BananaTrifleViolin
@BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world
- Comment on Why did people in the 90s/early 00s say that the internet "couldn't be taken down"? 5 days ago:
This opinion remains largely correct - the Internet as a network is very difficult to take down.
However things have happened that have undermined the Internet in favour of commercial priorities.
Net Neutrality was a major principle of the Internet but that is under attack, particularly in the US, where infrastructure providers want to maximise profit by linking their income to each Gb used rather than just paid as a utility. Their costs are largely fixed in infrastructure but they push the lie that they need to be paid for how busy that infrastructure is. A network router doesn’t care whether it’s transferring 1gb or 10gb, it only matters if you hit capacity and the network needs to be expanded. The Internet providers instead want profit profit profit so are pushing for a way to maximise it.
The other major issue has been consolidation and that’s thanks to monopolies being allowed to form and dictate how the Internet works. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple - they’ve all used their services to try to manipulate customers into their walled gardens and prevent competition.
So the Internet as many people think of it is very vulnerable - big centralised services can have outages that affect everyone because people don’t have much choice.
But the reality is the underlying protocols and infrastructure remains robust. Google might have an outage, but the Web itself is still functional. Email protocols and file transfer protocols still work. The problem is people who are sitting in Googles walled garden of services are locked out of everything. And with Googles huge monopoly on search and advertising it means lots of other major services are out too.
So the Internet itself is fine. It’s the services and monopolies built on it thay are the problem.
- Comment on I bought an HP Laptop with 8gb of Ram...and was suppose to be 256gb SSD. I downloaded one game and its all the way down to 80. Is there any free software to download to help? 1 week ago:
The hard drive may be 256gb but a big chunk of that is taken up by Windows and also there will be a hidden recovery partition. So 170gb sounds about right.
If you download a big game, then it’s not a big deal if you’re using that game. 90gb is still plenty.
There may be programs HP have installed that you can remove in add/remove software to make a bit more space.
256gb isn’t much but it’s enough unless you want multiple big games installed or have a big library of data such as movies or pictures.
Also it may be possible to upgrade the hard drive - depends on the model and how accessible the hard drive is. If you can access the hard drive to replace it then you could get a 1tb drive for example. There are guides online but basically you’d need to copy the existing drive to the new drive (would need a USB adaptor to mount the new drive first) and then swap the drives round. It very much depends on the laptop though.
Another option is an external hard drive connected via USB - it’s not good for gaming or running big programmes but it is fine for storing movies and pictures.
- Comment on How likely will "Cloud Storage" eventually replace Local Storage? 1 week ago:
I would say it is unlikely - storage is so cheap that some form of local storage is likely to stay.
A terminal device still needs some form of storage to run the software to access the cloud. That might end up being some small storage on a chip but the difference is not between none and something, but some and more.
I also think there are enough people who want storage they own and control that it’ll persist as a concept. Also having devices that work when networks are down is a benefit in itself - attempts to make devices dumb terminals get exposed as a productivity nightmare when networks do go out.
I think big business will certainly try hard to lock people in to their ecosystems. Remote storage, remote computing/graphics processing are all ways they will try. But conversely there are vibrant communities pushing independent & private alternatives that I don’t see dying - whether thats Linux on PCs, or Graphene OS to take control of your android device etc.
- Comment on Do you want the murderer of the UnitHealthcare CEO prosecuted? 2 weeks ago:
Yes of course he needs to be prosecuted.
I get that people hate insurance companies but at the end of the day this was a brutal and cold blooded murder.
As unhappy as we may be at the state of the world, the last thing anyone should want is for things to be determined by who has the gun and is willing to shoot.
Having said that though, maybe things are getting beyond the point of no return. Democracy in the US seems to be a joke, and the billionaire class have unfettered power. I worry we’re on trajectory towards violent revolution.
The ambivelence and even open celebration of a shocking violent murder is a warning sign of how bad things are right now. Across the democratic world countries are devided and in flux because the political class is not listening to voters and in hoc to the billionaires.
Trump in the US will be a mess. But France and Germany are also in political flux. What we are lacking globally at the moment is an outlet for this mess or a solution. People seem to be divided and unable to coalesce around a solution to the problems. I worry that means more chaos and ultimately violemce to come.
- Comment on When did browsers start being able to remember your previous session. 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on Meal prep 3 weeks ago:
There is literally a kettle on the left lower side of the image (likely deliberately as it seems awkward having it in front of the air fryer like that)
- Comment on 8 yr old me after my parents did my woodworking assignment 3 weeks ago:
He sounds very Trumpian.
- Comment on Anon's uncle is sick 4 weeks ago:
Statistically if you’re born, at some point you will die. Being born is deadly.
- Comment on US Senator Warner Presses Valve to Crack Down on Hateful Accounts and Rhetoric Proliferating on Steam 4 weeks ago:
Politicians would be better focusing on things that matter like how the Democrats lost the election to Trump and how they’re going to win the midterms.
A crappy paper finding rude words and phrases on steam is not really worthy of anyone’s attention but Valve’s
“Millions” of examples sounds dramatoc until you look at how many billions of exchanges have been made in valves forums and comment pages. It needs addressing but it’s not of international or even national importance.
Instead of virtue signalling, Warren should be asking how the Dems managed to allow Biden a free ride through the primaries, held on til the bitter end blocking alternatives and then endorsing Harris blocking any debate.
I’d rather Warren focus on fixing the Democratic Party. A bit of democracy in the Democrat party would be a start.
- Comment on why is mexico not treated the same way as canada?? 5 weeks ago:
Also English language books are going to be predominantly sold in English speaking countries. And it makes sense cost wise to target both markets together rather than printing individual runs priced for individual countries where possible.
And Canada and the US both use dollars; there is potential ambiguity in price for manufacturers and retailers, so better to clearly specify both. There is not ambiguity with the peso - if a customer sees a book is $10 they will know there is a different price in pesos.
- Comment on RazerGenie for configuring Razer devices on Linux v1.2 brings new features 5 weeks ago:
Great that people are developing tools but personally I use OpenRGB as its broader focused than just one manufacturer. It also uses the same underlying OpenRazer drivers for Razer devices as well as supporting other other RGB devices.
RazerGenie seems a little too focused to me but maybe there are benefits of such a tool I’m missing?
- Comment on Is There A Source For Unbiased Election Results As They Happen? 1 month ago:
I’d recommend video streams from BBC, Sky News and Channel 4 all in the UK. Channel 4 is partnering with CNN for data and shared stories, and their UK election coverage earlier this year was well regarded. TV news in the UK has to be impartial by law so they will not take a side in the election. They will however voice opinions from both sides.
Having said that though all coverage will endlessly speculate all night on what ever result means because that’s the nature of elections and filling air time.
Regarding the Guardian, that is not regulated but it is a good quality broadsheet. It is left leaning and effectively supports Harris but it’s coverage will still be good quality and not as partisan in the style of US media. But expect it to be biased somehwta in Harris’ favour.
- Comment on Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy 1 month ago:
It’s a thought experiment, not an observation. The idea is that if you have infinity and it’s truly random than eventually all possibilities emerge.
The idea of infinite monkeys typing randomly on infinite typewriters is that eventually one of them would accidentally type out all the works of Shakespeare. Many more would type out parts of the works of Shakespeare. And many many many more would type random garbage.
If we imagine for a moment the multiverse is infinite and random, then every possible universe would exist somewhere in that multiverse.
It can be taken in other directions too. It’s a way of cocneptualising the implications of infinity and true randomness.
- Comment on Why are laptop adapters so much larger than phone adapters of same power rating? 1 month ago:
One significant difference that has been missed here is that Laptops can and often do run on the power supply, while phones usually use the power purely to charge the battery.
It’s a significant difference as the laptop needs a stable electricity supply to supply all it’s components or the laptop would crash. That means not only does the brick need to dissipate heat, but it also needs to be able to deliver a stable continuous DC current. So as well as a taanformer and rectifier (that together convert AC to the correct DC needed) there are smoother and potentially capacitors to ensure a smooth continuous output even if the wall supply is janky.
If you turn off the power at the wall / unplug you often see any light on the power brick stay on - that is because of the capacitors and there is still a small amount of energy available to the laptop as it discharges.
While phones are mini computers they are usually designed to always run on the battery. Even when charging, the phone draws it’s power from the battery and it’s in built circuits to smooth the current; there isn’t usually the redundancy in a phone to switch between different supplies in the same way as a laptop. There isn’t also the expectation that they need to run off the wall continuously by users (even if users might plug their phone in and expect to continue to use it, they will find their phone shuts down if its at 0% and they push it beyond what the recharging battery can supply; a laptop would be expected to run solely on the wall not shut off).
Things are blurring now with USB C power supplies for laptops - but you will find the plug itself has more of the electronics built in or some of the functions of the power brick have moved into the laptop to reduce charger bulkiness. Look at how bulky a USB c charger plug is for a Mac - they’re not simple USB chargers you’d use for a phone or tablet, they’re bulky because they are also doing the smoothing and stabilisation people expect for their laptops.
- Comment on What does this emoji mean? Is this a British thumbs up? 1 month ago:
It’s the “call me hand” emoji.
- Comment on What does this emoji mean? Is this a British thumbs up? 1 month ago:
It is not the shaka. It’s the “call me sign” emoji.
- Comment on Subnautica 2 early access should last "2 to 3 years" - it'll launch with "several biomes" and "some narrative" 2 months ago:
It is but it’s also one of the few options available to devs. They can sign up with a big publisher and then be beholden to them financially and creatively. Or they can try the kickstarter route, or they can take out huge loans or investment and be beholden to them. If they’re lucky they can get grants from governments but that is sporadic and uncommon. Or they can scale back projects to reduce financial risk.
Some devs can self fund once very successful, but even a successful dev like the makers of Subnautica won’t have lots of money on hand. Plus even if they have cash, it is also about risk and sharing that so they don’t go completely bankrupt on one project and all their employees lose their jobs.
Early Access has its down sides for definite but it does allow game devs to get revenue in while developing, and also (if done well) focus on delivering a game the players actually like. The biggest benefit is definitely that it allows devs as much independence as feasible.
Of course for the players, it can be hit or miss but that is the risk with any game. And no one forces anyone to buy an EA game - if you don’t like it, don’t buy and wait til 1.0. That’s no different than waiting for any game to release so not sure what the problem is from that point of view?
For players in terms of a pure “investment” then of course it’s a bad deal - the only return you get is the hopeful 1.0 game, and you get no share of any profits. You’re actually just another customer, who has been tapped very early. But again, it’s a choice and gamers can just not buy early access.
I’ve bought quite a few games via kickstarter and EA routes, but only games that I’m passionate about and are relatively niche (like small indie projects, or genres that don’t get much mainstream action now like Adventure games). As much as I enjoyed Subnautica, I personally wouldn’t buy its sequel on EA except maybe if it was very close to release.
- Comment on Explain why the US bail system is not insane 2 months ago:
I think a lot of people misunderstand because in so many TV shows and movies it’s a trope for someone to get in trouble and be bailed out. The fact that they’ve got a court case to attend and that’s not the end of it is often left out.
- Comment on Replacing an old mini fridge 2 months ago:
I know this is random, but I like your writing style. You manage to throw in flourishes of language and colour, even dramatic biblical references, when talking about nothing more than a broken fridge.
- Comment on Twitter's UK userbase has been absolutely decimated since Musk took over 2 months ago:
Pretty rubbish article to be honest. It’s all hyperbole and no data or facts. It includes one embedded tweet with a graph about sharing political content.
While I suspect it’s true, it’s hard to trust a article that doesn’t back up it’s claims with any data or even quantify the claims it’s making. The closest it gest to data is “millions” but that’s pretty meaningless on its own.
- Comment on Please make sure to check the expiration date on your toilet paper 2 months ago:
if you’re american, manufactured 18 July 2023?
- Comment on Wales 20mph: Calls made for 1,500 roads to revert to 30mph 3 months ago:
As someone who drives to and around Wales multiple times a year, it’s a poorly thought out and implemented policy.
Many people speed and break the limit, particularly on main roads, and it’s lack of popular support is an issue in itself.
The policy could work if the speed limits was reverted to 30mph on bigger roads but local councils and the Welsh assembly blame each other for the issues.
There is also little enforcment at present - that is changing and once people start getting fined for breaking the 20mph limit it’s likely to become much more unpopular.
It could have probably been implemented successfully and with popular support and more careful designation of 30mph roads. It’s a failure of politicians rather than the idea itself.
- Comment on i need an rv, and lab equipment, and a helper 3 months ago:
Why “dr*g”? That’s a wierd bit of censorship - making a joke about drugs and sex workers and feeling the need to censor the word drug? I don’t get it?
- Comment on Is linux actually gaming ready or is it just not for me? 3 months ago:
Its not about memory size its about the asymmetric sticks. It was a classic problem with OS memory management in the past. Modern OS are better at dealing with it but it is not the optimal set up.
You’re running windows game which use proton/wine that manage memory for the game and use linux for access to RAM. The asymmetry could easily cause issues you wouldn’t notice with native apps.
I’d try removing the 16gb stick and see what happens with the games you’ve been trying. It might not he the issue but the only way to know is to test it, rather than dismiss it because its not what you expected.
- Comment on Is linux actually gaming ready or is it just not for me? 3 months ago:
The common denominator in your issues would be your PC. If games are working according to protonDB and you’re unable to get them to work on multiple distros that suggests its your PC.
There are two candidates in your specs - your RAM and your Graphics card.
As others have said, asymmetric RAM is unusual and it certainly was warned against in the past as it caused system issues. While OS may be much better at managing RAM bow, that doesn’t mean all scenarios can tolerate it. Given what Proton is doing is complex (running Wine, which is essentially a windows layer) I would not be surprised if the memory configuration is just a step too far - you have windows software using a windows compatibility layer for memory asking a linux is for memory access.
An obvious way to test this is to remove the 16gb stick from your machine and see what happens.
The other side is your graphics card - are you using the latest nvidia drivers?
- Comment on Worst examples of Treknobabble 3 months ago:
I think Discovery had the worst. It isn’t the technobabbke it self that was the problem, it was how it was delivered.
Everyone seemed to be needed to be the most intelligent person in the room. So one person would start with some sudden realisation and solution, and then another would interrupt them and pick up the idea and then either back to the first person, or yet another person would interrupt. Between then all they’d build a tower of technobabble and deus ex machina, and self congratulatory nonsense. It was just so silly.
- Comment on Is "disk" just a different spelling of "disc" or are they actually different words? 3 months ago:
Disc and disk are varient spellings of the same word that pre-exist computing. Disc is more common in British English, Disk more common in American English. But yeah since computing came along disk has also been used more for magnetic media (hard disk) while disc has been used more for optical media (compact disc). I wouldn’t be surprised if this only happened because of how the CD was marketed and branded as a “compact disc” as a trademark while hard disks and floppy disks etc were more generic terms.
- Comment on Why are doctors so hands off and unhelpful in the USA? 3 months ago:
The US healthcare system is built around money and profit. A cheaper procedure which does not require general anaesthetic costs less, and reduces profit. That can be beneficial to the providers but bloat is incentivised in the US healthcare system as providers battle with insurance companies for money. Crudely healthcare providers don’t care about saving you money; they want to take as much money as they can get.
Meanwhile, countries with tax funded health care opt for the most cost effective procedures, investigations and treatments. The incentive is to reduce costs and offer the most effective things to the most people possible. That can also sometimes have negative side effects if not carefully regulated but in such systems generally Doctors advocate for the best procedure and best medical practice, as they themselves do not directly benefit financially from which procedure is pushed. The downside is you do get the opposite side of things where patients are dissuaded from things as they’re not deemed cost effective by those who control the spending.
- Comment on Do you prefer to buy games on Steam or GOG? 3 months ago:
You can add games to Steam to use proton so where they came from doesn’t matter. You can also use Proton forks and bypass steam altogether - much of the underlying tech is Wine; proton is a patched and optimised version of Wine not a stand alone Valve product. Its great what they’ve done but it is still a collaborative open source effort.
As for which store, I go on price and sometimes go with GOG even if more expensive because of DRM, and sometimes Steam because of the convenience of the workshop.
I don’t think it needs to be any more complex than that - these are company’s taking your money for the same product. Its kinda pointless being “loyal” to a retailer - its more important to focus on value for money and quality of service for each purchase.
- Comment on is there a trustworthy SMS MMS app for Android that's not Google? 4 months ago:
I think you’re absolutely right.
The announcement of dropping SMS at the time gave those vibes. They were basically saying to users “we know what’s good for ypu better than you do”.
It was a huge strategic misstep. SMS was the perfect route to get people to use Signal - you’d start with SMS conversations and then as people joined signal conversations could switch to secure chat. Now its very hard to persuade people to switch to Signal.
Now google has used the same trick to push its own messaging standard RCS.