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MystikIncarnate

@MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca

Some IT guy, IDK.

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MystikIncarnate ,

I work with Windows as a requirement of my job, I'm in IT and I'm constantly in and out of the bowels of the operating system. I have a lot of thoughts on this stuff.

My first thought is, stop moving everything around. Even in Windows 10, if you're using an older version, say 1804, and you switch to a newer version, say 22H2, stuff is moved all over the place. It makes it super hard to direct someone blindly to the control they need to click to get something done. You're making my job much harder than it needs to be. Stop it. There's no reason to move this crap around.

To bring out my grumpy old man routine: back in my day, if you wanted to do anything, you went to the control panel. Everything you needed was there. Now it's in settings, no wait, clicking on this settings option for that thing now launches an appx thing that, surprisingly (/s) is broken.

Too many damn times have I tried to open their damned settings app or the new defender security appx dialog simply crashes. The solution is almost always dkim online repair. Well, if it needs repair so damn much, how about you just repair it for me as part of system maintenance? The fuck.

Windows 11 is a special form of suffering. Right clicking on a file and.... What the fuck is this? I basically click on "more settings" every time I right click. And the changes to the settings application.... Don't get me started.

Also, why in the fuck do we have copilot installed by default now? You're an operating system, stay in your goddamned lane.

The only good thing I can say about Windows 11 is that it has really good security. So good that I frequently have trouble doing routine things. Today, I was trying to run a PowerShell script and it told me some bullshit error, which is pretty common for PowerShell. After googling the error, the recommendation was to change the execution policy. I went to do that at an administrative PowerShell prompt and it told me that I didn't have access to change it. While running as the administrator. Yay. Shit is broken again. Fuck me I guess. I'm off to unfuck my less than five month old new work system because Microsoft can't get their shit straight.

Customization options do not and cannot help me. 90% of the time I'm working on someone else's computer, so I have to fucking deal with the default behavior because I'm not going to change it for 500+ users whom I support. I'm pretty sure I'd get more than a few complaints. So I have to fucking deal with whatever hairbrained decision Microsoft made about what should be default.

Windows 10 had its own share of bullshit. One of my most common annoyances was the way the OS decided to install fucking candy crush, every fucking time a new user logged into the goddamned computer. It's like playing whack-a-mole, but not fun and filled with uninstalls. I hope Microsoft made some good money on that brand deal, because I sure paid for it with my frustration.

After all of this, I keep finding myself in the fucking registry, and thank God that's one thing that hasn't been fucked over by their new UI team. I keep having to fix dumb issues by injecting registry keys so I can not deal with the stupid UI all the goddamned time. It's hacky, and I'm happier for it.

I could keep going. Pretty much every decision they've made in the past 5 years has been some measure of bad. The only thing I've agreed with them doing is finally ending internet explorer. Begrudgingly, edge is better, but not by a lot, IMO.

The last thing I'll say is that the tpm bullshit is going to give me an aneurysm. Having a TPM at Windows install usually prompts the system to activate bitlocker. Bitlocker itself isn't bad, but it's fucking terrible when windows does this shit and doesn't really inform the user about it. Nobody knows that they need to back up their goddamned bitlocker recovery keys, so inevitably, when something goes wrong (we're talking about Windows here, something will go wrong) and the system stops booting, you need the fucking bitlocker recovery key to do anything. Your option, if you can call it that, if you can't get the recovery key, is to format all of your shit, and reinstall from scratch. I know several people who have lost a lot of work and irreplaceable files, like pictures, because bitlocker fucked them over and they had no idea it was even running.

Sorry about your loss, but all those family photos you saved that don't exist anywhere else are locked behind basically uncrackable encryption, get fucked, I guess.

I'm going to cut this rant off. Needless to say I'm pretty tired of Microsoft's bullshit. Make an operating system. That's what people want. That's it. We shouldn't need "debloat" scripts to fix your nonsense. Gah.

MystikIncarnate ,

I appreciate that. I don't think my users would tolerate Linux. Maybe MacOS, but I would quit if that happened.

Windows has some very terrible traits, but it's something I've worked with and on for the last ~20 years. I see all the warts. I have no delusions about it, but it's something I know extremely well as a result.

MystikIncarnate ,

It's warm enough here that we can open the windows and turn off the heating. Not hot enough to need AC yet. So what do I hear all day today?

Lawnmowers.

I mean, we have a lawnmower too, but ours is 100% electric. So we basically mow the lawn in stealth mode. I don't think anyone realises we're doing it unless they physically see us out there with it. We're good neighbors. As for our neighbors.... Ehhh, not so much.

MystikIncarnate ,

Nice reference.

MystikIncarnate ,

As a man, if I'm offered some Appy slices, regardless of who is offering, you better believe I'm going to get me some fucking Appy slices.

MystikIncarnate , (edited )

I'd be chilling at home. They can keep her.

Wait, is this too "boomer humor" in the line of "wife bad, hurr hurrr"? I need better material.

In reality, no, I wouldn't be listening to music. I'd be on the phone with every person I know who hunts, asking if I can borrow a rifle for a late night hunting trip, right the fuck now. Bonus points if they're a good enough friend that you can ask them to help you bury the bodies, then just invite him along for fun and entertainment.

MystikIncarnate ,

Congratulations! I also hope they find a cure for cancer and I would be so happy if they did. I've never been diagnosed with it so I have no bearing on this conversation. Fuck cancer.

This comment is also about student loans. (Which I've had and paid and still hope they grant loan forgiveness, tyvm).

MystikIncarnate ,

But the post is about student loans.

MystikIncarnate ,

I like you. Wanna get coffee sometime?

MystikIncarnate ,

For me, during college, I got my first credit card. Between student loans and credit cards, I've been set up to fail at every turn. I have a crap ton of debt. My student loans? Paid in full. But the fact that I was paying them for nearly 15 years, and the money that took from me while I did it caused me to get deeper in debt from other sources of debt that has led me to be in a position where I'm still just as much in debt as I was when I graduated. The debt has shifted from student loans to mostly credit cards, but it hasn't gotten any smaller. I'm pretty sure I owe more now than I did when I graduated.

Financial debt compounds. Not only on itself, but it creates deficiencies in other areas requiring more debt to maintain balance. It grows like a cancer.

Sure, you can declare bankruptcy, and fuck yourself over for your ability to get any loans, but will that actually help? Does your income conver your expenses? Are you making a living wage? If not, and you go bankrupt, you might be screwing yourself over. It might be better to simply continue the cycle of violence until you earn enough to cover what you need to, then, when you're cash positive, declare it at that point.

I've been on the debt treadmill for over 20 years now. I continue to find myself in situations that require large sums to get resolved. Whether that's a broken vehicle, or another critical item I have to immediately pay for which was unexpected, or simple daily needs that have to be purchased when I'm at a low point in the availability of money. It grows.

I keep trying. I haven't needed to declare bankruptcy yet; but my debts are attached to me like a cancer, slowly killing me by starving my finances.

I'm not even poor. I work a decently well paying job. I'm just so heavily in debt, that I can't get out of it.

MystikIncarnate ,

No thanks. I don't want more debt.

MystikIncarnate ,

That's all I can ask.... Well, that, and maybe a winning lottery ticket.

MystikIncarnate ,

No, this is Patrick.

MystikIncarnate ,

I should play fallout.

I own it. Haven't played it.

MystikIncarnate ,

Honestly, there isn't much that you do that must be done with a high level of precision. I live in a world of precision. I'm in IT. I administrate the crap you all use. If I screw up, you can't work. I must be precise and validate my work prior to implementation. This sometimes means large scale testing environments.

I once built a full on domain network, with an active directory server, file server and several clients to test.... A script. Like, five virtual machines so I could test something. I had to install client software and everything. It took hours just preparing the lab so I could run, test, troubleshoot and ultimately debug the script before a single line of it landed on a production system. I verified the condition before and after the script, ran all kinds of different and varying tests to ensure that unexpected circumstances wasn't going to mess it up. Testing took almost as long as the setup.

The script was only a few hundred lines, mostly checks and verifications. The "meat and potatoes" of the script was maybe a half dozen lines in the middle to set some values, run a program and that was about it. The first half was checks to make sure things existed and that the script wasn't being thrown at a system where it didn't need to be run, and thus would have an unexpected output if the core logic was to execute on a system which it was inappropriate to do those things. The trailing half was too check and verify that the script had accomplished it's task and notify if there was any unexpected outcomes so they could be addressed promptly (before any of you fuckers notice).

I spent the better portion of two days getting five lines of commands to run in such a way that nobody would notice if they ran, and if anything went sideways that I didn't account for, I could be on it like a fat kid with a candy bar.

That level of care and precision isn't something that most people can even wrap their head around.

Meanwhile if your creative works are aided by AI, it's just expression that's affected, and for the most part, nobody even knows the difference, if you use AI to write emails, a lot of what's being said, no big deal. It's mostly filler text anyways. I've known a lot of people who write many words but say nothing with those words.

But if you screw up your taxes, well, the IRS is going to fuck your whole life up. Would you trust a fucking LLM with defending a court case where you're accused of murder, and you're facing life in prison? Probably not. Shit that needs to be done correctly the first time, will not be done by AI for a very, very long time. Taxes, legal work, and yes, even my job, won't be done by AI anytime soon because bluntly, it has no idea what the fuck it's doing.

MystikIncarnate ,

You make fair points.

MystikIncarnate ,

That's pretty much all I use it for. To keep my porn browsing off of my history.

Not to hide it from anyone, I don't live with my mother anymore and I don't think my SO would care. More so that when I google something, I don't get porn auto complete entries in my everyday browsing.

I'm fully aware that my traffic is able to be monitored by my ISP (at least to the extent that there's a connection that exists. HTTPS is still not capable of being easily decrypted), and my DNS is resolving the address for the porn sites, and that Google (or whatever search engine) is logging that the search happened.... Or that the sites see my connection, from my IP, and know what I watched.

My only objective is that they can't link that to my normal browsing or accounts.

You know all those "share on"... Twitter/Facebook/whatever links? When they load, from Facebook, it asks the referer URL, and checks the browser for any cookies that might associate that browsing to a person for ad customization. Incognito isolates that information, so while Facebook/X(Twitter)/whoever may know that someone went to that URL, they have no cookie data to link it to a person uniquely, so they have information that the site was visited, but no idea who visited the site since any session cookies I have for those services are in my non-incognito browser.

MystikIncarnate ,

Except by default, extensions are not enabled in Incognito mode unless you specifically tell your browser to allow it.

On top of that, if a browsers incognito has the same browser ID of the non-incognito version, that's probably not good. I would expect a browser to randomize any unique information like that when launching a private window.

So all you've got, as a savvy tracker, is the same aspect ratio, which, big deal, not like there's a huge selection of monitor sizes, and the same IP address, which, again, big deal, since any one client IP can have an almost unlimited number of users behind it.

You can presume it's the same person, but bluntly, that's a wild guess. It could be a visitor, or a different user logged into the same computer or another computer at the same location with the same (or at least a similar in resolution) screen. It's honestly a crapshoot. Assuming that's the person you know accesses your site from that IP is a bit of a stretch.

Any tracking cookies created in an Incognito or private window are going to get shredded when the window is closed, as long as the browser is doing what it's supposed to do.

MystikIncarnate ,

In other news, the sky is blue, water is wet, and the earth is round.

MystikIncarnate ,

What key feature has you going back to the airpods? There's very likely a good alternative, but it depends on what is keeping you using them.

MystikIncarnate ,

I use IEMs they're not noise cancelling, but more noise isolating. When I have them in they act like earplugs, silencing the outside world.

The big thing, for me, with my IEMs is that they're wired, but there are solutions to that depending on how you want to proceed.

The IEMs themselves are pretty cheap, especially compared to airpods, so trying them to see if they isolate enough noise should be a very inexpensive proposition. So getting some decent IEMs and testing them using a wired connection for fit and isolation and sound quality should be the first task, if this becomes a serious consideration.

I don't presume to know what it is you're looking for in terms of design, style, sound profile, etc. Even if those things are simply preferences, and not hard requirements. I wouldn't want to recommend bright pink headphones because their specs are great and in line with what you're looking for, if you happen to hate the color pink (as a crude example).

What I can say is what I would think to recommend, which, off the top, I'd be considering the blon bl-05 IEMs paired with either a wired connection to a Bluetooth receiver, such as the Fiio BTR3 or similar, alternatively, the Fiio UTWS3 or similar for the "true wireless" type experience. The last piece that's absolutely essential for sound isolation is better eartips, I've been using these for a while and they're excellent: https://www.linsoul.com/products/tripowin-spiral-groove-memory-foam-eartips

The foam tips make it so I can't hear anything when I have my IEMs inserted.

The catch to all this is that putting them in or taking them out can be a little bit of a pain point, since the foam tips can be a bit finicky to get properly seated in your ear (at least for me).

But, like I said, I don't know enough about your preferences to really make a proper recommendation.

Of course, when you get into this level of earphones, you end up in a market where the sky is the limit on cost. I've seen some IEMs go for thousands of dollars. You can spend nearly as much on cables and add-ons. I'm not into that sort of thing. I've been on the hunt for cheap-but-good IEMs for years and have a small number of pairs that are very good and didn't break the bank.

The nice thing about this kind of approach is that it's very modular, so if you don't like the BT receiver, replace it. If the fit of the eartips isn't good, buy new eartips. If the sound of the IEM isn't what you prefer, you can get a new IEM, and use that instead. It's entirely up to you how you want to customize them and how you use them. Lots of options.

Personally I have a Fiio BTR5, a balanced headphone cable to my IEMs using the foam eartips. For IEMs I have a set of moondrop starfield, a set of blon bl-05's and a set of Tin T2, which I regularly switch between. All of them sound great, but they all sound slightly different, so sometimes I'm in the mood for one over the other. I clip the btr5 to my belt, connected to my phone by Bluetooth, and usually run the cable under my shirt so it doesn't catch on anything.

But that's what I like. You're different, so you'll buy different things if you choose to go this route. No pressure, obviously, I just want to make you aware of the options you have in this regard.
If you do choose to go this route, I'll point you at linsoul (linsoul.com), which regularly runs sales on a lot of this, and otherwise has pretty good pricing. Some items may not be available there, like the Fiio bt receivers, but they're generally going to be available on Amazon, so you should be fine there too.

My entire focus here, is to make you aware of the option. Not to tell you what to pick. Using IEMs has been rewarding for me since there's nothing to throw away. Even if one set of IEMs died tomorrow, I would only have to toss the IEMs themselves. The eartips, cable, etc, would all be able to be reused with another set. With something like the airpods, you basically have to throw out the entire unit with the charging case and all accessories, since Apple usually doesn't bother making any of that compatible with their future versions of the same. It's wasteful. I don't like it.

Whatever you decide, I hope you have a good day, and the best of luck finding a good replacement when you decide to do so. Cheers.

MystikIncarnate ,

I didn't have to read far into the documentation of pi alert to find your issue. Scans and detection is done using ARP scans. ARP or address resolution protocol operates on layer 2. VLANs span layer 3 boundaries, so: layer 2 traffic does not traverse VLANs.

Additional scanning (by pi alert) is complimentary to the ARP scan. Which to me reads like ARP scans always need to work.

The easy solution is to use a trunk port into the system, and set up multiple VLAN sub interfaces on the NIC in the OS to handle each VLAN. Alternatively, give the VM multiple NICs, one for each VLAN you wish to scan.

The bottom line is that the pi alert system needs to have a direct network link into each network that it is trying to monitor.

MystikIncarnate ,

I don't think it's a secret that despite the overabundance of public messaging that "we" (the public) need to do x to "save the planet" or whatever, it's not working because it's entirely predicated on the idea that it's individuals doing the majority of the damage, which isn't the case.

Recycling is a particular scam. The idea of recycling basically gave everyone the green light to buy and use as many products that were "recyclable" as they wanted and could afford. The businesses making those products, in no small part started using "recyclable" plastics for nearly everything. People were satisfied that it was recyclable, with the three arrows in the package and that was it. All the while, recycling alone likely doubled the number of waste collection trucks on the road (increasing the amount of fuel needed) doubled the number of trucks needed to do collections of waste, and, as many have since pointed out, was largely not helpful, considering that plastics are basically impossible to recycle effectively at scale, into any product that anyone can use. Only a very small amount of plastic was ever able to be effectively recycled, and the vast majority was basically just landfill with extra steps.

So we polluted a fuckton more on an idea that it would save the planet, an instead, we just killed it more with trucks and oil.

This isn't a new story, and it's never been your fault. The last frame in this comic is what should have been done all along, but we were sold some bullshit lie so an asshole we've never met can buy another yacht.

And there's still legions of people engaging in wasteful practices and supporting companies that want you to throw out their products as soon as they release a "newer/better" version of the same. I'm looking at you, Apple. Sure, you've stepped back on this a little bit in the past few years, but remember when you intentionally slowed down millions of phones because they were 2+ years old, and for no other reason? I do.

Net Zero carbon emissions (or any other pollutant) shouldn't be the goal. It should be the minimum fucking standard.

MystikIncarnate ,

Everyone knows the real power of configuration on Windows is regedit.

MystikIncarnate ,

Yes and no.

The military internet, which is built on similar principles and protocols, yes. The commercial internet? Ehhh. Not so much.

Most internet interconnects are consolidated into internet exchanges, usually in, or near, datacenters. I live in southern Ontario, pretty much every local ISP routes the majority of their traffic, if not all of it, through TorIX in Toronto. There's a datacenter there, or more accurately several, which are cross connected into or through TorIX. Many of the local ISPs do not have redundancy with another IX or datacenter. One notable exception is Bell Canada, who has a strong, and broad transportation network of their own, which connects to TorIX and the IX in Montreal, among others. They're probably the best set up in their distribution layers from what I can tell.

Most ISPs can suffer the loss of one major upstream network provider loss, but not all of them in the IX. Aka, if the datacenter/IX falls, the entire network goes offline.

Take for example a local third party provider of teksavvy. And to be clear, I'm making a lot of wild speculation about teksavvy here, and reality may be very different, but I'm just using them as an example. Normally, small ISPs like teksavvy do one of two things, they either resell DIA connections (direct internet access), which is basically just buying another providers access from them. Aka, you buy teksavvy, but the line you're connected to is from Bell, your internet and your internet IP is provided by Bell, and you pay teksavvy who pays Bell. You might as well be on Bell, but since teksavvy is buying in bulk, you can usually get service from them cheaper than from Bell. Functionally it's the same, so there's a null sum here. The alternative is that teksavvy gets a wholesale connection to you, where Bell (or another "last mile" ISP) provides the connection from your premise to teksavvy, usually through a local IX, your connection still goes into the datacenter, but rather than go from the bell line, through Bell's gear direct to the internet, it goes from Bell's wholesale line, to teksavvy gear in the datacenter, then gets rerouted through to the internet from there. All within the DC/IX.

The IX crossconnects all providers in the DC, which would be companies like Meta, Google, Netflix, the company formerly known as Twitter, etc, and also to other ISPs, so you can directly connect to your friend down the road on Rogers without having your traffic go further than it has to. The IX is where ISPs, providers, datacenters and all other connections meet. A nearby nuclear blast that destroys the DC/IX in your area, would very likely disrupt all communication for the area served by ISP connections routed through that IX.

In rare cases (I believe Bell is set up this way), the ISP will cross link it's distribution centers, which are usually buildings in your neighborhood with the company's logo, but no customer facing area, to eachother all the way across an area into the next area where the next IX is. So you're functionally connected to two IX locations or more. The providers distribution network isn't as fast as the IX to IX direct fiber routes, which usually have fewer devices to go through, but it would work at very limited capacity.

On the public internet, there is a mesh between IX's, but the location of the IX isn't hidden. Any individual connection to the internet is usually only connected to a single IX. Most of the distribution between you and the IX is not redundant.

Then compare with what I believe would be a typical example of a military "internet" (again, I'm just speculating based on highly redundant data principles, nothing more): each location, like a military base, airfield, government complex, etc. Would be connected to multiple other locations in a mesh. In addition, they would have backup links likely through satellite or microwave relay links. So if all of the locations that a base is connected to go down, they can use satellite as a final option. Imagine nine such sites in a standard 3x3 grid. Each is connected to no less than 3 neighbors, and the central base is connected to all eight of the others. The central base is destroyed (or otherwise has their datacom disabled). All outlying bases still have at least two links to neighbors. Communication continues. Another base is destroyed, say, the north-East location. All nodes can connect to eachother without issue, but the north and east bases are down to one link plus backup. The South-Eastern location goes down. The rest are unaffected except the eastern base which now needs to rely on satellite backup, but they can communicate. Etc.

As you can hopefully see, the bases all have multiple redundant links and unless they are destroyed or otherwise have their datacom disabled, they can remain in communication with the other bases.

With the internet, that's usually how IX's are interconnected, but anything on a single IX, is basically fucked if that IX no longer operates. We're all nodes of an IX. An intelligent adversary would target any known centers of telecommunications, and we've made it easy for them my centralizing all of the communications for a given geography into centralized locations which are conveniently published for anyone to see. There are lists of IX locations on the internet for anyone to stare at, including what ISP companies are connected. With a single well-placed, high yield (not even nuclear) bomb or ICBM, all commercial communication systems can be neutralized for an area of attack. They wouldn't even need to destroy a full city block to accomplish it.

Sure, bombing, say TorIX, wouldn't stop someone in, say, Nova Scotia, from chatting to someone in British Columbia, but pretty much everyone in Southern Ontario would be disconnected in an instant. Unable to tweet about the bomb that just went off in downtown Toronto (I believe the IX there is next to Union station, at 151 Front St).

The reason it's done this way is because of money. It's far cheaper to centralize access to an IX, then connect the IX's together. The alternative is to string fiber between datacenter buildings for different companies at different addresses. Getting fiber between geographically different locations is costly, so the companies at the DC/IX all pay a small portion of the fees, either directly or indirectly, to have each IX connected to the others. That cost is shared and the various providers can have access to a limited number of fiber strands that run between locations. Even a handful (like 5) strands can net about 1Tbps of bandwidth or more depending on how it's used. The planning and deployment of such connections can easily run into the millions of dollars. Sometimes significantly more. Sharing in that cost is a good business move, even if you're "helping" your competition by doing so, because they also are getting a benefit from it.

Taking it back to the OP: the blast observed appears to be in a city, where it is likely an IX would be situated, most likely the one that your shelter is connected to. Cellular won't help since a lot of that infrastructure relies on microwave relays back to a head node, usually on the cities outskirts, which then transfers the data to a high-speed fiber line to.... You guessed it, the IX.

The internet isn't designed to be resilient to war. We will lose all datacom if war breaks out, with certainty.

Military networks, though similar in design, have vastly more redundancy, the likes of which, we, the people, do not, and will likely never, have access to.

MystikIncarnate ,

P2p mesh is great except there's no DNS, so now either someone needs to host that, making them a critical node. Either that or every needs to start memorizing IP addresses. Using discovery through broadcast would easily create so much traffic that you'd run out of bandwidth on a wireless mesh.

Everyone seems to think that a wireless mesh is some kind of golden bullet, but it's really not. Putting that many people on a mesh generates a lot of broadcasts, which by nature go to everyone on the net. Having broadcasts rebroadcast by mesh stations will double the traffic load each time it's done, so beyond 4-5 mesh points, and a few dozen clients, the broadcasts start to take over the available bandwidth.

Rebuilding, basically means that someone needs to set up an IX, and connect their neighbors to them in an ISP-like configuration. One person basically needs to become the ISP/IX for a neighborhood and connect to others doing the same for their neighborhood.

At least one of the IX owners would need to know enough about networking to set up routing protocols and run an IP address management system to ensure nobody overlaps anyone else, and configure routing protocols for all the IX locations so they can communicate to eachother.

Then there's the problem of services. The global DNS system is down, so you need to make a new one. Services you expect on the internet are gone, so those need to be rebuilt, which means someone needs to basically become a datacenter to run the servers to generate those services.

I would be the obvious candidate to do this in my area. I know of a handful of people who could do the same in their area, and only one such person lives remotely close to me (about an hour or so drive away). I have my own homelab servers, and more networking equipment than I can shake my fist at. I'd go and raid the local ISP distribution building to pillage some fiber delivery equipment and build out a gigabit+ speed passive optical network from my basement as the ISP/IX/DC.
Finding outdoor rated fiber lines and whatnot to run any relevant connections would be important.

Then set up a wireless point to point link to any other nearby community networks.

MystikIncarnate ,

As a networking professional, I'll just say: it gets worse the more you look at it.

I think others have covered most of what you wanted to know, but ask me any follow up questions that might still be lingering.

MystikIncarnate ,

The real question is, why do they retain that information?

MystikIncarnate ,

I hate this. It's basically just a lecture with slides as the cue cards, which the audience can read for themselves.

It's like having subtitles in real life.

Ugh. Give me some data, graphs, or pictures of cats to look at for the slideshow or something. Something other than what you're saying. If you add nothing to what we're seeing, then.... I have eyes. I don't need you to read it for me.

PowerPoint, at least, has a notes section and a presenter view, so you can hook your computer up with the projector or TV or whatever as a second monitor and PowerPoint can be set up to use the TV/projector/whatever, as the slide show, and give you a presenter view on your screen which shows the current slide, and all your notes.

So if you can't get relevant pictures, at least put up something interesting to look at, and leave the cue cards notes in the notes section, so the audience doesn't have to stare at the exact words you're saying, as you're saying them, because I guarantee you that if you do, I'll be judging you on your spelling and grammar.

MystikIncarnate ,

Dilbert comics have wit?

MystikIncarnate ,

I was thinking that you meant like, machine code, by "low level" and yeah. C wouldn't make a lot of sense to someone who handles machine code.

MystikIncarnate ,

I approve of this.

MystikIncarnate ,

Damn. Are you me? I'm not a programmer so I guess not.

I was hounded by one of my HS teachers to put in a little more effort, constantly.

I got annoyed by this and basically rage-wrote an essay that was due in the span of a few hours the night before it was due. Despite my lack of sources (I couldn't be bothered to look up the information), I still got an A on the paper. She stopped telling me to try harder. IDK if that's because she realized I didn't do poorly because I couldn't understand, because I clearly did, or she was just satisfied that she got me to do something and didn't bother pestering me about it, but regardless, I felt like I won.

I never did that well on anything else in her class. I just couldn't be bothered.

20+ years later, it turns out I have ADHD. So yeah. That explains a lot.

MystikIncarnate ,

Right. That's my bad. I'm not a programmer or developer, so I conflate machine code and assembly far too frequently.

MystikIncarnate ,

I work in IT. I don't have much use for knowing the difference, but as a point of principle for me, I want to be correct, so if I'm not correct, I'd rather be corrected.

So I appreciate it.

Also the fact that there's a lot to know, phew, you said it brother (or sister? Idk, doesn't matter). IT is a minefield of information on all kinds of things. I used to get overwhelmed by spec sheets, now I look at them and think "there isn't enough information here".

How the turn tables.

MystikIncarnate ,

I was diagnosed a few years ago. I was 39. I've been on meds since.

My HS experience was fairly typical for an ADHD kid before ADHD was a thing.... I was called lazy, I was told I needed to apply myself (whatever that means), etc. I believed it. I just thought I was a lazy ass little shit. I didn't know why, but the evidence was clear. I understood the information, I just didn't do any of the work.

Oh well. Live and learn. I eventually made it through college, and into a career, all without meds. It was a painful struggle, especially when dealing with the more monotonous tasks associated with having a job.... I was chronically late, I slept in a lot... I was just all over the place.

Now, with the meds, I still have my hair share of bad days, but when I'm faced with the horrendous burden of monotonous tasks, instead of having to force myself to do it, I usually have more of an attitude of "whelp, I better get this done so I can move on". It's no longer an impossible task to simply get myself started on something that's not very stimulating.

It's nice.

MystikIncarnate ,

I feel this. I started a new job recently and the place I'm working at now specializes in IT for accountants, so all of my clients are some form of certified accountant. I didn't think it was a big deal at first, since I've done some work for accounting firms before while working for more generalist IT support companies (who were not picky about what their clients did), but the requests I get at this place are way more in depth for accounting than at previous jobs. Sure, we get the usual requests about file permissions, password resets, etc... But the clients seem to also expect us, as IT, to know way more about accounting than I have ever known. Preparer profiles for taxes, managing the nuances of how some accounting programs interact with eachother, just crazy stuff I've never gotten before. The list goes on.

My co-workers tend to shrug it off, since they've been dealing with it for a while, but I'm frequently asking them about that stuff while thinking, are we really expected to know this?

I'm no stranger to accounting. I took business in college with my IT diploma (I actually have two college diplomas, one is for business, which includes accounting), and all of this stuff is still way over my head.

But, ask me about the nuances of instruction scheduling in a VM hypervisor and I'll run circles around whatever you think you know about the subject.... At least for most people. Routing protocols? You want a list of them? And what they do? And how they do it? I'm your man.
But show me a general ledger and I'll know some of what I'm looking at. I don't know enough to know if it's "in balance" or anything, I'm just privy enough to make sense of the words and numbers, not enough to know if it's correct, or even how to tell if it's correct.

Luckily, my manager has pretty clearly stated that we're IT, and we shouldn't be expected to know things like that, but my co-workers often know more about it than I do. I have no shame or pride that I know or don't know something, I'll ask others all day long about it, and learn everything I can. If I can't figure it out, I just tell the user to ask the company that made whatever software they're referring to and that's it.

Life is an adventure, you're bound to get more wrong than right, the important part is how you handle those situations. IMO, that's what defines you. I want to be known as someone who isn't afraid to ask, isn't afraid to be wrong, and isn't afraid to learn something new in order to be helpful.

My least favorite response that I hear when dealing with users is that "I'm not techy" because it demonstrates a willful ignorance of the technology that they use every single day, and an unwillingness to learn that technology. I don't expect them to learn IT, and all is nuance, because I'd be out of a job, but c'mon Deborah, this is the third time this week that your problem has been that OneDrive isn't connected to your account. You should know to log into OneDrive when this happens. FFS.

MystikIncarnate ,

Well, my parents weren't the greatest. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all that they did for me, but I rarely ever saw my doctor outside of getting shots or whatever... Typical stuff.

Basically, unless I had an obvious and physical problem, like a not insignificant injury or infection, we dealt with it ourselves. So I'm not surprised that I fell through the cracks, so to speak.

I did ok in school. I could have done way better, but I at least passed pretty much every class I took. There were some exceptions in college due to extenuating circumstances, but I got it done.

The change happened when I started researching ADHD because my SO has a solid diagnosis for it, so I wanted to understand them a little bit better, and a lot of the symptoms just resonated with me. So I took action, got assessed and now I'm medicated for it and I couldn't be happier about it. My brain works differently. I'm different. That's not a bad thing (could you imagine how boring it would be if we were all the same?). I'm proud of myself.

I'm not really shy about telling people about it, though I tend to keep it to myself until it's relevant... I don't go into a room full of new people and blurt out that I'm on meds for ADHD. But if someone asks, I don't have any hesitation in telling them. There's so shame in it, there's no reason to be ashamed of it. My brain works counterintuitively, and I've done my job as a human, and gotten treatment so I can function normally. I'm not responsible for my brain chemistry being all screwed up.

Anyways. I feel like I'm talking in circles now. I hope you have a good day.

MystikIncarnate ,

Amen to that. My late father only went into a mental decline when he settled into a retirement lifestyle. He was a sharp and intelligent person. As year after year rolled by with him watching TV, and essentially doing nothing differently, year over year, he slowly lost any ability to think critically, and eventually the ability to even form a coherent sentence. This is a man who held multiple degrees, in bookkeeping and teaching, and has taught highschool computers courses since before I was born, for at least 20+ years (I'm not entirely sure how long). When he was forced to retire from teaching, he kept busy with some odd jobs, usually security work. It kept him active and thinking about things, and he drew up procedures and documentation about his post-retirement jobs that I'm certain are still used at those jobs. Once he gave it all up, things started to slide away from him. Within 10-15 years he was nonverbal, living in a nursing home before passing away. I think he made it to age 80. He passed a few years ago now, and I'm still disappointed in myself that I didn't learn more from him.

That said, he was human and had his flaws. I won't get into that. The point is, he was with it until he started to get into a set routine which didn't encourage him to do any thinking. His mind withered away and left him incapable of even forming words. You have to exercise your brain. We all lose it eventually, but ignoring it will make it happen faster. I feel like my dad's story is proof of that.

The bookkeeper you describe is what I refer to as a "lister", aka, someone who can follow a set list of instructions to the letter very well, but lacks any additional critical thinking. If they're presented with something that is unexpected, they shut down. Listers tend to refuse to learn, and lack the skills to interpret what's in front of them and make a rational choice given the options that they have.

I'm not trying to demean people who need lists, they're usually very capable, possibly well learned individuals, but they always think inside the box, so to speak. These people are great at doing repetitive tasks that cannot be otherwise automated. They can complete very complex tasks as long as the dialogs, knobs, buttons, switches, and other controls are consistent.

Some are so inept that even changing something as trivial as a background image in their desktop will cause them to be incapable of finding the buttons that they need to do what they need to do.

I never actually scorn or ridicule such people, clearly they do a sufficient job for what they've been tasked with. I try to be understanding, but I can't help but express my frustration having to fix their problems, time and time again, simply because they have no way to learn to do it themselves. Again, I don't express this to them. When dealing with them I'm very understanding. "That's fine", "that's what I'm here for", etc.

My job exists, in large part because of such people. Their inability to comprehend the information in front of them is simply my job security. I do what I can to eliminate or at least minimize the frequency of such things and they are usually grateful for it. Sometimes there's nothing to be done and the user simply needs to learn to perform additional tasks before things work, so I tend to try to review what was done, as a list of steps, with pictures if possible, to them via email, so they can go about fixing it themselves as long as they can find my instructions.

I don't give them my pity, they don't need it. Most of them are making more money than I am anyways. I don't hate them for it, it provides job security. I'm very neutral on it, but it can be rather frustrating sometimes.

I have a similar story from a legal assistant. I don't know how long she had been working the job, but the only way she knew to find a file was through the word open dialog. She didn't use sticky notes, but otherwise it was much of the same story. If she needed to open a word perfect document, she would open ms word, file, open, browse, navigate through the folders quite competently, then find the WP file, right click and open with word perfect. WP would open and the file would appear. I was baffled the entire process. I tried to tell her that she can just use Explorer, but I couldn't get the words out, I was just so shocked at what I was seeing.

In the end, I just told myself: "well, if it works for her, I guess it's not really a problem that needs to be fixed".

I corrected whatever issue she was complaining about and moved on.

That was one of the worst, but certainly not the only story I have about people doing stuff in weird ways. Everyone is different, and I embrace that difference. If they've found a way that works and works for them consistently, who am I to say it's wrong? It's still baffling at times though.

I usually get "I'm not techy" from people who are otherwise very competent users, who have a handle on all of the basics. They navigate file systems appropriately and efficiently, they have an understanding of the structures and rules that govern the digital landscape; but they are willfully ignorant of expanding that knowledge any further. If they would take the time to look into it, they could easily figure it out, but they're unwilling to learn any more than they already do.

It's the willfully ignorant that I have a problem with. If you need lists of instructions to do simply tasks, then you're not willfully ignorant, you're in the category of being a lister. If you're constant adapting to new technology and able to learn how things that you currently use are changing, but refuse to expand into new areas for your own betterment, then they're willfully ignorant.

I have a ton of thoughts on this and it's hard to create simple criteria to qualify whether someone isn't capable or isn't willing, so I'll stop there. IMO, everyone on Lemmy, at least right now, doesn't fall into these categories, if they did, they'd still be on Reddit (or whatever social media system they came from). An active refusal to accept change is a cornerstone of the mentality, both for listers and the willfully ignorant. Anyone with that mentality hasn't made it to this platform yet.

I have to go back to work. Have a good day.

MystikIncarnate ,

It's easy to remember. I can't forget about the quick brown fox. However, I've already forgotten the alternative. Something black? Idk

MystikIncarnate ,

I'll say that I hated the JC version at first.

Then I saw the video and it turned me around on it. Now, it's a decent cover. I'm not so much of a fan of NIN that I can't appreciate a cover of the music by someone else. I don't really know a lot about Cash, but the imagery in the video was just really powerful.

That being said, anyone crediting Cash with the song, apart from the fact that he covered it, is shameful. Yes, he sang those words. He didn't write them; so the meaning behind the lyrics are not his own. He applied his own take on them, sure, but the credit should go to the original author for the context of the song.

The fact that people are so stupid as to think it's Cash's song, is just another nail in the coffin of the intelligence of humanity (or at least my faith in it). Having people say this kind of dumb shit about the song, and implying their attribution of credit for the lyrics to Cash, is just testament to the erosion of wisdom from humanity.

It's so appropriate that we live in an age of unparalleled access to information, nearly the whole of human knowledge at our fingertips nearly all the time, and yet, people are so willfully uneducated, and so defensive about what they know, that even when faced with incontrovertible proof from that pool of human knowledge that they are, in fact, very wrong in their thinking, only to have them argue against such information futility, is the exact problem with humans. We have such an ego about what we know and that we cannot be wrong about something that we will defend something that's clearly wrong to our dying breath with absolute and completely misplaced conviction, for no other reason than to prove to ourselves that we are somehow infallible.

Being wrong is part of the human experience. You will get things wrong more often than you get them right. What defines you as a person, is how you deal with that inevitability. Do you rail against the truth? Do you consider your position and listen to the arguments against? Or do you bury your head in the sand (or up your own ass), so you don't have to listen to the dissenters?

IMO, this is the root reason why religion still exists. If you look at how common that is, with all the people blindly following, and defending it, with every fiber of their being, it's obvious that we are still, a very, very idiotic race; willing to accept anything as truth simply because we were told that it is at a very young age.... Before we were capable of criticising the absurdity of it all. Is there a God? 72% of the earth would say yes. And therein lies the problem. If almost three quarters of people are willing to believe in a sky genie with no proof more reliable than ink on paper and the assurance of others, then what fucking hope do we have of getting anything else right?

MystikIncarnate ,

I agree.

It should be more about who you like, not what people call them/you/your labels/their labels.

I always feel like the labels are there to make the "heteronormative" types feel more comfortable, which isn't really working for them either so.....

I dunno, I'm just a person who likes people who meet criteria that makes my brain release the happy chemicals.

MystikIncarnate ,

I've had several pairs of aftershokz, almost all of them Bluetooth. Most recently I was gifted a pair of openrun pro. Shokz has made significant improvement since the first generation. I would put their modern versions on par with fairly average earbuds, with a notable bass drop off as the most significant audio fidelity issue.

They're massively convenient. They sound rather good apart from the missing low end, and they're easy to make into an all day wear.

I've worn headsets on top of my trekz, glasses, even headphones (don't ask). They're not the most comfortable when you have stuff on top of them, pushing them into your skull, but that's expected.

Most people don't notice I'm wearing them.

Honestly, 10/10 for convenience.

MystikIncarnate ,

Just a thought, but BT transmitters are a thing, you could pull in audio from several sources and pipe it to a transmitter and use it that way.... Though, that would kind of defeat the purpose, IMO.

MystikIncarnate ,

I just fact checked this and apparently you're right.

https://news.utexas.edu/2024/04/08/25-questions-and-answers-about-the-great-north-american-eclipse/#:~:text=It's%20perfectly%20safe%20to%20look,bright%20as%20a%20full%20Moon.

And https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/future-eclipses/eclipse-2024/safety/

"You can view the eclipse directly without proper eye protection only when the Moon completely obscures the Sun’s bright face – during the brief and spectacular period known as totality. (You’ll know it’s safe when you can no longer see any part of the Sun through eclipse glasses or a solar viewer.)"

MystikIncarnate ,

At the risk of resurrecting a zombie post. I'll respond.

I'm not sure on the specifics of xcp-ng, since I haven't run it myself, but, I know proxmox and VMware can both do PCIe pass thru to VMs. Recently L1 techs have done videos on the Intel flex GPUs and their potential with vdi for video rendering (basically for a virtual GPU), which worked excellently. I'm not sure if there's a large feature gap between the a380 and the flex series, but I suspect not. Given the cost of an A380 it's probably worth the risk to try it. With all the recent updates for the Intel GPUs which have been increasing performance and stability, the a380 is a solid buy, even if it's "only" able to be passed through to the VM ...

Good luck

MystikIncarnate ,

Indeed it does. I'm looking forward to the flex series (I'm specifically waiting on the 140 because I have systems with a low profile requirement), to try to put together some GPU acceleration on my homelab cluster. I need it for transcoding in the short term but in the long term I'm hoping to put up one of those open source, self hosted "cloud" gaming services.

We still do LAN parties and if I can pick up some cheap thin clients, and connect them to a GPU accelerated VDI or something, people wouldn't have to cart their PC's over when we have a LAN.

I'd go for something more modest like the A380, since sparkle has a low profile version of it, but the 6G of dedicated video memory gives me pause, since I'd basically have to dedicate one whole GPU per virtual desktop, which isn't as scalable as I would need. Even putting two users on a single GPU with 6G of memory is kind of a non-starter for me. I've used GPUs with 3G of memory, as recently as 2 years ago, and bluntly, it's not a good experience. So anything less than 4-6G per user is basically rejected right out of the gate. I might pick one up just to test with a single VM in a VDI situation, but long term that's not going to work.

MystikIncarnate ,

That's pretty exciting, for sure. Given that you can get single slot coolers for the half height variant makes it incredibly versatile. Hopefully that trend continues.

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