Here's a (PC only) Youtube tip if you don't have premium and hate ads (I usually look away and turn down the sound so they don't win):

Put a dash in between the t and the u in Youtube in the url (and press enter), and you'll go into nocookie mode and voila! Watch ad free.

I have to deal with ads on my bedroom computer :o:

I had a setback this week with my hardware. I was filling out unemployment documentation on my multi-display desktop while searching for remote work-from-home careers and suddenly my primary (left) display began flickering off and on. Then I heard a hissing, crackling sound, and could smell burning/smoke from the display. It looks like the capacitors were failing. This was the last thing I needed in the midst of my unemployment, especially when I'd need the home setup working to work from home in the future.

I unplugged it for safety, then drove from thrift store to thrift store all over the city trying to find a matching 22" 1080p 16:9 display with DVI or DisplayPort inputs. The largest monitors at the thrift stores I found were 19" WXGA+ displays.

So I bit the bullet and ordered a 10-year old used 1080p monitor off of eBay. I got it for $55 after tax with free 2-day UPS shipping within my same state and they accepted returns if I had issues.

I wasn't familiar with the differences between DVI-I And DVI-D so I feared I had accidentally ordered a display which wouldn't work with my hardware, but thankfully it was a match. I just had to set the input mode, confirm the 1080p resolution configuration in Ubuntu, swap the orientations of the left and right displays, and set the new device as the primary display to get my sidebar to appear at the left side. I tweaked the brightness and contrast, (sadly I no longer have a SpyderX Colorimeter to calibrate my displays for print output), and it looks like I'm back in action.

Hopefully the new-used display lasts me a good few years.

https://i.imgur.com/9psjOyTm.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/2kEPHOXl.jpg

Nothng worse than your monitor going. I remember when mine went last year, it didn't fry, but started blinking on and off. I'd get about a second to see something and then it would be gone, back on for a second and off again. I did buy a new monitor but in the meantime tracked the fault (I think) down to my DVI connection, so I swapped it for the old VGA one and it worked fine. For a while. Then the monitor started doing it again so I set up the new one, and while it has gone off the odd time (and I think that may be something to do with VLC, as it usually only happens after I use that) it's not in any danger of - hey! Where did my screen go? ;)

By the way: Hearts of Space looks cool. Is that a game? Lovely backdrop.

Thanks! It's a custom multi-screen wallpaper I designed in celebration of my favorite radio show. They just hit the 40 year mark a week or so ago and I have every single transmission archived on my server.

This is a bit outside the scope of what this thread is intended for, but I do have a question I’m hoping MB can help with.

A client (17m) has been put on video-game restriction, which began Monday. Today, I found that he had moved his PS4 console into his bedroom, plugged it in to power, and hid it in a dresser drawer.

He doesn’t have a monitor in his room, or any other electronics, except for an Alexa speaker.

Is it possible he’s connecting his console to the Alexa in order to access the online features and communicate online through the speaker? Is there any other way he could be using this that hasn’t occurred to me?

Please help, the youngsters got one over on me.

Anyone?

I'm not 100% sure, but from some quick googling it seems you may need an additional piece of hardware to enable the PS4 to communicate with the Alexa.

Also I would check the bluetooth settings and/or list of connected bluetooth devices for the Alexa, that would likely be the only way the PS4 and the Alexa could communicate without being wired.

I mistakenly ran:

sudo chmod 777 -R /*

on an Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS filesystem. I was trying to take ownership of 73 album folders I downloaded from The Internet Archive in one media folder but due to mistaken syntax I evidently took ownership of all system files to the main user account instead of root.

Now none of my appimages will launch because they aren't owned by root. They all return this error:

sudo: /usr/bin/sudo must be owned by uid 0 and have the setuid bit set

I Googled solutions and found:

$ su -
Password:
# chown root:root /usr/bin/sudo
# chmod a=rx,u+ws /usr/bin/sudo

But both null and the main user passwords are rejected for root.

Then I Googled "su authentication failure" which is the error I get when I type "su -" and try null for the password.

I found this explanation:

su asks for the root password. Since Ubuntu doesn't set a root password by default, you can't use it to become root.

Instead, to become root, use sudo -i with your personal password.

I tried that and I get the same error that all the appimages are throwing:

sudo: /usr/bin/sudo must be owned by uid 0 and have the setuid bit set

Most search results indicate that this is a case of major system corruption and a nuclear reinstallation of the OS is the only option.

I have a Timeshift disk snapshot of the OS from a few years ago I'm going to try to restore, but I'll have to wait until March 27 when I'll have the day free to attack the project.

Damn.

https://i.imgur.com/suukThhl.jpg