Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

New addition to the mechanical calculator collection! This Addometer by Reliable Typewriter and Adding Machine Co not only does basic arithmetic, the far right dial does simple fractions and the dial next to it that literally goes to eleven calculates by the dozen!

USB-C is annoying. I thought my laptop dock was failing--the screen blanked out whenever it moved on the hinge and it kept getting worse. I initially blamed a weak wire between the screen and base but on a whim replaced the USB-C cable with a new, higher quality version and all the instability went away instantly.

Aruba I make ya sudo gonna take ya to a root prompt I wanna own ya pretty momma. Key escrow I now know baby why don't we go. Oh I want to take you down to Ring0 we'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow. That's where we want to go way down to Ring0. https://threatpost.com/hpe-sudo-bug-aruba-platform/169038/

Another day where I found myself pointing someone to one of my old Linux Journal articles to help with a task. This time it was an article about VIM macros from 2014: https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/return-mac

I know an old lady who swallowed dewormer for horse. She's dead of course.

She swallowed dewormer to chase the bleach, she swallowed the bleach to chase the bulb, she swallowed the bulb cuz it's UV, which everyone knows makes COVID flee.

She did all these things cuz talk radio said, but I don't know why she's not jabbed instead. I guess she's dead.

My wife said this represents the two of us, so I think I found the spot for my calculator.

Now we turn the handle counterclockwise to subtract the divisor until we overflow and hear a bell. Then we turn the handle clockwise until we hear the bell again telling us we undid the overflow. We have our answer for the tens place.

Next we move the carriage one position to the left to point to the ones column and subtract until we overflow and hear the bell again, crank the handle clockwise until we undo the overflow and hear the bell, and we have our answer: 12 with a remainder of 1.

Just like multiplication is repeated addition, division is repeated subtraction. First you put the dividend (145) in the accumulator, then zero out the top row which will contain the quotient.

Next you enter the divisor (12) and set the repeat button. Then you move the carriage to right until it points to the leftmost column still greater than the divisor. 14 is greater than 12 so I move the carriage one position to the right to point to the tens place.

Now that I fixed the register on my Monroe LN-160x, the overflow bell works which means I can perform division. Here I am calculating 145 / 12 = 12 remainder 1. The quotient is at the top in red, the remainder is underneath it in black.

Dinner is served. #bbq

Took my Monroe LN-160x apart for a little cleaning and to diagnose the stuck register in the leftmost column causing it to increment by 50000000 with every addition. A few drops of oil and some fidgeting and it loosened up. Now it's working great.

Samsung can remotely brick TVs it believes are stolen once they reconnect to the Internet, which is required to enable smart TV features. ⁨#privacy https://gizmodo.com/samsung-smart-tvs-can-be-remotely-bricked-if-stolen-1847557228

I used this calculator to tally up Scrabble scores this weekend and was pretty happy with how it performed. There is a special kind of satisfaction when winding the crank for each sum.

I (mostly) fixed my mechanical calculator! Here it is calculating 12 x 42. The 8th place from the right increments by 5 with each turn so I still need to take it apart and fix that but otherwise it is working well.

There's a new addition to my mechanical computer collection! This is a Monroe LN-160x mechanical calculator. I didn't notice at the time that it was missing the front lever for the carriage return, and it looks like I'll have to do some repair work to get it working again.