Semi-Hemi-Demigod

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Other people can see what you’re doing, and you can see them just by turning your head.

If newspapers glued themselves to your face you might have a point.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Which is a lot more complicated than turning your head. And it covers your entire field of vision. And people still can’t see what you’re doing.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

God VR fanboys are annoying. “There is absolutely nothing isolating about putting on goggles that completely blind you to the world.”

They had to put creepy eyes on the outside and invent super low latency video pass through for fun I guess.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

I wouldn't know, I'm not old enough to have ever read a newspaper. I do know that compared to every other display I've used, putting goggles over my face is much more isolating.

But that pales to the other isolating problem, which is that there's no way to easily watch something with someone. With my phone we just... both look at the phone. With VR we need to get them another VR headset, and an account, then install an app and then, finally, I can show my mom a three second cat video.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

I want a small, fun roadster. Or a hot hatch. Or a sport wagon. And I didn't see one listed.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Tweak the motors to simulate vtech!

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

What if I steal Fort Knox on my test drive? Will that work?

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Hell yeah. Or an MR2. Or an S2000.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Man, if some Chinese company rebooted MG I'd be so happy

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

We're already halfway there! I'm gonna order my girlfriend a long silk scarf now so we're ready

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Is Swan Lake on TV?

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

The Conquest of Ice Cream

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

I've got my own whoogle instance and have never been rate-limited

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

It's fairly easy to block Roku ads with a Pihole. I've got all mine in a special group and all I see is a nice, empty space where the ad should be.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Yep, which makes that empty void where an ad should be feel even better

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

First of all, is that all correct or have I misunderstood something?

There's a couple things you've got a bit wrong:

I think I’m correct in saying that mysubdomain.mydomain.com is actually an IP address and a public port, so something like 123.456.7.8:443, then Cloudflare - which is the reverse proxy - gets involved (somehow? how?) to say “ah, 123.456.7.8:443, you obviously want to go to funkless.raspberry.pi:NGINX (or rather something like 987.654.3.2:443)” and then NGINX - which is the proxy-proxy, not a reverse-proxy - goes (somehow? how?) “ah, 987.654.3.2:443, you obviously want to go to 987.654.3.2:8096 which is jellyfin”)

I'm not sure what Cloudflare product you're using, but I use it as a DNS server for my domain. If you're doing the same thing - you'll have configured A records and such if so - then what's happening is this:

1. You request subdomain.mydomain.com. Your device needs the IP to connect to, so it asks Cloudflare for the IP address. Think of this like calling information to find a phone number.
2. Then your device initiates a request to the IP address it gets back. This is where TLS gets used, and encrypts your connection to that IP address. It also includes the domain requested in a header for the request.
3. Nginx (which is a reverse proxy, meaning it handles incoming rather than outgoing connections) receives the connection and looks at the domain header. Then it looks in its configuration for the IP and port it should connect to, and forwards the request

However, if you're using some other thing at Cloudflare to make a VPN this might be entirely wrong.

How does mysubdomain.mydomain.com know it’s me and not some random or bot?

Unless you've implemented some kind of filtering or authentication in Nginx, it doesn't. I got around this by configuring HAProxy - which is like Nginx - to only allow requests from my local network except for specific domains that I want to be public.

Is this step “port forwarding” or “opening ports” or “exposing ports” or either or both? (I don’t understand these terms)

Exposing or opening ports is something you do with a firewall. The purpose of Nginx is to make it so you only have to open 1-2 ports, and Nginx will handle redirecting traffic based on its configuration.

If my browser when accessing mysubdomain.mydomain.com is always going to port 80/443, does it need to be told it’s going to talk to cloudflare - if so how? - and does cloudflare need to be told it’s going to talk to NGINX on my local machine - if so how?

If you're using Cloudflare like I described above, you will only need to tell Cloudflare the public IP address of your Nginx server. Generally you do this by telling your domain registrar (where you buy domain.com) to use Cloudflare's "nameservers" and then configure Cloudflare to point to your public IP address.

How do I tell NGINX to switch from local:443 to local:8096 (assuming I’ve understood this correctly)

You edit the Nginx config to add something like this:

server {
    server_name subdomain1.example.com;
    location / {
        proxy_pass       http://hostname1:port1;
    }
 }

Then, when Nginx receives a connection request for subdomain1.example.com for any location, it will proxy it to the configured hostname (or IP address) and port.

Is there a difference between an SSL cert and a public and private key - are they three things, two things or one thing?

There are two parts to an SSL cert: A public key and a private key. How SSL works is... complicated, but suffice to say the public key is shared with the connection, and the private key is hidden on the server. You can encrypt data with either one, and only the matching key can decrypt it. This allows both sides to trust the connection and for nobody else to see the data.

Doesn’t a VPN add an extra step of fuckery to this and how do I tell the VPN to allow all this traffic switching without blocking it and without showing the world what I’m doing?

The Internet is like an ogre: It has layers. HTTP and DNS are on one layer, VPNs are a different layer. HTTP and DNS traffic can travel over the Internet, or your local network or over the VPN.

If you're just setting up a local Jellyfin server, you technically don't need Cloudflare. Your home router will probably let you hard-code a DNS entry for a local IP address, which will keep all of that traffic on your local network. And if you do that right you won't even need SSL.

Gluetun just looks like a text document to me (compose.yml) - how do I know it’s actually protecting me?

I'm not familiar with how Gluetun works, but it's not just compose.yml. When you start it with docker-compose run it will download and extract the code to run Gluetun, and configure networking and other things.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Also from that site: “Configure your domain name details to point to your home, either with a static ip or a service like DuckDNS or Amazon Route53” - I assume this is what Cloudflare is for instead of Duck or Amazon? I also assume it means "tell Cloudflare to take traffic on port 80 and 443 and send it to NGINX’s 80 and 443 as per the previous bullet) - but how?

Yes, this is configuring Cloudflare's DNS to point to your home IP address. You shouldn't need to tell it which port, because that's on a different layer.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Pausing Gluetun might do that, or it might route the Torrent traffic over the regular network, in which case you might see a blip in the download rate before it goes up again.

Personally I prefere this docker-ized torrent client, since it's got the VPN built right in, and I don't need a VPN to do anything other than torrents.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Did someone say shrink faces

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Well now I’m definitely never buying a Tesla.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Flying on Mars is a lot harder than flying on Earth. If you don't believe me, listen to this developer of the flight sim X-Plane. The fact that they were able to get it to work at all is astounding.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Next flight is scheduled for Titan, which is a lot easier. The gravity is lower, but there's a lot more atmosphere, which means our helicopter can be nuclear powered!

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Atmospheric pressure changes based on altitude, so there's probably some point where Jupiter's atmosphere that's a similar pressure and temperature to earth.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Thanks! I did a quick search and couldn’t find it but I know that with this crowd I’ll get an answer!

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Maybe he likes to make things suffer and wanted to build Marvin

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Yeah, I think it’s pretty weird to say “no working from home except for lay-off day.”

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

I wonder how much of that is overhead from maintaining legacy systems. It's one thing to use modern tools to build out big distributed applications. It's another to take something built in the 90s by someone who left the company a decade ago and scale that up to a hundred million users.

I bet they've got rooms full of old machines that used to run critical systems, and that they keep around because they're the only documentation on how it works.

(At least it was that way when I worked at MapQuest back in the day.)

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Nah, throw the board members in prison. If the punishment for crime is a fine then it's legal for rich people/corps. Put 'em in solitary and feed them nutraloaf for one day for each person's data they allowed to be leaked.

If they get all the money because they're ultimately responsible, we should make them ultimately responsible.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

This is why VR will not be a thing yet again. Last time the problem was displays weren't compact enough and the computers weren't powerful enough. Now the problem is that batteries are too heavy and it's basically a smartphone strapped to your face.

Get back to me when you have something like a chunky pair of glasses that can overlay a 3D world onto the real one, or even replace it entirely, and last for hours and hours and hours.

Which will be never, because that much energy density would probably explode.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Because it's not useful to me if I can't wear it for a long time, both ergonomically and electrically. What I really, really want from VR is an infinite desktop, but not if I need to strap a pound of weight to my face and be plugged in constantly. I can buy a lot of monitor square footage for $3,500 and I don't need to wear them on my face.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Battery is weight. Putting that weight off the head and into a back pocket is imho a very acceptable solution to the weight problem.

The screen is also a huge part of the weight issue, because it is literally a smartphone strapped to your head, plus some extra bits so your eyes can focus. It's heavy, and it's located on the front of your head. There's big foam bits touching your face all over. I could definitely not wear this for as long as I'm usually working at my desktop.

Yes, putting the battery somewhere else is a good solution, one I've used with my Quest a bunch of times. But if I need to be plugged into a wall to do long stints with a smartphone strapped to my face, what's the advantage of that over a normal screen?

Then again, I'm a boring old man who just wants more space for text editors and terminal windows. Maybe you kids have found something fun to do with VR.

And for the record, VR is already “a thing”. Has been for years now. It’s mainstream, it’s on multiple platforms, and even has standalone offerings.

VR is a "thing," yes. It is a thing gathering dust on my shelf. It's fun like Wii Sports is fun, but without the audience. It's a neat experience but the only truly useful thing I've found to do with it is to walk around the streets of a city I'm going to visit so I can orient myself. But that's hardly something I'd spend $3,500 to do.

Hopefully Apple will find a "killer app" for VR. If I could use this thing to quickly and easily sketch out a remodeling project, I'd love it. But I haven't found anything on my Quest that can do that, but Apple knows a thing or two about killer apps. Or they did, anyway.

“Chunky pair of glasses” already exists as a VR device, but they are highly personalized and prohibitively expensive.

All the ones I've seen look like really ridiculously oversized ski goggles. Please link to something like this and I may change my mind.

As for “it’s basically a smartphone strapped to your face” I’m not sure how you’d break away from that?

Have a super miniature, high-intensity display somewhere near the front of the glasses and use mirrors to reflect it into the user's eye. It would involve incredibly complex eye tracking algorithms to prevent nausea, and that's going to cost in computing power and energy.

Or use lasers projected onto the lenses at some kind of polarization, which might do a better job of overlaying on bright backgrounds, but suffer the same eye tracking limitation.

Don't get me wrong, I really want VR. But I want to be in VR for hours at a time, not minutes. And that's about as long as I can stand to have a cell phone strapped to my face.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

And even without the battery pack it weighs almost a pound and a half. That's like a 20oz bottle of water strapped to my face. No way I can use that for hours.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

It's a symptom of a larger problem, which is that electronics are no where miniature enough to make VR widespread. It's like trying to make a desktop computer out of vacuum tubes.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

i’d say that’s pretty niche actually… most people aren’t using technology for hours at a time

People spend 4.5 hours a day on average on their phone. People work in front of screens for eight or more hours a day. People - not naming names - have upwards of 1500 hours of play time in Factorio.

You're just wrong here.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

If VR had some kind of application beyond games the form factor would be less of a problem. But if cars were cumbersome and expensive and only drove to casinos they wouldn't be useful either.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

And I find it odd that you can’t stand VR for more than minutes at a time.

I sweat a lot more than most people and the face mask gets uncomfortably slippery. Plus I don't like being disconnected from the rest of the world for that long.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

No, more of a “VR would be great but the tech isn’t ready for prime time.”

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

It's like he's Ted Cruz 2.0

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

To put it another way: HP printers are so poorly designed that ink cartridges are vectors for viruses

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

two years laytair

"HP has issued a recall on its print cartridges after a security issue allowed hackers to gain access to their source code."

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

xeets pronounced as "shits"

I would pronounce that "sheeeeeiittts"

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

We're all victims of Roman jurisprudence

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

Can I get the lobotomy without the ear piercing? It would be nice to not worry anymore but I don't want extra holes in my head

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

Is she making an anarchy burger, hold the government?

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

It's true, we're so lame

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

As a millennial, the vast majority of zoomers I've interacted with have been cool.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago

if we’re talking the worst of the worst, like the last airbender m*vie, i personally dont regret watching it cuz it really put the good movies into perspective.

This is one reason I love MST3K. It's like a film school where you learn all the wrong things to do, so when you see them done right you appreciate it more.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

When you're dealing with a bunch of systems that communicate with each other, especially database clusters, having the time synchronized is essential. Without his work the sort of massive clusters of systems we use - deliberately or second-hand - would not be possible. He's as much a contributor to the modern web as Tim Berners-Lee.

RIP Time Lord