Month: December 2020

Some Computer News

Over the last couple days, I’ve acquired a whole bunch of TV shows with the HEVC codec. Not really a problem, but a lot of devices, like a Roku or Fire TV thing, can’t play it directly. That means it has to be transcoded. I use VAAPI in Jellyfin to trancode, but it doesn’t really work with HEVC. I found out the drivers that Debian provides are version 18.something, and I need at least version 20.1 for VAAPI to transcode HEVC video on an AMD graphics card. Those drivers are available in the testing repositories, but the dependency requirements are a little too complicated to make installing them worthwhile. I also put together a VM with Ubuntu 20.10, which has those drivers as standard, but it failed to boot up when I had the GPU passed though to it. The LTS version worked, but like Debian, the drivers are too old. Hopefully the newer drivers make it to Debian’s stable repos sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I’m fine for two reasons: First, I usually watch stuff through Kodi on a computer, which means I can direct play everything; second, my CPU can handle transcoding a couple streams at once, so it’s not a huge problem.

In other news, I ordered a new laptop today. I was eyeing a few during the black Friday week things a couple weeks ago, but decided against it. Today, I was at my parents’ house taking care of some school work. I had my Surface Book (first gen) hooked up to a 1080p monitor for some extra work space. I had Excel, Word, about a dozen Firefox tabs open while playing music on Spotify. It felt a little sluggish and not as responsive as it should be. In fact, when I scrolled though my RSS feeds, the music skipped when it was loading images. CPU usage was 80-95% when watching a 1080p Youtube video with the other stuff open in the background. This isn’t something I do often, and this semester is coming to an end, but I still have two more to go, and it is nice to take my work with me if I want to.

The touch screen on the Surface has also been broken since the summer. It sometimes experiences phantom touches along the bottom inch of the screen. That’s disappointing, but livable. I don’t really use the touchscreen. More unforgivable though, is the stylus situation. It won’t work along the edges of the screen, even after repeated calibrations, rendering it useless. I bought an iPad and Apple Pencil in September to pick up this slack, but I haven’t used it much. I haven’t felt the need to take notes in my classes. It feels like I kind of wasted the money on that, but eBay shows that I should be able to sell the stuff for almost as much as I paid for it if I want.

These issues got me looking for laptops this afternoon. I first turned to Slickdeals to see if there were any good deals out there today. First, I found an HP Pavilion that seemed like a good deal. It had a Ryzen 4700U CPU, 8GB RAM 128 GB NVMe SSD and a 1080p display for $450. Someone left a comment comparing it to a similar Dell. The Dell seemed like a better deal, with a better charging system, two M.2 slots, and 1x 8GB RAM stick (making the upgrade to 16GB easier). I found out from another Slickdeals post that there was 12% off Dell stuff with a sign up at a third-party site. I did that and was ready to order a 15″ Inspiron 5000 for about $500. I read and watched a few reviews, and decided the display and build quality would be too big a step down from the Surface, so I moved on.

I gave Best Buy a look and set my only criteria to an AMD processor and a 1080p display. Another HP popped up, but this time it was an Envy x360 (that means the screen flips all the way around). This one was equipped with a Ryzen 4500U, 256GB NVMe SSD and 8GB RAM for $629 new. I learned in the Best Buy questions and through some research that the RAM and SSD are able to be upgraded, and it’s compatible with an active stylus, like the Surface pen. The upgradability is a must-have for me, and the stylus compatibility is a huge plus. I waffled for a couple hours, but decided to buy an excellent condition open-box one for about $570. It should be in by December 22 they say, but of course I’m hoping it arrives earlier. The AMD processor bests more expensive Intels and has pretty good integrated graphics. I should be able to run some games at 1080p medium settings. It totally murders the i5 6300U in the Surface Book (11,286 passmark score vs. 3,269). The Verge called the 13″ version the best sub-$1000 laptop. I think I’ll probably keep the 256GB SSD for now, but I’ll definitely be upgrading to 16GB RAM as soon as possible. I’m really looking forward to it, and I’ll update when it comes in.

My Unexpected but Excellent Birthday Present

My birthday was last week, which is whatever. I don’t get all that excited about it, but it is nice to have some cake and a birthday dinner prepared by my mom. This year I was a bit more curious about my birthday present than usual. My wife said she came up with the idea a few months ago, and she thought it was a great idea. The day finally came (or actually two days before my actual birthday, just because it was easier), and I opened it up.

It’s a new grill, something I’ve been pining for since last summer at least. My old grill was fine I guess. I mean it cooked the food, but other than that it kind of sucked. It met the minimum requirements of a grill, like having a spot for a fire and racks above it, but that’s about it. It didn’t allow for much temperature control and it was incredibly hard to light charcoal and keep it going in temperatures below 65° or so. Plus it was old, probably coming from the late 1970’s or early 80’s.

A couple years ago, my parents got a kamado style grill, and it’s been fantastic. Maybe a little tricky to get used to, but once you do the results are great. Temperature is very controllable, and since the fire can be smothered when you’re done, it saves charcoal. I’ve been wanting to get one for myself for a while. The only catch is that many of them are very expensive. Like over $1,000 expensive. That’s out of my price range (and probably out of range for a birthday present too), but there are some decent ones available in the sub-$500 range.

The grill sits right outside my back door. I think I put the legs on a bit wrong, but I’ll fix it in the spring.

The model I got is a Char-Griller Akorn, which seems to be a popular choice for grill enthusiasts on a budget, much like the Ender 3 is a common choice in the 3D printing community. It’s definitely not the best at anything, but the price more than makes up for that.

I’ve used it once so far, on my actual birthday. There’s going to be a bit of a learning curve to the temperature control. I had some trouble keeping a stable 350°-400°, but I’m sure I’ll get it with some practice. It was in the high 40’s or low 50’s that day, but I had no trouble starting the fire or keeping it going, which gives me hope that I might be able grill through the winter. It’s been raining here since then, so I haven’t had another opportunity to use it. Next week looks clear, but cold, so we’ll see how it goes.