GreenCrunch

@GreenCrunch@lemmy.today

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Computer Scientists Figure Out How To Prove Lies: An attack on a fundamental proof technique reveals a glaring security issue for blockchains and other digital encryption schemes.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Or, if you’re more fun, a giant wall of lava lamps! The coolest randomness in town!

  (Cloudflare does this)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Realized 99% of all my chargers are USB-C. This can only mean one thing. New USB bout to drop!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Even USB-C is a nightmare. There’s 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2, which were rebranded as “3.2 Gen X” with some stupid stuff there as far as what speed it supports.

  Then it can do DisplayPort as well. There used to be an HDMI alt mode too!

  An Intel computer might have Thunderbolt over the same cable, and can send PCIe signals over the cable to plug in a graphics card or other devices.

  Then there’s USB 4 which works like Thunderbolt but isn’t restricted to Intel devices.

  Then there’s the extended power profile which lets you push 240 W through a USB C port.

  For a while, the USB-C connector was on graphics cards as Virtualink, which was supposed to be a one-cable standardized solution to plugging in VR headsets. Except that no headsets used it.

  Then there’s Nintendo. The Switch has a Type-C port, but does its own stupid thing for video, so it can’t work with a normal dock because it’s a freak.

  So you pick up a random USB C cable and have no information on what it may be capable of, plug it into a port where you again don’t know the capabilities. Its speed may be anywhere between 1.5 MBit/s (USB 1.0 low speed) and 80 GBit/s (USB 4 2.0) and it may provide between 5 and 240 W of power.

  Every charger has a different power output, and sometimes it leads to a stupid situation like the Dell 130 W laptop charger. In theory, 130 W is way more than what most phones will charge at. But it only offers that at I think 20 V, which my phone can’t take. So in practice, your phone will charge at the base 5W over it.

  Dell also has a laptop dock for one of their laptops that uses TWO Type-C ports, for more gooderness or something, I don’t know. Meaning it will only fit that laptop with ports exactly that far apart.

  The USB chaos does lead to fun discoveries, such as when I plugged a Chromecast with Google TV’s power port into a laptop dock and discovered that it actually supports USB inputs, which is cool.

  And Logitech still can’t make a USB-C dongle for their mouse.

  At least it’s not a bunch of proprietary barrel chargers. My parents have a whole box of orphaned chargers with oddly specific voltages from random devices.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is my shampoo smelling like fruit or is my fruit tasting like shampoo?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The scalp bird takes advantage of this by nesting in people’s hair and consuming the fruit. This causes another symbiotic relationship as it spreads the fruit seeds.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨They are so clueless they don't realize that this just pisses everyone off. Shove your banana⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Sorry folks. Because of the banana handouts, the company is short on cash for the quarter, so there will be no bonuses or raises.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Solar + Battery (covering 97% of demand) is now cheaper than coal and nuclear⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean there are ongoing costs with any form of power generation. Obviously there’s fuel costs for most, but even other renewables have maintenance costs. You’ll also need to keep investing anyway as power demands increase over time. So newer solar installations eventually replace the old.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft is moving antivirus providers out of the Windows kernel⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m just speculating. It seems like, at least at the moment, anti cheat continues to be able to run as kernel. The article says Microsoft will have more to say on anti cheat “in the near future.”

  It may be that they don’t crack down on the realtime applications as hard, since the number of users impacted is so much smaller. Antivirus and anti cheat are on many millions of machines and are usable by the average consumer. Specialty software may be considered differently, I. E. “You know what you’re doing and what risks you’re assuming” for the more technical customer.

  It will be interesting to see where they go with this.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft is moving antivirus providers out of the Windows kernel⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  An interesting question. Assuming they’re only targeting security/antivirus products at the moment (see the discussion regarding anti-cheat) it may be that those applications get a pass for now.