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Ben Bleything

@bleything.net

260 followers 250 following 1K posts

computerist. you may know me from such as he/him

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Ben Bleything @bleything.net · Jul 15

I mean seriously just look at this

Two black cats sleeping on a pink blanket. One cat’s head is resting on the other cat’s body. It is extremely cute.

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 26m

Must have been transient, worked fine on retry

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 26m

“Release file for <repo url> is not valid yet (invalid for another <~5 hours>. Updates for this repository will not be applied”

I’ve installed Ubuntu many, many times and I’ve never seen this one

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 33m

I’ll do a separate thread later about some of the more interesting BIOS features, as soon as I can figure out how to take screenshots and not just pics with my phone

Preview: “network offline locker setup” and something called “computrace”

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 33m

It has a standard Phoenix-style BIOS (lenovo branded ofc) with all the expected enterprise stuff. Annoyingly the POST screen doesn’t list the keys available for modifying the boot sequence. I have no idea how I got into the bios, I just mashed the usual suspects

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 55m

one of the drives in my NAS is failing and another looks like it's on its way. I need more space anyway but I don't really want to spend $1k on hard drives right now

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 1h

I’m a huge fan of automation and the ability to remote wipe/install without messing with license keys is huge

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 1h

A cool thing about these business PCs is that they have permanently attached Windows licenses built in to the hardware. If I ever want to switch back to Linux I just have to install windows and it’ll be licensed and ready to go

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 1h

It shipped with Windows… 10? Maybe 11, not sure. It’s been factory reset but they didn’t finish the process so it’s on a generic recovery screen now. Doesn’t matter, it’ll be Ubuntu soon enough

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 1h

sorry for the dark photo, the green LED is very dim and also it’s 7am and the sun isn’t up yet

Anyway I also discovered that unlike the dell thin client, the Lenovo’s usb-c port doesn’t have DP so I had to dig out hdmi and usb cables

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 1h

The green and red LEDs are both power indicators. There’s really no reason to have both aside from ~aesthetics~

this is not a complaint! Business computers deserve to look cool too! I wouldn’t necessarily have made the same choice but I salute the designers nonetheless

The front of bezel showing a green LED on the left side and a red LED on the right

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 1h

Setting up the Lenovo this morning and I discovered what this red LED does. The black plastic housing mates with one on the lid which contains a diffuser. It’s basically the most overengineered light pipe you ever did see… for a redundant power indicator

A closeup of a small black plastic housing that contains a translucent red plastic diffuser

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 2h

yes yes, “blockchain is more than crypto”. You have to understand that nobody cares about the distinction unless they’re trying to distance themselves from crypto, and it’s not my job to help with that

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 2h

I’ve been reading the protocol docs and there’s a lot of stuff in there that just feels kinda weird until you consider that the authors’ main reference for distributed systems is crypto

your #3 source for absurdist true crime 🔨 @davidgerard.co.uk · 5h

someone needs to do a thorough writeup of every clear tell of atproto as a blockchain project that pivoted, because their 2025 reflex is to deny it as hard as possible even though they're all coiners and so much of it reeks of blockchain

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 9h

this is pretty close to one of the major plot points in for all mankind

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 10h

lol plz excuse the bits of food on the ground next to the feeder. They are extremely messy eaters. That is debris from Rico’s preferred method of picking up the kibbles with his teeth and then cronching them in open air

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 10h

I love them so much

Two black cats sitting next to each other, eating from their individual bowls

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 12h

According to reddit it’s a temperature sensor. That part of the bezel is apparently the intake

www.reddit.com/r/homelab/s/...

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 12h

“Aaaaamd” nah, this thing’s got intel inside, baybee

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 12h

There’s also this collection of gizmos on the front edge. The white switch is almost certainly for intrusion detection. The TO type package next to it has a tiny hole in the front, I wonder if it’s an IR sensor?

The red LED in a sheath is a mystery though. Best I can figure is it’s for diagnostics

A closeup of the bottom right edge of the board showing a plastic sheath with an upward facing LED inside, a small black TO-style package on a white standoff, and a white pushbutton switch

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 12h

oh before I go, a few observations about the guts of this thing:

- there's a 5-pin "thunderbolt connector" on the board
- also a "board to board connector" in a form factor I've never seen
- an internal serial header like we saw in the dell

pretty clear that they reuse this board in bigger models

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 13h

I’ll fire this thing up tomorrow, stay tuned

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 13h

Unlike the dell, the RAM and storage live on the underside of the board. The empty m.2 footprint is interesting, I wonder if I could solder in a second slot

The back of a Lenovo ThinkCentre m720q. There is an m.2 2280 slot with an SSD. Below that is an unpopulated footprint for a second m.2 slot.

Below that is two SO-DIMM slots each carrying an 8gb DIMM. The rest is covered by the metal frame of the chassis.

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 13h

This is way more computer than the dell, though. This one has an i5-8500T, a non-m.2 PCIe slot, and a bracket for adding a 2.5” sata drive

The interior of a Lenovo ThinkCentre m720q. The right half is covered by a fan shroud over the CPU cooler. The left half is obscured by the 2.5” bracket

The interior of a Lenovo ThinkCentre m720q. The right half is covered by a fan shroud over the CPU cooler. The 2.5” bracket has been moved out of the way so you can see the guts below. There’s an m.2 WiFi card in the lower left, a large chip with a shiny cap in the center, and various ports and components around the board.

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 13h

Aaaaamd the Lenovo got here today. It’s the same physical footprint as the dell but doesnt come with a stand. I might 3d print one?

A small black computer with a banana laying diagonally on top of it. The banana is almost the full length of the diagonal.

Front view of the small black computer showing a power button, two 3.5mm TRS jacks, a USB-C jack, and a USB-A jack. There’s a small decorative red piece and the rest of the bezel perforated for airflow. It is slightly thicker than a banana

Ben Bleything @bleything.net · 19h

I have had this exact experience