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computergeek125

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computergeek125 ,

DirectX, OpenGL, Visual C++ Redist and many other support libraries in software programs typically require the same major version of the support libraries that they were shipped with.

For DirectX, that major version is 9, 10, 11, 12. Any major library change has to be recompiled into the game by the original developer. (Or a very VERY dedicated modder with solid low level knowledge)

Same goes for OpenGL, except I think they draw the line at the second number as well - 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4.

For VC++, these versions come in years - typically you’ll see 2008, 2010, 2013, and the last version 2015-2022 is special. Programs written in the 2013 version or lower only require the latest version of that year to run. For the 2015-2022 library, they didn’t change the major version spec so any program requiring 2015+ can (usually) just use the latest version installed.

The one library that does weird things to this rule is DXVK and Intel’s older DX9-on-12. These are translation shim libraries that allow the application to speak DX9 etc and translate it on the fly to the commands of a much more modern library - Vulkan in the case of DXVK or DX12 in Intel’s case.

Edited to remove a reference to 9-on-12 that I think I had backwards.

computergeek125 ,

DirectX 12 was released in 2015 with Windows 10, so it’s unlikely to have been ported back to 8.1 and lower.

MS usually only does current+ with compatibility - so for example FF11 (DirectX 8.1 I think) still works (mostly) on Windows 11, but DX12 won’t work on W7

computergeek125 , (edited )

I mean… DX 9, 10, and 11 were all released prior to Nadella being CEO/chairman.

But in software, it’s very commonplace for library versions not to be backwards compatible without recompiling the software. This isn’t the same thing as being able to open a word doc last saved on a floppy disk in 1997 on Word 365 2024 version, this is about loading executable code. Even core libraries in Linux (like OpenSSL and ncurses) respect this same schema, and more strongly than MS.

Using OpenSSL as an example, RHEL 7 provides an interface to OpenSSL 1.0. But 1.1 is not available in the core OS, you’d have to install it separately. 1.1 was introduced to the core in RHEL 8, with a compatibility library on a separate package to support 1.0 packages that hadn’t been recompiled against 1.1 yet. In RHEL 9, the same was true of OpenSSL 3 - a compatibility library for 1.1, and 1.0 support fully dropped from core. So no matter which version you use, you still have to install the right library package. That library package will then also have to work on your version of libc - which is often reasonably wide, but it has it limits just the same.

Edit because I forgot a sentence in the last paragraph - like DirectX, VC++, and OpenGL, you have to match the version of ncurses, OpenSSL, etc exactly to the major (and often the minor) version or else the executable won’t load up and will generate a linking error. Even if you did mangle the binary code to link it, you’d still end up with data corruption or crashes because the library versions are too different to operate.

computergeek125 ,

“broken build” here likely refers to the phrase as defined by gamers to function as synonymous to “overpowered”.

As in, “the build is so broken you can’t/it is difficult to play against it”. This phraseology could be used by either an ally or an enemy, but it contextually changes connotation from positive for allies to negative for enemies.

Build is often used as a shorthand for a character’s combination of items, skills, and levels (as the various games define it).

computergeek125 ,

fedora themed music starts playing

Do be do be do, bah
Do be do be do, bah

computergeek125 , (edited )

The reference numbers appear to be sourced from the Wikipedia article

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_James_Audubon#Dispute_…

computergeek125 , (edited )

Who let out 426?? I thought I was supposed to be in a windowless room!

(/j)

referenceICYMI, the joke is about SCP-426

computergeek125 ,

Ok. Can you back that up with a source?

Fast pace tiktok style videos aren’t really great to analyze on a phone, and your clip doesn’t seem to contain any outbound links.

computergeek125 , (edited )

No we’re not OK

I remember in grade school my district had a system where everyone who bought anything at the cafeteria went through an internal “type in your ID to the pin pad” system. Internally, the computer would decide whether the student was charged against their account or if it did a discount/free. This was how they dealt with that.

computergeek125 ,

You’d be surprised. My mouse only needs 2.0, but uses a C connector for compatibility. It provides an A to C cable with only 2.0 wiring, which is a decision I assume they made to allow the wire to be more flexible as it can be charged during use or used entirely wired.

computergeek125 ,

If you’re trying to get Lemmy to print the backslash, you need to make it a double backslash since backslash is an “escape” character that means “ignore any special formatting meaning of the next character” (among other meanings)

computergeek125 ,

Not on all vendors tho - coloring was an optional part of the standard. Dell often uses grey for USB3

computergeek125 ,

Oh totally. I have a pile of RS-232 adapters that you still need to program just about every modern Ethernet switch, and they’re all type-A ports.

Student dorm does not allow wifi routers

I just moved into a student dorm for a semester abroad, and beforehand I emailed them asking whether they had ethernet ports to plug my router into (I use it to connect all my devices, and for WiVRn VR streaming). They confirmed that I could, but now that I’m here the wifi login portal is asking me to accept these terms from...

computergeek125 ,

If it’s a dorm they have the key.

computergeek125 ,

This is true of a even some public universities in the US. I can’t remember if it was a rule where I was, but definitely most freshman did just live in dorms.

Lot of folks brought their own desktops to set up, and we were allowed Ethernet switches to hook up multiple devices - had to be wired. Wireless had two options, WPA# 802.1X or unencrypted captive portal guest. If your device didn’t support that, it had to be wired by policy.

And they weren’t wrong, I did a radio scan and they had the full sized enterprise access points about as good as they could (with a few low signal exceptions, and the air waves were still overloaded with too many people. The building uplink was perfectly fine, it was just overcrowded wireless.

computergeek125 ,

Where I went to college, they probably didn’t directly have the key, that’d have to go through maintenance. But one of the things you signed on to initially was for maintenance to enter if they needed to while you were out.

Plus, at least half of the WAPs were actually in rooms and not hallways, so to service the network beyond IDF problems they’d have to get in

computergeek125 ,

I’m an American android user and I’m confused too. At least in my area, contactless is pretty ubiquitous now. (I accept adoption is slower, but it’s getting there)

Sure Apple Pay seemed to come to a lot of terminals first, but NFC Google wallet or whatever it is the phone does automatically I’ve only seen fail at certain terminals. In that rare case, usually someone behind me with Apple Pay often also fails, so I’d be more likely to attribute it to a system glitch rather than lack of support.

computergeek125 ,

Cats doing cat things

computergeek125 ,

The fact that the bulb is offset to the left of the stairs throws me off

Like, either have it all the way to one side or centered, it feels like it’s trying to be both

Cool picture tho :)

computergeek125 ,

question

What’s a RAN?

computergeek125 ,

Orange braincell hard at work

computergeek125 ,

As a former League player i felt kind of like that back then - a lot of people were just not nice people. I think some of that comes down to how certain PVP players are motivated insofar as personal agency - they want to be the high carry, they want to be why things won the way they did.

I saw that too in Overwatch 2 when that first came out with the rebalance to 5v5: suddenly everything was about personal agency and Blizzard decided that the game balance should favor that over strong teamwork (IMHO).

For me, that’s why I got out of those two games and only play when I have nearly a full team of preexisting friends. I was always more focused on trying to get the team to the finish as a whole (maybe that comes from ending up as a support main).

Ended up finding my vibe in FF14 PvE, where everyone tends to work together better. That’s not to say there aren’t bad apples and problem children in a game that has minimal anticheat, but on average I feel like I see it a lot less - and fewer people who swear you out for just learning something new, where the general populace will often take time out of their own schedule just to help people along or explain something tough.

Sportsmanship isn’t dead, it may just not be where you’re looking.

computergeek125 ,

Memory unlocked that’s been a hot minute ago

Didn’t apple used to make their own IR remote for that? Is the hardware onboard the Mini preset to use their hardware or is it more generic once Linux is installed?

computergeek125 ,

The first few screens look like a combination reverse job board and Coinbase. But your description says “post stuff and create tokens”, which doesn’t quite seem to line up

Why?

I don’t think Web3 contracts have tested case law yet, so who knows if it’s enforceable in court, at most it may only be as strong as a gentleman’s agreement. And the token part looks like an easy way to create rug pull coins, just on the ETH database instead of an independent database.

computergeek125 ,

I didn’t even know ETC existed until now, I thought that was a typo

computergeek125 , (edited )

LaserDisc ran at up to 1800 RPM also in a 30cm form factor

In the Tech Connections video on them, they sound like they’re taking off when they spool up.

computergeek125 ,

I hear it’s also bad to get into a battle of wits with a Sicilian - especially when death is on the line.

computergeek125 ,

That makes sense

I was thinking it was referring to something like a SAS or BIOS firmware update. Which would be impressive if that also ran BSD

computergeek125 ,

Who am I to judge if the card has sufficient performance, security, cost, and physical form factor for my needs.

computergeek125 ,

I’d like to politely disagree

Finding alternatives to large software packages is great, don’t think I’m not saying that - but any time you have competitor X and competitor Y, be they both commercial, both F/OSS, or some combination thereof, the competitors must be cognizant of each other when setting up features.

Burying your head in the sand and ignoring Microsoft, Apple, and Google is a very solidly Microsoft-Apple-Google-style play. It’s the play of someone who believes the other side offers no competition. That’s how you get unwieldy features these tech giants implement because they know they can make a 70% effort and people won’t be annoyed enough to leave.

Every tool they make has a reason someone made it. Many tools are very important - for one example, the Microsoft Office document format is considered to be almost a universal format in presentations, spreadsheets, and plain documents for message passing between businesses.

But as we as a society design alternatives to those various monopolies (as we should), we need users to want to use the new thing. We have to take what people like and keeps them on their old platform, and best preserve the intent of what they want on the new platform. Doing so requires discussing the features those big tech companies

And as users, when we select the platforms we use, we need to weigh the cost of going with an alternative vs going with a giant. No solution is a perfect solution for everyone, and the chooser needs to weigh the maintenance cost (in hours or money) they will incur, how their users will like/dislike it, and maybe even look at a piece of software and decide “nah the vibes are off”.

I’d love a world where those three tech giants had proper competition in all fields, and I think their business practices are scummy and need improvement. But the real alternatives to each need some polish before they’re ready to be used by [arbitrary tech illiterate grandmother].

computergeek125 ,

As much as I dislike how Intel works sometimes, this market does not need fewer competitors.

computergeek125 ,

If a big MMO closes that’d be rough, but those types of games tend to form communities anyways like Minecraft. You don’t have to pay Microsoft a monthly rate to host a Java server for you and a few friends, you just have to have a little bit of IT knowledge and maybe a helper package to get you and your friends going. It’s still a single binary, even if it doesn’t run on a laptop well for larger settings.

With a big MMO, there will form support groups and turnkey scripts to get stuff working as well as it can be, and forums online for finding existing open community servers by people who have the hardware and knowledge to host a few dozen to a few hundred of their closest friends online.

Life finds a way.

If it’s a complicated multi-node package where you need stuff to be split up better as gateway/world/area/instance, the community servers that will form may tend towards larger player groups, since the knowledge and resource to do that is more specific.

computergeek125 ,

Figured I was going to see one of those here :P

Is that the 16 version?

computergeek125 ,

Far-UVC has a lot of potential once it’s scaled up. Right now, we’re still learning about best practices.

Institutions should be adopting this tech at scale.

If we’re still learning about best practices why are we talking about deploying this at scale? Self contradictory article…

It should be the other way around. Figure out if it works academically, then test small scale, then scale up with proven and reproducible results. That’s how science works. Best practices can be formulated and adjusted at each stage as more knowledge is gained. That’s how we don’t make a massive health mistake and give an entire convention center indoor sunburns. Especially for people who might be more sensitive to sunburns.

My homelab had the stupidest outage ever (blog.thefossrant.com)

This morning I woke up to my phone using mobile data and my home assistant automations not working. Initially I thought it the power was out, but I could turn on the lights just fine. I checked my UniFi app and saw that the server was not connected to the network at all. This meant that the cable got unplugged, the switch...

computergeek125 ,

Not on a flash based motherboard (so basically almost everything recent). On modern systems usually the only thing the battery powers is the clock, which is why they have a separate reset to defaults header/button/switch.

(The CMOS memory of old is replaced with flash memory, al la SD Card or flash drive)

computergeek125 ,

If it’s anything like when I used a Mac regularly 7y ago, Homebrew doesn’t install to /bin, it installs to /usr/local/bin, which only works for scripts that use env in their shell “marker” (if you don’t call it directly with the shell). You’re just putting a higher bash in the path, not truly updating the one that comes with the system.

computergeek125 ,

After Crowdstrike are we sure it’s not all blue screens in the windows column?

computergeek125 ,

Oh thank goodness, that was one of my main complaints with the system. Did they ever get around to requiring sudo like Macports (and any other reasonable system level packages manager on BSD/Linux)?

computergeek125 ,

Gotcha. Yeah low level Unix has some weird stuff going on sometimes.

computergeek125 ,

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons - one of the early editions of the book
en.wikipedia.org/…/Editions_of_Dungeons_%26_Drago…

computergeek125 , (edited )

TLDR: probably a lot of people continue using the thing that they know if it just works as long as it works well enough not to be a bother.

Many many years ago when I learned, I think the only ones I found were Apache and IIS. I had a Mac at the time which came pre installed with Apache2, so I learned Apache2 and got okay at it. While by release dates Nginx and HAProxy most definitely existed, I don’t think I came across either in my research. I don’t have any notes from the time because I didn’t take any because I was in high school.

When I started Linux things, I kept using Apache for a while because I knew it. Found Nginx, learned it in a snap because the config is more natural language and hierarchical than Apache’s XMLish monstrosity. Then for the next decade I kept using Nginx whenever I needed a webserver fast because I knew it would work with minimal tinkering.

Now, as of a few years ago, I knew that haproxy, caddy, and traefik all existed. I even tried out Caddy on my homelab reverse proxy server (which has about a dozen applications routed through it), and the first few sites were easy - just let the auto-LetsEncrypt do its job - but once I got to the sites that needed manual TLS (I have both an internal CA and utilize Cloudflare’ origin HTTPS cert), and other special config, Caddy started becoming as cumbersome as my Nginx conf.d directory. At the time, I also didn’t have a way to get software updates easily on my then-CentOS 7 server, so Caddy was okay-enough, but it was back to Nginx with me because it was comparatively easier to manage.

HAProxy is something I’ve added to my repertoire more recently. It took me quite a while and lots of trial and error to figure out the config syntax which is quite different from anything I’d used before (except maybe kinda like Squid, which I had learned not a year prior…), but once it clicked, it clicked. Now I have an internal high availability (+keepalived) load balancer than can handle so many backend servers and do wildcard TLS termination and validate backend TLS certs. I even got LDAP and LDAPS load balancing to AD working on that for services like Gitea that don’t behave well when there’s more than one LDAPS backend server.

So, at some point I’ll get around to converting that everything reverse proxy to HAProxy. But I’ll probably need to deploy another VM or two because the existing one also has a static web server and I’ve been meaning to break up that server’s roles anyways (long ago, it was my everything server before I used VMs).

computergeek125 , (edited )

OSM’s core tile servers have dozens of cores, hundreds of GB of RAM each, and the rendering and lookup databases are a few TB. That’s not trivial to self host, especially since one self hosted tile server cannot always keep up with a user flick scrolling.

Edit: car GPS maps and the old TomTom and Garmin devices have significantly less metadata embedded than a modern map.

computergeek125 ,

A static PNG tile database for world.osm is even larger. Without a solid vector tile solution, this is the most efficient data format for disk space.

Also, there’s a post render CDN cache in front of the rendering layer to offset load, plus there’s I think some internal caching in renderd. It’s a pretty complex machine, but databases of the world are in fact huge.

computergeek125 , (edited )

A paywall?
WSJ the paywall??

For your consideration, I present an anti-paywal-inator!!! TO THE ARCHIVES! archive.is/5VPB5

computergeek125 ,

Posterity?

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/posterity

computergeek125 ,

I saw a meme somewhere along the line that Excel is the third best tool for every job.

computergeek125 ,

Oh for sure

CrowdStrike Isn't the Real Problem

This is an unpopular opinion, and I get why – people crave a scapegoat. CrowdStrike undeniably pushed a faulty update demanding a low-level fix (booting into recovery). However, this incident lays bare the fragility of corporate IT, particularly for companies entrusted with vast amounts of sensitive personal information....

computergeek125 ,

Virtual servers (as opposed to hardware workstations or servers) will usually have their “KVM” (Keyboard Video Mouse) built in to the hypervisor control plane. ESXi, Proxmox (KVM - Kernel Virtual Machine), XCP-ng/Citrix XenServer (Xen), Nutanix (KVM-like), and many others all provide access to this. It all comes down to what’s configured on the hypervisor OS.

VMs are easy because the video and control feeds are software constructs so you can just hook into what’s already there. Hardware (especially workstations) are harder because you don’t always have a chip on the motherboard that can tap that data. Servers usually have a dedicated co-computer soldered onto the motherboard to do this, but if there’s nothing nailed down to do it, your remote access is limited to what you can plug in. PiKVM is one such plug-in option.

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