Hear here! 'Zactly.
JARGON ALERT! Could* you favor us with a brief explanation of the term thin client paradigm, please?
*Actually, I’m pretty confident that you could; I guess what I really mean is would you?
A thin client is a system where all of the work is being done by another device. As an example, you install a video game on a powerful computer, then use a tablet to remotely access the computer and play the game from your tablet. Your tablet couldn’t possibly run the game… It’s not fast enough, doesn’t have enough space to store all the files, and so on. But it’s powerful enough to show you what is happening on the computer, and can send commands to the computer, so you can still play the game from your tablet.
Or to put it in other terms, imagine you don’t have a TV, but you have a pair of binoculars. You can use them to peek into the neighbor’s living room window to watch their TV. The binoculars can’t play a TV show but they still enable you to watch one.
What wolfpup is talking about is when the client is being asked to do too much. Say, now your binoculars have electronics in them that enhance the image, filter out glare, show subtitles, and so on. But it does that all badly, making it harder to see the TV, to the point that it’s worse than just using regular binoculars.
Thank you. That was helpful.
I’m trying to figure the use of binoculars watching TV.
I think I understand what @wolfpup meant. Maybe.
The term goes back to a model of distributed computing from way back in the 60s called the client/server model, where a system that provides end-user services (the “client”) requests resources from one or more provider systems (the “server”). The resources provided can be anything from information retrieval, mass storage (as in a file or disk server), computing resources, or anything else. Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) which developed pioneering concepts in PCs, LANs, and distributed computing helped advance the concept in the early 70s by developing the first generation of Ethernet and associated client/server architectures like file servers, print servers, and name servers (those being essentially “directories” to enable a client to translate a resource name like “Laserprinter03” to a network address on a LAN or WAN – on today’s internet these are called domain name servers (DNS)).
In that context, @Atamasama has pretty much laid out what “thin client” means – a client whose only job is to present and retrieve information to and from a human interface. With the advent of the internet and the web, and the use of personal computers to access the web instead of character-oriented dumb terminals accessing traditional central computers through serial ports, “thin client” came into use to refer to the use of PCs to access server resources through generic UIs rather than function-specific client applications. Simply put, in practice this usually meant the use of a generic web browser on the PC rather than some dedicated application.
Sounds good, and all the better when you understand that of course all these protocols have been standardized. If only. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today has something on the order of 1400 standards and guidelines, a volume of information so massive – and evolving so quickly – that it would be impossible to read them all before they starting changing again, let alone actually be able to implement them. Ever wonder why some browsers don’t work with some websites, and the ones that do don’t work with other websites? Wonder no more. What was supposed to be a simple lightweight UI has become a ridiculously, unmanageably complex monster.
I was wrong. I don’t understand that at all.
For some examples, go browse our own “Site Feedback” category on SDMB…
Yes, I believe I read somewhere that Discourse was “built for the future of the Web” or some such thing. IOW, “this is not for your father’s browser”. Thus placing themselves smack in the middle of this no-win escalation.
About a year ago, the Android Firefox on my tablet absolutely refused to access the SDMB, returning a mysterious and completely useless message that it was suddenly “too old”. So I updated it. The update broke a handful of important functions. Among them, videos on CNN no longer worked, and, worse, the “Live Updates” articles on rapidly breaking news just hung. To be fair, Firefox on my tablet sorta kinda works again after several more updates (over a period of months) and Firefox on Android has never been the cat’s pajamas anyway, and Firefox in general is not currently in high repute – but I’ve had issues on Windows with all of Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Brave. Different issues, of course, on different websites.
A dear friend of mine who runs a consulting business from home needs to access many client internet and intranet sites as well as major service providers like FedEx. She has to run two or three different browsers due to compatibility issues. When I was redeeming Air Canada points for my son’s trip to Japan as per my previous rant, I had several problems with the site. When I requested a list of flights in Firefox, it produced a list, but only the first two and half of the third were visible. If I moved the window so I could expand it further, a bit more showed up.
Now, I’m sure you’re thinking: moron! That’s what the scroll bar is for!
Think again. There was no scroll bar.
So I tried Edge. When I tried to log in, it hung forever on the login screen.
Then I tried Firefox again. This time, there actually was a scroll bar! The consistency and quality of this wonderful technology never ceases to amaze. 
Short and simple version: the modern browser, it is for shit.
Thanks. 
Simplifying @wolfpup’s excellent explanations even more.
In the early days of the www, your browser was very stupid. It could put text on a screen and that was it. All the “thinking” happened back at website HQ where the gurus worked and where everything could be, and often was, tightly controlled and tightly QCed.
Then we started to get fancier websites that were more alive and dynamic and looked more like real “apps”. That was done by offloading a bunch of work onto your PC. Which made the suits at website HQ happy because that meant their computing dollars could serve a LOT more customers since the customers’ computers were doing so much of the work. Think self-service checkout versus a live cashier for a human-world metaphor. The more work the store makes the customer do, the less work the store has to have employees to do. Win for them, maybe not so much for you.
The big problem is now the website company has to write two programs. The one on their server that does whatever, and the one that they download and run on your machine to do the work there. Making that second program reliable across the vast variety of consumer machines, versions, brands of browsers, types of ad-blocking and anti-virus eetc., is virtually impossible.
So almost immediately that industry adopted “close enough good enough” as their explicit quality goal. Shit doesn’t work and won’t ever work. meantime, of course this was just as e-commerce took off and the supply of skilled workers was suddenly far less than the demand. So they hired unskilled workers who taught themselves badly. And now instead of “close enough good enough” as the goal, it turned into “it works often enough we can still make money despite all the failures”.
Fast forward another 20 years and phones and installable “apps” have largely replaced the “smart” websites being looked at through browsers on PCs. Which put vastly more effort onto the customer’s device, but are vastly harder to create. Of course nobody at website HQ wants to spend the money for skilled enough people who are once again in short supply. So now the problem is even worse.
It’s a miracle civilization hasn’t collapsed yet.
I just want to add a personal note to my previous comment that “Software that works even in rare boundary conditions has morphed into software that doesn’t, and is increasingly morphing into software that doesn’t work, period.” What I was particularly thinking of was that the beta release of VAX/VMS V1.0 – the beta was so rock-solid stable that all modern software releases should be embarrassed. DEC had a reputation for their six-step Phase Review Policy for product development accounting for even the most extreme edge conditions. Nothing like that exists today outside of aerospace.
This was why the response to the problem report, in 1983, of “hey, your VAX/VMS algorithm improperly considers the year 2000 to be a leap year” became so famous. The response nicely illustrates some guy desperately hunting for something to complain about, and DEC’s ability to smack him down with a biting sense of humour! Here it is in its entirety:
******DEC INTERNAL USE ONLY******
SPR NUMBER: 11-60903
ANSWER CATEGORY: UE
MAINTENANCE HOURS: 1
DUPLICATE PROBLEM: N
DUPLICATE SPR NUMBER(S):
OPERATING SYSTEM: VAX/VMS
O.S. VERSION: V3.2
PRODUCT: VAX/VMS
PRODUCT VERSION: V3.2
COMPONENT: Run-Time Library
SUB-COMPONENT: LIB$ routines
DATE ANSWERED: 13-Oct-1983
MAINTAINER: Stanley Rabinowitz
ATTACHMENT: N
PUBLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: N
SPR PROBLEM ABSTRACT: User claims year 2000 should not be a leap year.
TITLE: -
PUBLICATIONS: -
ADDITIONAL O.S. VERSIONS:
ADDITIONAL PRODUCT VERSIONS:
COMPONENT SEQUENCE NUMBER:
SUPERSEDES:
TYPE OF ARTICLE:
ANSWER CATEGORIES
CG=1=CORRECTION GIVEN RS=5=RESTRICTION SG=9=SUGGESTION
FN=2=FIXED IN NEXT RELEASE CS=6=CUSTOMER SUPPORTED IQ=10=INQUIRY
DE=3=DOCUMENTATION ERROR NR=7=NON-REPRODUCIBLE HW=11=HARDWARE
UE=4=USER ERROR II=8=INSUFFICIENT INFORMATION
TYPE OF ARTICLE
F=OPTIONAL FEATURE PATCH N=NOTE
M=MANDATORY PATCH R=RESTRICTION
FOR MAINTENANCE USE
******END OF DEC USE ONLY******
D I G I T A L
SPR ANSWER FORM
SPR NO. 11-60903
SYSTEM VERSION PRODUCT VERSION COMPONENT
SOFTWARE: VAX/VMS V3.2 VAX/VMS V3.2 Run-Time Library
PROBLEM:
The LIB$DAY Run-Time Library service "incorrectly" assumes the year
2000 is a leap year.
RESPONSE:
Thank you for your forward-looking SPR.
Various system services, such as SYS$ASCTIM assume that the year 2000
will be a leap year. Although one can never be sure of what will
happen at some future time, there is strong historical precedent for
presuming that the present Gregorian calendar will still be in affect
by the year 2000. Since we also hope that VMS will still be around by
then, we have chosen to adhere to these precedents.
The purpose of a calendar is to reckon time in advance, to show how
many days have to elapse until a certain event takes place in the
future, such as the harvest or the release of VMS V4. The earliest
calendars, naturally, were crude and tended to be based upon the
seasons or the lunar cycle.
The calendar of the Assyrians, for example, was based upon the phases
of the moon. They knew that a lunation (the time from one full moon
to the next) was 29 1/2 days long, so their lunar year had a duration
of 364 days. This fell short of the solar year by about 11 days.
(The exact time for the solar year is approximately 365 days, 5 hours,
48 minutes, and 46 seconds.) After 3 years, such a lunar calendar
would be off by a whole month, so the Assyrians added an extra month
from time to time to keep their calendar in synchronization with the
seasons.
The best approximation that was possible in antiquity was a 19-year
period, with 7 of these 19 years having 13 months (leap months). This
scheme was adopted as the basis for the religious calendar used by the
Jews. (The Arabs also used this calendar until Mohammed forbade
shifting from 12 months to 13 months.)
When Rome emerged as a world power, the difficulties of making a
calendar were well known, but the Romans complicated their lives
because of their superstition that even numbers were unlucky. Hence
their months were 29 or 31 days long, with the exception of February,
which had 28 days. Every second year, the Roman calendar included an
extra month called Mercedonius of 22 or 23 days to keep up with the
solar year.
Even this algorithm was very poor, so that in 45 BC, Caesar, advised
by the astronomer Sosigenes, ordered a sweeping reform. By imperial
decree, one year was made 445 days long to bring the calendar back in
step with the seasons. The new calendar, similar to the one we now
use was called the Julian calendar (named after Julius Caesar). It's
months were 30 or 31 days in length and every fourth year was made a
leap year (having 366 days). Caesar also decreed that the year would
start with the first of January, not the vernal equinox in late March.
Caesar's year was 11 1/2 minutes short of the calculations recommended
by Sosigenes and eventually the date of the vernal equinox began to
drift. Roger Bacon became alarmed and sent a note to Pope Clement IV,
who apparently was not impressed. Pope Sixtus IV later became
convinced that another reform was needed and called the German
astronomer, Regiomontanus, to Rome to advise him. Unfortunately,
Regiomontanus died of the plague shortly thereafter and the plans died
as well.
In 1545, the Council of Trent authorized Pope Gregory XIII to reform
the calendar once more. Most of the mathematical work was done by
Father Christopher Clavius, S.J. The immediate correction that was
adopted was that Thursday, October 4, 1582 was to be the last day of
the Julian calendar. The next day was Friday, with the date of
October 15. For long range accuracy, a formula suggested by the
Vatican librarian Aloysius Giglio was adopted. It said that every
fourth year is a leap year except for century years that are not
divisible by 400. Thus 1700, 1800 and 1900 would not be leap years,
but 2000 would be a leap year since 2000 is divisible by 400. This
rule eliminates 3 leap years every 4 centuries, making the calendar
sufficiently correct for most ordinary purposes. This calendar is
known as the Gregorian calendar and is the one that we now use today.
(It is interesting to note that in 1582, all the Protestant princes
ignored the papal decree and so many countries continued to use the
Julian calendar until either 1698 or 1752. In Russia, it needed the
revolution to introduce the Gregorian calendar in 1918.)
This explains why VMS chooses to treat the year 2000 as a leap year.
Despite the great accuracy of the Gregorian calendar, it still falls
behind very slightly every few years. If you are very concerned about
this problem, we suggest that you tune in short wave radio station
WWV, which broadcasts official time signals for use in the United
States. About once every 3 years, they declare a leap second at which
time you should be careful to adjust your system clock. If you have
trouble picking up their signals, we suggest you purchase an atomic
clock (not manufactured by Digital and not a VAX option at this time).
END OF SPR RESPONSE
Jeebus!
And to think I bitch because my wall clock is terminally 3 minutes off from my cel phone.
When I entered this thread, it was my understanding that there would be no math.
You were 49.36% correct.
It’s all math. Sometimes the math is hidden.
My sinuses are filled/filling constantly. It made me cough some, but there’s medicine for that. My problem is that it won’t let me sleep. I’ll go to bed ( 11 pm? 11:30? ) and everything seems stable… and I can breath through my nose. The problem is that in about 2 - 2 1/2 hours, I wake up choking and coughing… nose fully clogged… and feeling like I’m being suffocated with a pillow. It’s not enough time to get any deep meaningful sleep like REM sleep. If I use Nyquill pills, I can get up to 4 hours sleep, but that’s it.
As a kid, I remember a pediatrician telling my mother I had a deviated septum. Has it gotten worse? Is this ‘long COVID’ damage? Do I need sinus surgery? Will a Dr. even see me because of the fear of COVID? Sorry if this is rambling; there are dark rings under my eyes and I haven’t been sleeping well.
OMG. I believe the title is “Mini-Rants”. That wall of text and math above is not mini.
Yes, it is. It’s a frivolous tongue-in-cheek response to a software problem report that is not only extremely trite, but also wrong. The length of the response and its extensively contrived historical account of the history of calendars is what makes it funny, considering that SPR responses are usually very short technical replies. Maybe it’s one of those things where you had to be there, so to speak. Back in the day, SPRs were a routine part of the world that I inhabited.
Also, on teh internets a “wall’o’text” generally refers to a lengthy post that has no paragraph breaks. 
Pretty sure that, by definition, doctors see people who are sick. That’s kinda, yanno, what they DO for a living.
Do you have a current doctor, or one covered by your insurance (assuming you have any)? If so, call their office, and explain your symptoms.
If not, perhaps a trip to your local urgent care (e.g. “Doc In A Box”) might be suitable. How you are currently living is not sustainable.
Meanwhile, see if you can sleep with your sinuses held as vertically as possible. Prop up your head with pillows, or find a way to comfortably nod off in a chair or recliner, or perhaps a couch/sofa.
Finally, if you don’t have one, a Neti Pot or similar nasal-flushing device can be very helpful. You basically run saline water into one sinus and out the other. (Your head-holes are interconnected like that.) Feels weird at first, but the relief can be tremendous.