sylver_dragon
@sylver_dragon@lemmy.world
- Comment on Which is better: F-Zero or Super Mario Kart (SNES)? 3 days ago:
It just depends on which type of racing game you are in the mood for. Mario Kart is well, Mario Kart. F-Zero always felt more like the older, arcade style racer in the vein of Out Run.
- Comment on D-Link refuses to patch a security flaw on over 60,000 NAS devices — the company instead recommends replacing legacy NAS with newer models 1 week ago:
Any vendor is going to reach a point where they no longer are willing to support older devices. So you have three choices:
- Run with the vulnerability. This is incredibly stupid and I’d hope no one did this.
- Replace the OS on any such device with something open source. Probably the best option for those who already own such a device.
- Never buy a proprietary device in the first place. Unless you really, really need something the propriety device offers, a beige box running some flavor of 'nix is probably a better long term solution.
Ok, I guess there is a fourth option. Learn to enjoy that vendor bending you over every few years. This is what many businesses do and it can make sense. You just need to have lots of money.
- Comment on Microsoft has a big Windows 10 problem, and only one year to solve it 4 weeks ago:
Ya, in fairness to MS, Windows XP was a good release (post SP1, like most “good” MS releases). But, the fact is that MS is going to push the latest version, regardless of how ready it is for use. MS was hot for folks to switch to Windows ME. And holy fuck was that a terrible OS. MS also did everything short of bribery to get folks to switch to Vista (anyone remember Windows Mojave?). The “upgrade, or else” mantra has always been their way. Not that I blame them too much, it does need to happen. It just sucks when the reason for the new OS is more intrusive ads and user tracking.
- Comment on Microsoft has a big Windows 10 problem, and only one year to solve it 4 weeks ago:
Many years ago, I attended a Windows XP launch event. The Microsoft presenter had the perfect line to describe how MS views this:
“Why should you upgrade to Windows XP? Because we’re going to stop supporting Windows 98!”This was said completely unironically and with the expectation that people would just do what MS wanted them to do. That attitude hasn’t changed in the years since. Win 10 is going to be left behind. You will either upgrade or be vulnerable. Also, MS doesn’t care about the home users, they care about the businesses and the money to be had. And businesses will upgrade. They will invariably wait to the last minute and then scramble to get it done. But, whether because they actually give a shit about security or they have to comply with security frameworks (SOX, HIPAA, etc.), they will upgrade. Sure, they will insist on GPOs to disable 90% of the Ads and tracking shit, but they will upgrade.
- Comment on Clogged nozzle? 1 month ago:
As far as the rest of it, it seems to be happening with every filament I slice in Prusa slicer.
This just reminded me of an issue I was facing recently. I also use Prusa Slicer and was having a hell of a time with my prints. It turned out to be the “Arc Fitting” setting.
In Print Settings - Advanced - Slicing look for the *Arc Fitting setting. When I had it set to “Enabled: G2/3IJ” it just completely borked my prints. Just weird problems all over the place. As soon as I set that to “Disabled”, it cleaned up my prints considerably. Not sure exactly what I’m giving up there, but I do know I’m getting much better prints. - Comment on Clogged nozzle? 1 month ago:
If you haven’t yet, try a cold pull and see if that helps. I personally just do a cold pull every time I change filaments. Maybe it helps, maybe it’s overkill, but I rarely have issues around clogs.
Other things to think about:
- Does this happen with other filaments? Maybe your current filament is wet and needs drying. Maybe you just got a bad batch.
- Does slowing down the print speed for infill make a difference? Perhaps this filament is just flowing differently and you need to change the printing temperature, flow rate, or just slow down.
- How old is your nozzle? They do wear out and a worn out nozzle can manifest as all kinds of wonky problems.
- Comment on Reddit is making sitewide protests basically impossible 1 month ago:
writes Nestler. “We want to hear from you when you think Reddit is making decisions that are not in your communities’ best interests. But if a protest crosses the line into harming redditors and Reddit, we’ll step in.”
Translation: We don’t really give a shit what you think. Now shut up and generate that content for us to sell to AI companies.
- Comment on Student dorm does not allow wifi routers 2 months ago:
It is now functionally impossible to detect anything about the traffic or the Wi-Fi router without some serious or illegal methods.
You should really spend some time learning about WiFi signals. Tracking down rogue Access Points is a pretty common thing and having the SSID turned off does fuck all to prevent it. On the easy end, many enterprise wireless network controllers have rogue AP detection built right in and will show you a map of the location of the rogue AP. Harder, but still entirely possible, is running around with a setup just detecting the signal and triangulating it.
- Comment on Square Enix invests in Playtron for their Linux-based PlaytronOS - first Alpha out now 2 months ago:
Playtron’s CEO, Kirt McMaster, added, “We are thrilled to join forces with such a legendary games publisher as Square Enix. The PC we know is morphing into new forms that require a purpose built OS for gaming that meets the demands of powerful new gaming hardware such as handhelds and new players who have grown up in a mobile 1st world with much more sophisticated UX sensibilities. This investment will accelerate the development and deployment of GameOS and create new experiences for players around the globe.”
Huh, so Playton’s CEO is an early example of an AI being used to replace people.
- Comment on Research shows more than 80% of AI projects fail, wasting billions of dollars in capital and resources: Report 2 months ago:
Welcome to AI:
- Comment on Small reminder: Don't forget to sporadically renew your nozzle from time to time! 2 months ago:
Yes, but that is also going to require a ton of extra effort to track and assumes the nozzles themselves wear consistently. There would probably also need to be modifiers based on materials used, and even brands. For a professional print farm or a business trying to squeeze every last dollar out of the operation, this might be worth it. For a hobby where we expect a lot of waste? Eh, fuck it, just replace it when prints start going south.
- Comment on Gearbox founder says Epic Games Store hopes were “misplaced or overly optimistic” 2 months ago:
Re-read what I wrote, but hop down off your high horse first, it’s obvious you weren’t able to read it clearly from up there. I’m neither promoting nor defending piracy. Quite the contrary, I’m praising the legitimate services (and Steam in particular) for understanding that competition with piracy isn’t all about money, it’s often about the quality of service. Funny enough, your own comments are actually a point in favor of this:
You ever wonder why these companies don’t operate in countries that don’t have strict piracy laws and can’t shut down sites with court orders? Because it’s still easier to pirate than face criminal charges.
Yet somehow, with a lot of time, money and effort put into shutting down piracy, the pirates were able to provide a better service. Seriously, step back from the whole “napster bad” for a moment and think about the dissonance of the situation. Large companies, pulling in millions of dollars a year, with no need to worry about law enforcement or monied interests coming after them, somehow failed to create anything resembling a functional digital marketplace. They were stuck in the physical distribution paradigm and fought tooth and nail to avoid digital distribution. At the same time, a few kids, with little money, and law enforcement trying to shut them down created a pretty good user experience. Sure, some of that is not having to worry about licensing. But, a large part of it is understanding what the users want and giving it to them.
It wasn’t until Apple came along and basically created “Napster, but legitimate” that music piracy really fell off. Netflix pulled off something similar with video (though that is rebuilding some rough edges at the moment) and Steam did it for games. Sure, piracy still exists, and it will always be a problem. But, a lot of piracy can be tamped down by having a good service available.
- Comment on Gearbox founder says Epic Games Store hopes were “misplaced or overly optimistic” 2 months ago:
One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue. The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates. – Gabe Newell, 2011
Time and again, digital distribution platforms have proved this. Apple Music became a dominant music distribution platform at the height of Napster, LimeWire and other peer to peer sharing apps. They did it, because it was easier to just buy the tracks/albums you wanted than to dig through trackers and websites which may or may not actually have what you want. Netflix became the de-facto source for streaming movies at a time when BitTorrent was common and well known. Again, they made it easy and convenient, while not charging an arm and a leg. Steam also faced competition from BitTorrent piracy. But again, Steam made buying, downloading and running games easier than the pirates. And people are willing to pay for that convenience and not dealing with the crap which floats around the high seas.
And, so long as Steam continues to treat it’s customers right, those customers will keep coming back. And that’s the problem with Pitchford’s whole premise. Developers will go where the customers are. Sure, you’ll get the odd case of a publisher/developer doing an exclusivity deal. But even then, it’s probably limited, because the customers are on Steam. If another storefront wants to draw customers, they need to start with treating customers well. They will still face headwinds, as Steam has a large “first mover” advantage. But, success is going to start with making customers want to come back.
- Comment on Nothing is requiring employees to be in the office five days a week 2 months ago:
Ok, good luck with that! Can’t wait for this guy to start whining that he can’t find employees.
- Comment on I'm at a loss on what server to buy 3 months ago:
Have you considered just beige boxing a server yourself? My home server is a mini-ITX board from Asus running a Core i5, 32GB of RAM and a stack of SATA HDDs all stuffed in a smaller case. Nothing fancy, just hardware picked to fulfill my needs.
Limiting yourself to bespoke systems means limiting yourself to what someone else wanted to build. The main downside to building it yourself is ensuring hardware comparability with the OS/software you want to run. If you are willing to take that on, you can tailor your server to just what you want.
- Comment on is it possible to host a small instance on your pc without renting anything? 3 months ago:
I do agree with what you are saying, but for a complete beginner, and a very general overview, I didn’t want to complicate things too much. I personally run my own stuff in containers and am behind CG-NAT (it’s why I gave it a mention).
That said, if you really wanted to give the new user that advice, go for it. Rather than just nit pick and do the “but actshuly” bit, start adding that info and point out how the person should do it and what to consider. Build, instead of just tearing down.
- Comment on is it possible to host a small instance on your pc without renting anything? 3 months ago:
No, but you are the target of bots scanning for known exploits. The time between an exploit being announced and threat actors adding it to commodity bot kits is incredibly short these days. I work in Incident Response and seeing
wp-contentin the URL of an attack is nearly a daily occurrence. Sure, for whatever random software you have running on your normal PC, it’s probably less of an issue. Once you open a system up to the internet and constant scanning and attack by commodity malware, falling out of date quickly opens your system to exploit. - Comment on is it possible to host a small instance on your pc without renting anything? 3 months ago:
Short answer: yes, you can self-host on any PC connected to your network.
Longer answer:
You can, but this is probably not the best way to go about things. The first thing to consider is what you are actually hosting. If you are talking about a website, this means that you are running some sort of web server software 24x7 on your main PC. This will be eating up resources (CPU cycles, RAM) which you may want to dedicated to other processes (e.g. gaming). Also, anything you do on that PC may have a negative impact on the server software you are hosting. Reboot and your server software is now offline. Install something new and you might have a conflict bringing your server software down. Lastly, if your website ever gets hacked, then your main PC also just got hacked, and your life may really suck. This is why you often see things like Raspberry Pis being used for self-hosting. It moves the server software on to separate hardware which can be updated/maintained outside a PC which is used for other purposes. And it gives any attacker on that box one more step to cross before owning your main PC. Granted, it’s a small step, but the goal there is to slow them down as much as possible.That said, the process is generally straight forward. Though, there will be some variations depending on what you are hosting (e.g. webserver, nextcloud, plex, etc.) And, your ISP can throw a massive monkey wrench in the whole thing, if they use CG-NAT. I would also warn you that, once you have a presence on the internet, you will need to consider the security implications to whatever it is you are hosting. With the most important security recommendation being “install your updates”. And not just OS updates, but keeping all software up to date. And, if you host WordPress, you need to stay on top of plugin and theme updates as well. In short, if it’s running on your system, it needs to stay up to date.
The process generally looks something like:
- Install your updates.
- Install the server software.
- Apply updates to the software (the installer may be an outdated version).
- Apply security hardening based on guides from the software vendor.
- Configure your firewall to forward the required ports (and only the required ports) from the WAN side to the server.
- Figure out your external IP address.
- Try accessing the service from the outside.
Optionally, you may want to consider using a Dynamic DNS service (DDNS) (e.g. noip.com) to make reaching your server easier. But, this is technically optional, if you’re willing to just use an IP address and manually update things on the fly.
Good luck, and in case I didn’t mention it, install your updates.
- Comment on Twitch lifts its ban on Donald Trump 3 months ago:
Ya, the guy is a walking case study in how to be a horrible member of society; but, he is now the official GOP nominee for President. Blocking him, but not Biden, might get into sticky territory around campaign finance. Not that Trump’s team or the GOP give a shit about that. But, other folks do, probably the Twitch legal team among them.
- Comment on If I live in a red state, would it be better to vote for rfk to take votes away from trump? 3 months ago:
If you are in a deep red state, it will seem that your vote won’t matter. Because it mostly won’t. However, the way States vote changes over time. The closer the vote totals in a State, the more likely the National Democratic Party is to invest resources into building up and promoting candidates in those States. That sort of thing can shift the needle, if slowly. Keep in mind that California voted Republican from '68 to '88 (source) but shifted over time.
It sucks to vote and feel like you’re just pissing in the wind. But, each vote moves the needle just a bit more and maybe, eventually, things will swing.
- Comment on Google's Gemini AI caught scanning Google Drive hosted PDF files without permission — user complains feature can't be disabled 4 months ago:
“The cloud” continues to be someone else’s computer. If you put your data up there, it’s no longer your data.
- Comment on Microsoft is not done yet: more ads spotted in latest Windows 11 build - gHacks Tech News 4 months ago:
While I hate ads as much as the next person, I’m having trouble getting outraged by ads in an app store. “Recommendations” are kinda par for that course. Sure, it would be nice if those “recommendations” actually reflected stuff I was interested in and not just who paid Microsoft the most for ad placement. But, I also aggressively turn off telemetry (and actually don’t use Windows at home). So, it’s not like I expect useful recommendations anyway.
- Comment on Nike’s self-lacing Adapt BB sneakers are losing their remote control mobile app 4 months ago:
That’s funny, I have the exact same toy. It was a Father’s day gift years ago. It’s now an expensive display piece, as the battery no longer seems to hold a charge. And, as best I can tell, the battery is well sealed inside, making replacement impossible. Yet another thing I hate about our disposable culture.
- Comment on Nike’s self-lacing Adapt BB sneakers are losing their remote control mobile app 4 months ago:
If something requires an “app” and a connection to “the cloud” for basic functionality, don’t buy it. This sort of abandonment by the manufacturer will always happen. Maybe it will last longer. Maybe it will be next week. But once the company has your money, the last thing they want to do is to spend any of that money providing you with support.
- Comment on OneDrive automatically backups folders in Windows 11 without users' permissions 4 months ago:
My apologies, I was not familiar with the difference. I’m going to have to test this when I am back at my system. Looking at the docs, it does seem to be experimental in Linux. But it seems odd that it would turn off automagically.
- Comment on OneDrive automatically backups folders in Windows 11 without users' permissions 4 months ago:
That’s interesting. I’ve not had that sort of issue. On my phone (Android), my son’s laptop (Windows) and my desktop (Arch Linux) the NextCloud clients all sync perfectly and run at start up. Granted, knowing that the Linux landscape is fractured, I wouldn’t be overly surprised if the client had issues on some flavors of Linux.
- Comment on OneDrive automatically backups folders in Windows 11 without users' permissions 4 months ago:
If you are willing to self-host, I’ve found Nextcloud integrates well in Linux. I had been using it before I made the switch and it worked out just fine afterwards. I originally set it up to have a cloud-sync option for my phone, which didn’t mean passing everything through Google first. But, it also proved to be a handy way to sync files on my desktop as well.
It just shows up as another folder on my system and Libre Office is happy to work on files from there (with some permissions fiddling due to flatpak). - Comment on OneDrive automatically backups folders in Windows 11 without users' permissions 4 months ago:
Every new “feature” I hear about in Windows Privacy Invasion Goes to 11, the happier I am that I switched to Linux. It’s been mostly smooth and games have just worked. Though I know that much of that is because of Proton.
- Comment on The Chinese women turning to ChatGPT for AI boyfriends 5 months ago:
- Comment on Does anyone print planter heads? 6 months ago:
I print these containers for my basement hydroponic plants.
My wife has also stolen several to use as traditional soil planters.
