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@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

Dark_Arc

@[email protected]

Hiker, software engineer (primarily C++, Java, and Python), Minecraft modder, hunter (of the Hunt Showdown variety), biker, adoptive Akronite, and general doer of assorted things.

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Dark_Arc ,
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It’s worth noting … RuneScape has done this for decades 🙂

You would basically have to write your engine to be friendly to the idea that an asset isn’t complete, and set up a non-complete (possibly absent or just low quality) and complete state.

You download everything to the point where it’s suitably non-complete… Then you keep downloading things in the background to complete the install, prioritizing things the player is likely to or is encountering.

Dark_Arc ,
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For some cases, yes it was bad. Plenty of organizations used Twitter as a micro blog to keep interested parties up to date… Like a short concise RSS. That’s what I primarily used Twitter for, for years, and that was Twitter at its best.

Dark_Arc ,
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That test is useless anyways. I got like a 21 (?) in 2013 … I graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2016 from The University of Akron with BS in Computer Science degree, very very close to Summa Cum Laude.

I’m not going to go as far as to say this is a good thing, but maybe it’s not a bad thing. Standardized testing was the bane of my and my teachers existence growing up, driving an insane amount of regurgitated memorization that … has helped me very little in life. Meanwhile my parents generation was taught things like doing math in their head, math tricks, roman numerals, spelling/grammar rule tricks, and other things I had to learn from them that do come up.

Dark_Arc , (edited )
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I’ve been quite happy with www.american-giant.com/collections/cotton.

Quality “first world” labor and cotton. No slave labor, no bull shit. That’s the brand.

Dark_Arc ,
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Devs are not as easy to replace as factory workers, EU and US/CA software talent is top tier. I’d imagine even factory workers aren’t so easy to replace these days.

Dark_Arc ,
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Ugh I didn’t think of that … I sure hope not.

Dark_Arc ,
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Protecting the US from itself is an issue distinctly for civilian agencies… and it wasn’t that none of them failed to foresee issues… it’s that they can’t act before a crime has been committed and the capitol police were denied reinforcements.

… and it’s really that last part that’s the crux of the issue… if capital police had been given reinforcements, there never would’ve been a Jan 6th.

Dark_Arc ,
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We knew that day of. I was watching that live the day that it happened and they repeatedly said that they were waiting on approval from the Whitehouse IIRC both for the capital police and for activation of the DC national guard.

Dark_Arc ,
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Why would you thank God your PC doesn’t have a useful hardware feature?

Dark_Arc ,
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They’re a weird case, but they’re able to basically improve boot validation, they can store keys, and they can act as an improved secure random number generator.

wiki.archlinux.org/title/Trusted_Platform_Module#…

A TPM is just a piece of hardware, just because you don’t like how Microsoft used it … doesn’t mean it’s some technology for oppression or something. At worst, you can just not use it.

That said, TPMs are supposed to have manufacturer signed keys. TPMs could conceivably be used to properly block someone cheating in an online game from returning (i.e. a “hardware ban”) since the crypto can’t be spoofed (like an IP, MAC address, or serial numbers).

Dark_Arc , (edited )
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That’s pretty terrible argumentation. All DRM measures are just “a piece of hardware” in the end, yet I’m forced by Microsoft to install a TPM2 module to use their latest software. How long until I no longer have the choice not to use it, even on a free OS?

Your tinfoil hat is showing…

And since I can’t change those keys and can’t look into the module, it can literally be used for oppression.

IIRC you can store new keys in the TPM, they’re just not going to be signed by the manufacturer.

Great example. Now imagine a centralized block list by the government for all major web services, for which the infrastructure is literally there now.

That wouldn’t work… and isn’t how that works… That would require browser vendors to actually implement some kind of “here’s my TPM” handshake and websites to care enough to refuse service if you fail that validation.

If someone wanted to do that, they could do that already without a TPM. Error: “You must have a valid license from Microsoft or Apple DRM to use the internet.”

The reason it could work for games is they could tie their game anticheat into the TPM … and that’s something that has to happen as an agreement between vendors for specific games, anti-cheats, or stores. This could (and I am talking out of my ass a bit here as I don’t know the full details of how TPM boot validation works – though TPM passthrough, like GPU passthrough is a thing in QEMU) potentially open the door for VMs that can play games as well if someone wanted to invest the time, as in theory the TPM could validate the Windows 11 VM boot hasn’t been tampered with.

Also, a TPM is not DRM, it’s a cryptography coprocessor with verifiably secured keys… that’s just a unique hardware function that’s desirable (particularly for certain corporate environments, militaries, etc), that want to verify their devices haven’t been hacked) can’t be done any other way.

Fearing a TPM is like the folks foreshadowing that secure boot was going to be the end of Linux; it wasn’t and it isn’t. That’s true of this particular piece of hardware as well (and, it can be used for other things).

Dark_Arc ,
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Whatever, do or don’t freak out about it. It’s happening with or without your support, and it will be just fine.

All the bad things that could happen could happen with or without a TPM.

Dark_Arc ,
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This person literally just means “for no additional charge” but typed free. They understand, they just don’t care. This is just unnecessary and pedantic.

Dark_Arc ,
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It’s a common shortcut in at least some parts of the US to say “I paid for X and got Y for free” … everybody knows it really wasn’t “for free”. It’s just easier than “and got Y for no additional charge”, “and they didn’t charge me anything extra for Y”, etc.

Dark_Arc ,
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The difference is one wants to be in power because they have popular support the other wants to be in power because they have power.

Lookup independent state legislature theory as a recent example of how Republican politicians really don’t care about democracy in the slightest.

Dark_Arc ,
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Oh, I don’t believe one party is good and the other is bad. I don’t think any party is good.

What I know is that the Republican party is off the rails.

Do the Democrats have issues? Oh yeah.

But do they have systemic issues in their party to the point where they’re throwing out their own house speaker for daring to come across the isle to keep the federal government open? No.

Has one party been trying to reduce gerrymandering which is pointedly for politicians and against the people? Yes, the Democrats, in many states (I’ll give you New York was an exception to that trend). Meanwhile the Republicans in Ohio laughed at our state supreme court when it tried to enforce the intent of the 2016 (?) constitutional amendment requiring fair maps in the face of a completely partisan map.

Or what about that whole Ukrainian issue? Which party is trying to cut off or “reconsider” aid to a country butting up against some of our closest allies in eastern Europe? Ding ding ding, the Republicans. Which party’s president got impeached for trying to extort Ukraine to help them in an election or else they wouldn’t get weapons? Yup, that was Trump, a Republican.

Which party was Larry Householder, a now convicted felon for accepting a bribe a member of? Right again, Republican.

Which party wants to impose a national abortion ban on the county that can’t seem to get medical professionals opinions through their thick skulls? Right again, the Republican party. And I’m not even talking about “abortion” I’m talking about “your wife is about to die unless they abort the baby.” The Republicans, despite what they’re saying, keep writing “no exceptions” abortion bans which, god forbid if your wife, sister, cousin, etc were ever in that position, they’d have the doctors let your wife die or send the doctor to jail for saving her.

Which party passed an infrastructure bill overhauling crumbling infrastructure to keep our roads, bridges, and power lines functioning along with improving an expanding rail transit and Internet access for rural communities? The Democrats. Which party failed? The Republicans. What did they do instead and what was their only major legislative accomplishment in four years? They passed a tax break that expired for the middle class (IIRC) this year while simultaneously passing a tax break for large corporations and billionaires with no expiration date.

It’s not about some feverent following. It’s about the Republican politicians being completely incompetent at governance.

Dark_Arc ,
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There’s a long road between “you’ve put lead in your pasta as a sweetener!” and “you’ve but XYS-32 in your candy and it may cause cancer eventually.”

The FDA is much more concerned with immediate and serious threats and is still very much necessary.

Dark_Arc ,
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I read this as hammering (🔨) and I was like… we have a law specifically for that??

Dark_Arc ,
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You can contest that you were not fully reimbursed for the expense/what you have received in not equivalent in value to what you had.

Dark_Arc ,
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Yup; Twitter was at its best when it was just a free RSS aggregator with summaries and a lot more publishers.

Dark_Arc ,
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Honestly I’m okay with this one, but it’s mostly because Activision Blizzard has great IP with some seriously awful management … and Microsoft actually has been doing much better in that department for games.

Dark_Arc ,
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Exactly what I’m hoping for.

Dark_Arc ,
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I mean, it’s had plenty of success with its own IP… Heard of Starfield? Minecraft … and it’s nth successful Spinoff? Forza Horizon 5? Sea of Thieves? Flight Simulator 40th Anniversary Edition? Age of Empires IV? Age of Empires XYZ DE? Fallout 76?

The only major “flop” I can think of that wasn’t corrected (at least so far) is Halo Infinite and … that largely seems to be a 343 issue. There’s also Redfall, but that was a new IP in an over saturated space … it’s not like they’ve stopped developing IPs, fixing games, and trying new things.

Dark_Arc ,
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Microsoft even with Activision Blizzard would not have a captured market. Valve, Crytek, Sony (which now holds Bungie), Epic, Electronic Arts, CD Projekt Red, Take-Two, and Ubisoft are all still quite potent AAA capable studio just in the PC space … along with tons of independent studios (e.g., Ghost Ship Games, Shiro Games, Hello Games, Re-Logic).

The Microsoft internal doc leak said they’re mostly after King Games (mobile games) anyways. I’d wager at worst Microsoft will let the traditionally Activision & Blizzard studios do their things… at best they’ll clean up the executive teams and let the devs “play” a bit more with the IPs.

Mojang has flourished under Microsoft.

Dark_Arc ,
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Yupp…

Dark_Arc ,
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What do you think of Medicare price negotiation efforts? Or efforts to make largely government funded drugs patent free?

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

“The meaning of NIGH is near in place, time, or relationship”

Dark_Arc ,
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That would actually be really cool

Dark_Arc ,
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🤷‍♂️

Dark_Arc ,
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IMO that’s more of an insurance issue and a fair competition issue.

Dark_Arc ,
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Hmm… yeah or at least, maybe not be permitted to set policy for an entire hospital?

Dark_Arc , (edited )
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I’m going to try again (and you know, maybe I’m just wrong but here’s what I’m seeing).

There are doctors in the medical field already, with specific beliefs that may be sexist but are not generally speaking, sexist people. There is also a shortage of doctors.

Do we really want to throw out an entire doctor (that takes years of training) because they don’t want to do a particular procedure?

There is a secondary point of when is refusal to do a procedure sexism or religion vs genuine medical objection to the harms caused (in their medical opinion).

There is an additional point where I fundamentally think legal compulsion is a terrible tool in a free society and should be used as an absolute last resort.

When it comes down to something as sensitive as medicine, I’d rather my doctor be on board or I find a different doctor vs my doctor being compelled to do something they don’t believe in or outright having no doctor to go to because … there aren’t enough.

There’s also the possibility (and it seems like in the video) that the Roe v Wade issue is also making this doctor far more skiddish even in New York State. We really haven’t heard his side and that really is an important perspective.

Surely there’s somebody else this woman could see as well? There’s no way this guy is the only one that knows about these medications and maybe another doctor would like to use a different medication anyways. There are plenty of other cases of doctors saying “you’re fine” to people regardless of gender or sex and them needing to see a different doctor before getting the right treatment.

I originally went after your analogy because it’s so beyond comparison. You might as well make an analogy between a rocket scientist and a scientologist. There are so many layers of nuance here. Driving politics into medical decisions is part of how we got here … is adding more complex “do I need a lawyer (to do what I believe is the best practice)” to a doctor’s practice really a good idea?

That presumably kind of worked for racism but I still can’t imagine the truly racist doctors were giving their best service; like we didn’t just say “you must see black patients or leave medicine” and then the problems were fixed. There are plenty of black people alive today that still distrust the institution of medicine – including my neighbor who refused to get vaccinated because he doesn’t trust doctors – because of what’s been done in the past.

Dark_Arc ,
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This isn’t great though:

Notably, Alm was hired at Bungie just five months following an IGN report on the company’s work culture. In it, over 25 employees alleged the company had a history of allowing toxic culture to fester, including racial and gender bias, with those who reported such instances to HR alleging their reports were frequently dismissed or even turned against them. Following this report and prior to Alm’s hiring, Bungie’s former HR head stepped down from her role. IGN understands from its sources that following its 2021 report, Bungie also hired a number of new HR personnel in an effort to address the issues from the article, amid some pressure from its new parent company Sony.

Dark_Arc ,
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I don’t mind you suggesting these, they’re cool projects, but the “coMmEnTs sHiLLinG kAgI” and “mAke UsE of tHat 10$ beTteR thAn KaGi” stuff is so unnecessary. I mean just… why?

Dark_Arc ,
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You know … you have a point

Dark_Arc ,
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Bbbrrraaaaaiiiiinnnnnssssss

Dark_Arc ,
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If that was the case I might actually pay for cable TV.

Dark_Arc ,
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Yup, 7digital deleted well over a thousand dollars worth of music from my account (no refund, no credit, no apology, no notice). I didn’t lose it because the files themselves are DRM free and I have my own copies and backups of those copies.

I buy from Qobuz now but they could do the same thing ultimately.

Dark_Arc ,
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I have local copies, I have backup copies in Kopia (backed by B2 cloud), and backup copies on an external hard drive that has a copy of my Kopia backups (updated periodically).

Dark_Arc ,
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It can 100% help with transmission. It won’t stop it outright, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t help.

I can’t find reference to it, but in the past I recall seeing communities that vaccinated the majority of the kids in their schools against the flu seeing massively reduced cases.

It makes sense as well, vaccines shorten severity and duration … it makes sense that the viral load and thus the ability for the virus to spread is greatly reduced.

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

I used stadia as a Linux user to play Destiny and some other games.

There were a lot of pros, no cheaters, I could play on tons of devices/locations, there’s less power draw vs running the game itself on a laptop, etc.

Unfortunately Stadia is dead, and I think it was the best of the best. I’ve tried some of the alternatives like GeForce and it barely even comes close to what Google was offering. It’s certainly not got the value proposition.

Dark_Arc ,
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I’m not sure those are necessarily the best countries… China seems a lot like the early 2000s US on the issue en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_China

Dark_Arc ,
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I think it could be a good option in the future, but it’s pretty under baked right now.

Dark_Arc ,
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Yep, I mean, the comment you’re replying to literally contains the phrase, “the biggest issues are interference…” haha

Oops, yup, read that one wrong.

Likewise, it’s something that’s likely to improve as we tend to move away from the 2.4GHz band.

I’m not so sure. We’ve been on 5GHz for a while … even on there or as recently as WiFi 6 (which I forgot the exact band), there are still lots of problems.

Dropping packets is definitely more of a problem for streaming in particular, rather than anything else, because like you said, if you drop packets you’re going to get degraded quality video. If you were gaming locally, it wouldn’t really affect you as much. Online games have extremely good, well designed methods of compensating for dropped packets in a way that streaming will never be able to match.

Yes and no; dropping packets can still really badly impact competitive games. Casual games that use client authoritatively movement there for sure aren’t issues with though.

Dark_Arc , (edited )
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

For example, have you never wondered why we don’t just connect every device in a network all together like a big daisy chain? Or why we don’t use a mesh network? There is a large number of reasons why we don’t really use those topologies anymore.

Well daisy chaining would be outright insanity … I’m not even sure why you’d jump to something that insane … my internet connection doesn’t need to depend on the guy down the street.

Making an optimally dense mesh network (and to be clear, I mean a partially connected mesh topology with more density than the current situation … which at a high level is already a partially connected mesh topology) would not be optimally cost effective … that’s it.

the more networks a router is connected to, the less efficient it is overall. another hop is absolutely nothing in terms of delay.

Do you not see how these are contradictory statements?

Yeah, you’d need more routers, you have more lines. But you could route more directly between various points. e.g., there could be at least one major transmission line between each state and its adjacent states to minimize the distance a packet has to physically travel and increase redundancy. It’s just more expensive and there’s typically not a need.

This stuff happens in more population dense areas because there’s more data, and more people, direct connections make more sense. It’s just money, it’s not that somehow not having fewer lines through the great plains makes the internet faster… Your argument and your attitude is something else. I suspect we’re just talking past each other, but w/e.

Dark_Arc ,
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Interference isn’t actually that big of a deal for Ethernet over copper, unless the installer does something silly like run UTP alongside high power electrical lines, or next to a diesel generator, or something. Between shielding, the use of balanced signals, and the design of twisted pair, most interference is eliminated.

This should be true, but in practice … there are a lot more environmental factors that can and do impact a copper cables (which can result in some really wacky situations to diagnose, “this only happens on hot days when XYZ part of the line to your house expands”), and more installation errors (e.g., not grounding the wire). That doesn’t matter much for TCP applications/protocols but for UDP applications/protocols that can all add up to be something that’s observable in the real world.

You get a lot closer to “all” interference being removed with fiber … and for most gamers at least, that’s probably the most noticeable improvement on fiber vs “cable” service (other than perhaps a download/upload speed bump). Pings are in my experience roughly the same, though the fiber networks tend to fair a bit better (probably just from newer hardware backing the network).

It’s becoming more of an issue too (in Ohio at least) because more and more ISPs are locking folks out of their modem’s diagnostics, so they can’t actually see that the modem is detecting signal quality issues coming into the house… I almost always recommend folks just go with fiber all the way into their house if they have the option, unless they just use the web and watch videos (in which case who cares, TCP will make it so you don’t care unless it’s really bad, and the really bad cases are typically fixed the first time the tech is out).

It’s one of those things where there’s not much of a benefit for consumers on paper (theoretically – as you say – you could have copper service that’s just as good and fast as fiber) … but in practice, fiber just saves a lot of headaches for all parties because of its resistance to interference and simpler installation.

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

I wear a lot of hats professionally; mostly programming. I don’t do networking on a day-to-day basis though if that’s what you’re asking.

If you’ve got something actually substantive to back up your claim that (if money was no object) the current topology is totally optimal for traffic from an arbitrary point A <-> B on that map though… have at it.

This all started with:

you’re often back-tracking across the continent before your traffic makes it to the end destination, with ISPs caring more about saving money than routing traffic quickly

And that’s absolutely true … depending on your location, you will travel an unnecessary distance to get to your destination … because there just aren’t wires connecting A <-> B. Just like a GPS will take you on a non-direct path to your destination because there’s not a road directly to it.

A very simple example where the current topology results in routing all the way out to Seattle only to backtrack: geotraceroute.com/?node=0&amp;host=umt.edu#

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

but you’re basically arguing with an expert about something you don’t really understand very well. I’m happy to explain stuff but you should just ask rather than assume you know better because it makes it much more difficult for me to understand the gaps in your understanding/knowledge.

Okay, I’ll apologize… For context though, in general, it’s the internet and it’s hard to take “expert” at its word (and even outside of an online context, “expert” is a title I’m often skeptical of … even when it’s assigned to me :) ). I’ve argued with plenty of people (more so on Reddit) that are CS students… It’s just the price of being on the internet I guess, ha

I’m still not sure I agree with your conclusions, but that’s mostly healthy skepticism… because your argument isn’t tracking with … well … physics or distributed computing… more direct “routes” and taking load off “routes” that aren’t the optimal route typically is a great way to speed up a system. It’s definitely true that doing that adds overhead vs just having a few “better” systems do the work (at least from some perspectives), but it’s hard for me to imagine that with sufficient funds it truly makes it worse to give routing algorithms more direct options and/or cut out unnecessary hops entirely.

Reducing “hops” and travel time is kind of the bread and butter of performance work when it comes to all kinds of optimizations in software engineering…

If you want me to ask a question … what’s your explanation for why there are so many more connections in the north east and west coast if more connections slows the whole system down? Why not just have a handful of routes?

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