totm nov 2023 Thread to discuss negative things in a very general way, just see where it goes y'know?

[Lisias]

So, a change on some contracted service demanded a photocopy (believe it if you can) of some bill as proof of my residence - as this information would not be available for any spammer in this freaking World already.

Being a cheap stand-up guy bean counter, since my last scanner broke 10 years ago I'm using a printing service bureau near home to scan things - it's pretty cheap, to tell you the true, a scanned page costs approximately 1/400 of the price of the cheapest scanner I managed to find. I should had scanned about 10  or 15 pages a year since then.

But the dude didn't opened his shop yesterday, neither today (hope he's alright), and I still need to scan that freaking bill.

So I decided it's time to bite the bullet, and I bought the cheapest scanner I found around here (yeah, I bought it from a physical shop and walked home carrying the thing - I don't remember the last time I did it!!). Being that thing dirty cheap, I bought an extended guarantee (in truth, a insurance for domestic appliances), as the price didn't increased significantly, and it's almost sure that crap will break as soon the manufacturer guarantee is over.

On the way back, however, my key ring broke and I lost the house's keys. My son wasn't in home, I left my mobile in home (I hate walking with that phone in the pocket) and I had to wait 2 hours on the condo's lobby until the kid came back. I was almost asking the janitor for a locksmith (as long the dude would accept credit card as payment, because the money was in a wallet that I also left in home).

Oukey, I'm home now. Let's install that freaking cheap scanner device drivers, scan the <insert your favorite non Forum compliant expletive here> bill and send it by mail, putting an end of this Kraken damned ordeal.

Where are the drivers? (sigh) Found them on the Internet, download them. Great, now let's install the thingy.

Could not. You need to be Administrator to install the thing, the driver is not smart enough to use MacOS's Security.Authorization . Krap, this is not going well.

Oukey, switched to a Super User account (my bread and butter login is as unprivileged as I could set it), and finally the damned thing installed. But the scanner remained dead in the water. Krap².

Troubleshooting time - after half a hour, I realized my USB cable extension was half plugged on the MacMini's rear ports. Removed it and reinserted it (on the Microsoft way™), that Kraken damned thing finally made some noises.

Tested it, it worked. Switch back to my day-to-day account, the thingy was still working (to my relief). But the scanned document was terribly crappy - Krap³. (sigh)

Half a hour toying with the options, deactivating almost every "image enhancer" I found. Great, now it worked in a reasonably acceptable way (it's a crappy scanner, after all).

But the freaking image cropped out the most important information, and I didn't understood why.

More 30 minutes troubleshooting this piece of <piiiiiii>, and I finally realized that this scanner's origin (the 0,0 point) is "bottom right", instead of "up left" as that older scanner of mine used. So I had positioned the document starting with its footer, and by the time the header would be scanned, it blew the A4 page limits and was discarded - and I didn't noticed because this freaking dirty cheap scanner is crappy, but not that crappy and realized the document was inverted and fixed it automatically for me. Krap⁴.

So I finally managed to get a crappy looking but visible (the optics are cheap, after all, and I turned off all the software enhancements) scanned copy of that freaking bill. Let's send this thing by email fast, before something else happens.

The Company's VPN is down. 15 minutes troubleshooting it until realizing it's not something from my side of the cable modem, called "Support" (my colleague) and he told me that the Public Administration is digging holes on our internal data center's address (my colleague's address) and that I need to use the backup VPN that was turned on while the main one is screwed. Krap⁵.

It's 16:00 hours now, local time. I left home to buy that <insert your favorite instant Forum ban expletive here> scanner 11:00 local time. At least I had eat something on the way back home.

I will tell you something: as soon as that printing bureau is back to business, I will go there, hug the dude and tell him I love him and that I don't want to live without him again. I hope my girlfriend will not freak out.

Edited June 12 by Lisias
Forgot some "Kraps" :D

[BA-Forums]

I am absolutely tired of stuff these days.
So many people are arguing about stupid crap these days. EVERYTHING IS WAY TOO POLARIZED! We just HAVE to get into arguments and heated debates about the most random things. It’s gotten so bad that families are literally fighting with each each other over stuff like politics and whatever. The culture wars made things worse, and everyone HAS to pick a side! Mate, I don’t WANT to pick a side! Social media didn’t help either. It’s just literal brain rot at some times, arguments at another, and it is just ENDLESS. Sure there are great places online, like here, but everywhere else feels like a war zone sometimes, online and offline. We have done great things before, and we did that by working together. Look at Apollo! But even people deny that humanity has been to the Moon. I guess nothing is safe from pointless arguing. I guess what I’m saying is…

2024 sucks. And if I’m honest, I just wanna paint miniatures and watch Bluey. I think I might go do that now.

 

 

 

[Nuke]

2 hours ago, BA-Forums said:

I am absolutely tired of stuff these days.
So many people are arguing about stupid crap these days. EVERYTHING IS WAY TOO POLARIZED! We just HAVE to get into arguments and heated debates about the most random things. It’s gotten so bad that families are literally fighting with each each other over stuff like politics and whatever. The culture wars made things worse, and everyone HAS to pick a side! Mate, I don’t WANT to pick a side! Social media didn’t help either. It’s just literal brain rot at some times, arguments at another, and it is just ENDLESS. Sure there are great places online, like here, but everywhere else feels like a war zone sometimes, online and offline. We have done great things before, and we did that by working together. Look at Apollo! But even people deny that humanity has been to the Moon. I guess nothing is safe from pointless arguing. I guess what I’m saying is…

2024 sucks. And if I’m honest, I just wanna paint miniatures and watch Bluey. I think I might go do that now.

 

 

 

tribalism comes out on election years. this time around both options feel wrong and alternatives are certain to fail. i will be so glad when its over. and when it is its never as bad as the opposition claims and never as good as the winning side made it out to be and it turns out to have just been a popularity contest.

Edited June 12 by Nuke

[LHACK4142]

4 hours ago, BA-Forums said:

I am absolutely tired of stuff these days.
So many people are arguing about stupid crap these days. EVERYTHING IS WAY TOO POLARIZED! We just HAVE to get into arguments and heated debates about the most random things. It’s gotten so bad that families are literally fighting with each each other over stuff like politics and whatever. The culture wars made things worse, and everyone HAS to pick a side! Mate, I don’t WANT to pick a side! Social media didn’t help either. It’s just literal brain rot at some times, arguments at another, and it is just ENDLESS. Sure there are great places online, like here, but everywhere else feels like a war zone sometimes, online and offline. We have done great things before, and we did that by working together. Look at Apollo! But even people deny that humanity has been to the Moon. I guess nothing is safe from pointless arguing. I guess what I’m saying is…

2024 sucks. And if I’m honest, I just wanna paint miniatures and watch Bluey. I think I might go do that now.

I think the "solution" to this is mindset.  Sure, any given social media site's homepage is chock full (and then some) of toxicity and paints a very vivid picture that the world is doomed forever- but it's really all just for engagement.  Things aren't that bad in the real world.   For example, practically nobody actually  thinks humanity hasn't been to the moon, and TF2 casual isn't really  unplayable right now (I just played some matches yesterday), etc.  ad nauseam (look ma, latin!).  It's all not your problem!

[DDE]

11 hours ago, BA-Forums said:

It’s gotten so bad that families are literally fighting with each each other over stuff like politics and whatever.

I believe articles encouraging this began to crop up almost a decade ago (contemporary to Orange Man Bad: Part 1). People playing Pavlik Morozov was always the plan.

Inciting a totalitarian mindset is, unfortunately, a powerful electoral strategy - especially when you're on the backfoot and want to stigmatize dissent.

11 hours ago, BA-Forums said:

We have done great things before, and we did that by working together. Look at Apollo!

I am looking at Apollo.

Gallop polls show majority opposition to Apollo at the time. Like all too many things, popular perception of history heavily misrepresents this.

[BA-Forums]

9 hours ago, LHACK4142 said:

I think the "solution" to this is mindset.  Sure, any given social media site's homepage is chock full (and then some) of toxicity and paints a very vivid picture that the world is doomed forever- but it's really all just for engagement.  Things aren't that bad in the real world.   For example, practically nobody actually  thinks humanity hasn't been to the moon, and TF2 casual isn't really  unplayable right now (I just played some matches yesterday), etc.  ad nauseam (look ma, latin!).  It's all not your problem!

Good point, and I should probably do that. Thankfully, my Team Yankee starter force is coming on the 18th, so I can focus on that instead.

[ColdJ]

Since I joined this forum (which was to ask a question about how buoyancy worked in the game. Nobody told me and I finally worked out for myself.) I have got more answers and information by stating something and somebody posting to tell me I am wrong, then I ever got from asking a question and hoping someone would answer it. And I consider this a nice forum.

 

On 6/12/2024 at 5:07 AM, Lisias said:

I will tell you something: as soon as that printing bureau is back to business, I will go there, hug the dude and tell him I love him and that I don't want to live without him again. I hope my girlfriend will not freak out.

1 smart phone with camera, 1 box, preferably the ones that bulk A4 paper comes in, 1 tissue paper or baking paper, 1 torch if your smartphone camera app won't let you keep the torch on when taking a photo, a pencil, a ruler and a knife.

Draw a line from corner to corner on the lid using pencil and ruler to find the middle. Cut small hole in centre for camera to look through when flat on box lid, cut small hole for phone light or nearby for torch. Place document in the bottom of the box face up. Put on lid and place phone with camera on. Put tissue or baking paper between light source and hole to diffuse the light. Focus/zoom to frame the document. Click, you now have a digital photocopy.

Cheap life hack.

 

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, ColdJ said:

Since I joined this forum (which was to ask a question about how buoyancy worked in the game. Nobody told me and I finally worked out for myself.)

I've been playing since 2013 and I don't know how buoyancy works.

[ColdJ]

1 hour ago, Superfluous J said:

I've been playing since 2013 and I don't know how buoyancy works.

Today is your luck day.

This is a complicated one. You can to a small extent make things more likely to float or sink through the use of the parameter "buoyancy =" . 0 for not buoyant and up to 1.5 for most buoyant. The config for the stock Mk1 pod has a good example. But it is the mass of the object vs it's Drag Cube that play the biggest part. The drag cube is determined by the mesh volume not by it's colliders. If you don't have a specified Drag Cube in your config file then the game auto calculates on loading up. If the mass doesn't overcome the Drag Cube then it floats. The simplest thing to do if you want something to sit lower or sink in the water is to go into the PartDatabase text file in the main Kerbal Space Program folder, find a part that has a smaller but similar drag cube and copy it's auto calculated drag cube into your config. The game will use the Drag Cube you have in the config and so there will be less surface area vs the mass of the object calculated and it will be more likely to sink or sit lower in the water. Best not done on wing parts as the Drag Cube also affects flight/lift characteristics.

Additionally the drag cube determines where the outer surface is on a mesh, and so how it sits on the water. That means that a ship will sit on the very edge of it's keel on the surface of the water and look very unrealistic. To overcome this when making your 3D model make a second one and from the wanted water line to the bottom of the hull, remove that area of mesh from the model. Load it up and then retrieve the game calculated Drag Cube. Put this Drag Cube in your config for your original and then your original will sit at the waterline you chose instead of on the keel edge.

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, ColdJ said:

The drag cube is determined by the mesh volume not by it's colliders. If you don't have a specified Drag Cube in your config file then the game auto calculates on loading up. If the mass doesn't overcome the Drag Cube then it floats.

So, the Kerbal "buoyancy" is actually "surface tension", depending on size.

Spoiler

 

[ColdJ]

2 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

So, the Kerbal "buoyancy" is actually "surface tension", depending on size.

Not quite. As the game just uses an equation to decide. When you use the Drag Cube from a smaller model, you are tricking it into believing that the skin is closer in to the centre, same for my boat trick. What we see is not what the game thinks we see. The other thing I do for very large ships and submarines is add a ballast system. This just 2 generators in the config, one creates a resource that is dense, out of thin air to add weight, that overcomes the volume in the equation. The other removes that resource to remove that weight. You can start and stop the generator in the Models user interface and so control the weight vs volume equation. On land this could cause the model to be too heavy to move, but it works great in the water.

[richfiles]

I'm quite annoyed that Apple prioritizes their tablets and phones, over their consumer laptops and iMac, over their Pro and Studio desktops... I get it... Financially it makes sense to give the greatest support to iPhone and iPad, and then to the Macbooks, iMac, and Mini. Cater to where the greatest number of sales are... But professional and power users are exceptionally left high and dry with hardware updates...

Mac Pro users know that the "pro" in Pro stands for "prolonged waiting".

Both the Mac Studio and Mac Pro are now TWO GENERATIONS behind... Behind the tablet!? I get the technical reason (yield and scalability of a new process) for putting the M4 inside a tablet first, but could they SERIOUSLY not even bump the "pro" machines to M3? I've been using a first gen M1 Studio since I finally replaced my old Hackintosh that got zapped by the transformer that fell into a sink hole in front of my place, and I am still happy with this machine... It runs well, but I also bought the literal lowest end version of the release version of the Studio... I'm in a far better place financially, and I was feeling like it was time to step up to a new one... I was quite impressed with it being able to easily fullscreen Baldur's Gate 3 at 5120x1440, and I was just as impressed running Palworld under CPU/GPU emulation (Wine+Rosetta handled executing x64 instructions on the ARM64 CPU, and Apple's GPTK did a stellar job translating the Direct X API to Apple's Metal). If a first gen M1 could do that, I felt ready to see what the newest chip could do. I was waiting for WWDC for an announcement that simply never came. I'll still wait for the M4. I want my upgrade to be worth the expense (and oh boy... With the Apple Tax, it'll be expensive). Definitely a PROlonged wait...

I'm also getting quite disgusted at the absolute inability to upgrade anything anymore... Again, I understand the benefits of having RAM and storage be part of the SoC... Yes, it's blazingly fast, but there has been a long line of computers all through history that had differing tiers of memory speed. Nothing wrong with having fast SoC RAM, selectable only at purchase, but still include an externally facing memory I/O controller and RAM slots, to allow for slower but higher capacities for future upgrades. It's 100% a choice to not support this feature. Apple is all too happy charging a $200 Apple Tax on a measly 8-->16GB upgrade, or a 256GB-->512GB storage upgrade. It's absolutely obscene what Apple charges for bumps in RAM or storage. They couldn't do that if they had RAM slots. 

It's annoying how much I like using Mac OS, cause the company behind it is just plain awful. They've never returned Target Display Mode back to iMacs since moving to the 5K displays. The first gen 5K iMacs, like, I kinda get it. DisplayPort didn't yet support that resolution at full refresh rates, but the very next iteration DID support it... but to this day, nearly a decade of iMacs with STUNNING displays will never be able to be repurposed as beautiful monitors after their CPUs become long obsoleted. Just eWaste. Apple, the green company that loves to make eWaste. Apple loves recycling, cause they can pretend the Reduce and Reuse parts of the old slogan don't exist. Ugh.

===

On an entirely different subject than Rotten Apples... I really wish the place I worked for would hire another tech. When I started, we had 4 full time workers, 3 techs and a front desk person that handled more of the inventory and logistics stuff. Now we are down a tech, and the front desk person is semi-retired, down to 2 days a week. She's being retasked with logistics stuff from OUTSIDE our area, so her time is even less able to be utilized. While mostly holding on, occasionally, things will get busy, and things fall behind. Even when we are keeping up, it's just more stressful... Walkins, back room, phone support... Add occasional onsites and internal tech support, and it's easy to see where having 2 vs 3 people could be stressful. I still love this job. It's great, but I do come home a bit tired, a bit burned out... It's been approximately a year since I started my KSP instrument panel desk build. I ONLY JUST NOW finished the electrical work on that desk, and STILL need to take the old desk apart and replace it with the new one. (I'll try and have an update on that soon). It's just hard to do projects when all you wanna do is crash and veg out in front of youtube after a long day's work. I know part of it is just getting older. Less energy and all that... That's not even COUNTING my second part time job.

I've always loved that job. If I could have done that full time, I would have, 100%, but it's typically only the scarcest of part time. Most months, I'd only do about 12-14 hours in a 3-4 week period... It's usually just good for a little extra spending cash. We just got orders for parts that we haven't done since October 2021! I'd been doing that job with far more hours during the pandemic, till parts shortages caught up with us... Now that work has become more hectic at my primary job, things picking up again at the part time job are becoming very... much...

I can 100% handle both jobs, and I like both jobs, but at the same time, getting up at 8am, going to work at 9, leaving at 5 (sometimes 6) and grabbing a bite to eat, only to go and work another 3-4 hours at the machine shop makes for a day with no real free time. I do enjoy youtube videos while working... I like to put on stuff like documentaries and such, tech channels, whatever sound like a good listen. It's not like I get no me time while working that second job, It's just the timing was rough. I suppose I should try and sleep. I'm gonna force myself away from work and personal projects to spend time with family tomorrow...

That's another thing being so busy robs from me... My parents are in their 70s. I would definitely like to spend all the time with them that I can. I know that time keeps ticking. You never know when your time will come... I just learned this week that a cousin of mine just lost his son in an oil rig accident. His son was only 24, about to get married. Just like that, gone. My cousin lives nearly across the country from me. The last time I remember seeing him, I was the older cousin, showing a little kid his first video game (an Atari 2600). Sure, there was occasional updates, but I feel like it wasn't even that long ago being shocked that this grownup was that little kid I showed my video games to... Now enough time has passed that his own kid grew up. I never met his son. Not once. I haven't been to the state where he lives since 1992, and the last time he was here where I live was the late 80s. Outside of pictures, I have not seen him in 32 years. Try to set aside a little time now and then for those you care about. If you don't, you might just find out time came up and passed you by.

Don't let the years go by like that. You can't buy time.

Edited June 16 by richfiles

[Lisias]

I hate Mondays.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

I hate Mondays.

Truer words are rarely spoken aloud.

[Nuke]

On 6/11/2024 at 10:04 PM, LHACK4142 said:

I think the "solution" to this is mindset.  Sure, any given social media site's homepage is chock full (and then some) of toxicity and paints a very vivid picture that the world is doomed forever- but it's really all just for engagement.  Things aren't that bad in the real world.   For example, practically nobody actually  thinks humanity hasn't been to the moon, and TF2 casual isn't really  unplayable right now (I just played some matches yesterday), etc.  ad nauseam (look ma, latin!).  It's all not your problem!

using latin makes you sound smart. i picked up a lot just listening to behemoth.

[Nuke]

On 6/15/2024 at 11:56 PM, richfiles said:

I'm quite annoyed that Apple prioritizes their tablets and phones, over their consumer laptops and iMac, over their Pro and Studio desktops... I get it... Financially it makes sense to give the greatest support to iPhone and iPad, and then to the Macbooks, iMac, and Mini. Cater to where the greatest number of sales are... But professional and power users are exceptionally left high and dry with hardware updates...

Mac Pro users know that the "pro" in Pro stands for "prolonged waiting".

Both the Mac Studio and Mac Pro are now TWO GENERATIONS behind... Behind the tablet!? I get the technical reason (yield and scalability of a new process) for putting the M4 inside a tablet first, but could they SERIOUSLY not even bump the "pro" machines to M3? I've been using a first gen M1 Studio since I finally replaced my old Hackintosh that got zapped by the transformer that fell into a sink hole in front of my place, and I am still happy with this machine... It runs well, but I also bought the literal lowest end version of the release version of the Studio... I'm in a far better place financially, and I was feeling like it was time to step up to a new one... I was quite impressed with it being able to easily fullscreen Baldur's Gate 3 at 5120x1440, and I was just as impressed running Palworld under CPU/GPU emulation (Wine+Rosetta handled executing x64 instructions on the ARM64 CPU, and Apple's GPTK did a stellar job translating the Direct X API to Apple's Metal). If a first gen M1 could do that, I felt ready to see what the newest chip could do. I was waiting for WWDC for an announcement that simply never came. I'll still wait for the M4. I want my upgrade to be worth the expense (and oh boy... With the Apple Tax, it'll be expensive). Definitely a PROlonged wait...

I'm also getting quite disgusted at the absolute inability to upgrade anything anymore... Again, I understand the benefits of having RAM and storage be part of the SoC... Yes, it's blazingly fast, but there has been a long line of computers all through history that had differing tiers of memory speed. Nothing wrong with having fast SoC RAM, selectable only at purchase, but still include an externally facing memory I/O controller and RAM slots, to allow for slower but higher capacities for future upgrades. It's 100% a choice to not support this feature. Apple is all too happy charging a $200 Apple Tax on a measly 8-->16GB upgrade, or a 256GB-->512GB storage upgrade. It's absolutely obscene what Apple charges for bumps in RAM or storage. They couldn't do that if they had RAM slots. 

It's annoying how much I like using Mac OS, cause the company behind it is just plain awful. They've never returned Target Display Mode back to iMacs since moving to the 5K displays. The first gen 5K iMacs, like, I kinda get it. DisplayPort didn't yet support that resolution at full refresh rates, but the very next iteration DID support it... but to this day, nearly a decade of iMacs with STUNNING displays will never be able to be repurposed as beautiful monitors after their CPUs become long obsoleted. Just eWaste. Apple, the green company that loves to make eWaste. Apple loves recycling, cause they can pretend the Reduce and Reuse parts of the old slogan don't exist. Ugh.

===

On an entirely different subject than Rotten Apples... I really wish the place I worked for would hire another tech. When I started, we had 4 full time workers, 3 techs and a front desk person that handled more of the inventory and logistics stuff. Now we are down a tech, and the front desk person is semi-retired, down to 2 days a week. She's being retasked with logistics stuff from OUTSIDE our area, so her time is even less able to be utilized. While mostly holding on, occasionally, things will get busy, and things fall behind. Even when we are keeping up, it's just more stressful... Walkins, back room, phone support... Add occasional onsites and internal tech support, and it's easy to see where having 2 vs 3 people could be stressful. I still love this job. It's great, but I do come home a bit tired, a bit burned out... It's been approximately a year since I started my KSP instrument panel desk build. I ONLY JUST NOW finished the electrical work on that desk, and STILL need to take the old desk apart and replace it with the new one. (I'll try and have an update on that soon). It's just hard to do projects when all you wanna do is crash and veg out in front of youtube after a long day's work. I know part of it is just getting older. Less energy and all that... That's not even COUNTING my second part time job.

I've always loved that job. If I could have done that full time, I would have, 100%, but it's typically only the scarcest of part time. Most months, I'd only do about 12-14 hours in a 3-4 week period... It's usually just good for a little extra spending cash. We just got orders for parts that we haven't done since October 2021! I'd been doing that job with far more hours during the pandemic, till parts shortages caught up with us... Now that work has become more hectic at my primary job, things picking up again at the part time job are becoming very... much...

I can 100% handle both jobs, and I like both jobs, but at the same time, getting up at 8am, going to work at 9, leaving at 5 (sometimes 6) and grabbing a bite to eat, only to go and work another 3-4 hours at the machine shop makes for a day with no real free time. I do enjoy youtube videos while working... I like to put on stuff like documentaries and such, tech channels, whatever sound like a good listen. It's not like I get no me time while working that second job, It's just the timing was rough. I suppose I should try and sleep. I'm gonna force myself away from work and personal projects to spend time with family tomorrow...

That's another thing being so busy robs from me... My parents are in their 70s. I would definitely like to spend all the time with them that I can. I know that time keeps ticking. You never know when your time will come... I just learned this week that a cousin of mine just lost his son in an oil rig accident. His son was only 24, about to get married. Just like that, gone. My cousin lives nearly across the country from me. The last time I remember seeing him, I was the older cousin, showing a little kid his first video game (an Atari 2600). Sure, there was occasional updates, but I feel like it wasn't even that long ago being shocked that this grownup was that little kid I showed my video games to... Now enough time has passed that his own kid grew up. I never met his son. Not once. I haven't been to the state where he lives since 1992, and the last time he was here where I live was the late 80s. Outside of pictures, I have not seen him in 32 years. Try to set aside a little time now and then for those you care about. If you don't, you might just find out time came up and passed you by.

Don't let the years go by like that. You can't buy time.

honestly when was the last time a computer was actually upgradable? sure you have slots to plug things into, usually more than you need. but by the time your computer starts feeling slow there is going to be a new memory standard, or a new bus interface. cpu upgrades have never been viable because they always change the sockets. it works for a couple gens at most and thats really not a big enough of a performance delta to make monetary sense. these features mostly come in handy when something breaks, so you can replace a part instead of the whole system. even ram upgrades are not all they are cracked up to be. even having four identical sticks is no guarantee that you wont need to slow them down to make them play nice with eachother. its better to fill out your ram slots at build time to spec (and in accordance to the mobo's qvl) with all the other parts.

way i do upgrades is by alternating between core components, gpu, peripherals and storage on a yearly cycle. cases, power supplies and cooling are all being more intermittent upgrades, usually done as needed or when tech isnt moving as fast as my upgrade schedule, eg the intel slump. going fully to socs could likely get the costs way down  (granted thats the opposite of what apple does), everything is spec'd and soldered at the factory, its free of bottlenecks and breaks out a number of high speed interfaces. problem is without an open standard for socs, this kinda doesnt work, as you end up with a bunch of proprietary layouts and nothing connects across product ecosystems (this buzzword almost always means lock in and e-waste). open standards are preferred. apple seems to want to put on the hippy mask and then do corporate overloard things, not the company to emulate.

then just buy the model that fits your needs, slot it into your favorite peripheral stack (desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, etc). it will make it easier for diy system builders. put a monoblock on it and make it rgb. or if gpu size trends persist, plug it into your gpu. it also means that all the platforms will be able to run the same system so you no longer have the problem where you support one or two platforms and neglect the rest. granted if you create a system where you can change architecture as easy as changing soc then a unified system would need to support both architectures.

i think we may be approaching a point where existing computer tech hits a brick wall (post euv were gonna need to move to x-ray lithography, and that is going to be bloody expensive) and tighter integration will be necessary squeeze out any performance gains at cost. really tight, like having the dram on die with the cpu.

Edited June 18 by Nuke

[Fizzlebop Smith]

One thing that frustrates me, is when I cannot vent.

A person  will ask "what is wrong" or I find some obscure place on reddit / other social site which seems like it would be a good place to unload.

I'll see 5000 (hyperbole) posts with person after person ranting about .. stuff. Non matter how absurd the view or RAW the angst, many of these posts will be upvoted bit remain free of general advice.

Commentary, sure.. we all like to commiserate... but generally free of people trying to alter the OP opinion or educate them on an errant view.

Then low & behold.. I vent about some perfectly mundane thing thay has become absolutely normalized in the consumerist single-use paradigm within we live & BAM

The answer I was I was never seeking. As if some salvation lies within the insights of an anonymous therapist self appointed.

Thanks.. but sometimes I just wanna vent.

Edited June 18 by Fizzlebop Smith

[Nuke]

to be fair the corporate fat cats wouldnt make a buck if people didnt constantly clamor to get the latest and greatest thing only to find out its loaded with lock-in and is destined to be e-waste as soon as the updates stop. and we do it again, and again, and again. we have to buy that thing to remain culturally relevant. you get actively shunned into obscurity for not falling into the same traps as everyone else.  you would think they would learn by now. everything is a scam, that includes the future. the only redeeming factor of this incompetent system we find ourselves stuck in is that it could be much, much worse. there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.

Edited June 18 by Nuke

[ColdJ]

3 hours ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Thanks.. but sometimes I just wanna vent.

What, no fan or airconditioner?

Obviously joking.

One of the greatest and rarest things to find in this world is someone who will listen to you vent, take your side and not pass judgement or try to tell you how to fix something, just listen.

[Lisias]

14 hours ago, Nuke said:

using latin makes you sound smart. i picked up a lot just listening to behemoth.

quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur

 

11 hours ago, Nuke said:

to be fair the corporate fat cats wouldnt make a buck if people didnt constantly clamor to get the latest and greatest thing only to find out its loaded with lock-in and is destined to be e-waste as soon as the updates stop. and we do it again, and again, and again. 

I second that. People blame the Industry, completely ignoring that someone has to fund such Industry at first place.

The current generation of customers are funding their own slavery.

I would be laughing at them if they would not be dragging me with them.

People nowadays are just seeking immediate rewarding, completely disregarding any consequences beyound a couple days at best.

This is an excellent essay about the current situation on the Industry - and not only the Game one:

Quote

The industry is losing patience. It's 'we need to find a way to solve this problem in six months' in an industry where nothing gets done in six months.

Layden says it's ultimately the smaller studios and companies who suffer the most, who may have been acquired during this period of excess with the promise of creative freedom, only to find themselves having to cut back because of growth concerns by their parent company.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/shawn-layden-the-games-industry-needs-to-show-some-patience

 

[DDE]

Today I bring you the sordid tale of the Savon-K Affair.

Late last week, a number of clients of a Russian delivery-only restaurant went down with botulotoxin poisoning:

• Moscow - 169, including a junior coworker of mine
• Nizhnyi Novgorod - 14
• Tatarstan - 14

No fatalities reported.

The cause was almost instantly tracked back to the beans in Kuhnya na Rayone salads. These beans have been tracked to a small supplier and their truly space-age facility. This would be their sophisticated red bean storage (also the employee canteen and barracks):

The place was full of rotten wares. The security just let the journos onto the crime scene, but the employees - those that hadn't been rounded up by immigration authorities - fled on sight.

As I wrote some time ago, if you try to protect business interests during COVID by waiving most health and safety inspections, you better be prepared to live with the consequences.

Edited June 19 by DDE

[Lisias]

I'm getting too old for this modern age gadgets. (sigh)

So, I bought that fancy "Telefunken" (made in China) bluetooth headphones with noise canceling. A bit pricey for that not that cheap (but far from top notch) construction, but it works and frankly, it's something nowadays.

Nice, but I left it alone for some months until I needed it again.

But yesterday I had to watch a video on a secured network only available from my professional rig - but the video got a terribly low volume sound, the internal speaker didn't handled. My professional rig are not connected to anything but monitor, keyboard and mouse (and a dedicated VLAN on my router) due security concerns. Yes, I'm paranoid.

Ok, let's plug the thing on a P2 headset- but my Apple 3way to P2 adapter broke on my hands - God damned cheap plastics.

Well, let's use that Bluetooth headset - I bought it for these occasions! Guess if I managed to pair it with the rig? The damned thing just refused to be paired. Tried it on my personal rig, same thing (and I had used it there before!). Tried with my Steam Deck (never used the headset on it before), same thing. Spend almost an hour trying, no luck.

So let's download the video, copy it to my personal computer via the Firewire connection (the only way to access that machine outside that VLAN), and watch it right? Wrong, the video was flagged against download - and I would be infringing the security rules by doing it anyway.

I ended up using VNC to access the professional rig from my personal one (using the Firewire connection) to watch the damned video. It kinda worked, but boy, it's annoying.

Day was over, did some domestic affairs and gone to bed. I wanted to wake early today to carry on some due tasks I left pile up since last week due other issues (like a freaking scanner!!!). 

I waked by myself and noticed the phone's alarm ringed, but I didn't waked up - weird, but it happens sometimes. But then eating the breakfast I decided to watch a video, and got no sound from the phone!! It was completely muted: rings, media, everything - besides the volume controls telling me that something should being heard pretty loud...

Half a hour fiddling with the damned phone until I noticed the Bluetooth icon was telling me a connection was ongoing...

Then finally I connected the dots - last time I used that headphone, was on a teams meeting when my kitchen was being fixed and the noise was disturbing. And I completely forgot about.

So everytime I tried to pair the headphone, it had paired automatically with the last device it remembered that was in range: my phone that it was not even on the computer's table. Out of exasperation, I just had thrown the headphone on the table, liquided off, and gone to the VNC solution and forgot the damned thing on (and plugged on the wall to charge), and so the connection to my phone was left on until today when I noticed the phone was "muted".

So I turned the phone's Bluetooth off, tried to pair the headset to the professional rig and it worked on the spot - I'm watching that video again on the side monitor and everything is working fine now.

(sigh)

Now I don't know if modern life is getting really too complicated, or if I should seek a doctor fearing the initial stages of dementia.

On the bright side, that headset Bluetooth range is really pretty good to keep a connection between my phone on my bedroom and the headset on my desk on the office room in my home the whole night... Really impressive (but also worrying - lots of people that potentially can eavesdrop a Bluetooth connection on a condo! Flipper Zero/BlueSpy anyone?).

Edited June 20 by Lisias
Better phrasing, some tyops and autocorrectors screwing my life. Long monday...

[DDE]

Moscow has just had a Beaufort 9 storm with a few tornadoes, 1 dead, 18 wounded. Also, here's a new phobia for you: one guy really had to go in the middle of all of this. The wind flipped the portajohn over, door-first, trapping him inside - fortunately with a mobile phone, so he was freed in under 15 minutes.

There seems to be a pretty poor habit of not bolting these down at all, causing them to "wander" the streets during the summer storms.

[Lisias]

13 minutes ago, DDE said:

Moscow has just had a Beaufort 9 storm with a few tornadoes, 1 dead, 18 wounded. Also, here's a new phobia for you: one guy really had to go in the middle of all of this. The wind flipped the portajohn over, door-first, trapping him inside - fortunately with a mobile phone, so he was freed in under 15 minutes.

There seems to be a pretty poor habit of not bolting these down at all, causing them to "wander" the streets during the summer storms.

This one got really liquided off - pun really intended. (I'm trying hard not to laugh and secure my place in the deepness of the 10th Circle of Hell - yeah, a new one just for me!).

[AstroWolfie]

I just realized: with the internet, humanity has access to almost ALL the world’s knowledge. So, what do people do with it? Instead of reading, learning, debating, and improving it, people will search for an opinion based answer that they think is right instead of the real facts.
Here’s an example:

Spoiler

Search Query: Are pit bulls safe around kids? Answer: “Pit bulls have gained a reputation for being devoted family pets, and it's well-deserved. Their gentle nature, combined with their natural protectiveness, makes them excellent companions for children of all ages”

Search Query: Are pit bulls dangerous around kids? Answer: “The American Pit Bull Terrier is considered one of the most dangerous dog breeds – both in the U.S. and internationally. They are a very aggressive breed and have been known to attack and kill people. They are also very strong dogs and can easily overpower anyone that stands in their way.”

Why?