dijit (u/dijit) - Readit News

dijit commented on Rethinking the Linux cloud stack for confidential VMs lwn.net/Articles/1030818/... · Posted by u/Bogdanp

steve1977 · 15 hours ago

Isn’t that more or less what modern Xbox is doing?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_system_software#System

dijit · 13 hours ago

Yes, the Xbox (since Xbox “One”; what a hilariously awful naming scheme) has software packages which are essentially Hyper-V VMs.

This was nice as a developer because we were not forced to patch our games when the overlay or underlying operating system of the console changed. In fact, On The Division 1 we shipped with a patched/modified version of the SDK- this wasn’t possible on Playstation.

Consequently, while the Xbox was marginally faster in a hardware sense, it was slower in reality. It even had the advantage of us using native rendering SDKs (Playstations OpenGL “with additions” was very much a bolted on second class citizen) and still we had higher quality and more consistency or our frame times on Playstation.

No free lunch.

dijit commented on Why was Apache Kafka created? bigdata.2minutestreaming.... · Posted by u/enether

jeremyjh · 14 hours ago

This doesn’t really support your position as far as most readers are concerned - it sounds like a disconnect. If they didn’t do this in any ad copy or public docs it’s not really in Mongo territory.

dijit · 14 hours ago

I don’t really care.

I’m telling you why I am skeptical of any tech that intentionally obfuscates trade-offs, I’m not making a comparison on which of these is worse; and I don’t really care if people take my anecdote seriously either: because they should make their own conclusions.

However it might help people go in to a topic about performance and reliability from a more informed position.

dijit commented on Why was Apache Kafka created? bigdata.2minutestreaming.... · Posted by u/enether

nchmy · 14 hours ago

You mean Jetstream?

Can you point to where they are using core NATS numbers to describe Jetstream?

dijit · 14 hours ago

Yes, I meant Jetstream (I even typed it but second guessed myself, my mistake) I’m typing these when I get a moment as I’m at a wedding- so I apologise.

The issue in the docs was that there are no available Jetstream numbers, so I talked over a video call to the field CTO, who cited the base NATs numbers to me, and when I pressed him on if it was with Jetstream he said that it was without: so I asked for them with Jetstream enabled and he cited the same numbers back to me. Even when I pressed him again that “you just said those numbers are without Jetstream” he said that it was not an issue.

So, I got a bit miffed after the call ended, we spent about 45 minutes on the call and this was the main reason to have the call in the first place so I am a bit bent about it. Maybe its better now, this was a year ago.

dijit commented on Why was Apache Kafka created? bigdata.2minutestreaming.... · Posted by u/enether

varbhat · 16 hours ago

Does anyone use https://nats.io here? I have heard good things about it. I would love to hear about the comparisons between nats.io and kafka

dijit · 15 hours ago

I got really pissed off with their field CTO for essentially trying to pull the wool over my eyes regarding performance and reliability.

Essentially their base product (NATs) has a lot of performance but trades it off for reliability. So they add Jetstream to NATs to get reliability, but use the performance numbers of pure NATs.

I got burned by MongoDB for doing this to me, I won’t work with any technology that is marketed in such a disingenuous way again.

dijit commented on From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent ssp.sh/blog/macbook-to-ar... · Posted by u/articsputnik

ho_schi · a day ago

My X220 from 2012 also runs fine. I use now use a X13 because AMD Zen3+ is faster and provides much more battery runtime. The magnesium chassis and the crisp keyboard are awesome.

This stuff last long:

    * Build quality, regarding chassis and screws.
    * Replacement parts are available. Hardware maintenance manual is available. A broken palm rest is something fixable.
    * Handle it with care.

Most people don’t care about the cheap consumer laptops. Neither the manufacturer nor the consumer. Windows degrades quickly through updates, software bloat (e.g. Electron) and anti-virus snakeoil makes everything slow and unreliable.

The biggest issue of ThinkPads is that the L-Series can be purchased (same hardware, bad chassis) and that bad panels can be ordered. Recently Lenovo removed the HiDPI panel option from the X13. Which is the worst possible idea. Another dumb idea is the ugly and useless camera bump protruding from the panel.

Apple takes always a lot money from and prevents these mistakes. But Apple loves to deliver bad keyboards. And the aluminium chassis is bad in comparison to magnesium chassis (much better feeling, never hot or cold).

Avoidable mistakes. None of these are hard challenges. As the biggest mistake “six rows keyboards”. The complete industry ruined laptop with 16:9 and after a decade we’re allowed to enjoy the much better 16:10 again. The keyboards are still small, squeezed things with awkwardly grouped keys. The X220 keyboard is a masterpiece in layout.

dijit · a day ago

an x220 also costed the same as a macbook pro at the time.

(I know, because I had both, fully upgraded)

dijit commented on From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent ssp.sh/blog/macbook-to-ar... · Posted by u/articsputnik

jmward01 · a day ago

Power management in all aspects is one big thing that I wish was better in all distros. Hibernate/fans/shorter battery life are real usability things. I only use windows when I am at risk of being fired for not using it and macos is 'acceptable' but there are soooo many little things that make me cringe about it (.DS_Store littering every drive I touch is close to the top) but if I knew I could get mac hardware, including MPS backend working well in pytorch and battery life, with a solid distro guaranteed to work I would definitely buy that over all the pc hardware out there.

dijit · a day ago

Unfortunately, at the behest of Microsoft, manufacturers just came out with s2idle suspend and removed s3 suspend.

And it seems the only Microsoft has working support… so sleep issues continue to plague linux… again… after we just solved them.

It makes me so furious.

more info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33608991

dijit commented on From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent ssp.sh/blog/macbook-to-ar... · Posted by u/articsputnik

cycomanic · a day ago

> You simply can't compare anything to MacBooks. I had a Dell that I paid about $2,000 for, and it was really good (or so I thought). Then at work, I got a MacBook Pro, and that's when I saw the difference. > > Its not only the Pros, no "high-end" laptop running Windows or Linux with just 8GB of RAM can perform better than a MacBook Air with 8GB. I don't know how Apple has optimized memory usage, but my personal feeling is that 8GB of RAM on Macs is equivalent to 32GB on non-Apple devices. >

Thanks for confirming my point, we have actual benchmarks that objectively show this isn't the case but apple fanboys still make these sort of claims. The same with battery life, if you listen to apple fanboys you get the impression that battery life above 5h was simply unheard off until the M1 came along. I had a x200 in 2009 or 2010 that was giving me 10h+ in the large battery and I could even swap over to the smaller one to get another 6h (?) or so.

> I'm not some Apple fanboy—I've been using Arch Linux daily for the past month or two, and it's great. However, there isn't a day that passes without screen freezes during peak usage, and I need to reboot every day or two. This happens despite having 32GB of RAM, an RTX 4060, and a Ryzen 5 7600. That never happens with my 5-year-old MacBook Air.

The only thing I can say to that is that in my experience nvidia drivers have become objectively worse over the last 2 years. On my desktop I used to be able to play games without issues, but recently lots of them lock up after a while (only in games in my experience). My Intel laptop never has any issues. I'm now actively looking for an AMD GPU because it has become so annoying.

dijit · a day ago

Come on, let’s be real for a moment.

two things could be possibly true, people are sheep and people who interact with the platform can enjoy it so much that they become fans. This means that any person who actually enjoys using the technology is immediately dismissible because now they are fans. Right?

It’s so stupid because I’m a die hard linux user but I can definitely appreciate my Apple devices.

I’ve had this discussion so many times in real life, what is the value of a ThinkPad T-series over a ThinkPad E-series; or a HP Elitebook over an Ideabook? The specification looks the same, on paper. Why should I convince my employer to fork out an extra €500?

The truth is, the things that really matter to people don’t fit very well on a spec sheet. Build quality, palm rejection, colour accuracy, enjoyable sound, even the feel of the chassis. Apple seems to put a lot of care and attention into these things, so yes, they’ve optimised the operating system to be more pleasurable to use… and so it is, even in low memory conditions- they prioritise things the user might care about. (The currently active program, being responsive etc).

I’ll give another example, The Commodore64. It is so comically weak compared to even the micro processor inside my keyboard… so if compared to a full-blown desktop computer of the modern day (which is thousands of times more powerful still…) I should feel like the modern computer is better. Yet when I type on a Commodore 64 it is so immediate… there is no lag in typing, the words appear on the screen as quickly as they are pressed, it feels mechanical. It feels immediate. it feels direct.

Why? Clearly the Commodore 64 has much fewer resources, but it feels so much nicer to write text on a Commodore 64. Not because of the keyboard (I have a better one), not because of the processor (because it’s a weaker one). But because the latency of typing is so low that it is barely perceptible and that goes directly against the specification.

One cannot infer user experience from spec sheets.

And people interacting with the Apple ecosystem who become fans might have a point. No matter how much you don’t want to hear it.

dijit commented on Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org giuliomagnifico.blog/post... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico

lormayna · a day ago

I am self-hosting my email. It's a pain in the ass, but software like mox[1] help on keeping things easier. The most tedious part is to setup correctly SPF, DKIM and DMARC and ensure that your IP will be whitelisted.

[1] https://www.xmox.nl/

dijit · a day ago

I was looking recently and it seems there is something new that appears extremely easy to use on the surface: stalwart[0].

Not an endorsement as I haven’t actually tried it myself.

[0]: https://stalw.art/

dijit commented on 4chan will refuse to pay daily online safety fines, lawyer tells BBC bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c... · Posted by u/donpott

potato3732842 · 2 days ago

It was terrible business. They'd have all been way better off working with the dominant global and economic power than starting a new country. And that's before you average in all the ones who lost everything and/or died.

dijit · 2 days ago

It was good business, and those men are immortalised in history.

We should probably not forget that France gave nearly everything they had to the US to fund its revolution, what was a global power ended up in such an impoverished situation that it led to the French Revolution and ended the monarchy.

Not a small amount of support, if you are at the receiving end - certainly smells like good business.

dijit commented on 4chan will refuse to pay daily online safety fines, lawyer tells BBC bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c... · Posted by u/donpott

lokar · 2 days ago

They have fair and competitive elections, no?

dijit · 2 days ago

our two party system means that more often than not you are voting against some party having power.

The left wing has been vote split for some time, now the tight wing is getting vote split.

It’s not a fair characterisation to say that the UK government is popular, the last actually popular government was probably Tony Blair (though many regret him in hindsight), though Boris had his followers I guess.