Setting up HiDpi on XFCE

I use the XFCE desktop environment and have 3 4k screens. These screens are 162.56dpi, which is a little hard to read at native 1:1 rendering. The benchmark for displays is 96dpi, I prefer somewhere around 112dpi natively. Applying a 144dpi custom multiplier will result in an effective 112.88dpi. You may ask: “Why 112dpi, where did that come from?” I have an IBM A30p laptop from 2001 that has a 1600×1200 screen which is 15.1 inches, I used this laptop for many years and prefer the native 112dpi. It’s not too tiny and not to big, it’s the goldilocks of native resolutions.

These are the changes I make to have a comfortable environment with very legible text reading. Yes, you are “throwing away” resolution, but the tradeoff is that everything is sharper.

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End of an Era: Fry’s Closes Doors

The phrase “End of an Era” sounds cliche, but in this case it really is the end of an era. Fry’s Electronics was the last bastion of geekdom, it was the WalMart of electronics/computing/snacks. The closing of Fry’s Electronics bookends the era that I grew up in.

Fry’s Electronics wasn’t especially good at any one thing, what they lacked in specificity was made up for in grandeur and selection. If you wanted to buy an external DVD drive, they had 40 different examples in different speeds, dual layer, not dual layer, R/W, ROM, etc. If you needed some RAM for your computer, you could choose from 10 different manufacturers in different speeds and densities. What Fry’s brought to the table was an overwhelming volume of stock on hand. If you NEEDED a new hard disk right now, you could hop over to Fry’s and get one.

Fry’s was the last of the original electronics retailers in Silicon Valley, they were the biggest and outlasted the rest. Storied institutions such as WeirdStuff and Halted’s (HSC Electronic Supply) to the more obscure shops such as A-Z Surplus and Action Computer, and companies such as NCA computer tried to compete with Fry’s, but loss leaders every week are hard to compete with.

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The Creative and Analytical Mind

I have worked at several disciplines throughout my life, a good while ago I made a conscious decision to pursue working in technology roles because that was my most marketable skill set. I have worked as a metal fabricator, machinist, software developer, system administrator, manager, and in a hybrid of various roles.

My current employment is highly analytical, it involves solving problems, doing research, communicating, and helping people with everything from the mundane to crises. I’ve always performed roles like this, but I’ve also pursued more creative and artistic endeavors.

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Rabbit Holes and Time Sinks

This article is as much a piece of documentation as it is commentary. I recently decided to rejigger my home network after being quite comfortable in the current configuration for almost 7 years. The impetus was actually quite simple: one day I suddenly got paranoid when I realized what damage could be done if someone compromised my personal account. I am reasonably careful and competent about how I run things, but in spite of how careful I am, the services I’ve added in the last year increase the attack surface of my home network considerably. I would be foolish to ignore the increased risk these services pose.

Rabbit holes can be interesting or frustrating distractions to a relatively direct plan or process. Sometimes those rabbit holes turn from distractions into time sinks. Getting my home network upgrade completed was filled with both rabbit holes and time sinks. This isn’t the first major upgrade I’ve been involved in, I’ve moved datacenters multiple times, deployed new services, migrated services, but I’ve never had to completely duplicate all running services while also juggling new firewalls and network renumbers.

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