Brewchin
@Brewchin@lemmy.world
- Comment on Audio dongles and the ghost of USB 1 2 hours ago:
The 80s, I think, thanks to AutoDesk. AutoCAD required their DB9 serial dongle (in-line with the mouse) for the software to function.
As you say, well before DRM was the default for everything. I thought they were an awful company for it, but little did I know how things would pan out due to the DMCA… 😒
- Comment on How Are You Guys Handling This? 15 hours ago:
Maybe $100/year? I prefer games without a “box price”, though I do make exceptions.
Most are free-to-play that specifically aren’t pay-to-win, and play them for years. I’ll also consider paying for DLC and/or “battle pass” systems in them if the content and bang-for-buck is worth it to me.
- Comment on How Are You Guys Handling This? 1 day ago:
Hence me mentioning the price. When does it stop being worth it? You were clearly happy with $120/year, but everyone has their own threshold.
- Comment on World's Best-selling Video Game Consoles 2 days ago:
What I see: “You can verify this image if you install our app.” Garbage post.
- Comment on How Are You Guys Handling This? 2 days ago:
Game Pass sounds great, but the average game play time is ~2 weeks. You’re paying $240–480/year to skim the surface of multiple games.
That’s a lot for what is essentially a demo experience. There are better ways to approach gaming.
- Comment on Do you preorder games? 1 week ago:
I never pre-order nor pay for early access. Examples are plenty, but a couple that spring to mind are New World and Ashes of Creation. (Even excluding the infinite early access of PUBG, and whatever the hell Star Citizen is).
For the former, their “beta test” was “yeah, it runs: ship it” and ZERO feedback was noted or actioned. The release day was The Single Worst game release I’ve ever seen, and 4 years later when Amazon decided to kill it, ALL of the beta bugs were still there. To be fair, it was a “pay once” game. With MTX, of course.
For the latter, people started by paying $300+ for “alpha access” and more recently $100 for the same thing. And it’s clearly 2-4 years away from being remotely ready for release. Those people are paying to do QA. And it will be pay-per-month on release, as if it was 2010.
If your FOMO overrides your other faculties, and you’re willing to put up with all of that, then fine. You do you. 👍🏻
Me? I’m done playing these financial games with video games. Until a game is released/GA, it’s vapourware and non-existent. But again: you do you.
- Comment on ChatGPT fried my drive!? 1 week ago:
It’s true that people on the internet can be dicks. Even more so technical people (and that’s not limited to online: those online dicks are usually IRL dicks when taking technical stuff). But that’s a hurdle, not a barrier.
There’s little anyone here can do to help OP, as they (if I understand it correctly) have already irreparably nuked their hardware. The current problem is significantly different and harder than the original problem. Asking randos on this community is unlikely to yield results. Hence the focus on variations of “Now… what did we learn? 🤨”
I’m not trying to help, as I’m not familiar enough with SAS nor the current problem. The same is likely true of others here.
- Comment on ChatGPT fried my drive!? 1 week ago:
Can you really blame anyone who turns to AI, because that garbage at least sounds like it tries to help you?
A comfortable lie is still a lie. Everything that comes out of an LLM is a lie until proven otherwise. (“Lie” is a bit misleading, though, as they don’t have agency or intent: they’re a variation of your phone keyboard’s next-word text prediction algorithm. With added flattery and confidence.)
There’s a reason experienced people stress hard to others about not using them as shortcuts to your own knowledge. This is the outcome.
Another way to look at it is “trust, but verify”. If you’re intent on relying on probabilistic text as an answer, instead of bothering to learn, then take what it’s given you and verify what that does before doing it. You could learn to be an effective sloperator with just that common sense.
But if you’re going to give an LLM root/admin access to a production environment, then expect to be laughed at, because you had plenty of opportunities to not destroy something and actively chose not to use them.
- Comment on Activist group says it has scraped 86m music files from Spotify 1 week ago:
The same Anna’s Archive that allows free anonymous downloads that are throttled to the speed of a 1990-era modem unless you pay?
Yes, I’m sure preservation and social good is their goal. Definitely not about making money.
- Comment on Coursera and Udemy enter a merger agreement valued at around $2.5B | TechCrunch 2 weeks ago:
Remember when everyone used to say that competition breeds innovation? 😖
Turns out that’s nowhere near as
shareholder-friendlyprofitable as consolidation, monopoly and micro-iteration.Looking forward to all public US companies being a subsidiary of the Amazon-Walmart-Disney mega-conglomerate in 20 years or so…
- Comment on Roomba maker iRobot swept into bankruptcy 2 weeks ago:
I certainly see the appeal of being able to make it avoid certain areas. Sounds better than arranging furniture or using those little battery-powered outposts to repel the Roomba (can’t remember what they’re called).
But, for me, I don’t see that outweighing the risks of cloud dependencies (and the inevitable expiration date).
Even assuming a solid internet connection, reliable cloud service and perfect software updates, you may still only get a year or two out of it before they decide to yank it or make it a subscription service. The last decade or so of shitty manufacturer behaviour has permanently jaded me, I think… 😅
- Comment on Roomba maker iRobot swept into bankruptcy 2 weeks ago:
Interesting to hear the feedback, thanks.
- Comment on Roomba maker iRobot swept into bankruptcy 2 weeks ago:
I’ve had a dumb Roomba (560? 650?) for years. The worst they can do is stop making replacement batteries and brushes available, and there’s plenty of third-party alternatives.
Who buys a smart device when a dumb one is available and does the job just as well. 🤷♂️
- Comment on Japan Unveils Human Washing Machine, Now You Can Get Washed Like Laundry 5 weeks ago:
Saw the YT video for this a while back (~15 mins) and thought it mostly a nostalgic throwback to the stuff we saw or hoped for in the 80s and 90s. If “how can we charge rent for this?” hadn’t come along and destroyed innovation, anyway.
It seems more like a proof of concept, as it just fills soapy water up past the seal line, shows progress and wildlife scenes on screen (which will definitely be used to advertise at you eventually), sprays your face and other bits above the water line, drains, and then blow dries you. You’d still need to scrub, and wash your back, butt, etc.
I was kind of hoping for one of those sonic/pulsing water/jet-wash/scrubbing shower things you see in SF. This isn’t it.
But it is great that some companies are still innovating. It’s been a while.
- Comment on Plex’s crackdown on free remote streaming access starts this week - Ars Technica 5 weeks ago:
You can still use tailscale and reverse proxy to allow remote streaming
I used to use Plex and when I discovered there was paid remote streaming function - that goes through their servers - my reactions were “Haha, no”* and checking whether my existing WireGuard setup would do it instead.
Whaddya know, remote streaming using Plex and PlexAmp at no cost.
*Not because I begrudge them recouping costs, but because it’s designed that way to justify charging for it, gives them whatever information they want from my viewing, and it’s not self-hosting if there’s any third party cloud/account component to it.
- Comment on Roblox to block children from talking to adult strangers after string of lawsuits 1 month ago:
But using mandatory facial recognition for that? I think that is way too far.
I agree. As I’ve said from the beginning.
- Comment on Roblox to block children from talking to adult strangers after string of lawsuits 1 month ago:
I don’t know if I would call mandatory facial recognition for children online “the right thing.”
I don’t think so either, which is why I didn’t say it. You skipped my final paragraph.
By “right thing”, I was referring to doing anything, which appears to be more than they’ve tried so far.
The parental responsibility argument was probably valid when there was 1-2 standard computers in a home and getting online was a Whole Thing in itself. Now we have supercomputers in our pockets that are permanently online. It’s a whole lot harder than a simple “parents should take responsibility” one-liner.
I’m not saying they bear no responsibility, but to hand wave that as the answer is not an answer.
Also: Thinking of myself at that age, though public internet didn’t exist until I was almost an adult, I know I’d have found ways around things. A digital equivalent to slipping out of your window to see friends or hiding your Brussels sprouts in a pocket.
The technical education required to correctly protect, monitor and configure the necessary hardware and software is unreasonable for the vast majority of people.
Though you could probably find a kid who’ll happily show you how to do it all…
- Comment on Roblox to block children from talking to adult strangers after string of lawsuits 1 month ago:
This. Imagine being a company who suddenly has to do the right thing simply because they can’t afford the “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas” approach any more.
Litigation may be an awful substitute for regulation, but at least its having some positive effect here.
Shame about the way they’re doing it, though. It’s a wet dream for politicians and activists in favour of age verification, and for the hackers who’ll inevitability get their hands on all of it.
- Comment on When Did VLC's Site Get Ads? 1 month ago:
Just realised that I automatically filter out obvious scams, as I genuinely didn’t register three contents of either of those spam boxes…
That arrangement has existed for over 30 years, and it’s now an unconscious scan. 😒
But I think the point remains in the middle of the page, that it will run through the standard bullshit FOMO timer, and then start downloading the expected binary.
And it’s not VLC doing any advertising. They’re just choosing to use a shit download site to host the binary for that OS and download method
- Comment on When Did VLC's Site Get Ads? 1 month ago:
First indication of fake I’ve seen so far, based on OP’s detail-light post. I’d assumed the FOMO timer would eventually download the genuine binary.
So, share with the class…
- Comment on When Did VLC's Site Get Ads? 1 month ago:
Gonna need a bit more info than you’ve provided.
What I will note, from the information that you’ve provided, is that you shared an internet exchange screenshot showing a couple of low key ads (with the usual opt out bullshit links), so any ads are not on the VLC site - it’s on their download partner site, a la 1995 - and they’re probably the most tame ads (repeat: not benefiting VLC) that I’ve seen in 30 years.
tl;dr: Late-stage PSTN/POTS dialup configuration of binaries hosted on a third party (pre-CDN) download site -who are free to inject whatever spam they like - (but have been astonishingly restrained here) along with the download link.
- Comment on I love fucking pasta 1 month ago:
You know this is the internet right? Nothing is beyond the realms of possibility if money is involved. Did Jackass teach us nothing?
- Comment on I love fucking pasta 1 month ago:
Is this “if PornHub monetised and incentivised content creators like YouTube does”?
Also: The pasta - cooked or raw? 🤡
- Comment on "Frieren - Beyond Journey's End – Season 2" New Character Visuals 2 months ago:
This is the most accurate image possible for Frieren. Books > Mimic risk. nomnomnom…
- Comment on Reducing Homelab Laptop energy consumption 2 months ago:
10W? That’s incredibly low - under 10mA wherever in the world you live. About the same as an LED bulb, or a tenth of an average incandescent lightbulb.
For comparison: my NAS and NUC (mix of HDD and M.2 drives; both hosting services) draw 75W combined at idle, measured via Home Assistant and a smart plug, and that’s generally considered low-power self-hosting.
I’d be pleasantly amazed if you could get a laptop to use less, so I look forward to other replies.
- Comment on Press any button to start ♥️ 2 months ago:
Right? She’s what made me chuckle aloud at this meme. 😄
- Comment on Best "bang for your buck" NUC/Pi setup for Jellyfin/HomeAssistant/PiHole? 2 months ago:
I still use all 3, though I’m slowly moving CPU intensive containers to the NUC. The Pi is untouched so far, partly because having edge services there will make it easier of I decide to implement a DMZ.
The NUC+Proxmox is a great combination. Bit of a learning curve (eg. as with Docker, you need to pass devices in Proxmox and then to the container; same with CIFS shares), but there are lots of resources out there. I have no regrets going this route, and it had low power consumption.
On Windows thing, I was specifically referring to the server OS as the NUC came with Win11. Do whatever works for your desktop/gaming setup.
Though I also switched that to Linux (EndeavourOS, though there are other game-friendly options) a couple of years ago, and its worked out great. Guild Wars 2 was my most modded Windows game, and I can run all except one of the Windows-based addons I want for it. Setting it all up the first time is a ball ache (as it was with Windows, but that was done over time 🤷♂️). 😊
- Comment on Best "bang for your buck" NUC/Pi setup for Jellyfin/HomeAssistant/PiHole? 2 months ago:
I was hosting most of my Docker stuff on my Synology DS920+, use Docker in a Pi 4B for AdGuard Home and WireGuard, and found myself wanting to use Home Assistant.
Can’t use Docker for HA if you want HACS (addons) and Synology decided to kill USB drivers some time back, so looked around for options. Considered a Nabu Casa Yellow with a CM5 compute module (for Voice PE) and its price was more than a GMKtek N150 NUC, which has far higher specs and enough headroom for other things. So I got the NUC.
First thing I did was nuke Windows and replaced it with Proxmox, then installed Home Assistant OS (HAOS) as a VM in it. Plenty of headroom left, so now it’s also got a Linux VM, a few LXCs, etc. (The Proxmox Helper Scripts site makes it very easy).
Could easily install AGH or PiHole and a bunch of other things on it. Think it’s the best bang for buck thing I’ve bought in years.
- Comment on [News] Original “Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End” Manga Goes on Hiatus to Allow Authors to Recover; Serialization Pace and Format to Be Adjusted 2 months ago:
Only in manga is the phrase “hiatus to recover” considered a normal thing in a creative industry.
What the hell kind of workhouses are these manga publications?
Based on all the “I’m so desperately sorry to make you dear readers wait an extra week (or more) for the next issue, but my brain has fallen out, my wife/husband has paid a hitman on me, and I’ve fallen into a coma” apologies I’ve seen from mangaka over the years, there is zero chance I’d encourage anyone to get into this for a job. 😬
- Comment on What’s wrong, babe? You barely touched your Spaghetacos 2 months ago:
Genuinely amazed one (in particular) of my university housemates didn’t come up with this abomination.
He’d be devastated to see this… 😅