ragebutt @ ragebutt @lemmy.dbzer0.com

Posts

0

Comments

468

Joined

6 mo. ago

But what’s the net benefit if they overall lose a ton of market share? Sales of, absolute best scenario, 10 million dollars? That’s a lot of money but it’s also really unlikely they’d get that level of sales and is it worth having a shareholders meeting in 1 year where they have to address questions about market share continuing to slide noticeably? Apparently I guess

It seems like it would mainly be a good deal for oem pc manufacturers. If I was lenovo or whoever I’d be jazzed about it, let microsoft take all the negativity and sell more thinkpads

This makes sense, the tinfoil hat shit is one thing but it’s much easier to just explain it as tpm and secure boot will enable more data collection, which is probably a stronger revenue stream than keeping windows on 75% of pcs vs 72%

Of course some nerd will probably figure out ways to defeat it all eventually but microsoft is probably (correctly) banking on your grandma not knowing how to install extensions and whatever 3rd party shit that will require

The sad thing is at one point I would have said that’s a foolish way thing to bank on and eventually those computer illiterate folk will die out but it appears that that younger gen z and below have many people that are slightly more advanced than boomers in tech knowledge. They know how to use their phones but have no clue how to do anything interesting with them and have barely any idea how to use a pc.

I worked in a school for a bit a few years ago and the amount of kids that didn’t know about something as basic as Adblock was shocking, let alone how to navigate the file system. Modern phones as a primary computing device really fucked that generation

It’s crazy that microsoft, a company that once had 90+ market share of the OS market and is now down in the low 70% range and falling, would rather force this shit and potentially lose people to ipads than simply just make an upgrade path for older hardware (that isn’t even that old)

What could possibly motivate this? They have to see the folly in such a decision with all their market research and shit. Do they really have the hubris to think that people will just go out and buy new hardware en masse because they said to so they could check emails, go on social media, and do streaming shit? Tinfoil hat time: were they influenced by a three letter agency or something to include the need for secure boot and tpm? Is there an exploit or backdoor in these?

Some of my stuff is consumer level (the netgear modem, which tbf I’m genuinely surprised has lasted this long). some is in that weird “prosumer” space like the synology stuff; they are a bit pricier but have, in my experience, more resilient hardware. They also had much better support but in recent years they’ve kind of scaled back on this, bummer

My best advice is to not overlook the potential of e waste. The best and most resilient networking gear I have also happened to be the cheapest. The brocade switch? $45, 48 gigabit ports and 8 10 gigabit sfp+ ports. The hp POE switch? 24 gigabit poe ports and 2 port 10g sfp+. The server for pfsense was $50. These were good deals from local sellers, ebay prices are higher, sometimes quite a lot (especially with shipping). They also use much more power than just a consumer router which is worth mentioning. I’m transitioning to solar so I’m less concerned about it

My network stack has been running for many years now.

netgear cm1000 cable modem - since 2018 pfsense running on an old 1u supermicro server as router - since 2020 brocade icx switch - since 2016 hp procurve poe switch - since 2022 synology rt2600ac - since 2018, was router 2018-2020 and is AP since pfsense took over routing synology mr2200ac - secondary AP since 2020 cyberpower 1500va ups to run them - mentioning because power conditioning is maybe a factor in longevity Plus zwave and HA shit

Some of the stuff is way older too. The switches were bought from computer recyclers for real cheap and had definitely been in service for some time. The brocade is probably 10-15 years old at this point and the hp is probably 8 or so years old. The server running pfsense is from like 2009, maybe older.

house is running gigabit internet, 10g intranet, poe cameras, iot devices, etc with no issues. Probably over 100 devices on the network.

This is an argument I regularly make

I have several shows in objectively better quality than streaming. We can argue about bitrate (mine definitely has more) but putting that aside, my anime has better subtitles almost always, many of my movies combine physical releases for best quality (eg video from release a with audio from release b)

But more so than anything my library doesn’t have to deal with stupid licensing and reactionary bullshit. My library has Daria but with the original music spliced back in, not the bullshit version you get on streaming now that has all the licensed music stripped out. My library has beavis and butthead with the original music videos and all the parts they had censored. My library has the dungeons and dragons episode of community. Etc.

Mine is similar to this except it’s a rack mount case with bays that holds 15 drives (using 14 right now, 252tb -36tb for parity). All of my drives are 18tb and were bought refurbished in the 160-200 range depending on where prices were at.

To anyone looking to do this I strongly suggest reading about raidz expansion. You do not need to just go out and buy 15 drives, you can do what I did and get 2-3 drives many years ago then just keep popping in another every time it gets full and/or one dies

I’m at 80% utilization. Next project: disk shelf to add more drives

My home servers time to shine

Everyone shitting on me for having a nas with ~ 200tb of storage and tape backups would finally have to eat shit because I’d have the only streaming service in town

I got enough anime to make crunchy roll blush, I have something like 3,000 series of manga and like 8,000 books in my komga server, I got non weeb shit. I archive tons of webpages and youtube channels, terabytes of music, etc.

In a situation like this I could even throw a lemmy instance on it or something. I don’t do that now but I could

Also all my anime has dubs stripped out to save space and the majority of my manga is in Japanese. 英語しか話せない奴らはクソくらえ

So I eschew your 1tb limitation. I have seen this scenario coming. I planned for it. I’m ready for it. There are others like me on lemmy in the home server page, plus if you look on the truenas, proxmox, unraid, etc forums you’ll find even more

No need to be sorry, I did not take it that way, we are best friends forever. More to clarify that there are a ton of old server parts out there for dirt cheap if you’re okay with saving e waste from the trash heap.

You are absolutely right that homelabs are totally fine on consumer grade hardware but check server parts too, you might be surprised at the deals you find, especially locally. My build was a 10th gen intel build and cpu/mobo/32gb ecc ram/heatsink missing fan was $125. That was several years ago though and now we got tarrrrriiifffsss

The only reason I even have “server” parts is because they were dirt cheap at the recycling center. Before I used this my rig was an old pc from a doctors office I worked at they were going to throw away from like 2009. It was awful spec wise but it did the job. My current build is overkill but I wanted to play with vms and local LLM stuff and the hardware was cheap, so why not?

low power is definitely something to consider though. That said there are some people that have made impressive builds out there. There are some low power builds on the unraid forums that use even less power than one of these things. It’s a bit more up front because it relies on some niche hardware but the power usage is so low it’s maybe worthwhile if you use it for years

I just fail to see the benefit of these. Ease of use for sure but assembling a pc is really not difficult and installing an OS is not hard either. And an os like unraid or truenas is pretty simple to use, they hold your hand a lot. Like I get that running Debian is something not everyone wants to do but then it’s like, just don’t do that then?

Frankly if you’re capable enough to configure the dockers you’d run on one of these, like plex or Jellyfin, I would think you could handle those things??

I remember arguing with some nerd that this overpriced shit was not fucking worth it and my build based on old server parts I got from a local computer recycler was infinitely superior in every way

I wish I saved that post so I could reply with this link. I feel so validated. Never trust companies. It’s why I say you should never fuck with plex, even if it is a bit easier to deploy than Jellyfin.

Like I said my industry (outpatient healthcare) is and has largely transitioned to 1099 workers. Independent contractors aren’t covered under workers comp laws. This also applies to many other 1099 positions which is far more common under the gig economy.

This extremely inequitable treatment is why some companies like doordash have volunteered to provide a minor amount coverage:

Medical Expenses: Up to $1,000,000 with no deductible or co-pay. Disability Payments: 50% of average weekly wage, up to a maximum of $500 per week, minus other income.

They likely do this to avoid the potential of scrutiny and regulation that would increase the likelihood that the government mandates they provide more substantial workers comp or other benefits

Contracting is the loophole here and it’s why I guarantee more and more industries will transition to 1099 positions over the next decade barring regulation. It’s the easiest and fastest way to erode the bare minimum worker protections that the USA has

Chinese cctv systems with AI are dangerous because they let the government watch their citizens for control and repression

Not like domestic drones, traffic cameras used for surveillance, DHS CCTV networks, the sea of cameras that every citizen owns that can be subpoenaed, and the WAMI program with automation software for tracking that has been deployed since 2013. Those are tools of freedom to keep Americans safe

“The workweek was known colloquially as 996, which was shorthand for a week that went 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. Not only did these hours exceed standard maximums, but employees also were rarely compensated for the overtime work. As TechCrunch notes: “Though technically mandating overtime pay for anything surpassing a standard five-day/40-hour work week, employers are known to avail themselves of a plethora of formal and informal methods for evading their legal obligations.” In August 2021, the Supreme Court and Ministry of Human Resources issued guidance that imposed limitations on this common work practice. Now, the legal workweek in China is supposed to be 40 hours a week and eight hours a day, with a cap of 44 hours in a week. According to China labor laws, employers may extend employees’ work hours by an hour per day, if agreed upon by the applicable trade union. That said, the China labor law also states that the maximum number of extra hours can’t exceed three hours per day or 36 hours in a month. And employees must be given at least one rest day for every week of work.

That said, it’s still too early to see whether the changes to the law will be upheld and enforced by Chinese authorities.

Employees are expected to receive salaries at least once a month. And that salary cannot be less than the minimum wage set by one of the 22 provincial governments. These wages are updated every few years and are adjusted to account for the region’s cost of living, level of development and local conditions.

In addition to salaries, employers are expected to provide social contributions to: Employee pension Medical expenses Housing fund Unemployment Maternity benefits Work-related accidents or injuries”

https://www.safeguardglobal.com/resources/blog/china-labor-laws/

And that’s coming from a western based company; western sources are generally skeptical of China and repeat dumb propaganda like what you’ve said. Why do you think companies are moving manufacturing of ultra cheap goods like clothing to Bangladesh and Vietnam? They need new places to exploit slave labor. China has the major bargaining chip in skilled labor and machinery for more advanced manufacturing though. Companies are still looking to move that but it takes significantly longer to do that and maintain quality (plus it’s very costly to do).

Chinese labor practices have been evolving for years. You may not agree with their government because it is spoooky communism but it is run in a goal oriented fashion that does intend to bring prosperity to its people.

Are you American? I am. And my job does not provide a pension, medical expenses, unemployment, maternity leave, housing, or workers comp. I have a masters degree and am licensed to provide healthcare but like many of my peers my industry has largely been converted to 1099 workers. Many of the people I serve are workers that work jobs like customer service and they also get none of these benefits because our government has failed us miserably. Also when’s the last time a cost of living adjustment occurred in the USA?

China has the disadvantage of having to industrialize much later than the United States. Further, their industrialization period was marked by being exploited for labor by the United States (much like how the rich upper class of the United States exploited children and the poor during its own Industrial Revolution). But coming out of their industrialization they are making strides to set up a more equitable society while we fall to constant political gridlock, increased wealth inequality and discrimination, violence, and now literally watching the few social support programs we have become dismantled in front of our eyes as fascism rises

competition is the best thing for market forces except when the competition is from a country that makes a competitive model that runs significantly cheaper or electric cars that are much better than any of Americas offerings

Has anyone actually opened said data yet?

Game pricing hasn’t changed much, sure. I paid $70 for n64 games in 1996. But volume sure has

FFVIII sold 6 million copies in its first year, a huge commercial success, and has sold 9.6 million lifetime Ever juggernaut games like Mario 64 - 12 million copies. FFVII - 12.6 million Pokemon red blue green combined - 30 million Madden 2007 - 7.7 million (interestingly EA does not release sales figures for modern madden games, probably because sports games seem to make far more money from micro transactions than sales. NBA 2k for example sells around 7m units a year but is one of the highest grossing franchises in gaming)

More recent games:

baldurs gate 3 sold 15 million copies Elden ring 20 million Pokémon sword and shield - 27 million Diablo 3 30 million The Witcher 3 50 million Skyrim 60 million Rdr2 70 million GTA 5 200 million

So when people cry “wahh, videogame prices need to rise because inflation” remember that they are stupid and overlook the very basic fact that 20-30 years ago gaming was a niche activity that got nowhere near the volume it gets today. Any single game selling 50 million copies in the 90s or early 2000s, let alone 200 fucking million, was an insane pipe dream

There’s a ton of disinformation about the hack as far as I’ve seen

I’ve seen no evidence of .org or .gov email addresses in the leak, only shit like gmail

My assumption is that this person doesn’t understand how 4chan works, or how websites work, and is shocked that user data existed. It is a mild bombshell if mods (assuming this person is not conflating mod role with admins) had access to user ips but not really that big of a deal. And if you post on an “anonymous” website and don’t understand it collects location data like ip and stuff you’re kind of dumb. 4chan explicitly states this.

If mods (not admins) had access to stuff like email addresses for pass users that’s a bigger deal. On the other hand if you bought a 4chan subscription you’re real dumb.

Honestly the biggest bombshell from this hack that people aren’t really talking about is the release of location statistics for /pol/ and seeing Israel IPs posting there at a rate of 2:1 to American and UK ips. Given the role pol had in the rise of the modern alt right that is highly suspect

at no point did I deny apples practices are shitty and anti consumer

but the history of how we got here is that microsoft spent time lobbying hard to make sure that companies like apple could do exactly what they are doing

apple is far from the only one who does it as well? Basically every modern tech giant flexes their anti consumer muscle every day. the one defense of apple is that you can basically avoid their shit by not buying it, as opposed to a company like google who are actively vying to utilize their extreme dominance in browser market share to change the internet forever to make adblocking impossible (very similar to 90s microsoft behavior)

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, etc etc

Sorry you were challenged to read what was roughly 3/4 of a page. Maybe this is more digestible for you

Funny enough, apples behavior was enabled by microsoft setting really shitty precedents in the 90s. oh whoops!

Seriously though microsoft was a force in the 90s and early 2000s. If you weren’t around for it you simply don’t realize how insane it was for something like computing to have come around and quickly take over the world with microsoft being the thing. you only had a pc (or maybe laptop). That pc ran windows over 90% of the time, and you used internet explorer over 90% of the time. Like I’m not making this up, IE, the worst browser of all time, peaked at 95% market share in 2002.

Nowadays edge is a minor contender but a distant third (chrome about 70%, safari about 17%, edge about 5, Firefox 2.5). Windows market share still dominates on PC but has fallen significantly from 90+% in the 1990s to 75ish% for windows 10 and falling. Plus nowadays people don’t use PCs nearly as much. I’m on a phone right now, which is the dominant computing device (and windows phone was a joke)

Anyway in true American capitalistic fashion when they had this undeniable monopoly apple was a joke at the time and Linux was for extreme hobbyists and servers and such. So what did microsoft do? Destroy competition, destroy any political machinations that could threaten their future with hefty lobbying, destroy open standards in favor of their own proprietary bullshit, etc. Europe attempted some antitrust stuff against them similar to what is happening to google now (to forcefully break off IE from windows) but it was unsuccessful

So when you’re frustrated about the fact that tech does not play nice together? Does not adhere to open standards, forces proprietary bullshit on you, open displays anti competitive and anti consumer behavior? Blame microsoft and politicians that were grossly ignorant to a rapidly changing world (although to be fair you don’t have to be a tech genius to understand that computers being forced to work with each other and have transparency in how they work is beneficial)

And the next time you see some dork praising bill gates for being the “cool billionaire” because he has a charity remember that his wealth is built on these destructive practices. He lead microsoft through this period and this doesn’t even touch on how he destroyed countless businesses that dared to compete by leveraging the size of his company (eg draining their resources with lawsuits) rather than competing fair and square.

He personally fucked the landscape of technological advancement for generations on top of that because he had the arrogance to think that microsoft knew how best to handle it. Now it’s blown up and he doesn’t care because he got his bag. His charity is the same problem: he holds his wealth and decides what causes are worthwhile, like a king. Fuck him, and fuck all the technocrats that have no sense of ethics aside from “make me more money and do whatever I want”.