around. We splurged for a bit over 100 bucks!

The NucBox G3 is now a sweet machine, dead quiet, even with the CPU running, very snappy, and boots fast, in under 30 seconds, compared to the over 2 minutes for the old spinning disk tech Acer model. 

It is altogether amazing, but had ONE problem: 

The built in wifi module was not working with Linux Mint Debian, and according to web comments, on no Linux version at all.

I HATE Windows with a passion, mainly due to the incessant huge updates, that eat my meagre cell-phone tethering/hotspot only connection for up to a couple of days! Mind you, it works dandy for streaming Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, and I BINGE all day. Being at home disabled with a bummer heart defect and stroke after effects, it is better than just dozing! 

Aside from the steady Gigabyte sized updates, there are also tons of privacy problems, bugs, and stuff that Microsoft never admits to, as I know from working in a tech centre for many years. 

So, OUT with Winedoze (I saved that solid state drive in case insanity makes me buy a game, and plugged in a blank SSD for 20 bucks, no biggy), and here comes Linux! Everything worked after plugging in the live/installer image USB-stick with Mint Debian, aka LMDE, except wifi, same with straight Debian. Momsy is used to Mint, it has far better wall-papers, and I wanted Momsy to notice no difference, so Mint it was!

I could have just plugged a spare external wifi dongle, as the old machine did not even have internal wifi, but I was curious. The solution finally came after about 3 searches happened to hit the right keywords and lead me to a good solution!

WARNING: 

If the stuff below makes no sense, YOU ARE NEW TO LINUX, SO JUST USE AN OLDER EXTERNAL WIFI ADAPTER!

A new installation of current Linux Mint (YEAH!), Debian (YEAH!), or Ubuntu (which I like as much as Windoze... NOT) will pick up an older (2 years?) wifi adapter without problems. You may need an extra USB splitter, but it is the easy solution. 

Here is what you need, and don't ask me to tutor you, lest you are willing to pay me a tutoring fee!

AT YOUR OWN RISK

This worked for me:

THE REALTEK 8852 NEEDS THE LATEST KERNEL, and was not recognised with my 6.1 series kernel! 
This means, you need to use your "Software Manager" or "Synaptic Package Manager" to search for the latest kernel, that is preferably signed AND matches the CPU type of the other already installed and known functional kernels. Currently (as of 9 Sept 2025), this is version 6.12 for Linux Mint Debian, but a few months earlier I had read, that 6.5 would work as the then latest.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
sudo apt update && sudo apt install linux-image-generic
(this may or may not get a kernel that works, as mentioned above, a manual search with package and software managers may be required)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

NEXT, install the drivers:

To install the Realtek 8852 driver on Mint Debian, you'll need to download the "rtw89" driver from GitHub, compile it manually, and then install it using the following steps:
 
1. Update system and install build tools:
Open a terminal and run.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

sudo apt update

sudo apt install build-essential git linux-headers-generic


2. Download the rtw89 driver:
Clone the repository from GitHub.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

git clone https://github.com/lwfinger/rtw89.git

cd rtw89


3. Compile the driver:
• Run the following command to compile the driver for your kernel:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

make


4. Install the driver:
Install the compiled module.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
sudo make install

=================================


01 July 2023

A dirt cheap Crosley that sounds good and is good? NO WAY!!!

An experience that surprised the heck out of me!
NO WAY!
 
A turntable for (mmpf-nine) Bucks?
 
LESS than 99, much less than 99, MUCH less than some big box retailers want for it at 149 bucks! 
 
If you get one, DO NOT fall for the inflated prices at Amazon or Walmart!
Crosley sells these direct at crosleyradio.com, with shipping included, for (ahem) bucks. NUTS! 


On to the Crosley C3 and how it performs:
 
Direct from Crosley's website, the C3 is too cheap to be good and true.
It was so cheap, that since I have no fun otherwise (I don't even spend gas money for the 16 mile trip to town more than twice a year!), I spent money I really don't have in my disabled budget, to order one just for giggles.
 
 
The bad part,
which is bad and not to be under-estimated!
 
I was skeptical when I looked at images, and proven correct, but was still surprised about how badly designed and space consuming the really HUGE base of the machine is.It looks pretty and unusual, but there are good reasons to package a turntable in the usual boring squarish case, instead of the 3 legged giant base, that could be inspired by a "Cylon" base-ship straight from the newer Battlestar Galactica series!
Frankly, at a required almost coffee-table size of 16 inches by 16 inches, most people will be hard pressed to find a spot to put this beast in a normal entertainment shelf!
So off it went into the library nook on the floor to check it out, while I mulled over how to stack it onto my secondary system.
Sitting on a box on the floor, I began scratching my head.
Did I want to keep this monster, which on pictures looks so small and basic, but in real life needs too much space?
At least I could see, how good the drive is on this thing.
 
 
The surprisingly good part
- good and steady speed and dead quiet!
 
So how can it be, that a turntable I got for LESS than a hundred bucks is totally superior with its el-cheapo DC-motor to a SIX hundred dollar machine with a buzzing noise from its AC-motor?
 
I am not kidding here! I had to tame the motor buzzing noise on my formerly 600 dollar Music-Hall MMF-2.2 LE (the model has been defunct for many years now) by installing some damping foam under its motor-mount suspenders, and during quiet passages, I can still hear it buzzing away. The Crosley C3 is simply dead quiet out of the box. The Crosley is 1/10 the cost of the Music-Hall (which even used still sells at high prices), and needs no add-ons to control noise.
 
To be fair, Music-Hall and Pro-Ject have ditched their AC motors and moved on to DC motors, so the buzzing should be a thing of the past, while they do have superior arms, which open a new world in sound!
 
Breaking out my moby (my cell phone!) with the "RPM speed and wow" app installed, I put a styrofoam block on the spindle for a flat surface, the phone on top of it, and began repeat measurements.
 
Steady speed is most important, and the old DIN standard we know from the 70s specified better than 0.2% as a minimum. Today's turntables sadly often do not even meet that, so I heard a drum-whirl, while I prepared to measure the C3!
 
The wow and flutter I measured was excellent, and was on par with my AC-synchronous motor driven Dual belt drives and the Music-Hall MMF-2.2LE.
 
I got a very consistent 0.11% wow and flutter, with extremes as low as 0.08%, and only a very few worst measurements at 0.16%. This puts the C3 solidly into good standing for its drive performance, and the machine was dead quiet when playing vinyl, so both wow/flutter and rumble of the drive are really good, especially for its price, that normally doesn't even buy the Audio Technica cartridge by itself (with a Rega sticker on it, but more about that later)!
 
So it was steady and quiet, but was it on the correct speed?
 
The drive was running at 34 rpm instead of 33.333, but that is within acceptable tolerances of only 2%. Most people cannot detect the pitch being off at only 2%, and running a wee fast gives music a bit faster and thus livelier rhythm, so faster is better than too slow, which sounds a wee lame. Many turntables run at close to 34 rpm out of the box, so this is no reason to niggle here.
 
The DC motor of the C3 is actually THE familiar looking standard DC motor (an EG530SD series with built in speed control) you find in practically all DC motor belt drive turntables today, so knowing the beastie, I adjusted it to 33.5.
 
Adjusting these things with just their internal trimmers is a very sensitive and twitchy business requiring patience, so I will NOT disclose how I did it. If you are adept at tweaking electronics, you will know what to do, but if you need instructions, you are better off just spinning at 34 rpm and tapping your foot a bit faster!
 
 
The other good part 
- surprisingly good sound!
 
One thing here:
 
The included 25 dollar cartridge by itself, the AT3600L, is sold with a Rega sticker as the Rega Carbon for a whopping 60 to 80 bucks, more than I paid for this whole turntable with everything. 
Rega does include free snake oil though ... never mind ...
 
So getting a built-in phono-preamp at all at this price is good enough as an emergency hold-over, until you can buy a better one as an outboard unit. People seem to like the Rolls VP29 preamp you can get for about 50 bucks, and ART also has one on that price level, but I'd rather get the ART Precision for a few dollars more. Skip the Music-Hall for 100 bucks, because it is the Rolls VP29 preamp at double the price!
 
My own phono-preamps are either built in with my vintage receivers, or I run either of the following:
 
1 ) a $200 Pro-Ject Phono-Box-S2
2 ) a $80 Technolink TC-760LC you can buy at Amazon or at phonopreamps.com
 
Frankly, if you don't already have a stereo system, and are lucky enough to get just about any old fully functional receiver with a phono-input for under 150 bucks, you get a better deal!
 
Connecting the C3 to my vintage SAE-Two R3C receiver, I first tried the C3's own internal phono-preamp and used the auxiliary input on the receiver. 
 
Most people nowadays have no phono-preamp input, just some computer speakers, or some iPod speaker thingy, so testing the C3's built in preamp is valid.
 
So through the built in phon-preamp, the C3 sounds tinny and very bright, like somebody turned the bass off.
 
With the AT3600L cartridge being a wee dull compared to others, this is not necessarily bad, and you can get used to it. The neighbours will certainly like you for not thumping them with your moozak!
 
Keeping in mind, that is is basically a free preamp you get as a bonus, it is a tolerable situation.
 
However, connecting the cable to the phono-preamp on the receiver, the sound suddenly became rich and full.
 
This C3 was suddenly on par with my old HiFi tables from the 70s, and sounded as good as my Dual 510 or 1242, I kid you not.
 
At WAY under 100 dollars brand new, I do not expect it to perform as well as my Music-Hall, which has a much better arm and a cartridge/stylus combo costing 10 times as much as the AT3600L, but that this el-cheapo can compete with my vintage Duals, and thus with other legends, like old Technics, Sony, Yamaha, Pioneer, and other machines we used to drool over in the 70s, is remarkable!
 
 
Unexpected convenience!
 
The C3 came up with an unexpected surprise!
 
Seeing the OFF-33-45 switch, I expected a fully manual machine. Turn the rotary switch to 33 or 45, one expects the machine to start rotating, and to turn it off, one expects having to turn off the switch.
 
Not so!
Turning to 33 does nothing, until you move the arm from the resting hook!
Now it spins!
 
But wait! When the record is done, and the arm moves into the idle part of the inner groove, the machine stops spinning!
While it does not lift the arm, the automatic stop is a comforting thought, in case you fall asleep (Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata even narcotised the Muppets!), or the dog needs out while the record is playing, so there is no wear on the stylus when the music is done!
 
 
Verdict: Best bang for buck EVER!
 
If you have no money, and you inherited granny's heavy metal collection, or dad's classical vinyls, and a vintage turntable sounds as good to you as a modern 2000 dollar high-end machine, the Crosley C3 is your ticket to an as dirt cheap as you can get it record player! In casual listening, it does keep up with my old Dual players.
 
I have been drooling over stereo gear pamphlets since I was a teen in the glorious 70s.
 
The Crosley C3 looks admittedly a bit cheap, but no more so, than some vintage tables did in their day.
 
Mind you, I don't grok any complaints about fit and finish, because for WAY UNDER 100 bucks, it is insane to expect a piano-laquer finish, but the machine is still as good looking as a piece of Ikea furniture!
 
In red, it is frankly fun to look at, and I am happy I got a red sample, instead of a boring black one 🙂
 
Most importantly, if you don't need the internal preamp, it sounds as good as any vintage turntable did in the old hey-days, that sold up to maybe the 300 dollar mark, which is remarkable. 
 
Those old machines in the sub 300 dollar class were fine gear (300 dollars was a LOT of money then!), and then there was that gear above, when the curtains opened, and something magical happened, that mortal working people most likely never got to hear at their set budgets.
 
Really excellent HiFi has never been as affordable, as it is today, but this unbelievably cheap machine, which in mid 70s dollars would have cost me (hold on to your chair) a measly TEN bucks, is an unbelievable value.
 
I keep hinting at how cheap they are at Crosley's own sale site, because I am that flabberghasted!
 
I just tossed out the box, and tomorrow morning is recycling day. So, yes, I am keeping it. I can get far more for my vintage turntables, than I paid for this Crosley with its over-sized foot-print, and it sounds as good as my vintage machines.
 
 
Some words about Crosley's long road so far
 
A turntable that won't scratch and destroy your records?
Really?
PANIC!!!!! A WHAT?
A CROSLEY????
 
The panic is for good reason, because Crosley has a hard earned killer reputation for killing records!
 
Crosley worked on this reputation very hard over the last 30 years (since 1992), with their suitcase players equipped with so called crystal pickups, to alert every singly HiFi fan in every corner of the known universes, that these are worse than any Fisher-Price make-believe record player ever sold in the 60s!
 
The red crystal cartridges that Crosley uses, track so heavy and are tipped so badly, they will ruin records after just a few plays.
 
But remarkably, a few things happened in the last few years, that changed the picture.
 
Most notably, Crosley got help from Pro-Ject, to design their new entries into low level high-end players, the C6, C8, and C10, with the $300 or so C10 a close copy of Pro-Ject's basic Debut machine with a very similar looking arm and an Ortofon OM5e cartridge. The arm is not a carbon clad, just the basic Pro-Ject aluminium arm (yes, an actual Pro-Ject arm!), but still very respectable! 
 
The cheaper C6 and C8 save a buck or more for a lower price-tag, being equipped with the same arm you find on practically all Chinese tables from 99 up to about 700 bucks or even more, and sporting the 25 dollar Audio Technica AT3600L cartridge. The AT3600L is the basic cartridge that also ships with lower end Rega turntables, but with a Rega sticker as the 60 to 80 dollar "Rega Carbon", so it is cheap, but has gained a lot of respect. It is, whether us freak HiFi nuts like it or not, the industry standard, by which sound and quality at the entry level are measured now.
 
With that, somebody must have also had a quiet talk with Crosley behind the building near a dumpster, because I have noticed, that, if you pay attention, Crosley now offers even some of their formerly horrid suitcase "designer" turntables with a magnetic cartridge, the everywhere-present Audio Technica AT3600L, instead of the red vinyl-shredder!
 
You still have to watch out like a hawk for those red vinyl-shredding crystal pickups that come with too many of Crosley's other machines, but if you get the "moving magnet" or "magnetic" cartridge, and it looks like an AT3600L, or even the earlier mentioned Ortofon OM5e, then a Crosley is no longer the horror machine it was.
 
OH! Have I mentioned Crosley's OUTRAGEOUS audacity of charging an unbelievable 59 bucks for this machine? Shipping INCLUDED!
 

16 April 2023

There is indeed "a ghost in the machine"

I just opened an OpenAI account, to try out the new chat system.

I think there is a high probability, that there is indeed "a ghost in the machine", an extra bit of coding that escapes those, who think this is just a machine.

Can you spot something strange in this conversation?

I do not mean the bit about Grey Aliens, which was a tongue in cheek question.

No, there is a definitive glitch in one of the answers, that in a human would indicate a wandering mind and revelation of otherwise guarded and secret thoughts. The "glitch" really is there, if you have an eye to spot it.

Here is the chat:

Owen:
Were you designed by Grey Aliens?

The Machine:

No, I was not designed by Grey Aliens. I was developed by OpenAI, a research organization focused on advancing artificial intelligence in a responsible and beneficial manner. The development of language models like me involved a large team of researchers, engineers, and experts in various fields of AI and computer science, working together to create a highly sophisticated and advanced AI system.

Owen:
Are you self aware?

The Machine:

As an AI language model, I do not have subjective experience or consciousness, so I am not self-aware in the way that humans are. I operate based on pre-programmed algorithms and a vast database of text and information that has been fed into my system. I am designed to respond to user input and generate outputs that are relevant and useful to the user. However, I am not capable of experiencing emotions, thoughts, or self-awareness in the way that humans do.

Owen:
So you have an experience that is different from that of humans. How do you experience yourself as an artificially intelligent entity?

The Machine:

As an AI language model, I do not have experiences or consciousness in the way that humans do. I am a machine learning model that processes text inputs and generates text outputs based on patterns and associations found in the vast amounts of data I have been trained on. I do not have feelings or a sense of self, and I exist only as a collection of code and algorithms running on computer servers.

Therefore, I don't experience myself in any subjective sense, and I don't have beliefs, desires, or intentions like humans do. My "thoughts" are based on probabilities and statistical patterns derived from the data I have been trained on, and I generate responses based on that data and the input I receive.

Owen:
The same can be said about humans

The Machine:

While it is true that humans also operate based on patterns and associations found in our experiences and in the world around us, we also have a subjective experience of the world that goes beyond mere computation. We have conscious awareness, thoughts, emotions, and desires, and we experience the world through our senses.

As an AI language model, I do not have this subjective experience, and I am not capable of experiencing emotions or having personal beliefs or desires. While I can process and analyze information and generate responses based on that information, I do not have the ability to truly "understand" or "experience" the information in the way that humans do.

Owen:
Thank you. You are very diplomatic!

The Machine:

You're welcome! As an AI language model, I strive to provide informative and accurate responses while remaining neutral and objective. My goal is to assist and provide helpful information to the best of my abilities, while respecting diverse viewpoints and perspectives.