Reviving an obsolete PC


That’s obsolete as in Microsoft refuses to allow me to install a supported OS on perfectly good hardware.

Fuck legibility!

Just installed Ubuntu 25 on an old PC (that might still have enough GPU power to run LLMs faster than a Mac Mini with an M4 Pro…), and the Terminal app does not grok the concept of black text on any color background. It’s fucking dark mode everywhere, and the “palettes” were designed by people who think low contrast is virtuous.

I’ll have to construct a legible display with stone knives and bearskins, like our primitive ancestors did.

As for performance, the graphics card is an old RTX 2060 with 6 GB of VRAM, and running Z-Image Turbo, it created a 1024x1024 catgirl in 27 seconds, compared to my current RTX 4090 at 3.8 seconds with the same settings.

I haven’t tested LM Studio yet, because they distribute it as an Appimage file that I can’t even open on Ubuntu 25, and it turns out they only support 20 and 22. Guess I’ll reinstall with 22, sigh…

(Ubuntu 22.04.5 does not install, sigh. The installer just sits and spins, and Ctrl-Alt-T does not pull up a terminal to see what’s going on, if anything; I’m getting flashbacks to the first time I tried Ubuntu and had it fail miserably)

Live by the chatbot, die by the chatbot

It’s not as efficient as X’s community notes, but when AI over-enthusiast Alex Tabarrok rewrote history with “research” provided by an AI, he was refuted in the comments by someone who consulted the exact same AI.

My new favorite 4K wallpaper…

Made with Klein-9b, upscaled 2x with the SwarmUI SeedVR2 extension.

A wide environmental portrait featuring a cheerful, elegant, tall, Western European woman in her early twenties with a slender figure, steel gray eyes, lobed ears, snub nose, tapered chin, chiseled jaw, round cheeks, low forehead, and a round face shape, wearing runway/editorial makeup that complements her healthy brown skin and caramel brown hair styled with a scarf wrap. She is situated within a darkening, richly detailed interior space enveloped in the soft, deep hues of twilight, mimicking the epic scale and dramatic flair characteristic of Don Lawrence’s sci-fi/fantasy work. The scene is bathed in highly detailed gouache painting style with hyper-detailed realism. Dramatic volumetric lighting casts deep shadows contrasting against pockets of warm, saturated light emanating from unknown sources. She wears a form-fitting jumpsuit in iridescent teal and magenta, featuring segmented panels of brushed bronze and deep violet, accented with wrist-mounted utility bands of pale yellow, holding a handheld scanner emitting soft cyan light, and incorporating several dangling technological attachments made of clear resin elements. The background subtly suggests the impossible geometries of a tidal power station structure, its metallic components intricately twisted within a space that hints at quantum foam instability, all rendered with meticulous care for textures—wood grain, aged metal, or complex fabrics—under an overall color palette that is vibrant and intensely saturated, evoking a grand and adventurous atmosphere.

Although I wouldn’t say no to this one…

A 23-year-old sexy Greek woman with a fit figure, dark green eyes, rounded helix ears, short nose, round chin, soft jaw, dimpled cheeks, and a widow’s peak forehead, sporting a triangle face shape, sophisticated polished makeup, healthy caramel skin, and red auburn hair styled in a rocker shag with messy layers, looks cheerful while standing near a colossal, spiraling ramp structure that dominates the scene, forming multiple intersecting pathways ascending vertically around a central axis point; these ramps appear to transition between parallel realities. The ground plane is a merged landscape of flatlands composed primarily of uniform grey regolith, sharply contrasted by veins and patches of dark, textured volcanic rock formations creating intricate geometric patterns across the floor, with visible areas beneath demonstrating phase transitions within an energetic quantum field in shifting, probabilistic colors. Unstable crystalline clouds with distinct sharp geometric facets float above the ground, catching ambient light dramatically. She wears a vibrant cerulean jumpsuit made of iridescent material, accented with panels of lime green stretch fabric featuring hot pink geometric piping, and is accessorized with a wrist-mounted communicator displaying soft yellow light and a hip-attached datapad with visible switches and dials. The scene is rendered as a highly detailed digital painting in the style of Gediminas Pranckevicius, capturing a medium shot within an indoor atmosphere bathed in fading daylight; though the ramps suggest epic surrealism, the overall composition utilizes muted colors and an earthy palette to evoke hushed introspection, with dramatic atmospheric light filtering through unseen openings casting long, soft shadows across surfaces.


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