jarfil

@jarfil@beehaw.org

Programmer and sysadmin (DevOps?), wannabe polymath in tech, science and the mind. Neurodivergent, disabled, burned out, and close to throwing in the towel, but still liking ponies 🩄 and sometimes willing to discuss stuff.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

jarfil,

All Palestinians are Muslim? But Palestine’s ambassador the other day claimed it’s not a religious war, so it can’t be religion-phobic? Maybe whoever at Instagram is just a Zionist?

Well, Cities: Skylines 2 is here, and it's another broken game release.

I don’t really understand how people make the review threads, but we’re sitting at a 77 on OpenCritic right now. Many were worried about game performance after the recommended specs were released, but it looks like it’s even worse than we expected. It sounds like the game is mostly a solid release except for the...

jarfil, (edited )

Preorders. It used to be that you had to preorder the LOTR special edition on DVD with figurines to make sure the shop had existences
 then Kickstarter bastardized it into “pay to maybe get something”
 and Steam jumped onto the bandvagon of “pay hoping it might work some day”.

jarfil,

even with RTX 4090s and lowering the graphics to 1440p medium settings. Based on utilization numbers, it sounds like the GPU is limiting factor here.

What are the CPU utilization numbers? C:S is a notoriously CPU-first game, particularly with mods. If your CPU can’t calculate more than 10fps, you won’t get more than 10fps.

Those same streamers are also reporting 16GB of RAM usage when loading up a new map, which means that the minimum recommended spec of 8GB was a blatant lie from the devs.

It starts (barebones, slow as hell) with 8GB. You want 32GB or more for it to run somewhate decently.

Seriously, people don’t understand what “cache” means, maybe they should just create a ramdisk and install the game there to understand the concept.

jarfil, (edited )

freeing RAM is hard. Chrome gobbling up your whole memory is good when you’re using Chrome, but you don’t get it back when you alt+tab back to your game

Actually
 you can do it with two .bat files and a “ram cleaner” tool:

  1. Suspend all “chrome.exe” processes
  2. Free all working sets (since Chrome is suspended, it marks all the RAM used by Chrome as swappable/discardable)

Now your game can use all the RAM, the OS will just swap out or discard whatever was in use by Chrome as needed.

Want to go back to Chrome?

  1. Resume all “chrome.exe” processes

The OS will swap in whatever it swapped out, and let Chrome ask for as much RAM as it feels like.

jarfil, (edited )

Sort by Active

This is built in into Lemmy, you don’t need to look at votes to decide to participate.

While submitting a link can be a way to start a conversation, you don’t need to. Just write whatever you want, and click post.

Actually, why did OP put a meme image in this post? Want to ask something, then ask it. The place is what we make of it.

jarfil,

Another underlying aspect is the dimensionality:

  • Paper is 2D
  • IRL items are 3D
  • webpages are
 you’d be tempted to say “2D”, but look at the links, in how many directions one can move across webpages
 they’re n-D!

Going from nD to 3D, is a step back, and even when people don’t realize it consciously, they’ll keep falling back to the superior webpage solution.

Until someone puts the nD mobility into 3D worlds, there is no chance for them to take over.

jarfil,

Hi, can I join your fantasyland
?

(I was planning on trying setting up a Lemmy instance along those lines, but then life happened)

jarfil,

Standards bodies is where social protocols traditionally go to die (see Jabber/XMPP).

Fully portable accounts, even fully portable communities, is something possible with Lemmy (not implemented), along with several other interesting possibilities.

jarfil, (edited )

Right now, there are several elements:

  • Users — Mastodon deals with it by introducing a “Move” action that makes any followers switch from following the old user URL to a new user URL. A server export and import would be required for the user’s subscribed communities, config, and profile data.
  • Comments — This is where things get somewhat hairy, but possible; the new home server (instance) would need to re-publish the user’s content as coming from the new user URL. Ideally there could be a similar “Move” or “Takeover” activity that an instance could broadcast for each content item, so they would get reattached to the new user URL.
  • Interactions — Other user’s responses, boosts, faves, etc. reference old content URLs, so instances should follow the “Move” and “Takeover” events and fix those accordingly.
  • Lemmy Communities/Posts — This one’s actually the easiest: communities are just a special user that boosts any message sent to the community. You can clone a community right now by simply creating a “community user” and having it boost the same messages as the “source” community. Then you can delete the original, or have it de-boost stuff, or keep both boosts, or whatever.

Extras:

  • Cross-posting — A “community user” boosts a post from another (it’s a pity we don’t have this yet).
  • Splitting a Post — Have the second community user boost a post with just some of the comment threads, while the original de-boosts them. Now there are two posts with maybe comments that maybe follow different instance rules, or fit better with different instance profiles.
  • Post linking to a toot or comment — This would need some format change, but wouldn’t be too difficult.
  • Upgrading a comment to a post — This would require several of the previous features, but would allow moving off-topic conversations to their right place.
jarfil, (edited )

LLMs are capable of being applied to virtually any task which can be transcribed

Where “transcribed” means using any set of tokens, be it extracted from human written languages, emojis, pieces of images, audio elements, spatial positions, or any other thing in existence that can be divided and represented by tokens.

PS: actually
 why “in existence”? Why not throw in some “customizable tokens” into an LLM, for it to come up with whatever meaning it fancies for them?

jarfil,

Do you really understand how it works? What would you call a neural network with mirror neurons primed to react to certain stimuli patterns as the network gets trained
 a mirror, or a baboon?

jarfil, (edited )

I’m afraid that’s not correct, but clearly this discussion is over.

jarfil,

i don’t think adc was encumbered by patents

25 years after the fact.

If it were, they’d likely be expired by now.

I wonder if an adapter could be made some “DIY” way, if it needs to be active, it could be a fun project for someone into FPGAs.

jarfil,

I didn’t notice at first, the article itself links to a seemingly easy way of making a DIY adapter:


blogspot.com/
/hacking-dvi-cable-to-build-adc-to


If the demand is low enough to not even bother stocking them anymore, it would seem like someone could offer to sell them on Etsy or something, doesn’t seem to require much much tooling.

jarfil,

I haven’t been knitting since my grandma taught me as a kid, but a couple years ago I just fancied a cotton scarf
 and realized that getting a cheap knitting machine and some yarn, was cheaper than getting a scarf made with actual cotton instead of some poly-plastic trash.

Sure, it took some time getting set up, refreshing that old knowledge, and making a nice cotton pom-pom to put on one end, but on one hand it ended up being cheaper in raw cash, and on the other I got exactly what I wanted.

jarfil,

Cotton is awesome for autumn and the odd cold-ish summer day (
if we happen to get one of those ever again).

Looking for the BEST DEAL on Microsoft products at the CHEAPEST price with a LICENSE KEY? Look no further! (lemmy.opensupply.space)

Upgrade your Microsoft product key with ease by visiting Microprokey.com. Their website offers AFFORDABLE and EASY-TO-USE upgrade keys that will have your software up and running smoothly in no time. No hassle, no worries!...

jarfil,

Can we stop bumping this while hurling insults?

Report, block, go on with your life.

jarfil,

And here comes the kbin ad hominem strawman. Didn’t take long.

jarfil,

There are two problems: federation works best with a variety of instances of like-minded people, and people on open-registration generalistic instances abusing that to wreak havoc on other instances.

Same as Instances can fully de-federate from other instances, they should also be able to de-federate voting from “non-friendly” instances.

Current PC is too bad for Cities Skylines 2. Can anyone judge the PCPartPicker list I've put together?

This is based off the “Great tier” AMD build, but I’m waffling a bit on the price. I don’t really know a whole lot about PC specs, but I read this is supposed to be a good long-lasting build based on the DDR5 and something newer in the CPU or Video card. That being said, I’ve only really ever build mid-tier and while I...

jarfil,

Current PC is too bad for Cities Skylines 2. Can anyone judge the PCPartPicker list I’ve put together?

Wrong question. The right one would be:

“Based on the PCPartPicker list I’ve put together, how many mods will I be able to add to Cities Skylines 2?”

There is no PC in existence capable of running all of them all at once, but I’d recommend getting as much RAM as possible (256GB better than 32GB), it’s going to be your main bottleneck. Followed by the CPU
 and the SSD is only a bottleneck at load time. GPU is optional, CS2 barely uses it.

Also: better to have twice as much RAM, than RAM twice as fast. RAM itself is 100x faster than an SSD, so you’re better off keeping stuff in only 50x faster RAM, rather than going back and forth to a 100x slower SSD.

jarfil,

Technically, “automatically” would mean it gets sent all the time, while “without consent” would mean it might’ve got sent on request, just without consent.

jarfil,

Hm, I guess you’re right. That’s an interesting reflection on the concept of “automation”.

I Tested an HDMI Adapter That Demands Your Location, Browsing Data, Photos, and Spams You with Ads (www.404media.co)

An iPhone to HDMI adapter was discovered that, when plugged in, runs a program prompting users to download an app. This EZ Cast app collects extensive personal data and sends it to China for ad targeting. It requires location access, photos, and installs tracking cookies. The adapter appears designed to mimic official Apple...

jarfil,

Some post-humanist trends propose extinction as a fair way of achieving that, since it seems like greed is an inherent part of human nature.

jarfil,

In large corporations, that Hanlon’s Razor seems to have been given to a deranged monkey on speed. It’s weaponized stupidity at this point.

jarfil,

Star Citizen delivers exactly what it promises: an infinitely developing sci-fi starship sandbox simulator.

The pace of development is glacial? Well, yeah, this kind of project should have a thriving community of add-ons to be of any use, or have 1000x the developers/artists working on it 24/7
 but they decided to follow a single vision, instead of allowing people to fly in copyright infringing X-Wings and dildo shaped ships, so this is the resulting compromise.

jarfil,

Isn’t that the startup dream? To get acquired, then bail?

jarfil,

Is it possible to block a domain without blocking the OP?

You mean, block the domain of the link? Maybe you could do that with a keyword filter in an app. Unfortunately it’s not a native Lemmy/kbin function (yet, AFAIK).

jarfil,

The latter.

If you want a balanced conversation, let me start: haven’t played it, likely won’t play it in a long time, what would you want to discuss? 😀

jarfil,

I have to disable HDR on because it’s basically unplayable right now. Flashlight reflections on anything close to shiny are blinding.

Isn’t that the point of HDR, though? đŸ€š

jarfil, (edited )

iPhone vs. Apple

If you meant iPhone vs. Android
 there are actual arguments to support Android if you want a system you can take control of.

jarfil, (edited )

The MAC address is the address of the network card, which can be either built into the motherboard, or on a replaceable card
 so if that was the only thing they tracked, you could replace everything except that
 unless you have a network card with an editable MAC (they don’t need to be unique worldwide, only on the network they directly connect to).

Microsoft seems to use a slightly different system, where they’d generate a sort of hash for all the components, then allow a limited number of changes per year, so you can change the while computer a limited number of times a year
 but they call home all the time.

jarfil,

The MAC address is the Ethernet address of a network card endpoint, whether fixed or not. Multiple network cards, multiple MAC addresses. A single network card can also respond to more than one MAC address, or use randomized ones like in the case of your phone. They still tend to come with a factory fixed one, that is just used as a default when nothing else is changing it.

it can use the MAC address of the router itself (can’t really see why you’d ever want to do that)

That’s
 are you sure is what it says? There are MDM managed networks where a router can push an MDM profile to a device, and set its MAC that way, maybe it’s something like that?

A graphics card “shouldn’t” have a MAC address
 unless it has an output which can push Ethernet traffic (FireWire, HDMI HEC, etc.). A bit weird to have a licence locked to the GPU’s whatever-port MAC, but possible.

jarfil,

According to one estimate, Europe’s farm animals have a bigger carbon footprint than its cars.

According to another estimate, leisure cruise ships had a 10x bigger footprint than all Europe’s cars


But still, it’s great news to reduce farm animal carbon footprint. Not sure whether feeding larvae to piglets will achieve that though (they provide “stimulation”? ugh
), there seem to be better —direct— uses like insect flour, no need to even chew on them whole, although that’s also an option.

jarfil,

Saw that game on Steam last year, just as it was time to power wash the terrace.

PowerWash Simulator: IRL edition! 😄

Does Anyone Have a TIFU Moment When Cooking?

I was finishing a jar of extremely hot peppers (7 pot primos) that I had fermenting on Thanksgiving day. I made a hot sauce with them and cantaloupe. I had them in a pan at a low simmer to meld the flavors. The problem was the steam coming off was potent as hell. It filled the house when everyone was arriving and coughing from...

jarfil,

I’ve got that trained down to perfection: the moment I go “Oh no!”, I’m already running towards the sink and turning cold water to the max. Heat takes a moment to spread through skin and flesh, so if you quickly dump a bunch of running cold water onto it (not ice), then there is a chance it will take away the heat before it does too much damage. I’ve avoided what I’m sure would’ve been a decent blister more than once that way.

jarfil,

Hey Alexa, how 2 soldier

First step, you need to enlist. A soldiering iron will be issued to you, there will be many like it, but that one will be yours


jarfil,

You can waterproof anything with a thin latex film


Google Gmail continuously nagging to enable Enhanced Safe Browsing (www.bleepingcomputer.com)

The difference between the two security features is that Safe Browsing will compare a visited site to a locally stored list of domains, compared to Enhanced Safe Browser, which will check if a site is malicious in real-time against Google’s cloud services....

jarfil,

Pidgin didn’t use bridges, it tried to be “all the possible clients in one”
 with closed source protocols
 which went south, fast. It still works for some, though.

Matrix is running just fine, it doesn’t have the infinite flexibility of XMPP which made XMPP clients incompatible with each other, so as long as it doesn’t jump the shark, it’s just a matter of time to drive adoption.

jarfil,

The image is then uploaded to Yoti’s backend server for estimation

“Images are immediately, permanently deleted, and not used by Yoti for training purposes.”

the facial recognition does not presential a substantial risk to parents’ privacy or potential biases.

“To the extent that there is any risk, it is easily outweighed by the benefits to consumers and businesses of using this [Facial Age Estimation] method.”

Pretty sure only one of those statements can be true. I’d go with “there is a risk”.

jarfil,

The paradox is they start claiming no risk
 only to step by step admit there is a risk, to end with a “but it’s all fine, trust us”.

Adding that the images are not going to be used for training purposes by them, is like a robber saying “I didn’t break into that store
 just the one next door”.

jarfil,

For a long time, I didn’t feel fully rested with fewer than 11 hours of sleep
 meaning, except for some weekends, I felt like a zombie all the time
 but could fall asleep and take a nap any moment anywhere, for a few hours of wake up time worth (great for exams, conferences and the like: nap half an hour before, go totally fresh, fall on the nose afterwards). Then, last year, got some serious case of insomnia where I could neither fall asleep nor fully wake up for like a week straight
 that was much worse, felt like going crazy, had to start taking meds to sleep 2, then 4, then maybe 5 hours, and still wake up feeling like a train had passed me over. Then like a month ago, suddenly fell asleep at around 7pm, didn’t take my sleeping meds, and woke up totally refreshed at 2am
 the F!

So, based on personal anecdotal evidence
 I’d say sleep is a mystery, and I want my cyborg on/off switch now, please
 đŸ€–

jarfil,

Overwatch 2. Since the changes from old Overwatch, there is no real point in anything other than Quick Play, which means 5-10 minute games, and you are free to leave at any moment

Stray really disappointed me. I want a real cat game.

Just an open world survival game, only you’re a cat, dealing with regular cat problems. You have to hunt, avoid larger animals, compete with other cats, figure out which humans are dangerous and which will give you treats, judiciously spray things to maintain your territory, maybe mate and reproduce (your sex and fertility...

jarfil,

Not everyone can afford a fursuit capable of “judiciously spraying things to maintain your territory”
 or be let anywhere in one 😄

How often have games made you do a double take in real life? (i.imgur.com)

Maybe you see a plant you have to collect in game or a rock wall that looks different. What items have you caught out of the corner of your eye that you realïżŒized was just your brain so focused on looking for things in a game that you saw it IRL and made you double take?

jarfil,

After playing too much Ghost Recon, I once caught myself looking for a ditch I could jump into before “the guards” would come out of a farmhouse I was going to. Took me a full minute or two to shake off the feeling.

hybridhavoc, to gaming
@hybridhavoc@darkfriend.social avatar

Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23779039/microsoft-activision-blizzard-ftc-trial-win

From the article, quoting Judge Corley:

... the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore DENIED.

@gaming

jarfil,

From what I’ve heard, Blizzard’s C-suite and company culture was already poison before Activision. I’m not sure Microsoft will care about much more than getting a profit out of the deal.

jarfil,

What do you mean? There is an OP indicator (I mean, at least Liftoff shows one).

jarfil,

Then you’d get a degraded experience anyway, I don’t think the difference would be noticeable. Where it would be noticeable, would be with retro games on pretty old hardware.

Either way, even if it were to slow a game by 50%, that would still not be the biggest issue with Denuvo.

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