Luna's recent activity
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Comment on LGBTQ couple in Nepal becomes the first to receive official same-sex marriage status in ~lgbt
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Comment on Poll: US President Joe Biden’s standing hits new lows amid Israel-Hamas war in ~news
Luna (edited )Link ParentThis is the unfortunate truth. It's also why I've come to dislike the BDS movement: its supporters have good intentions, but it's an incredibly naive, Trumpist line of thought, that sanctioning...This is the unfortunate truth. It's also why I've come to dislike the BDS movement: its supporters have good intentions, but it's an incredibly naive, Trumpist line of thought, that sanctioning Israel would magically cause them to bend the knee. Sanctions don't really work (source), despite what some officials would lead you to believe, and if the US embraced the BDS movement as punishment, what would Israel do? Well, they already export quite a bit to Russia and China, so I'm sure at least one of them would be more than happy to take our place as Israel's #1 ally. Russia may be Iran's ally, of which Hamas is a proxy, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time they've played both sides of a middle east conflict.
If foreign policy was as simple as "sanction a country and it will magically fall in line with western demands," this wouldn't be an issue, Putin would have never occupied the Crimea (much less launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine), the Uyghurs wouldn't be in concentration camps, and Yemen wouldn't be torn apart by a brutal civil war.
Foreign diplomacy is a balancing act, pulling on various levers of power to try and achieve the best possible outcomes, but being very mindful of how easy it can be to pull too hard and break them. The more I've learned about geopolitics, the more I've come to realize that it's a shit sandwich no matter how you slice it, but if you're careful, you can at least scrape most of the shit off before eating it.
Edit: added source for the dubious efficacy of the US sanctions regime.
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Comment on Half-Life: 25th anniversary update in ~games
Luna Link ParentBlack Mesa is definitely the way to go if you're new to the series, in my opinion. It's a remake, not a remaster, and I think it truly rises above its source material as a result. There's a lot of...Black Mesa is definitely the way to go if you're new to the series, in my opinion. It's a remake, not a remaster, and I think it truly rises above its source material as a result. There's a lot of quality-of-life improvements, like more intuitive level design, better pacing, being more immersive (HL1 feels like a ghost town today with its barren environments), and that's before you get to Xen, where the levels actually feel well-connected, logically building to something great, and taking place in a living ecosystem, rather than a series of disconnected, barren wastelands that you fight and puzzle about before teleporting to the next one.
Black Mesa truly nails the art of placemaking, and its world actually feels lived in, which is something I can't say about HL. That's not to say HL was bad at that (at its release, HL's placemaking was revolutionary), but it was very much limited by the hardware of its era, and it doesn't hold up today without some seriously rose-tinted glasses.
I know there are a lot of die-hard HL fans out there who have a bone to pick with anyone who recommends BM over HL, so to any die-hard fans reading this: I have played both, and I played HL (plus Op4 and BS) before playing the sequels, and that was well before BM was available to the public, so my perspective is not purely retrospective.
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Comment on Will the switch to USB-C be good for repair? in ~tech
Luna LinkThis feels overly optimistic. I haven't done phone repairs before, but from what I've seen in teardown videos, there seems to be quite the variety in breakout boards and ribbon connectors for type...We’ve largely stayed out of the USB-C mandate fight, because it’s not directly related to repair. But still, repair should be positively impacted by this legislation—USB-C ports are typically cheaper to replace than proprietary connectors like Apple’s Lightning port, due to broader availability. On top of this, the shift means we should be able to expect a certain degree of interoperability of spare parts. One wouldn’t need to purchase a port specific to their device’s make (assuming that parts pairing isn’t implemented to prevent the use of non-original assemblies).
This feels overly optimistic. I haven't done phone repairs before, but from what I've seen in teardown videos, there seems to be quite the variety in breakout boards and ribbon connectors for type C ports in the smartphone space, plus phone firmware tends to be quite brittle, expecting very specific hardware configurations with little wiggle room for changing things out.
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Comment on Why HOAs are everywhere now in ~life
Luna Link ParentYou would think, but I distinctly remember one of my accounting professors talking about his work for his condo's HOA. Every time he double-checked to ensure an invoice was for authorized work (as...$300 per month isn't the kind of cost people will just ignore. Members of an HOA will dig into a charge that large and ask where the money's going.
You would think, but I distinctly remember one of my accounting professors talking about his work for his condo's HOA. Every time he double-checked to ensure an invoice was for authorized work (as opposed to the classic fake invoice scam), people acted like he was a burden, because who would bother scamming such a small HOA? (With an attitude like that, it's only a matter of time...)
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Comment on YouTube is now rolling out disabling videos after detecting adblockers in ~tech
Luna Link ParentI didn't say embed the ads in the video stream and allow full client control. If they changed YouTube to be more akin to a live stream where the client can request the server play/pause/seek, the...I didn't say embed the ads in the video stream and allow full client control. If they changed YouTube to be more akin to a live stream where the client can request the server play/pause/seek, the server could just blanket deny those requests during the ads it's inserting.
Of course, SponsorBlock could still work under this scenario, assuming YouTube didn't start allowing Partners to mark specific timestamps as sponsored (and thus unskippable), but I seriously doubt they would consider such an integration without requiring a revenue split from the Partners, which would be a very difficult sell.
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Comment on YouTube is now rolling out disabling videos after detecting adblockers in ~tech
Luna Link ParentAbsolutely. If they start embedding ads in the video stream and transfer playback control to the server (making it more akin to a live stream that the client must request playback adjustments on...Can youtube escalate and get more hostile?
Absolutely. If they start embedding ads in the video stream and transfer playback control to the server (making it more akin to a live stream that the client must request playback adjustments on like seeking and play/pause), it's game over. At that point, you wouldn't even be able to use yt-dlp to bypass ads - the ads would be embedded in the file you downloaded.
Your only hope then would be to VPN-hop until you got to a region where there were no ads to start the live auction for, thus allowing an ad-free playback experience (at least on that particular video).
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Comment on America does not have a good food culture in ~food
Luna LinkI'm surprise school lunches weren't brought up in the article. I believe the way we serve our children greatly influences how they view the world, and when you look at the slop most schools serve...I'm surprise school lunches weren't brought up in the article. I believe the way we serve our children greatly influences how they view the world, and when you look at the slop most schools serve up every day (because they are so strapped for cash the cafeteria staff are reduced to mere prepackaged food reheaters) and how little time the kids have to eat (when I was in high school, our third class of the day was when they served lunch, which was divided into 4 groups of ~300 students given 22 minutes each to get through 1 of 2 serving lines, pay for their food, find a seat, and eat)...it's no wonder most Americans eat low-quality food and that the US has such a fast-paced food culture.
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Comment on I’m a microbiologist and here is what (and where) I never eat in ~food
Luna LinkDisappointed that I didn't see soft-service ice cream machines mentioned. Did you know that, to keep a soft-serve ice cream machine safe, it has to be disassembled and cleaned on a nightly basis,...Disappointed that I didn't see soft-service ice cream machines mentioned.
Did you know that, to keep a soft-serve ice cream machine safe, it has to be disassembled and cleaned on a nightly basis, with unused product getting thrown away?
As you might expect, most places don't bother. The staff frequently aren't even trained on how to clean the machines, much less do it on a nightly basis like they're supposed to, and management is loathe to throw away product in such a low-margin business. As a result, the warm, dark, damp environment is perfect for growing mold and bacteria, and because of the boatload of calories contained within, also makes them one of the most common locations for cockroaches to inhabit in a restaurant.
Ice makers also tend to get nasty for the same reason, but at least you don't have to worry about the roaches snacking on the ice.
Back in college, whenever I'd be in the dining halls after 10 PM, I'd get to see the staff disassembling them and dumping the leftover product. Those are the only soft-serve machines I have ever felt safe using.
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Comment on Israel-Gaza Conflict Discussion Thread in ~news
Luna (edited )Link ParentAnd it's not just Iran's proxy war against Israel, it's also against the Saudis: the Israel-Saudi deal would have enormous consequences for Iran and its allies as the House of Saud and its allies...And it's not just Iran's proxy war against Israel, it's also against the Saudis: the Israel-Saudi deal would have enormous consequences for Iran and its allies as the House of Saud and its allies all fell in line with Israel and the west. It's so frustrating to see people calling Hamas "based freedom fighters," rather than people who have been blinded by religious fervor to fight Iran's battles for them. I've seen so many people who readily acknowledge the proxy wars the US has fought over resources like oil intentionally turn a blind eye to the long-standing conflict between the Saudis and Iran and all the proxy wars they've fought, preferring to act like this is Palestine fighting back in isolation, with nobody pulling the strings behind the curtain.
Iran ordered this attack not because it was the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, that was just coincidental timing: they wanted to disrupt the Israel-Saudi deal because they know the House of Saud, despite being a monarchy, is very much aware that they cannot completely ignore their citizens, and the invasion of a Muslim-majority country by one who has historically been their oppressors would place massive public pressure on the Saudis to back out.
And their predictions were correct, the Saudis have pulled out: Potentially historic deal to normalize Saudi-Israel relations is ‘off the table’ after this weekend’s 9/11-scale attack, top political analyst says
Whatever happens to Palestine now, Hamas' leaders (who do not care about the fate of the Palestinian people because they live in Qatar) and Iran won.
Edit: For the record, I very much disapprove of Israel's expansionist policies, but I also believe that, like any geopolitical situation, this situation requires a holistic understanding of Middle East relations, and there is always more to the situation that meets the eye. Once you understand the Saudi-Iran conflict, you will understand so much about the middle east: Syria, Iraq, and Yemen's civil wars, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the military overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, etc.
If you aren't familiar with the conflict, you might be wondering why Yemen and Iraq are threatening the US to stay out of the conflict or why Lebanon and Syria are now firing rockets into Israel while Egypt and Jordan remains staunchly neutral, but look at who they're allied with and it will explain everything: Egypt and Jordan are with Saudi Arabia while Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen are with Iran.
It's all a massive proxy war.
Edit 2: In case anyone still doubts who's really calling the shots here: Israel-Hamas live: Iran says new fronts may open if Gaza bombing continues
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Comment on How can I get my engineers to accept being on call? in ~tech
Luna Link ParentAfter working for a university and seeing the relaxed approach taken there, I've come to the conclusion that most on-call requirements are a bunch of crap. Most applications are internal...After working for a university and seeing the relaxed approach taken there, I've come to the conclusion that most on-call requirements are a bunch of crap. Most applications are internal applications only used during normal business hours and are not used around the globe, so you can easily get away with a simple business hours support rotation. It's largely cargo culting around "well FAANGs have armies of on-calls, so our <10k DAU app needs them, too!"
My team maintains systems that power a lot of business applications, but we have no on-call. Any outages outside 8-5 CST are not our problem, and depending on who's doing support this sprint (we have some people on the west coast), you shouldn't expect much before 11 AM. We can work late if we want to and then leave early the following days, but realistically, unless it's something major like course registration is about to open, we log off whenever we want and just leave the rest for tomorrow.
I think more teams need to take a similar approach. If your app is just used by businesses in similar timezones, on-call is a whole lot of extra stress for very little business value.
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Comment on AMD launches EPYC 9004 "Genoa" processors - Up to 96 cores, AVX-512, incredible performance in ~tech
Luna Link ParentCheck out this Tom's Hardware articleCheck out this Tom's Hardware article
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Comment on AMD launches EPYC 9004 "Genoa" processors - Up to 96 cores, AVX-512, incredible performance in ~tech
Luna (edited )LinkAMD has outdone themselves yet again! Their lineup looks fantastic and I'm glad to see they aren't resting on their laurels. Highlights: Genoa lineup has 16-96 cores/32-192 threads (lineup chart)...AMD has outdone themselves yet again! Their lineup looks fantastic and I'm glad to see they aren't resting on their laurels. Highlights:
- Genoa lineup has 16-96 cores/32-192 threads (lineup chart)
- Support for 6 TB per socket of 12-channel DDR5-4800
- AVX-512 support
- On top of that, their AVX-512 extensions enable some ML workloads to be run on CPU (!!!)
- 14% IPC uplift
- CXL support (CXL.mem only for now)
- Massive datacenter cost savings: 1, 2 (edit: Imgur backup in case those links 404)
- Also laid out the roadmap for the rest of 4th-gen Epyc:
- Genoa - general purpose
- Bergamo - targeted to cloud providers; Zen 4C, up to 128 cores
- Genoa-X - targeted to HPC; 3D V-Cache
- Siena - targeted to telco/edge (lower-end servers)
All I have to say is...wow.
The possibilities here are enormous. Especially CXL, which I really don't think is being given enough attention. Having a shared memory bank that can be accessed in a cache-coherent manner is insane for HPC and HA applications.
And Intel still hasn't released Sapphire Rapids. I wonder if they're going to delay it again after this tour de force.
To quote SemiAnalysis:
The 4th generation Epyc Genoa launch marks the 3rd consecutive generation where AMD beats Intel in the majority performance metrics. Rome and Milan made the cloud players start buying a lot of AMD, and Genoa is when the volumes jump across most remaining markets and end users. SemiAnalysis believes the gap between Genoa and Sapphire Rapids is larger than the gap between Milan and Ice Lake.
Some relevant videos:
- AMD - together we advance_data centers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPFNBVFMh7k
- Level1Techs - 192 Cores of EPYC Domination! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUrrvfcoJgA
Edit: Some benchmarks - https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-4th-gen-epyc-genoa-9654-9554-and-9374f-review-96-cores-zen-4-and-5nm-disrupt-the-data-center
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AMD launches EPYC 9004 "Genoa" processors - Up to 96 cores, AVX-512, incredible performance
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Comment on Alex Jones told to pay $965m damages to Sandy Hook victims' families in ~news
Luna LinkI've been following this trial (and the Texas one) closely and I'm elated at this verdict. Even though it'll likely be tied up in (and reduced on) appeals for some time, it's a very clear message...I've been following this trial (and the Texas one) closely and I'm elated at this verdict. Even though it'll likely be tied up in (and reduced on) appeals for some time, it's a very clear message to any Alex Jones-wannabes.
That said, I'm sure Alex Jones hasn't learned anything (or rather, he can't, because much like Joshua Moon, he's unemployable at this point - this grift is all he's got). Infowars continues to run the ad featuring footage from the trial about the cyrpto "donations" page, I'm sure they'll take clips from the verdict to run during ad breaks as well.
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Alex Jones told to pay $965m damages to Sandy Hook victims' families
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Comment on EVGA terminates NVIDIA partnership, cites disrespectful treatment in ~tech
Luna Link ParentI wouldn't be surprised if they were considering/neogotiating deals from AMD or Intel either (but can't say anything currently due to contractual obligations), but due to margins in the GPU...I wouldn't be surprised if they were considering/neogotiating deals from AMD or Intel either (but can't say anything currently due to contractual obligations), but due to margins in the GPU business being what they are, I wouldn't be surprised if they just abandoned GPUs entirely.
But as Greg said, they don't need GPUs to survive. Quite the contrary: although they might have to downsize some, GPUs have been (effectively) a cost center for much of the life of the 20- and 30-series, not a profit center.
I'd love to see EVGA compliment their AMD motherboards with AMD GPUs, but I'd totally understand if they truly are throwing in the towel on GPUs.
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Comment on EVGA terminates NVIDIA partnership, cites disrespectful treatment in ~tech
Luna Link ParentI agree with both takes. In the short term, I expect other AIBs will hesitantly take on some of EVGA's allocation (hesitantly because the 4000 series is likely to lose money at first due to the...I agree with both takes. In the short term, I expect other AIBs will hesitantly take on some of EVGA's allocation (hesitantly because the 4000 series is likely to lose money at first due to the economy, crypto crash (and death of PoW profitability), etc.), but barring an executive shakeup that reverts the relationship with AIBs to what it once was, I would be shocked if EVGA is the only company to dump Nvidia.
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Comment on EVGA terminates NVIDIA partnership, cites disrespectful treatment in ~tech
Luna (edited )LinkThis is huge. EVGA was Nvidia's leading AIB for awhile (not sure if they still were in recent years, but they were certainly near the top), so to see them exit the market is almost unthinkable. If...This is huge. EVGA was Nvidia's leading AIB for awhile (not sure if they still were in recent years, but they were certainly near the top), so to see them exit the market is almost unthinkable.
If you don't have time to watch the video, these are the important bits:
- EVGA will cease all video card manufacturing operations.
- Existing customers will remain supported by EVGA’s warranties.
- EVGA has withheld inventory to help replace and fulfill cards as needed.
- EVGA expects to run out of RTX 30-series video cards by end of 2022.
- EVGA is staying in business.
- EVGA is not selling its business.
- EVGA will NOT expand into new product categories.
- NVIDIA was notified in April of 2022. (Edit: This was a misstatement. EVGA meant to say June, not April.)
- EVGA has thus far not entertained the idea of Intel or AMD partnerships.
- EVGA finished engineering samples of RTX 40-series cards, but will not be selling them.
- EVGA claims that employees will be reallocated.
- EVGA's belief is that NVIDIA has screwed it over.
GPUs did make up ~78% of EVGA's revenue, but the margins were already quite low before the crypto bust (they never marked up cards by hundreds of dollars and sold to miners like ASUS, Gigabyte, etc.). Now, only 3060s and below are profitable, even before Nvidia decided to undercut all their AIBs by selling hundreds below MSRP.
The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Nvidia is clearly intending to eliminate the AIBs from the equation like 3dfx tried to do in the 90s, and EVGA is cutting its losses before that happens. Fundamentally, AIBs cannot compete with Nvidia on price because Nvidia doesn't have to pay the markup on their own chips, and with how little board customization is allowed these days, AIBs can't compete on much besides the cooler and power delivery.
This video from JayzTwoCents also does a good job explaining the situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12Hcbx33Rb4
Edit: Also, the post confirming this on their forums: https://forums.evga.com/Official-Message-from-EVGA-Management-m3574574.aspx
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EVGA terminates NVIDIA partnership, cites disrespectful treatment
25 votes
This reads like an Onion article. "Heartwarming: This trans woman married a cis man and we still get to call them fags."
Apparently Nepal allows people to change their gender to "other" but won't allow for anything else (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Nepal#Binary_transgender_recognition), which is...puzzling.