billroper (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
billroper) wrote2025-08-09 10:20 pm
billroper) wrote2025-08-09 10:20 pm
Really Bad News, Filking, Puppies, and Cables
One of these things is not at all like the others.
I woke up this morning to find out that Tom Jeffers had died. Tom is an old friend of mine. When K was around a year old and Gretchen was recovering from her hysterectomy for endometrial cancer, Tom and Sue were good enough to come down and stay with us and help keep the household together. Tom was one of the nicest guys on the planet which just makes this seem much more unfair. And he and Sue had a lot of happy years together and should have had more. I'm going to miss him.
You hate to move on from something like that to common goings on, but it was a busy day here. I have finished my entry for the OVFF songwriting contest, for which the theme is "Steer by the Stars". I have checked this theme numerous times at this point to make sure that I have not repeated my error from FKO long ago, when I thought that the theme was "The End of the World" and it was actually "The End of Time". Oops. I ended up writing two songs that year; one for the wrong theme and one for the correct one. But this year's song is to the correct theme and no longer on my list of things to do.
Calvin the Puppy has decided that I am the Food God. He may be correct. In any case, he is a very hungry puppy. We have had a few housebreaking accidents, but this is mostly due to a failure to communicate. Ruby goes to the back door and complains when she needs to go out. Calvin just complains, leaving us unsure of what he wants, although food is frequently a good bet. But so is access to the great outdoors...
I continue to learn more about DisplayPort cables than I ever wanted to know. The new DisplayPort cables that I bought were to a new, faster standard. They were not, however, VESA certified, nor did they come with a latch that engages when they are fully pushed in. Today, two replacement cables arrived that are for DisplayPort 1.4, an older version of the standard, but which are VESA certified and have the latching feature. I've plugged them in and the monitors have only blinked once while I've been downstairs.
This is, of course, one time too many. More research followed. The long cable from the computer to the MST hub turns out to be a DisplayPort 1.2 cable, which is theoretically sufficient for MST, but the instructions for the hub say to use a minimum of a DisplayPort 1.4 cable. They also say that the cable should be shorter, but the computer needs to be on the opposite end of the console so that the Thunderbolt cable (which is *highly* length constrained) can reach from the computer to the Apollo unit.
I have now ordered *another* cable (stop laughing, Gretchen!) which is long enough to reach, has latches, and is both VESA certified and DisplayPort 1.4 compatible. It should arrive tomorrow.
And then we will see how it works.
I woke up this morning to find out that Tom Jeffers had died. Tom is an old friend of mine. When K was around a year old and Gretchen was recovering from her hysterectomy for endometrial cancer, Tom and Sue were good enough to come down and stay with us and help keep the household together. Tom was one of the nicest guys on the planet which just makes this seem much more unfair. And he and Sue had a lot of happy years together and should have had more. I'm going to miss him.
You hate to move on from something like that to common goings on, but it was a busy day here. I have finished my entry for the OVFF songwriting contest, for which the theme is "Steer by the Stars". I have checked this theme numerous times at this point to make sure that I have not repeated my error from FKO long ago, when I thought that the theme was "The End of the World" and it was actually "The End of Time". Oops. I ended up writing two songs that year; one for the wrong theme and one for the correct one. But this year's song is to the correct theme and no longer on my list of things to do.
Calvin the Puppy has decided that I am the Food God. He may be correct. In any case, he is a very hungry puppy. We have had a few housebreaking accidents, but this is mostly due to a failure to communicate. Ruby goes to the back door and complains when she needs to go out. Calvin just complains, leaving us unsure of what he wants, although food is frequently a good bet. But so is access to the great outdoors...
I continue to learn more about DisplayPort cables than I ever wanted to know. The new DisplayPort cables that I bought were to a new, faster standard. They were not, however, VESA certified, nor did they come with a latch that engages when they are fully pushed in. Today, two replacement cables arrived that are for DisplayPort 1.4, an older version of the standard, but which are VESA certified and have the latching feature. I've plugged them in and the monitors have only blinked once while I've been downstairs.
This is, of course, one time too many. More research followed. The long cable from the computer to the MST hub turns out to be a DisplayPort 1.2 cable, which is theoretically sufficient for MST, but the instructions for the hub say to use a minimum of a DisplayPort 1.4 cable. They also say that the cable should be shorter, but the computer needs to be on the opposite end of the console so that the Thunderbolt cable (which is *highly* length constrained) can reach from the computer to the Apollo unit.
I have now ordered *another* cable (stop laughing, Gretchen!) which is long enough to reach, has latches, and is both VESA certified and DisplayPort 1.4 compatible. It should arrive tomorrow.
And then we will see how it works.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
