irotsoma
@irotsoma@lemmy.world
- Comment on Microsoft has gone too far: including a Game Pass ad in the Settings app ushers in a whole new age of ridiculous over-advertising 2 days ago:
Edge and Chrome are basically very similar at this point. Firefox is my browser of choice these days. It’s not perfect, but at least it isn’t anti-adblocking and doesn’t freak out when I block 8.8.8.8 like Chrome and the Google devices in my house. I’m moving away from Google as they move away from not being evil. Moving to self hosted stuff as much as I can for photos, email, file storage, and soon, home automation.
- Comment on Cloudflare is bad. Youre right. 4 days ago:
In my opinion, the difference with Google is that Google is actively using your data and you’re giving them a lot of it. For Cloudflare, what do they have exactly? Depends on what services you use, but really all they get from me is the list of servers that connect to my domains. Google does that too if you use 8.8.8.8, or if you have any of their hardware that overrides router DNS settings like Chromecast and Google TV.
- Comment on [Gamers Nexus] "Google is Getting Worse," ft. Wendell of Level1 Techs 5 days ago:
I’m slowly moving away to open source, self-hosted applications where possible. Changed search to a combination of Gibiru and Yep. Email to a mailcow server I host on a vps, and I’m moving photos to an Immich server I’m setting up. Home Automation is next, I have a Raspberry Pi 5 to act as the Home Assistant server. And a few other projects in the works to split from Google as much as I can and mostly it is all better.
- Comment on Electricians of fediverse, should I have my selfhosting box grounded? 6 days ago:
I mean it depends on the intensity of the surge, but basically you’d be making it so your PSU is unable to protect the devices from surges. The more sensitive the electronics, the more critical the ground is and CPUs are pretty darned sensitive among other things. And depending on the type of components in the PSU, “surges” also include things like inrush current. Basically, when you turn on a transformer or certain other devices, there is a surge of sometimes as much as 10 times the rated current to create the initial magnetic flux. Depending on the components, this excess energy may end up getting shunted to the ground to avoid pushing it through your electronics. So if it can’t do that, you likely will blow fuses a lot when switching the power on (hopefully there are fuses), or if you’re touching the case which is supposed to be grounded, you may end up getting that jolt.
Anyway, without grounded outlets, and especially if your electronics are cheaply made because many expect there to be grounding and don’t build in extra components to deal with not having a ground, you are likely to significantly reduce the life of your electronics, your life, or start a fire without even considering major surges. If you have a high-end PSU, you may never have a problem until that surge happens. How stable is your power? Because even a normally small surge combined with a cheap PSU, and no ground, is pretty likely to end up in damage to electronics at the best case.
- Comment on Why we don't have 128-bit CPUs 1 week ago:
Because computers have come even close to needing more than 16 exabytes of memory for anything. And how many applications need to do basic mathematical operations on numbers greater than 2^64. Most applications haven’t even exceeded the need for 32 bit operations, so really the push to 64bit was primarily to appease more than 4GB of memory without slow workarounds.
- Comment on Self hosting is hard. How do you overcome? 1 week ago:
Automate as much as possible. I rsync to both an online and home NAS for all of my hosted stuff, both at home and in the cloud. Updates for the OS and low level libraries are automated. The other updates are generally manual, that allows me to set aside time for fixing problems that updates might cause while still getting most of the critical security updates. And my update schedules are generally during the day, so that if something doesn’t restart properly, I can fix it.
Also, whenever possible I assume a fair amount of time for updates, far beyond what it should actually take. That way I won’t be rushed to fix the problem and end up having to revert to a backup and find time later to redo it. Then most of the time I have extra time for analyzing stats to see if I can improve performance or save money with optimizations.
I’ve never had a remote provider just suddenly vanish though I use fairly well known hosts. And as for local hardware, I just have to do without until I can buy a replacement. Or if it’s going to be some time, I do have old hardware that I could set up as a makeshift, temporary replacement like old desktop computers and some hardware that I use for experimenting like my Le Potato that isn’t powerful enough for much, but ok for the short term.
And finally I’ve been moving to more container-based setups that are easier to get up and running again. I’ve been experimenting with Nomad, Docker Swarm, K3s, etc., along with Traefik and some other reverse proxies so o can keep the workers air-gapped for security.
- Comment on Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds 1 month ago:
Food and gasoline prices have skyrocketed. Infrastructure is a mess in most of the country so it takes longer and longer to get anywhere at peak times. Companies have cut costs in offices so they’re just crowded and full of distraction and germs. So yeah, lots of time and money is saved by working from home.
- Comment on Here is what 6 decommissioned servers looks like. My Jellyfin will be very happy 1 month ago:
That electric bill, though. 🤣
- Comment on Fully working 270€ Nest Dropcam will no longer be supported. 3 months ago:
That will never work either. They’ll just transfer it to a subsidiary towards the end and then shut down the company. Then there’s no one to enforce the law on.
- Comment on Microsoft now permits uninstalling Edge, Bing, and OneDrive to adhere to the EU's Digital Markets Act. 3 months ago:
You don’t need Windows to use a computer. There are tons of flavors of Linux among other options. There are plenty of manufacturers who sell Linux boxes and you can always build your own. Microsoft just pays a lot of manufacturers to bundle Windows in the cost, but not all.
- Comment on Microsoft now permits uninstalling Edge, Bing, and OneDrive to adhere to the EU's Digital Markets Act. 3 months ago:
Which one? There are several. I personally like Cinnamon for a Windows-like experience since I have to switch back and forth to windows for work. And Plasma quite attractive if looks matter more.
- Comment on The job applicants shut out by AI: ‘The interviewer sounded like Siri’ 3 months ago:
Nah, lots of places try to make interviews as unbearable as possible. It’s “how they judge your ability to work under pressure”. Like my previous employer would fly you in seemingly with as many layovers as possible so you’re exhausted by that night. Put you up in a crappy hotel and make you come in super early. Put you in a tiny room and make you stay there for about 9-10 hours of intensive back-to-back interviews with a 30 min box lunch break. Pretty similar tactics as the military. And it’s not uncommon in tech.
- Comment on Facebook's Meta fined for breaches of Italian gambling ads ban 6 months ago:
Problem is that the system to screen ads to make sure they are legal is more than that, i.e. people, but also people with proper training, so you can’t just treat them like replaceable cogs.
- Comment on Should I move to Docker? 6 months ago:
Docker is nice for things that have complex installations and I want a very specific implementation that I don’t plan to tweak very much. Otherwise, it’s more hassle than it’s worth. There are lots of networking issues like limited/experimental support for IPv6, and too much is hidden and preconfigured, making it difficult to make adjustments that would otherwise just be a config file change.
So it is good for products like a mail server where you want to use the exact software they use like let’s say postfix + dovecot + roundcube + nginix + acme + MySQL + spam assassin + amavisd, etc. But you want to use an existing reverse proxy and cert it setup, or want to use a different spam filter or database and it becomes a huge hassle.
- Comment on Automakers must build cheaper, smaller EVs to spur adoption, report says 6 months ago:
Or, ya know, invest in battery tech so it’s more convenient to charge cars and push for gas stations and parking lots to all have chargers.
- Comment on Over half of all tech industry workers view AI as overrated 7 months ago:
Lol, those are different. I meant like a little solar powered addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and that’s it kind of calculator.
- Comment on Over half of all tech industry workers view AI as overrated 7 months ago:
It is overrated. It has a few uses, but it’s not a generalized AI. It’s like calling a basic calculator a computer. Sure it is an electronic computing device and makes a big difference in calculating speed for doing finances or retail cashiers or whatever. But it’s not a generalized computing system that can basically compute anything that it’s given instructions for which is what we think of when we hear something is a “computer”. It can only do basic math. It could never be used to display a photo , much less make a complex video game.
Similarly the current thing that’s called “AI”, can learn in a very narrow subject that it is designed for. It can’t learn just anything. It can’t make inferences beyond the training material or understand. It can’t create anything totally new, it just remixes things. It could never actually create a new genre of games with some kind of new interface that has never been thought of, or discover the exact mechanisms of how gravity works, since those things aren’t in its training material since they don’t yet exist.
- Comment on You can remove Edge and Bing Search on Windows 11 even if you don't live in Europe 7 months ago:
I find that unless that software needs access to hardware, or is very performance sensitive or uses some newer Windows APIs, most of the time Wine can run it. I still have Windows installed for those few things that require it. But over time that has become less and less.
I even had to grab the TP-Link easysmart configuration utility yesterday to configure an old managed switch and the exe ran perfect on Wine. I was honestly quite surprised. In fact I first started it up and it didn’t detect anything and I was afraid it was incompatible, but turned out the second NIC in my PC was just set up on the same config in network manager because I had been playing around with some stuff. It also runs the old Windows Epson Scanner software and drivers that my old scanner requires that no longer work in Windows 11.
Anyway, for old proprietary stuff I find that Wine emulates older Windows and DOS better than Windows 10 or 11.
- Comment on You can remove Edge and Bing Search on Windows 11 even if you don't live in Europe 7 months ago:
Like what? I’ve found alternatives or many run just fine using Wine. Might run a little slower if your computer is older, but likely everything else is running faster on Linux anyway, so it makes up for it.
- Comment on You can remove Edge and Bing Search on Windows 11 even if you don't live in Europe 7 months ago:
Way too late…I switched away from Windows 100% already. Linux works perfectly fine.
- Comment on Tesla will sue you for $50,000 if you try to resell your Cybertruck in the first year 7 months ago:
I think because it goes against the concept of ownership that you can’t do certain things with it after you buy it. I get that with digital or conceptual things, though I don’t agree with that either in many cases. But not being allowed to alter, resell, or repair a physical object you bought can be frustrating.
- Comment on Consumers are paying more than ever for streaming TV each month and analysts say there’s no reason for the companies to stop raising prices 7 months ago:
Only reason I still have Netflix is that T-Mobile pays for it for me.
- Comment on Chrome not proceeding with Web Integrity API deemed by many to be DRM 7 months ago:
Yeah, the current management is so horny to have Chrome be the next Internet Explorer like that. So sad Google has fallen so far.
- Comment on FCC to propose a minimum 100mbps to qualify as broadband, with a future goal of 1gbps 7 months ago:
Yeah I mean right now I’m in a relatively major city in the US (like 750K population), and the previous place I was just inside a major suburb (like 150K population). Rural is just plain screwed.
- Comment on FCC to propose a minimum 100mbps to qualify as broadband, with a future goal of 1gbps 7 months ago:
God I wish we had that here. We are pretty much stuck with Comcast as the only option. DSL is too slow in most places. Like I think I can only get 100/1 where I am now, but the last place I was at which was not exactly rural at all, was max 12m/768k. In my current place I do have one other option which is another cable provider. They offer the exact same as Comcast for slightly less money, but the primary reason I use them is because they don’t have a monthly data cap. With my wife and I working from home plus our personal streaming, we would exceed the cap and have to pay a significant amount to increase it.
- Comment on FCC to propose a minimum 100mbps to qualify as broadband, with a future goal of 1gbps 7 months ago:
In addition to cable being the primary means of providing service in the US which does allow for this, there are two reasons for doing it. First, down is all that is advertised. Up is only mentioned in small print usually. And second, the major ISPs and the content companies have merged so it’s an anti-“piracy” measure. It significantly impacts torrent seeding and hosting sites using residential Internet service.
- Comment on FCC to propose a minimum 100mbps to qualify as broadband, with a future goal of 1gbps 7 months ago:
We really need some upstream minimums as well. That causes so much lag for me. Most plans are 1 up even with 100 down. I have a 200/10 plan now and it’s difficult to do work with the maybe 5 that I get in practice if I’m lucky, especially after overhead from VPN.
- Comment on The pirates are back - Anew study from the European Union’s Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) suggest that online piracy has increased for the first time in years. In fact, piracy rates have bee... 8 months ago:
I mean, if people can’t afford to get the content they want, and you make shitty products with limited content, then piracy is the only way to get some of the content. So why not just get all of it that way, especially since the services are less user friendly than pirating is inconvenient.
- Comment on YouTube isn't happy you're using ad blockers — and it's doing something about it 8 months ago:
Good thing I avoid YouTube as much as possible.
- Comment on Apple considered switching to DuckDuckGo from Google for Safari - Bloomberg News 8 months ago:
Duck duck go is crap these days, probably since it uses Bing. All I ever get are “7 best ways to…” click bait, probably AI generated “articles”.