The Discussion:
We had some fun at the start of the meeting trying to determine why a recently updated Windows 11 computer wouldn’t open web pages, even though the Linux computer beside it worked flawlessly. Since “ping 8.8.8.8” worked, we knew the internet connection was good and the the basic networking processes worked. We then started using nslookup and quickly discovered that dns queries were being dropped somewhere between the Windows computer and the Comcast router. The Linux computer wasn’t losing its dns queries, so the problem was with Windows. No surprise.
Tiny-11 was mentioned as a very lightweight option for those who want privacy and want to avoid the bloat while running Windows.
Dom pointed us to a leaderboard of LLM providers, and noticed that Claude beats out GPT-4o for most recent data. We also discussed pixlr.com and perplexity.ai.
Then we delved into the topic of health care monitoring. Several devices were discussed including fit bits, rings, watches, and APAPs. Various programs are available for logging and analyzing the data.
As we were running out of time, Gib talked about cryptocurrency, privacy, and the federal government. Gib referred to this FAQ at the Federal Reserve, the Fed’s Analysis of the US Dollar, an explanation of Privacy Coins, and Trump’s tkae on bitcoin mining.