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MystikIncarnate

@MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca

Some IT guy, IDK.

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MystikIncarnate ,

My biggest issue with discord is that I'll get pinged, and have no fucking clue what pinged me.

Even if I get to the notification, often I don't get it right away, and often I don't open it right away either. So when I click on it, which, in most chat like apps will take you to that post/mention/whatever, it just takes me to the channel where I was mentioned. I'm left with no earthly idea why I'm in this chat or what was said that prompted the notification.

When I'm actively in discord, this works okay, since the mention which prompted the notification is likely the most recent thing said, or at least, close to it. The problem is, I'm almost never actively in discord.

I find that if I use discord all the time, which is rare, but happens.... Then I don't mind it so much. However, if I don't use discord all the time, then it's less than useless. I get notifications all the time and I just end up dismissing them because by the time I get to it, there's no chance I'll be able to figure out why I got the notification in the first place.

DMs and very very small communities are an exception, since the volume of messages is so low that generally, even if I get to the notification hours later, the message that prompted the notification is still one of the most recent handful of messages.

To this end, my list of pros and cons for discord are:
Pros:

  • convenient (when in active use)
  • good voice chat
  • a lot of people use it
    Cons:
  • slow notifications
  • bad notification handling

I feel like the people who run any given community, who are centered around discord, don't have problems with it, since they're pretty much always on it. For someone who isn't always plugged into discord, it's a horrendous nightmare of missed messages and notifications that take you somewhere unexpected. Any complaints about this generally falls on deaf ears because the people in charge, who picked that the community should be in discord, use it so much that they don't really have any issues with it.

Compare and contrast with a competing text-chat service like slack. In general slack doesn't do voice, so there's some differences there, but talking strictly about notifications and such: the notifications frequently arrive within seconds or minutes at most, when you select them, it takes you to the channel where the alert came from, scrolled to the post where the mention that prompted the notification is located, with the specific mention highlighted for clarity. From here, you can scroll back to get context, and scroll forward to see other replies. Contrasted with my experience in discord, you select the notification, you're taken to the channel where the notification originated, and scrolled to a random point in the recent history of the channel. Does this section contain the mention? Maybe, but probably not. Nothing is highlighted. Good luck.

MystikIncarnate ,

Very accurate. Unfortunately for me, the place that looks like this, also has the very best burgers.

MystikIncarnate ,

Robot revolution happens... Robots destroy all mailboxes on sight. Nobody knows why.

MystikIncarnate ,

Every time it asks for the crosswalks, pick the lights. When it asks for the lights, pick crosswalks.

MystikIncarnate ,

IDK about you all, but renting out a property sounds like a gigantic pain in the rear.

I rented from an awesome landlord in college, he's just a genuinely good dude. I'm still friends with him. While I was in college, I saw the treatment he got from my fellow renters, and how they treated the property we all shared. I didn't appreciate it, since if they messed something up, I would have to deal with it until my landlord was able to fix it. He didn't deserve to be treated like that, and I certainly didn't appreciate how much shit I had to endure because they were stupid.

Everything from leaving windows/doors wide open in the middle of winter, idling a truck with a side exhaust in the driveway right next to the open side door, filling the house with carbon monoxide and setting off the CO alarm. Plenty more that I just won't go into. My least favorite was one dickhead... I have no fucking clue what his deal was, but everytime his computer was online, everyone else would lose their internet connection; internet was included in the rent, so we couldn't even tell him to knock it off because we were directly paying the bill for it... So he gave no shits at all about it. I offered to look at his computer to try to figure out why in the hell it was creating the problem and he actively refused. I ended up getting permission from the landlord to overhaul the internet router, I installed a dd-wrt capable unit and set per-IP throttling rules that meant each person could only use up to a certain amount. It was something like 60% of the rated speed, so, not slow, but it was enough to keep any one system from basically DOS-ing everyone else.

My landlord cut me so much slack from day one. No last month payment? no problem, you're waiting on student loans, and won't get the money for three weeks? Sure, I'll see you in three weeks then. He didn't even lock people into a minimum 1 year lease, so you could move out at the end of the semester and save the rent over summer.
He even brought me booze to try out on a few occasions. He'd just randomly pour me a shot and be like, try this! Just a really good dude.

I saw how often he came to the house to fix the shit that my roommates damaged, and how much work he had to put in week after week to keep things going. I don't want to fucking do that shit. I don't even like having to do chores around my own damn house, nevermind cleaning up after some asshole tenants. Of all the things I learned while watching and talking to my old landlord, I learned that I don't want to be responsible for someone else's mistakes like that.... Even if I'm charging them for the damages and they pay for it, and that goes smoothly (which, let's face it, it usually won't), I just don't want the hassle and the headache.

MystikIncarnate ,

Last I heard my old landlord/friend was massively renovating the place, he stripped it down to the studs and I think he even added another floor to the building. He was redoing everything. At the time he was waiting on a permit to continue the work. He was putting in the time and effort to modernize and reduce his efforts long term. Hopefully that works out for him.

I hope your Tuesday delivery is smooth and that the new unit arrives undamaged in working order.

All the best.

MystikIncarnate ,

I get it. I don't agree that all landlords are bad, but many are.

I would support a raise in property tax that's matched by a discount for primary residences. So most families will not see a difference, while people who own multiple homes and landlords need to pay more for taxes.

In addition, putting a cap on how much property a company can purchase in a year for the purpose of renting; as well as giving incentives for larger rental buildings like high-rises, since it can dramatically increase the amount of available units while preserving the amount of available property available for single family homes.

All of this would be to incentivize rental companies to build more large rental structures, instead of buying up a hundred homes and renting entire homes to people. IMO, renting an entire house should not be something that anyone can do (as in offering it as a rental). I know this has been what many do to try to reduce their overall spending, but bluntly, if instead, you can get an affordable home that you can mortgage for a similar monthly amount, then you'll be far better off in the long run. If credit is a problem (poor credit, or a bad credit score, and/or no credit), then there's rental units from high rises.

I just want to see the family homes given back to families to own.... Not just rent and live in forever, never owning it and never having anything to show for it.

Unfortunately that view, if it ever came to be (and realistically, I don't expect it will), would put my landlord friend out of business for renting, and bluntly, I would be unapologetic about it. Simply, the policies would ensure that homes are going to people who want/need them, and who will personally use them. I have every confidence that he would be fine since renting isn't his only source of income. I believe both he and his wife have fairly well paying jobs. There was a time that they didn't, and they needed the extra income from the rental house to make it, but I don't think that's really the case anymore.

Making it hard to impossible to maintain a rental property as an individual, and making it difficult for any business to buy such properties that they can then rent, while pushing the rental companies to build more high density apartment style rentals, IMO, could solve a lot of problems that we're having with the housing market. It would force out a lot of would-be landlords, and make the whole endeavor unprofitable without significantly increasing rent. The increase wouldn't be tolerated by the market because there would (hopefully) be plenty of inexpensive apartment rentals available.

If we can swing this axe just right, we can basically put these landlords out of business, and free up all their would-be rentals for single families looking to buy.

IMO, it would also crush a lot of the investment property people, who buy homes with no intention of living there or renting it out, and they just sit on the deed until the market value goes up. Now the holding costs of the house are far higher than their potential return on investment and they would cut their losses, flooding those homes into the market as well.

I'm not saying the plan is easy, or that it won't backfire on us. I'm just saying that it's better to do this than sit on our hands waiting for so many people to become homeless because they can't afford rent that the landlords and investment property people no longer have anyone to sell to. That's when I see property costs falling. When people have given up so thoroughly on having a place to live that they refuse to even rent anymore because the costs are simply too high.

MystikIncarnate ,

This is Sears all over again. You used to be able to order a house from a catalog.

They would basically ship you everything you needed to build the house, with some plans, and that was it. Bearing in mind that was a very long time ago.

Then all houses were built by professionals and prices rose. Houses got better overall, since someone who knew WTF they're doing, put it all together.

Now, they won't even go to where you want the house. Just building the houses for you in some house factory or something and they ship it to you pre-built.

This is just a trailer home without the wheels! What the actual hell.

Don't get me wrong, mobile and trailer homes can be rather nice, but having no wheels... I dunno man, I think we're moving backwards.

MystikIncarnate ,

They are my reason.

MystikIncarnate ,

An owl in disguise?

Who?

MystikIncarnate ,

That's what's probably held us back the most.

I see three situations among the affluent that created a substantial delay in any "Green" products becoming a thing faster:

In the first case, someone making money hand over fist. They will let someone else take on the risk of research and development, and getting it off the ground. I'm happy with my stock in BP.

The second case, disgruntled owners of shares in companies forced to "be more green" in some way shape or form, like factories that need some post processing of their waste products, or that need to pay for their waste to be processed or disposed of. "The only thing this 'save the planet' nonsense has done, is cost me profits" (or whatever).

The last is driven by the numbers. There's no way to take the plan to go green and turn it into sales/profits. If someone were to propose any "Green" solution with a business plan that results in them making money, they're on board, but climate activists aren't necessarily good with business plans.

I mean, look at what happened with EVs, and solar. As much as I'm personally not a fan of musk, he was willing to take the risk to create Tesla. As soon as he started shipping hundreds of thousands of units at $90k+ each, within a few years, other companies had, at least, HEVs available. Solar panel research is starting to push out some pretty efficient panels, those panels are appearing on big retailers stores to offset costs. Solar companies are buying eachother out, it's a crazy market. The demand, not just from eco-conscious consumers, but from businesses, has exploded. The reason is that the return on investment of solar is very very clearly laid out. Spend some money putting them in, and you'll pay less in the long run on electricity. Any retailer with any future vision and roof space would be stupid not to put them in.

If you think about what's important to these capitalists, and adjust to how risk averse they are, this is all very clear as to why this has been moving so slowly. Fact is, if you can demonstrate that the tech works and show the difference, on paper, for operating costs, you'll easily have more orders than you can handle for whatever green product you can think of.

The main issue right now is getting physics to work with you, in your favor, to get the thing to work. There are some serious engineering and physics challenges when it comes to most green technologies that usually makes them "not economically viable" aka, they cost more than alternatives. Once we figure out how to make them cost less, you'll be amazed how fast things change.

MystikIncarnate ,

I'm always sad when I see this stuff. I know it's all jokes and whatnot, but the entire meme has been born out of a fundamental misunderstanding of the dilemma that the trolley problem is supposed to represent.

The question isn't, and has never been whether you throw the switch or not. The question is that if you throw the switch, are you responsible for killing the one, or conversely, if you do nothing, are you responsible for killing the others?

Whether you throw the switch or not is immaterial to the point. Kill one or kill four (or whatever) it doesn't matter. You didn't create that scenario, so by your inaction several people died, are you responsible for their deaths, considering you never put them in that position? Or are you exempt of blame since you basically chose to be an onlooker?

I don't really blame anyone for not getting it, I sure didn't for a really long time until my friend rephrased the same dilemma in a different way (and omitted the trolley): you go to lunch and have a delicious subway sandwich, but you were not very hungry so you only are half. On your travels from Subway to wherever, you pass by a homeless person begging for food. If you decide to ignore them and keep your food for yourself for later, and that person dies of starvation later that same day because of it, are you responsible for their death?

MystikIncarnate ,

The idea itself can be a rather interesting thing to explore as a thought experiment. Obviously the premise of the trolley problem is ridiculous, especially today since trains and especially trolleys are becoming much more rare for most people (with the exceptions for railroad tracks across roads, and passenger rail lines like subways and surface passenger services like we see in bullet trains). There are still railcars, like light rail transit in cities sometimes, but again, it's fairly rare overall for the general public as a whole.

The idea of trolleys is a fairly outdated one and most of the safety systems in modern allegories are so robust that dangers are generally minimized.

Nevertheless, the moral quandary of whether you are responsible for injury or death as a result of your action (or inaction) is a fascinating mental exercise and has resulted in more than one discussion of adjacent morality concerns with the friend I mentioned. It's fascinating to study overall, even in a casual context like we do.

I understand there's a lot more to the picture when dealing with it in a more formal study, and that this question is only one piece of the puzzle when performing such studies.

The part that frustrates me more than anything is that people stop at whether or not to pull the lever, and run with it in memes and alternative solutions, rather than grappling with the moralities that are the root of the original question as part of the study. This is supposed to invoke a deep consideration about your actions and the responsibilities you may or may not be accepting when getting involved in a situation, and how your specific world view and moral "code" (so to speak) factors in. All of the memes and reposts of it, to me, always feel like it cheapens the meaning behind the initial problem as stated. However I understand that highly involved analytical thinking that forces you to consider all of those deep underlying concepts, requires significant mental work; system 2 work, of you will. Where you have to engage with your analytical "slow" thinking mind to really grasp, and our default reaction, as a species is that such thinking is usually something that will put us in danger, since our fast thinking system 1, can easily just blurt out an answer without considering it any further, saving significant mental effort.

I understand why people reduce this dilemma to the mechanical components of throwing a switch, but I always feel like they're missing the entire point of the exercise.

MystikIncarnate ,

Well, that's certainly a creative opinion on it.

MystikIncarnate ,

Remember kids, adblock stops more than just the ads you see.

Also, fuck yeah I'd download a chicken tender.

MystikIncarnate ,

Ahem. I was referring to "Adblock" as a class of software, not referring to one specific program (the same way that websites refer to blocking ads as "Adblock").

You have made an incorrect assumption.

MystikIncarnate ,

People literally do this though. I work in IT and people have literally said, out loud, with people around that can hear what we're saying clearly, this exact thing.

I'm like.... I don't want your password. I never want your password. I barely know what my password is. I use a password manager.

IT should never need your password. Your boss and work shouldn't need it. I can log in as you without it most of the time. I don't, because I couldn't give any less of a fuck what the hell you're doing, but I can if I need to....

If your IT person knows what they're doing, most of the time for routine stuff, you shouldn't really see them working, things just get fixed.

Gah.

MystikIncarnate ,

That's the problem, right there.

Companies either don't allow for IT oversight of accounts or charge more for accounts that can be overseen. Companies don't want to pay the extra, if that's even an option on the platform, so some passwords end up being fairly common knowledge among the IT staff.

As for your computer login? No thanks. Microsoft has been built pretty much from the ground up to be administratable. I can get into your files, check what you're running, extract data, modify your settings, adjust just about anything I want if I know what I'm doing. All without you realizing that I've done anything.

Companies like Autodesk really don't have that kind of oversight available for accounts that they're willing to provide to an administrator that's managing your access. I should be able to list the license that you've been given, download whatever software that license is associated to, and purchase/apply new licensing, all from a central control panel for the company under my own administrative user account for their site, whether I'm assigned any software/licensing or not. They don't. It makes my job very complicated when that's the case.

In the event you brick your computer (or lose it, or destroy it, or something.... Whether intentional or not), I sometimes need your password to go download your software and install it, then apply your license to it, so that it's ready to go when you get your system back. You might lose any customizations, but you'll at least have the tools to do the job.

On the flip side, an example of good access is with Microsoft 365. You're having a problem finding an email, I can trace the message in the control panel, get it's unique ID, set your mailbox to provide myself full access to see it, then switch mailboxes to yours, while I'm still signed in as myself, find the message you accidentally moved into the draft messages folder and move it back to your inbox. Then remove my access and the message just appears in your inbox without you doing anything. I didn't need to talk to you, I didn't need your password... Nothing. No interaction, just fixed.

There's hundreds of examples of both good and bad administrative access, and it varies dramatically depending on the software vendor. In a perfect world I would have tools like what I get from exchange online for all the software and tools you use. Fact is, most companies are just too lazy to do it, instead of paying the developers to do things well, they'd rather give the money to their shareholders and let us IT folks suffer. They don't give a shit about us.

Microsoft stole my Chrome tabs, and it wants yours, too (www.theverge.com)

Last week, I turned on my PC, installed a Windows update, and rebooted to find Microsoft Edge automatically open with the Chrome tabs I was working on before the update. I don’t use Microsoft Edge regularly, and I have Google Chrome set as my default browser. Bleary-eyed at 9AM, it took me a moment to realize that Microsoft...

MystikIncarnate ,

If you intentionally load edge there's a prompt you can say no to that asks if you want it to continue to try to pull information from other browsers.

IDK if that will prevent this, but it's better than nothing.

IMO, this is underhanded at best. It's as if some middle manager was tasked with getting more people using edge and they thought to themselves that most of their oblivious parents/grand parents/brothers/sisters/cousins/friends/whatever don't really notice what browser they're using (and frequently they don't care), so let's just move them over to edge as seamlessly as possible and they just keep using it because they're too oblivious to even notice it's not chrome.

To be fair, they're right, but also that thought process is so morally bankrupt that it should be criminal. IMO, that a lot like replacing someone's Toyota Corolla with a similarly designed Ford with the same engine under the hood, overnight, and hoping they just keep using it.

I don't want to bash Ford here or anything, but they have very different ideas than Toyota on how to accomplish common tasks. They're "the same" but very very not the same.

A better automotive comparison that I'm aware of would be the Mazda 626 and the Ford probe. They used the same engine but were very different cars to use. They performed the same basic function, but it was a very different experience.

I had a 626 ES V6 back in the day. If I woke up one day to find that someone had swapped it for a similarly spec'd probe, I would be livid. I don't hate Ford, or the probe specifically, but I drive the 626. I know that car. I want to keep using that car. I don't care that the probe is "basically the same". Fuck off and give me back my 626.

I sadly spun a bearing on that 626 and when I heard the knock from the engine I knew it was time. I still miss that car.

MystikIncarnate , (edited )

I don't care what you believe or what direction you lean politically. I won't be friends with jerkoffs and assholes.

That being said, all my friends are left-leaning. 🤷‍♂️

MystikIncarnate ,

Ehhh. I understand their logic at this point. It makes sense to them.

That being said, the basis for that logic is rather insane, so take that as you will.

Look, I don't agree with them either, but if you understand them, then you can pre-empt their arguments. This doesn't seem to be something that politicians on "the left" can do.... So they put forward these very sensible and logical motions, and get torn to shreds by the opposition.

MystikIncarnate ,

Thanks! Auto-carrot kind of screwed me there. I fixed it.

Have a good day stranger.

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    MystikIncarnate ,

    Didn't realize Claire was trans.

    Makes absolutely no difference to me in how I feel about that character or the game in general. I suppose I just didn't pay enough attention during her missions.

    Most of this stuff I haven't played, but I might now.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    Aah. I'm not sure I really made it down her quest chain on my first playthrough. I'm planning to go through it again, and I'll pay more attention to her quest lines.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    To my understanding at least one religion promotes peace through unified belief (more or less) where the only way the religion is peaceful and loving is if you're a part of the religion. If you believe something different, you're a heretic and must die, for peace.

    IDK, killing people in the name of peace seems counterintuitive. There are times that you need to kill warmongers to promote peace, but killing them for peace because their sky friend is different than your sky friend seems like it's a bad philosophy.

    I've been aware of this for a while and I have yet to be told I'm wrong, or have anyone provide evidence that I don't understand what it says. I have, however had people verify the concept to me several times. I'm always on edge around people of that religion because if they're being told that people from other religions, and people who won't accept their sky friend as the one true sky friend, should be killed. I'm almost never sure if they're going to try to kill someone to progress their religion by removing heretics. I just can't relax while people from that religion are present because of this. Unless I know them pretty well and know that they reject that philosophy.

    Due to this, I'm kind of opposed to "religion is fine as long as it's believers are peaceful" and I'm more in favor of the concept that all religions should be disbanded as a relic of an era where we couldn't comprehend a lot of things that science has since explained away.

    I don't subscribe to any religion because they can't all be correct, if any are, and because there's no differentiating information that lends any scientific validity to any one religion, and in the absence of a "God" giving some kind of indicator as to which one is correct, I'm forced to assume that with the plethora of conflicting ideologies, that none of them are correct. I have to believe that if there is a God who wants you to believe and obey one specific set of beliefs, that (s)he would make some kind of effort to clarify which one is correct; this leads me to think that either God doesn't exist, or doesn't care. Given that, I just try not to be a "bad person" and live a moral life, and if I die and find out there is a God, and (s)he wants humanity to believe a certain set of gospel, then I'll have some not so nice words to say to them. Until then, as long as no further information is available about what "God" may actually want us to do, I'll continue down this path indefinitely, and trying to be nice to my fellow man whenever possible, not because they deserve it, but simply because I want to be treated nicely as a person and not promote the suffering that is already far too common in humanity.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    ! = Force

    Meaning quit without saving. If no changes have been made, you can :q and that will work. If you've fumbled and made any change to the file, you'll need the ! to get it to quit without saving.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    I can't sleep on my back, if I do, my SO would probably murder me. So I sleep on my side.

    I used to sleep on my stomach some years ago, but there were too many things I had to get just right before I could be comfortable enough to sleep, and frankly, my SO doesn't give me enough space to do that most nights.

    I did a sleep study recently and I'm waiting on their analysis, so hopefully I'll get better sleep soon. I'll be sure to ask the doctor about what position isn't going to create more problems.

    They warned you: Someone allegedly used a politician's cloned voice to interfere with an election | It will most assuredly not be the last time this happens (www.techspot.com)

    They warned you: Someone allegedly used a politician's cloned voice to interfere with an election | It will most assuredly not be the last time this happens::undefined

    MystikIncarnate ,

    Welcome to the age of AAA. Authorization, authentication and auditing. Where every action, whether over the phone, internet, or video chat needs to be verified externally with some kind of AAA system before that action can be verified and performed.

    In this case, calling them back on a known phone number to verify their intent, or pushing a code to them over text or a third party authorization system (like duo or something) is required before action is taken.

    IT and security folks have been preparing for this shit since before AI deepfakes were a thing. The general public, thus far, has not appreciated the extra security we have been requiring and at many levels, they've actively and even publically spoken out against it, or outright refused to participate.

    You are vulnerable.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    Good luck soldier!

    MystikIncarnate ,

    And, if it hasn't gone bad, the unit has a built in UPS!

    MystikIncarnate ,

    Suckers and anyone who wants/needs a warranty... Like businesses.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    The first (and last) surface product I bought was the pro 3, and I still find uses for it today. I'm planning on making it a media hub for my workout machine when I get that set up. I need to clear some space before I can put that together.

    I recently purchased an older gen (refurb) framework 13 and it sure is quick. A bit costly, but hopefully the last full laptop I'll need to buy.

    My desktop is an older (purchased used) Dell high end desktop system, which I dropped CPU/RAM/SSDs into and augmented with a Nvidia RTX card. Runs like a champ. Built in ~2016 or so... It was like 5 years old when I got my hands on it.

    I still have my ~15 year old Alienware... I think the M15x, which was a pre-Dell acquisition laptop. From college. Which still works but probably needs some coaxing to get up and running again. That was the last "new" system I purchased. I learned my lesson then to not buy new.

    I also have a collection of older servers and stuff and I run a homelab on dated enterprise equipment. It needs an upgrade as the main components are over 10 years old (except the drives), and it's showing its age. Looking at getting a refurb/used Dell FX2s chassis because it's more upgradeable than the alternatives and should save space and power.

    The only warning I will give is that low end consumer systems are going to be garbage, whether they're new or not. When buying a used prebuilt, I highly recommend finding a used business system.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    In general, if you are looking for a system to play games with, building your own is the best option, if you have the money, buying from an SI is the next best (they basically do the same as a custom build, it's just that they're doing it instead of you), after that, you can get a gaming focused, used, prebuilt if you like (like an Alienware or something similarly gaming focused) and do some upgrades (GPU, disk, more RAM, etc) as appropriate, or buy a prebuilt office PC and add a good GPU.

    The custom built after market is a nightmare of both good and bad deals; for someone who isn't completely versed on hardware, I would say you either need to bring a friend who is, or just avoid it entirely.

    With all used/refurbished systems, always set aside some money for a new primary drive or SSD, since the one that's included is probably fairly worn out, and it's not unusual to have it fail within a few years of getting the system.

    The only new PC's I would say you should consider, are from SI's. Where it's basically a custom/self built PC, but built by someone else. Only if you have the money and only if you can't do it yourself for any reason. If you have any technical know how at all and can take an hour to look up PC building guides, then spend a few hours on pcpartpicker or similar to spec the system.... Then just do it yourself. I won't fault anyone for using an SI, if they simply don't have the time to learn and do it themselves, or if they have a mobility issue... (among many other reasons). Buying a new prebuilt from a big name should probably be avoided where possible (names like Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft, HP, Asus, Acer, etc). Used are fine as long as you can get a deal and the system is part of the business line.... For gaming, not a lot of business PCs are good for gaming. Some can be upgraded to be decent at it (usually by adding a consumer graphics card).

    The difficult one is laptops. If you want a mobile system with graphics enough to play modern games at even modest settings, you're going to have a lot of difficulty finding something in the used/refurb segments... Mainly because GPUs have such a significant performance difference between each generation. Any modern generation GPU in a laptop will command a very high price, and it goes downhill fast, especially considering that mobile GPUs are fairly poor for performance, even compared to the same generation of the same series of desktop card.

    In those cases, I'd generally recommend a business system with a thunderbolt GPU dock, and just slap in a desktop GPU. It's not as mobile, but you're going to save a lot of time and heartache trying to find a good system that fits both your performance requirements and your wallet. An external GPU dock gives you the flexibility of using less expensive desktop cards with more power, and upgrading that card whenever it suits you.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    There always is.

    Good luck fellow traveler, and good hunting.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    IMO, one of the biggest risks of using a laptop as a server or some type of utility system is that you may not look at it regularly enough to see if the battery has a problem.

    Go look at your hardware folks. Just stare at it for a few minutes every few months or more frequently. See if anything looks strange or different about it.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    Technically aren't all people turned into compost when they die?

    MystikIncarnate ,

    Personal safety systems as a service.

    What's next? Air as a service? Don't pay and we'll turn off your oxygen?

    MystikIncarnate ,

    .... Or move somewhere with universal healthcare...

    MystikIncarnate ,

    IMO, for a safety system, anything sitting between the device's sensors (to say it's time to deploy the safety system, regardless of what it is), and the actual deployment of that safety system, is too many things sitting between those systems. There's should always be a direct and uninterrupted connection from the safety deployment sensors and the safety deployment system. Nothing in between so the delay in deployment is as close to zero as possible, with no complications that could, in any way, shape, or form, delay or otherwise interrupt the connection between those two systems.

    I really wonder what the mechanism for this license model is, I'm sure their engineers are intelligent and there's no obvious issues, but say, for example, the sensors that trigger the airbag and the airbags deployment trigger, has something like a relay in between. The relay is controlled by a management computing device that has verified the license and so it closes the relay (so everything works). Say, for example, during a crash, one of the first things that happens is that you're struck with debris, and in that debris is a very small, very powerful magnet. It happens to land, right where that relay sits, and because of where it impacts, it causes the relay to open... Disabling the airbag. You get wrecked because you were hit with a magnet.

    I'm sure that is not realistic and they're not using a magnetic based relay for something like this, but I think it demonstrates the point. Anything sitting between (detect) and (deploy) is a risk to life and limb. That includes, but is not limited to, lines of code, relays, disconnects, computers, electronic lockouts, switches, and buttons. Even significant lengths of wire, more than a few inches could be a problem due to induced current or the risk of them being pulled and/or broken. Ideally, the system for detecting that it should deploy and the deployment mechanisms trigger should be in the same, protected box or chassis on the vest, with nothing in-between to inhibit the signal. IMO, the only good way to do this kind of lockout is to control the arming/disarming of the system, where when the system arms (and therefore ready to be used and secure the life and limb of the user), it checks for the presence of a license, first locally (with a license that has been cached that informs when the subscription is set up expire, if that expiry is after now, then arm), and failing that (expiry is before now), check for a license via a link through the app to the web and/or service provider. Providing useful feedback to the user about the system and whether it has armed correctly and therefore ready to deploy.

    Have they done it this way? I don't know. I don't trust that they have. I'd rather pay more for a safety system and not have it require a subscription than pay monthly to use the system and potentially have it fail a fucking license check when I need it the most. Bluntly, I don't trust them to get this right. So fuck this, fuck them, and fuck anyone who supports this with their money. Any company putting a financial condition on the safety of your life isn't a company that should continue to operate.

    All of this is to say nothing of: what happens if the license servers fail? Can't check in for a new license at renewal time because the servers are fucked.... Well, good luck in that crash you're about to have. 🖕

    Fucking idiotic to trust a subscription model with your life.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    Not everyone is on Lemmy because they're anti-corporate, FOSS enthusiasts. For example, I came here because Reddit became a dumpster fire of unreasonable policies and very restrictive accessibility to the site. I simply will not install their app. Everything I've seen and heard about it is revolting. I'm certain I will hate it and I'm not going to bother trying at this point. Since a nontrivial amount of my time on Reddit was via an app, and that app no longer works, I'm just not going to use the service.

    I like FOSS, and I support FOSS whenever I can, but I'm hardly anti corporate. The big G has tried and failed at getting monopoly status for most things. Arguably their most successful services are search, mail and YouTube.

    Me, personally, I pay for Google's services and share those benefits with my family. We have extra Google drive storage, YouTube music/YouTube premium, and all the benefits that come with that (I don't recall all of them right now). One payment takes care of my entire household. So for less than $20/month we all enjoy all the benefits of those subscriptions. It comes out to less than $5/person/month.

    I don't blame anyone for not wanting those services. I certainly don't hold that against them. I completely understand the viewpoint. YouTube is very aggressive about everyone having premium. I see ads on YouTube when I'm using it on my work PC for music or to look something up on there; because my personal Google account is not and will never be associated to my work PC. I see what it's like "on the other side" so to speak. I can see how aggro their efforts are to get people to subscribe to premium. How invasive the ads have become, and how annoying it is to deal with all that. I get it.

    I also don't really hate Google for it. They want people to buy their premium service and they have taken steps to try to encourage that. I understand, but I don't necessarily agree with their choices.

    In my mind they're not the most egregious offender for being anti consumer in their methodology. Good examples of anti-consumer behaviour is Netflix trying to put an end to account sharing, or Reddit's API changes that basically kicked out a nontrivial number of its users for seemingly no good reason. There's plenty more anti consumer actions from other companies that I can point to that are far worse than what YouTube is doing.

    In my mind, Google has supported FOSS more than most big tech companies. Android, at it's core is FOSS, built on Linux. Chrome is based on chromium, which is FOSS as well. There's numerous other examples of Google supporting FOSS. Sure, they have their own versions of that integrate Google services into the products and provide extra features on top of what the FOSS versions do. But I can't think of any company that even comes close to the support of FOSS that Google has. In my mind they're simply not the worst offender. They're not innocent, but not the worst.

    That's my opinion though and it's just one of many possible opinions. Far be it for me to impose my opinion on anyone else. If you want to distrust Google and use FOSS things instead, that's fine. It's your choice. If you agree but still don't want to pay them for premium, that's okay too. Or if you want to drink the Kool-aid and pay for all of their services, that's also your choice.

    Have a great day.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    I don't hate you. I'm sure there are plenty more that feel similarly.

    I also feel like there is a nontrivial number of people who could not possibly care less; and as always, a silent majority of people who are simply lurking, who express their voice through voting only. (Special shout out to all the lurkers. You're awesome)

    It's all personal choice and the opinion expressed in the OP is just that, an opinion. Same as me. I can only express my opinion. If that upsets people, then I'm sorry for that. I'm not going to change my opinion to gratify someone else in their opinion or position. If anyone wishes to have a discussion about why they think my position is not properly informed or wrong in their eyes, then that's fine. I can engage in conversation about it, but at the end of the day, I make my choices, you make yours, and everyone else makes theirs. My decision to pay for YT premium doesn't really affect anyone but me, and Google.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    I would think it's for high-speed caching or something, like for disk cache or video editing. NVMe is used for direct access to the memory from the CPU, speeding it up even further. Most likely it's for an older system before SSDs were cheap. That also means it's likely SLC instead of the MLC or 3D architecture we're mainly using now. That would translate to much faster relative speed (compared to similar generations of similar storage), and very good write endurance.... Again, compared to other examples of the same kind of storage from a similar generation.

    There's a lot of good reasons to use small fast drives like this.

    Back in the day, I took two very fast HDDs and put them in RAID 0, and attached it to my system as my application storage. I was on windows 2000 or Windows XP at the time and I had to drop to safe mode to move the contents of the "program files" folder onto the array, and remount the RAID as the folder in question. Took my a few tries to get it right, but application listing times were very fast after that.

    In the early days of SSDs, I set up a small SSD for my OS and main Windows apps, and redirected my user files to a classic hard drive, since I don't generally need high-speed access to my music and videos and such. Windows has a faculty for this where you can redirect your user folder to another location in its entirety, so my entire local user folder was on that drive, while everything else was on the SSD. I also pointed my steam games to the HDD so I didn't have any issues with the size of game downloads.

    Now that SSDs are fairly inexpensive, I've rebuilt my system on all flash, so I don't need any weird disk configurations any longer.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    Nice.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    IMO, a big issue is that in many capitalist countries, fixing homelessness by simply providing homes for those without, even very modest, small homes, isn't going to solve the problems that made those people homeless to begin with.

    To my best understanding of all available data, nobody chooses to be homeless. It's not like they go out one day, buy a tent, pick a spot on the sidewalk and say "I'm going to live here now". It's usually a combination of bad choices, and circumstances that caused them to become homeless to begin with and a mix of abandonment, lack of caring, drug addiction, and mental issues, that keeps them there.

    Bringing homes to the homeless in capitalist countries just converts the homeless into people who live in subsidised slums, with all the issues that come with that.

    The homeless also need a variety of other civil services, like drug rehab/addition counselling, mental health services, psychiatric help, medical services, and social supports, like social groups, to help build community among the people who are struggling.

    All while the homeless are incapable of paying the bill. Given the conservative mindset, they're "at the bottom" for a reason. They didn't try hard enough, or work enough, or whatever, which landed them squarely at the absolute bottom of the capitalist ladder. To help them up, is asking everyone above them to stop, or lean down or go down to pick them up, sacrificing their hard earned "position" on that ladder so that people they don't know can have a chance.

    In the same way, it increases the competition for where you are and want to go on the capitalist ladder, making it more difficult for them to climb up to "where they belong".

    I don't subscribe to that thought process, but understanding it is important to know what we're up against if we want to impose changes that make a real difference to those that are homeless and struggling. I'm certainly in favor of it.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    Fuck the right wing fuckers, and fuck you!

    💕

    MystikIncarnate ,

    By default they use protocols specific to outlook/exchange/365. Sometimes referred to as activesync or outlook anywhere, which encapsulates their own protocol (I think it's MAPI?) Over an HTTPS tunnel.

    These technologies have had a lot of names.

    In the past few years 365 also requires TLS 1.2 at least, and oauth. Oauth is when a mini browser window pops up for your 2FA info, like ms authenticator or duo or whatever your organisation is using. The nice thing about oauth is that it's compatible with many identity providers, not just MS. The bad thing is that it's fairly unique that outlook supports it. I don't know of any other email clients that support it....

    Even if you can get passed the login, most mail clients don't support MAPI over HTTPS the way that outlook does. There are some android/iPhone apps that support it, but that's not universal either; the naming can fluctuate between the options I've mentioned earlier.

    The only good way to get this done (speaking as someone who has had to help someone get it working), the organizational email admin needs to enable either pop or (preferably) IMAP, and assign an application password to it. This password is long and usually a string of random characters. It gets saved to your email client software and it is used nowhere else. It's been a long time since I've done this and I'm not sure it's still supported like this.

    I hope that gives you more information as to the challenge ahead of you.

    Good luck.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    Good to know.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    Easy, since it's open source, anyone could, if they're inclined, edit the code to do something just differently enough to cause a problem, or unlock features they're not supposed to have access to, or spoof something that they shouldn't be able to spoof.

    This was a big argument against Windows getting a full Unix style socket in Windows 10, I believe. MS did it anyway and basically nothing changed. The blunt realty is that if an attacker is so inclined, they will find a way. Whether anyone wants them to or not. In the case of Unix style sockets, simply pushing the attack onto a Linux VM running on the windows system is usually enough, at most, moving the attack to a Linux or Unix system is also pretty easy but requires additional hardware (even a raspberry Pi) to complete.

    As simply as I can, there's enough software defined radios out there that you can hack to accurately spoof a genuine (closed source) device with enough effort, that this argument dies on the table to anyone with the technical knowledge to know what it actually means. It's the same argument as outlawing guns. If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns; which is also total horseshit in it's own right, but makes a point. They're making it hard for people (the non-malicious public) to get access to services in the way they want on the basis that it would "make it easier" for hackers to do the illegal. While it may be true that hackers will be able to do some things easier, by not requiring specialized hardware to do whatever malicious thing they want, they're effectively punishing thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who are not malicious and want open source by prohibiting it, just to make the small number of hackers work harder to do things.

    Fact is, if they allow it, they need to invest time and effort into implementing safeguards to ensure that any abuse is caught and stopped. They don't want to put in that effort. The idiotic thing is that they need to put in those safeguards anyways because other tools exist that can still attack in the same manner. So they've saved themselves nothing in the prohibition, made the job of malicious hackers "harder", and punished a large percentage of their client base for no good reason.

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