AMA: Ask the Spook

[Spook of the lost]

for me it was the mathematics portion, but that's because I've always struggled with algebra.

honestly as long as you can get some relatively recent curriculum text books and study them you should be fine.
that's what I did.

[Juneberry]

Where did you get the text books?

[Spook of the lost]

at the time I studied at the library, but these days most people use amazon.

the library one's are still relatively recent though.

yeah the months leading up to my GED back in 2011 (back before tablets as we know them were common, or a thing.
I mean I had a flip phone at the time lol, a nokia no less.), were spent with my nose in books made of paper and notebooks on the side as I jotted down information, and problems to solve.

no school means it's all self study, but I wanted to get that GED.

my grandmother helped me a lot though encouraging me and checking over my notes when I got stuck.

my grandfather helped me with math, he's the one who taught me long division back before i started elementary school lol. (man my math teachers hated me because I refused to use a calculator and could show my work so they couldn't refute it )

to this day I refuse to use a calculator except for really complicated stuff, or double checking my work.

I do however use my tablet over paper lol, touch screens + stylus for the win!

[Juneberry]

What else do you use your tablet for?

[Spook of the lost]

a lot of things actually.

I picked up a solar powered bluetooth keyboard I keep with it so I can use my tablet in place of a laptop.

it has a long battery life for text stuff being a kindle fire so when I'm working on projects I keep schematics and blueprints up on it as a portable reference, it's nice being able to swipe sideways on my primary PC's touchscreen and quickly transfer stuff to the tablet before going to my workspace in the next room (this was a recent change btw, it all used to be in a single room before.)

I also use it to read and write with, that keyboard get's a lot of use lol, luckily it never runs out of power so long as there's photons to power it.

I don't really game on it however, I have dedicated hardware for that and a nice TV to game on.

if I need to do something more intensive that's what my main desktop is for but unless I'm programming microchips or doing something that requires the various connections outside of USB.

it's setup to dual boot between normal amazon android for kindle and a custom linux kernel for hard stuff like programming, tinkering, etc.

and outside of that I also use it when programming or making updates to my wearable computer, either over USB via serial or over the network since it's wifi enabled.

so... it's sorta become the general purpose computer that I keep on me at all times, and next to me when sleeping lol.

I do however chose not to draw more than basic stuff on it or jot down ideas because it's more of a general purpose device and I've a dedicated stylus for drawing on my primary system.

[Juneberry]

What OS do you generally prefer working with?

[Spook of the lost]

Linux, if only because of it's flexibility and customizability.

I can start from the kernel and build up from there to suit whatever applications I need it for.

and it runs on damn near anything, even the toaster

most smart appliances use the linux kernel for the same reason.

for me though it's all about being able to start from a basic platform, like a pc, or a raspberry pi, or an old laptop or something.
put a kernel on it, load compatible drivers, tweak generic ones for the stuff that isn't compatible tuning as needed based on what information is available.
and loading a basic interface on it then tweaking it to suit my needs.

for that I usually prefer Openbox for the main interface due to it's simplicity and low resource usage then using Python based scripts for the normal graphical menus and stuff.

it's lean, it's fast, it's easy to adjust and tweak, and while it takes a lot of tinkering to get right, once you get used to it...

but I do things the hard way there are setups that work out of the box for the majority of people.

I just like being able to control every aspect of my hardware and software while understanding what it does.
makes me feel more secure and worry less about stuff like CIA back doors and companies using stuff to profile me and sell that information to advertisers and such.

[Juneberry]

I've never heard of Openbox~ Or the fact smart appliances often use Linux for a base~ Thank you for teaching me those things!
Do you use any GNOME software?

[Spook of the lost]

I used to use Gnu/Gnome back when I first started with linux

in fact i use a lot of gnome based interfaces in the applications I run when I need a graphical interface simply because the code is straight forward and easy to setup.

honestly though I wish there was a modern version of the old nextstep application builder that was compatible with stuff like gnome, KDE, and openbox.

it was a graphical program window builder that used a graphical environment to design application windows.

so for example, if I want to take a text based program like Nmap and convert it to a graphical one.

I can select the various things like buttons, scroll bars, etc.

click and drag them how I want them to look, and link stuff like icons and buttons to command line functions.

I'd never seen anything like it in windows or mac OS, or modern linux.

I know it was something in next step though back in the 90's, and it works in open step, but only in next step based interfaces.

[Juneberry]

What's a sound you really can't stand?