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The Tech Random Crap Thread

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Jun 28, 2017#1

DarkAudit

For when your issue/comment/question isn't really worth a new thread, and you'd rather not necro a thread more than four years old (full disclosure: I haven't even found one that recent that was on topic

).

So anyway. Had multiple streaming video tabs open in Chrome, and as I opened the second and third, the sound and frame rate in the first went to absolute crap and stayed that way. (Not to mention the video stream won't even attempt the connection until you are actually on that particular tab.) Decided to give Firefox a look, not that they've got that multiprocess thing going. Same 2-4 video tabs open. And it did NOT cut the bandwidth into incoherence.

Not to mention opening a block of comics from GoComics all at once feels a bit snappier in Firefox now than Chrome. Hmm...

Jun 28, 2017#2

PatrThom

Chrome is still one process per tab.
New Firefox allows tabs use more than one thread.

--Patrick

Jun 28, 2017#3

DarkAudit

Hmm. The image in @GasBandit's reply in the What Are You Playing thread is blocked in Firefox but not Chrome. And I can't find out why.

And now I have. Firefox doesn't support webp. So it's a @GasBandit problem for using a crap image format and not me.

Jun 28, 2017#4

GasBandit

DarkAudit said:
Hmm. The image in @GasBandit's reply in the What Are You Playing thread is blocked in Firefox but not Chrome. And I can't find out why.

And now I have. Firefox doesn't support webp. So it's a @GasBandit problem for using a crap image format and not me.

I dare say Giphy is the trendsetter. Firefox needs to get its butt in gear and keep up.

Jun 28, 2017#5

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
Hmm. The image in @GasBandit's reply in the What Are You Playing thread is blocked in Firefox but not Chrome. And I can't find out why.

And now I have. Firefox doesn't support webp. So it's a @GasBandit problem for using a crap image format and not me.

Yeah, I don't get to see them, either. It just tries to download a file instead of playing it because webp is a Google format, I think.

--Patrick

Jun 28, 2017#6

DarkAudit

GasBandit said:
I dare say Giphy is the trendsetter. Firefox needs to get its butt in gear and keep up.

OTOH, webp is a Google product. Nuff said.

Jun 28, 2017#7

Gared

My six year old WD 1TB external drive is finally starting to show signs of failure, so I'm in the middle of a 16 hour transfer of all data from that drive to my six month old WD 2TB Elements drive. Then I have to move all of my important docs and such to the elements drive as well, because my 10 year old internal hard drive is starting to show signs of failure (and just plain old age) as well. Right now it doesn't matter which browser I use, in the Chrome vs. Firefox debate, because any time either of them needs to check for cached data everything else I'm doing hangs until the cached data has been retrieved. Everything. Using the VideoStream app to cast to the TV? Hangs. Playing a game (Steam or otherwise)? Hangs. Opening a new tab? Hangs. Typed the word "maps" into the browser bar? Hangs. Working on a spreadsheet in Excel? Hangs. Opening a Word doc? Hangs. And let me tell you - it's always super fun to be wandering along in Minecraft and have it hang suddenly, then come back to a deathscreen and a resounding wave of creeper explosions.

The most annoying thing is that it seems to be hit-and-miss about what it will attempt to pull from the cache and what it won't - I've tried timing various pageload scenarios in order to nail down a pattern, but they're so unpredictable that it hasn't worked so far. The one thing that all of these scenarios do have in common though? Each time something is hanging up operations, the HDD light on my tower never turns off, never blinks, it's just on solidly. In fact, there are days when it's on more than it's off. If this house deal goes through, I'm taking some of our monthly savings and buying a new laptop and a docking station.

Jun 28, 2017#8

strawman

... And more RAM and an SSD.

Jun 28, 2017#9

PatrThom

...and another external to make a second copy of all your important stuff.

--Patrick

Jun 28, 2017#10

strawman

...and offsite unlimited "cloud" backup (carbonite, backblaze, etc)

Jun 28, 2017#11

Gared

stienman said:
... And more RAM and an SSD.

Undoubtedly. I've considered upgrading this machine many times over the years, but aside from occasionally upgrading the video card, everything else was too little return for too much investment - at its core, this is a 10 year old Lenovo workstation from the open-box/display unit shelf at Frys.

Jul 3, 2017#12

DarkAudit

Going to hit up the Pitt surplus store this morning. Looking at either one of their stack of i5 Optiplex 790s, or an HP Pro i7. I want to turn whatever I end up with into a Hackintosh.

Jul 3, 2017#13

Ravenpoe

I have a saitek x52 pro HOTAS flight stick. It is one of the most common flight sticks used in games, to the point that the in game controls in Elite Dangerous are modeled to look like it. It is a standard in flight sim gaming.

Windows X hates it. If I manually load the drivers it works just fine, but WinX also hates anyone who manually loads drivers. Any time I change my internet settings and forget to do all the loopholes that prevent WinX from automatically updating, it will immediately try to "fix" the drivers for that stick and completely break it, to the point that I have to them uninstall it completely and carefully reinstall the correct drivers so that windows fucking update can't screw it up.

What ever happened to "don't install updates unless I say to" option. Anyone remember when options like that existed? It was a great option.

Jul 3, 2017#14

GasBandit

Ravenpoe said:
I have a saitek x52 pro HOTAS flight stick. It is one of the most common flight sticks used in games, to the point that the in game controls in Elite Dangerous are modeled to look like it. It is a standard in flight sim gaming.

Windows X hates it. If I manually load the drivers it works just fine, but WinX also hates anyone who manually loads drivers. Any time I change my internet settings and forget to do all the loopholes that prevent WinX from automatically updating, it will immediately try to "fix" the drivers for that stick and completely break it, to the point that I have to them uninstall it completely and carefully reinstall the correct drivers so that windows fucking update can't screw it up.

What ever happened to "don't install updates unless I say to" option. Anyone remember when options like that existed? It was a great option.

GasBandit said:
Never update. Never reboot.

Jul 3, 2017#15

DarkAudit

The optiplex 790 was $50 with an i5 and 8GB RAM. Needs an HDD.

Pitt has a surplus store open to the public. WVU does not. [emoji30]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Jul 3, 2017#16

DarkAudit

Small argh. Intel HD graphics 2000. Not really a Hackintosh candidate. SFF case means a low profile video card is necessary to continue down that path. A PSU upgrade may also be needed. 250W stock.

Jul 3, 2017#17

PatrThom

Well on the plus side, the Macs that shipped with Sandy Bridge can run the current OS (10.12), so you shouldn't be limited to 10.11 or any of the older ones.

--Patrick

Jul 3, 2017#18

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
Well on the plus side, the Macs that shipped with Sandy Bridge can run the current OS (10.12), so you shouldn't be limited to 10.11 or any of the older ones.

--Patrick

I've got plenty to do with it in the meantime anyway. Just installed a 1TB HDD and had to settle for a displayport to HDMI adapter if I wanted to hook it up to anything today.

So for the time being, this $50 Optiplex will have a 43" monitor.

Jul 4, 2017#19

Eriol

I can't make this up: Eastlink customer's 20-year-old email account shut down over unusual address

A Halifax man is facing the daunting task of going through almost two decades of email messages after his email provider served notice it was deactivating his account in 30 days because of his email address: noreply@eastlink.ca
...

So this isn't recent trolling, he's had it for 20 years.

Jul 5, 2017#20

Denbrought

Eriol said:
I can't make this up: Eastlink customer's 20-year-old email account shut down over unusual address
So this isn't recent trolling, he's had it for 20 years.

Part of the reason why I pay for a domain, so I can have an owned e-mail address to alias over my Gmail (Also because xx@xxx.xxx is far easier to write down than xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx). Reminds me I need to switch more services to the custom address.

Jul 5, 2017#21

GasBandit

Denbrought said:
Part of the reason why I pay for a domain, so I can have an owned e-mail address to alias over my Gmail (Also because xx@xxx.xxx is far easier to write down than xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx). Reminds me I need to switch more services to the custom address.

I kinda tried that for a while too, but "gmail" is shorter to type than "gasbanditry"

Ah well. But, for the record, gasbandit at gasbanditry.com does forward to my gmail account.

Jul 5, 2017#22

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
gasbandit at gasbanditry.com does forward to my gmail account.

...where it will be vacuumed up into the telemetry factory oh wait they promised they were going to stop that.

--Patrick

Jul 5, 2017#23

Denbrought

GasBandit said:
I kinda tried that for a while too, but "gmail" is shorter to type than "gasbanditry" Ah well. But, for the record, gasbandit at gasbanditry.com does forward to my gmail account.

Aw, I was gonna suggest grabbing gas@band.it, but the domain is taken.

Edit: Get on with the times, gas.af and gas.moe are available!

Jul 5, 2017#24

GasBandit

Denbrought said:
Edit: Get on with the times, gas.af and gas.moe are available!

Weird and scary.

Jul 6, 2017#25

DarkAudit

I hadn't logged into my Imageshack account in over a year. I didn't realize they held everyone's images hostage in order to coerce them into switching to a paid account. Fuck that noise. The placeholders for all my stuff were still there, but not the images. A reply to a comment on the ransom demand suggested emailing support to get the images back. So I did. Then I'm taking them elsewhere. Fuck those guys.

Jul 6, 2017#26

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
I hadn't logged into my Imageshack account in over a year. I didn't realize they held everyone's images hostage in order to coerce them into switching to a paid account. Fuck that noise. The placeholders for all my stuff were still there, but not the images. A reply to a comment on the ransom demand suggested emailing support to get the images back. So I did. Then I'm taking them elsewhere. Fuck those guys.

Yeah, it's been making headlines, just like "pay $400 to see your images" Photobucket. The kind of headlines that say things like, "how much longer do you think they will exist as a company?"

--Patrick

Jul 6, 2017#27

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
Yeah, it's been making headlines, just like "pay $400 to see your images" Photobucket. The kind of headlines that say things like, "how much longer do you think they will exist as a company?"

--Patrick

Hmm. Here's a test...

Should be the GB Ewok if they haven't started enforcing the new terms.

In any case, I'm downloading everything out of my bucket right now. Screw these guys, too.

Jul 6, 2017#28

GasBandit

I can see it.

Jul 6, 2017#29

DarkAudit

GasBandit said:
I can see it.

Cool.

Also, damn. Dude. Just... dude. :thumbsup:

Jul 6, 2017#30

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
Hmm. Here's a test...

Should be the GB Ewok if they haven't started enforcing the new terms.

In any case, I'm downloading everything out of my bucket right now. Screw these guys, too.

It's like we have our own ewok canary.

--Patrick

Jul 10, 2017#31

DarkAudit

Looking at Newegg and Amazon, an i7-3770 by itself is more expensive than the refurbished systems it's installed in. And absolutely nothing less than $250.

iMessage is working, so I think I've cleared all the hurdles of getting a full-on hackintosh working. According to TonyMacX86 forums, the 7010 is one of the easiest systems to hackintosh. Fine by me.

BTW: who here runs macs as their daily driver?

Jul 10, 2017#32

strawman

DarkAudit said:
BTW: who here runs macs as their daily driver?

I use a number of computers, but I spend 30+ hours a week on my macbook these days (and 20+ hours on various windows machines). Three weeks ago hardly at all. The mac specific contract will be done in 7-10 weeks, though, so I might be back to windows for 90% of my usage.

Sooo.... I guess I'm not sure if I meet the definition of "daily driver" but it's a tool, I use it a lot at times.[DOUBLEPOST=1499696754,1499696715][/DOUBLEPOST]I'm on it right now because my work computer has no internet this morning.

Jul 10, 2017#33

DarkAudit

stienman said:
I use a number of computers, but I spend 30+ hours a week on my macbook these days (and 20+ hours on various windows machines). Three weeks ago hardly at all. The mac specific contract will be done in 7-10 weeks, though, so I might be back to windows for 90% of my usage.

Sooo.... I guess I'm not sure if I meet the definition of "daily driver" but it's a tool, I use it a lot at times.[DOUBLEPOST=1499696754,1499696715][/DOUBLEPOST]I'm on it right now because my work computer has no internet this morning.

I was thinking more along the lines of a Mac as the weapon of choice for most recreational computing. I've got Deluge and VLC for my torrenting and video watching, but I haven't found an equal to Irfanview for my image viewer or Newsbin for USENET yet.

Jul 10, 2017#34

MindDetective

DarkAudit said:
Looking at Newegg and Amazon, an i7-3770 by itself is more expensive than the refurbished systems it's installed in. And absolutely nothing less than $250.

iMessage is working, so I think I've cleared all the hurdles of getting a full-on hackintosh working. According to TonyMacX86 forums, the 7010 is one of the easiest systems to hackintosh. Fine by me.

BTW: who here runs macs as their daily driver?

I do.

Jul 10, 2017#35

strawman

DarkAudit said:
I was thinking more along the lines of a Mac as the weapon of choice for most recreational computing. I've got Deluge and VLC for my torrenting and video watching, but I haven't found an equal to Irfanview for my image viewer or Newsbin for USENET yet.

I'm not your guy then. I have pixelmater for image editing, and just use the built in apps (and MS office) for most of my other stuff. I use vmware fusion and a windows 7 pro image to run windows apps on it, but there's a performance penalty for that type of usage.

Jul 10, 2017#36

GasBandit

I accidentally installed XP SP2 instead of SP3 on the media PC. Sooooo pretty much nothing after 2010 will run on it, including any version of VLC that can deal with H.x265

Oopsie. Guess I better dig up my SP3 CD... ooooorrrrr maybe this is a good chance to play around with a linux install... or maybe kodi (formerly XBMC).

Jul 10, 2017#37

DarkAudit

GasBandit said:
I accidentally installed XP SP2 instead of SP3 on the media PC. Sooooo pretty much nothing after 2010 will run on it, including any version of VLC that can deal with H.x265 Oopsie. Guess I better dig up my SP3 CD... ooooorrrrr maybe this is a good chance to play around with a linux install... or maybe kodi (formerly XBMC).

If you want it to Just Work, any of the flavors of Ubuntu will do. If you want to build your Linux chops a bit more, Arch is very nice. And the rolling release policy means that as long as it's updated, you need never do a full install again. If you are on the masochistic side and don't mind starting an install in the evening and having it wrap up during your morning coffee, there's always Gentoo.

(I poop you not. If something like Chrome or Firefox had an update on my Gentoo machine, I'd start it before bed and let it compile overnight. Even on an i5, it could take hours.)

Jul 10, 2017#38

GasBandit

DarkAudit said:
If you want it to Just Work, any of the flavors of Ubuntu will do. If you want to build your Linux chops a bit more, Arch is very nice. And the rolling release policy means that as long as it's updated, you need never do a full install again. If you are on the masochistic side and don't mind starting an install in the evening and having it wrap up during your morning coffee, there's always Gentoo.

(I poop you not. If something like Chrome or Firefox had an update on my Gentoo machine, I'd start it before bed and let it compile overnight. Even on an i5, it could take hours.)

I'll probably go with Ubuntu, if I can't find my SP3 cd within a couple minutes of searching. I'm not looking for another project that will eat into my RimWorld time

Jul 10, 2017#39

DarkAudit

GasBandit said:
I'll probably go with Ubuntu, if I can't find my SP3 cd within a couple minutes of searching. I'm not looking for another project that will eat into my RimWorld time

Then yeah, Ubuntu, Kubunto (KDE), or Xubuntu (XFCE) is the way to go. Gentoo would swallow your RimWorld time whole.

Jul 10, 2017#40

PatrThom

I use a Mac as my daily driver.
And also a WinX PC.
And an iPad and iPhone.
Yes, all of them, daily.

And @GasBandit, if you can't find your SP3 CD, I can always try to send you the package somehow.

--Patrick

Jul 10, 2017#41

strawman

google "windows xp sp3 iso"

Jul 10, 2017#42

PatrThom

stienman said:
google "windows xp sp3 iso"

The ISO is also still available directly from Microsoft...IF you know where to look. That's how I found it, but don't ask me the link, I didn't find it until after who knows how many wrong turns, dead links, redirects, etc., but once you finally find the deep link, the ISO is still at the other end of it.

--Patrick

Jul 10, 2017#43

Sara_2814

DarkAudit said:
I was thinking more along the lines of a Mac as the weapon of choice for most recreational computing. I've got Deluge and VLC for my torrenting and video watching, but I haven't found an equal to Irfanview for my image viewer or Newsbin for USENET yet.

I use a Mac every day.

What do you use Irfanview for? If you just need to open images, Mac OS comes with Preview (supported file types). If you need to do image editing/converting, I recommend GraphicConverter. It's $40, but it's money well spent. I used it for years, and only stopped using it because I got Photoshop.

I haven't used Usenet in 20+ years, so can't give a direct recommendation, but you're sure to find something in the App Store.

Jul 10, 2017#44

GasBandit

Hah Irfanview... that takes me back.[DOUBLEPOST=1499710583,1499710527][/DOUBLEPOST]

stienman said:
google "windows xp sp3 iso"

PatrThom said:
The ISO is also still available directly from Microsoft...IF you know where to look. That's how I found it, but don't ask me the link, I didn't find it until after who knows how many wrong turns, dead links, redirects, etc., but once you finally find the deep link, the ISO is still at the other end of it.

--Patrick

Installing/updating XP is a lot more "interesting" a process than it used to be, given that the registration/validation servers no longer respond to query. I've gotten around it for now by registry-editing WGA's timer keys.

Jul 10, 2017#45

DarkAudit

I use Irfanview just for image viewing. Unless I missed a setting, Preview doesn't resize from one image to the next, especially when enlarging to fit. So far I'm playing around with Sequential and Xee.

Jul 10, 2017#46

PatrThom

Sara_2814 said:
If you need to do image editing/converting, I recommend GraphicConverter. It's $40, but it's money well spent. I used it for years, and only stopped using it because I got Photoshop.

I started with Photoshop 5 (not CS5, just 5), moved to GIMP when the OS support ran out, moved to Pixelmator, but lately I've been really impressed with Affiinity Photo.

GasBandit said:
Installing/updating XP is a lot more "interesting" a process than it used to be, given that the registration/validation servers no longer respond to query. I've gotten around it for now by registry-editing WGA's timer keys.

Yeah, getting the latest update engine to install is a royal pain. You have to install Microsoft Update because Windows Update is no longer supported...it acts like the page has actually been set up to refuse connections from browsers older than Win7.

--Patrick

Jul 10, 2017#47

Sara_2814

DarkAudit said:
I use Irfanview just for image viewing. Unless I missed a setting, Preview doesn't resize from one image to the next, especially when enlarging to fit. So far I'm playing around with Sequential and Xee.

Preview's resizing is in the Tools menu.

Jul 10, 2017#48

PatrThom

Sara_2814 said:
Preview's resizing is in the Tools menu.

If only it weren't so finicky about resolution/dpi, though.
...and had better resampling.

--Patrick

Jul 11, 2017#49

DarkAudit

Argh. Dropbox. ICloud Drive. OneDrive. So many different storage methods all winding up on my systems more or less by default.

Jul 11, 2017#50

GasBandit

Jul 11, 2017#51

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
Argh. Dropbox. ICloud Drive. OneDrive. So many different storage methods all winding up on my systems more or less by default.

You know that scene in BttF2 in the "diner" where Regan and Khomeini Headroom are fighting for Marty's attention? That's what it feels like between all the different cloud storage, cloud music, cloud syncing, etc.
That said, I gotta say I'm less likely to recommend OneDrive these days. For reasons.

--Patrick

Jul 11, 2017#52

Eriol

This is awesome: Microsoft’s default font is at the center of a government corruption case

Accused of illegally profiting from his position since the 1990s, Sharif is now under investigation by the Joint Investigative Team -- a collective of Pakistani police, military, and financial regulators -- after a treasure trove of evidence surfaced with 2016's release of The Panama Papers. In a report obtained by Al Jazeera, investigators recommended a case be filed in the National Accountability Court after concluding there were "significant gap" in Sharif's ability to account for his familial assets. [...] Sharif contends that neither he, nor his family, profited from his position of power, a denial that came under scrutiny today after his daughter and political heir apparent, Maryam Nawaz, produced documents from 2006 that prove her father's innocence. Unfortunately for the Nawaz family, type experts today confirmed the documents were written in Calibri, a font that wasn't available until 2007.

(Summary pulled from Slashdot) (Bold mine)
No malfeasance from Microsoft here, but amusing how central fonts can be to things.

Jul 17, 2017#53

fade

GasBandit said:

Pbbt. Inheritance is awesome if you don't use it for things you shouldn't use it for. That's where people get in trouble. Plus, you can technically do inheritance in C anyway. Just set up a struct full of function pointers and connect them up in your derived struct. It's not enforcable, but that's C for you.

Jul 17, 2017#54

DarkAudit

I got the ransom demand letter from Photobucket tonight. I told them to kiss my ass.

Jul 24, 2017#55

Eriol

AMD's newest BOXES for their new Ryzen Threadripper processors are comedically large IMO.

Jul 24, 2017#56

strawman

Wow, those are interesting processors. 2 dies in the chip, 4094 pins (It's a big chip), up to 1TB of memory supported (though good luck getting the eight 128GB memory modules needed).

Hopefully the box is big because it includes the necessary 200W+ cooling solution.

I'll gladly do an unboxing if someone sends me one. It's only $1,000 (list), which is a bargain at $63 per core!

Jul 24, 2017#57

PatrThom

It's essentially 2 Ryzen chips bolted together. I'm interested to see how it will perform in real-world usage.
If you're going $ per core, AMD is still the best value, so even if they don't have the best single-thread performance (for things like games), being able to put 32 cores in one socket for only $1k is better than Intel's least expensive 16-core offering, the Xeon Gold 6130, which costs almost $2k and yes, that's the least expensive. The most expensive one (the 6142M) is $6k. AMD is very likely going to be getting a lot of customers.

--Patrick

Jul 24, 2017#58

GasBandit

That'd make for a sweet-as-hell video producing rig, or space engineers dedicated server tho (now that it actually, allegedly, supports multithreading/multicore processing)/

Jul 24, 2017#59

strawman

I'd want two to set up as virtual servers with high availability, via proxmox.

Jul 24, 2017#60

PatrThom

stienman said:
I'd want two to set up as virtual servers with high availability, via proxmox.

TIL proxmox. Dunno when I might try it out, but...thanks!

--Patrick

Jul 24, 2017#61

strawman

I just learned about it a day ago. My family sorely needs a plex server, a file server, and I'd tinker with a few other things if I had a server I could just deploy systems to as needed. I'm used to Windows Server, but that's certainly out of range, especially if you want to do clusters and high availability.

The fact that you can get all that with open source software now is pretty amazing.

Jul 24, 2017#62

PatrThom

I was looking at learning how to VMWare but if I can do it all for free, well...

--Patrick

Jul 25, 2017#63

DarkAudit

When all you end up doing is running Chrome, Deluge, SABnzbd, and VLC, in the end what does it matter what OS you run it on?

Jul 25, 2017#64

Denbrought

DarkAudit said:
When all you end up doing is running Chrome, Deluge, SABnzbd, and VLC, in the end what does it matter what OS you run it on?

It would matter a whole lot if you managed to run those on TempleOS.

Jul 25, 2017#65

DarkAudit

Denbrought said:
It would matter a whole lot if you managed to run those on TempleOS.

Find me one person not connected to the author who runs that unironically. Just one.

"Holy C"? You have got to be fucking kidding me.

Jul 25, 2017#66

Eriol

Denbrought said:
It would matter a whole lot if you managed to run those on TempleOS.

DarkAudit said:
Find me one person not connected to the author who runs that unironically. Just one.

"Holy C"? You have got to be fucking kidding me.

I didn't "get" it from Denbrought's original comment. Then Dark's comment reminded me that I had heard of it before... probably in some type of satirical list.

Well played Den.

Jul 25, 2017#67

DarkAudit

Eriol said:
I didn't "get" it from Denbrought's original comment. Then Dark's comment reminded me that I had heard of it before... probably in some type of satirical list.

Well played Den.

I hadn't heard of it until today. Apparently the author has serious mental issues, but is also brilliant at the same time.

Jul 25, 2017#68

Eriol

DarkAudit said:
I hadn't heard of it until today. Apparently the author has serious mental issues, but is also brilliant at the same time.

I think it's more likely he's like Paula Bean. Or possibly this type of brilliant.

Jul 25, 2017#69

Denbrought

DarkAudit said:
Find me one person not connected to the author who runs that unironically. Just one.

Alec Murphy, for one, uses (and writes software/drivers) for it as a hobby.

There's others scattered around, mostly the kind of people who like unusual programming environments or have a (non-malign) appreciation for its strangeness.

Jul 26, 2017#70

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
It's like we have our own ewok canary.

--Patrick

Annnnd it's gone. Screw you, photobucket.

Jul 27, 2017#71

Eriol

This is near-insanity what's happening with supercomputers:

That rig purports to get 70 TFLOPS. That's terrifying because that's only 3 orders of magnitude (1000 times less) than the #1 in the WORLD, the Sunway TaihuLight which pulls 90PFLOPS. And this thing could almost sit on your desk. Oh, and according to the article: $7,495

This is nuts. It's awesome, but nuts.

Jul 27, 2017#72

Ravenpoe

Eriol said:
This is near-insanity what's happening with supercomputers:
View attachment 25058
That rig purports to get 70 TFLOPS. That's terrifying because that's only 3 orders of magnitude (1000 times less) than the #1 in the WORLD, the Sunway TaihuLight which pulls 90PFLOPS. And this thing could almost sit on your desk. Oh, and according to the article: $7,495

This is nuts. It's awesome, but nuts.

This is why gpu prices have skyrocketed. Damn you, cryptocurrency

Jul 27, 2017#73

PatrThom

That's what Intel's Xeon Phi was supposed to deliver. It was supposed to be many dozens of GPx86 cores on a card, so you could effectively have a cluster on a card, and then put many of them in one box.

Also that box is full of GTX 980's. The current 1070 and 1080 cards outclass them (even the 980ti!), so there's still potentially 50% or so more FLOPS to be had, assuming you could source the cards.

--Patrick

Jul 27, 2017#74

PatrThom

PatrThom said:
The current 1070 and 1080 cards outclass them (even the 980ti!), so there's still potentially 50% or so more FLOPS to be had, assuming you could source the cards.

Case in point.

--Patrick

Jul 28, 2017#75

Eriol

PatrThom said:
Case in point.

--Patrick

GH/s is Giga-Hashes per second I assume?

Terrifying either way though. Yikes!

Jul 28, 2017#76

PatrThom

Eriol said:
GH/s is Giga-Hashes per second I assume?
Terrifying either way though. Yikes!

I don't know which is more terrifying...the number of GH/s, or the fact that it can pull up to 4kW from the wall. "Yikes," indeed.

--Patrick

Jul 28, 2017#77

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
I don't know which is more terrifying...the number of GH/s, or the fact that it can pull up to 4kW from the wall. "Yikes," indeed.

--Patrick

Found a thread where a guy kept dismissing power costs because he "lived in an apartment" that covered utility costs. Dude, you'll have more to worry about than an an electric bill when the landlord finally figures out it's you.

Jul 28, 2017#78

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
Found a thread where a guy kept dismissing power costs because he "lived in an apartment" that covered utility costs. Dude, you'll have more to worry about than an an electric bill when the landlord finally figures out it's you.

Yeah, it's guys like that who come to mind when ISPs say things like, "Our data caps only affect a very small percentage of our users," cuz you know he's the guy who's seeding 50GB/day because "...it's included in the rent."

--Patrick

Jul 28, 2017#79

Eriol

Eriol said:
This is awesome: Microsoft’s default font is at the center of a government corruption case

(Summary pulled from Slashdot) (Bold mine)
No malfeasance from Microsoft here, but amusing how central fonts can be to things.

Follow-up to this: Calibri font plays its role: Pakistan now Sans Sharif as Prime Minister is disqualified

Not my pun!

Aug 3, 2017#80

Eriol

Fascinating: For 20 Years, This Man Has Survived Entirely by Hacking Online Games

Not a huge surprise. I wish he'd done it live on stage though. That would have been awesome.

Aug 4, 2017#81

DarkAudit

So... Apparently the i5-2500K can OC to 5GHz relatively easily on an ASRock motherboard. I was able to get it to run the same Cinebench benchmark as the guy in the tutorial.

But when I went to run the Prime95 blend test, things started to go south. First I got a BSOD crash, and tweaking all the OC settings to auto resulted in a freeze at the motherboard logo screen. So I backed off to the 4.8GHz presets. This time Prime95 pegged the temps during the second round of tests. So I back off again to the 4.6GHz presets I've been running for years. Prime95 blend test again pegged the temps, but it took a couple of minutes longer this time.

I'm running a Corsair H50 liquid cooler with a push-pull fan setup. Granted, however, it's been in place for 6 years and counting. Best I've been able to do is give the fans and radiator a good blast with canned air every few weeks.

Darn it, I want that 5GHz!

Aug 8, 2017#82

mikerc

Patent troll loses in court. No, Personal Audio you didn't invent podcasting. We know it, the EFF knows it, the patent office knows it & now the courts have said they know it too. Now kindly fuck off and die.

Aug 9, 2017#83

PatrThom

About time.
Technology should never be about wringing settlements.
Technology should be about technology.
Hey just make patents like this non-transferrable, problem solved*.

--Patrick
*...and other problems created but whatever

Aug 9, 2017#84

DarkAudit

After cracking open the main PC for a cleaning, I start wondering if it's time to upgrade. Turns out not. Experts still love the 2500K. The H50 cooler can hit near ambient at idle and under the 85C optimal stress test load at a 4.6GHz overclock. the motherboard is optimized for the memory speed I already have. The only worthwhile upgrade is a GPU, and thanks to the miners, it's too expensive an option.

Thanks, Tom's Hardware. The advice you gave me in 2011 was *too* good. I can't justify satisfying the build itch on a new main system. I'll just have to find a use for that last spare CPU from the surplus boxes I got from Pitt.

Aug 9, 2017#85

PatrThom

You have my agreement as well. The best performers since the Sandy/Ivy bridges are the Devil's Canyon chips (4790k/4690k) and the desktop Broadwells (5775C/5675C). Everything else has been disappointing.

--Patrick

Aug 10, 2017#86

Wahad

So my grandpa's old computer has run into an issue where the screen flickers to a blank, light-grey state after booting up past the windows starting screen. The computer still works (autoplay runs an audio disc fine, for example), but the screen refuses to show anything but the grey. No cursor, no icons, no nothing. The screen also doesn't show any of the onboard menus/settings (contrast etc.), so it's not a faulty setting there.

Checked the vga cable, and there was nothing wrong with that (no bent pins, no cable interruptions, etc.). So my first guess was that it's the video card that's burned out for whatever reason (like I said, the computer is pretty old); but it could also be the monitor simply giving up, I guess. My question; how the heck do I test which one it is before we buy a replacement? I don't really have access to either a video card or a spare screen that I can borrow from anybody, which takes the easy answer to that question out of the equation, and if I buy one and it turns out to be the other, that's a waste of money.

Aug 10, 2017#87

Bubble181

Wahad said:
So my grandpa's old computer has run into an issue where the screen flickers to a blank, light-grey state after booting up past the windows starting screen. The computer still works (autoplay runs an audio disc fine, for example), but the screen refuses to show anything but the grey. No cursor, no icons, no nothing. The screen also doesn't show any of the onboard menus/settings (contrast etc.), so it's not a faulty setting there.

Checked the vga cable, and there was nothing wrong with that (no bent pins, no cable interruptions, etc.). So my first guess was that it's the video card that's burned out for whatever reason (like I said, the computer is pretty old); but it could also be the monitor simply giving up, I guess. My question; how the heck do I test which one it is before we buy a replacement? I don't really have access to either a video card or a spare screen that I can borrow from anybody, which takes the easy answer to that question out of the equation, and if I buy one and it turns out to be the other, that's a waste of money.

No other computer you can lug the screen to, either? Connect it to your laptop or something? The only way to know which of the three (I never rule out the cable and connectors even if they look fine

) is to check them separately.

Aug 10, 2017#88

Wahad

D'oh. Yeah, alright. That makes sense. Laptop it is.

Aug 10, 2017#89

Bubble181

Wahad said:
D'oh. Yeah, alright. That makes sense. Laptop it is.

Good luck, hope the laptop has a connector that can hook up to the screen. If it's a relatively modern laptop and an old screen, that may be a problem

Aug 10, 2017#90

GasBandit

Depending on the monitor's age/make, it could be as simple as the computer trying to display a resolution the monitor doesn't support. I'd also try booting up in safe mode to force a low resolution to eliminate that possibility.

But yeah, test the monitor with your laptop, too.

Aug 11, 2017#91

figmentPez

Is this a CRT? Because if it's an LCD, not even being able to display any control menus pretty much nails down the fault being with the monitor.

Aug 11, 2017#92

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
Is this a CRT? Because if it's an LCD, not even being able to display any control menus pretty much nails down the fault being with the monitor.

Was gonna say the same thing. Normally has OSD but doesn't now? = monitor problem (at a minimum, I mean it could be both).

--Patrick

Aug 14, 2017#93

fade

Eriol said:
This is near-insanity what's happening with supercomputers:
View attachment 25058
That rig purports to get 70 TFLOPS. That's terrifying because that's only 3 orders of magnitude (1000 times less) than the #1 in the WORLD, the Sunway TaihuLight which pulls 90PFLOPS. And this thing could almost sit on your desk. Oh, and according to the article: $7,495

This is nuts. It's awesome, but nuts.

I sent this to our CTO and our IT guy. Our cluster is getting ancient, and we've taken to renting cycles from a local service. But it's expensive. We're renting 1000 cores, and it's costing us 30K a month. And that's cheaper than AWS, Hadoop, and the like for equivalent service. And we're screwed on replacing ours, because power requirements have gone up, and we're already at the building's limit.

Aug 14, 2017#94

Eriol

fade said:
I sent this to our CTO and our IT guy. Our cluster is getting ancient, and we've taken to renting cycles from a local service. But it's expensive. We're renting 1000 cores, and it's costing us 30K a month. And that's cheaper than AWS, Hadoop, and the like for equivalent service. And we're screwed on replacing ours, because power requirements have gone up, and we're already at the building's limit.

Good luck then. This seems like quite a lot less than $30k per month, and not insane power requirements either. I hope it does what you need. I just linked it as "wow this is interesting" not "I hope somebody here finds this useful IRL!" But if it is, awesome.

Aug 17, 2017#95

Gared

All these tech threads are starting to make me feel like a luddite. Seriously. Several of you have home servers. @PatrThom is installing a server rack in his basement right now. I struggle to play networked games with my wife (who is literally sitting right next to me at the table) if the game or client doesn't set it all up nicely for us like Steam and Minecraft. I was building computers, configuring databases, setting up VoIP services, and writing software 6 years ago and now I feel like a toddler again.[DOUBLEPOST=1503018180,1503018055][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh - and the worst part of it? I can still pick stuff up in a snap, but I have to know which questions to ask/technologies to pay attention to/languages to pick up; and it was honestly like stepping off of a busy sidewalk one day, looking back over, and seeing that the sidewalk had been replaced by the LA interstate.

Aug 17, 2017#96

PatrThom

Gared said:
@PatrThom is installing a server rack in his basement right now.

That's not me, that's @Tinwhistler, I think. We have a rack installed in the garage and another in the basement, but those are left over from when my father-in-law used to pull Cat3 for the local businesses and school districts, and right now they have antiquated 10Base-T switches installed and so are just used as a glorified patch panel. All I did was get a sweet deal on the build-to-order 12-core version of one of these and jump on it. It's designed to be clamped in such a way that it can be rack-mounted, but I don't intend to do so. I honestly bought it as a workstation to finally be able to clean up/edit video footage (but I might have it running server duty when I'm not doing that, which will honestly be most of the time).

Many years ago, I got another incredible deal when I bought a copy of Shake (List $3000) for just $200(!), and it's truly an amazing piece of software, but running it on a 2GB 1GHz G4 was an exercise in patience. Now I have a 12c machine where each core is > 9x faster than that 1GHz G4 for a potential render speedup of > 110x (minimum!), and thats not including any boost provided by the step up from the modified X800 I have in the G4 to the 5870 in the Pro (Passmark estimates that speedup to be just over 26x) And I'm not even going to get into how much faster file access with a PCIe SSD will be over the G4's now-ancient 500GB ATA133 drive, or how much advantage it will be going from 2GB RAM up to 48 or even 96GB RAM. This computer was literally the exact dream model I ogled while I was suffering through that editing process, which is why I'm so happy to have it. It's also old enough to run the older OS I'll need (10.6) to be able to run this older software "as it was meant to be used."

Screen Shot 2017-08-17 at 9.32.25 PM.png

Mmm, that's a beautiful picture. I hope to test its potential someday.

The biggest obstacle is that I have nowhere to put it at the moment (and of course the RAM and SSD). But that's a question for another day.

--Patrick

Aug 18, 2017#97

Bubble181

Self repairing robots!

Because the robocalyps can't come fast enough.

Aug 18, 2017#98

jwhouk

You're not alone, Gared. I feel like a tech.idiot compared to y'all.

Aug 29, 2017#99

Eriol

Saw this today on StackOverflow:

I thought that was really great that the COMPILER caught this. It's quite subtle, but good to know about. I can see other subtle ways this could occur that the compiler would NOT catch (like if ipos was a straight-out by-reference parameter to checksum, and updated inside of it), and so being aware of this kind of thing is good.

There are always exceptions (pun intended), but in general I try and keep the left side of my assignments simple. It's just easier for everybody involved.

Aug 29, 2017#100

strawman

Aug 29, 2017#101

Eriol

I think this is a whole other level that /pizza could be taken to: Domino’s Teams up With Ford on Self Driving Pizza Delivery Cars

Aug 29, 2017#102

strawman

Now that Amazon has drones and Whole Foods, I expect food to be drop shipped directly into my mouth.

Aug 29, 2017#103

PatrThom

stienman said:
Now that Amazon has drones and Whole Foods, I expect food to be drop shipped directly into my mouth.

We all know where this will lead.

--Patrick

Aug 29, 2017#104

PatrThom

fade said:
I sent this to our CTO and our IT guy. Our cluster is getting ancient, and we've taken to renting cycles from a local service. But it's expensive. We're renting 1000 cores, and it's costing us 30K a month. And that's cheaper than AWS, Hadoop, and the like for equivalent service. And we're screwed on replacing ours, because power requirements have gone up, and we're already at the building's limit.

Perhaps you might find this of use, too.

The new B250 Mining Expert motherboard from ASUS is one of just a handful of motherboards designed specifically for mining, and the only one in the world to pack 19 expansion slots onto a single slab of electronics. All but one of those slots are PCIe Gen 3.0 x1 slots, while the remaining one is a PCIe 3.0 x16 slots.

I know it's geared more towards mining, but your tech guy(s) might find it interesting as well if you're just looking to glom together a whole bunch of CUDA or something.

--Patrick

Aug 30, 2017#105

Eriol

Cool charts and graphs! A Tale of Two Industries: How Programming Languages Differ Between Wealthy and Developing Countries

Based on StackOverflow data

Sep 3, 2017#106

SpecialKO

What is the current consensus on bang-for-buck video cards? Is it still the 1060, or has the 1050 Ti stolen that crown for certain levels of non-4K gaming? My gaming desktop is starting to feel its age a bit (2012-era), but before I replace the entire thing, I want to see if switching out the current card (a Radeon HD 7850) will do the trick.

In theory, I could afford a 1080 Ti, but I really don't actually want to. Between work and work-travel schedules, I don't get a lot of opportunity to sit at home and game, so anything above $300 is probably wasted, and less would not be taken amiss.

Primary need is to play recent-ish shooters and open-world A/A games at 1080p/60. I am unlikely to push for 4K anytime soon, and if I get a new monitor, I will prioritize things like G-sync and 144hz far more than 4K. VR would be nice, but aside from the fact that this basically requires at least a 1080 for consistent performance, I just don't have the space for it without re-arranging my entire living room and that's just not a real priority when I'm using my PC for games at home.

Sep 3, 2017#107

DarkAudit

SpecialKO said:
What is the current consensus on bang-for-buck video cards? Is it still the 1060, or has the 1050 Ti stolen that crown for certain levels of non-4K gaming? My gaming desktop is starting to feel its age a bit (2012-era), but before I replace the entire thing, I want to see if switching out the current card (a Radeon HD 7850) will do the trick.

In theory, I could afford a 1080 Ti, but I really don't actually want to. Between work and work-travel schedules, I don't get a lot of opportunity to sit at home and game, so anything above $300 is probably wasted, and less would not be taken amiss.

Primary need is to play recent-ish shooters and open-world A/A games at 1080p/60. I am unlikely to push for 4K anytime soon, and if I get a new monitor, I will prioritize things like G-sync and 144hz far more than 4K. VR would be nice, but aside from the fact that this basically requires at least a 1080 for consistent performance, I just don't have the space for it without re-arranging my entire living room and that's just not a real priority when I'm using my PC for games at home.

I've been researching the same thing. Looks like the 1050ti is the way to go for 1080p gaming on a budget. The miners have killed the market for anything higher.

Sep 3, 2017#108

PatrThom

See if you can find the 1080 (non-Ti). There are many variants out there (including this little darling), but most of them are out of stock due to Ethereum miners. According to Passmark, you should see some improvement:

I know the 1070 is the price/performance darling in the GTX 10xx lineup right now, but the non-Ti 1080 is about 30% more card than the 1070 for around 20% more price ($550 v. $450), which is really going to make a difference when you test the 4k waters or when your refresh rates go well above 120Hz. The Ti's are nice, but they're about $750 right now, which is silly unless you make your living playing pro gaming or streaming and NEED the horsepower.

However, if you're set on 1080p rez and will never go higher, the 1060 is probably the absolute cheapest value. The 1050Ti is the sort of card you get for those business boxes that weren't meant to game so they don't have the power budget available for a 1060 (i.e., don't have supplementary PCIe power connectors). To put it another way, a non-Ti 1080 is basically the equivalent of two 1060's, or just over three 1050Ti's.

--Patrick

Sep 4, 2017#109

GasBandit

SpecialKO said:
What is the current consensus on bang-for-buck video cards?

The 1060 3 gig is still the king of bang for the buck. Well, other than the Radeon 560, but you want an actual DECENT card.

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_value.html

I'm still using my 1060 3gig and have never had trouble with it, and always get 60+fps at 1080p. As long as you're not trying to do 4k or VR, I'd say there's no reason to spend on anything pricier.

Sep 4, 2017#110

SpecialKO

I wouldn't say never going above 1080p, but more that the cost of getting to an acceptable level of 4K gaming is prohibitive, given that I don't play games that require my gaming PC that often (my work laptop is more than sufficient for the variety of indie Metroidvanias and RPGs that I have been playing lately). 1440p is probably on the table, but isn't really a goal.

The last few games that I played on my PC are:

PUBG (27 FPS with some tearing on very low, 1080p, playable but painful after a couple rounds)
Overwatch (60+ FPS on near-highest settings, 1080p)
Sunder (1080p/60, without the slightest problem, obviously)
Forza H3 (didn't have a counter running, but it was at least 45+ and smooth at 1080p with middle-to-good)
DAI (didn't have a counter running, 30-ish at 1080p with good)

PUBG is obviously going to get better as they keep patching it, because it is probably the least-optimized popular game on Earth, and Overwatch is playable on a 2017-release ham sandwich. That being said, I have denied myself The Witcher 3 until I have a decent enough PC to run it, and I intend to play Destiny 2 on PC. I was going to play FO4 on PC after an upgrade, but then I got the PS4 disk as a giveaway at a party, so I'm just going to play it on PS4.

Sep 4, 2017#111

GasBandit

Basically the 1060 3 gig has the same performance as a GTX 970 for 33% less money. If your aim is to stay at 1080 for the next couple years, I'd go with a 1060/3.

Sep 4, 2017#112

Denbrought

1060 3GB (ASUS DUAL-GTX1060-O3G) is what I put on both of our rigs at home, and it's been excellent bang for the buck. Got them for about $170 each on Jet around December with discounts.

Sep 6, 2017#113

Eriol

This is near-insanity: Der8auer delids a Core i9-7920X

According to some overclockers and my own experience, unsoldered Intel CPUs sometimes end up with an air gap between the die and the heatspreader—though it's unclear exactly why this happens. Delidding the CPU and replacing the goop inside with a bonding compound like Coollaboratory's Liquid Ultra can provide massive improvements in cooling performance.

Thar be dragons... Cool photo though
X

Sep 6, 2017#114

DarkAudit

Eriol said:
This is near-insanity: Der8auer delids a Core i9-7920X

Thar be dragons... Cool photo though
X

I only just learned that delidding's a thing. Not going there. Nope.

Sep 6, 2017#115

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
I only just learned that delidding's a thing. Not going there. Nope.

It does carry certain...risks.

--Patrick

Sep 6, 2017#116

GasBandit

The first time I read that sentence I thought it said "de-diddling"

Sep 6, 2017#117

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
The first time I read that sentence I thought it said "de-diddling"

Well, he did clean off all the thermal paste prior to taking the photo...

--Patrick

Sep 6, 2017#118

figmentPez

DarkAudit said:
I only just learned that delidding's a thing. Not going there. Nope.

Have you heard about liquid metal thermal compound yet? :confused:

Sep 6, 2017#119

fade

figmentPez said:
Have you heard about liquid metal thermal compound yet?

Seems like you're at his door in a short sleeved white dress shirt and black tie with a pamphlet.

Sep 6, 2017#120

figmentPez

fade said:
Seems like you're at his door in a short sleeved white dress shirt and black tie with a pamphlet.

More like:

Sep 6, 2017#121

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
Have you heard about liquid metal thermal compound yet?

JB Weld works surprisingly well, and it doesn't conduct electricity.
Only problem is if you want to remove it later...

--Patrick

Sep 19, 2017#122

Eriol

EFF withdraws from W3C with comments: An open letter to the W3C Director, CEO, team and membership

In 2013, EFF was disappointed to learn that the W3C had taken on the project of standardizing “Encrypted Media Extensions,” an API whose sole function was to provide a first-class role for DRM within the Web browser ecosystem. By doing so, the organization offered the use of its patent pool, its staff support, and its moral authority to the idea that browsers can and should be designed to cede control over key aspects from users to remote parties.

...

Today, the W3C bequeaths an legally unauditable attack-surface to browsers used by billions of people.

...

We will defend those who are put in harm's way for blowing the whistle on defects in EME implementations.

It is a tragedy that we will be doing that without our friends at the W3C, and with the world believing that the pioneers and creators of the web no longer care about these matters.

Effective today, EFF is resigning from the W3C.

Thank you,

Cory Doctorow
Advisory Committee Representative to the W3C for the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Sep 19, 2017#123

PatrThom

As a follower of boingboing.net (which is in part run by Cory Doctorow), it has been rather prominent.

--Patrick

Sep 19, 2017#124

GasBandit

Is there a record of which members voted for the EME API? I didn't see it in the boingboing article.

Sep 19, 2017#125

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Is there a record of which members voted for the EME API? I didn't see it in the boingboing article.

Many of the commenters on that article were lamenting the exact same thing.
Really, if anyone wants an example of just how absurd this could get, there's that part where they explain how if the website is crafted to use EMEs to deliver advertising content, blocking those ads would become illegal under federal law.

--Patrick

Sep 21, 2017#126

Eriol

New Tech Report System Guide is out: https://techreport.com/review/32474/the-tech-report-system-guide-september-2017-edition

Sep 21, 2017#127

GasBandit

They went with the 6 gig 1060 instead of the 3 gig on their "sweet spot." INVALID

Sep 21, 2017#128

PatrThom

Why wouldn't you want the one with more VRAM? If you go with larger displays, you're going to want that extra VRAM.

--Patrick

Sep 21, 2017#129

GasBandit

@PatrThom the "Sweet spot" build is supposed to emphasize the most value per dollar. On that metric, the 3 gig card outperforms the 6 gig card because the 6 gig card costs $50 (25%) more for basically a 2% increase in benchmark performance. As long as you're not doing 4k or VR, (IE, staying at 1080p on a single monitor) you won't notice a difference between the 1060/3gig and the /6gig. Or even a 1070 or 1080 or 1080 TI, for that matter (which are the cards they correctly picked for their midrange, expensive, and no-expense-spared builds).

Sep 21, 2017#130

PatrThom

Ah, ok. I haven't actually read the entire rundown...mainly because they don't usually tell me anything I don't already know.

--Patrick

Sep 21, 2017#131

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Ah, ok. I haven't actually read the entire rundown...mainly because they don't usually tell me anything I don't already know.

--Patrick

They basically traditionally do a few sample builds, and they generally call them some variation of
1) The Budget Build - the cheapest build you could expect to game on
2) The Sweet Spot - the build with the highest value per dollar spent
3) The Grand Experiment - What you'd buy if you had $2500+ to drop on a new rig

They've monkeyed with it a little over the years (I note now what used to be called the "Sweet Spot" is now the "Middle Ground" and the new "Sweet Spot" is more expensive and less value/$), but there's always one build that emphasizes value per dollar, and that's usually the one I pay the most attention to.

I also think they put too much emphasis on number of cores, especially on their gaming-specific rigs. These days, CPUs are still far, far less important than GPUs to gaming, and the few times the CPU is needed, individual core strength still trumps number of cores, which means you want Intel. But they've had a massive hardon for all the AMD Ryzen stuff all year.

Of course, it's a different tune if you are gonna do a lot of video editing or other CPU-heavy activities.

Sep 21, 2017#132

PatrThom

Conventional wisdom holds that clock speed and IPC are what matters now, with 4 threads being plenty for just about everything, but recent testing has shown that if you're looking for an LTS gaming build, you might want to consider building it with at least 6 cores (or at least 4-core with SMT), because some games are starting to show an advantage when run on more than 4 cores.

The more I hear about this stuff, the more I start feeling a whooooole lot better about my venerable 1090t.

--Patrick

Sep 21, 2017#133

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Conventional wisdom holds that clock speed and IPC are what matters now, with 4 threads being plenty for just about everything, but recent testing has shown that if you're looking for an LTS gaming build, you might want to consider building it with at least 6 cores (or at least 4-core with SMT), because some games are starting to show an advantage when run on more than 4 cores.

The more I hear about this stuff, the more I start feeling a whooooole lot better about my venerable 1090t.

--Patrick

I really question the validity of benchmarks that base themselves on performance in PUBG, as what you're really measuring there is a computer's ability to deal with unoptimized alpha nonsense. Also note that even the worst performing cpu in that article got you over 80fps - because of the video card they're using with the test - a 1080 TI.

Sep 21, 2017#134

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
even the worst performing cpu in that article got you over 80fps - because of the video card they're using with the test - a 1080 TI.

Right, but that's because the test was specifically created to see the effect of different core counts, and using the 1080ti means their testing will not be skewed by insufficient graphics horsepower.

--Patrick

Sep 22, 2017#135

Eriol

Given their summaries of intent at the beginning and throughout, I think their "Sweet Spot" is meant to be able to do VR, thus the extra RAM. So I think your expectation of what it is is different than what they're offering.

I don't doubt they've had a terminology switch though. I agree "Sweet Spot" meant value/$ in the past. I do think that's shifted, but their nomenclature throughout the whole article is fairly consistent.

Sep 22, 2017#136

PatrThom

So I suppose you've all heard about that brand new launch today.
Yup. And it's about time...Java 9 has finally been released.

--Patrick

Sep 22, 2017#137

Eriol

PatrThom said:
So I suppose you've all heard about that brand new launch today.
Yup. And it's about time...Java 9 has finally been released.

--Patrick

I look forward to the SCREAMS of people for having strings screwed with. Some "big hacks" will break with this. Normal people will be only benefit (as the article says) but anybody doing "very hackish" things (using strings with chars as byte arrays instead of copying into actual byte arrays) will be affected badly.

Strings are always "fun" to deal with, no matter the language. Some are better, some are worse, but the CHANGE always "gets" people.

Sep 22, 2017#138

strawman

Eriol said:
I look forward to the SCREAMS of people for having strings screwed with. Some "big hacks" will break with this. Normal people will be only benefit (as the article says) but anybody doing "very hackish" things (using strings with chars as byte arrays instead of copying into actual byte arrays) will be affected badly.

Strings are always "fun" to deal with, no matter the language. Some are better, some are worse, but the CHANGE always "gets" people.

oof. I recall dealing with java and doing byte processing. Byte array support (well, anything embedded - byte or bit level) is really terrible in that language. I still used 'em, but it was tempting to use the strings. Fortunately I wasn't confident they would work, so stuck with the byte arrays.

Still don't like java. Just haven't used it enough, I guess.

Sep 22, 2017#139

GasBandit

stienman said:
oof. I recall dealing with java and doing byte processing. Byte array support (well, anything embedded - byte or bit level) is really terrible in that language. I still used 'em, but it was tempting to use the strings. Fortunately I wasn't confident they would work, so stuck with the byte arrays.

Still don't like java. Just haven't used it enough, I guess.

They insisted on teaching us J++ instead of C++ when I went to A&M. I'm fairly confident this is what derailed my youthful fantasies of being a game designer.

Sep 22, 2017#140

strawman

GasBandit said:
They insisted on teaching us J++ instead of C++ when I went to A&M. I'm fairly confident this is what derailed my youthful fantasies of being a game designer.

Yeah, I think teaching java as a standard language is/was a mistake. Hindsight is 20/20, though, and there was a time many moons ago when everyone was betting on Java.

Sep 22, 2017#141

Gared

GasBandit said:
They insisted on teaching us J++ instead of C++ when I went to A&M. I'm fairly confident this is what derailed my youthful fantasies of being a game designer.

Ha! All WSU was offering the three years I was there was Cobol, Fortran, and C; so I got to take C. Unfortunately, our professor was a complete and utter dip who spent - and I shit you not - three weeks of class going through how arrays iterate. For two dimensional arrays. Three weeks, three days a week, two hours a day of "If X = 1 and Y = 1, Z = 1; if X = 2 and Y = 1, Z = 2; If... " followed by a midterm that didn't even mention arrays. The highest grade in the class on that exam as a C-, and I pulled a D. The C- I got for that class was harder to earn than the A I pulled off in Honors Micro-Econ.

Sep 22, 2017#142

GasBandit

stienman said:
Yeah, I think teaching java as a standard language is/was a mistake. Hindsight is 20/20, though, and there was a time many moons ago when everyone was betting on Java.

There was someone on staff who was just dead set opposed to C and all its flavors. He said teaching students C++ would just "get them into trouble." He only begrudgingly agreed to J++ as a compromise. I don't know what language he would have preferred.

The funny part was, right after that in 2002, Bjarne Stroustrup, creator of C++, became the CS dept chair. So, I imagine whatever obstreperous knucklehead had a hateboner for that language got to eat crow. Makes me wish I'd waited longer to take the course

Sep 22, 2017#143

PatrThom

You would think programming would be an easy class to teach. I mean, you're supposed to be programming your students with how to program.

--Patrick

Sep 22, 2017#144

Denbrought

Agreed. The half of my college degree taught in Java was much less enjoyable than the C# (faculty was pretty much evenly divided).

Sep 22, 2017#145

MindDetective

PatrThom said:
You would think programming would be an easy class to teach. I mean, you're supposed to be programming your students with how to program.

--Patrick

Sep 22, 2017#146

strawman

I got to see Bjarne talk at University of Michigan years ago, and ended up having him autograph his C++ book for me.

Sep 23, 2017#147

Eriol

stienman said:
I got to see Bjarne talk at University of Michigan years ago, and ended up having him autograph his C++ book for me.

I am SO jealous. Seriously jealous.

Oct 6, 2017#148

Dei

I haven't used it in at least a decade, but this news makes me feel old.

Oct 6, 2017#149

ncts_dodge_man

Dei said:
I haven't used it in at least a decade, but this news makes me feel old.

They still had AIM being used to chat? I use my aim.com email for my spam signup email (all of those "must register to get free sample"/etc places).

Oct 6, 2017#150

fade

whoa. I used to use that so much. even as recently as my last job. But yeah, I had forgotten about it. Google Talk/Hangouts took over the role it and ICQ used to play.

Oct 6, 2017#151

GasBandit

Heh, I used ICQ. My friends and I used to dehumanize people who used AIM

Oct 6, 2017#152

PatrThom

AIM was the first one to have actual voice chat that worked decently over 56k...until they mysteriously deleted that feature.
Kati and I took heavy advantage of that while we were still dating.

--Patrick

Oct 7, 2017#153

jwhouk

It migrated to RRIM (which I had when I was in TWC's service area in the early 2k's). I suspect AIM is a victim of the TW-Charter-Brighthouse merger.

Oct 9, 2017#154

Gared

What in the Seven Hells is YouTube even doing now?! I was just watching a video showing the complete and utter devastation of the Virgin Islands post Irma, and it kept recommending "Disney Princesses is gone to the evil side," and "This Tattoos will take your breath away," and some random anime shit. Have they gone completely fucking insane?

Oct 9, 2017#155

GasBandit

Gared said:
What in the Seven Hells is YouTube even doing now?! I was just watching a video showing the complete and utter devastation of the Virgin Islands post Irma, and it kept recommending "Disney Princesses is gone to the evil side," and "This Tattoos will take your breath away," and some random anime shit. Have they gone completely fucking insane?

Probably just another symptom of the "we don't want to have to pay any people to deal with Youtube stuff, we want it to be an algorithm end-to-end" malarkey Google's always trying to push.

A semi-related video that just came out last week:

Oct 9, 2017#156

Bubble181

Gared said:
What in the Seven Hells is YouTube even doing now?! I was just watching a video showing the complete and utter devastation of the Virgin Islands post Irma, and it kept recommending "Disney Princesses is gone to the evil side," and "This Tattoos will take your breath away," and some random anime shit. Have they gone completely fucking insane?

"This destruiction and stuff is going to make you feel miserable...But we've checked your browsing records, we know what'll make you feel better - wink wink nudge nudge. What'll it be today, Disney princesses, tattoos, or anime?" I can see how that works

Oct 10, 2017#157

GasBandit

Ha ha ha, and guess what? I just got notified that several DOZEN of my videos are "not suitable for most advertisers."

Ironically, only TWO HFA2 videos got flagged for this. How they decide this seems completely arbitrary and bullshit, but as they didn't flag any of my space engineers videos, I'm not gonna bother with filing all the manual disputes.

Even my Overwatch Basket Montage got flagged, which I'm guessing only happened because @Dei said the word "cameltoe" in it.

Oct 10, 2017#158

Dei

Then I guess you should never upload pubg videos to YouTube, because I really enjoy referring to the Quarry as a vagina.

Oct 10, 2017#159

GasBandit

Dei said:
Then I guess you should never upload pubg videos to YouTube, because I really enjoy referring to the Quarry as a vagina.

Honestly I'm kinda getting the feeling my time as a youtuber is coming to an end.

Oct 10, 2017#160

Dei

But all of your 10s of dollars!

Oct 10, 2017#161

GasBandit

Dei said:
But all of your 10s of dollars!

It's been space engineers all along. Nothing else really makes any money. And I can still collect my nickels on that without posting anything new.

Heck, despite so many videos losing their monetization, my income actually went UP this last month. I've cleared $20 in the last 28 days. All but a buck fifty of that has been SE. $1.25 came from my "how to tension your fan belt" summer car video, and I got another couple dimes from my Fallen Enchantress review back when it was part of a humble bundle.

Dolla dolla billz, ya'll.

But really, Twitch's "highlight clip" feature serves 90% of my "I need to show this to people" needs.

Oct 10, 2017#162

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Honestly I'm kinda getting the feeling my time as a youtuber is coming to an end.

Gonna move to DailyMotion instead?

--Patrick

Oct 10, 2017#163

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Gonna move to DailyMotion instead?

--Patrick

As I said, Twitch is satisfying my needs for the moment.

Oct 16, 2017#164

Gared

Well, I guess I can stop worrying so much about the bluetooth vulnerability that allows people to take over my cell phone/tablet/computer now that we've apparently discovered that the WPA2 protocol itself is vulnerable to key reinstallation attacks.

Oct 16, 2017#165

GasBandit

Gared said:
Well, I guess I can stop worrying so much about the bluetooth vulnerability that allows people to take over my cell phone/tablet/computer now that we've apparently discovered that the WPA2 protocol itself is vulnerable to key reinstallation attacks.

Ugghh... what a headache. At least (like the bluetooth vulnerability) it still requires physical proximity to attack, so it's not like this is something that russian and chinese hackers will take advantage of from afar.

But I'm not looking forward to having to patch all the damn routers.

Oct 16, 2017#166

PatrThom

Gared said:
Well, I guess I can stop worrying so much about the bluetooth vulnerability that allows people to take over my cell phone/tablet/computer now that we've apparently discovered that the WPA2 protocol itself is vulnerable to key reinstallation attacks.

Ah good, I wondered where I was going to post this, but someone else already did.
As I understand it, the attack doesn't reveal the network password, it just allows an attacker to view all encrypted traffic. So...yeah, VPNs.

--Patrick

Oct 17, 2017#167

Eriol

Duck and cover time, Skynet has arrived via Intel: Intel Pioneers New Technologies to Advance Artificial Intelligence - Announcing Industry’s First Neural Network Processor
We're doomed. Bye bye humanity!

OK I'm being far too dramatic, but it's the NAME of the type of processor which gets me. Don't invoke the Terminator franchise in your headlines! Even if they used the "right" name in the movies for the technology, bury it in specifications, not in the marketing materials!

Oct 17, 2017#168

MindDetective

They invoked the Terminator movies?

Oct 17, 2017#169

GasBandit

MindDetective said:
They invoked the Terminator movies?

http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/Neural_Net_CPU

Oct 17, 2017#170

MindDetective

Wow. Both neutral nets and CPUs existed before Terminator. They are such common phrases both, especially in AI, that this could easily be a non reference.

Oct 18, 2017#171

Bubble181

Yeah. I remember way back when the very first internet providers were starting up - one of the biggest ones in Belgium was called "Skynet". Now, that was a bit of an on-the-nose reference. But this...I mean, it might be a reference, I guess, but I've heard "neural net" and "neural networking" a hundred times before. And the name "Nervana" isn't a reference to Terminator, best as I can tell.

Oct 18, 2017#172

Eriol

MindDetective said:
Wow. Both neutral nets and CPUs existed before Terminator. They are such common phrases both, especially in AI, that this could easily be a non reference.

Oh I absolutely believe they don't intend a reference, but it's the fact that putting something in your headline that reminds people of a negative thing isn't a good thing either, even if it's critical to the description of what you're doing.

Similar to what Bubble was referencing, IMO if you make a net, that's in the sky, and has anything related to AI as part of it, you do NOT call it "Skynet" no matter how appropriate. Neural nets are critical to how this chip works and what makes it different, but keep that out of your own headline on your own website. Plenty of 3rd parties will do it anyways when reporting on it, but you can at least control the source.

Oct 19, 2017#173

Eriol

I wasn't sure where to put this one, so here it is: Canada's 'super secret spy agency' is releasing a malware-fighting tool to the public

But as of late, CSE has acknowledged it needs to do a better job of explaining to Canadians exactly what it does. Today, it is pulling back the curtain on an open-source malware analysis tool called Assemblyline that CSE says is used to protect the Canadian government's sprawling infrastructure each day.

"It's a tool that helps our analysts know what to look at, because it's overwhelming for the number of people we have to be able to protect things," Scott Jones, who heads the agency's IT security efforts, said in an interview with CBC News.

On the one hand, open sourcing Assemblyline's code is a savvy act of public relations, and Jones readily admits the agency is trying to shed its "super secret spy agency" reputation in the interest of greater transparency.

Here's the page on CSE's website.

TL;DR; CSE is basically the Canadian NSA.

I applied for a job at CSE last year. Got through the hiring process to a certain point (wrote their written exam), then found my current job. 5 months in, not at interview stage yet. But I never got a "we're not considering you anymore" letter like has to happen for government stuff. When I sent in my "I found another job already" they responded thanking me for telling them. Would probably have been neat to work there, but when you're unemployed, waiting 6+ months for something isn't a thing you wait for when there's no certainty.

Oct 20, 2017#174

DarkAudit

Additional: MiG-15 and MiG-17: do not let fuel drop below half. Why? Fuel tanks could IMPLODE.

Oct 31, 2017#175

Eriol

This is funny IMO: Microsoft employee installs Chrome mid-presentation because Edge keeps crashing

This is truly half-brutal, half-hilarious. A Microsoft employee was forced to pause his Azure presentation in the middle of a live demo session in order to install Google’s Chrome… because the company’s own Edge browser kept crashing.

But here is the best part: this comical occurrence was recorded and uploaded to YouTube – by none other than Microsoft itself.

It's that last line that really sells it.

Nov 6, 2017#176

PatrThom

Intel and AMD team up to combine Intel CPU with AMD GPU on single package. This is the first time they've really teamed up again probably since the days of x486 CPUs.

On the one hand, this may take the wind out of AMD's new "Ryzen Mobile" part and relegate them to the lowest-budget end of the laptop spectrum.
On the other hand, NVIDIA may be very upset at this news.

On the third hand, everyone is talking about this as if it were a completely unexpected thing, but I'm wondering whether this is just foreshadowing for whatever Apple's next product may be (since Apple is currently using both Intel CPUs and AMD GPUs in their products). I mean, it's not the first time that a component manufacturer (Intel) has developed a custom package just for Apple.

--Patrick

Nov 6, 2017#177

strawman

PatrThom said:
I'm wondering whether this is just foreshadowing for whatever Apple's next product may be (since Apple is currently using both Intel CPUs and AMD GPUs in their products). I mean, it's not the first time that a component manufacturer (Intel) has developed a custom package just for Apple.

I think Intel and AMD understand the writing is on the wall. Apple is progressing with both their in house processor and in house graphics chipset at such a furious pace that they will legitimately be on a competitive level with Intel and AMD, particularly in the mobile space.

I expect Apple to ditch Intel and AMD within a few years on their low end computers (particularly since they've released their arm specific darwin kernel bits recently) and simply start using their own chips.[DOUBLEPOST=1509991485,1509991454][/DOUBLEPOST]

PatrThom said:
I'm wondering whether this is just foreshadowing for whatever Apple's next product may be (since Apple is currently using both Intel CPUs and AMD GPUs in their products). I mean, it's not the first time that a component manufacturer (Intel) has developed a custom package just for Apple.

Nov 6, 2017#178

Eriol

stienman said:
I think Intel and AMD understand the writing is on the wall. Apple is progressing with both their in house processor and in house graphics chipset at such a furious pace that they will legitimately be on a competitive level with Intel and AMD, particularly in the mobile space.

I expect Apple to ditch Intel and AMD within a few years on their low end computers (particularly since they've released their arm specific darwin kernel bits recently) and simply start using their own chips.[DOUBLEPOST=1509991485,1509991454][/DOUBLEPOST]

I think Intel and AMD understand the writing is on the wall. Apple is progressing with both their in house processor and in house graphics chipset at such a furious pace that they will legitimately be on a competitive level with Intel and AMD, particularly in the mobile space.

I expect Apple to ditch Intel and AMD within a few years on their low end computers (particularly since they've released their arm specific darwin kernel bits recently) and simply start using their own chips.

Nov 7, 2017#179

Eriol

I want. I do not need, and will not get, but want: https://techreport.com/news/32801/s...ion-titan-xps-are-the-cards-youre-looking-for

Glowy.

Nov 7, 2017#180

PatrThom

Oh hey, I didn't notice until now that they also badged the blower hub.

--Patrick

Nov 17, 2017#181

Eriol

Don't have the source code to something 17 years old? Just patch the binary!

Did Microsoft Just Manually Patch Their Equation Editor Executable? Why Yes, Yes They Did. (CVE-2017-11882)

This is way beyond "thar be dragons" and more like "Holy shit there's dozens of Balrogs coming at us!!!"

Mad props to the people who had to patch this.

Nov 18, 2017#182

GasBandit

An interesting story about how a guy doing business through Amazon was run out of business by a malicious competitor abusing amazon's security flaws (and its inertia/apathy).

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/17/amazon-seller-targeted-virus-of-amazon.html

Just remember, things that are too big to fail are also often too big to work right, and who knows how many ants get crushed as the wheel turns.

Nov 21, 2017#183

Eriol

Oh FFS: Intel Q3’17 ME 11.x, SPS 4.0, and TXE 3.0 Security Review Cumulative Update

Translation: their "Management Engines" have security holes. Those are the "beyond hypervisor, we pwn your system" co-processors that are on Intel chipsets.

Edit: Reporting on it, with clearer explanations of how bad this is: Critical Flaws in Intel Processors Leave Millions of PCs Vulnerable

Local processes running access is now -> you are completely pwned.

Nov 21, 2017#184

GasBandit

Eriol said:
Oh FFS: Intel Q3’17 ME 11.x, SPS 4.0, and TXE 3.0 Security Review Cumulative Update

Translation: their "Management Engines" have security holes. Those are the "beyond hypervisor, we pwn your system" co-processors that are on Intel chipsets.

Edit: Reporting on it, with clearer explanations of how bad this is: Critical Flaws in Intel Processors Leave Millions of PCs Vulnerable

Local processes running access is now -> you are completely pwned.

That sucks. But at least my Core i5 is 4th gen, so I'm in the clear... (It affects gen 6, 7, and 8)

Nov 21, 2017#185

Eriol

GasBandit said:
That sucks. But at least my Core i5 is 4th gen, so I'm in the clear... (It affects gen 6, 7, and 8)

3rd gen at home. Hilariously, my work computer should be affected, but my old home one isn't!

Btw, anybody know a good reference for processor speeds cross-generation? I mean on actual benchmarks, not just GHz comparisons.

Nov 21, 2017#186

GasBandit

Eriol said:
3rd gen at home. Hilariously, my work computer should be affected, but my old home one isn't!

Btw, anybody know a good reference for processor speeds cross-generation? I mean on actual benchmarks, not just GHz comparisons.

I generally use https://www.cpubenchmark.net/

But more often for their video card stats,.

Nov 21, 2017#187

PatrThom

Eriol said:
Translation: their "Management Engines" have security holes. Those are the "beyond hypervisor, we pwn your system" co-processors that are on Intel chipsets.

Still not as bad as the one revealed in May.

Eriol said:
anybody know a good reference for processor speeds cross-generation? I mean on actual benchmarks, not just GHz comparisons.

GasBandit said:
I generally use https://www.cpubenchmark.net/

Just go through their front door at https://www.passmark.com/

—Patrick

Nov 21, 2017#188

DarkAudit

GasBandit said:
That sucks. But at least my Core i5 is 4th gen, so I'm in the clear... (It affects gen 6, 7, and 8)

The 2500K is also not on this list.

Nov 21, 2017#189

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
The 2500K is also not on this list.

That's because it's Sandy Bridge.
This advisory is for Haswell (4xxx) and newer.

FWIW, I was looking for processors recently for a potential server build, and the Sandy/Ivy bridge processors (2xxx/3xxx series) were inexplicably selling at a premium.
Now I guess we know why.

--Patrick

Nov 21, 2017#190

Eriol

GasBandit said:
I generally use https://www.cpubenchmark.net/

But more often for their video card stats,.

Thanks Gas. I found out that my 5-year-old i5-3470 @ 3.2GHz is "not bad IMO" for performance versus a i7-7700K @ 4.2GHz considering generational changes. 6600 vs 12000, which given that it has a ~30% higher clock speed, that isn't terrible at all. If mine was clocked up, it'd be in the 9000 range, so only 33% higher per-clock performance 4 generations higher? Yes there's the 8000 series out now, so probably 50% better per-clock (i haven't looked it up yet), but still... I think I'm doing fine! I have a GTX 960 that I put in two black fridays ago, so that's good enough considering I only have a 1080p monitor.

Nov 21, 2017#191

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
That's because it's Sandy Bridge.
This advisory is for Haswell (4xxx) and newer.

FWIW, I was looking for processors recently for a potential server build, and the Sandy/Ivy bridge processors (2xxx/3xxx series) were inexplicably selling at a premium.
Now I guess we know why.

--Patrick

I've got an Ivy Bridge and two Sandy Bridge processors in those spare Dells I bought from Pitt surplus. I might want to hang onto them a little longer.

Nov 21, 2017#192

PatrThom

Eriol said:
Thanks Gas. I found out that my 5-year-old i5-3470 @ 3.2GHz is "not bad IMO" for performance versus a i7-7700K @ 4.2GHz considering generational changes. 6600 vs 12000, which given that it has a ~30% higher clock speed, that isn't terrible at all. If mine was clocked up, it'd be in the 9000 range, so only 33% higher per-clock performance 4 generations higher? Yes there's the 8000 series out now, so probably 50% better per-clock (i haven't looked it up yet), but still... I think I'm doing fine! I have a GTX 960 that I put in two black fridays ago, so that's good enough considering I only have a 1080p monitor.

Like I said over in the BYO thread, this current generation (Cannonlake - 8xxx) is the first real generational improvement in CPU power that isn't primarily due to faster clock speed, adding more cores, etc. Because otherwise, like I said here:

Once you account for the difference in clock speed, the single-thread (i.e., gaming) performance delta between the 2010 i5-2500k Sandy Bridge and the current 2017 Kaby Lake i5-7600k is merely +9.94%.

--Patrick

Nov 22, 2017#193

GasBandit

Eriol said:
Thanks Gas. I found out that my 5-year-old i5-3470 @ 3.2GHz is "not bad IMO" for performance versus a i7-7700K @ 4.2GHz considering generational changes. 6600 vs 12000, which given that it has a ~30% higher clock speed, that isn't terrible at all. If mine was clocked up, it'd be in the 9000 range, so only 33% higher per-clock performance 4 generations higher? Yes there's the 8000 series out now, so probably 50% better per-clock (i haven't looked it up yet), but still... I think I'm doing fine! I have a GTX 960 that I put in two black fridays ago, so that's good enough considering I only have a 1080p monitor.

Game stuff is almost all GPU dependent anyway. The only things I've found I need a beefy CPU for would be things like video editing (rendering the videos for HFA took all 4 of my cores to 100% for 20+ minutes straight). But most games barely even cause any CPU load at all. And the 960's a decent card.

Nov 22, 2017#194

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
most games barely even cause any CPU load at all

Weelllll that is finally changing. Games are finally starting to split the load because developers are starting to assume everyone is using at least a quad-core (or dual-core with some form of SMT) processor...or because they're FINALLY abandoning support for ye olde single-thread CPUs (consumer single-socket dual-core came out all the way back in 2005!). Starcraft II, for instance, is notorious for eating up CPU because it has to manage pathing and AI for potentially thousands of individual units.

But yes, developers these days tend to prioritize their resources towards eye candy, which means that GPUs bear the brunt of today's gaming.

--Patrick

Nov 22, 2017#195

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Weelllll that is finally changing. Games are finally starting to split the load because developers are starting to assume everyone is using at least a quad-core (or dual-core with some form of SMT) processor...or because they're FINALLY abandoning support for ye olde single-thread CPUs (consumer single-socket dual-core came out all the way back in 2005!). Starcraft II, for instance, is notorious for eating up CPU because it has to manage pathing and AI for potentially thousands of individual units.

But yes, developers these days tend to prioritize their resources towards eye candy, which means that GPUs bear the brunt of today's gaming.

--Patrick

There are one or two exceptions, yes... I doubt Starcraft is all that taxing, TBH, but Space Engineers is one of the exceptions where a powerful CPU will definitely be helpful - it does all the physics calculations for the bajillion blocks/parts used/in motion/colliding at any given time on the CPU. Last I played it, though, it wasn't too good at multithreading. That may have changed.

But for 95% of games out there, the GPU (and RAM) are all that matters.

Nov 22, 2017#196

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
I doubt Starcraft is all that taxing, TBH

Starcraft Two.

For reference, that first processor is the same one I'm using (though I don't have mine overclocked), a 6-core processor without SMT (6 threads total) that came out in 2010.
The second one is a quad-core Intel (that DOES have SMT, so 8 threads total) that came out just three years later AND is clocked 16% faster.

Sure wish he'd included a CPU usage display of some kind.

--Patrick

Nov 22, 2017#197

Eriol

GasBandit said:
There are one or two exceptions, yes... I doubt Starcraft is all that taxing, TBH, but Space Engineers is one of the exceptions where a powerful CPU will definitely be helpful - it does all the physics calculations for the bajillion blocks/parts used/in motion/colliding at any given time on the CPU. Last I played it, though, it wasn't too good at multithreading. That may have changed.

But for 95% of games out there, the GPU (and RAM) are all that matters.

I'm going to have to play around with this and see if I can get on the SE team...

(Space Engineers is built in .net, hence finding an OpenCL .net bindings library)

Nov 25, 2017#198

GasBandit

Soooo if you had an imgur account in 2014... and used the same password there as you do other sites... yeah...

Nov 25, 2017#199

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Soooo if you had an imgur account in 2014... and used the same password there as you do other sites... yeah...

Already use a different password for everything. Everything.

--Patrick

Nov 25, 2017#200

PatrThom

"What is Internet, anyway?"

--Patrick

Nov 27, 2017#201

Eriol

MS Patenting the obvious: Microsoft’s Edge browser may soon hide your adult browsing history automatically (patent)

Basically, go into "private browsing" mode upon detection of a certain set of websites. One big problem: Containers in Firefox has had this for most of the year (at least). Multi-Account Containers Also the help page: Containers

This add-on (it has support in FF itself to make it work as well) has cookies and such separated by container, and you can configure it to always open certain websites in certain containers. So it's basically exactly this patent. And considering that the patent was filed in June of this year, and this add-on pre-dates it by months (easily), methinks MS is screwed. It only went out for testing in the last few months, but the github has records back at LEAST 11 months, and it's been publicly accessible prior to the June date. Hopefully they won't try and be assholes with it, but this patent should be rejected.

Nov 27, 2017#202

Bubble181

I'm sure this has already been discussed on here but I can't find it so I'm asking again

I'm looking for a reliable, free MOBILE ad blocker. I use ABP on my desktop, don't know if their mobile offering is equally good? I've gotten sick and tired of the 15 second ad videos before and after each youtube video. I can live with an ad every 15 minutes but when listening to a list of short snippets of music having almost as much time lost to ads as to actual music, it's just too much.
Anyone a good suggestion?

Nov 27, 2017#203

Eriol

Bubble181 said:
I'm sure this has already been discussed on here but I can't find it so I'm asking again
I'm looking for a reliable, free MOBILE ad blocker. I use ABP on my desktop, don't know if their mobile offering is equally good? I've gotten sick and tired of the 15 second ad videos before and after each youtube video. I can live with an ad every 15 minutes but when listening to a list of short snippets of music having almost as much time lost to ads as to actual music, it's just too much.
Anyone a good suggestion?

Just to be clear, you want the ads removed from inside the YouTube app, or inside the browser's youtube player?

Nov 27, 2017#204

Bubble181

Eriol said:
Just to be clear, you want the ads removed from inside the YouTube app, or inside the browser's youtube player?

I currently use the YT app, but I used to use it in the browser. Either's fine, probably easier if I go through the browser.

Nov 27, 2017#205

GasBandit

Just so you know, there's no real way to accomplish the ad blocking that a full PC browser does without either using the Adblock browser itself instead of your phone's regular browser, or rooting your phone and downloading a third party blocking app. I've got the Adblock browser and for the most part it's okay but it has some other issues which always leads to me going back to Chrome. There's also another kind of ad blocker that uses itself as a VPN but I've gotten mixed results with that.

Nov 27, 2017#206

PatrThom

It’s really hard to do in-browser blocking with a mobile browser due to less control over scripted content. Usually the best way is via VPN-based blockers but then that drains your battery faster.

—Patrick

Dec 6, 2017#207

Eriol

Mozilla vs Yahoo lawsuit: Yahoo sues Mozilla for breach of contract -- so Mozilla counter sues Yahoo

So that's a thing. It's about how Mozilla had Yahoo as their default search provider in exchange for money. Mozilla dropped Yahoo early, so Yahoo is suing for breach of contract. Mozilla is counter-suing under both technical reasons (Yahoo's performance wasn't "good enough" under the contract according to Mozilla) as well as lack of payment from Yahoo, or at least not payment on schedule.

I think regardless of any other factor, if you're not paying, the other party gets to terminate. That's one of the easier factors to prove in court as breach of contract. The rest might be true, but that's the easy one to prove, and is the "you can always get out" reason (generally at least).

Dec 13, 2017#208

mikerc

Don't think I'll try & get my ISP to upgrade their network with this. Broadband connection made over wet string.

Needless to say this discovery is due to some bored techies realising they had everything they needed totest this just lying about not being used.

Dec 13, 2017#209

Eriol

New vulnerability in SSL, but only for RSA hosts: https://robotattack.org/

The best part about that page though is this:

Can this attack be used against Bitcoin?
Bitcoin does not use RSA, instead it uses elliptic curve cryptography based on the curve secp256k1. Our attack cannot be directly applied to that. However if you transform a quantum key exchange to a supersingular Isogeny you can attack post-quantum RSA and thus apply our attack indirectly to secp256k1.

We believe the only way Bitcoin can defend against this is to immediately switch to Quantum Blockchains.

I give props to those researchers. That's a level of trolling that only works against a certain level of technical knowledge. Well-done!

Dec 14, 2017#210

sixpackshaker

When I read that quote, I 'heard' it in the voice of Jordie LaForge.

Dec 15, 2017#211

GasBandit

Microsoft forced Win 10 users to install a password manager with a critical flaw that allows websites to steal passwords.

Dec 15, 2017#212

PatrThom

Joke’s on them! I don’t tell my computer to save any passwords!

—Patrick

Dec 15, 2017#213

Gared

GasBandit said:
Microsoft forced Win 10 users to install a password manager with a critical flaw that allows websites to steal passwords.

Of course they fucking did.

Dec 16, 2017#214

figmentPez

Mozilla backpedals after Mr. Robot-Firefox misstep

Firefox auto-installed a promotional tie-in extension for the television show Mr. Robot, without users' permission, and only stopped doing so when people freaked out and thought they'd been hacked.

C'mon, an open source project should know better than this shit.

Dec 16, 2017#215

strawman

Mozilla has really gone downhill.

Dec 16, 2017#216

GasBandit

Firefox 57 is markedly worse than its predecessors, so far, in my experience. I have to restart it to restore computer performance MUCH more often.

Dec 16, 2017#217

PatrThom

I don't think any user has ever said, "You know what I want more of in a browser? Unsolicited advertising. I just can't get enough of that in my life."

--Patrick

Dec 16, 2017#218

figmentPez

I haven't noticed any troubles, myself, with the latest Firefox. My only trouble was that, once it updated, I couldn't figure out how to work the new version of NoScript. I just could not get the new interface to permit things to run.

Dec 18, 2017#219

Eriol

This is "Geekier" than the average in the videos thread (and that's saying something considering our board here), so I'm putting it here:

Follow-up super-duper-crash-course on Neural Networks:

And having taken a course on Neural Networks back in University (it was an elective, and about 90% of the course was bullshit), I can say that his explanation is good enough for a super-intro version.

Dec 18, 2017#220

Dave

Not sure whether this goes here or the rant thread.

Got CenturyLink Gigabit fiber and so far it's been nothing short of infuriating.

The tech ran the wire through my new neighbor's fence. Like, laced it through the posts along the entire length of our yards like they were weaving a shitty basket.
The excess wire is just laying on the ground outside by the cable box in a heap.
They told me they couldn't bury the cable until the ground thaws. When I checked on their site they stated that the cable bury ticket was completed.
We are paying for Gigabit (1000 Mbps) and are currently hitting 94 Mbps down and 96 Mbps up.
I was on the phone with them for a couple hours and the best they could come up with was it was either my NIC card wasn't set up for 10/100/1000 (it is) or the ethernet cable I'm using isn't rated for gigabit. Haven't tried that out yet but I will before I call them back.

So again I could go back to Cox as they have Gigabit fiber out here as well...with a 1 TB data cap. Plus they are WAAAAAAY more expensive.

Ah, the pleasures of a new house.

Dec 18, 2017#221

GasBandit

Dave said:
Not sure whether this goes here or the rant thread.

Got CenturyLink Gigabit fiber and so far it's been nothing short of infuriating.

The tech ran the wire through my new neighbor's fence. Like, laced it through the posts along the entire length of our yards like they were weaving a shitty basket.

The excess wire is just laying on the ground outside by the cable box in a heap.

They told me they couldn't bury the cable until the ground thaws. When I checked on their site they stated that the cable bury ticket was completed.

We are paying for Gigabit (1000 Mbps) and are currently hitting 94 Mbps down and 96 Mbps up.

I was on the phone with them for a couple hours and the best they could come up with was it was either my NIC card wasn't set up for 10/100/1000 (it is) or the ethernet cable I'm using isn't rated for gigabit. Haven't tried that out yet but I will before I call them back.

So again I could go back to Cox as they have Gigabit fiber out here as well...with a 1 TB data cap. Plus they are WAAAAAAY more expensive.

Ah, the pleasures of a new house.

Might also want to make sure you're using a gigabit capable routers and switches, if you're doing more than just plugging one computer directly into their modem.

Dec 18, 2017#222

Dave

It's all their equipment so it better be compatible!

Dec 18, 2017#223

grub

You would be surprised. The ISP I work for uses switches that are not compatible with our IPTV system. We had good working one's for years, but they cost too much and now we stock ones that we can't use.

Dec 19, 2017#224

Eriol

Dave said:
Not sure whether this goes here or the rant thread.

Got CenturyLink Gigabit fiber and so far it's been nothing short of infuriating.

The tech ran the wire through my new neighbor's fence. Like, laced it through the posts along the entire length of our yards like they were weaving a shitty basket.

The excess wire is just laying on the ground outside by the cable box in a heap.

They told me they couldn't bury the cable until the ground thaws. When I checked on their site they stated that the cable bury ticket was completed.

We are paying for Gigabit (1000 Mbps) and are currently hitting 94 Mbps down and 96 Mbps up.

I was on the phone with them for a couple hours and the best they could come up with was it was either my NIC card wasn't set up for 10/100/1000 (it is) or the ethernet cable I'm using isn't rated for gigabit. Haven't tried that out yet but I will before I call them back.

So again I could go back to Cox as they have Gigabit fiber out here as well...with a 1 TB data cap. Plus they are WAAAAAAY more expensive.

Ah, the pleasures of a new house.

The first thing I did after my Dad helped me wire my new house was to test the ethernet we put in. I bought the cable, I knew it was correct, but there was always the possibility my crimping jobs were crap, or whatever. I was very happy that I can actually get the gigabit I'm paying for when I tested it. And even more significantly, I can get 700+Mbps to Boston as well, which is across an international border, so less likely to be doing "shenanigans" with that test.

Good luck Dave.

Dec 19, 2017#225

Dave

Well, I'll keep fighting the good fight, but if nothing else I'm STILL getting the same speed I was with my other provider and no longer have data caps - all for $9 a month more. So while I'll keep trying to figure this out, I'm not losing out until it gets fixed, either.

Dec 19, 2017#226

Eriol

There was a Slashdot article recently about favorite tech jokes. Well, here's a post that was a bunch of stories this guy claimed to have lived which I found the funniest of all:

Them: It's not working.
Me: Is it plugged in?
Them: Yes.
I walk over, check the power cord, and it's unplugged.
Them: Oooh, I didn't check that end of the cord.

Them: I can't play this DVD.
Me: Um, you only have a CD drive.

The user's password is on a post-it on their monitor. It was their initials and their date of birth. I still don't know why they needed the reminder.

Email from customer: Help
Me, in email: How can I help?
Them, in second email: I can't send email.
Me: It looks like you just did.

Them: Can you give me a copy of my predecessor's files?
Me: Sure. There's a lot, though. Which ones do you need?
Them: You do it. It's too unsecure for me to tell you which ones.
Me: I'm just worried about file space. You can have any or all of them if you want.
Them: That doesn't sound very safe. You tell me.
Me: I can't really tell you what files you need.
Them: My mouse is jumping around.
Me: Oh, it's just got a little dirt inside. It's easy to clean.
Them: Can't you just buy me a new one instead?

Director: I got a new computer. Can you drive out to my house to set up email for me?
Me: Okay.
I drive out and find the new computer is a laptop.

Me, on phone with ISP: We can't receive email.
ISP: We'll look into it and get back to you.
Me, four hours later: Can I get an update?
ISP: We found the problem and emailed you a fix hours ago.
Them: I'm trying to use Greg's computer but it won't come on.
I troubleshoot and discover user is pressing the monitor button.
Me: Look for the box, and press that button instead.
Them: Box? I don't see one. Greg took his laptop with him. Does that mean I can't use it?

Me: do you have a desktop or a laptop?
Him: I've got both.
Me: which are we using?
Him: well, it's a desktop right now.
Me: Huh? Desktop right now?
Him: Sometimes it's a laptop but right now it's a desktop.
Me: You mean your laptop is plugged into a dock?
Him: yeah.
Me: Okay, that still counts as a laptop.

Them: The printer is working, but it's not printing
Me: what does working but not printing mean?
Them: Well, I don't know, but it's .... it's ... it's not printing, but it's working?
Me: Well, in what ways is it working if it's not printing?
Them: I don't know. Can't you just come over here and fix it?
I come over. The printer is not plugged in.

Them: My computer won't play sound.
I adjust the volume slider. The computer beeps.
Them: Well, I thought it was the sound, but, it won't play this voice mail.
I double-click the file, and it runs for one second and ends.
Me: I think it's just a hang-up.
Them: Oh, nevermind then.

Her: I'm trying to opposite-click X, but it's not working.
Me: Uh, most people call it right click.
Her: Yeah, but it's the opposite button, so I call it opposite click.
Me: You know, if you use a term that nobody else understands, they probably won't understand you.
Her: So anyway, I'm trying to opposite-click this file, and ...

Him: I'm getting spam from myself! Help!
Me: Addresses can be faked.
Him: Ah.

Her: I used to be able to use my work computer at home, but the wireless stopped working.
Me: Hm, it seems to work here in the office.
Her: Yeah, it's fine here, just not at home. It use to work but now it wants a password.
Me: Uh, let's back up. Do you have wireless installed at home?
Her: No. I just grab something from the list of wireless networks. But now they have passwords.
Me: Oh, you've been stealing wireless from your neighbors, then.

Her: I'm trying to run this file and it won't.
Me: where did it come from?
Her: the dean sent it to me because he couldn't open it.
Me: where did he get it.
Her: let me see ... (checks) ... he says it came in an email.
After a little more research, turns out it was a virus email that he'd been trying to run for half an hour, and then recruiting the rest of his staff to help him get it running.

Dec 19, 2017#227

PatrThom

I had someone last week ask me if I had a longer charging cord for their phone. “I just redid my desk and now the cord is too short. I need some kind of USB extension or something.”
Me: “How about you just use an extension cord from the outlet to the charger plug?”
Them: “......Oh.”

—Patrick

Dec 19, 2017#228

Gared

PatrThom said:
I had someone last week ask me if I had a longer charging cord for their phone. “I just redid my desk and now the cord is too short. I need some kind of USB extension or something.”
Me: “How about you just use an extension cord from the outlet to the charger plug?”
Them: “......Oh.”

—Patrick

We really need a facepalm rating for situations like this.

Dec 19, 2017#229

Dave

Updated my drivers, changed out the CAT5e cabling, rebooted, and...

Dec 19, 2017#230

GasBandit

Dave said:
Updated my drivers, changed out the CAT5e cabling, rebooted, and...

Try it on fast.com to be sure.

Dec 19, 2017#231

Dave

I just want to sit and run speed tests all night. I'm positively giddy.

Dec 19, 2017#232

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Try it on fast.com to be sure.

And bandwidthplace.com.

—Patrick

Dec 19, 2017#233

Dave

GasBandit said:
Try it on fast.com to be sure.

Will do.

Dec 19, 2017#234

PatrThom

...and?

Also, I think gas might want to colocate a box at your place.

—Patrick

Dec 19, 2017#235

Dave

PatrThom said:
And bandwidthplace.com.

—Patrick

That takes me down considerably.

Dec 19, 2017#236

PatrThom

Make sure you’re picking a nearby server manually. Sometimes it just goes by fastest ping and picks one an extra 500 miles away.

—Patrick

Dec 19, 2017#237

Dave

PatrThom said:
Make sure you’re picking a nearby server manually. Sometimes it just goes by fastest ping and picks one an extra 500 miles away.

—Patrick

Unfortunately, Omaha is right in the middle of everything and is pretty equidistant from the Chicago or Texas or Denver servers.

Dec 19, 2017#238

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
...and?

Also, I think gas might want to colocate a box at your place.

—Patrick

Colocate a box? How about my goddamn self? Shit, Dave, you wanna rent me a room?

Dec 19, 2017#239

Dave

GasBandit said:
Shit, Dave, you wanna rent me a room?

Sure, come on up! And no data cap, so unlimited HD porn!

Dec 19, 2017#240

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Colocate a box? How about my goddamn self? Shit, Dave, you wanna rent me a room?

Dave said:
Sure, come on up! And no data cap, so unlimited HD porn!

And now we know Gasbandit’s price for live-in, on-site tech support.

...it’s fake Internet points, isn’t it.

—Patrick

Dec 19, 2017#241

GasBandit

Dave said:
Sure, come on up! And no data cap, so unlimited HD porn!

Anybody allergic to cats? Or VAST AMOUNTS OF SEMINAL FLUID?

Dec 19, 2017#242

Cog

I thought this only happens on the internet. Somebody mailed me her user and password. Anyone has an enemy and would like him to have pending taxes here?

Dec 19, 2017#243

Dei

Honestly, in a couple of years every major city in Colorado will have or will be on the verge of having fast internet not beholden to the main ISPs (in theory), so why lower yourself to living in Nebraska.

Dec 19, 2017#244

PatrThom

Dei said:
Honestly, in a couple of years every major city in Colorado will have or will be on the verge of having fast internet not beholden to the main ISPs (in theory), so why lower yourself to living in Nebraska.

And pot.
D'ya think between the two of them, they'll make a sort of "Shipt," but for legal weed?

--Patrick

Dec 19, 2017#245

GasBandit

Dei said:
Honestly, in a couple of years every major city in Colorado will have or will be on the verge of having fast internet not beholden to the main ISPs (in theory), so why lower yourself to living in Nebraska.

Dec 23, 2017#246

jwhouk

So - that minor victory I had about getting the 'rents wi-fi going.

Turns out upload speed is like, nil. I mean, literally nil. Speedtest has been giving me upload speeds of 0.13 mbps. This has been making watching Youtube and other videos rather... difficult.

I checked out the modem/router, and it doesn't need a firmware update, so it's not that. Of course, this is a MH park, so it's possible the line coming in is crappy.

Any ideas as to reasons why it's so damn slow?[DOUBLEPOST=1514047304,1514047067][/DOUBLEPOST]

Cog said:
I thought this only happens on the internet. Somebody mailed me her user and password. Anyone has an enemy and would like him to have pending taxes here?

...Nah.

Dec 23, 2017#247

DarkAudit

Assuming you've cycled power on their router and/or tried a wired connection?

Dec 23, 2017#248

GasBandit

Just out of curiosity, what's the download speed? If it's less than 20mbit, 1mbit up wouldn't be too far out of the norm for up (but not 0.13, of course).

Do you get the bad upload speed from just your laptop on the wifi, or also from a computer connected directly to the router via ethernet cable?

Dec 23, 2017#249

PatrThom

This is why I hate troubleshooting network issues.

—Patrick

Dec 23, 2017#250

jwhouk

The upload speed is a crappy 12 Mbps. I have not had the opportunity to refresh the router, as all four of us are using it. I may do so after everyone's gone to bed.

Dec 23, 2017#251

jwhouk

DarkAudit said:
Assuming you've cycled power on their router and/or tried a wired connection?

I tested it on a wired connection.

Dec 23, 2017#252

strawman

If you’re using WiFi, tried a wired connection. If the modem is separate from the router, disable the router and connect directly to the modem and test.
Disconnect all pther devices (change the WiFi network name) and test.

Between these three you should be able to determine the weak link.

Dec 23, 2017#253

PatrThom

jwhouk said:
The upload speed is a crappy 12 Mbps. I have not had the opportunity to refresh the router, as all four of us are using it. I may do so after everyone's gone to bed.

12Mb/s is actually a really nice upload speed here in the USA. Most (asymmetric) home connections don't get more than 6 or so.
...so I assume 12Mb/s is actually your download speed.
And yes, troubleshooting with a wire will help narrow down if one of your devices is the culprit, or if it's actually a config/wireless issue (if the wired option works perfectly otherwise).

--Patrick

Dec 23, 2017#254

Dei

PatrThom said:
12Mb/s is actually a really nice upload speed here in the USA. Most (asymmetric) home connections don't get more than 6 or so.
...so I assume 12Mb/s is actually your download speed.
And yes, troubleshooting with a wire will help narrow down if one of your devices is the culprit, or if it's actually a config/wireless issue (if the wired option works perfectly otherwise).

--Patrick

I assumed he was talking about download speed when he was talking about lag while watching YouTube.

Dec 23, 2017#255

GasBandit

That would make a lot more sense, if he meant DOWNLOAD but was saying upload.

That said, even 12Mbps should have no trouble at all with a 1080p youtube video.

Dec 24, 2017#256

jwhouk

Speedtest Result (after cycling through modem)

13.30 down, 0.70 up.

Dec 24, 2017#257

GasBandit

jwhouk said:
Speedtest Result (after cycling through modem)

13.30 down, 0.70 up.

Sounds about like what I used to get from my DSL 15 years ago.

Dec 24, 2017#258

jwhouk

It is CenturyLink, so I'm betting it actually may be DSL.

In which case it will definitely be off my list when I move down here next month.

Dec 24, 2017#259

PatrThom

If that's legit, then it's probably a 15M/768k connection.
<checks centurylink.com>
Ok so it's probably either 12/768 and you're getting better than average download speed, or else it's the 20/1 service and you're underperforming on both.

--Patrick

Dec 24, 2017#260

jwhouk

UGH. I would never want 12/768.

Dec 29, 2017#261

jwhouk

Best result I got on my tablet when I was out in AZ with my dad's CenturyLink DSL: 10.08 down, 0.03 up, 79 ping.

First result I got when I got home to my own Wi-Fi: 18.65 down, 6.06 up, 11 ping. :confused:

Dec 29, 2017#262

Bubble181

Man, the USA really is a backwards country in broadband. Belgium's considered an expensive country, but for my $120 (including 2 cellphones, fixed phone, digital tv with extra channels), I get:

Get some actual competition going, or get a competent government to lay down some lines

Dec 29, 2017#263

strawman

Bubble181 said:
Get some actual competition going, or get a competent government to lay down some lines

30,278 square kilometers
9,833,517 square kilometers

If you figure out a way to wire it up at the same cost per person you guys have, you'll be set for generations.

Dec 29, 2017#264

GasBandit

Bubble181 said:
Man, the USA really is a backwards country in broadband. Belgium's considered an expensive country, but for my $120 (including 2 cellphones, fixed phone, digital tv with extra channels), I get:

View attachment 26415

Get some actual competition going, or get a competent government to lay down some lines

That's because you guys have no room so they stack you 30 high. That's a lot easier to provision network infrastructure for.

Meanwhile, Rango is just grateful there's any internet at all in the desert

Dec 29, 2017#265

Bubble181

GasBandit said:
That's because you guys have no room so they stack you 30 high. That's a lot easier to provision network infrastructure for.

Meanwhile, Rango is just grateful there's any internet at all in the desert

My 4G was faster in the middle of the Serengeti than what you guys consider "broadband" - literally 50 miles from the nearest town.

("the desert" is easy - it's "hills and trees and crap" that's difficult

)

Jan 2, 2018#266

Eriol

If you don't know what RowHammer, ASLR, and a Hypervisor are, ignore the rest of this. Sorry to say, it's above your head right now. Wait for the "big headlines" in the next week or so about a crippling security bug in virtually ALL Intel processors. Or maybe they'll keep it quiet. We'll see I guess.

This guy has a post up on his Tumblr that lays out pretty clearly IMO that some "bad shit" is happening behind the scenes with regards to how Kernels (both Linux and Windows) are implementing ASLR, and how RowHammer is making it ineffective on Intel processors. AMD seems unaffected by this. His conclusion is that there's probably a demonstrable attack on VM hypervisors, which is causing Amazon, Google, and Microsoft (the only 3 of any significance in Cloud Hosting) to freak the fuck out. The mysterious case of the Linux Page Table Isolation patches and update post Quiet in the peanut gallery

Thoughts from other security-minded people? His conclusions seem at the least plausible, if not outright correct. According to the update post, embargo ends on Jan 4th. Or the Kernel updates could be blown out-of-proportion. We'll see I hope.

Jan 2, 2018#267

strawman

Well certainly the speed of the patch combined with the other elements suggests a significant issue. Two more days until we find out how bad it is.

He describes an extraordinarily complex attack, though, which would only be useful against particularly profitable targets. If his description is correct this is not something home users or even small website owners will have to worry about. It's an attack against governments and large businesses.

That said, as long as the attack can be automated I guess target size doesn't matter, and at that point I'm concerned not because I could be a target, but because the article strongly suggests a significant performance penalty for the fix. Imagine all the cloud computing websites suddenly slowing down - not a lot, but measurably.

If the AMD processors are truly unaffected, their prices are going to skyrocket as cloud companies order all the production capacity over the next year since it'll take Intel another year to implement a hardware fix.

So if you're looking at getting an AMD processor, buy before the embargo lifts in two days. I'd have expected prices to go up once that tidbit was noted on the kernel mailing list, but so far the price of AMD processors isn't showing any blips. However, the CPU difference was only confirmed December 26th, during the US holidays when a lot of people are taking end of year vacation, and prices take some time to react to market changes, so we could still be in the honeymoon where large businesses are ordering them at a furious pace, but the sellers haven't reacted by increasing prices yet. Further the fix is implemented so it can be turned on and off at the command line, with at least one person on the kernel list asking in case they do discover one or more AMD cpus is affected.

I've been looking to build a virtual server for a home server (mostly media, but also file, etc) for awhile now, but my laptop purchase put that on hold, probably for another year. Hopefully things will settled back down by then, and as it is, hard drives and processor only get cheaper over time anyway...

Jan 2, 2018#268

PatrThom

Welp looks like even more incentive to make sure your next build uses ECC memory.

--Patrick

Jan 2, 2018#269

fade

Anybody have any luck with Monoprice's lifetime cable warranty? Do you need to return the old one?

Thing is, I just found out they have the lifetime warranty. I have bought several 3.5mm audio cables, and I may have thrown away a couple of the old ones. They all fail the same way. Thing is, they're like 1.50 each, so it wouldn't be super economical to return them anyway (unless they're paying the postage).

Jan 3, 2018#270

PatrThom

stienman said:
I've been looking to build a virtual server for a home server (mostly media, but also file, etc) for awhile now, but my laptop purchase put that on hold, probably for another year. Hopefully things will settled back down by then, and as it is, hard drives and processor only get cheaper over time anyway...

Yeah. A machine with a Nehalem-based quad-core Xeon processor with dual gigabit NIC, room for 3 SATA HDDs, and 12GB ECC DDR3 that sold for $3700 in 2009 can be had these days for under $200. You know...if you want to start getting something set up on the cheap.

Better hurry, though...they only have 6 3 2 left.

--Patrick

Jan 3, 2018#271

Eriol

Follow-up from above, hitting more mainstream now: 'Kernel memory leaking' Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

Jan 3, 2018#272

Eriol

Eriol said:
Follow-up from above, hitting more mainstream now: 'Kernel memory leaking' Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

Intel official newsroom response: Intel Responds to Security Research Findings

They claim others have this problem too, which some of the earlier reports directly contradict. We'll find out next week apparently!

Jan 3, 2018#273

PatrThom

Or maybe sooner:

More info at https://meltdownattack.com/

--Patrick

Jan 3, 2018#274

Terrik

My monitor arrived today and

Jan 4, 2018#275

Eriol

PatrThom said:
Or maybe sooner:

More info at https://meltdownattack.com/

--Patrick

This bug makes Heartbleed look like a Cross-Site-Scripting attack.

Jan 4, 2018#276

fade

The thing that bugs the crap out of me about Meltdown in particular is that there is no way Intel didn't know about it. There's just no way the engineers could design those speculative systems without realizing they were creating (and relying on) this hole.

Jan 4, 2018#277

strawman

Having been part of a group designing an out of order processor with address translation lookahead and caching I absolutely believe that they could have designed the processor without knowing about this loophole. University level, though, nothing real or fancy.

This is a fantastically strange exploit, and honestly since it affects processors a decade old and required pretty high powered research teams to uncover only after uncovering a number of other flaws and combining aspects of each - I’m not sure you could make the claim that they knew this was a risk and chose to ignore it.

That said, maybe we will have a whistleblower and internal secrets worthy of Enron shenanigans.

But the complexity of today’s processors is mind boggling, requiring huge teams working independently to each find a 1-2% improvement that hopefully together bumps the processor up enough to keep intel on top of the pile.

Jan 4, 2018#278

fade

I mean, I'm no microprocessor engineer, but reading how this vulnerability works (not perhaps the exploit required to activate it), it seems like the system in question relied on the vulnerability of making these psuedo-pages available to all processes. I find it hard to believe someone(s) weren't saying "If someone finds their way in here, we're in deep poo".

EDIT: I'm not talking about guys walking around in Nazi caps laughing evilly. I'm talking about a bunch of guys sweating and going, "we got 1% more out, but boy this could go wrong". For my anecdote, I've seen plenty of that happen.

Jan 4, 2018#279

PatrThom

fade said:
EDIT: I'm not talking about guys walking around in Nazi caps laughing evilly. I'm talking about a bunch of guys sweating and going, "we got 1% more out, but boy this could go wrong". For my anecdote, I've seen plenty of that happen.

I think what you are really discussing is “security through obscurity,” which anyone in IT should realize is not viable...but which many more are just like, “eh, good enough. Nobody should find out until after I’m out of here” which gets justified under “acceptable risk.”

—Patrick

Jan 4, 2018#280

fade

To be honest, I'm not properly armed to debate about this. Perhaps I should've phrased it less absolutely as, "It seems like something Intel would've noticed".

Jan 4, 2018#281

Eriol

PatrThom said:
I think what you are really discussing is “security through obscurity,” which anyone in IT should realize is not viable...but which many more are just like, “eh, good enough. Nobody should find out until after I’m out of here” which gets justified under “acceptable risk.”

I've NEVER had a co-worker do that. What I have had happen is a manager (or higher) having that type of opinion (not necessarily because they think they'll be gone), and directing it below.

Jan 4, 2018#282

PatrThom

Eriol said:
I've NEVER had a co-worker do that. What I have had happen is a manager (or higher) having that type of opinion (not necessarily because they think they'll be gone), and directing it below.

Ah, the things a PHB will do to hit a shipping deadline, amrite?

—Patrick

Jan 6, 2018#283

Gared

So would I be correct in thinking that the reason all of my streaming video apps just took a performance hit is because the patch for this stupid exploit caused an actual physical slowdown of machines running the affected(sp?) processors? And, that if we do see speeds go back up it will either be because the CDN's have had to increase the number of servers and/or replace their Intel chips with AMD chips? I mean, I can skim through the thread and the articles about it and pick up most of the concepts, but am I really reading everything correctly here? And if so, is there an actual benefit to putting an SSD into a 10+ year old computer, because I already have an (ancient) AMD chip and won't be able to afford to replace the machine this year if all of this bs drives Ryzen prices through the roof?

Jan 6, 2018#284

PatrThom

It caused a slowdown, but as I understand it, the patch really only affects programs that strongly benefit from speculative access (lots of potential choices), and seeing how most video decoding is done on GPU these days anyway, your slowdowns are more likely to be due to not having a new enough graphics card to take advantage of GPU decoding. Likewise there's not a lot of decision-making being done when delivering content (the CDNs are just shoveling data in your direction) so this is also unlikely to be affected.

Putting a SSD into a 10+ yr old computer will improve performance, but what it improves is your computer's ability to find and load multiple files on the drive (i.e., "access time"), it will not actually make your computer run faster (unless the reason it was slow in the first place was because it was bogged down trying to read/write multiple files).

--Patrick

Jan 6, 2018#285

Gared

PatrThom said:
It caused a slowdown, but as I understand it, the patch really only affects programs that strongly benefit from speculative access (lots of potential choices), and seeing how most video decoding is done on GPU these days anyway, your slowdowns are more likely to be due to not having a new enough graphics card to take advantage of GPU decoding. Likewise there's not a lot of decision-making being done when delivering content (the CDNs are just shoveling data in your direction) so this is also unlikely to be affected.

Putting a SSD into a 10+ yr old computer will improve performance, but what it improves is your computer's ability to find and load multiple files on the drive (i.e., "access time"), it will not actually make your computer run faster (unless the reason it was slow in the first place was because it was bogged down trying to read/write multiple files).

--Patrick

My biggest issue is load time, and especially browsers accessing their cache before loading a page. At this point, just the act of opening a new tab in Chrome or Firefox will outright stop all other processes while the tab resolves, and will do it again once I send it to an actual address. I can be playing Eternal Card Game, on my opponent's turn, against a live player, and the whole thing just hangs until my browser is done; or casting something to my TV from my computer; or typing something in Word. It's getting nigh-unusable for any multitasking that requires a browser. And sadly, it's not just web browsers. Want to open a document in Word? Good luck. Hope you don't need to save anything large anytime soon. It's um... it's getting unfortunate. If an SSD would help relieve that, then I have no legitimate reason to replace the machine.

The slowdown I was referring to, however, skips over my computer altogether. Unless I want to watch something I've "acquired" on my own, I never stream from my PC to the TV anymore, for the above mentioned reason. Since moving to a much smaller town and getting a new modem and (le gasp!) a router that is a separate device, which (le gasp again!) isn't automatically set up to allow anyone who wants to connect to it to do so as a guest (stupid comcast and their stupid modem/router/hotspot devices), I never have any of the issues I used to have casting through either the Chromecast or the Amazon FireTV Stick. In fact, Amazon is my device of choice now, it runs so much smoother. Or it did, until about two days ago, when both devices became a lot less smooth. Though, I will admit that I've never studied the architecture behind a CDN, much less the relationship between Netflix's on-device app, the FireTV stick, and AWS; so really, the whole thing could be unconnected aside from really coincidental timing - hence the question.

Jan 6, 2018#286

PatrThom

Your first issue sounds more like insufficient RAM, which should be easy enough to check using Task Manager/Activity Monitor. When your computer is starved for memory, switching from one app to another will hit you with a time penalty while unused stuff is packed up and swapped to disk while other stuff is loaded from disk and unpacked. Chrome is notorious for using more memory than other browsers, which it does in order to separate each page into its own process. It's true that having a faster drive will reduce this impact, but to actually fix it means installing more RAM. Again, you should check your actual RAM usage before making any hardware changes, it's really easy (and free!) to check and you'll find out right away if that's what it is. If your "available" memory is only measurable in MB then it's time for more RAM.

--Patrick

Jan 6, 2018#287

Gared

PatrThom said:
Your first issue sounds more like insufficient RAM, which should be easy enough to check using Task Manager/Activity Monitor. When your computer is starved for memory, switching from one app to another will hit you with a time penalty while unused stuff is packed up and swapped to disk while other stuff is loaded from disk and unpacked. Chrome is notorious for using more memory than other browsers, which it does in order to separate each page into its own process. It's true that having a faster drive will reduce this impact, but to actually fix it means installing more RAM. Again, you should check your actual RAM usage before making any hardware changes, it's really easy (and free!) to check and you'll find out right away if that's what it is. If your "available" memory is only measurable in MB then it's time for more RAM.

--Patrick

Nope, RAM isn't the issue. I have multiple GB free (in fact, I can have up to 3GB free, which is 50% of my RAM, while the issue is happening). That was my first consideration, but since I can only add up to a total of 2 more GB (for a total of 8) with this motherboard, it's not high on my list of things to buy, even though it's usually dirt cheap.

Jan 6, 2018#288

Eriol

PatrThom said:
It caused a slowdown, but as I understand it, the patch really only affects programs that strongly benefit from speculative access (lots of potential choices)

I don't know the source of Gared's issues, but Patrick, this assertion is incorrect. Speculative execution is the source of the bug/exploit, but the fix is to make every call to the Operating System's Kernel layer super-expensive compared to how it was before by "purging" the RAM that the process can see (not just legally access, see at all) and not storing ANY kernel memory there. So this makes any system calls (even allocating memory on anything but the stack) have a much greater cost than before.

So if your program has lots of branches, it doesn't make a difference versus a program with fewer. But if you hit the kernel a lot (file/network access, or just allocating/deallocating memory a lot) then you will see a hit.

Jan 6, 2018#289

PatrThom

Eriol said:
I don't know the source of Gared's issues, but Patrick, this assertion is incorrect.

Well, we're sorta both right and wrong. You're describing Meltdown, I'm describing Spectre. The remedies for each seem to involve messing with timer reporting (Spectre) and with purging the TLB so kernel memory is truly invisible to user processes (Meltdown).

--Patrick

Jan 7, 2018#290

strawman

The fact that they are reading cache memory, bit by bit, using a timer is insane.

It’s just completely bonkers.

This is hard core.

And they can’t fix it with a microcode patch since it’s a cache exploit.

This has been known for awhile, though, the new trick is figuring out which piece of cached memory belongs to the real memory, and which pieces of real memory the operating system resides in.

The only reason this works in a human time scale at all is because the processors are running billions of instructions per second. Have you seen the readout examples of the exploit? They aren’t zooming by faster than you can see - each byte they capture from the OS memory space cost them hundreds of millions of cycles of processing.

It’s mind boggling that people sat down and reverse engineered enough of these chips to figure out an exploit was possible here, then worked on it for countless hours to see if it could work.

And I’m glad they did, because it’ll doubtless result in a fix in the next chip, though probably not a perfect fix since the chip design is already in process, but it’ll probably make the software fix run much faster if not eliminate the problem altogether.

Jan 8, 2018#291

Eriol

PatrThom said:
Well, we're sorta both right and wrong. You're describing Meltdown, I'm describing Spectre. The remedies for each seem to involve messing with timer reporting (Spectre) and with purging the TLB so kernel memory is truly invisible to user processes (Meltdown).

And the fact they are even mentioned in the same articles as one another (let alone sentence) shows the power of Intel's PR machine, as de Raadt commented on:

"Intel has been exceedingly clever to mix Meltdown (speculative loads) with a separate issue (Spectre). This is pulling the wool over the public's eyes."

De Raadt found an analogy with the Volkswagen emission issue. "Some VW executives probably wish a problem with their brake controller software has been discovered at the same time," he quipped.

IMO de Raddt isn't being dramatic enough. It would be like the emissions cheating being released at the same time as it was found that everybody in the industry was blinking their signal lights at the "wrong" interval and VW trying to show how they're the same as everybody else.

Spectre is annoying, and applications can be patched. Meltdown is a total and complete catastrophe for security, and ONLY Intel is affected.

Jan 8, 2018#292

PatrThom

Eriol said:
Meltdown is a total and complete catastrophe for security, and ONLY Intel is affected.

...and certain high-performance ARM chips.

There's already been 3 or 4 class-action lawsuits filed against Intel. Maybe more, by now.
...which is still not as many as have been filed against Apple for their battery thing.

The tech sector sure seems to be full of lawyers all of a sudden.

--Patrick

Jan 8, 2018#293

Eriol

PatrThom said:
...and certain high-performance ARM chips.

Please link that, as the tech paper (pdf link) on the main site says specifically:

We also tried to reproduce the Meltdown bug on several ARM and AMD CPUs. However, we did not manage to successfully leak kernel memory with the attack described in Section 5, neither on ARM nor on AMD.

They got a toy example working to show there are effects of speculative execution (ie: Spectre), but that's not the same as leaking kernel memory, which is Meltdown.

Please link an article mentioning ARM-related Meltdown (well, anybody BUT Intel), as I haven't seen it yet.

Jan 8, 2018#294

PatrThom

Eriol said:
Please link that, as the tech paper (pdf link) on the main site says specifically:

They got a toy example working to show there are effects of speculative execution (ie: Spectre), but that's not the same as leaking kernel memory, which is Meltdown.

Please link an article mentioning ARM-related Meltdown (well, anybody BUT Intel), as I haven't seen it yet.

Here you go, straight from ARM, where they specifically reference Meltdown (as CVE-2017-5754).

—Patrick

Jan 8, 2018#295

Eriol

PatrThom said:
Here you go, straight from ARM, where they specifically reference Meltdown (as CVE-2017-5754).

Fair enough, though if you read through the PDF itself, it's "less bad" than the Intel vulnerability. Same "type" of attack, but getting the information out is MUCH harder. Not impossible, but it's a lot slower.

Jan 8, 2018#296

PatrThom

Eriol said:
Fair enough, though if you read through the PDF itself, it's "less bad" than the Intel vulnerability. Same "type" of attack, but getting the information out is MUCH harder. Not impossible, but it's a lot slower.

Right. Only vulnerable to a specific implementation.
They’ll probably still get sued.

—Patrick

Jan 8, 2018#297

strawman

/oprah You get a lawsuit! You get a lawsuit! Everyone gets a lawsuit!

Jan 8, 2018#298

PatrThom

stienman said:
/oprah You get a lawsuit! You get a lawsuit! Everyone gets a lawsuit!

Seriously.
All we’re missing is a story about having to replace Disney’s animatronic Trump for going on a grabby sexual harassment rampage due to a flaw in its CPU and a defective Li-ion battery.

—Patrick

Jan 9, 2018#299

Eriol

Neat idea from Razer at CES: Razer’s Project Linda imagines a laptop dock for the Razer Phone
Image:

Honestly, not a terrible idea IMO. Probably never make it to market, but I like the general idea. I think integrating it as the touchpad is actually kinda genius (in the good way I mean). Eliminates "well where do I put my phone?" problem with other laptop-like docks for phones.

Jan 9, 2018#300

MindDetective

I 100% believe we're going that way. People will carry their PCs in their pocket and just dock them when they need to do something with a bigger screen/keyboard and mouse. This will NOT kill the PC, of course, because more powerful machines are always needed for something. But for daily use, a quality phone with a dock could be enough to do 98% of a typical user's non-gaming needs.

Jan 9, 2018#301

strawman

MindDetective said:
I 100% believe we're going that way. People will carry their PCs in their pocket and just dock them when they need to do something with a bigger screen/keyboard and mouse. This will NOT kill the PC, of course, because more powerful machines are always needed for something. But for daily use, a quality phone with a dock could be enough to do 98% of a typical user's non-gaming needs.

I thought we were going that direction several years ago - an android phone had similar capabilities, just not the fancy docking solution.

However PC processors are still exceeding mobile processors in a lot of ways, and mobile processors have a lot of limitations in I/O.

Apple's mobile processors are catching up, though, so I'm hoping that Apple starts producing OS X laptops based on their A series of processors.

Then again, I was expecting OS X and iOS to share features more fully over the last five years too. I'd really like an iPad Pro with xcode, etc running directly on it.

I think the real impediment is market segmentation. Right now Apple can get one consumer to buy a phone, watch, iPad, and PC. If they extend the iPad, Phone , or Watch too far they'll find more customers buying fewer devices. Further, the iOS devices are all successfully walled gardens, and they can extract more profit from customers on apps and digital purchases than they do with OS X.

Other players can force them into a position where they might have to cave, though, so I hope that this product becomes successful, and other products similar to it.

But apple is so far ahead in their processor design that even efforts like this might not cause them to budge.

Jan 9, 2018#302

Gruebeard

PatrThom said:
Seriously.
All we’re missing is a story about having to replace Disney’s animatronic Trump for going on a grabby sexual harassment rampage due to a flaw in its CPU and a defective Li-ion battery.

—Patrick

Actually, Disney’s animatronic Trump was programmed to go on a grabby sexual harassment rampage, but a flaw in its CPU and a defective Li-ion battery have prevented it from behaving like the real Trump.

Jan 10, 2018#303

Eriol

Just facepalm: Taiwanese Police Give Cyber-security Quiz Winners Infected Devices

Taiwan's national police agency said 54 of the flash drives it gave out at an event highlighting a government's cybercrime crackdown contained malware. From a report: The virus, which can steal personal data and has been linked to fraud, was added inadvertently, it said. The Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) apologised for the error and blamed the mishap on a third-party contractor. It said 20 of the drives had been recovered. Around 250 flash drives were given out at the expo, which was hosted by Taiwan's Presidential Office from 11-15 December and aimed to highlight the government's determination to crack down on cybercrime.

Odds on not being a mistake? I mean only those who are GOOD at security can possibly blow through the locks, so therefore we have to trace/track those who are interested in it... right?

Either extreme incompetence, or extremely disturbing. Or both. I guess it could be both too.

Jan 10, 2018#304

PatrThom

“We were just testing you.”

—Patrick

Jan 10, 2018#305

strawman

Nvidia GPUs vulnerable to spectre:

https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/10/nvidia-gpu-meltdown-and-spectre-patches/

As expected, but many were dismissing the idea since they believed it wasn't important as it doesn't carry the kernel of have privilege levels.

Also, an interesting read on how four different teams converged on the same bugs at the same time - bugs that are 20 years old:

https://www.wired.com/story/meltdown-spectre-bug-collision-intel-chip-flaw-discovery/

Jan 10, 2018#306

Gared

That reminds me, I haven't seen an Nvidia graphics card update in months. There's usually one every two or three weeks, whenever a new game is released... oh, it's because my Nvidia Geforce Experience was turned off. There's all my updates. Sheesh.

Jan 10, 2018#307

PatrThom

Gared said:
That reminds me, I haven't seen an Nvidia graphics card update in months. There's usually one every two or three weeks, whenever a new game is released... oh, it's because my Nvidia Geforce Experience was turned off. There's all my updates. Sheesh.

Oh, you meant driver updates.
I thought you meant card/chip updates, was going to agree that they're in the doldrums again.

--Patrick

Jan 11, 2018#308

GasBandit

GeForce NOW is now in beta.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/products/geforce-now/mac-pc/

I've signed up. I'd like to see if it can turn my old laptop into a beast machine, as it claims.

Jan 11, 2018#309

strawman

Neat, but at a little over $1 an hour how big is the market after the free beta?

Jan 11, 2018#310

GasBandit

stienman said:
Neat, but at a little over $1 an hour how big is the market after the free beta?

I know I'd be buying hours every time it was time to go visit the folks. And I've got numerous friends and relatives with aging machines who occasionally want to play, and $1 an hour is cheaper than we used to spend in the arcades back in the day, by a LOT.

Jan 11, 2018#311

Dei

GasBandit said:
I know I'd be buying hours every time it was time to go visit the folks. And I've got numerous friends and relatives with aging machines who occasionally want to play, and $1 an hour is cheaper than we used to spend in the arcades back in the day, by a LOT.

You probably need good internet for that though, so don't try it when visiting any of your grandparents.

Jan 11, 2018#312

GasBandit

Dei said:
You probably need good internet for that though, so don't try it when visiting any of your grandparents.

Yeah they never went to the arcade anyway

At least this grandfather HAD internet of some form.

My other grandfather, the one in Grand Junction? Refuses. Says he doesn't need it. Not even when all 5 of his kids and dozens of grandkids are in the house. He will graciously offer to turn on his (3g-ish speed) wifi hotspot on his flip phone if you want to check your e-mail, but take it easy because he only gets 1 gig a month.

And no, he doesn't get cable either (not that I blame him for that). I'm astonished he actually has a DVD player (he probably was given one for christmas I suspect).

As the jitters start to set in on the more net-addicted of his descendants, he will offer to assuage their agitation with a rousing game of Hearts, Monopoly, or 42.

Jan 11, 2018#313

strawman

Dei said:
You probably need good internet for that though, so don't try it when visiting any of your grandparents.

25mbps minimum required.

Jan 11, 2018#314

GasBandit

When I got home, I set up my steam link and steam controller that has been waiting for me at the office since I went into the hospital.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the steam link, although my TV isn't quite big enough to adequately display the text under icons in 1080p. But that's a side effect of me never valuing couch gaming before.

The steam controller is going to take some serious getting used to. I've never been much of a controller guy since the 90s, give me a keyboard and mouse any day, and I don't know why they assigned left click to be the right analog trigger. The depth of the analog throw really screws up my aim with the mouse cursor in desktop mode. I suppose I'll have plenty of time to practice, as my butt is pretty much glued to the couch for the next few weeks when I'm not working.

Steam link is sure great for playing video files easily though. One side note for people like me who have more than one monitor, you may as well get the steam controller with your steam link because it's the only easy way to switch between monitors on the Fly. You simply mouse off the edge of one monitor to get the other monitor on screen. It's a lot more complicated without a steam controller.

Jan 11, 2018#315

Dei

I just use an Xbox controller, or a keyboard on my lap with the mouse on the couch.

Jan 11, 2018#316

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
my TV isn't quite big enough to adequately display the text under icons in 1080p

Isn't there some sort of underscan compensation built into either the device or into your TV, itself?

--Patrick

Jan 12, 2018#317

figmentPez

GasBandit said:
The depth of the analog throw really screws up my aim with the mouse cursor in desktop mode..

You can change that. Either change what mouse click is assigned to, or change how far you have to pull the analog trigger in order for it to register.

Jan 12, 2018#318

strawman

PatrThom said:
Yay for target disk mode?
I mean, I don't know if you have a Thunderbolt or Firewire cable lying around to do that, but it seems like the easiest way to get at those files without having to disassemble the old computer and directly connect the drive.

--Patrick

I haven't tried it, but the system locks up on the boot screen before the boot bar is halfway done, so I don't think target disk mode would work.

It doesn't matter though, because the day after it died I disassembled it so I could recover the OSX drive onto my new machine, and I pulled out the windows drive at that point as well. It's sitting here on my desk, waiting for me. (I replaced the optical drive with the original hard drive, and the hard drive with an SSD a year or two ago)

Jan 12, 2018#319

PatrThom

stienman said:
I haven't tried it, but the system locks up on the boot screen before the boot bar is halfway done, so I don't think target disk mode would work.

Target disk is a pre-boot hardware feature that basically turns the computer into an external device, so it's always something to keep in mind. It does not even require an operating system be installed, there have been times I've used it just to "lend" an optical drive to another computer.

--Patrick

Jan 12, 2018#320

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Isn't there some sort of underscan compensation built into either the device or into your TV, itself?

--Patrick

It would require messing with the settings on my computer's desktop and I don't want to do that.

Jan 12, 2018#321

jwhouk

Once again my copy of WinX fails to install the Fall Creator's Update (1709). Now, though, I have a code that it spat out at me: 0x80070652.

In doing a search on that, they suggest two things: disable (preferably uninstall) your antivirus, and disable your USB drivers.

Seriously? Seriously?

Jan 13, 2018#322

GasBandit

Verdict on the steam controller: Not ready for prime time. Not even as good as a (yeech) standard contemporary XB/PS controller. Works fine one minute, becomes a confusing mass of errors the next. Stops working at random moments for no reason. Touchpad controls are squirrely as fuck. Relies on you knowing arcane button combinations to turn it on/off or connect it to steam link/dongle. Often just doesn't. Fucking. Work. And forums are so clogged with complaints and questions, it's impossible to find a useful fix other than "stand in a bucket facing south during a new moon and press steambutton-x while turning everything on and off in your house at once, then uninstall and reinstall all the drivers and start over, that worked for me."

Infuriating.

Jan 13, 2018#323

jwhouk

And, by some miracle, I managed to upgrade finally to 1709.

How, you ask? By disconnecting ALL of my USB connections - including the Apple iPod connector I had in back, along with all of the USB 3 external drives, and everything except my mouse.

And even then, I had to do a manual restart twice - once halfway through (which was expected) and the other after it finally hit 100% (which was unexpected).

Oh, surprise - unlike other versions of WinX, you can't shut off Cortana. Ugh.

Jan 13, 2018#324

PatrThom

jwhouk said:
surprise - unlike other versions of WinX, you can't shut off Cortana. Ugh.

It's no surprise. Most of the rest of us have been on 1709 for a while now, remember?
My biggest beef was the unsolicited addition of the additional "features" like the People bar. Listen, I didn't have them before. Don't go turning on all the new stuff by default, instead give me a menu or something on first boot that takes me through all the newly added features and lets me choose for each one.

--Patrick

Jan 13, 2018#325

figmentPez

jwhouk said:
Oh, surprise - unlike other versions of WinX, you can't shut off Cortana. Ugh.

So, is Cortana like Internet Explorer taking over file browsing, where you just have to get used to it because it's just how things are done now, and now most people have forgotten that there was resistance to the change? Or is it like Autoplay where it's not only a bad idea, but even Microsoft is going to eventually regret having it on by default because it causes to many problems?

Jan 13, 2018#326

PatrThom

Only time will tell.

--Patrick

Jan 14, 2018#327

jwhouk

figmentPez said:
So, is Cortana like Internet Explorer taking over file browsing, where you just have to get used to it because it's just how things are done now, and now most people have forgotten that there was resistance to the change? Or is it like Autoplay where it's not only a bad idea, but even Microsoft is going to eventually regret having it on by default because it causes to many problems?

When it comes to Microsoft, I suspect the answer is "yes."

Jan 15, 2018#328

figmentPez

Tech that exists solely to be eye-catching:

And, no, this isn't another Linus Tech Tips bit of kludging together a tech monstrosity, this RGB fan display is a commercial product. I assume it's sole purpose is for businesses to create eye catching product displays, because I can't think of any practical use.

Jan 15, 2018#329

PatrThom

I will be so happy when this whole RGB/LED/SMD craze finally dies a horrible, horrible death.

—Patrick

Jan 15, 2018#330

GasBandit

figmentPez said:
Tech that exists solely to be eye-catching:

And, no, this isn't another Linus Tech Tips bit of kludging together a tech monstrosity, this RGB fan display is a commercial product. I assume it's sole purpose is for businesses to create eye catching product displays, because I can't think of any practical use.

Some convention halls should use them in every booth, imo, to deal with the heat.

Jan 15, 2018#331

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Some convention halls should use them in every booth, imo, to deal with the heat.

Or put up a sign, “Place finger here: Don’t mind the breeze it is perfectly safe.”

—Patrick

Jan 15, 2018#332

figmentPez

GasBandit said:
Some convention halls should use them in every booth, imo, to deal with the heat.

I wonder how warm the air coming off of them is? The LEDs probably don't make much heat, but the total amount of electronics, with processor, storage, etc might make for a warm breeze.

Jan 16, 2018#333

Gared

Huh. So, the Google Chromecast (gen 2) can be used to turn my TV on and change the video input to the one that it's plugged into; but it cannot detect when the TV turns off. However, with my FireTV stick (gen unknown), I can only turn the TV on if the video input on the TV is already set to the one that the FireTV stick is plugged into; but it can tell when I've turned off the TV, and will (at least in Amazon Video's native client) stop playback within 5 minutes or so. Odd.

Jan 16, 2018#334

Denbrought

Gared said:
Huh. So, the Google Chromecast (gen 2) can be used to turn my TV on and change the video input to the one that it's plugged into; but it cannot detect when the TV turns off. However, with my FireTV stick (gen unknown), I can only turn the TV on if the video input on the TV is already set to the one that the FireTV stick is plugged into; but it can tell when I've turned off the TV, and will (at least in Amazon Video's native client) stop playback within 5 minutes or so. Odd.

Have you tried switching the ports around? Our old TV had an issue where our Chromecast would stay powered indefinitely (after turning the TV off) in HDMI #1, but no such issue happened in HDMI #2-4.

Jan 16, 2018#335

strawman

I've run into more than one video display device now that didn't provide full functionality on every port. It's nice when they call it out (like my new monitor specifically states which port is 1.4 and which is 2.0) but that isn't always provided even in the manual.

Jan 16, 2018#336

Gared

Denbrought said:
Have you tried switching the ports around? Our old TV had an issue where our Chromecast would stay powered indefinitely (after turning the TV off) in HDMI #1, but no such issue happened in HDMI #2-4.

While I haven't done so specifically to test for this behavior, it's now been used in each of the three HDMI ports, and exhibited the same behavior each time. I think it would be really interesting to be tasked with tracking down all of the little idiosyncrasies between various brands and models and generations and such; but I have a feeling it would lead to people wanting to task me to track down things like Meltdown and Spectre and that's a whole lot less fun.

Jan 17, 2018#337

GasBandit

An easy check to see if you're vulnerable to Spectre/Meltdown.

https://techreport.com/news/33126/use-inspectre-to-see-if-youre-protected-from-meltdown-and-spectre

Jan 17, 2018#338

PatrThom

Ooo, another Gibson tool. Yoink!
EDIT: Aww, just Windows, no Linux/Mac.

--Patrick

Jan 23, 2018#339

GasBandit

Did you patch for Spectre/Meltdown?

WELLLLLLLLLL....

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...w-idUSKBN1FB2M9?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Jan 23, 2018#340

strawman

Man, this has really been a ride, from the start of the month when we were only seeing signs of something big and guessing, to now where we have a solution that's broken...

Jan 23, 2018#341

PatrThom

Yeah it’s been a cluster all right.

Too bad my computer is too old for the companies to still care about it. Yes, too bad.

—Patrick

Jan 23, 2018#342

Gared

PatrThom said:
Yeah it’s been a cluster all right.

Too bad my computer is too old for the companies to still care about it. Yes, too bad.

—Patrick

This situation showing up is the first time in ages that I've been glad that I have a Phenom chip and don't have to worry about any of Intel's crap. My wife, however, was not so lucky.

Jan 24, 2018#343

jwhouk

That InSpectre app says I'm okay with Meltdown, but not with Spectre... *SIGH*

Jan 24, 2018#344

GasBandit

jwhouk said:
That InSpectre app says I'm okay with Meltdown, but not with Spectre... *SIGH*

Yeah. Meltdown can be mitigated with an OS patch (which Microsoft has already put out), but Spectre requires new firmware... and like the article I just posted said, Intel goofed on the firmware update and needs to rewrite it.

Jan 24, 2018#345

figmentPez

GasBandit said:
Did you patch for Spectre/Meltdown?

WELLLLLLLLLL....

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...w-idUSKBN1FB2M9?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

I guess I should be glad an updated BIOS hasn't been made for my PC yet?

Jan 29, 2018#346

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Did you patch for Spectre/Meltdown?

WELLLLLLLLLL....

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...w-idUSKBN1FB2M9?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

There is now a newly-released official Windows patch that you can install to remove/prevent the official Spectre Windows patch.
You know, if you would prefer to be open to the disease rather than suffer any reboots caused by the cure.

—Patrick

Jan 29, 2018#347

GasBandit

If you own a Lenovo laptop with the word "Think" in its model name, it's time to patch.

Jan 30, 2018#348

Bubble181

GasBandit said:
If you own a Lenovo laptop with the word "Think" in its model name, it's time to patch.

Well that article would've been more useful with a direct link to the patch, instead of a three-click path

But good to know, I do have use one of those.

Jan 30, 2018#349

GasBandit

Shocking everyone, AMD actually made money last year.

https://techreport.com/news/33184/a...al-2017-with-another-fully-profitable-quarter

Jan 30, 2018#350

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Shocking everyone, AMD actually made money last year.

Shocking no one, you mean.
They put out a CPU product that actually worked better than expected, turned the CPU market on its ear, and made Intel so scared they released their 7xxx-series CPUs haphazardly and without a clear plan. Also, while their current graphics cards are not able to keep up with NVIDIA's when it comes to gaming, they are essentially on par when it comes to mining (and who really uses GPUs for gaming any more?).
And AMD knows it.

--Patrick

Jan 31, 2018#351

GasBandit

Wanna be a streamer? Want a good mic? Got $200 just lying around?

https://techreport.com/news/33186/razer-seiren-elite-mic-makes-life-easier-for-streamers

Feb 5, 2018#352

fade

Isn't "got $$$ just lying around?" Razer's company slogan, though?

Feb 6, 2018#353

figmentPez

In 1983 it would cost you $2.99 for a pack of 4 AA batteries at Radio Shack. That's $7.28 today, adjusted for inflation. A quick search shows you can get 4 NiMh AA batteries and a charger for <$12 shipped on Amazon. That just blows my mind.

I spent $50 on a charger and 4 AAs back in 2003, but that was one of the better chargers available at the time. (It's still hard to find chargers that can charge single cells, and doesn't force you to charge in pairs.) I still use that charger, though all the cells I bought with it are long dead. I'm glad my old charger works with the newer low self-discharge type of NiMh.

Feb 6, 2018#354

GasBandit

I didn't even know NiMh batteries were still a thing. I thought lithium ion had long since sent them all away.

Feb 6, 2018#355

figmentPez

GasBandit said:
I didn't even know NiMh batteries were still a thing. I thought lithium ion had long since sent them all away.

Can't use lithium ion as a replacement for AAs. Lots of things still run on AAs. Flashlights, game controllers, kid's toys, remote controls, some of the "fairy lights" that are so popular for decorating these days (strings of LED lights). I've got a beard trimmer that runs on a single AA battery, I use rechargeable for that.

Feb 6, 2018#356

GasBandit

figmentPez said:
Can't use lithium ion as a replacement for AAs. Lots of things still run on AAs. Flashlights, game controllers, kid's toys, remote controls, some of the "fairy lights" that are so popular for decorating these days (strings of LED lights). I've got a beard trimmer that runs on a single AA battery, I use rechargeable for that.

Admittedly, I've been out of the rechargable AA market for 15 years or so, but I could have sworn I had...

Oh, you know what, when you said "NiMh," my brain conflated that with "NiCad." Never mind.

Feb 6, 2018#357

strawman

NiCD is very much alive and well. It's cheap, and it lasts forever, as long as it's maintained. Each chemistry has its advantages, but while NiCd has largely exited the consumer market, it'll be around for a long, long time.

Feb 6, 2018#358

PatrThom

I thought the biggest reason for Li-Ion’s dominance was the power-to-weight ratio.

—Patrick

Feb 6, 2018#359

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
I thought the biggest reason for Li-Ion’s dominance was the power-to-weight ratio.

—Patrick

The chart seems to bear that out. It has somewhere from 33% to 100% more Wh/kg than NiMh.

Feb 6, 2018#360

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
The chart seems to bear that out. It has somewhere from 33% to 100% more Wh/kg than NiMh.

You know, I looked for it on the chart, but didn’t see it...probably because it was the FIRST THING ON THE LIST.

—Patrick

Feb 6, 2018#361

strawman

That's about it's only good feature - and a critically important one at that given our mobile society. It fails in so many other ways.

Feb 6, 2018#362

PatrThom

stienman said:
It fails in so many other ways.

Sometimes spectacularly so.

—Patrick

Feb 6, 2018#363

figmentPez

stienman said:
NiCD is very much alive and well. It's cheap, and it lasts forever, as long as it's maintained. Each chemistry has its advantages, but while NiCd has largely exited the consumer market, it'll be around for a long, long time.

I was debating about saying how NiCad still has a ton of industrial uses, and that it stuck around as the choice for RC planes well after NiMh became popular because of its ability to take punishing charge/discharge cycles. (I'm assuming that the weight savings of LiPo has finally won out, but I don't know for certain.)

PatrThom said:
I thought the biggest reason for Li-Ion’s dominance was the power-to-weight ratio.

Isn't lower toxicity also on the list? I know NiCad has been banned from consumer product use in some countries, but I'm not sure how lithium chemistries compare to NiMh.

Feb 6, 2018#364

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
Isn't lower toxicity also on the list? I know NiCad has been banned from consumer product use in some countries, but I'm not sure how lithium chemistries compare to NiMh.

I think lithium's famous flammability would trump any toxicity concerns.

--Patrick

Feb 7, 2018#365

figmentPez

PatrThom said:
I think lithium's famous flammability would trump any toxicity concerns.

If they reach a landfill, flammability is no longer a concern.

Feb 8, 2018#366

PatrThom

If ever there was a need for a --silent flag:

--Patrick

Feb 8, 2018#367

figmentPez

#cacophony

Feb 8, 2018#368

GasBandit

My grandpa wants to put X-Plane 11 on his computer. But he only has the onboard Intel, and it runs the demo at about 7 frames per second.

I had to explain to him how poor his timing is, what with all the video cards being 50-100% overpriced right now due to the cryptocurrency mining craze.

And then I had to explain what cryptocurrency mining is, and why that matters to GPU prices.

Feb 8, 2018#369

PatrThom

Thank goodness you didn't have to get into the political morass X-Plane itself has become.

--Patrick

Feb 9, 2018#370

GasBandit

So get this. 2 days ago, after I explained all that, Grandpa went and bought Nvidia stock.

It went up over the last two days enough for him to buy a 1060 6 gig (and double his RAM).

#WhyDidn'tIThinkOfThat

Grandpa now has a better gaming rig than I do /headdesk

Well, maybe not... it's DDR3 after all.

Feb 9, 2018#371

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
So get this. 2 days ago, after I explained all that, Grandpa went and bought Nvidia stock.
It went up over the last two days enough for him to buy a 1060 6 gig (and double his RAM).
#WhyDidn'tIThinkOfThat

[Insert relevant Mark Twain quote image here]

—Patrick

Feb 9, 2018#372

GasBandit

VLC 3.0 biznitches!

https://techreport.com/news/33233/vlc-3-0-arrives-with-hdr-support-chromecast-streaming-and-more

Chromecast support!
Blu-ray menus!
Improved container support (MKVs)!

Feb 9, 2018#373

PatrThom

PatrThom said:
[Insert relevant Mark Twain quote image here]

Now that I'm not on tablet:

I mean, it's apocryphal, but it's still relevant to your situation.

--Patrick

Feb 9, 2018#374

Gared

Do you need help figuring out basic 30 year old, outdated technology? If so, one of my local libraries has just the course for you! :confused:

Feb 10, 2018#375

PatrThom

Gared said:
Do you need help figuring out basic 30 year old, outdated technology? If so, one of my local libraries has just the course for you!

How will they sign up???

--Patrick

Feb 10, 2018#376

figmentPez

A computer mouse is "outdated technology"? What replacement am I missing out on?

Feb 10, 2018#377

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
A computer mouse is "outdated technology"? What replacement am I missing out on?

Trackpads.

--Patrick

Feb 10, 2018#378

figmentPez

PatrThom said:
Trackpads.

A mouse is the weapon of a desktop user. Not as clumsy or random as a trackpad. An elegant tool, for a more civilized age.

Feb 10, 2018#379

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
A trackball is the weapon of a desktop user. Not as clumsy or random as a trackpad. An elegant tool, for a more civilized age.

FTFY

--Patrick

Feb 10, 2018#380

Gared

figmentPez said:
A computer mouse is "outdated technology"? What replacement am I missing out on?

Tapping? Whatever the heck the official term is for using touch-screen technology. Smart phones, tablets, even some laptops have touch screens (though I hope fewer and fewer of those will be made, stupid Windows). Most of the people around here who "don't use computers," are retirees who skipped the entire generation of desktop home computer tech and went straight to iPhones. Though, to be fair, after living around here and listening to some of the older members of the population talk about their phones, the ad with the three old ladies where one plays Candy Crush by smashing candies with a hammer may not be such a caricature after all.

Feb 10, 2018#381

figmentPez

Gared said:
Tapping? Whatever the heck the official term is for using touch-screen technology. Smart phones, tablets, even some laptops have touch screens (though I hope fewer and fewer of those will be made, stupid Windows). Most of the people around here who "don't use computers," are retirees who skipped the entire generation of desktop home computer tech and went straight to iPhones. Though, to be fair, after living around here and listening to some of the older members of the population talk about their phones, the ad with the three old ladies where one plays Candy Crush by smashing candies with a hammer may not be such a caricature after all.

At present, tablets and phones are not a replacement for desktops/laptops. For entertainment, they're pretty capable; for accessing essential websites, especially government forms and applications, banking, insurance, etc. they're still kinda hit-or-miss. Chances are a class like this is meant to help with that type of computer literacy more than entertainment. While I would agree that a class like that should be offered for touchscreen computing, mouse/trackpad has yet to be made obsolete.

Feb 10, 2018#382

GasBandit

GasBandit said:
VLC 3.0 biznitches!

https://techreport.com/news/33233/vlc-3-0-arrives-with-hdr-support-chromecast-streaming-and-more

Chromecast support!
Blu-ray menus!
Improved container support (MKVs)!

It seems my enthusiasm was premature. The chromecast support on VLC 3.0 isn't working for me, or a lot of other people, either. Doh.

Feb 10, 2018#383

GasBandit

Figured it out. There's no transcoding, so like many other (cheapass flash-in-the-pan) chromecast streaming applications, VLC 3.0 only can stream MP4/AAC codec content. Any fancy ass codecs like DIVX or anything H.265 is right out.

Bummer. I would have thought the VLC team was smart enough to realize that transcoding would definitely be needed. Guess I'm stuck with VideoStream for a while yet.

Feb 12, 2018#384

GasBandit

May 8, 2018#385

Gared

Alright, dammit. Once I'm done with the computer build, and we buy a new bed(room set), I'm going to have to get a sound bar and/or stereo system to go with the flat screen. I'm watching the Fast and Furious franchise and when I watch it on the TV it goes a little something like this:

RACE SCENE talking ACTION SCENE most important part of movie ENGINE NOISES

Etc. And when I watch it on the new gaming headset? Perfect balance. Anyone know a good starting point?

May 8, 2018#386

PatrThom

Sounds like you just need your mids boosted.

--Patrick

May 13, 2018#387

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
So get this. 2 days ago, after I explained all that, Grandpa went and bought Nvidia stock.

It went up over the last two days enough for him to buy a 1060 6 gig (and double his RAM).

#WhyDidn'tIThinkOfThat

The results are in. NVIDIA’s revenue is up 66% over last year’s. Their stock was ~$140 a year ago, it’s about ~$250 now...but NOBODY thinks they’ll be able to do it again next year, and anyone who does should probably be viewed with extreme suspicion.

Also, Gas, here’s something for you that’d probably rank just below redheads:

—Patrick

May 13, 2018#388

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
The results are in. NVIDIA’s revenue is up 66% over last year’s. Their stock was ~$140 a year ago, it’s about ~$250 now...but NOBODY thinks they’ll be able to do it again next year, and anyone who does should probably be viewed with extreme suspicion.

Also, Gas, here’s something for you that’d probably rank just below redheads:

—Patrick

I never used the default XP theme

I used the classic theme! So it should be more like... windows 98... 2018 edition!

May 13, 2018#389

PatrThom

Yep. I, too, went for “flat” over “Fisher-Price.”

—Patrick

May 17, 2018#390

Gared

It looks like we survived a potential catastrophe last night, and now new regulations will be made concerning computer usage and the types of drinks containers that are allowed at the desk. The cats knocked Aislynn's Treasure Island skull mug over onto her laptop last night, but it was closed, and all of the water ran around/off/under the case. I wiped all of the remaining water off, checked to make sure there wasn't any coming out of the air slots on the bottom, and when I opened the cover to check the keyboard it booted up, and seems to be working. Just a very nervous ten minutes and a slight freakout about money on my part. And just now I watched the cat try to knock a cup of coffee over. Sippy cups only at the computers!

May 17, 2018#391

GasBandit

Gared said:
It looks like we survived a potential catastrophe last night, and now new regulations will be made concerning computer usage and the types of drinks containers that are allowed at the desk. The cats knocked Aislynn's Treasure Island skull mug over onto her laptop last night, but it was closed, and all of the water ran around/off/under the case. I wiped all of the remaining water off, checked to make sure there wasn't any coming out of the air slots on the bottom, and when I opened the cover to check the keyboard it booted up, and seems to be working. Just a very nervous ten minutes and a slight freakout about money on my part. And just now I watched the cat try to knock a cup of coffee over. Sippy cups only at the computers!

I learned very early on in owning this cat that I am no longer allowed open containers. All cups will be dumped over.

May 17, 2018#392

Eriol

GasBandit said:
I learned very early on in owning this cat that I am no longer allowed open containers. All cups will be dumped over.

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1323410-flat-earth-theory

May 17, 2018#393

Dei

GasBandit said:
I learned very early on in owning this cat that I am no longer allowed open containers. All cups will be dumped over.

I learned very early to have no open containers because I am a klutz.

May 17, 2018#394

PatrThom

I’ve heard that. And I don’t mean I’ve heard you SAY it, either.

—Patrick

May 24, 2018#395

mikerc

Alexa can now lead you in prayer. They're stealing @Dirona's job!

May 24, 2018#396

Dirona

mikerc said:
Alexa can now lead you in prayer. They're stealing @Dirona's job!

I'll get worried when it can do a funeral.

May 24, 2018#397

PatrThom

Dirona said:
I'll get worried when it can do a funeral.

I'll get more worried if I hear Alexa rehearsing for my funeral.

--Patrick

May 24, 2018#398

jwhouk

Welp. Talked to a MS certified repair expert. He's thinking the issue could be the hard drive itself, both for the April 2018 update issue and for the igdkmd64.sys issue. Gonna take it down to his place (a good half hour away, mind you) tomorrow.

EDIT: obviously I am going to backup my stuff on my 1 TB external drive before I hand it over.

May 25, 2018#399

PatrThom

jwhouk said:
obviously I am going to backup my stuff on my 1 TB external drive before I hand it over.

Oh good.

--Patrick

May 25, 2018#400

jwhouk

Already did that last night.

May 25, 2018#401

jwhouk

What he suggested was to install a new SSD hard drive and install WinX 1803 on that, and use my current HD with all my stuff as a "secondary" drive. He did mention that it was likely that the drive was the issue, but didn't rule out the memory being a problem.

Meanwhile, I went over Sam's Place and got an Acer Chromebook so I had something to play on for a while.

May 25, 2018#402

PatrThom

jwhouk said:
He did mention that it was likely that the drive was the issue, but didn't rule out the memory being a problem.

Did you ever get the results of the memory tests?
Also, do you have any utilities that can read SMART data (such as the free SpeedFan, for instance)?
I mean, nothing against this guy, but I also happen to be a certified repair person...except that I haven't gotten any answers from you yet about the results of any of the tests I've suggested (not even a "I haven't run the tests and I'm never going to, so stop bugging me about them")

--Patrick

May 25, 2018#403

jwhouk

MemTest came back okay. The HD that came with the DX4750 wasn't a SSD, so he thinks it's probably past its sell-by date. He also commented that the processor was slow - which kinda took me aback, because compared to all the other stuff I have here at home, it's fast as heck. (Including the wife's laptop, on which I'm trying to update to 1803 as well).

May 26, 2018#404

jwhouk

And, of course, I go to update my wife's laptop (slow as molasses, low RAM HP15).

It is now running Build 1803

May 27, 2018#405

DarkAudit

jwhouk said:
And, of course, I go to update my wife's laptop (slow as molasses, low RAM HP15).

It is now running Build 1803

I've got Pavilion of a similar type that still has the stock 6GB RAM. Other than taking ~4 hours to do the April update, everything's been running okay up to now.

May 27, 2018#406

jwhouk

What's that say about MS when it's latest build of WinTen works better on slower, more bloated machines than on more powerful, better hardware machines?

May 27, 2018#407

PatrThom

jwhouk said:
What's that say about MS when it's latest build of WinTen works better on slower, more bloated machines than on more powerful, better hardware machines?

That we need a switch so that whatever stuff they disable for the low-end machines can be disabled for the high-end ones, too?

--Patrick

May 28, 2018#408

jwhouk

Welp, got the puter back today. No sound. Ethernet "says" it's offline in the taskbar, but (obviously) it's still up. The old drive is disconnected in the machine. He suspects the issue is - wait for it - the power supply.

This doesn't surprise me, because of the issues I've had with this thing in the past (at least one or two brownouts and a nearby lightning strike). He also isn't sure the thing might be able to run 1803, just because of the problems I had in the past.

I'm doing my books now and backing that up, so if he has to do the clean install again, I can try to start over without running away screaming.

May 29, 2018#409

jwhouk

The only good news out of all this is the Chromebook. At least I can access files through it, and go online - and watch (and LISTEN) to YouTube videos.

My music collection, OTOH...

May 30, 2018#410

Gared

Huh. Looks like I forgot about one of the problems with the hardware in this old case. The optical drive is dead - won't open, won't read what's inside if you get it open, had a disc stuck in it for months last time. I'm trying to decide if I'd rather open the case and throw the optical drive from my last computer in this one, or find a good DVD ripping software option to use on Aislynn's laptop and just rip all of our DVDs down to digital files so I can actually stream them to the TV without having to cobble together the video and audio files or set each chapter up as a different entry in a Videostream playlist.

May 30, 2018#411

GasBandit

Gared said:
Huh. Looks like I forgot about one of the problems with the hardware in this old case. The optical drive is dead - won't open, won't read what's inside if you get it open, had a disc stuck in it for months last time. I'm trying to decide if I'd rather open the case and throw the optical drive from my last computer in this one, or find a good DVD ripping software option to use on Aislynn's laptop and just rip all of our DVDs down to digital files so I can actually stream them to the TV without having to cobble together the video and audio files or set each chapter up as a different entry in a Videostream playlist.

Another option?

May 30, 2018#412

Tinwhistler

Gared said:
Huh. Looks like I forgot about one of the problems with the hardware in this old case. The optical drive is dead - won't open, won't read what's inside if you get it open, had a disc stuck in it for months last time. I'm trying to decide if I'd rather open the case and throw the optical drive from my last computer in this one, or find a good DVD ripping software option to use on Aislynn's laptop and just rip all of our DVDs down to digital files so I can actually stream them to the TV without having to cobble together the video and audio files or set each chapter up as a different entry in a Videostream playlist.

Good DVD ripping software: Makemkv. Pop in a DVD, spits out a 4-6gb MKV file. Super easy solution. Works with blu-ray
Good re-transcoding softwhich you may or may not need, depending on what you want to do with your media: handbrake
Good media server which works on pc, mobile, roku, chromecast, playstation, xbox, amazon fire, etc: Plex.

May 31, 2018#413

PatrThom

Hey, @Dave looks like your DIMM-based storage is becoming a reality.
https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/re-architecting-data-center-memory-storage-hierarchy/
No word on price yet, though...which means if you thought $350 for a SATA SSD was too much, well...

--Patrick

Jun 3, 2018#414

Gared

Y'know, VLC has been around for quite a while now, and they've made several improvements to the program over the years, but there's one thing they're still missing - the ability to set, by default, that no video should autoplay subtitles. If I want subtitles, I'll turn them on myself, tyvm.

Jun 3, 2018#415

DarkAudit

Gared said:
Y'know, VLC has been around for quite a while now, and they've made several improvements to the program over the years, but there's one thing they're still missing - the ability to set, by default, that no video should autoplay subtitles. If I want subtitles, I'll turn them on myself, tyvm.

New update just dropped. Still doing the thing?

Jun 3, 2018#416

Gared

Actually, running the update caused the entire thing to implode. It wouldn't unpack VLC.exe from the update, so now there's no more executable on my computer.

Jun 3, 2018#417

Gared

Gared said:
Actually, running the update caused the entire thing to implode. It wouldn't unpack VLC.exe from the update, so now there's no more executable on my computer.

A reinstall fixed that, but yes, the original behavior does persist. If the video you're playing has a subtitle track, that must mean you want them on by default.

Jun 3, 2018#418

figmentPez

Gared said:
Y'know, VLC has been around for quite a while now, and they've made several improvements to the program over the years, but there's one thing they're still missing - the ability to set, by default, that no video should autoplay subtitles. If I want subtitles, I'll turn them on myself, tyvm.

Well, they do need an obvious setting to change this, but there is a pretty simple way to do it. Just tested the first method on that page and it works for me.

Jun 3, 2018#419

Gared

figmentPez said:
Well, they do need an obvious setting to change this, but there is a pretty simple way to do it. Just tested the first method on that page and it works for me.

Thank you! I suppose I should have Googled it again, but a few years back when I checked no one had that handy little tutorial out there.

Jun 4, 2018#420

Gared

Boy, I can't see this being abused by Microsoft in any way.

Jun 4, 2018#421

PatrThom

Gared said:
Boy, I can't see this being abused by Microsoft in any way.

"Microsoft is a developer-first company..."
Ha!

--Patrick

Jun 4, 2018#422

Eriol

PatrThom said:
"Microsoft is a developer-first company..."
Ha!

I dunno. I'll admit my bias here having worked with their tools for over 10 years, but their support of their developers is fantastic and Visual Studio is arguably leaps and bounds better a development environment than anything else on the market, especially when it comes to C/C++ development. And for single-person development, the Community Edition (which is fully-featured in most respects) is free, even for applications that you sell.

So I'l admit that this is a bit odd an acquisition, and could have bad consequences down the road if they're assholes with it, but for now there's nothing really "wrong" here considering MS themselves moved to Git internally a year or two ago, and so acquiring the biggest repository host around doesn't seem like it's by-definition a bad thing at all. And this isn't the bad-old 90s with them for their behavior IMO. I'm much more worried about Google or Facebook or Amazon than I am of MS these days.

Jun 4, 2018#423

PatrThom

PatrThom said:
"Microsoft is a developer-first company..."
Ha!

Eriol said:
I dunno. I'll admit my bias here having worked with their tools for over 10 years, but their support of their developers is fantastic and Visual Studio is arguably leaps and bounds better a development environment than anything else on the market, especially when it comes to C/C++ development.

Oh, that's not what I was referring to:

Eriol said:
I'm much more worried about Google or Facebook or Amazon than I am of MS these days.

And with good reason:
Big Tech has established a "kill zone" of business ideas that startups can't get funded to try

Big tech firms have been known to intimidate startups into agreeing to a sale, saying that they will launch a competing service and put the startup out of business unless they agree to a deal, says one person who was in charge of these negotiations at a big software firm (which uses such tactics). [...] the giants have tons of data to identify emerging rivals faster than ever before. Google collects signals about how internet users are spending time and money through its Chrome browser, e-mail service, Android operating system, app store, cloud service and more. Facebook can see which apps people use and where they travel online. It acquired the app Onavo, which helped it recognise that Instagram was gaining steam. It bought the young firm for $1bn before it could mature into a real threat, and last year it purchased a nascent social-polling firm, tbh, in a similar manner. Amazon can glean reams of data from its e-commerce platform and cloud business.

I'm guessing Microsoft had an "Oh, shit!" moment where they suddenly realized how much of the influence they used to wield has been eroded, and so they've decided to try and circle the wagons before they lose too much to be able recover.

--Patrick

Jun 5, 2018#424

PatrThom

Regular liquid cooling with oil, water, or even Flourinert too pedestrian and mamby-pamby for you?

Then how about using <devastator_voice>LIQUID NITROGEN???

Guaranteed to get you the fastest overclock, the highest stability, and the most FPS in whatever you're doing. We showed it to a nun, and she agreed it'd keep your computer from BURSTING INTO FLAMES.</devastator_voice>

--Patrick

Jun 5, 2018#425

PatrThom

Silly me, I forgot the link:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12891/evga-roboclocker-a-water-cooling-loop-for-liquid-nitrogen-

Jun 5, 2018#426

jwhouk

Essentially, you're using dry ice to cool your CPU.

Might not work too well if you have small animals roaming around your house.

Jun 5, 2018#427

GasBandit

jwhouk said:
Essentially, you're using dry ice to cool your CPU.

Might not work too well if you have small animals roaming around your house.

I once made a dry-ice based cooling system for *myself*, on hot Texas summer's day. Trying to save on AC bills, you know?

I had a cooler full of dry ice that I put a copper coil in, inbetween the bricks of dry ice, then ran it with plastic tubes to another copper coil that I zip-tied to the back cage of a fan. Used an aquarium pump to circulate water through it.

Turns out, it went through so much dry ice there wasn't actually a monetary difference.

Jun 5, 2018#428

GasBandit

Russians have spent the last few days trying to brute force an "admin" login to a webserver we have here at my work.

There's not even an "admin" user account on that machine.

Jun 5, 2018#429

PatrThom

jwhouk said:
Essentially, you're using dry ice to cool your CPU.

Only colder. MUCH colder.
Dry ice = -80C/-110F
LN2 = -195C/-320F

—Patrick

Jun 5, 2018#430

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
I had a cooler full of dry ice that I put a copper coil in, inbetween the bricks of dry ice, then ran it with plastic tubes to another copper coil that I zip-tied to the back cage of a fan. Used an aquarium pump to circulate water through it.

Shoulda just done what my HS chemistry teacher did, and got yourself a VW radiator from a junkyard, mounted it to a window box fan, then ran tubing to his faucet and started putting maybe 1/2gal/min through it from the cold water faucet. Not amazing performance, of course, but better than nothing.

—Patrick

Jun 5, 2018#431

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Shoulda just done what my HS chemistry teacher did, and got yourself a VW radiator from a junkyard, mounted it to a window box fan, then ran tubing to his faucet and started putting maybe 1/2gal/min through it from the cold water faucet. Not amazing performance, of course, but better than nothing.

—Patrick

Open a window in Texas in the summer? You're insane.

Jun 5, 2018#432

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Open a window in Texas in the summer? You're insane.

No, no open windows. Cold water enters the radiator, the heat from the room air is absorbed by the water traveling through the radiator, the warmed water then goes down the drain. No air need come in from outside, the fan is just there to increase the amount of air going through the radiator.

—Patrick

Jun 5, 2018#433

figmentPez

PatrThom said:
No, no open windows. Cold water enters the radiator, the heat from the room air is absorbed by the water traveling through the radiator, the warmed water then goes down the drain. No air need come in from outside, the fan is just there to increase the amount of air going through the radiator.

I'm not sure that tap water is cool enough in Texas during the summer for this to work. When I'm washing lettuce I have to add ice to the water to keep it from wilting.

Jun 5, 2018#434

jwhouk

That reminds me. Sometime this month I'm gonna have to go turn off my hot water heater. No real use for it, of course.

Jun 5, 2018#435

MindDetective

Gared said:
Boy, I can't see this being abused by Microsoft in any way.

PatrThom said:
"Microsoft is a developer-first company..."
Ha!

--Patrick

An interesting counterpoint. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...ying-github-needs-to-offer-a-better-solution/

Jun 5, 2018#436

PatrThom

MindDetective said:
An interesting counterpoint. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...ying-github-needs-to-offer-a-better-solution/

I read that article, but don’t use Git, so felt I had no standing to comment.
And my amusement was exactly how the quoted comment related to the video I posted.

—Patrick

Jun 6, 2018#437

strawman

figmentPez said:
I'm not sure that tap water is cool enough in Texas during the summer for this to work. When I'm washing lettuce I have to add ice to the water to keep it from wilting.

Texas doesn’t have to bury their water pipes very far down to avoid freezing, so by late spring the water is warm going into the house.

Here our pipes are 42” or deeper, so water coming into the house is rarely above 60F.

A bit of geothermal cooling, if you’ve got cheap water.

If you draw from a well, you get a few more degrees off.

Jun 6, 2018#438

jwhouk

I have been corrected by my wife. Both my father and her father explicitly said not to turn off the HWH, because of laundry.

But still - it's really weird when the water comes out of the cold tap warm.

Jun 6, 2018#439

strawman

jwhouk said:
I have been corrected by my wife. Both my father and her father explicitly said not to turn off the HWH, because of laundry.

But still - it's really weird when the water comes out of the cold tap warm.

Come to think of it, I'm surprised Legionnaires' disease isn't more prevalent in warmer climates of the US. It's an issue in Michigan when your hot water heater is set too low, as it reproduces in tap water pipes between 77F and 113F.

Jun 6, 2018#440

Gruebeard

stienman said:
Come to think of it, I'm surprised Legionnaires' disease isn't more prevalent in warmer climates of the US. It's an issue in Michigan when your hot water heater is set too low, as it reproduces in tap water pipes between 77F and 113F.

Well, Michigan isn't really the benchmark for water quality, is it?

Jun 6, 2018#441

PatrThom

Gruebeard said:
Well, Michigan isn't really the benchmark for water quality, is it?

It IS, actually. The Detroit water system is among the top, if not THE best in the nation. It was some gvt official with $$ for eyeballs that decided to eschew Detroit’s water and go all “locally sourced is better for us” and start this whole Flint fiasco.

—Patrick

Jun 6, 2018#442

Gruebeard

PatrThom said:
It IS, actually. The Detroit water system is among the top, if not THE best in the nation. It was some gvt official with $$ for eyeballs that decided to eschew Detroit’s water and go all “locally sourced is better for us” and start this whole Flint fiasco.

—Patrick

I was going for funny, not true.

I oughtta point out that I wasn't pointing fingers either. My province has it's own shorthand for water mismanagement tragedy: Walkerton.

Jun 6, 2018#443

strawman

PatrThom said:
It IS, actually. The Detroit water system is among the top, if not THE best in the nation. It was some gvt official with $$ for eyeballs that decided to eschew Detroit’s water and go all “locally sourced is better for us” and start this whole Flint fiasco.

—Patrick

There were a lot of failures in the flint crisis. If they had chemically buffered the water like they were supposed to, it wouldn’t have happened. If they had notified the public the moment they realized, it wouldn’t have been the nightmare it was for so many people, and probably would have been like the other hundred local water source failures a year that are under reported.

Jun 8, 2018#444

figmentPez

More tech for people with more money than sense: A CPU cooler with a built-in full color OLED screen, that can play GIFs.

Jun 8, 2018#445

PatrThom

You know, I never thought I would see “Ostentatious display of wealth“ marketed to nerds.
But here we are.

—Patrick

Jun 9, 2018#446

PatrThom

Hey, @figmentPez here's some more info on that Intel demo system and what they had to do to get it going:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12932/intel-confirms-some-details-about-28core-5-ghz-demonstration
One of the most interesting lines from that article:

We know that the demo that achieved 5.0 GHz was using a Hailea water chiller capable of 1770W of cooling

--Patrick

Jun 9, 2018#447

figmentPez

PatrThom said:
Hey, @figmentPez here's some more info on that Intel demo system and what they had to do to get it going:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12932/intel-confirms-some-details-about-28core-5-ghz-demonstration
One of the most interesting lines from that article:

--Patrick

"We were told that on stage the presenter was actually meant to clarify that the system was overclocked, however the specific wording was not stated as it had been prepared. "

I'm not buying for a second that they wanted people to know that it was overclocked. One of the standard axioms of a business presentation is "Tell them what you're going to tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you've told them." If they meant to convey that the system was overclocked, it would not have been "specific wording" that could be flubbed. They absolutely wanted to imply that they have the capability of putting out a retail product at 5Ghz.

Jun 9, 2018#448

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
They absolutely wanted to imply that they have the capability of putting out a retail product at 5Ghz.

To be fair, they totally DO have the ability to put out a 5GHz retail chip (on air cooling, even!), but the sacrifices they would have to make to do so mean its performance would be crap.

—Patrick

Jun 10, 2018#449

Gared

Ok, so per Tin's recommendations, I've been using MakeMkv to rip our DVD collection to my external drive so I can actually watch DVDs again. Is there decent audio level balancing software out there for videos? I read through the handbrake manual and it doesn't seem to have anything about changing audio levels, and MakeMkv doesn't have anything built in, obviously. Even if I manage to get a stereo system hooked up to the TV, it's unlikely to solve things like the intermission concert footage on Tom Petty - Runnin' Down A Dream, where there are four sections of video. The first section is documentary about becoming TPatHB, then two concert clips, and then the rest of the documentary. The issue is the intermission concert clips are 30 TV volume settings louder than the surrounding video. It's like that on the DVDs. It's like that ripped. The first time I was listening to it I had to rip the headphones off my head it was so sudden and loud. Netflix apparently got around the issue by just skipping the intermission section.

Since I obviously can't trust professional audio engineers to even attempt their jobs anymore, it looks like I'm going to have to do it for them. Any software recommendations for this one, or am I looking at getting a recording studio?

Jun 10, 2018#450

GasBandit

I know how to achieve what you want in Adobe Premiere, but that's not exactly inexpensive. Unless, of course, you find an old copy that fell off a truck before they moved to the subscription model.

Jun 10, 2018#451

Gared

GasBandit said:
I know how to achieve what you want in Adobe Premiere, but that's not exactly inexpensive. Unless, of course, you find an old copy that fell off a truck before they moved to the subscription model.

Sadly, my truck is being watched by the FBI.

Jun 10, 2018#452

PatrThom

Gared said:
Any software recommendations for this one, or am I looking at getting a recording studio?

Most any audio software will let you do this, the tricky part is finding one that'll let you take the audio out and then add it back in again, which is essentially reconstructing the DVD. And since DVDs are steadily falling out of favor, stuff like that is getting harder to find.

--Patrick

Jun 10, 2018#453

jwhouk

Me (From Before The Purge) said:
What I hate about Windows Ten Updates: they tend to "freeze" my computer. I generally don't turn my computer off or put it in sleep mode, so when WinX updates, it goes into "automatic restart mode" - which causes my PC to go blank screen, but with the power still on.

The fix that allowed me to get the Fall Creators Update was to essentially disconnect all USB drives from the PC. This is what I think they call a "less than optimal" solution.

I found out when my puter got it's upgrade to a SSD what the problem was: CCleaner. It was deleting a lot of "reference points" that Windows Update now uses to figure out what my computer needed for drivers, and as a result, it hung my computer on updates.

Jun 10, 2018#454

figmentPez

Gared said:
Ok, so per Tin's recommendations, I've been using MakeMkv to rip our DVD collection to my external drive so I can actually watch DVDs again. Is there decent audio level balancing software out there for videos? I read through the handbrake manual and it doesn't seem to have anything about changing audio levels, and MakeMkv doesn't have anything built in, obviously. Even if I manage to get a stereo system hooked up to the TV, it's unlikely to solve things like the intermission concert footage on Tom Petty - Runnin' Down A Dream, where there are four sections of video. The first section is documentary about becoming TPatHB, then two concert clips, and then the rest of the documentary. The issue is the intermission concert clips are 30 TV volume settings louder than the surrounding video. It's like that on the DVDs. It's like that ripped. The first time I was listening to it I had to rip the headphones off my head it was so sudden and loud. Netflix apparently got around the issue by just skipping the intermission section.

Since I obviously can't trust professional audio engineers to even attempt their jobs anymore, it looks like I'm going to have to do it for them. Any software recommendations for this one, or am I looking at getting a recording studio?

Handbrake allows for at least some form of dynamic range compression, but only works if the source is AC3 audio.

I was going to say MediaCoder, but that's gone from freeware to nagware, and I'm not sure what other changes that has brought with it. Still, from what I've used it for in the past, it should be fully capable of taking your MKVs and mess with the audio without having to do anything to the video. I think it has some sort of dynamic range compression, but I can't remember for certain.

You also might want to consider dealing with the audio issues via your playback software. VLC has options for dynamic range compression, so you should be able to make some settings that will keep the volume from jumping to unreasonable levels.

Jun 10, 2018#455

Gruebeard

Gared said:
Sadly, my truck is being watched by the FBI.

And the @NSA

Jun 10, 2018#456

Gared

Gruebeard said:
And the @NSA

And Interpol. I should really find a more private truck one of these days.

Jun 13, 2018#457

PatrThom

Intel predicted to finally introduce its own line of discrete GPUs in 2020. Some people think "it's about time," but I wonder if they're trying to hitch up to get a piece of all this Machine Learning and/or Cryptocurrency lucre.
Intel has already killed off the low-end market with their ABSOLUTE market dominance in integrated graphics (2 out of every 3 computers on the planet run Intel GPUs!), now it looks like Intel might be gunning for the 1050/1060 or R550/R560 category. AMD is already in bed with Intel, does this mean NVIDIA should be worried?

--Patrick

Jun 13, 2018#458

Gared

PatrThom said:
Intel predicted to finally introduce its own line of discrete GPUs in 2020. Some people think "it's about time," but I wonder if they're trying to hitch up to get a piece of all this Machine Learning and/or Cryptocurrency lucre.
Intel has already killed off the low-end market with their ABSOLUTE market dominance in integrated graphics (2 out of every 3 computers on the planet run Intel GPUs!), now it looks like Intel might be gunning for the 1050/1060 or R550/R560 category. AMD is already in bed with Intel, does this mean NVIDIA should be worried?

--Patrick

Maybe it'll drive down some Nvidia GPU prices. I'd love to not have to wait 5 years each time they release a new card to be able to afford one. Most new NVIDIA cards (I almost wrote cars there and it would've been a Freudian slip) cost anywhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of my monthly mortgage payment and frequently cost more than my car payments did (back when I had car payments). Granted, if you hunt around and find a good manufacturer, and luck your way into a good card, they can last for years without having to RMA them six times; but the sticker shock up front is just insane. I can buy an entire laptop/chromebook/Microsoft Surface/iPad for less than some GPUs.

Jul 10, 2018#459

Ravenpoe

Jul 10, 2018#460

PatrThom

In short, no, it's not illegal to refuse to repair it any more than it's illegal to ban someone from your restaurant UNLESS you're trying to refuse service based on a protected class.

--Patrick

Jul 10, 2018#461

Anonymous

PatrThom said:
In short, no, it's not illegal to refuse to repair it any more than it's illegal to ban someone from your restaurant UNLESS you're trying to refuse service based on a protected class.

--Patrick

"I've been drinkin'" Is not a protected class. It's not an emergency. You already have a ride. No locals means no locals.

Jul 10, 2018#462

Ravenpoe

PatrThom said:
In short, no, it's not illegal to refuse to repair it any more than it's illegal to ban someone from your restaurant UNLESS you're trying to refuse service based on a protected class.

--Patrick

But what apple is doing is still pretty damn anti-consumer, but we all know that's par for the course.

Jul 11, 2018#463

PatrThom

Ravenpoe said:
But what apple is doing is still pretty damn anti-consumer, but we all know that's par for the course.

Don't know if it's "anti-consumer" so much as "anti-3rd-party-repair" but as far as "par for the course" goes, that's pretty much everyone these days. NO company seems to want someone else to be able to repair their stuff, whether it be the whole "void-if-removed" sticker thing, the requirement for specialized tools or software, or just leveraging laws to make it so fixing them is outright illegal. Everyone these days seems like they're far more about creating a long tail of streamed revenue than moving a certain volume of units.

--Patrick

Jul 11, 2018#464

Ravenpoe

PatrThom said:
Don't know if it's "anti-consumer" so much as "anti-3rd-party-repair" but as far as "par for the course" goes, that's pretty much everyone these days. NO company seems to want someone else to be able to repair their stuff, whether it be the whole "void-if-removed" sticker thing, the requirement for specialized tools or software, or just leveraging laws to make it so fixing them is outright illegal. Everyone these days seems like they're far more about creating a long tail of streamed revenue than moving a certain volume of units.

--Patrick

By blocking third party repair (whether it be a licensed repair shop or even the owner of they wish to do it themselves) they are limiting consumer choice, which to me is one of the very definitions of anti-consumer.

Jul 11, 2018#465

Eriol

Emphasis added by me

Ravenpoe said:
By blocking third party repair (whether it be a licensed repair shop or even the owner of they wish to do it themselves) they are limiting consumer choice, which to me is one of the very definitions of anti-consumer.

Yes, but anti-consumer is not the same thing as illegal, though my understanding from reading other things is that other actions they do in pursuit of anti-repair ARE illegal.

And I don't use Apple btw.

Jul 11, 2018#466

Ravenpoe

Eriol said:
Emphasis added by me

Yes, but anti-consumer is not the same thing as illegal, though my understanding from reading other things is that other actions they do in pursuit of anti-repair ARE illegal.

And I don't use Apple btw.

I didn't say it was illegal. What they're doing, as far as I know, is currently legal in the US

Jul 23, 2018#467

Eriol

Interesting retort to the EU's $5 fine of Google: Google reportedly offered Android changes to EU in 2017

The European Union may have characterized its $5 billion Android antitrust fine as punishment for an intransigent Google, but the practical reality might be different. Bloomberg sources have claimed that Google offered to make changes to its Android policies in August 2017, not long after it received an EU antitrust penalty for its product search practices. Although Google didn't dive into specifics, it had offered to "loosen restrictions" in Android contracts and had considered distributing its apps in "two different ways."

The EU wasn't having it, according to the sources. Officials reportedly said only that a settlement was "no longer an option," and that Google's offer was "too little too late."

...
They do suggest that the penalty wasn't inevitable, though, and that Google might well have implemented Russia-style changes months sooner if the EU had wanted to bend.

May be hot air, but interesting nonetheless.

Jul 23, 2018#468

strawman

PatrThom said:
Don't know if it's "anti-consumer" so much as "anti-3rd-party-repair" but as far as "par for the course" goes, that's pretty much everyone these days. NO company seems to want someone else to be able to repair their stuff, whether it be the whole "void-if-removed" sticker thing, the requirement for specialized tools or software, or just leveraging laws to make it so fixing them is outright illegal. Everyone these days seems like they're far more about creating a long tail of streamed revenue than moving a certain volume of units.

--Patrick

But let's turn it around and look at it from their perspective.

You make the next whiz-bang Frobbit, and in a few critical (to you) respects it handily beats out all the other Frobbit makers.

Your manufacturing process includes a rigorous calibration and inspection procedure that guarantees your Frobbits are better than the others in the aforementioned respects.

You provide repair services that similarly guarantee them in those respects, and you offer extended warranties and insurance for those who would like to use those services.

A third party offers to repair you Frobbits.

You can't guarantee that their repair process will bring them back to your standard. The unit comes back to the customer and they blame you, rather than the third party, for substandard equipment. Or it's resold and the new customer assumes all your products are just that way, and never tries your Frobbit line again.

It's not just a pocket lining exercise to make third party repair difficult, there are other reasons to encourage users to send them to you.

Yes, there's also pocket lining going on, but assuming that their intentions are only malicious is probably not a reasonable assumption to make.

Jul 23, 2018#469

Bubble181

stienman said:
But let's turn it around and look at it from their perspective.

You make the next whiz-bang Frobbit, and in a few critical (to you) respects it handily beats out all the other Frobbit makers.

Your manufacturing process includes a rigorous calibration and inspection procedure that guarantees your Frobbits are better than the others in the aforementioned respects.

You provide repair services that similarly guarantee them in those respects, and you offer extended warranties and insurance for those who would like to use those services.

A third party offers to repair you Frobbits.

You can't guarantee that their repair process will bring them back to your standard. The unit comes back to the customer and they blame you, rather than the third party, for substandard equipment. Or it's resold and the new customer assumes all your products are just that way, and never tries your Frobbit line again.

It's not just a pocket lining exercise to make third party repair difficult, there are other reasons to encourage users to send them to you.

Yes, there's also pocket lining going on, but assuming that their intentions are only malicious is probably not a reasonable assumption to make.

And that's why cars and many other things are "warranty void if opened/tampered with". I can still take my Kia to a non-Kia dealer and have them replace my...errr....something-motory-part, I'll simply lose that sweet 7 year warranty I have on it.

Jul 23, 2018#470

Eriol

Bubble181 said:
And that's why cars and many other things are "warranty void if opened/tampered with". I can still take my Kia to a non-Kia dealer and have them replace my...errr....something-motory-part, I'll simply lose that sweet 7 year warranty I have on it.

Umm, in many places, that's illegal. In Canada at least, you can take your car to anywhere, and it's still fine for warranty. It's on the dealer to PROVE that a repair shop fucked something up, rather than saying "it was TOUCHED somewhere else, we're free!" They certainly cultivate the impression that you'd better take it to the dealer for all service, or warranty void, but up here at least, that's not required.

Jul 23, 2018#471

Ravenpoe

stienman said:
But let's turn it around and look at it from their perspective.

You make the next whiz-bang Frobbit, and in a few critical (to you) respects it handily beats out all the other Frobbit makers.

Your manufacturing process includes a rigorous calibration and inspection procedure that guarantees your Frobbits are better than the others in the aforementioned respects.

You provide repair services that similarly guarantee them in those respects, and you offer extended warranties and insurance for those who would like to use those services.

A third party offers to repair you Frobbits.

You can't guarantee that their repair process will bring them back to your standard. The unit comes back to the customer and they blame you, rather than the third party, for substandard equipment. Or it's resold and the new customer assumes all your products are just that way, and never tries your Frobbit line again.

It's not just a pocket lining exercise to make third party repair difficult, there are other reasons to encourage users to send them to you.

Yes, there's also pocket lining going on, but assuming that their intentions are only malicious is probably not a reasonable assumption to make.

In this case, it was "No, we won't repair your frobbit, and we will do our best to ensure no one else can, either."

Jul 23, 2018#472

figmentPez

Bubble181 said:
And that's why cars and many other things are "warranty void if opened/tampered with". I can still take my Kia to a non-Kia dealer and have them replace my...errr....something-motory-part, I'll simply lose that sweet 7 year warranty I have on it.

That's not true. "Warranty void if opened" stickers are not only a bluff, but they're illegal. You cannot void your warranty simply by opening your device yourself, nor can you void it by having a 3rd party do a repair.

Jul 23, 2018#473

figmentPez

stienman said:
Yes, there's also pocket lining going on, but assuming that their intentions are only malicious is probably not a reasonable assumption to make.

It is a very difficult thing to learn in this world that not all evil is malicious. Some evil is done with the best of intentions. No matter what Apple's motivations are, their actions are still anti-consumer; and ultimately I believe that they cause harm to Apple as well, though that is harder to prove.

Jul 23, 2018#474

Bubble181

There's a difference between legal minimum warranties - which tot can't lose - and manufacturer or seller based extra warranties, which you can and will (sometimes) lose when you do stuff yourself.
And @figmentPez : I didn't say I agreed with that, I just said it's a thing that exists. Kia's 7 year full warranty is rendered void if you either skip a maintenance check-up, or don't have it done by an official dealer/repair shop. In which case, of course, you fall back on the legal minimum warranties.

Jul 23, 2018#475

figmentPez

Bubble181 said:
There's a difference between legal minimum warranties - which tot can't lose - and manufacturer or seller based extra warranties, which you can and will (sometimes) lose when you do stuff yourself.
And @figmentPez : I didn't say I agreed with that, I just said it's a thing that exists. Kia's 7 year full warranty is rendered void if you either skip a maintenance check-up, or don't have it done by an official dealer/repair shop. In which case, of course, you fall back on the legal minimum warranties.

Laws must be different where you are, because I can't find any information that would lead me to believe that what you're saying is true in the US. The neither the FTC article I linked, nor the Mag-Moss warranty act give any indication that it only applies to "legal minimum warraties". I'm not even sure there is such a thing as a "legal minimum warranty".

This FTC article firmly refutes what you're saying.
"The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation's consumer protection agency, says no. In fact, it's illegal for a dealer to deny your warranty coverage simply because you had routine maintenance or repairs performed by someone else. "

Jul 23, 2018#476

Bubble181

Yes, European laws tend to be different than American ones. This is not a surprise, is it? I never made any claims to worldwide applicability.

Jul 23, 2018#477

PatrThom

stienman said:
assuming that their intentions are only malicious is probably not a reasonable assumption to make.

I’m not automatically assuming anyone has malicious motives, I’m just calling out the increasing pervasiveness of this business model across all durable goods, where a company tries to maintain control of all the stages of its products’ life cycles, often even after those products’ death.

—Patrick

Jul 23, 2018#478

GasBandit

I think assuming Apple's intentions are malicious is perfectly reasonable. To do otherwise is to willfully disregard decades of patterned behavior.

Jul 23, 2018#479

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
I think assuming Apple's intentions are malicious is perfectly reasonable. To do otherwise is to willfully disregard decades of patterned behavior.

I think you are misunderstanding me, too. This is not specifically an Apple thing.
This is about how common it is becoming for modern manufacturers to work to cement a strategy where the post-purchase options are artificially limited to just ones provided by that same manufacturer, and how that number is increasing as more and more companies see how lucrative that model can be.

—Patrick

Jul 24, 2018#480

Bubble181

Small question. A USB cable broke around here, so I'm going to get a new one. Ideally, USB 3.0 micro.
However, every 3.0 micro cable I've seen has the "larger" connector like this:

instead of the smaller connector like this:

On my girlfriend's phone, both are fine. My phone, though, doesn't take the bigger version. Does the combination simply not exist, and do I have to use a USB 2.0 cable if I want it to have the second type of connector? Or is it just my google that's failing me?

Jul 24, 2018#481

strawman

You will need to use a USB 2.0 connector. It will plug into both phones. It'll only run at USB 2 speeds on the 3 capable phone, but if that's an issue the only solution is two separate cables.

Post automatically merged: Jul 24, 2018

USB C is where it's at these days, and eventually new phones will support it instead of USB micro.

Jul 24, 2018#482

Bubble181

stienman said:
You will need to use a USB 2.0 connector. It will plug into both phones. It'll only run at USB 2 speeds on the 3 capable phone, but if that's an issue the only solution is two separate cables.

Post automatically merged: Jul 24, 2018

USB C is where it's at these days, and eventually new phones will support it instead of USB micro.

I figured as much, thanks for the confirmation.

And yeah, I know, but I'm not buying two new phones just for a different connector

Jul 24, 2018#483

PatrThom

If you look carefully, you will see that the wider side of the USB3 micro connector is the same as the USB2 micro, it just has that adjacent expansion to handle the additional wires present in a standard USB3 connection. In other words, if it doesn’t have that extra piece, then it can’t be USB3.

The same is true of the USB “B” (square) connector, which also has a sidecar full of additional wires while maintaining physical backward compatibility with USB2.

—Patrick

Jul 31, 2018#484

figmentPez

Logitech is acquiring Blue Microphones

It will be interesting to see what they do with their product lines in the future.

Jul 31, 2018#485

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
Logitech is acquiring Blue Microphones
It will be interesting to see what they do with their product lines in the future.

We were discussing this in Discord last night.
We were worried.

—Patrick

Aug 2, 2018#486

Eriol

This was worth the read IMO: The Bullshit Web

Basically about how the hell do we have 6x (or better) speeds these days, and it still takes 30s to load major websites? His answer is all the advertising and "not the content we want" on the pages bogging everything down.

Not a perfect article, but a good one IMO.

Aug 2, 2018#487

PatrThom

Eriol said:
how the hell do we have 6x (or better) speeds these days, and it still takes 30s to load major websites?

You might also be interested in this article, which is about how people are successfully pushing over 650Tb/s through a single optical fiber.

...and really, any major telecom who says “it would be too hard to roll out fiber to every resident” at this point is really saying, “we don’t want to lose our revenue stream from being able to charge separately for phone and TV service.”

—Patrick

Aug 3, 2018#488

Eriol

The robots will take over because they'll say "please don't kill me" apparently: New study finds it’s harder to turn off a robot when it’s begging for its life

Aug 3, 2018#489

PatrThom

Eriol said:
The robots will take over because they'll say "please don't kill me" apparently: New study finds it’s harder to turn off a robot when it’s begging for its life

Tell that to Tinny Tim.

--Patrick

Aug 5, 2018#490

Gared

Hmmm... my phone decided I wasn't allowed to ignore this update, apparently, and has auto-updated itself after giving me a one-chime warning. I guess it was too good to last.

Aug 8, 2018#491

Eriol

WPA2 is dead: https://hashcat.net/forum/thread-7717.html Long live WPA3! (It can't come soon enough IMO)

Short summary for the less-techie: WPA2 is what protects Wifi networks so that you need the password in order to connect. If you can break this, you can connect to anything. I'm not sure if it also means you can listen in on anything too (it might).

In the example given, they crack it with a 4xGTX1080 rig in under a minute.

Aug 8, 2018#492

PatrThom

Yes. The current advice is to use WPA2-AES whenever possible, at least until better standards are adopted.

EDIT: It appears the attack described is for WPA or WPA/WPA2 hybrid networks. WPA hasn't been considered "secure" for some time now, and the KRACK vulnerability for WPA2 was patched late last year (for most vendors).

--Patrick

Aug 8, 2018#493

Gared

I really want to run that tool and see how vulnerable my router is... but I really, really don't want to know. Anyway, my bit of randomness? I get a new 2TB portable external drive (the Elements series). Of course, I have to pay for it, but it's literally the only way to prevent @Aislynn from having to drive the six hours to Vancouver or Sacramento so tech support can clone/image her (completely online profile connected) Microsoft account and online documents from one laptop to another. So after that I'll have an additional 2TB of capacity for movies, I guess.

Aug 15, 2018#494

PatrThom

Looks like we'll finally get to see what NVIDIA is up to next week.
Lotta hints in the video, if you watch for 'em.

--Patrick

Aug 15, 2018#495

GasBandit

You know how I know those weren't real gamers?

Their PCs were powered off. They had to turn them on when they wanted to start playing.

Outside of power outages and hardware upgrades, my PC has not been powered off since I got it in 2013.

Every PC I have ever owned, dating back to my 386sx I got in middle school, has always been on. Always. Until the day they were turned off, for the last time.

Aug 15, 2018#496

PatrThom

You know how *I* know they weren't real gamers?
All their equipment was new. No bandaged-up favorite mouse from 2012, no worn ear cups on headsets, no wear on the WASD keys.
...and their gaming areas were immaculate.

--Patrick

Aug 15, 2018#497

sixpackshaker

My gaming mouse is from 2005. And I can't find a good replacement! That doesn't cost over $100.

Aug 15, 2018#498

Eriol

PatrThom said:
no wear on the WASD keys.

My WASD keys (and a few around there) don't really have clear ink on them. It was actually a SLIGHT problem when I was needing those keys for something in a menu binding recently. When typing, I just touch-type, so it's no biggie, but once in a while when looking for "d" to do something specific, I stutter a bit, then remember that on some level I just "know" where it is.

Aug 15, 2018#499

Ravenpoe

GasBandit said:
You know how I know those weren't real gamers?

Their PCs were powered off. They had to turn them on when they wanted to start playing.

Outside of power outages and hardware upgrades, my PC has not been powered off since I got it in 2013.

Every PC I have ever owned, dating back to my 386sx I got in middle school, has always been on. Always. Until the day they were turned off, for the last time.

I keep my PC powered off when I'm not using it. It only takes a second for it to start up.

Aug 15, 2018#500

GasBandit

Ravenpoe said:
I keep my PC powered off when I'm not using it. It only takes a second for it to start up.

That is freakier than anything you've ever said in the NSFW forum

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