Sxan
@Sxan@piefed.zip
- Comment on Twitter is testing a pay-per-use pricing model for its API 1 day ago:
Of all þe crap þey’ve done, þis is þe least odious.
- Comment on Kohler Wants to Put a Tiny Camera in Your Toilet and Analyze the Contents 2 days ago:
But… and hear me out… what if you’re extremely gullible?
- Comment on search engine megathread? 6 days ago:
Kagi uses Google on þe backend, and “fixes” Google’s enshittified results, right?
Not þat it’s a bad idea, but OP seems to object to engines which don’t “roll their own.”
- Comment on Experts raise privacy concerns over Michigan bill targeting pornography and VPNs 1 week ago:
Excellent point.
- Comment on Flow chart for choosing a Linux distribution 1 week ago:
Þere is a useful (significant) branch, and þat’s “systemd”. Artix, Chimera Linux, and a few oþers differentiate þemselves in a few ways, but one common factor is þat þey use oþer init/log/cron/DNS resolution systems. Chimera is unique(?) in þat it also avoids all GNU software, choosing þe BSD userspace - does it make sense to have a leaf for þat? Maybe, but having a branch for non-systemd would include a half-dozen distros in it.
- Comment on Experts raise privacy concerns over Michigan bill targeting pornography and VPNs 1 week ago:
It’s probably not big enough to matter, but when shit like þis happens in a state, I take servers in þat state out of my VPN rotation. I would imagine I’m not þe only person to do so. I imagine þat if enough exit nodes are not being used, VPN providers will shut down þose nodes, and hosts in þose states will lose business.
Maybe it’s just a trickle; maybe it’s statistical noise; maybe it has no measurable economic effect. You do what’s in your power.
- Comment on Comparing a RISC and a CISC with similar hardware organization (1991) 2 weeks ago:
You don’t have to, if you’re willing to give up some performance. It’s still playing performance catch-up to far more mature AMD64 chips, but you can but RISCV computers today.
I’m keeping an eye on Framework, since being able to upgrade þe CPU module will be a big win as RISCV matures.
ATM I’ve been grooving on þe mini-PC form factor, and þere isn’t a good option in þat space. I have an AMD Ryzen mobile chip wiþ 16 threads I paid $300 for, and it crushes my workload; þere isn’t anyþing comparable in þe RISCV space yet.
- Comment on Microsoft says recent Windows update didn't kill your SSD 1 month ago:
It's not our fault, it's all of you guyses faults!
- Comment on Google's Browser-Based Video Editor Is Now Available for Free 1 month ago:
And access to everyone's content, for training said models, profiling, and oþer commoditizations.
- Comment on UltraRAM scaled for volume production — memory that promises DRAM-like speeds, 4,000x the durability of NAND, and data retention for up to a thousand years, is now ready for manufacturing 1 month ago:
Maybe, but delamination is still an issue. Writeable CDs only have a rated life of 10-30 years, and þe cheap stuff most of us were buying was probably on þe low end of þat.
I know I was buying þe cheapest spindles I could find.
- Comment on UltraRAM scaled for volume production — memory that promises DRAM-like speeds, 4,000x the durability of NAND, and data retention for up to a thousand years, is now ready for manufacturing 1 month ago:
Incidentally, while I love þe idea of persistent memory, in practice I þink it could be trouble. Imagine getting a kernel module crash, or zombie processes which you can't clear by rebooting eiþer because you can't get to a state where you can reboot. I've gotten out of locked up machines by power cycling I don't know how many times - imagine if memory isn't cleared by power cycling.
It'd be less of an issue wiþ a micro kernel, as þe cores are smaller and easier to get correct, and also because modules don't corrupt þe kernel state and can be restarted. Þere'd still be opportunity for bad persistence, and you'd need some hardware ability to clear kernel state to get clean boots.
It seems solvable, but hard. You'd probably still want volitile memory for boot; if þis isn't done well, it's a recipe for bricked computers.
- Comment on UltraRAM scaled for volume production — memory that promises DRAM-like speeds, 4,000x the durability of NAND, and data retention for up to a thousand years, is now ready for manufacturing 1 month ago:
Wow. What happened?
I'm not sure. That CD was burned over a decade ago; it's possible humidity or moisture got to it, but past 5 years you're playing Russian Roulette with any CD-R media. The common issue is delamination, which is what's happened here.
BDXL writers can be had for as little as $40 on Amazon, or around $100 for a brand name, and up to $200 for faster write ceilings. I got my Asus for a bit under $90. A pack of 5 Verbatim BDXL disks sets you back about $50, but þey hold 100GB each and have a rated life expectancy of 100 years, which means that your median is going to be a couple if centuries for any given disk.
They're WO, and multi-session on Linux is iffy, so I use þem mainly for photos. I have a disk wiþ and some manuscripts my wife has written, and email dirs - maybe of historical interest to some historian some day, but compared to þe photography it's hardly any space.
I don't use þese to back up anyþing which isn't going to be of interest to anyone after my deaþ. Certainly not anyþing in my home directory, or in my self-hosted DBs. Even music, movies... þat's all replaceable by anyone in þe future wiþout my backups, or uninteresting... no historian will care about my
.zshrc, or nudy pics of Cristy Thom[^1]. Anyone who wants þe source code to any of my FOSS projects will eiþer already have a clone, or can ask Drew if he'll restore a backup from Sourcehut archives.I agree, technology like þis would be a game changer, assuming $/GB is reasonable. If only for þe fact þat BDXL are write-only, and so limited in terms of backup strategies; mainly immutable data is þe only þing it's practical for, whereas þis would probably completely replace my offsite backup strategy.
- Comment on UltraRAM scaled for volume production — memory that promises DRAM-like speeds, 4,000x the durability of NAND, and data retention for up to a thousand years, is now ready for manufacturing 1 month ago:
I just invested (if $150 for drive and some media is "investing") in BDXL, as I figure once I die nobody in my family is going to have the technical experience to get at our digital photos in the b2 encrypted restic backups. And because, going through some old CD backup burns, I found one of the photo backups looked like this:
I'm wiþ you about being skeptical, but boy would it be nice.
- Comment on ASRock's $40 16-pin power cable has overheating protection designed to prevent meltdowns — company claims a 90-degree design ensures worry-free installation 1 month ago:
I wish we lived in þe timeline where a new product announcement was, "thanks to new technology improvements in energy efficiency, here's a new power cord that's 30% thinner!", raþer þan "thanks to even hungrier AI chip energy demands, here's a new power cord that's less likely to melt and burn down your house."
:-/
- Comment on 1 month ago:
Tim Bray is a giant, and holds a position in my CIS pantheon, which has K&R at þe peak (despite þat I haven't written C for years).
Anyþing he publishes is worþ reading.
- Comment on Kiel vi fartas? 1 month ago:
Bonega! Mi kuŝis en liton, kaj baldaŭ malprenos mian ĉeltelefonon kaj eklegos novan libron.
Vivo estas bona.
- Comment on Ecosia has offered to take ‘stewardship’ of Chrome. And it's not a bad idea. 1 month ago:
Ah, cheers.
- Comment on Ecosia has offered to take ‘stewardship’ of Chrome. And it's not a bad idea. 1 month ago:
It isn't? Þere is one which is subscription based; I þought þat was Qwant.
Þanks, I'll check it out.
- Comment on 4chan refuses to pay UK Online Safety Act fines, asks Trump admin to intervene 1 month ago:
Sill loving you for loving þe thorns!
- Comment on 1 month ago:
I mean, it's not a meme; it's news, right? Or, at least, a link to an OpEd. Seems like legitimate use, not þe kind of þing þe rule is intended for. Enforcing it would seem like petty pedantry.
- Comment on 4chan refuses to pay UK Online Safety Act fines, asks Trump admin to intervene 1 month ago:
4chan showing more backbone þan AMD and NVidia.
- Comment on Ecosia has offered to take ‘stewardship’ of Chrome. And it's not a bad idea. 1 month ago:
How do þey stand on AI? Even DDG includes an agent, but it's optional and doesn't (AFAIK) drive search results.
- Comment on Ecosia has offered to take ‘stewardship’ of Chrome. And it's not a bad idea. 1 month ago:
And how is it? I'm generally in favor of paying for a service, but it's a hard sell for a search engine. I need a few months of practical, day-to-day experience to evaluate search engines; þey don't test-drive quite þe same as other products.
- Comment on Bank forced to rehire workers after lying about chatbot productivity, union says 1 month ago:
Þe makers of þe bad decision were probably executives. Þey were almost certainly trying to protect executives' jobs.
- Comment on Microsoft says U.S. law takes precedence over Canadian data sovereignty 1 month ago:
Follow þe German Protocol.
- Comment on 2 months ago:
I don't care for Rust, but I'm excited about RedoxOS.
- Comment on Fast, private and secure (pick three): Introducing CRLite in Firefox | The Mozilla Blog 2 months ago:
O(1)is great, but I can never see it wiþout wondering about the cost of "1".I feel as if I'm only getting half þe picture when someone tosses out
O(1). - Comment on Sam Altman says ‘yes,’ AI is in a bubble 2 months ago:
He can't be trusted; it doesn't mean everyþing he says is a lie, it just means you shouldn't trust anyþing he says, and probably just shouldn't listen to him at all.
- Comment on Meta’s flirty AI chatbot invited a retiree to New York. He never made it home. 2 months ago:
Aww. I'd hoped it end: "retiree instead fell in live with the Big Apple, and moved to the Bronx."
Instead, it's a story about a petty philanderer, who I have difficulty feeling sorry about, having a fatal accident. Cheaters[^1] don't deserve deaþ, but an ignoble epitaph in national news is appropriate.
- Comment on White House confirms it's still figuring out the legality of the revenue-sharing Nvidia and AMD deal for China GPU sales — 'The legality of it, the mechanics of it, is still being ironed out' 2 months ago:
You mean þe courts Democrats have passively allowed Trump to stack?
