sylver_dragon

joined 2 years ago

They actually did replace the CEO which seemed like the least they could do. Whether or not the culture of "eh, who needs all these bolts?" has changed is still an open question. I for one still feel a bit better when I see an Airbus or Embraer jet roll up to the gate I'm boarding at.

Oracle: why innovate when you can coast off government inertia?

I'll admit, I hadn't tracked it that closely and didn't know the details. I was just being glib. Thanks for the info.

[–] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

And nothing of value was lost. Sure EA has published a few gems in recent years, but as a developer it's all sports games and Battlefield. The talent isn't at EA, it's at the developers they have been supporting. If we're lucky, the leveraged buyout will result in anything good owned by EA being sold off for parts and the worthless husk of EA saddled with the debt and left to go bankrupt.

Who know, maybe the license to make Star Wars games will go somewhere that isn't dead set on fucking it up as hard as possible to meet the Christmas season deadline.

With intermittent errors like that, I'd take the following test plan:

  1. Check for disk errors - You already did this with the SMART tools.
  2. Check for memory errors - Boot a USB drive to memtest86 and test.
  3. Check for overheating issues - Thermal paste does wear out, check your logs for overheating warnings.
  4. Power issues - Is the system powered straight from the wall or a surge protector? While it's less of an issue these days, AC power coming from the wall should have a consistent sine wave. If that wave isn't consistent, it can cause a voltage ripple on the DC side of the power supply. This can lead to all kinds of weird fuckery. A good surge protector (or UPS) will usually filter out most of the AC inconsistencies.
  5. Power Supply - Similar to above, if the power supply is having a marginal failure it can cause issues. If you have a spare one, try swapping it out and seeing if the errors continue.
  6. Processor failure - If you have a space processor which will fit the motherboard, you could try swapping that and looking for errors to continue.
  7. Motherboard failure - Same type of thing. If you have a spare, swap and look for errors.

At this point, you'll have tested basically everything and likely found the error. For most errors like this, I've rarely seen it go past the first two tests (drive/RAM failure), with the third (heat) picking up the majority of the rest. Power issues I've only ever seen in old buildings with electrical systems which probably wouldn't pass an inspection. Though, bad power can cause other hardware failures. It's one reason to have a surge protector in line at all times anyway.

[–] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I started self hosting in the days well before containers (early 2000's). Having been though that hell, I'm very happy to have containers.
I like to tinker with new things and with bare metal installs this has a way of adding cruft to servers and slowly causing the system to get into an unstable state. That's my own fault, but I'm a simple person who likes simple solutions. There are also the classic issues with dependency hell and just flat out incompatible software. While these issues have gotten much better over the years, isolating applications avoids this problem completely. It also makes OS and hardware upgrades less likely to break stuff.

These days, I run everything in containers. My wife and I play games like Valheim together and I have a Dockerfile template I use to build self-hosted serves in a container. The Dockerfile usually just requires a few tweaks for AppId, exposed ports and mount points for save data. That paired with a docker-compose.yaml (also built off a template) means I usually have a container up and running in fairly short order. The update process could probably be better, I currently just rebuild the image, but it gets the job done.

[–] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 34 points 1 week ago (4 children)

But, but, docker, kubernetes, hyper-scale convergence and other buzzwords from the 2010's! These fancy words can't just mean resource and namespace isolation!

In all seriousness, the isolation provided by containers is significant enough that administration of containers is different from running everything in the same OS. That's different in a good way though, I don't miss the bad old days of everything on a single server in the same space. Anyone else remember the joys of Windows Small Business Server? Let's run Active Directory, Exchange and MSSQL on the same box. No way that will lead to prob... oh shit, the RAM is on fire.

[–] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

It's caused by the speaker not liking what another person is doing, but being unable to articulate a real argument against the behavior. So, they call it "childish" as a way to express that dislike in a socially acceptable fashion.

[–] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

If you're relying on someone else's computer to keep your data safe, don't be surprised when they use that data as a hostage to demand more money. Sure, using other peoples' computers to host your infrastructure can make a lot of sense. Just be sure you have a backup plan for when they send Guido around to demand more money.

[–] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Harm was going to happen no matter what you do in the trolley problem. There is no situation where harm does not happen, but there is a situation where you directly are causing harm.

Yes, exactly. By taking no action some amount of harm occurs, had you taken action that harm would not have occurred but other harm would have. Ultimately, this is analyzing the extent to which a person is willing to allow harm via inaction versus cause harm through direct action.

Almost none of them actually having a real world application...

Like many thought experiments, the Trolley Problem is an artificial situation intended to isolate certain decision making points so that they can be analyzed. Yes, reality is messy and we often have more than two options. But having this sort of analysis ahead of time can make the real problems less complex to consider. It is also useful for looking at our philosophical frameworks and where they break down.

Personally, if I could go the rest of my life without hearing about the trolley problem that’d be great actually.

The Trolley Problem is a tool for examining our beliefs. Throwing it away because it is imperfect and uncomfortable only leads to a blindness of self.

[–] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box
You say you've had your desktop for over a week?
Throw that junk away, man, it's an antique!
-- Weird Al Yankovic, It's all about the Pentiums (1999)

Chasing the latest and greatest is an old problem and it's never going to be solved. At some point, you buy the PC or parts which do what you want to do at that time for a reasonable price (however you define "reasonable"). One advantage offered by buying parts is the ability to upgrade piecemeal and keep up with growing system requirements over time, without the need to replace everything at once. My own PC of Theseus has been upgraded piecemeal over the last 15 years and runs modern games just fine. My wife's PC has been on an upgrade treadmill for close on 25 years. Sure, the only thing which is actually that old is the case (she loves her case), but we've been able to keep up with modern hardware requirements while spreading the upgrade costs out over time.

[–] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

One of the issues the Trolley Problem explores is people's differing willingness to allow harm versus cause it. And that can hold even when the level of harm caused by inaction is significantly higher than what is caused by taking action. E.g. If your personal philosophy dictates that killing someone is always wrong, does it hold if your inaction causes 5 deaths, 10, 50? What if we start tinkering with the people dying? Would you kill a 90 year old man to save a train full of children? The Trolley Problem is really just a starting point to examine that dichotomy between causing harm and allowing harm and just how permeable the line between them can be when you start changing the conditions. Attaching other moral choices to the problem is one way to use the problem to explore a set of beliefs.

 

With layoffs starting at WordPress, and me recognizing that I'm a bit of a dinosaur in this regard, I'm wondering what folks are using for self-hosting their own blog these days? While I'm not exactly prolific, I do like having my own little home on the internet to write up things I find interesting and pretending people actually read it. And, of course, I really don't want to be reliant on someone else's computers; so, the ability to self-host is a must.

Honestly, my requirements are pretty basic. I just want something to write and host articles and not have to fight with some janky text editor. And pre-built themes would be very nice. It would be nice if there was an easy way to transition stuff I have in WP; but, I can probably get that with some creative copy/paste work.

So, what are all the cool kids blogging on these days?

 

I would like to request to take over moderation of the community: https://lemmy.world/c/virginia

The current mod "@gabowo@lemmy.world gabowo" has been inactive for 2 years and the last mod action for the community was also 2 years ago (https://lemmy.world/modlog/4102).

 

A great quantitative examination of the effects of infill on part stiffness.

 

On May 8, 1971, a freelance photojournalist was flying over central Vietnam when he looked down and saw something unexpected: A huge peace sign that had been carved into the landscape near Camp Eagle, home of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division during the Vietnam War.

Fifty-four years have passed since the photo was taken, but the person who created the peace sign was a mystery.

Until now.

 

I recently used Firefox Nightly on my Android device, in a private tab, to login to gmail. After I closed the browser, both via the "quit" menu icon and via swiping the Firefox away in the Overview, I had expected the session information to be deleted and the next time I came back to gmail via a private tab, to be required to login again. However, this was not the case. Despite closing out the browser, something seems to have survived and the I was immediately logged back into the gmail session.

Is this some sort of expected behavior? Shouldn't closing out the browser delete all session information from a private tab? Is there something I missed that maybe I'm not actually "closing" the browser?

 

My daughter wanted a "Gorilla Tag" birthday. And my wife wanted me to print some party favors for the guest kids. Not my model, but they are churning out ok-ish.

 

I'm currently purchasing a new GPU and specifically settled on the MSI 4070 Super. I'm all set for everything except connecting the display to the card.

Currently, the display I have (which isn't being upgraded for now) only has two input options: DVI and VGA. The new GPU only provides HDMI or Display Port. This isn't really a problem as adapters/cables exist to go from Display Port/HDMI to DVI-D.

But, the question I have is, which is the better option, or does it make any difference? And, are there any "gotchas" I should watch out for when buying the cable?

I realize that I am likely over-thinking this, but I would rather ask a stupid question than make a stupid mistake.

 

Just got started with this game (PC - Steam version). It's fun so far. I had really wanted to use my controller. But, the aiming movement is so sluggish. I've tried pushing the "Aim Sensitivity" up to 10, but still felt like I was turning through molasses. Is there anything which can be done to speed that up, or is the controller just fundamentally slow on PC?

Using an Xbox controller via Bluetooth. And the issue isn't lag, it's the rotation speed in game.

 

Virgin Galactic will be launching their first commercial, sub-orbital space flight today. Link is to the Live Stream for the event.

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