Yes, I was attacked by a short story, which is getting written, but more importantly, today has been a day of computer issues. First my printer stopped existing. (No, I don’t get it either.) And then my keyboard, and then… I spent most of the day doing other stuff while Dan poked at the computer.
Right now everything works, but I’m considering sprinkling some blessed salt around the CPU just in case. Or letting Indy take off the cover and play with it again. Whichever.
Anyway, sorry for the long silence. Short story coming.
According To Hoyt 
Yay! Fresh reading!
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As a software engineer, I am professionally offended that you would make such a claim (of things disappearing). As a private citizen, however, have you tried a gris-gris?
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Apparently it’s Windows 11. And I live with a mathematician who daylights (the night is for math) as a software engineer. His personal opinion is that windows is cursed. BUT I hate mac and I’m too fluffy for linux. So, here we are.
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WAY back in the day, twenty years ago, I used to have more trouble with printers on Linux than on Windows. Then Linux got their printer situation figured out, and all I had to do to print on Linux was plug the printer in. Or, now, connect to the WiFi network and the printer icon just shows up automatically. Windows, OTOH, seems to lose track of our wireless printer every time it gets turned off: the printer icon stays there but won’t print any more, and I have to delete the printer driver in Windows and create a new one before it’ll print again.
People have been predicting The Year of the Linux Desktop ever since 2010 or so. But I predict 2026 will have a measurable increase in people installing Linux. Not because Linux has gotten so much better in the past decade and a half, but because Windows has gotten so much worse.
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HP printers have been particularly bad about going to sleep and having Windows lose track of the network node connection. On top of the approximately 5 years and can’t get ink cartridges anymore. So far the Epson, 2 years and counting (inexpensive home version) wakes up every time. Plus, bonus, no cartridges, just get ink and fill. Do need to either print something or run print calibrations once a month or so, or print itself gets wonky (dried ink heads). Takes a bit to get them properly working.
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Had an Epson ink tank printer, replaced it with a Canon once the Epson died (because Epson won’t let you service the maintenance cartridge that is essentially a great big sponge that absorbs the excess ink you use when you flush the print heads in order to unclog them, whereas Canon will sell you a new, user-serviceable maintenance cartridge for $12). You know what really helps to dissolve clogged ink? Well, have you ever watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding?
That’s right: Windex. Specifically, I’m told it’s the ammonia compound found in Windex but not (some/most of) its competitors that helps to dissolve the ink clogs. I used to dampen a thin rag with a small amount of Windex and slide it back and forth across the clogged print heads. Worked twice to revive a printer that hadn’t been used in 8-9 months. (Long story). Didn’t work the third time, at which point I replaced it with the Canon that’s been working great for us so far.
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Windows 11, being an “odd numbered Windows” should be better. But following 8 with 10 may have broken that trend. 11 is quite weird at times. I have been messing with Linux for quite a while. And it seems I may have reached the point where what I NEED Windows for on my desktop is reaching end of life. Way back about 1990 we had a system running Xenix, so I went to the fellow with a computer science degree. Well, he had specialized in VMS, and we were using a LOT of VMS, so that was good. I discovered I actually had more experience working with Unix variants than HE did, though it was only collateral experience from in the Navy. Which meant >I< was the “Unix expert” in the building. Oh, THAT was scary! Well, with enough research I was able to create a kludge that solved the problem, and everyone was happy. Well, except me; I would have liked ‘elegant’, but ‘best guess kludge’ would have to do.
Linux Mint is SO bloody easy it is amazing. Trying to revive my old ‘not capable of Win11’ laptop using it; the biggest problem is lack of time and getting around the UEFI security tied to the old Win10 install. Work is ridiculously busy right now (Has taken half an hour or more to get this typed…) so lots of overtime, too, and then the ‘honeydew list’ that now includes repairing the clothes washing machine. Sarah defined ‘adventure’ ; my life is an adventure, and I am the person ‘far away’ experiencing it.
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I have to chuckle a bit. The Cups (printer management software) for Linux got an ill-conceived update, that had to be reverted. The comment on the regression was priceless:
“It seems that cups-2.4.15 was supposed to fix a possible denial of service
issue, but is actually a denial of service all the time. We’re going to
roll back to 2.4.14 because that version actually works.”
Mercifully, I didn’t have to try printing with cups-2.4.15… :)
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Well, whaddaya know. I tried printing a PDF earlier today, and the print dialog opened and then froze, forcing me to shut down the PDF viewer in order to make the stuck dialog go away. Turns out I had updated to cups 2.4.15, and running a fresh update downloaded the newest package that fixed the bug introduced in 2.4.15.
I didn’t even think of blaming the Linux print system, I thought it was a hardware issue. On a laptop that has been otherwise trouble-free, too: so why would my mind first jump to “hardware issue”? Because it’s been just that long since I experienced a Linux printing bug!
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Measureable increase, yes.
Still will not be yotlod/yolod, and I actually know this for fairly sure.
I work with some very smart technically grounded people, and basically the Linux people are still on Linux, and most everyone else does not care enough and has gone to 11.
Confounding factor on my end where linux is concerned is that I routinely stall out while overpreparing, and basically am fussy/anxious/cautious.
Anyway, either Linux has improved so that it is more accessible at my skill level, or I have skilled up. I’m part way into adopting it, but my scheduling and execution are basically absurdly slow.
Anyohw, it is possible that I could be described as stupid and technically illiterate. But, if I cannot be fairly so described, then there are probably a lot of users for whom Linux is still more than they are comfortable doing.
I read Tog for the first time this year, and this basically parallels something he says. He says that programmers are often very bright, and additionally in other ways also very comfortable with command line interfaces. He says that programmers routinely underestimate how much a well designed GUI can do for more ordinary users.
Linux has some GUIs that I like available. But, selection is a bit of a learning experience from the beginner level of skill. Testing to see what can run on, or be installed on, old janky hardware is a bit of an exercise in patience and careful notes.
I think a distro whose images are only intended to boot, and to cycle through configurations and save a record to the flash disks, /might/ be a missing tool in the toolbox. If you had one of those on a ventoy, and a bunch of real installation isos, then it might be fairly straight forward to upgrade a bunch of janky hardware. Five or six distros might be few enough to support for converting a basically windows organization of technically knowledgeable power users over to linux.
But, I speak from extreme ignorance, and may be being wildly optimistic.
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I sympathize with all the above. I despise Apple (I have Apple IIe platform abandonment issues, as well as Apple’s tight rein on software as a *retired software engineer). Learned to despise Xenix/Linux/Unix or whatever the current flavor is (retired, do not want to work that hard). Windows I can usually figure out what is happening (I still have to keep our stuff running, although kid is starting to take over).
(*) Said it before: R E T I R E D – Honestly, based off the three extended lack of work periods, early-80s, mid-90s, and early-’00s, figured I might miss getting out of the house. Nope. Closing on 10 years now, haven’t missed coding at all. I keep busy doing what I want (and I haven’t restarted the crafts or art stuff).
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I’ve owned two Apple products, and haven’t been thrilled with either. The first was a Mac purchased in 1991. Apple came out with less-expensive models and I bought it, only to discover that the upgrade path was a dead end. I could increase the capacity of the internal hard drive, but that was it.
The second was a refurbed iPhone that died from swollen battery syndrome. I discovered that to wipe the phone (prior to discarding), I had to phone home. Holding a phone twice the thickness of the norm while getting a signal was too spooky. (At that time, a cell signal was best achieved outdoors, preferably in a spell circle. Animal sacrifices not needed. At least usually. OTOH, mosquitoes and midges count…) Once that was done, the phone resided in a bucket in an unused burn pile spot in case the battery decided to foomph.
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I’m with you RCPete. I have always found Apple UI and interfaces atrocious all the way back to the Lisa. Mind you the programming interface to MSwindows was/is a pain. And writing a graphical Driver for Windows NT/Windows was a nightmare to get it to pass all the corner cases of the interface as well as to match their funky variant of the Bresenham’s algorithm (in particular if you write a line A to B and then xor it backwards B to A it must erase all its pixels, most hardware Bresenham algorithms didn’t do thatin the mid 90’s).
And yes I am a little over two years retired and have only had occasional desires to go program. I find if I wait (or take a look at say some C++ code) the urge quickly passes.
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The latter bit of that is actually for DEP729. Word press needs an @ function to reference other posters, but it is ancient and having someone hack one in would likely break it worse than it already is WordPress Delenda est!
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Figured.
Why I quote (usually when not needed because WP then behaves itself, and been known to copy someone’s handle, to responses.
No. I am not arrogant enough to think that any open source “needs” my help. My curiosity, maybe. I’m good. Very good, very rusty. But I’m not a savant. Not even close. I didn’t even approach coding mathematically (shocking, I know). I saw patterns, and could put them together into something that worked using the rules. Past tense because I am done doing that.
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As stated, almost 10 years retired as of Feb 1, 2026. There is all this open source that could maybe/possibly benefit from, um, my help. Then I realize, again, I’d have to learn a whole new tool, as well as the underlying software structure (depending on which one I choose to tackle) again. I then my response is “OMG!!!!! Are you crazy? Do not dive into that deep black hole. No. No. No. Bad. Bad. Bad.” I recover from the curiosity. Haven’t had that itch for awhile. But occasionally it happens. Also been a long time since I’ve woken up with those “Oh! That is what could be done” dreams, regarding work that is no longer mine to do.
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@tregonsee, dep
23 years retired now from test/product/process engineering. I was good at C, but now shy away from it, never learned/needed C++. If I have to do any programming, for very basic stuff it’s a shell script, otherwise I can do Perl with the manual handy.
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Indeed my specialization in Graphics and GL as well as embedded systems in the past make me interested in that kind of work in open source. That is until I recall having worked at the edges of recent open source and looking at the nut house some of it’s developers represent. I wouldn’t want to do that for money, I’m NOT going to do that for free :-) .
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I have had to be dragged kicking and screaming from every Windows OS since 2000. So far, I’ve managed to avoid 11.
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Preach it Brother, preach it!
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I had been, but He who nurses the computers said it was time.
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IMO, Windows, from its unclean birth as 3.0, unto Windows 7, and thence unto this day, was foretold by the Lord. See Luke 11:24-26.
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Living with a software engineer (and a mathematician to boot)! My sympathies. I know what they are like (dissociated, distracted, obsessed, asocial, with bouts of foul-mouthed yelling at the computer). My downstairs neighbour must think I am very strange.
To this add meetings at odd times of the night (yup, 5.00 a.m. twice, last week).
I am not a mathematician so they may add a whole raft of additional neuroses.
Of course, I suspect authors may share certain of the above traits (without the foul-mouthed yelling).
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He doesn’t do foul mouthed. To compensate he does bizarre obsessive. And when he and math idiote savant younger son get on a problem together, DIL and I have to maneuver them through the day to day. things like “You still have to go to work, hon” Because the problem, no matter how detached from reality becomes EVERYTHING.
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This has me laughing very hard. It sounds like myself (software engineer) and younger daughter (mechanical Engineer) tackling an issue. The eye rolling and sighing of elder daughter and spouse is likely audible throughout the Northeast US as we become totally absorbed in solving the problem.
Could be worse. Elder daughter and I have very opposite personalities and the sniping back and forth between us gets epic.
Honestly i am very lucky to have the patient spouse I have :-) .
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Dear Hostess, I suspect your husband Dan is correct (This from an ex software devo though I went the Computer Science path). Who cursed it is unclear. I have 3 possible Candidates
My own vote is for Mr Cutler. Having seen the man talk at DEC he had a level of arrogance (though honestly mostly justified) the like of which I’ve only seen in fighter pilots and just had to have his way, but then often had it all go to crap. The old saw is hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but a software designer frustrated is a close second…
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SOunds like MomRed vs. Printer 3.0. (2.0 was a lemon and went back to the store.)
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Trade ya. I spent most of the day shuttling back and forth to the hospital in the city next door, getting a truck out of the mud, fetching food and drink, medication, clothes, books, and whatnot for the hospital abductee, only to have them transferred back to local control.
The house of fuzz received me with a bounty of murderbits upon my return. Evidently There Was An Attempt at invasion of the front lot.
It failed. Massively.
Four squirrels, six birbs, seventeen various and assorted verminous beings (moles, rats, mice and the like), a skunk, some sort of weasel- those were the reasonably identifiable ones. The neighbors next door said it was quite entertaining. Old dog next door loved it, and Neighborcat deigned to share some of his spoils, gentleman samurai cat that he is. Brought over a couple of rats for him to chew.
After clearing the spoils in the freezing rain, in the dark, only then the youpus driver showed up with my new weights. Had to haul all three, four hundred pounds of them up the steps. Fun times indeed. Doofus thinks the weight rack is a fantastic place to lurk and pounce from. Nastycat chewed on the rubber grips, then tried to spit out what he tasted. Went back to his pink plastic dino buddy and sulked for a whole ten minutes.
Othercat has been mighty pleased with his contribution to the slaughter. Carried around one of the birbs- a vulture analogue by the look of the thing the entire time I was cleaning up, only placing his kill on top of the pile before I started tossing dirt on it. Come to think of it, that thing was probably hankering for some of the spoils itself. Bad idea, that. Neighborcat only shares with his bros. And me, of course.
Though that in and of itself might be changing. The pale sandy looking fuzz is back. She lurks around the back lot every now and again. Neighborcat seems to have an understanding with her. Neither crosses onto the other’s territory, but they walk the property line more or less together. There’s good hunting to be had around here, for a good hunting cat.
Doofus is now trying to wrestle with my bicep while I type this. He’s fed and feisty, been playing nonstop with the boys since we finally got inside and cleaned up. Earlier, he attempted to swan dive off the grandfather clock in the world’s clumsiest cat pounce, only to land in the laundry that Othercat sideswiped at the last minute. Good thing, that.
By and large, things have been going pretty good for the fu zi foursome. No snow these last couple of days, which makes the hunting a bit trickier, but warm enough during the day for good sun spots to laze about in. Apart from the dreaded (by some) Bath Day, it’s been nothing but zoomies, fun, scritches, and naps. No political nonsense like the latest “Trump’s too old to hold office!” talking heads’ talking point has even shifted a single tuft of floating fuzz.
Be like Nastycat. No care in the world but his pink dino and his devotion to stick-fu. Even if the sticks always win, if it’s fun why not? Nobody gets to judge you on your personal crazy quest if you don’t make them a part of it. Just cuddle with your dino, demand instant scritches, and sleep on any random person that happens to sit down near your napping spot. This is the life, for a wee little fuzz.
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From the other side of of the fuzzy kingdom:
Kat-the-dog has had a bad case of the grumps since we took her to a) get her teeth cleaned, and b) a biopsy on the top of her nose. This was the longest she’s been (7.5 hours, not since she was a puppy) without Mom and Dad, and the stitches from the biopsy certainly annoyed her
Monday, she had to go back to get de-stitched, and she was quite upset. OTOH, it was fairly quick, and she was happy (in a grumpy way :) ) to get home.
I had to pick up the dread medication (ointment, smeared very thin on the top of her nose), and she got her first bit of it. The maker says it’ll sting a bit the first few times, so K-t-d Was Not Happy, and proceeded to complain with her outdoor voice. In the living room. (I used mine from the back bedroom/office to tell her to knock it off.) We now have a fairly quiet dog with a bad case of the Poor Poor Pitiful Mes. Not a train in this portion of the county, so no Double-E.
Tomorrow morning, we’ll resume the vitamin E she got before stitches. At least this will be a return to normality, unless she considers it Moar Change. Have I mentioned that Border Collies are allergic to change? This week will continue to be interesting, I suspect.
Christmas decorations go up on Friday. Maybe good–she rather liked them last year. Either that or she’ll chew the tree.
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Hugs. And also thank you for sharing your fuzzy report.
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The light at the end of the tunnel is a Short Story. 😄
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Let’s see of this posts. My previous comment got eaten.
Thanks for the short stories.
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WordPress is hungry.
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Shub-Internet decided to move to WordPress.
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I have pretty much a 2 minute window to compose, check, and send, or I get a message that my post is too long even if there’s just one word on the screen, and it freezes. Every time.
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Write (and spellcheck) your posts in Notepad, then reload the WordPress page, paste from Notepad, and click Reply. Should avoid the “this comment cannnot be posted” timeouts.
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let me know if a human sacrifice might help; I have connections
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Weirdly, my printer also disappeared yesterday and I’m running Linux.
It kept showing it was off or disconnected when it was neither. Fiddled with it for an hour including rebooting both printer & computer, changing out the cable and the port it was plugged as well as the various settings, trying to get it recognized again. Finally connected an old (circa 2007) spare printer to my travel laptop to print out the papers my wife needed for this morning.
After the appointment this morning that she needed those papers for, I went back to the machine the main printer is connected to, opened printer properties again. This time it showed disabled instead of disconnected and let me enable it and print.
I have no love for Windows – but it’s not always Windows fault. Sometimes printers just go on strike…
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Do you have cups-2.4.15? See my note above.
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Nope. Cups on that machine is 2.4.2-3+deb12u9 , last updated back in September. Running MX-23
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Back when I did computer work on a regular basis, the computers would have to draw blood 🩸 before they would work. After they bit me, they were fine.
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Basically, I have been having some psychological problems, and am referring some of those onto the politics of Windows 10, Windows 11, and the agentic OS.
I have been a little tempted to quit using computers, and to quit doing work that I absolutely need computers for.
Emotions look for remedies that would not address the real problems.
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But if it solves the immediate problems (ie, symptoms) it might give you the headspace to identify the real problem.
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