Dark_Arc

Dark_Arc , 1 hour ago

It’s very unlikely it’s actually that bad. As someone that’s actually done multiple full rewrites of some fairly large software projects … incremental refactors could’ve got it done without completely shutting down new feature development for years.

Dark_Arc , 2 hours ago

If Hilary’s supporters in California had been spread around in other states she would have won the national election easily.

This is part of why I haven’t left Ohio, have beat back on the argument that “I should just move [to somewhere that’s more politically aligned with my beliefs]” (which I’ve heard that line enough, I fully believe it’s a GOP driven talking point), and I’ve encouraged other left-leaning folks to stay or come back.

Dark_Arc , 2 hours ago

National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

That doesn’t do anything until it has enough states that it actually guarantees the person that wins the popular vote, wins.

Dark_Arc , 2 hours ago

I wish (as an Ohioan) we could deliver Ohio for 2024. Maybe if Kamala pushes the abortion and democracy point well enough and reassure gun owners that the federal government isn’t going to come for their guns.

There’s also a good chance that what can only be describe as the “fuck all the politicians that won’t listen to us about drawing maps” gerrymandering amendment is on the ballot for November … and there’s a solid chance that gets passed ending ~2 decades of the GOP stranglehold on Ohio representation in the US House.

Dark_Arc , 1 hour ago

Speaking as the operator of u/[email protected] … I think it’s kind of inevitable with the current design of lemmy for folks that browse “all” instead of subscribed … and in some cases local.

As an example, Auto_Post_Bot posts news post to !zed and !zed (the latter is recent per request from the admin over there, as they don’t want centralized communities)… So if your instance is “subscribed” to both, it’s going to be a “duplicate” post in the “all” feed.

Dark_Arc , 14 hours ago

This is theoretically the best defense of records I’ve heard…

But, I still find it pretty hard to believe they’re mastering the records any different than they do anything else.

My current hunch is that maybe the imprecise nature of a record results in it sounding a bit warmer (which … to be fair is a very desirable sound to a lot of folks; I’ve thought about using a tube amp for that exact reason).

Dark_Arc , 13 hours ago

I … find that hard to believe, but also someone on the R site said in a “everything is bass heavy” troubleshooting section that the vinyl master has less bass and the record players add extra bass back in to the signal.

I’m really leaning towards Vinyl is just a different reproduction that some people like more than digital. Seems like a similar thing with how some people use tube amps with their digital audio library to cause that “old school radio” warm tone when you crank it up.

Dark_Arc , 14 hours ago

That’s not right… He was trying to achieve wireless power through Earth resonance. Which AFAIK is pretty much now completely debunked as never going to work … but it tracks with Tesla’s world view.

It’s kind of crazy how much you can build without a complete understanding… There’s probably stuff we think we understand now that we really don’t and other stuff left to discover.

Dark_Arc , 13 hours ago

He also wanted to use the resonance for transmission AFAIK. He didn’t really buy into the radio waves from a scientific standpoint (which to be fair to him … everything was more theoretical back then; if he was in the modern era, he’d have better information to use).

Dark_Arc , 10 hours ago

I feel like even Valve Anti-Cheat can handle that level of concern though, no?

Dark_Arc , 1 day ago

Brave search…? You’re joking right…?

Dark_Arc , 1 day ago

But it’s no where near the #2 spot. Brave search is incredibly niche.

Dark_Arc , 1 day ago

OH, I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you were saying search itself is a duopoly between Google and Brave Search.

You’re saying searching Reddit is a duopoly between Google and Brave Search.

That’s my bad… but yeah, the article is just wrong anyways, Kagi also has access still (presumably through their deal with Google to use Google’s search results as part of their result set). I wonder if Brave has a similar deal … or their crawlers just haven’t been blocked yet … or they paid off Reddit.

EDIT: Also, I will say because Brave search has such a small market share that’s probably not going to help Google’s case much.

Dark_Arc , 1 day ago

LLMs are expensive power hungry beasts of limited use.

Crypto is similarly a power hungry beast. It’s also primarily a niche pseudo currency that’s arguably more regularly used for crime than legitimate purchases.

“Feed what you wish to grow” applies here … and TBH I’m okay with what they’ve done with the LLM. The crypto wallet … I just wish we’d let crypto die. Bitcoin in particular is too unstable for the average person to use as some kind of normal currency. People also see it as an investment, but it’s a super questionable investment that is backed only by the arbitrary value we give it.

Dark_Arc , 1 day ago

… they do email, but they also do other things. They still do email better than the alternatives.

It’s kind of like if Chipotle came out with hamburgers and you were like “well I want a burrito but I’ll never get one of their burritos now, they’re just like all the other fast food now.”

Dark_Arc , 1 day ago

I will say, I disagree with this perspective as a developer.

Adding more people doesn’t inherently make the product better. You can have too many cooks in the kitchen and too many people stepping on each other’s toes.

It’s like the saying 9 women can’t make a baby in a month.

I think the other apps are moving at a reasonable pace. Though I do wish they’d put some more people on Linux desktop apps… Maybe even a Linux distribution “Proton OS” could be very interesting.

Dark_Arc , 1 day ago

I know A LOT of people that still use cash and use it frequently for legitimate purchases.

There are also several places around here that are cash only shops, and several more that will charge you extra for using a credit card.

Cash is an official, government sanctioned, form of currency. Part of the appeal of cryptocurrencies is they’re a currency that’s outside of government management.

The problem with bitcoin in particular is volatility vs any other reference currency is insane. You might have enough to buy an expensive house one day, then a few months later you only have enough for a cheap car, then a few months later you can buy an even nicer house (or maybe not!). That’s just not practical for most people … I don’t think it ever will be practical for most people.

If we get a “stable coin” that requires low power draw … maybe? But is that really better than just using a credit card? Are online purchases really more secure? People get their wallet stolen in real life, getting your digital wallet stolen is something that can totally happen too. There’s no FDIC on your bitcoin, a bitcoin wallet isn’t a bank.

Crypto fans love to talk up crypto coins but … I just do not see them as a practical solution to much of anything. We would be far better off improving security of credit cards so you can manage your purchases in a system that’s more like PayPal’s where there’s a way to see “these are the things that are authorized to take money from you automatically” and “these are the things where we generated a one time token and this is how much you paid.”

The things I’ve seen about bitcoin at scale have also suggested it could never even come close to the transaction speed of VISA.

I just … I am so far from sold. I found Bitcoin when it was ~1 USD per bitcoin. I wish I’d bought just $50 of bitcoin back then and sat on it, but I don’t think bitcoin ever has soared because of its merits. It’s kind of like this AI hype right now, block chains have very limited practical usability.

Dark_Arc , 1 day ago

You’re probably meeting our weirdos in those cases… Trust me we get other countries weirdos (mostly in our touristy spots) too.

We can be chatty with strangers but it’s typically very surface level stuff “what’s a nice place to eat around here”, “that’s a really cute dog”, “any recommendations for things to do while we’re here”, etc

Dark_Arc , 2 days ago

Speak for yourself… I’m hoping google comes out with a flip phone Pixel. If I was an iPhone person this is exactly what I’d be hoping for.

I want a phone that folds up to be smaller than a normal phone so I don’t have to have giant bricks in my pocket.

Dark_Arc , 2 days ago

“a few” … it literally cuts the length in half. For me personally, something like this is much desired. Having a 3x3x.5" block vs a 6x3x.25" block would be a major improvement.

Dark_Arc , 2 days ago

Which I’m totally okay with. In some of my clothes my pockets are doing gymnastics to try and fit the giant brick (because the phone is a long as the full length of my pocket). If you don’t have/like baggy pockets, these huge screen, long phones are a huge pain.

Having it be “twice as thick” means it’s about as thick as my wallet (and I have no complaints with that).

Dark_Arc , 3 days ago

Dear AWS, hire a UX team to make your (clearly) programmer UI actually make sense.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Dark_Arc , 3 days ago

For real security, you basically have to. Even without this, jammers can be used by thieves to disable wireless cameras and security systems.

Dark_Arc , 4 days ago

You can be upset, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to outlaw running for president as a criminal. Russia exists as a case study/prime example why even in modern times that founding wisdom holds.

Dark_Arc , 6 days ago

This is a pretty hot take. A single bad file can topple pretty much any operating system depending on what the file is. That’s part of why it’s important to be able to detect file corruption in a mission critical system.

Dark_Arc , 5 days ago (edited 3 days ago)

It’s not just a circle jerk in this case. Windows is dominant for desktop usage but Linux has like 90% of the server market and is used for basically all new server projects.

Paying for Windows licensing when it doesn’t benefit you, it’s silly, and that’s been realized for years.

Dark_Arc , 8 days ago

I mean, if you vote for the GOP their platform is literally “me doing less work is good for you.”

Imagine if you hired ANY professional under those terms “hi, yeah I’m Jack, the plumber. Listen, you don’t want another bathroom, you want fewer bathrooms. Can’t have the whole house smelling like shit can we? You understand.”

Dark_Arc , 8 days ago

There’s a difference between high quality plastic performing filtration while it’s cold plastic and cold water vs crap plastic that’s regularly exposed to high temperatures during transport and storage with the same water contained the entire time.

Dark_Arc , 8 days ago

Interesting, I used ZeroWater for a while … and know others that do. But yeah, searching around it seems it’s only ConsumerLabs.com that came up with that result and all other filters were removing microplastics.

I’m not sure how much I trust that ConsumerLabs.com test: www.consumerlab.com/methods/…/water-filters/

Repeatability isn’t really established by testing one device, one time. I’m not an expert either, but that result seems quite surprising.

I have a reverse osmosis system now personally…

Dark_Arc , 11 days ago

Well I can!

Dark_Arc , 10 days ago

I think the point is, it doesn’t have to just be for Excel anymore.

I can actually play hunt showdown on my 13" Ryzen framework laptop. That’s insane. This is saying it’ll be a lot better on the upcoming chips, that’s even more insane.

Dark_Arc , 12 days ago

Even the US population is like 60-70% left leaning, it’s just that the left has lower voter participation rates.

Left leaning vs leftist is a much higher bar and I’d wager under 20% of the US (voting) population is leftist. That’s just based on my memory of how few leftist representatives we have in congress… Far from an exact science.

I am definitely a liberal, but I’m by no means a leftist.

Dark_Arc , 12 days ago

I try (if I have time myself to do it without hitting someone and am just in front a mess) to “wake people up” a bit by rapidly tapping the brakes before hitting them hard (to hopefully make my brake lights flash).

Dark_Arc , 12 days ago

I feel like I looked into that once upon a time and it was illegal in my state (Ohio).

I have seen something like that though, at times it’s a bit too much IMO. I’ve seen some that trigger for pretty gentle braking so there’s just a strobe light distraction in front of you over relatively minor things.

Dark_Arc , 18 days ago

I think there’s a reasonable argument for local (and responsible) landlords to exist. Not everyone wants to be tied down to a property or have to worry about repairs.

Dark_Arc , 18 days ago

As a home owner, the cost of “what you’d have to pay to own the home” is extremely variable and to an extent down to dumb luck.

I think it’s sufficient to say no individual should be able to rent out more than X number of homes where X is what that individual could reasonably take care of. I’m okay with corporate rentals, particularly in the case of complexes as well.

Basically, I don’t think small business or individuals that live in the area that do rentals are the problem. If someone wants to rent out houses as their primary source of income … sure why not.

It’s like anything else though, there needs to be reasonable limits to stop gluttony. I think a limit of “you can have 1 rental property” is way too low though.

Dark_Arc , 24 days ago

Because if enough people do that, it actually can result in that state not “doing what it always does.”

Assuming voting for X is going to result in Y getting elected over Z “anyways” is not a good strategy for getting what you want.

Dark_Arc , 23 days ago

If you want more than two options vote for Democrats in primaries that support ranked choice voting initiatives. As it stands, you realistically have a binary choice and until you have ranked choice voting that will continue to be true.

Dark_Arc , 25 days ago

I’m really glad AT&T and Verizon decided to step in and start competing. At least in my area it’s changed everything, Spectrum (formerly the only cable provider) is now offering much more competitive pricing and better service (though AT&T has earned some loyalty because the fiber and symmetric speeds have been really great.

Following the Biden admin pricing transparency regulations I was able to get a better price as well.

Dark_Arc , 25 days ago

The fediverse as designed is actually pretty inefficient. If it ever were to go to Reddit scale it would melt down.

That’s because there’s effectively no batching for federation currently … every single vote from an instance is forwarded back to the instance hosting the community and must be processed individually. So if you get 500k votes on something even if it’s from 200 servers, the servers hosting the community have to be able to withstand the flood of votes and store the associated data… And that’s just votes.

Worse yet, those votes then get replayed to every single one of those 200 servers one by one. So every server needs 500k vote entries and all the associated traffic … even if half of the servers are just 1 guy looking at cat videos once a month.

Federating actually is way more expensive than just adding another user as designed.

Dark_Arc , 25 days ago

Gotta say, Americans do seem significantly dumber than the average world citizen.

Presumably what an American once said about Germans. It can happen anywhere with the right stream of propaganda.

Dark_Arc , 25 days ago

Depends on the particular telling I think. DC has IIRC gone both ways with that.

Dark_Arc , 25 days ago

That’s really interesting! I’d heard the white flight explanation for downtowns falling apart, but this adds a new layer to it

Dark_Arc , 25 days ago

Old School RuneScape potentially fits this description

Dark_Arc , 28 days ago

Seems interesting. I’m a bit concerned that they don’t see encrypting direct traffic as an issue though github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/wiki/FAQ#i-only-use-…

Dark_Arc , 28 days ago

IMO, it shows security is not a priority for them. Just because you’re on LAN it doesn’t mean encryption is insignificant. There also isn’t really “LAN” there are just networks, so this necessitates using some sort of server even in the case where you have an IPv6 or IPv4 address that would otherwise allow you to directly connect to your peer.