RickRussell_CA

Steve Hofstetter strikes again.

Marcin Wichary presents history of the ubiquitous font used on signage, machinery, and military equipment with its roots in the 19th century.

Hey folks.

Many moons ago when Lemmy was just getting started, I saw this community and started learning about Pop! OS. It seemed to offer a very strong set of positives:

• Major vendor support (System 76)
• Robust integration of Nvidia video drivers
• Gaming-friendly

Somewhat neutrally, it's based on Ubuntu, which seems to be almost univerally the most popular distribution to customize. There's a lot of software available through the Pop! OS shop, and through Ubuntu and various .deb packages, so that's probably a net positive.

I installed on my HP Omen (10th gen i7 and Nvidia 2060), and struggled almost from moment one, and it was all about video support. Supposedly, I had the System 76-packaged Nvidia driver for Pop! OS, but the Nvidia video was often not detected, even by games/tools that claimed to support it (various Ubuntu & Debian utilities dedicated to reading video specifics kept telling me I had no Nvidia card).

I downgraded the Nvidia drivers, it seemed to fix a lot of problems, except now I was running the 400-series drivers instead of the 500-series.

With both drivers, any kind of power saving mode -- video off, sleep -- would COMPLETELY crash the Nvidia video card. I mean, it required a cold shut down to bring it back; it stayed dead through both logout and OS restart. I eventually turned off the power save modes.

Lots of Googling suggested that Pop and the Nvidia drivers had issues with various specific power saving modes, but I had no idea what those modes were or how to tell the OS to stop using them.

I struggled along for about a year. Games were hit or miss. Old games like Armagetron froze the system solid more often than I'd like to admit. Steam Linux games seemed to work mostly OK, when the Nvidia card was behaving.

I was making USB sticks of various Linux distributions for a friend recently (Ubuntu main, Mint, Pop! OS) and got to thinking how much I used to like Mint. So I backed up my home directory and decided to wipe my machine and start over.

And folks... that was all she wrote. Mint pops a beautiful little video menu in the task bar that lets me select Intel graphics, Nvidia graphics, or dynamic switching. The Nvidia settings app was pre-installed and it actually works, not just sometimes. And my machine can wink the screen off or go into sleep mode without completely wedging the Nvidia card, and killing the external video.

I can't really explain why Pop! OS had so many problems for me. I'm sure System 76 regressions tests against their own hardware, and I'm sure they have it working right. But, not for my HP OMEN.

"Alas, it is Extra Sharp!"

The Hu (stylized as The HU) is a Mongolian folk metal band formed in 2016. Incorporating traditional Mongolian instrumentation, including the morin khuur, the tovshuur, and throat singing, the band calls their style of music "hunnu rock", a term inspired by the Xiongnu, an ancient tribal confederation of uncertain origins, known as Hünnü in Mongolia. Some of the band's lyrics include old Mongolian war cries and poetry in the Mongolian language.

Now that I've had a few outings on 2S and 3S packs, here is my overall assessment:

• The brushless system (supposedly 4400kV) is crazy fast.

• As shipped, the truck is really slammed, and does NOT want to wheelie or come off the ground. On 2S, I couldn't get it to lift at all in straight-line acceleration. On 3S, I had to lift the truck with the shock collar adjusters to get it to flip on takeoff.

• I'm not sure why, maybe it's the higher top speed & slightly longer wheelbase, but it is a bit harder to maneuver than the smaller trucks. I was getting the hang of it after a couple of packs, but you definitely need to finesse the throttle to keep it from rolling in turns. Go in too hot and it will surely roll. It could also be the tires, which were very sticky out of the box and may get a little less aggressive as they wear down.

• Jumping was fine from a speed/height standpoint. I was struggling with air control but I'm not very good at that anyway. My landings tumbled but it ended up on 4 wheels.

• Quite a few tumbles but no damage.

So I've been buying these Hyper Gos based largely on the recommendations of Tomley RC almost since they first came out. I've got two of the 1:16 models, the 16207 buggy and 16209 monster truck, and one of the 1:14 scale street bashers, the 14302 Lancia-lookalike rally car.

The 1:16 scale off roaders are damn near indestructible. I've been running both of them on 3S for more than a year, and not one single thing has broken except for some body cracks (easily addressed by trimming the body back and reinforcing with tape).

The one complaint that most owners have with these small trucks is the small battery tray. You either buy extended parts to raise the retaining arm for the battery tray, or you remove the retaining arm entirely and hack together your own solution with velcro straps. Or, just bite the bullet and use the largest 3S pack that will fit the out-of-box tray. The best I could find is a 3S 1300mah Gens Ace that fits like it was made for it. That's still plenty for 11 or 12 minutes of full on hooning, or half an hour of on-and-off trail trucking.

The 14210 monster truck follows on the design of the 1:14 scale street bashers with a similar flat metal chassis plate design with a wheelbase a couple cm longer than the 1:16 scale trucks. It has a LOT more space for the battery, and it can fit 3S 2000mah packs or 2S 3000mah packs out-of-the-box. The servo is no longer parked under the ESC, and can be separately upgraded without taking the whole thing apart. RX has been moved into a dedicated waterproof box. Tires are slightly larger than the 1:16 scale trucks. All welcome updates!

MJX has corrected a lot of the problems that early Youtubers identified:

• Rear CVDs have been upgraded to sliding driveshafts anchored at both ends, no risk of a dogbone end popping out.

• Several screws on the model have been replaced with flange head screws, where Youtubers had noted there was risk of the parts pulling off over the screw heads.

• The "super speed mode" on the ESC has been eliminated. Looks like it's running full power right out of the box.

• The 2S Li-Ion cylindrical batteries used in the initial release have been upgraded to regular flat-pack LiPos.

Other first impressions:

• The shocks (metal bodies, metal caps, threaded) are large and buttery smooth for a model of this size. Out of the box, the model squats pretty low, like a Talion or similar truggy. But the kit comes with free stiffer shock springs if you want to push it up into a more traditional monster track stance.

• The 14302 rally car had a problem where gravel could slip into the joints of the suspension arms, effectively jamming the suspension. Those gaps have been filled with solid plastic on the 14210.

• The two included bodies (black and gold) are pre-installed with hard plastic sliders for durability.

• The servo saver is really, really soft. It's built into the servo horn, so I'm not sure if it's adjustable. We'll see how it performs.

• The 30 page manual is surprisingly comprehensive for an RTR Chinese import, with detailed exploded diagrams & part numbers for all subsystems on the truck.

I picked mine up on Amazon for $170, but if you're willing to wait a couple of weeks, you can find them on AliExpress from reputable sellers for about $155.