They aren't going to be able to get good water filters but if they did they would still need to test it to see if it worked properly. :P
plus the point was if water companies are putting people at risk.
If it didn't sound serious I would say now is your chance to shine and go and film in the area as gogs south African news correspondent.

Two million South Africans lost their jobs during the pandemic so far is what I heard tonight, the images on the news I saw, the situation on the street looks chaotic. Take good care of yourself.

Thanks man, fortunately I'm pretty fortunate in terms of where I'm staying&working not to be affected by it, as long as it doesn't spread. But I kind of doubt that it will. People were mostly caught of guard, but now that the potential destruction is clear, people are starting to band together to protect businesses and neighborhoods. Even taxi operators, normally among the most hated&feared denizens of south africa's roads, are coming out in defense.

Unfortunately, as you mentioned, unemployment is a huge problem (in the vicinity of 30% even before the pandemic) which has been aggravated by the pandemic, and now by this. It creates a huge 'recruiting' pool for these riots, and unfortunately it appears that it is being organized by political enemies of the current president.

Well yeah, and they should make sure to do so regularly.
(btw: afaik, one can actually make a crude water filtration system with simple materials and the right know how)

Was going to bitch about something trivial in my life. But then I saw what's happening in SA. :(

It's hard to grasp what goes on not being there, but I hope that the desperate situation people are finding themselves in will be resolved. Thanks for the links, and glad you can stay out of the way.

My country is now the global highest in Covid new cases and new deaths in recent days. People are dying around here.
I haven't been vaccinated. I don't trust Sinovac or other Chinese vaccines due to their government's lack of transparency. But that's the most likely vaccine I'm gonna get.

My old trusty gaming laptop, ASUS G75VW (I think it is already 9 years old or so), suddenly called it quits today. :(

Or, at least almost. It just abruptly shut itself off and would not start anymore, but when I put in the replaceable battery, it would boot up with it. But the battery would not recharge anymore even if the power brick was connected.

So, I hope the culprit is the power adapter then. A new one can be bought for about 38€, so I am thinking of buying one to revive the machine. If I am unlucky, it is not the power adapter itself that is broken, but something inside the laptop is unable to take power from the power adapter anymore.

Oh well, I think I will try with a new power adapter, it is "only" 38€. The current power adapter shows green light and feels a bit warm, so it "seems" like it is working ok, but I don't have any equipment to measure whether any power is actually coming from it.

Luckily my home is full of other laptops like this eMachines laptop (even older than the ASUS) where I am writing this. However, that ASUS laptop was supposed to be my "Windows 7 era" retro gaming laptop from here to eternity, and beyond.

System admin?

It is now the fourth and last week of my summer vacation, and pretty much every week my colleagues have called me for assistance. Then again this is life in a smaller company, there are specific things where we tend to need each other's help, and frankly if e.g. the load balancers need some configuration changes, I trust only myself and my direct boss to not to mess it up, and do the changes in a coherent and sane fashion (yeah yeah I guess it should be documented how to make changes there, but then different customers have wildly different needs and you can't document each and every exception to the exception...). Similarly if someone wants some bigger configuration changes to the firewalls, I rather call our main networking guy... I can do simpler stuff in the firewalls, but some things I'd rather not touch.

Yes, Americans, we have a four week vacation in the summer. I don't get your max 1 week vacations, that is too short to even visit other countries or anything. Fly 8000 km to a remote country, spend there a couple of days, and then you already have to fly back?

Another dying laptop here and only 13 years old. Normally not a biggie but new ones are a bit hard to come by at the moment. Looks like a failing motherboard so too advanced for me to repair.

First world problems ahoy!

I'm kinda getting a buyer's remorse for buying a Nintendo Switch, last Christmas. The reason is Steam Deck (and maybe also GPD Win 3 etc.). Yeah kinda late for buyer's remorse now, but better late then never!

While I am not fully sure I would buy Steam Deck, news about it still made it so clear to me how buying e.g. Steam Deck or similar would make much more sense to me (and my kids) because I could run much of my existing PC gaming library on it. And PC games tend to be much cheaper than the same games on Nintendo Switch, it seems.

I have bought only Minecraft so far for Switch, and it was a good purchase because my son has been playing it constantly since Xmas, almost daily. Good bang for buck there. But, I don't feel like buying more games for it, and just wish I could run e.g. my GOG games or some emulators on it instead.

Partly I bought the Switch for Nintendo exclusives, so maybe I should buy some Mario games and such for it, but gawd they feel pricey. I could just as well let my kids play something like Hat in Time (GOG version) or similar on a Steam Deck or GPD Win 3 instead.

Then I have this odd urge to buy the Switch version of The Witcher 3, but again, I guess Steam Deck could run the superior PC version as well, that I have already.

I spent an hour today googling whether it is possible to install some alternative OS on Nintendo Switch, to make it a bit like a mini-PC, and apparently there are some Linux versions and Android made for it... but apparently Nintendo has done its best with firmware updates and even hardware changes to try to stop being able to install such alternative OSes to their device, which makes sense of course as they want people to buy games from them.

I guess I will keep the Switch and reluctantly buy some Nintendo exclusives for it... I guess I need to google for the best Switch-exclusive games. Probably some Mario games.

Should be the adapter.....I had a problem with my old one(damaged cord which also damaged the battery) not too long ago, and replacing it(and the battery) worked well enough. :)

In an ideal world the switch controllers would double as PC VR controllers to play those kind of games on a computer.
I had something like that happen but it wouldn't start with the battery or power cable.

Your battery and cable were damaged too? Sucks when it happens.....thankfully, I caught it in time and got some replacements.

Sell it and get the GPD Win 3 or Steam Deck. Install Minecraft to compensate and a bunch of other kid-friendly games here like Yooka-Laylee, Rayman Origins, Anna's Quest, etc. and other games with local coop / MP. Of course after you confirm that it can dock and support multiple third-party controllers.

Of all times for me to end up with an infestation of wasps, it HAD to be while there's a big event happening in my local town. I look forward to this every year and after them canceling it last year (which angered me to no end), I'm very hyped to get back to it this year... I don't want to be tired for it but it's going to be difficult to sleep knowing that these stupid things are in my house. Fortunately, I know where they're coming in and thankfully, they appear to be getting into the house itself through the bathroom, so it shouldn't be too hard for the exterminators but still, it's frustrating to say the least.