Thri4895o (u/Thri4895o)

Thri4895o commented on Unix desktops theregister.com/2024/01/2... · Posted by u/signa11

danieldk · 2 years ago

I usually bought a Mac every 1.5 years or so, because I liked being on the cutting edge. However, I am now still rocking a 2021 MacBook Pro 14" because it's still great. In half a year the model is about 3 years old. When I purchased it, it was close to 3000 Euro, and it has 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD.

If I'd sell it, I'd still get between 1000 and 1500 Euro. Let's say for the sake of the argument I get 1200 when it is three years old, then the yearly cost was 600 Euro. Which is... cheap for a tool that I use daily and my income depends on? I mean, if I had to drive by car to work, my yearly cost would be much more than 600 Euro.

I would readily agree that Apple overcharges for memory and SSD, but the amortized cost is not really large.

Thri4895o · 2 years ago

If you depend on this machine for living... You should have a spare machine. Way to recover data very fast if it breaks.... Way to fix it... It gets expensive pretty fast.

Also if you travel with Mac, you need to carry two laptops. There is no easy way to move NVME drive to new machine like with Pc laptops.

Thri4895o commented on Unix desktops theregister.com/2024/01/2... · Posted by u/signa11

pjmlp · 2 years ago

macOS is great for UNIX, the best development for GNU/Linux is by definition GNU/Linux.

As grey beard never came to my mind that using a Solaris workstation would be great for HP-UX development, as one possible example among many combinations during the UNIX wars.

The culture of reaching out to macOS for doing GNU/Linux only proves the point of how broken GNU/Linux desktop still happens to be, which Microsoft was quite clever to capitalise on with WSL.

Thri4895o · 2 years ago

I was going to write very long answer. But I am drunk, my English is very bad, and do not care. So here are just a few key points:

* can I run Xfce or other WM on MacOS if its unix? On FreeBSD it is not o problem. I do not care about Mac native WM. Unix is about choice, I do not feel like that on Mac.

* It is not 1990tie. Everyone uses virtualization, even development for Solaris.

* Look at ollama install instructions. It expects you to pipe random URL into your shell and execute it. It asks for sudo password! How many MacOS users will do that on their only laptop, because they can not afford any extra RAM for virtualization or separate machine?! It is like doing random hookups at bar without condom!

* I do not care about operating system. For my it is a just a launcher for VirtualBox where I do my work. I need a lot of cheap RAM and SSD space for my workflow. Windows machine can do that, MacOS not (10000 USD machine does not count).

* GNU/Linux is so 2000. Many people run stack that has no GNU whatsoever. MacOS is very premium machine for this type of 1990ties mentality (single personal machine).

* Look into QubeOS I have machine for emails, browser, debuging... Machine where I can see production data has no access to Internet at all. Machine that can modify github repos is paranoidly locked down... I have a few physical machines on separate network to test random opensource stuff. It would cost probably million USD to replicate that on MacOS network eccosystem!

* I do not care about hardware. My laptop with 8TB SSD and 64GB RAM costs less than 1000 USD. Sometimes I just donate it to someone while traveling, not to carry extra two kilos (I replace RAM sticks and NVME disks). I got 10 of those on sale for 400 USD!

Thri4895o commented on Unix desktops theregister.com/2024/01/2... · Posted by u/signa11

steve1977 · 2 years ago

How is not enough memory or storage a problem of the operating system?

Thri4895o · 2 years ago

Because the operating system only supports devices with limited memory and storage.

I would love to run macos on my beefy workstation. But MacOS support for AMD Ryzen sucks.

Thri4895o commented on Harvesting electricity from high-voltage transmission lines using fences hackaday.com/2024/01/27/h... · Posted by u/beardyw

beardyw · 2 years ago

Is it theft?

Thri4895o · 2 years ago

It is. Energy drain through induction, depends on conductivity of environment. By putting cables there, you increase energy loss on main line.

Thri4895o commented on Harvesting electricity from high-voltage transmission lines using fences hackaday.com/2024/01/27/h... · Posted by u/beardyw

weinzierl · 2 years ago

During the Dot-com bubble, I remember a startup in Germany that placed boxes under high-voltage transmission lines to measure the current and sold that data to analysts.

Never heard of them again, so I guess in the long run it was either cheaper to buy that data.

Thri4895o · 2 years ago

Network frequency changes and fluctuates around 50hz. This change is random and unique. It is also captured on video/audio recording as background hum.

This data is quite valuable. You can reconstruct exact time (and region) when any video was taken.

Thri4895o commented on Hold on there: WPA3 connections fail after 11 hours rachelbythebay.com/w/2024... · Posted by u/zdw

aidos · 2 years ago

Question for those with more experience - I’ve just purchased a Pi Zero 2 and I’ve been having real issues with the WiFi since I opened the box. Is it likely a faulty device?

Thri4895o · 2 years ago

It should connect and stay connected for 1 hour or so. Network transfer speed should be at least 1MBps.

It is quite possible unit is fine, but there is just interference at your place. Those small antennas are not good at dealing with it.

Thri4895o commented on Unix desktops theregister.com/2024/01/2... · Posted by u/signa11

benreesman · 2 years ago

In a lot of ways macOS is that. It’s a very workable Unix and (I wasn’t watching when), Homebrew has gone from being a PITA even on its home turf to working great on everything from NixOS to WSL2.

But I’m still about one free weekend away from virtualizing Linux on my Macs because you just hit a limit with Yubai or Rectangle or Divvy or whatever.

I want a real tiler, I want rounded corners to fuck off, and I’ll pay a little in sub-pixel hinting to get it.

Thri4895o · 2 years ago

I thing macos sucks for Linux development. There is not enough memory and disk space for virtualization, so you run random scripts from Internet on your main machine. Command line tools are decades old and obsolete...

Thri4895o commented on Why do people post on [bad platform] instead of [good platform]? danluu.com/why-video/... · Posted by u/firstSpeaker

pataar · 2 years ago

Where can I read more about that method?

Thri4895o · 2 years ago

Just watch logseq tutorials, it is a style of taking notes ("outliner"?).

Key for me was to capture random notes under tags.

Thri4895o commented on The Electric-Vehicle Cheating Scandal wsj.com/articles/the-elec... · Posted by u/MilnerRoute

tgv · 2 years ago

I don't get it. There's no environmental gain in popularizing electric cars when they are inefficient, so what motivates the Transportation Department? I also don't understand what the significance of mpg in this context is. Electricity doesn't come in gallons. Subsidizing producers for meeting arbitrary criteria also doesn't make sense.

So, to me, it looks like someone decided to subsidize electric car manufacturers, and just needed an excuse in some legal framework. There might be a scandal there (e.g. bribes), but 6.67 factor ain't it.

Thri4895o · 2 years ago

Energy is measured in joules and CO2 emmisions. EVs had free pass, because one day we may somehow move to solar. But in reality big part of energy is produced from coal and some fossil fuels. Some supercharging stations are even directly powered by diesel generators, solar can not provide megawatts of energy!

EVs had all sorts of excuses and magic multipliers. While in reality small ICE vehicles are very efficient and may produce less CO2 per mile!

Thri4895o commented on Why do people post on [bad platform] instead of [good platform]? danluu.com/why-video/... · Posted by u/firstSpeaker

matheusmoreira · 2 years ago

I'd like to address some of the citations in that post, they really stood out to me.

> CAUSE I CAN'T MAKE A BLOG POST, GOD DAMN IT. I have ADHD.

I can relate... I have attention deficit disorder too and it's extremely difficult to start working on anything. I take top tier medication and it makes it much easier to maintain focus but getting started is still difficult.

Somehow against all these odds I managed to publish a bunch of articles. They languished unfinished for quite a while though. Wish I had a general solution for people but my advice is probably too specific to my case: it turned out the only tool that can make me productive is Termux. It gave me the ability to start working on stuff anywhere and anytime. So whenever I get the sudden motivation to do something, I make the most of it. Requires enormous effort to write any amount of text on a tiny screen made even tinier by the touch screen keyboard but it beats the alternative which is writing nothing because my laptop is too far away.

Hell I wrote my own goddamn programming language inside Termux because of all this. As far as I know it's the first and only programming language to be literally born inside a mobile device. Lots of C code, all written in a tiny 135x8 terminal emulator window. Never stopped to think about how insane that is until now.

> if I try to make a blog post, it'll end up being abandoned and unfinished, as I am unable to edit it into something readable and postable.

I felt that one too... I would worry way too much about perfection, try to make sure everything's correct and substantial. Actually felt guilty if I published before it was perfect. Which is the same thing as saying I felt guilty if I published anything at all.

It took someone here on HN telling me something like "if your comments are good enough content for this place then they're good enough content for your blog" for me to finally stop caring. I got that sort of realization that seems obvious in hindsight. It's my site, I can do whatever I want. I dunno why I ever thought otherwise. If I make mistakes I'll just fix them. If at a later date I have more to add, I'll just add it.

I'm starting to think "readability" and "postability" are very harmful concepts. It's OK to be imperfect. Actually it's probably better to be imperfect. Everything is more sincere that way, more human. Perfection is a machine's job.

> but I can do rambly tweet threads. they don't require a lot of attention for a long time, they don't have the endless editing I get into with blog posts, I can do them.

I do the same thing but with HN comments instead of tweets. The rate limiting the moderators applied on my account is actually helping stop this addiction. I've realized that over the years I discussed certain topics many times. HN has definitely helped me shape my world view but the moderators are right about the fact this isn't the place for repetitive discussions. I've resolved to turn all these thoughts into articles at some point.

Thri4895o · 2 years ago

> I have attention deficit disorder too and it's extremely difficult to start working on anything. I take top tier medication and it makes it much easier to maintain focus but getting started is still difficult.

What helps me is logseq journaling.

I put everything into journal with tags. Some time latter I move all tags into separate page. If doc grows enough, I reorganise it, I run it through ChatGPT to polish it and hit publish.

I never "start" writing, just filling random notes and when it grows, I have a lot of material to work with.