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karbytes_13_september_2024.txt
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karbytes_13_september_2024.txt
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/**
* file: karbytes_13_september_2024.txt
* type: plain-text
* date: 13_SEPTEMBER_2024
* author: karbytes
* license: PUBLIC_DOMAIN
*/
Today while attempting to block out the distracting sound of other people making protesting vocalizations on the other side of the fence of the courtyard I was sitting in, I (foolishly) turned the volume up to maximum level on multiple simultaneously-playing sound-emitting software applications on my laptop computer.
For approximately twenty minutes I was happily ensconced in my own personal bubble of sound (and some of that sound was being generated by a recent single web page application I wrote named BEATS_MACHINE) and could barely hear the voices which I priorly found quite irksome. Then, all of a sudden, the left speaker of my laptop crackled for approximately half of a second before going silent.
I tried testing the left and right speakers individually using the operating system’s built-in system component checker and saw that the left speaker was indeed not outputting any sound (but the right speaker appeared to be working normally).
I then consulted ChatGPT-4o (as I have been doing almost daily (and usually multiple times per day) for any questions I have about technology, society, or academic subjects or recreational hobbies which interest me) about this matter. ChatGPT-4o suggested I try using the command line terminal to forcibly (re)install audio-related firmware updates. I foolishly proceeded with ChatGPT’s instructions all while knowing that I was running into errors when attempting to view and select specific Ubuntu updates to download and install through the operating system’s graphical user interface (and that seemed to be at least in part due to there being insufficient disk space available to download anything larger than approximately 500 megabytes).
I cringed knowing that I was “wasting” precious metered Internet data (which I pay $20 per every 3 gigabytes for via my AT&T phone and mobile Internet service) while those command line installations were in progress. The updates seemed to stop due to vaguely specified errors around 70% of completing the installation.
I gave up and thought it might be a good idea to spend what little money I have in my PayPal Business account (which is associated with a particular debit card) on a new pair of headphones from the nearby Target store in order to improve the audibility of my user experience when using either the Ubuntu partition of else the Windows partition of the same laptop (and I tested the speakers on both operating systems after the left speaker blew out only to find that the left speaker was indeed not working on both partitions).
Before I hopped on my bicycle to go to Target (which I did but only went to the nearby Round Table Pizza restaurant to urgently use the bathroom (in order to poop) there only to accidentally cause the toilet to overflow with water onto the bathroom floor), I felt the need to test the functionality of my laptop.
When I restarted the laptop and selected the Ubuntu operating system to boot up, I ran into some errors which caused the operating system to not boot up. (I restarted the computer again to ensure that the Windows operating system would at least boot up (which it thankfully did)).
Then and there I decided to simply try reinstalling the Ubuntu operating system using the handy dandy little USB flash drive I created approximately one month ago in order to install and test the particular Ubuntu (which is a type of Linux operating system) distribution whose iso file I downloaded and made the aforementioned bootable flash drive with.
I am not sure whether or not I overwrote the broken Ubuntu partition when I re-installed Ubuntu using that flash drive, but the process of re-installing it was quite easy and I have since had no problems with the new Ubuntu installation (which I am using now to write this journal entry).
I noticed that I have not been getting any warning messages from the operating system about there not being much disk space left for downloads while downloading media and installing software (especially the “essentials” which are Sublime Text editor and VLC media player).
I also noticed that I was able to log into and use my ChatGPT Plus account without any issues through Firefox (which is the default web browser which this Ubuntu operating system comes with). In the previous Ubuntu installation, I noticed that Firefox would not properly load the ChatGPT interface.
A lesson I learned today is to not play too many audio streams at once (especially at full volume) on one device because doing so puts significant strain on the hardware and causes those hardware components to wear out faster than what is “cost effective” and “normal”. For now on, I will try to just find a better place to use my laptop instead of settling for using it in places which I know to be full of noises which I find disruptively caustic.