ayaya

ayaya , 10 months ago

Mullvad no longer supports port forwarding, making it completely useless for torrenting which is my main use case.

ayaya , 10 months ago

Yep I use the binhex container too, makes everything really easy to set up.

ayaya , 10 months ago

But why does it even matter if they do it correctly or not? It’s still a water block that costs over $800. It’s a bad product at a fundamental level because not only is it a niche of a niche it’s wildly overpriced. No amount of testing is going to make it a good product. It was never going to sell well. I do not understand why people care so much about it.

The quanity-over-quality and QA errors are way more egregious than them shitting a product that deserves to get shit on. And as far as I can tell the auction thing is a single, isolated mistake of that nature. They do have a track record of making errors in their reviews. But what they don’t have is a history of auctioning off prototypes. It is a really weird thing to be so up-in-arms about. It was an accident and they are paying for it. What is the big deal?

ayaya , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Then what is the issue? If the outcome is the same why does it matter? The video it was featured in wasn’t even a review, the premise was someone who has zero experience in water cooling trying to install it. I feel like most people didn’t even watch the video.

Sure do love the hivemind downvoting instead of answering my question. I am genuinely asking, what is the issue? I really don’t understand why it has so many people this mad. To me it seems like people were expecting a review when that wasn’t the intent of the video.

ayaya , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

By not reviewing it correctly,

to preserve the journalistic integrity of the channel.

That’s also missing the point. That video was not a review. There wasn’t journalistic integrity because it wasn’t a journalistic piece. If you go into a for-fun video expecting a proper review process of course you are going to be disappointed.

If the argument is that it should have been a full review, then sure maybe it should have. But it wasn’t one, so it doesn’t make any sense to hold it to that standard when that was never the intention behind it.

ayaya , 10 months ago

The product costs over $800. I’m not talking about the prototype. And sure “they” sent Billet multiple emails. That means one person sent the emails and then failed to follow up on them. The 100+ people at the company are not responsible for what happened, the 2-3 people that should have dealt with it are.

And Linus didn’t contact them about compensation until 3 hours after GNs video went live.

Okay? But he is compensating them. That is all I said.

ayaya , 10 months ago

That video was not a review. So no, in this case that was not their job. Their job was to entertain. I agree they have inadequate processes and are prioritizing profits over accuracy for their reviews. But that is not relevant to the water block video.

ayaya , 10 months ago

If the product is so fundamentally flawed in his mind, then why even bother with it? If you as a reviewer can’t even give a proper opinion and spend an other 500 dollars on it, to give your audience a good review.

For fun. For entertainment. That is the point of the video. He wasn’t making that video “as a reviewer” he was making it as an entertainer.

ayaya , 10 months ago

“They” didn’t agree to return it. Someone responding to an email did. Linus himself and the other 100+ employees probably had no idea the thing even existed. It is really on the person who responded to the email and the planners of the auction which is probably 2-3 people at most.

Got mad when they were kindly asked to return it.

Where? That did not happen until after the video was published.

Put it on auction, sold it to someone for charity.

Which was an accident, which is being paid for.

This is not the first time even. They have lost, misplaced or destroyed other’s properties before.

Do you have any examples? And if that is the case maybe Billet Labs should have done more due-diligence before giving them a supposedly very important prototype. Linus is literally known as the guy who drops things.

And now they want to project LMG and their new concept, Lab, as a beacon of consumer protection journalism. They have to make a choice. Either they are an entertainment company, or a serious tech review magazine that tests technology to provide consumers with accurate info to make purchase decisions. They can’t be both, the jank and fooling around of one doesn’t work nicely with the journalistic ethics demanded of the other.

Fair enough but I disagree. I think you can have for-fun videos and serious videos mixed together. However they should definitely be more clearly labeled as such, or maybe even keep them on different channels completely.

ayaya , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

It can be about the water block without being a review of the water block. The premise of the video is somebody with no experience doing water cooling (Adam) trying to build it. If the intent was for it to be a review they would have someone more knowledgeable do it. I completely disagree it is unethical to make a for-fun video messing around with it, unless they agreed to do something else in their emails with Billet Labs which we have not seen.

I also don’t believe they give any purchasing advice either but feel free to post a timestamp if you have one.

ayaya , 10 months ago

Billet estimated the cost of the prototype to be $800.

You already have incorrect information. That is the cost of the actual product not the cost of the prototype.

And he did not lie, he said agreed to compensate them which he did do. That doesn’t require an agreement between parties, he decided he would do it which is objectively true.

They didn’t want payment, they wanted their fucking prototype back.

They can make another one with the money. It’s not like they took the CAD files. It’s a manufactured piece of copper. It can be rebuilt.

ayaya , 10 months ago

But it has zero effect on the outcome? It is over priced regardless of whether or not it cools well.

ayaya , 10 months ago

He didn’t say it was a bad product in anywhere in the video. Maybe you should watch the thing you are trying to criticize.

ayaya , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

You got me. It’s me, Linus Sebastian. you guys know I love the Twitch emote AYAYA so much I use it as my username.

ayaya , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Literally just a dude. I don’t even have any skin in this game, I am just trying to understand why people are so angry and they have explained it (poorly) to me. I guess I will never understand. I genuinely don’t see much of an issue with what happened. Feels like to me the internet hate mob is unwilling to forgive an honest mistake.

I’m willing to bet most of the people who are angry already didn’t like LTT and are just bandwagoning rather than actually caring about the details. People just want to be angry and I find that annoying.

ayaya , 10 months ago

You wanna talk about poorly run businesses? Why are they sending out their prototype if they only have one and it’s so important? At least make two of them.

ayaya , 10 months ago

Sure, but people are acting like Linus himself is somehow directly responsible for it, some people even acting like it’s intentionally malicious, when it’s more just lack of oversight.

ayaya , 10 months ago

That’s on the WAN Show, that’s not part of the video. Separately made comments are separate.

ayaya , 10 months ago

Link to me where in the video there was a buyer recommendation.

ayaya , 10 months ago

review: a formal assessment or examination of something with the possibility or intention of instituting change if necessary.

What about the video was formal? It is two people dicking around with water cooling for 20 minutes it’s not a formal review.

ayaya , 10 months ago

But the video is not supposed to be a review. Literally the whole point is for it to be asinine entertainment. Their job for that video was to entertain not to do a review.

ayaya , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

What harm was done exactly? If anything this is one of the greatest things that could have possibly happened to their company. They’re getting more positive publicity than a good review would have given them from this controversy.

And I am autistic, so congrats for figuring that out I guess. I have a hard time relating to other people. What I am supposed to do? I can’t magically feel the way you do and this whole thing is based on feelings rather than any actual tangible damage being done. In my mind if you make a mistake, apologize, and pay for it you should be good to go assuming they don’t have the same issue again in the future.

And sociopathy is not a simple lack of empathy it is a specific set of symptoms. Stop diagnosing people over the internet. It’s doubtful you have a degree in psychology and if you do you would know that’s unethical which is ironic considering the LTT discussion of ethics.

ayaya , 10 months ago

If you actually want to try I would genuinely appreciate it. But I don’t really want to waste your time. I have thought about it for some time and I honestly doubt there is any way I see the other side of this. I tried, I really did. Which is why I responded to so many comments but I guess my way of thinking about it is somehow so wildly different from other people. But if you do happen to have some time to kill I will try to write everything out. I apologize in advance for how long it is but I wanted to be thorough.

The main point of Steve’s video is to call into question LTT’s journalistic/reviewer integrity. The funny thing is I agree with literally like 95% of what he said. LTT has had a massive quantity-over-quality problem and things have been declining for years. But that said, the water block video was not a review. Objectively not a review. It’s not an opinion of mine it is a fact. So when all these comments say he “reviewed it poorly” or whatever that doesn’t make any sense. And Steve’s criticisms about their reviews do not apply either. Linus has frequently said different video types have different processes. They have reviews, unboxings, “showcases” (sponsored products), etc. which are all distinct categories of videos. To treat it like a review and try to hold it to the same standard as a formal review is arguing in bad faith.

Imagine you draw a picture of a cat, and then a bunch of people come along and say your picture of a dog sucks because it’s too cat-like. You never set out to draw a dog, so why would that criticism make any sense? Just because both have four legs and a tail does not mean they should be judged in the same way. Intent is really important here and people are just conveniently ignoring it. LTT makes these types of videos all the time. Is them using an air conditioner to cool a PC a review of the air conditioner? Or are they just messing around for entertainment? Another comment compared it to a super car because it is an expensive niche product, but I don’t buy that either. If someone shows off driving in a super car and then at the end says, “yeah that’s fast but the fact this exists is stupid, nobody should ever buy this,” I don’t think anyone would care, assuming of course it’s not a formal review of the car.

And on top of that, let’s say they did do a full, formal review. Every single number is correct and there are no errors. And then let’s also assume they give it back instead of auctioning it off just for the sake of this hypothetical. Now Steve doesn’t feature it in the video because the information is correct. LTT says the exact same thing-- $800 is too expensive for a water block and this product has no real buyers. Billet Labs has no customers and goes out of business quietly in the background. Nobody would care. People only care now because of the way it was done, but if the outcome is literally exactly the same, why does it matter at all? If it’s a bad product that deserves to be shit on it shouldn’t matter that they shit on it. And before you say something like “but what if they test it correctly and it’s actually good,” that will never happen because an $800 water block is always going to be a bad value. Other water blocks are in the $200-300 range. There is no world where this water block magically performs over twice as good as the others. It’s a genuinely bad product, and there’s no reason the company should be getting a pass just because it’s “two guys” or whatever. A bad product is a bad product regardless of who makes it. I just cannot understand why people care so much about this company. It’s like people prefer rooting for the “little guy” over actually examining the situation.

The funny part is LTT doing what they did actually gave Billet Labs more positive publicity than they would have gotten any other way, which I also said in one of my other comments and got downvoted to Hell for, even though now someone else has posted the same thing and it’s upvoted. In the end Billet Labs actually completely won here. This is the best thing that could have ever happened to their company.

As for the auction thing, my main issue with people’s response to it is that it’s just a single isolated mistake that happens to be tacked on to the rest of the stuff. How do you go from sending an email saying you will return it to auctioning it off? It’s insane that that happened but it could have been any number of things. I imagine the people responsible were wearing too many hats and were mainly focused on LTX planning. They probably already deal with dozens of companies on a daily basis and now they were also dealing with vendors/sponsors/etc. for LTX on top of that. It’s not unthinkable that things just got too hectic and miscommunication happened. People make mistakes. Should LTT own up to the mistake and work to make sure this type of thing never happens again? Absolutely. There should be proper chain of command for items like this. I imagine that’s what they’re implementing now. But what is so bad about this? It’s not evil, it’s not malicious, it’s a mistake that as far as I can tell happened one time. This isn’t a pattern of behavior like the errors in reviews are.

From what I’ve seen it’s the auction that broke the camel’s back, when in isolation it’s not really that big of an issue. It’s only because it’s surrounded by the other issues brought up that makes it another mistake on the pile and therefore the pile bigger. The thing is, it’s a mistake that affects 2-3 people. Billet Labs. The errors being made in reviews affect millions of people. It is way more important, but the Billet Labs thing is what I see the most comments about. That’s what my main confusion is about. Why is there so much focus on Billet Labs at all? Billet Labs is like 10% of Steve’s video, the other 90% is dedicated to the reporting/review errors. It doesn’t make any sense to me. At the end of the day it’s a small company making a dumb overpriced product vs. the largest tech review channel constantly misleading millions of consumers with bad numbers/data/processes. But here we are on a thread where people are almost exclusively talking about Billet Labs.

ayaya , 10 months ago

I hope you don’t take offense to this but are you on the spectrum?

No offense taken, I am indeed.

I can actually see what you mean about the review now that you put it that way. I have watched LTT for years (over a decade even) so I know their for-fun format vs. their review format but I can see how someone without that kind of familiarity wouldn’t. I do think there should be better distinction between them so cases like this don’t happen.

Since you asked the most obvious signs it’s not a review are the lack of any kind of conclusion, there’s no comparisons, no graphs/charts-- nothing that actually tests the product which you would see in their reviews. If you look at the last video they posted which is about the Fifine A6T microphone. You don’t even have to watch it, just look at the sections which are things like “Microphone Tests,” “Measurements,” and “Pickup Pattern.” The water block video sections are all things to do with building. Nothing related to testing.

As for the super car analogy, I have a 7950X. It is literally the most powerful consumer-grade CPU you can buy right now. I encode video so all 32 threads are running 100% for hours at a time. And I cool it with a Noctua NH-D15, an air cooler that cost me $90. It runs perfectly. Even if you have infinite money to throw around I just can’t see a reason to use an $800 water block when the best CPU you can get is fine with air cooling. At least with a super car it actually goes much faster than a normal car but spending 8x more on cooling is going to get you at most like a few percent more performance. I looked up some numbers and it’s even less than that. You lose 0.5% performance running a NH-U14S at 40% fan speed compared to an AIO, and that isn’t even as strong as the NH-D15 is. I couldn’t easily find any comparisons for a custom loop but I can’t imagine the difference is more than 2-3%. Which means its main purpose is to look cool I guess? But I’m sorry that still makes it a dumb product IMO even if there is a small market for it. I think I’d go as far as to say the market itself shouldn’t exist.

As for the auction, your explanation has helped me figure out why I didn’t feel as strongly about it. “For a claimed professional business” it is really bad but I wasn’t truly looking at LTT as a business. I know objectively it is one, but from an emotional standpoint it doesn’t really feel like one. Like I said before I’ve been watching them for over a decade, back when it was still NCIX Tech Tips. So in my head I am still imagining a guy and his friends messing around with tech and a camera. But it is hitting me now that they really have grown well beyond that. Linus has always done janky things. He’s even known as the guy who drops things. It’s also well known that people take things from the office all the time so items are constantly going missing. To me there is zero surprise that they would misplace something but as you said if they want to be a professional business then that is unacceptable. Maybe with the new CEO there will be more professionalism but honestly I’m not even sure I want that. Personally I love the jank. I enjoy Linus doing dumb things. I would hate to see it become a soulless corporation but I suppose that is what it is supposed to be.

But anyways, I have rambled on long enough. What you said was genuinely helpful. I really appreciate it and thank you for taking the time to make your response. Your friend’s sister is lucky to have you, not many people are willing things like this. Honestly you might even be the only one I’ve met. I feel like I can’t even remember a time where someone has done this for me. Usually people think I am “trolling” and someone in this thread even called me a sociopath, which I’m not going to lie was really disheartening but it’s not the first time. Thank you for treating me like a person.

ayaya , 10 months ago

That exists on every character.

ayaya , 10 months ago

VLC is also less accurate to the source than mpv is.

See the notice on this wiki that contains some comparisons.

I don’t know the full details but this is a quote I have seen from reddit about VLC:

• uses wrong matrix for RGB conversion (results in wrong colors)
• uses point upscaling for chroma planes
• introduces strong banding
• wrong chroma location (MPEG-1 for everything)
• Old subtitle renderer that in more Typesetting heavy situation will say fuck you
• all the other bugs (including some that haven’t been fixed in years) make it equally unsuitable media player.

It is probably possible to get things in order by digging into the settings in VLC, but mpv prioritizes accuracy by default.

ayaya , 10 months ago

Overwatch was one of the first DX11 games running well on WineD3D back around 2016-2017 or so. Maybe it was just because of how popular it was at the time, but I remember it being a big deal that it was working. Before that point wine was really only used for DX9 games and below. This was even before DXVK came along in 2018.

ayaya , 10 months ago

I find it odd that in some of the tests the 7900 XT is being beaten by the 6800 and/or 6800 XT. That doesn’t seem right.

ayaya , 10 months ago

VLC is actually known to have problems with colors so you are probably just used to them being wrong.

ayaya , 10 months ago

There is a notice on this wiki that contains some comparisons: thewiki.moe/guides/playback/

I’m sure you can find some more in-depth explanations but I will just copy/paste a quote I have seen from reddit.

• uses wrong matrix for RGB conversion (results in wrong colors)
• uses point upscaling for chroma planes
• introduces strong banding
• wrong chroma location (MPEG-1 for everything)
• Old subtitle renderer that in more Typesetting heavy situation will say fuck you
• all the other bugs (including some that haven’t been fixed in years) make it equally unsuitable media player.

ayaya , 10 months ago

Argyle Park and their official unoffical sequel AP2. Around 2.5k combined. My favorite song is “A New Wound” which is actually incorrectly listed as “A New World” but it is so unpopular that will probably never be fixed.

ayaya , 10 months ago

I was genuinely thinking about going with an ASUS phone next because of the unlockable bootloader, this really sucks to see.

ayaya , 10 months ago

Wait, but the three games you listed all work great on Linux. I’m confused. I am a few hours into BG3, I play LoL a few times a week, and I know WoW works because I played a ton of Hearthstone and Overwatch a few years back and those were some of the first games working well with DXVK. So I know Battle.net games usually work great.

ayaya , 10 months ago

In the future if it is something you are really worried about it is normal to have subdomains for each docker container using something like nginx proxy manager. It is really easy to setup and you can have cookies for teddit.example.com and radarr.example.com separately.