Yes.Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Feb 26, 2026 6:33 am Do I get this right that when you're dealing with images that have a lot of detail, like photos, png files are generally larger than jpg files of the same image of the same size, but when you're dealing with images that are less intricately detailed, like diagrams or screenshots of screens showing text files, it's the other way around?
The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
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Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
Interesting. Can anyone elaborate?
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
JPEG works by algorithmically simplifying images by converting blocks of pixels into frequencies in complex space with a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and then filtering those frequencies to make them take up less file space at the expense of slight distortions in the image. There are only so many frequencies it can remove before things turn to garbage. It just turns out that JPEG is good for compressing photographs in many cases, because they have a lot of frequencies that can be removed before they start looking bad.
PNG works by doing lossless compression optimized for highly-ordered images, such that the more ordered an image is the greater it will compress. Therefore, high-ordered images will compress well whereas images with a large amount of pixel-by-pixel complexity (e.g. photographs) will not compress well.
Therefore JPEG is good for compressing photographs whereas PNG is good for compressing synthetic images with a large amount of inherent order (e.g. screenshots); to compress a highly-ordered image to the degree that PNG can JPEG will drastically reduce its quality, and conversely storing a photograph with PNG will not sacrifice quality but will result in unnecessarily-large file sizes.
Last edited by Travis B. on Thu Feb 26, 2026 5:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
Thank you! I think I understand.
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
One minor note is that PNG images can have an alpha channel, which allows images to be transparent or translucent, whereas JPEG images cannot.
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Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
Unrelated:
Does anyone have any idea about which kind of bug or data corruption might have the effect that, after you've downloaded a video file of about half an hour,
1) the file plays both video and sound perfectly well in VLC until a point a few minutes before the end, but then,
2) a few minutes before the end, the sound suddenly disappears, and additionally,
3) if you then jump back to earlier in the video, there's no sound for that, either, but also
4) if you close the file and re-open it, there's sound again, but only until the aforementioned point a few minutes before the end, after which, see point 2) and 3)?
Does anyone have any idea about which kind of bug or data corruption might have the effect that, after you've downloaded a video file of about half an hour,
1) the file plays both video and sound perfectly well in VLC until a point a few minutes before the end, but then,
2) a few minutes before the end, the sound suddenly disappears, and additionally,
3) if you then jump back to earlier in the video, there's no sound for that, either, but also
4) if you close the file and re-open it, there's sound again, but only until the aforementioned point a few minutes before the end, after which, see point 2) and 3)?
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
Wavelet transform, I thought?
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Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
Yaaludinuya siima d'at yiseka wohadetafa gaare.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
Yesterday, I accidentally wiped my hard drive when I tried to put an iso on a thumb drive. Thankfully everything that mattered was backed up in various places, but it still involved an annoyingly large amount of work. That's why I didn't post for much of yesterday and today - I first had to reinstall the OS, then reinstall the browser, then reinstall the password manager, and then recover the database with my ZBB password from backup.
Very trivial compared to the larger shit happening in the world, but still annoying. Especially given that it kept me from getting some other stuff done that I had hoped to get done yesterday or today morning.
Very trivial compared to the larger shit happening in the world, but still annoying. Especially given that it kept me from getting some other stuff done that I had hoped to get done yesterday or today morning.
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
Considering the number of AI conferences on Epstein island, is it possible pedophilic images on genAI is the whole point of gen AI?
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
Not sure about that. While the current crop of LLMs is a current thing, discussions about AI have been around since long before computers could construct images better than 1980s video game graphics. Though, of course, unfortunately, all too many people who featured prominently in those discussions also featured prominently in the Epstein emails.
Besides, one of the people who had a serious interest in old-school, pre-LLM AI research is our host. And while, of course, you can never know for sure with people, I certainly hope that he's not interested in that kind of thing.
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
https://www.tomshardware.com/software/operating-systems/california-introduces-age-verification-law wrote:California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
Certainly, I trust Zompist. And there is a break between AI producing search results and other data organisation and genAI producing data.Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2026 11:28 amNot sure about that. While the current crop of LLMs is a current thing, discussions about AI have been around since long before computers could construct images better than 1980s video game graphics. Though, of course, unfortunately, all too many people who featured prominently in those discussions also featured prominently in the Epstein emails.
Besides, one of the people who had a serious interest in old-school, pre-LLM AI research is our host. And while, of course, you can never know for sure with people, I certainly hope that he's not interested in that kind of thing.
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
Why are 64-bit-CPU-and-at-the-same-time-32-bit-UEFI devices? And if they really have to be, why does it have to be so difficult to get any working non-Windows software for them?
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
While we're at it, has anyone heard of a bug occurring in older low-spec hardware running Debian or Debian-derived Linux distros that has the twin effects that first, the screen goes blank, and second, the mouse laser turns off, but that usually can be fixed quickly by pressing any random key on the keyboard? Oh, and it only happens during booting the computer, during login, and during shutting down; never during regular operations of a desktop environment.
One possible explanation would be faulty hardware - but what kind of hardware damage could affect the screen and the mouse at the same time, be cured for the moment by pushing a random key, and be prevented by simply having a desktop environment up and running?
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
Bump?
Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Mar 14, 2026 6:53 am While we're at it, has anyone heard of a bug occurring in older low-spec hardware running Debian or Debian-derived Linux distros that has the twin effects that first, the screen goes blank, and second, the mouse laser turns off, but that usually can be fixed quickly by pressing any random key on the keyboard? Oh, and it only happens during booting the computer, during login, and during shutting down; never during regular operations of a desktop environment.
One possible explanation would be faulty hardware - but what kind of hardware damage could affect the screen and the mouse at the same time, be cured for the moment by pushing a random key, and be prevented by simply having a desktop environment up and running?
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
It is strange that this would happen during login, as under Linux there really is nothing special about logging in in the first place...Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2026 4:01 am Bump?
Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Mar 14, 2026 6:53 am While we're at it, has anyone heard of a bug occurring in older low-spec hardware running Debian or Debian-derived Linux distros that has the twin effects that first, the screen goes blank, and second, the mouse laser turns off, but that usually can be fixed quickly by pressing any random key on the keyboard? Oh, and it only happens during booting the computer, during login, and during shutting down; never during regular operations of a desktop environment.
One possible explanation would be faulty hardware - but what kind of hardware damage could affect the screen and the mouse at the same time, be cured for the moment by pushing a random key, and be prevented by simply having a desktop environment up and running?
Yaaludinuya siima d'at yiseka wohadetafa gaare.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
Well, there's the greeter. But since I've sometimes had the same problem in just CLI mode, I don't think it's the greeter's fault. What's both weird and the reason why that bug isn't really a big deal is that it never happen between the moment the desktop environment has finished initializing itself and the moment I tell the computer to shut down.
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
(I use Debian, for the record.) I used to have the screen go blank while booting, and the screen goes blank after systemd is done with its thing and before lightdm is ready, but it didn't need a keypress to get past these points (even though a keypress would make the systemd display appear early). I never really saw this as being a problem.Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2026 9:51 amWell, there's the greeter. But since I've sometimes had the same problem in just CLI mode, I don't think it's the greeter's fault. What's both weird and the reason why that bug isn't really a big deal is that it never happen between the moment the desktop environment has finished initializing itself and the moment I tell the computer to shut down.
Yaaludinuya siima d'at yiseka wohadetafa gaare.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
Re: The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.
Now that I've set up an old notebook as my secondary computer, I've put tools on it so that I can do various things with it, but I haven't put a copy of my password manager's database on it, so I can't use it to log in to anything. So far, the initial impact on my general productivity seems to be encouraging.