streblo's recent activity

  1. Comment on RAM is so expensive, Samsung won’t even sell it to Samsung in ~tech

    streblo
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    I got 128GB of DDR4 in 2023 for ~$300 CAD. Would be well over $1000 now.

    I got 128GB of DDR4 in 2023 for ~$300 CAD. Would be well over $1000 now.

    2 votes

  2. Comment on Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled? in ~life

  3. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    streblo
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    I feel you. I haven't played it, so grain of salt I suppose but in my opinion a lot of modern mainstream game series that became popular are like this now and they all suffer from the same...

    Battlefield 6 is just a massive clusterfuck of "run around and kill people until you die". It isn't fun. It's the FPS equivalent of brainrot. The "most video games are porn" that Over-Quoted Game Developer quoted about.

    I feel you. I haven't played it, so grain of salt I suppose but in my opinion a lot of modern mainstream game series that became popular are like this now and they all suffer from the same problem. They used to be fine catering to some market segment, even a niche one. Now they need to be in every living room and compete in the mainstream attention economy and have warped and bent themselves in pursuit of that goal.

    Luckily there's more options than ever today. I haven't played Battlefield in years. I did however play a lot of Squad, which I believe had it's roots in the BF2 mod Project Reality, which I also played a lot back in the day. It's essentially Battlefield with a slight boost of Realism and much bigger focus on community and teamwork. I haven't played in years though, I kind of lost interest in the genre I guess.

    5 votes

  4. Comment on Windows: Linux GPU gaming benchmarks on Bazzite in ~games

    streblo
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    Unfortunately I think there is a lot of cargo culting in some of what I'll call the pop-Linux community. You can tell a lot of it has been filtered through layers of retellings and while well...

    I just used it because it seemed wildly recommended by others on the internet

    Unfortunately I think there is a lot of cargo culting in some of what I'll call the pop-Linux community. You can tell a lot of it has been filtered through layers of retellings and while well intentioned, has been stripped of a lot of nuance.

    I'm not trying to make you feel bad about your choice or anything, there's nothing wrong with CachyOS if you know what you're getting. I'm just surprised that's what a lot of people are reaching for first.

    Most of what CachyOS does is apply a bunch of configuration options and patches to the linux kernel, include some kernel modules you may or may not need, and then re-compile all the Arch packages with various compiler flags for optimization. Which sounds nice, but when a new kernel releases it probably hasn't been seen by very many people running the same weird subset of patches that you're running which could lead to problems.

    If you want an out-of-the-box Arch experience, the best option is probably EndeavorOS, which IIRC just uses Arch packages directly. Then if you want to experiment with more performance just install the Zen kernel which does a lot of the same things. If it ever breaks, just boot into the normal or -lts kernel.

    2 votes

  5. Comment on Windows: Linux GPU gaming benchmarks on Bazzite in ~games

    streblo
    Link Parent
    Why CachyOS over Arch? In every benchmark I've seen it "outperforms" Arch by 1-2% in exchange for using performance patches with 1/1000th of the visibility that Arch has. In my opinion that's just...

    Why CachyOS over Arch?

    In every benchmark I've seen it "outperforms" Arch by 1-2% in exchange for using performance patches with 1/1000th of the visibility that Arch has. In my opinion that's just a recipe for a bad experience down the line.

    I think they made a good argument against rolling release for benchmarking -- you want shelf stable benchmarks you can append to for at least 6 months. They could use Arch and just not update it, but you do risk landing on a broken package.

    6 votes

  6. Comment on Windows: Linux GPU gaming benchmarks on Bazzite in ~games

    streblo
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    Yea I'll admit that's a pretty good argument against client side anti-cheat or at least their limitations.

    Even easier is just to stream the game (ie. run a cv-based aim bot on a moonlight client).

    Yea I'll admit that's a pretty good argument against client side anti-cheat or at least their limitations.

    2 votes

  7. Comment on Windows: Linux GPU gaming benchmarks on Bazzite in ~games

    streblo
    Link Parent
    I don't think many networked systems other than games are concerned with the concept of fairness. Yes, you can do a lot server side but certainly not everything. For instance if I train my aimbot...

    They can and should use server side validation to flag suspicious behaviors of clients just as other networked systems do. Other networked systems don't try to pretend that their problems go away just by trying to install something onto the client.

    I don't think many networked systems other than games are concerned with the concept of fairness. Yes, you can do a lot server side but certainly not everything. For instance if I train my aimbot to operate within the 95-99th percentile of human performance you aren't detecting me on the server without a lot of false positives.

    2 votes

  8. Comment on Windows: Linux GPU gaming benchmarks on Bazzite in ~games

    streblo
    Link Parent
    For certain games sure, there is no need to trust the client at all. Kind of hard to do in the genres that have anti-cheat though. There is a big difference between translating game objects into...

    If kernel anti cheat was good enough they'd roll your loot on your client and the server would accept it, but they're obviously well aware that doesn't make any sense to do in practice.

    For certain games sure, there is no need to trust the client at all. Kind of hard to do in the genres that have anti-cheat though. There is a big difference between translating game objects into visible pixels for every person in the game vs. generating a random number and recording the result. And also when client inputs are inherently skill-based (e.g. mouse input in a FPS game) trusting the client is a hard requirement of the game.

    The perception has already been shifting toward blaming the devs that deliberately make restrictive decisions rather than blaming the platform. I think it puts that whole model of Windows exclusive anti cheat on a clock.

    I don't think this is true either. FWIW I'm a Linux-stan who's been on Linux for 15+ years and anti-cheat on Linux is a growing problem, not a shrinking one. As more people adopt Linux this problem will get worse and not better. The fact is that anti-cheat on Linux is fundamentally broken until Valve or somebody else offers a locked down and signed kernel that requires secure boot/TPM attestation that anti-cheat developers could reasonably develop on top of.

    5 votes

  9. Comment on Windows: Linux GPU gaming benchmarks on Bazzite in ~games

    streblo
    Link Parent
    There is only one way to square that circle: Valve's Steam Machines using a custom signed kernel + TPM. Doesn't really help anyone who does not have a Steam Machine but that's the only way you'd...

    There is only one way to square that circle: Valve's Steam Machines using a custom signed kernel + TPM. Doesn't really help anyone who does not have a Steam Machine but that's the only way you'd be able to play these games on "Linux" (really Steam Machines only).

  10. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    streblo
    Link Parent
    That's amazing haha. Unsolicited holiday gift idea for him.

    but my brother was playing a joke deck that he made specifically to play at my sister's house, because they have a small table

    He also swaps out his normal playmat for a small mousepad when he plays it

    That's amazing haha. Unsolicited holiday gift idea for him.

    2 votes

  11. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    streblo
    Link Parent
    Cool decks! I'm jealous as I haven't played in person magic in a while. I assume you need a Grand Abolisher type effect here, no? Or they can just activate Lethal Vapors 273 trillion times in...

    Cool decks! I'm jealous as I haven't played in person magic in a while.

    To cap it off, you need a way to get rid of the Lethal Vapors so everyone else can't do it.

    I assume you need a Grand Abolisher type effect here, no? Or they can just activate Lethal Vapors 273 trillion times in response to you removing it?

    I did not end up winning, but it was pretty funny to see everyone switch from mostly leaving me be because I seemed non threatening to trying to figure out collectively how to deal with a bullshit game problem.

    This is the ultimate "I'm going to go make a drink, you guys figure it out" combo. :P I guess they are pretty much forced to play it out if anyone has a 'win the game' card or an infinite that can keep them alive?

    and then my brother cast a card that let him control how I attacked and how other people blocked, and he took out the other player. Then, on his own turn, he stole my general and hit me with it and took me out.

    Yea, that tracks. I'd probably hang onto the clone effect in my opener too if I was up against Phage.

  12. Comment on Libertarianism is dead in ~humanities

    streblo
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    I think that’s kind of my point — for how pervasive these anarchical micro societies were, effectively zero remain today. The ones that do so live under the umbrella and protection of a nation...

    I think that’s kind of my point — for how pervasive these anarchical micro societies were, effectively zero remain today. The ones that do so live under the umbrella and protection of a nation state.

    And I would disagree on resources as well. It’s not just about access to resources it’s also ease of access. If my food source allows for 4 hours of downtime to be spent doing other things vs your food source only allowing 1, I have a huge advantage over you that long term is going to propel me forward. Uneven resource distribution is inevitable and can lead to conflict.

    There is also some strategy as well. In nuclear weapons theory, a huge amount of effort has been spent on the concept of primacy — what happens if one actor has unilateral access to nuclear weapons. This combined with the risk of cheating has prevented moves towards a “global zero”. The same thing exists in a purely anarchical world — the first group to technologically militarize has a huge first mover advantage they can use to shape their world in their benefit. Everyone is incentivized to militarize.

    7 votes

  13. Comment on Libertarianism is dead in ~humanities

    streblo
    Link Parent
    It's not that anarchy isn't natural, it's that I don't think it's a steady state solution. Humans have lived in anarchy or near-anarchy many times across probably thousands of small communities...

    It's not that anarchy isn't natural, it's that I don't think it's a steady state solution. Humans have lived in anarchy or near-anarchy many times across probably thousands of small communities across history.

    Anarchy wants small co-operative groups to be the building blocks of society, but offers no enforcement mechanism to protect that. Worse, exploitation is perversely incentivized because the first group to start to dominate other groups prevents other groups from dominating it and also allows it to construct a hierarchy beneficial to the in group.

    Humans living in anarchy will invent nations from first principles every time.

    12 votes

  14. Comment on Libertarianism is dead in ~humanities

    streblo
    Link Parent
    No, I'm specifically talking about anarchism as it's described in political philosophy circles. Anarchists view the state as fundamentally irredeemable from their violently coercive natures....

    No, I'm specifically talking about anarchism as it's described in political philosophy circles. Anarchists view the state as fundamentally irredeemable from their violently coercive natures. That's a fine notion to have only if you think power magically dissolves with the dissolution of the state.

    In my opinion anarchists are fighting natural laws of the universe. Anarchism as described by anarchists is not a steady state solution and ultimately leads to feudalism and even more violently coercive relationships.

    15 votes

  15. Comment on Libertarianism is dead in ~humanities

    streblo
    Link Parent
    This would also apply to every political theory, ever. I'll agree that liberalism has been on the backfoot for a myriad of reasons but I also think people ascribe all the modern failings of our...

    The issue is that there are far too many definitions and nobody really agrees on them, which means that in practice "common good" is difficult to implement and easy to dispel. There are countless people who think that the terrible things that Donald Trump is doing in the US is for the common good. If the common good is not common, what is the point?

    This would also apply to every political theory, ever.

    I'll agree that liberalism has been on the backfoot for a myriad of reasons but I also think people ascribe all the modern failings of our society to liberalism which is in my opinion either misguided or intentionally misleading.

    10 votes

  16. Comment on Libertarianism is dead in ~humanities

    streblo
    Link Parent
    Liberals have gone to great lengths to define what you are calling the common good, see e.g. Rawls’ Theory of Justice and the veil of ignorance / difference principle.

    Liberals have gone to great lengths to define what you are calling the common good, see e.g. Rawls’ Theory of Justice and the veil of ignorance / difference principle.

    7 votes

  17. Comment on Libertarianism is dead in ~humanities

    streblo
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    I have been telling libertarians and anarchists this for almost twenty years. They have convinced themselves that the state is always the greater evil even if private actors are inflicting the...

    Let me be clear about what I mean. Libertarianism isn’t dead because libertarians lost elections or because their policies were tried and failed. It’s dead because the philosophy itself, when examined honestly, leads to conclusions its adherents claim to oppose.

    If you take seriously the premise that property rights are inviolable and that democratic constraint on property is illegitimate, you cannot avoid the concentration of power in private hands. You cannot prevent the emergence of hierarchy. You cannot maintain anything resembling equal liberty for all.

    The libertarian response has always been: “But the market will prevent that! Competition will discipline power!” But this is faith, not argument. History shows us repeatedly that markets, left unconstrained by democratic governance, produce monopoly, oligopoly, and systematic advantage for those who already have power. The invisible hand doesn’t prevent domination—it enables it.

    I have been telling libertarians and anarchists this for almost twenty years. They have convinced themselves that the state is always the greater evil even if private actors are inflicting the same damage.

    32 votes

  18. Comment on Hate-reading? in ~books

    streblo
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    I enjoyed the first Sanderson WoT book a great deal. The second one I didn't have a strong opinion about but I didn't really like the last one. I can't really elaborate why without spoiling it so...

    I enjoyed the first Sanderson WoT book a great deal. The second one I didn't have a strong opinion about but I didn't really like the last one. I can't really elaborate why without spoiling it so I'll just leave it at that.

    Overall I thought Sanderson did a good job at filling in, probably the best that could be done realistically but I still liked Jordan's writing better. Yes, there is a lot of detail but personally I enjoyed that. It's cozy in a way and let's me get transported to the setting.

    4 votes

  19. Comment on Donald Trump AI advisor David Sacks says ‘no federal bailout for AI’ after OpenAI CFO’s suggestion of US federal government backstop in ~tech

    streblo
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    I haven't listened to the actual clip but from what I understand they're seeking the government to backstop some protected tranches of AI investment. That's a lot different than e.g. getting a...

    I haven't listened to the actual clip but from what I understand they're seeking the government to backstop some protected tranches of AI investment. That's a lot different than e.g. getting a service contract with the government. It's even different than the government investing in OpenAI directly, which at least has direct upside for the taxpayer.

    3 votes

  20. Comment on Donald Trump AI advisor David Sacks says ‘no federal bailout for AI’ after OpenAI CFO’s suggestion of US federal government backstop in ~tech

    streblo
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    It's definitely being hyperbolized, but they're still asking for/floating the idea for US taxpayers to be on the hook for some % of future AI loans.

    It's definitely being hyperbolized, but they're still asking for/floating the idea for US taxpayers to be on the hook for some % of future AI loans.

    7 votes