Insignia Flex 10.1 doesn't seem to have GPS

According to the specs, there's supposed to be a GPS but I haven't been able to get it to work...

Google maps doesn't seem to be able to use it nor an app called AndroiTS GPS test.


Insignia™ - Flex - 10.1" - 32GB - White/Silver

Model: NS-P10A6100SKU: 4298700

Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system
10.1" capacitive touch screen with 1280 x 800 resolution
32GB storage capacity
Quad-core processor
Wi-Fi
Bluetooth
GPS
5.0MP rear-facing and 2.0MP front-facing cameras

I did figure out how to get into "developer mode", go to Settings/about tablet and tap on build number three times.

If you tap on Android version three times you get a lollipop.


AIDA64 reports that it's made by Tianshi Digi-Land Model NS-P10A6100

Mediatek mt8127 1GB ram 4xArm Cortex-a7 @ 1300mhz graphics Mali-450 MP4 Android 5.0.1

Aida64 lists /proc/devices with "233 mt3326-gps"

Trying out hoopla - no joy

So I thought I'd try the hoopla app which promises to allow you to watch movies from their library of movies using your library card. After signing up, and choosing a movie, then downloading it to completion I click play and I get a little message "something went wrong, please try again later."

My insignia flex 10.1 tablet with android 5.0.1 and kernel 3.10.54 must have an issue with hoopla 4.3. Bummer.

FlightRadar24 is one of the coolest things I've ever seen

I am always amazed when I look at all of the planes when I zoom out.

https://www.flightradar24.com/


https://www.flightradar24.com/about

Aptera electric car - ultra aerodynamic

I like the aerodynamic styling.

Weak water fountains

One of the things that drives me crazy is how un-ergonomic water fountains are. I'm a tall guy so I have to bend way down to get to it, and often the stream is set so weakly that it only comes up an inch or two above the fountain. I am not really interested in kissing the fountain so often I just pass on getting a drink.

Somebody ought to invent a water fountain that auto adjusts to water pressure and puts out a consistent stream.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/14/history-of-water-fountains_n_6357064.html

https://www.buzzfeed.com/katienotopoulos/everything-you-already-know-about-water-fountains

Insignia Flex 10.1 tablet

I was perusing Best Buy's ad this week and they had an insignia flex 10.1 android tablet on sale for $100. I couldn't resist trying it and it's pretty good. So far, I've had no problems.

The display is 1280x800 which is fine for me.

The camera(s) on the tablet aren't the greatest but they produce passable pictures.

Pretty amazing what you can get for $100 these days.


Months ago I bought a chromecast and never installed it. I thought it'd be worth a try and it works very well to "cast" video to it. I even installed a chromecast extension in my Chromium browser on ubuntu and it works very well to "cast" a webpage to it, but your computer needs to be on to keep the connection.

Dual systems and dual monitors with dual inputs

Most monitors have dual inputs, and most older ones have VGA and DVI. What's useful is to have a KVM on your primary monitor and use the secondary monitor's own switching ability to act as a video switch between systems.

It helps to have a video card with dual outputs on each system, and most cards (especially older ones) have VGA and DVI.

Oh, the duality!

What would actually be cool is if you could switch a monitor with DDC/CI.

Getting my sound back by closing tab, undo close tab

I keep losing my sound under Ubuntu 14.04 and firefox trying to play youtube with an Optiplex 760.

For some reason I hear no sound at all, but what seems to work is to close the youtube tab, then right click on the tabs area and click on "Undo close tab". Most of the time the sound will magically start working.

Reloading the page doesn't seem to work, I have to fully close the tab.

It'd be nice if I could do that as a single menu item, "Close tab and reopen", or have the most recently closed tabs listed on the new tab page. I was going up to the menus and choosing History/Recently closed tabs until I found the right click menu item "Undo close tab".

Zaggkeys flex stand keeps collapsing

So I got a zaggkeys flex wireless bluetooth keyboard and stand. But the stand keeps collapsing on me under the weight of my tablet.

My solution: get some strong clips and attach to the underside of the stand to keep it held together.

All the clips have to do is to keep the folding part from coming unfolded. No more collapsing!

Secret Menus

I thought these secret menus were kind of amusing. Psst! Hey, wanna try a secret menu?

The leprechaun milkshake? Expect a visit from the MIB after ordering...

http://secretmenus.com/

http://hackthemenu.com/mcdonalds/secret-menu/


http://www.rsvlts.com/2015/07/20/mcdonalds-secret-menu/

and don't forget to ask for access to the secret VIP lounge.

The Art of Swiping without Swiping

I thought this was pretty cool: a credit card magstripe "emulator" that can simulate a credit card swipe.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/25/kamkar_credit_card/

http://samy.pl/magspoof/

I was most interested in how he visually shows the magnetic stripe on the card with little iron oxide particles.


It was interesting that he was using a "coin" card in his video.

https://onlycoin.com/

Everyday minigame challenge

Try to get out of this parking spot...

Remembering the radius full page display from 1987

One of the great things about modern computer technology is how the price has come down. I lusted after things like the radius full page display and now today I have dual hd monitors sitting vertically side by side.

For $1995 you could have your very own Radius Full Page display with 640×864 pixels in 1987.


http://32by32.com/radius-full-page-display/


and who wouldn't have wanted something like the scuzzygraph II: color graphics over the SCSI bus. That would have been really slick on an Amiga (I think it was mac only).

http://32by32.com/scuzzygraph_ii/

http://lowendmac.com/2013/scuzzygraph-and-scuzzygraph-ii/

Now we've got USB displaylink adapters. All the things I used to lust for are here now...


I remember reading this electronic games magazine back in 1982 or 1984 with pictures of Evans and Sutherland flight simulators. I never imagined that that would be available on a desktop computer 20 years later. I remember how happy I was when I got my first Monster 3D Voodoo 1 card and listening to that click of the relays when it first activated.

Love this choral music

I was watching Mr. Bean and didn't know what the lyrics are. Consulting wikipedia, it's "Ecce Homo" by Howard Goodall. "Ecce homo qui est faba" = "Behold the man who is a bean" and "Vale homo qui est faba" = "Farewell the man who is a bean"



I like this the Choirgirl Isabel singing it.



and the song Light and Shadow by Vangelis.



I have no idea what these lyrics translate to:

Anacredo apavito
Opemavi etecrito
Malemi...
Tanea...
Crenida...
(x2)

Atatrata atatrata
Opémavi etépané
Notédémi etocoupé
Alessé...
Malemi...
Crénida...

Anacredo apavito
Tanea...
Crenida...
Tanea...
Crenida...

Anacrédo apavito
Opemavi etecrito
Malemi...
Tanea...
Crenida...

Opémavi etépané
Notédémi etocoupé

thanks for the upgrade...not

so I look up today and I see my laptop upgrading itself to windows 10 without asking...

thanks for that...not

looks like I'm not alone

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3043526/microsoft-windows/microsoft-upgraded-users-to-windows-10-without-their-ok.html

I'm afraid to click on Decline when the EULA popped up. What does it do then?

update: it rolls you back to your previous windows after much disk thrashing.

Old laptops without hard drives and knoppix

I got a bunch of old laptops with decent specs (2-4GB of memory) but no hard drives. What to do but run knoppix 7.7! I just run the usb installer program and supply a flash drive and presto, I'm booting into a functional system. What could be better...

Also I was able to run ubuntu off an external usb drive by making a flash drive installer with ubuntu's usb-creator-gtk program. That works nicely as well.

Smart car tipping

People are tipping these smart cars over in San Francisco, Seattle, Denver and Columbus. Why? Leave those poor little cars alone!

http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/2014/04/09/columbus-smart-car-tipping.html

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_25512434/

I like these quotes from the article:

"But if you turn over my sweet, little car, we will not be talking out your problems. I will go directly for vengeance."

"I have lived in San Francisco for 20 years and I am not immune to the insanity that takes place in this city."

More people work in auto retail than in auto manufacturing

I thought these BLS statistics were kind of interesting:

More people work in auto retail than in auto manufacturing in the US.

1,280K work in auto dealerships and 924K work in auto manufacturing. Around 900K work in auto maintenance.

http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iagauto.htm

Man crashes car on testdrive

Police in Ontario arrested a man who was allegedly under the influence of drugs when he crashed a Corvette into a tree during a test drive Tuesday, fatally injuring a CarMax salesman.

Witnesses told KTLA-TV Channel 5 that the vehicle was going at least 70 mph.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-carmax-salesman-killed-corvette-crashes-test-drive-20160223-story.html

Speeding, with catastrophic and predictable results.

And here's another story about a street racer wiping out multiple people.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3340798/Driver-24-hangs-wrecked-Lamborghini-texting-crash.html

Tesla crash - flies 82 feet through air

http://electrek.co/2016/05/06/tesla-model-s-crash-large-crumple-zone-gallery/

Another avoidable crash due to simply driving too fast. What a great idea: give a novice driver a supercar. It ought to have a valet/novice mode that limits it to "ordinary car" performance and speed.

Don't get me started about the 107-mph snapchat crash.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/04/28/lawsuit-blames-snapchat-for-107-mph-crash-in-mercedes-caused-by-teen-girl-using-speed-filter/

Hydroplaning car

"Sadiq Rahman, a 21 year-old student, was driving his wife, mother and sister in his BMW E60 5 Series sedan in England when the car hydroplaned out of control"


http://jalopnik.com/video-games-helped-this-bmw-driver-go-full-opposite-loc-1774913691

I'm watching this video and I see that he's driving faster than other cars. Why is it necessary to "make an epic save" when all you have to do is slow down in the first place instead of putting yourself, your passengers, and other cars at risk. So you get to your destination a minute later, but you get there in one piece.

Interesting how markets being abandoned

One of the latest developments in the computer world is that Intel is getting out of one of the "low-price" markets because they can't make any money in it.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3063508/components/intel-is-on-the-verge-of-exiting-the-smartphone-and-tablet-markets-after-cutting-atom-chips.html

and then I see things like Chrysler dropping the 200 because there's no profit in making sedans with all of the competition and declining sales. They figure that they should "refocus" on more profitable things like SUVs.


http://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/chrysler/2016/04/06/fiat-chrysler-lay-off-1300/82675808/

So what happens when there aren't any more "profitable areas" to retreat to.

Recycling an old monitor pivot mount

I always had this thing for pivoting monitors. There's something about using a vertical monitor that I always liked. So I had this old compaq 19" with a pivot mount that could be used with another monitor with VESA screw holes. Most pivot mounts I've seen are proprietary and are designed only for the monitor that they come with (like the Dell 1901FP for example).

After removing the 4 screws and transplanting a 22" widescreen presto, a widescreen pivoting monitor. The only problem is that the new monitor is LED and very light in comparison with the old one. The mount was balanced for a much heavier monitor and it tends to rise up to its maximum height.

It's not really a problem as long as I use it vertically. Maybe I'll drill a hole and stick a pin in it to keep it from rising.


Here's a couple of interesting articles about why you should use a vertical monitor.

http://www.dailydot.com/technology/vertical-monitor-setup/

http://mashable.com/2014/03/16/vertical-monitor/

What everyone needs: a 120 inch TV

Seriously, a 120 inch TV. For $130,000. And it weighs 385 pounds. I think that I would have a hard time with a TV that outweighs me by 2 times.


So I can get the reference series 65 inch for $6000. I could get 20 of those for the same $130k. Now all I need to do is win the lottery or something.

Sticker residue

If there's one thing that drives me crazy it's sticky gunk left behind from price stickers or cheap package sealing tape.

What I've found works pretty well is to get some "good" quality package sealing tape and repeatedly press it down and lift it off using my thumb. Sometimes it takes a while but eventually the sticky goo builds up and it starts lifting the residue off with the tape. It's amazing how tenacious some of these adhesives can be.


When I was a kid, I used to love putting stickers on everything. Now it seems like the opposite.