NTARelix (u/NTARelix)

NTARelix commented on Replacing Kubernetes with systemd (2024) blog.yaakov.online/replac... · Posted by u/birdculture

NTARelix · 7 months ago

A couple years ago I upgraded my desktop hardware, which meant it was time to upgrade my homelab. I had gone through various operating systems and methods of managing my services: systemd on Ubuntu Server, Docker Compose on CentOS, and Podman on NixOS.

I was learning about Kubernetes at work and it seemed like such a powerful tool, so I had this grand vision of building a little cluster in my laundry room with nodes net booting into Flatcar and running services via k3s. When I started building this, I was horrified by the complexity, so I went the complete opposite direction. I didn't need a cluster, net booting, blue-green deployments, or containers. I landed on NixOS with systemd for everything. Bare git repos over ssh for personal projects. Git server hooks for CI/CD. Email server for phone notifications (upgrade failures, service down, low disk space etc). NixOS nightly upgrades.

I never understood the hate systemd gets, but I also never really took the time to learn it until now, and I really love the simplicity when paired with NixOS. I finally feel like I'm satisfied with the operation and management of my server (aside from a semi frequent kernel panic that I've been struggling to resolve).

NTARelix commented on Malware can turn off webcam LED and record video, demonstrated on ThinkPad X230 github.com/xairy/lights-o... · Posted by u/xairy

3eb7988a1663 · a year ago

I believe it is possible to turn a speaker into a microphone. Found a paper which claims to do just that[0]. So, there is no safety anywhere?

  SPEAKE(a)R: Turn Speakers to Microphones for Fun and Profit
  It is possible to manipulate the headphones (or earphones) connected to a computer, silently turning them into a pair of eavesdropping microphones - with software alone. The same is also true for some types of loudspeakers. This paper focuses on this threat in a cyber-security context. We present SPEAKE(a)R, a software that can covertly turn the headphones connected to a PC into a microphone. We present technical background and explain why most of PCs and laptops are susceptible to this type of attack. We examine an attack scenario in which malware can use a computer as an eavesdropping device, even when a microphone is not present, muted, taped, or turned off. We measure the signal quality and the effective distance, and survey the defensive countermeasures.

[0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.07350

NTARelix · a year ago

I recall in the early or mid 2000s using some cheap earbuds plugged into the microphone port of my family computer as a pair of microphones in lieu of having a real microphone nor the money for one. Then I used Audacity to turn the terrible recording into a passable sound effect for the video games I was making.

Not knowing much about how soundcards work, I imagine it would be feasible to flash some soundcards with custom firmware to use the speaker port for input without the user knowing.

NTARelix commented on Deno 1.39: The Return of WebGPU deno.com/blog/v1.39... · Posted by u/oritsnile

NTARelix · 2 years ago

I've been wondering for a long time when we might expect to see a stable WebGPU API in all major browsers (mostly concerned with my daily browser, Firefox), so I've been looking for an official message on the topic. Deno claims the spec is ready

> The [WebGPU] spec has been finalized

but the official WebGPU spec [1] still describes it as a draft. Have I misinterpreted something here or is there some missing context around Deno's statement?

[1]: https://www.w3.org/TR/webgpu/

NTARelix commented on Firefox got faster for real users in 2023 hacks.mozilla.org/2023/10... · Posted by u/kevincox

dinkleberg · 2 years ago

Gotta say I’ve been using Firefox for years as my daily driver and it has been great. Maybe it is because I’m running on higher end machines for the most part, but I’ve had no complaints with it across Linux, windows, and Mac.

NTARelix · 2 years ago

I've also been using it for several years and almost completely agree with your sentiment. The only areas that have given me trouble are in the dev tools. On my machines the debugger is significantly slowed down when opening very large JS files, source maps compound the debugger slow down, and I can't always inspect variables' values when using source maps (possibly a build tool config problem).

NTARelix commented on Treemaps are awesome blog.phronemophobic.com/t... · Posted by u/capableweb

NTARelix · 2 years ago

A pie chart could serve a similar purpose, but can be much easier to interpret. I like this interactive pie chart for profiling Webpack bundle size. I've used it several times at work to help find and reduce bloat in our bundles.

https://alexkuz.github.io/webpack-chart/

NTARelix · 2 years ago

Correction:

The chart I'm talking about has multiple names, but is not a simple pie chart. Thanks to funcDropShadow for pointing this out. The names: sunburst chart, multilevel pie chart, and radial treemap.

https://www.anychart.com/chartopedia/chart-type/sunburst-cha...

NTARelix commented on Treemaps are awesome blog.phronemophobic.com/t... · Posted by u/capableweb

NTARelix · 2 years ago

A pie chart could serve a similar purpose, but can be much easier to interpret. I like this interactive pie chart for profiling Webpack bundle size. I've used it several times at work to help find and reduce bloat in our bundles.

https://alexkuz.github.io/webpack-chart/

NTARelix commented on Making Figma better for developers with Dev Mode figma.com/blog/introducin... · Posted by u/emilsjolander

Akronymus · 2 years ago

We use figma quite extensively as a reference for our current project. The disgners constantly move stuff around, so the links to them, in tasks, break and point to nothing. Which is a major pain in the ass indeed.

So yeah, 100% agree that the "big bulletin approach" is a negative.

NTARelix · 2 years ago

My designers take their own snapshot by cloning their work and using versions in the names of things. Older things are not to be modified with few exceptions. It makes for a good linking experience on my end, but I don't know what that kind of maintenance is like for them.

NTARelix commented on Roll your own JavaScript runtime, pt. 3 deno.com/blog/roll-your-o... · Posted by u/danielskogly

FascistDonut · 3 years ago

When/why would you want to do this? I went to pt. 1 but it didn't seem clear.

NTARelix · 3 years ago

The content of the series describes creating something like the beginnings of a Deno alternative, upon which the reader could fully recreate Deno or Node.js. It seems to me that the core idea presented is "a JavaScript/TypeScript interface to Rust". The thing that most interests me about something like this is not making yet another alternative to Deno or Node.js, but the potential for adding a scripting language to an application or framework written in Rust. I'm thinking like Python scripting of Blender, Lua as a scripting/modding layer for a game engine, scripting of Tiled with JS, an Electron alternative using GTK, your own browser.

NTARelix commented on The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/... · Posted by u/ren_engineer

SpeedilyDamage · 3 years ago

What’s wild is that the entire concept, as we know it, of “undocumented workers” only existed for the past ~22 years.

NTARelix · 3 years ago

I have memories of illegal immigrant workers from longer than 22 years ago and the USA has had immigration laws for much longer than 22 years. Have I misunderstood your statement?

NTARelix commented on The most unethical thing I was asked to build while working at Twitter in 2015 twitter.com/stevekrenzel/... · Posted by u/sgk284

qbasic_forever · 3 years ago

This is why I never use native apps on my phone. The experience sucks but I muddle through using the web for reading Twitter, reddit, etc.

I am constantly, constantly bombarded with "this looks better in the app! please just run our app!!" as I browse. Still I refuse--with the web I at least know they can't harvest information about everything I'm doing. There are still some privacy concerns of course but it's much better to have the web as a firewall of sorts.

NTARelix · 3 years ago

My android phone's apps must ask for permission to use some of this data (location, microphone, filesystem, etc.), and android provides the options "always", "only when using the app", "this time only", and "never"; which seems to help with this problem, though I'm sure it's nowhere near a silver bullet. When I leave my home I only feel (mostly) untracked if I do so without my phone and only buy things with cash, which is almost non-existent behavior for myself and the people I know.