Nollij

@Nollij@sopuli.xyz

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Nollij,

TL;DR: It’s about the warez “scene”, specifically about music pre-releases. A decent read, but one you may have seen before.

Nollij,

A half gallon of cold brew coffee is up to $7. I can make it myself for a fraction of that, but it’s more labor for me.

I mean, only a little bit of labor. Even with premium grounds, I can’t imagine it costing more than 50 cents to make a half gallon. As for labor, just throw it all in a pitcher, give it a quick shake or stir, then leave it in the fridge for a couple of days. Pour it through a standard filter. I use the basket from my regular coffee maker.

Making your own cold brew is one of the most cost-efficient DIY foods out there.

Nollij,

Yes, but the nutrients in raw are not as available as cooked. They’re present in higher quantities, but a lot will pass through undigested.

Calculating how much is destroyed by cooking vs how much is made available is going to depend heavily on the food and nutrients in question.

But I will say that if you need more or less of a nutrient, you will get much further by changing the food vs how it’s prepared.

Nollij,

The standard US “Nutrition Facts” label is very limited and typically doesn’t include much information on micro nutrients. I don’t know how it compares to other regions, but it certainly leaves a lot to be desired.

Nollij,

That would certainly be the most interesting timeline

How does Usenet content not immediately get DMCA'd into oblivion?

For instance, say I search for “The Dark Knight” on my Usenet indexer. It returns to me a list of uploads and where to get them via my Usenet provider. I can then download them, stitch them together, and verify that it is, indeed, The Dark Knight. All of this costs only a few dollars a month for me....

Nollij,

Are they obfuscated in any way? Depending on your client, you may not be able to see the names and subjects. But if you didn’t have the NZB, is there any real chance you could find it otherwise?

Nollij,

First, a massive amount of content is removed. You won’t find a lot of popular, unencrypted content these days on usenet. It’s all encrypted and obfuscated now to avoid the bots

Speaking of bots, I don’t think you realize how much of this process is automated, or how wide of a net is being used. The media corporations all have enormous collected libraries of material. It gets posted constantly to all sorts of places. This includes public torrents, public usenet, YouTube, PornHub (yes, really, even for non-porn), Facebook, TikTok, Tumblr, GNUtella, DDL sites…

The list goes on and on. Each one gets scanned for millions of potentially infringing items, often daily. No actual people are doing those steps.

Now, throw in things like private torrents, encrypted usenet posts, invite-only DDL, listings that use ‘3’ instead ‘e’ or those other character subscriptions… These require actual humans to process. Humans that cost money, and a considerable amount of it. As a business, you have to show a return on investment. Fighting piracy, even at its theoretical best, doesn’t increase revenues by a lot.

You mention revenue and breaking even, but you left out an important detail. Your time is free. They don’t have to pay $10/month, they have to pay $10/month + $20/hour for someone to deal with it. And most pirates of that level will just find another method.

Where can a Boomer catch up on current computer/software technology?

I have an eight-year-old laptop that needs replacing and I’m paralyzed. What are the most reliable ones now? Do I need a desktop for CAD? Pros and cons of operating systems (and where do I find them?) Browsers ditto? Where do I find answers that aren’t just product marketing?

Nollij,

A number of posts have mentioned brands, but it’s very important to consider the line within the brand. Consumer-oriented lines from HP (Pavilion, Essential), Dell (Inspiron, Vostro), and Lenovo (Idea pad, Legion) are absolutely terrible. Plastic everything, difficult/impossible repairs, no upgrades, etc. Every corner that can be cut, has.

Instead, look to the enterprise lines. Lenovo Thinkpad (my preference)/Think centre, Dell Latitude/Precision, HP Elitebook. I usually find the older ones (3-5 years old) that are off-least after enterprises are done with them, do a minor upgrade, and I’m good to go for a long time. Obviously that will depend on your needs, skill set, and desires.

Nollij,

It shouldn’t actually matter. It’s strictly by convention that the US (and probably North America; unclear about beyond) almost exclusively uses B. The big risk is that people will assume it’s B, and the other end is B, which can cause issues when they e.g. replace a receptacle and make all of your connections crossover. But even that shouldn’t matter much these days.

There’s also some very limited issues switching from A to B on the same line (A in wall, B in patch cable), but this is very rare. If you saw A, it was probably either a crossover, or you live in a place that uses A.

Nollij,

Mostly intentional. There are others that are 100% intentional from the beginning. This one is a circumstance and a boss with a sense of humor.

From the article, they expanded the building, taking away the space for the C. Rather than move all the letters, he decided this would be funnier.

Nollij,

It was never a hard cutoff, nor was it universal. Technology has long been a big factor, which means people in rural/poor areas were a decade+ later in experiencing the same generational norms.

Even cultural cornerstones are variable. For instance, you might remember the Challenger, or you might not, depending on your early childhood schools and your memory. The news about Magic Johnson or Kurt Cobain may have shattered your worldview, or you may not have even noticed.

But even in the best case, these are only useful as a rough guide. You should not be trying to do anything specific with these generalizations.

Nollij,

As someone who doesn’t remember those days, why was it so ridiculous to get a burger without a bun? Even without lettuce wraps, it seems like it would’ve been simple enough to throw/stack in the wrapper/box. Messy, but simple. These days, it’s commonly eaten with a fork.

What was different back then?

Nollij, (edited )

Get them a nicer version of things they already get. Fancy coffee, hot sauces, soap, candles, pens, that sort of thing. It loses some of its charm, but that could also mean a gift card to a nicer restaurant. Just make sure it’s enough to cover the meal.

This works especially well if they’re pretty cheap and wouldn’t get things like that, simply because they’re too expensive.

You can also go for some very pseudo-luxury items. Vermont Maple syrup (or Maple candies - seriously, it’s just crystalized sugar, but it seems so rich), sausage and cheese sets, chocolate oranges…

Finally, here’s the biggest tip - Don’t wait until December to think about it. Pay attention through the year. They will almost certainly mention something offhand to you. A passing comment like “we never have enough -----” or “---- never works right” are perfect opportunities. Just make a note on your phone. Feel free to ask probing questions and even tell them that’s what you’re doing- if it’s before Halloween, they’ll almost certainly forget by Xmas anyway.

Nollij,

This gets complicated. The small heater is almost certain to be resistive electric heat. Your central heat could be anything. In my area, the gas furnace is usually cheaper to run for the entire house than it is for a space heater in a single room.

OTOH, if you have a resistive electric furnace, your advice is spot on

Nollij,

90k sounds pretty standard for inexperienced (although maybe not first job) devs in general for most markets. Throw in factors like experience or skills in low supply and that changes pretty fast.

I know that COBOL isn’t going away anytime soon, but most companies have seen the writing on the wall for a long time. Anywhere that COBOL can be replaced with something more modern, it’s already underway. Some places even have a surplus of COBOL devs because of it. But there are countless places where it can’t be replaced, at least not reasonably.

The only way a COBOL dev is making $90k after 5 years is if there are very specific fringe benefits that make them not want to move along, or they are extremely naive about the market.

YouTube Ad-Blocker policy - Can it be explained by ad revenue numbers?

First, a disclaimer: I’m no expert, and I only know what is on these documents I linked. I haven’t read in-depth reporting by real investigative journalists, nor any reporting sourced or quoted from YT insiders (When I see articles about the ad-blocking, I knock wood that SmartTube is still working and keep scrolling, keen...

Nollij,

It doesn’t matter if they’re making money. Google/Alphabet is a for-profit company. A big part of this means they have to make as much money as possible. MBA programs literally teach that any unrealized potential profit is lost money.

They could rake in a trillion dollars in ads, and they’d still do this if it meant they could get 1.1 trillion instead.

What's the deal with the private trackers?

I’ve read on reddit I think that if you are torrenting using a private tracker you’re gonna be fine even without VPN. The question is: isn’t the tracker is just a server that leads my torrent client to the pieces of the file on the seeders? And the connection between me and the seeders is p2p, isn’t that type of...

Nollij,

They have the public IP and a timestamp, which lines up with the ISP DHCP logs.

That said, at least for several major carriers in the US, your public IP changes very rarely. Like months or years with the same IP.

Nollij,

Is it possible? Yeah, almost certainly.

Has it been pirated? No idea. Check the usual places or Pre sites. Sidebar has some good references.

Do I know where it could be downloaded, assuming it has been made available? Absolutely not, and no one should provide a link anyway.

Nollij,

Not OP, but this comes up regularly.

A lot of people have very strong opinions of brands based on a woefully inadequate sample size. Typically this comes from a higher than expected failure rate, possibly even much higher than expected. It could’ve been a bad model, a bad batch at manufacturing, improper handling from the retailer, or even an improper running environment. But even the greediest data hoarders only have a few dozen drives, often in just a couple of environments and use-cases.

Very few of these results are actually meaningful trends. For every person that swears by WD and will never touch a Seagate, there’s someone else that swears by Seagate and will never touch another WD. HGST and Toshiba seem to have a very slight edge on reliability, but it’s very small. And there are still people that refuse to touch them because of the “Death Star” drives many years ago.

It’s also very difficult to predict which models will have high failure rates. By the time it becomes clear one is a lemon, they’re already EoL.

I avoid buying WD new because of their (IMHO completely illegal) stance on warranty, but I’m comfortable buying their stuff used.

Don’t worry too much about brand. Instead go for specs and needs. Follow a good backup strategy and you’ll be fine

Help with DVD problem, please.

I got a DVD, never used with cellophane intact, produced in 1993 on ebay. I thought maybe, since I didn’t get a DRM warning, it predated DRM, and I could just copy it to my hard drive, so I did. Both the copy and the DVD are now corrupted and unplayable. I want to fix the DVD then rip it to my hard drive. Googling gives plenty...

Nollij,

Does it play on standard DVD players? Is it a pressed copy (silver) or burned (typically purple)?

It sounds like the encryption section has degraded and can’t be read reliably.

Nollij,

Since you’re in California, you’ll want to read up on this case. shawlawgroup.com/…/california-supreme-court-apple…

TL;DR: Required checks? Must be paid (maybe even retroactively; contact a lawyer). Optional checks? Ehh, maybe. It gets complicated. Contact a lawyer.

Nollij,

If you’re hourly, you must be on the clock the moment you answer the call, or open your work laptop, etc.

If you’re salary exempt, it’s more about expectations than paid time anyway.

Nollij,

Ok, I have to ask- what the hell kind of place do they live where HVAC costs $27k and windows cost $40k? Were these new installations where there had never been ductwork or windows before? Because those are way, WAY out of line for replacements in a typical single family home. By about an order of magnitude.

But to your larger point, yes, structural work can very easily (and quickly) hit 6 digits. I wouldn’t accept it unless the terms are that the original owner makes the repairs first.

Nollij,

Recalls are not a problem by themselves- much better to address an issue directly than to just let it burn (no pun intended).

Hyundai/Kia also has a long list of problems that should not be ignored. On top of them skimping on immobilizers, they’ve done everything possible to avoid making it right. First they avoided even acknowledging the issue. They took forever to issue a software update to address it. They announced a solution where you, the victim of their shoddy designs, could buy (at a very healthy profit) a product to protect yourself. Under pressure from numerous lawsuits, they started giving out “The Club”, which was peak 1980s anti-theft technology. But they did so in the absolute worst possible way - in an incomprehensible patchwork of local police departments.

Their fire issues are multiple. In addition to the one you mentioned (22V-633 / 22V-626), there’s also 23V-651000 / 23V-652000, 21V-160 / 21V-161, 21V-137, 22V-056, and 22V-810000. While there is a lot of overlap in these, there are also multiple distinct issues. This also doesn’t even address the repeated battery fires, since that seems to affect all EV brands.

You mention Takata airbags, which is an odd detail- Takata just issued another recall. This one affects nearly all brands, except Hyundai/Kia.

Then there’s the critical issue of their datamining. Kia explicitly states that they collect and sell data on your sex life, genetic information, religious or philosophical beliefs, and the contents of your text messages.

I’m not here to defend Toyota; they certainly have their own list of problems. But I am going to say that Hyundai/Kia is not the solution.

Nollij,

Don’t reply at all unless you talk to a lawyer. Seriously, no good can come from it. Quietly disable/delete whatever they list, and never mention it again.

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