lux's recent activity
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Comment on Germany legalizes recreational cannabis use in ~society
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Comment on Germany legalizes recreational cannabis use in ~society
lux Link ParentGerman here, any German citizen can soon own max. 50g of weed. 50g at home / 25g outside is the rule. The amounts get summed together. You are not allowed to have 50g at home + additionally 25g...German here, any German citizen can soon own max. 50g of weed.
50g at home / 25g outside is the rule. The amounts get summed together. You are not allowed to have 50g at home + additionally 25g outside.
Who will control this? Most likely no one. But those are the rules.A fresh harvest from the plant is usually 4-5 times heavier + you also have to trim the buds. So if a plant gives 200g of fresh buds, you are still in the range.
If you really reach more than 50g dried you either bite the bullet and throw it away, or decide to break the law.
Some German lawyers have suggested to get a very clean "trash can" and throw it away in there.. :DAnything over 50g but less than 60g gets you a fine similar to a parking violation. Anything over 60g is illegal and lands you in court.
Respectively, anything between 25g-30g outside gets you a fine, anything over 30g lands you in court.We do have an additional rule which allows dropping the case if the amount was really not meant for selling or because you grew too much by accident.
Not sure how this will be practically applied though.Imo, 50g at home is not enough. But it's better than 0g and a drug raid.
I would rather set up a huge tent once per year, grow a kg and have enough for years, than to always have a smaller tent running throughout the year. But it's a very big step forward. I'm officially not a criminal anymore! (At least when it comes to weed). :DRealistically, I guess no one would really care unless you boast about your "big budz" on facebook.
Previously a call from a concerned neighbor about weed smell could land you a raid.
This is not the case anymore, so how should the cops know about the amount you have at home?I guess most of the 60+g cases will be more of a by-product from other crimes.
The main consensus (except for the old boomer conservatives) is: "not great, not terrible".
People are not criminalized anymore, they will not lose their driver license anymore because they smoked weed two days ago.
The law could have been better and less "German-y". That we even get this far, was unbelievable for me and for many others.The next big plan are actual dispensaries and full legalization, but this is currently against EU law, which is why we went the partial way first.
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Comment on "The AI revolution is rotten to the core" in ~tech
lux Link"The irony that we are automating the production of art, instead of the jobs everybody hates shouldn't be lost on us." Clickbaity title, but a good video regardless about currents state of machine..."The irony that we are automating the production of art, instead of the jobs everybody hates shouldn't be lost on us."
Clickbaity title, but a good video regardless about currents state of machine learning and its downsides.
In my opinion worth the time to watch.Ironically it popped up because of Youtubes recommendation algorithm.
He was able to put some of my unordered thoughts and ideas about current ML into a more cohesive video.
I mostly care about the workers and human rights parts, especially how they were and are violated to make ML grow commercially, and what the "AI Apocalypse" will more likely be. - Mostly a boring and mundane narrowing down of human life and behavior into numbers, statistics and cost centers.There is other interesting info in it. I don't agree with everything, but I found it to be a good opinion in general and it gave some food for thought.
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"The AI revolution is rotten to the core"
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Comment on PySide vs .NET WinForms for a Desktop GUI App in 2023? in ~comp
lux LinkNewer .NET is fully cross platform and so is the GUI library Avalonia. I did a few projects with Avalonia in the past and like it. Especially in terms of performance .NET will be much better than...Newer .NET is fully cross platform and so is the GUI library Avalonia. I did a few projects with Avalonia in the past and like it. Especially in terms of performance .NET will be much better than Python. You wrote something about multithreading, while this is possible with Python it is natively ingrained into .NET and is a breeze to use. I love current gen .NET a lot. :)
Another option would be to write a local webapi service and a website which you then wrap into Electron or Tauri or use React Native. Although I had a bad experience with React Native once I actually wanted to properly debug things or when the project simply got bigger.
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Comment on Seeing very smooth movement on classic shows on a big screen TV in ~tech
lux Link ParentYou have my Axe. Without a bit of smoothing, movies in general look awful in such scenes on my laser projector as well. On a 3.50m wide image you generally see imperfections more often. Sure, the...You have my Axe. Without a bit of smoothing, movies in general look awful in such scenes on my laser projector as well. On a 3.50m wide image you generally see imperfections more often.
Sure, the higher the interpolation, the more you get artifacts. I find Low to Mid to be a good compromise though. Otherwise it would be unbearable to watch. I dont like movies to be laggy. Another example would be the skyscraper drone panning scene in The Dark Knight. Without smoothing there, it would have ruined the collosal effect imo.
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Comment on Computer savvy people of Tildes, do you have any advice re setting up a new MS Windows personal computer? in ~tech
lux LinkHey, the built in firewall and AV shipped with Windows will be enough. Personal opinion, often times AVs are useless at best or give you a false sense of security.Hey, the built in firewall and AV shipped with Windows will be enough.
Personal opinion, often times AVs are useless at best or give you a false sense of security.
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Comment on Microsoft might want to be making Windows 12 a subscription OS, suggests leak in ~tech
lux LinkIf it would be stripped from ads/tracking, I would even consider it. Its a good OS but the added ads/tracking really puts me off. Right after installing Windows you are already blasted with...If it would be stripped from ads/tracking, I would even consider it. Its a good OS but the added ads/tracking really puts me off. Right after installing Windows you are already blasted with bookmarks in the start menu, notifications and you feel like every move is logged somewhere..
I have installed Win 10 LTSC and removed tracking altogether. It is a very nice feeling to open up the task manager and only see 35 rudimentary processes running. Where the start menu is just a list of installed apps and the only preinstalled apps are Edge, notepad and a calculator. It's just the barebone OS and that is super cool.
Unfortunately, the good version of the OS is only for certain enterprise customers and unavailable for private people - so I sailed the sea and would do the same for Win 11 once it's out. I would like to give Microsoft money for LTSC but they don't want it :)
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Comment on How do you keep track of your subscriptions? in ~tech
lux Link ParentSame here. Debts, monthly common spendings, donations and subscriptions. I like to know how much money I have once all is paid so it makes sense to have a complete overview. There are many free...Same here. Debts, monthly common spendings, donations and subscriptions. I like to know how much money I have once all is paid so it makes sense to have a complete overview.
There are many free tools but none were flexible enough, so I chose spread sheets. Its not like those payments change that often that I need to update it often.
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Comment on Scottish officials approve UK’s first drug consumption room intended for safer use of illegal drugs in ~health
lux Link ParentThis is not how it works. The first conclusion is not always the right one. This room is primarily intended for opiate users and not for typical youth experimentation drugs like LSD/MDMA or weed....- Exemplary
This is not how it works. The first conclusion is not always the right one.
This room is primarily intended for opiate users and not for typical youth experimentation drugs like LSD/MDMA or weed. Besides, the youth would take this stuff not in a sterile and sad place like this. They would go to parties with their friends or experiment at home alone. Even opiates are mostly used in comfortable places until they can't anymore.
Opiates are often consumed by people who sub consciously try to self medicate their psychological problems or use it to vent personal problems. Of course there are people who just want to try it and get hooked, often times in America, people who got opiates prescribed like smarties chose to continue with Heroin because it's cheaper and are already hooked by now.
The longer they take them, the more of a pain it becomes for them. They do not enjoy this at this stage, but the withdrawal effects seem worse and endless.This room is for people at their peak opiate "career", intended to make sure they don't kill themselves when they randomly get a fentanyl laced batch of heroin or other active impurities. They get medical help and a person to talk to. They do not get any substances there, they need to actively go there to seek help.
This is not a grey zone drug paradise and does not condone anything. I promise you, no one really wants to be there, especially not experimental friendly young adults. It's one of the few options we offer people in need and it's not a happy trippy party zone.
I used to help out in a drug related safer use forum and the amount of active users who died are primarily opiate users. Either they overdosed by accident - or by choice.
Punishing those people or rejecting them help because "it's their fault to try it" will bring them closer to the edge of choosing the latter. Those rooms serve a useful purpose and it's time that governments get this into their balloon heads.
I don't want to sound disrespectful, but you clearly have no experience with drugs (which is great!). But this also means, that topics around this are unknown to you. You are not helping anyone in judging things you don't understand just because it feels that way.
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Comment on Gen Z falls for online scams more than their boomer grandparents do in ~tech
lux Link ParentIts kind of funny, I grew up the same way. My parents similarily cautious, especially with sensitive information. The same dad called me perplexed 20 years later, because he entered his phone...Its kind of funny, I grew up the same way. My parents similarily cautious, especially with sensitive information. The same dad called me perplexed 20 years later, because he entered his phone number into some obscure crypto maximalist pyramid scheme scam site and was suddenly receiving around 10-20 calls per day from random numbers around the globe, unable to block them.
Some loosely related family member literally believes anything written on the most idiotic blogs. 5g, bill gates vaccecine population control, fake moon landing and healing crystals. It took less than a year to get her fully absorbed into the bizarro world rabbit hole. A person who used to be very skeptical of the web itself.
It appears to me that some part of the skeptical parents are now running blindly into the traps not following their own advice.
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Comment on Unlimited Kagi searches for $10 per month in ~tech
lux Link ParentI have been using Kagi for a couple of months now. I also heard of it through Tildes and never want to go back. It is definitly worth 10$ and still worth 25$ for me. It is a professional,...- Exemplary
I have been using Kagi for a couple of months now. I also heard of it through Tildes and never want to go back. It is definitly worth 10$ and still worth 25$ for me.
It is a professional, customizable search engine. Not only are the results better, searching things in quotes actually works as you would expect it.
Furthermore, you can blacklist any page you never want to see. I use this feature very extensivly. For example blocking all of these AI generated sites that pop up. Or these stackoverflow/github "wrapper" sites with no added value. 'Newspapers' that are not neutral.
You can configure sites to be globally ranked higher or lower.
It shows you how ad/tracker ridden each page isIt does not only not show ADs, it also does not collect your queries and sells them to other companies for profiling/tracking (this is imo more important than no ads)
You can also search certain categories. 'Programming', 'Research' for example and then only see related sites instead of a food blog with clever SEO. This is sometimes helpful when certain coding related terms mean something different in the common sense.
It can summarize websites and even video I think.
Its very fast and has its own chatgpt like feature, coupled with the indexed data they scrape and collect.
They have their own search engine and combine it with google/bing results, so its not just adfree/trackerfree google/bing overlay.
You dont store your whole digital life into one big company that sells your data to anyone asking for it.
I went a few times to Google when I couldnt find what I was searching for, but Googles results were worse in those cases.
The only thing that Google currently can do better is anything related to shops/locations in your area, as Kagi does not seem to have the data and Google offers a whole suite to register and manage your shop to be listed at google.
At times Googling things kind of made me irrationally angry, as the results were so off to what I was searching for. It didnt understand me and gave odd, out of context answers. It felt like talking to wall, or my ex.
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Comment on Unity reveals plans to charge per game install, drawing criticism from development community in ~games
lux Link ParentI think the best shot would be Godot and Unreal combined, there is not really much of an alternative there. For 3D I would primarily go towards Unreal and for 2D towards Godot. Godot supports 3D,...I think the best shot would be Godot and Unreal combined, there is not really much of an alternative there.
For 3D I would primarily go towards Unreal and for 2D towards Godot. Godot supports 3D, but Unreal offers much more tooling, more graphic fidelity and I would argue better performance. For simple 3D games, Godot might be enough. Depends on the use case.
In terms of differences, many aspects and concepts remain the same, so you don't need to learn Unreal as if it's your first day.
It has a similar (but way better) shader editor like the shader graph in Unity, of course, the idea of textures remains the same, you still work with Vectors. Unreal has an amazing AI system and also offers the visual scripting language Blueprints. Although I wouldn't want to write my whole game with it, it's nice for behavior patterns or similar logic that can be better represented in a visual way.I would suggest to create a simple 3D game with both engines and see what fits you better. I would argue that Unreal will be more complex and take more time to get into compared to Godot, but you will also have more options in the end.
If you understand the basic concept of game development, I would argue that switching between the engines wont be too hard as the same concepts apply for any.
Currently an ex EA Engine developer is working on his own engine called Hazel and I am following its development. But afaik it's only available to Patreon supporters, might be worth looking into it. He seems to know his craft very well. His youtube channel is full of info and he documents his development, gives code reviews, and even gives a full tutorial in how to build your own engine: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCherno I always find it interesting to see how inner parts work.
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Comment on Unity reveals plans to charge per game install, drawing criticism from development community in ~games
lux LinkI did a few game jams with friends and wrote some smaller games in Unity, we always had a bad experience with Unity. It feels like multiple teams work on their own parts of the engine, but there...I did a few game jams with friends and wrote some smaller games in Unity, we always had a bad experience with Unity. It feels like multiple teams work on their own parts of the engine, but there is no cohesive link between them. It never feels polished or correctly tweaked. It feels like big parts of Unitys game dev is writing messy glue code.
The last game jam was our last game in Unity. While the development phase was fun, it was not because of Unity. The only reason we kept using Unity for so long was its asset store, the bought assets and our previous experience with it. I eventually switched to Unreal and I was really delighted how well all parts worked together. The spent time learning it was really worth it.
I miss C# as a language but the C++ in Unreal almost feels like C# anyway.
It is definitely not the C++ you would write for normal applications/micro controllers and feels very abstracted from the lower level and is able to make you concentrate on normal game logic.This decision is amusing at best, Unreal is having a fast pace with the recent addition of Lumen and especially Nanite combined with the free Quixel Bridge.
It is more complex, but it feels easier to handle in general. The Unreal tutorials appeared to have better quality. It just feels more mature and more professional. The shipped functionality (For example path finding) works way better than the Unity one. I had to buy an A* lib from the store to get results worth using.
At this point keeping Unity was more a proof of sunken cost fallacy for me, than actual usefulness, which is why I find this idea of "taxing" installations rather amusing. I'm not surprised about the current state of Unity considering the CEOs past. But Unity was already a dead for me after the CEO said, that indie devs are dumb because they don't monetize their games. https://www.pcgamer.com/unity-ceo-sparks-fury-by-saying-developers-who-dont-consider-monetization-are-fing-idiots/
Typical spreadsheet warrior CEO with no heart or passion for games as an art.
I also want to take a look into Godot, another friend is really liking it. But for now I concentrate on Unreal.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
lux LinkI'm currently working on the concept of "creating a hardware product" except packaging and financials. So basically: Planning requirements Tinkering on breadboard Refining the circuit Designing a...I'm currently working on the concept of "creating a hardware product" except packaging and financials.
So basically:
- Planning requirements
- Tinkering on breadboard
- Refining the circuit
- Designing a proper PCB
- Buy some manufactured PCBs
- Solder initial prototype
- Write dedicated software
- Create a 3d printable enclosure
I'm a software guy and I have very limited experience with hardware of any kind.
I have worked with Arduino, ESPs, Teensy and alike before and I know generic electrical and microcontroller concepts, but overall it's pretty limited so I wanted to learn something new.For now I chose a simple project: a fan and water pump controller that is configurable via USB + software.
I definitely want to make it open source, so the schematic/3D model/PCB design/code/usb protocol is intended to be open.It must be simple enough for beginners to recreate, and cheap enough to be affordable, even for school kids.
That's why I'm trying to rather use THT components instead of SMDs to make it easier to solder, and use a Raspberry Pico because it has a lot of hardware PWM pins, is fast, is super cheap and allows to register itself as a dedicated HID device which I can use to allow its configuration.The controller must allow the attachment of external thermistors that you can use as a target for a fan curve, additionally you should be able to simply set a static percentage value.
A dedicated lightweight software should be able to fully control and update it.
Honestly, understanding the USB hardware descriptor documentation and handling of the reports was by far the most difficult part of it yet.
Initially I tried micropython but was not very fond of it. Then I tried TinyGo but I was simply unable to make the USB connection work properly.
Now I just use C++ and deal with it. I use the arduino-pico library instead of the official pico-arm lib, because it's more widely known.The HID connection now works fine and I can send data back and forth! :)
Doing the PWM part of the fan and water cooling pump was the easiest and that works very well already.
For the serialization I have used protobuf for now, although I'm currently thinking about switching back to manual byte encoding as it brings another dependency into it for a rather simple use case.
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Comment on An Internet of PHP in ~comp
lux LinkHonestly, I don't really see a "sweet spot" in PHP. PHP is widely used because of Wordpress, existing CMSs like Typo and Joomla and E-Commerce applications. Those are applications you deploy to...- Exemplary
Honestly, I don't really see a "sweet spot" in PHP.
PHP is widely used because of Wordpress, existing CMSs like Typo and Joomla and E-Commerce applications. Those are applications you deploy to your server and and modify it. Simple as that.
I haven't met anyone in the last five to eight years even mentioning PHP in any regard for developing new services. It's so disregarded that no one even thinks about it anymore. In my career I write new applications and have rarely modified existing software, as I was usually contracted to solve individual problems and never created themes or plugins for Wordpress blogs or similar things.
The usual choices are C#/Rust/Go/Node.js sometimes Java in my experience.
10 years ago I wrote most of the sites in PHP. Primarily I really liked Laravel because of the nice abstraction it brought and it was very lightweight.
The only upsides PHP has is:
- Ease of deployment (You can move those apps via FTP to any webhoster and are ready to go)
- Ease of writing (Simple and easy to understand)
The stdlib of PHP and its syntax was awful, something that only has been fixed in the recent major versions, parts of the stdlib is still very C-ish which should not be the case in a high level web application imo and the behaviors/arguments/return values of functions are inconsistent.
This is my personal opinion of course. It's still a working language and if someone is comfortable with it, that's totally fine. I see no point in having language wars of any kind. It's just a tool like any other language is.
However, I don't see much reason in articles like these where it's like "Ha, Gotcha its still used the most".
Technically it is, but not because of PHP itself, but because a lot of web apps were written in PHP ages ago and were not rewritten because they work fine enough. I would argue that PHPs current web influence is living solely on the past devs decisions and success, and not because of todays capabilities.I would argue that new software similar to Wordpress or Joomla would not be written in PHP anymore.
And I think that's mostly the argument the "opposition" makes.The article feels like it's trying to come up with any kind of argument to support the claim.
For example the curl section. Of course curl bindings are mostly used from the PHP side, because the HTTP request API was awful.
When I was working with PHP, there was simply no other real and proper alternative to it. In C#/Node.js and honestly, any other common language, web requests simply do not require curl in any way because they provide those in the stdlib already.Slacks arguments are interesting as well "fault isolation; safe concurrency; and high developer throughput" what does that even mean in PHPs context? It's nothing where PHP is standing out in any way.
It kind of comes down to "PHP devs are cheaper, and it's simple to write".
Why would an experienced dev today prefer PHP instead of the various other languages?
PHP hits a certain Goldilocks sweetspot. It is pretty fast, has a large community for productivity, features modern syntax, is actively developed, easy to learn, easy to scale, and has a large standard library.
This is such a non-argument that I don't even know where to start countering it.
If PHP works fine for you that's totally awesome, go build amazing stuff with it!
But at least in the professional sector I work in, call it "my bubble" it's out of anyones mind for a very long time for a lot of reasons.
It does not provide any "sweet spot" we could benefit from really. -
Comment on NVIDIA BIOS signature lock broken, vBIOS modding and crossflash enabled by groundbreaking new tools in ~comp
lux (edited )Link ParentWhat I find interesting is how long it took to find the solution. The "hack" is so simple that I wonder what other doors Nvidia kept open that no one considered to check as they seemed too...What I find interesting is how long it took to find the solution. The "hack" is so simple that I wonder what other doors Nvidia kept open that no one considered to check as they seemed too obvious.
A simple patch of the flasher enables flashing of signed bioses to the GPUs. I wonder if they ever circumvent the cert validation on the cards.
Sadly you can't run enterprise bioses on consumer cards as the cards themselves reject booting it. But different BIOSes of the same model are now possible.
I remember some nvidia cert was leaked a while ago. Maybe that can be utilized to modify and unlock certain bios features.
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Comment on NVIDIA BIOS signature lock broken, vBIOS modding and crossflash enabled by groundbreaking new tools in ~comp
lux Link ParentThe cat is out of the bag though. According to the dev, it's a very simple patch to the nvidia firmware patcher as NVidia has added some kind of "backdoor" itself for whatever reason. He basically...The cat is out of the bag though. According to the dev, it's a very simple patch to the nvidia firmware patcher as NVidia has added some kind of "backdoor" itself for whatever reason.
He basically just enabled a hidden flag. The binary won't vanish. The only way to fix this is through a firmware patch on the cards I guess. I assume they added the backdoor for a certain reason - repairing/debugging or something similar so they might even wont.
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Comment on NVIDIA BIOS signature lock broken, vBIOS modding and crossflash enabled by groundbreaking new tools in ~comp
lux LinkYes! It would be amazing if we could finally apply vgpu on consumer cards and partition the GPU for virtual machines. It did work on older cards, but they closed that down - so you pay extra on...Yes!
It would be amazing if we could finally apply vgpu on consumer cards and partition the GPU for virtual machines. It did work on older cards, but they closed that down - so you pay extra on enterprise cards.
If this would be possible, I would be very very happy.
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Comment on Which OS to pick for my first home server? in ~tech
lux (edited )LinkSo I personally use UnRaid and love it. It has a few drawbacks like any other system but it holds its promises in terms of performance and data reliability. If your use case is really that narrow,...So I personally use UnRaid and love it. It has a few drawbacks like any other system but it holds its promises in terms of performance and data reliability.
If your use case is really that narrow, I wouldn't worry about much, honestly. Install Ubuntu/Mint XFCE on your Nuc, attach your drives, install Plex and your torrent software.
If you want, you can still install Docker at a later time and use container variants of your software.Have you installed Plex on Linux, but used your NTFS drives with it? That could explain your pain. I had some odd issues with NTFS and Linux as well.
If you go Linux, use Linux related formats such as ext4, btrfs, xfs and alike.
If you go Windows, use NTFS.I would use Linux for servers because of raw performance. Windows just eats too much resources on its own.
The package managers make it quicker and simpler to install and update software.
SystemD makes it simpler to manage/autostart services.However, you are now at a point where a lot of homelab folks were in the beginning.
- Just want to setup a small system to host movies (either via Plex, Jellyfin or simple SMB) on a nuc/RPi
- It would be nice if I could store all my important personal documents (contracts, bank statements, etc) on a file share at home
- Get paranoid about the hoarded data
- Install Unraid/TrueNas on used pc hardware anyway eventually, buy proper HDDs
- Suddenly 40 active docker containers
- I should buy a small server rack
(I'm trying to talk myself out of stage 6 :D)
It might be worth to plan ahead a bit if you see yourself reaching stage 2-3.
For example rather investing in used PC hardware, a small PC case and a RAID card (in "IT mode") than to buy an expensive USB Raid solution to extend the NUC.
Yeah the polls are not in our favor. This is of course only the plan of the more progressive parties.
The conservatives are whining and spread lies as is tradition. Media is helping them a lot by mostly inviting prohibitionists.
It's really sad how much energy they have invested to get the law into halt. 13 year olds can get weed at any school, but the decriminalization kills our kids. People forget so quickly how bad the country was handled the last 16 years, but the greens and left leaning parties are the cause of any problem we have right now. Sigh.
I hope that the next 18 months show the good effects of the law. Maybe they let the law be and public consensus rises.
They either need to go into coalition with the AfD or need to force another partner to revert their own law somehow.
If they really go into coalition with the AfD nothing will matter anymore anyway. I'm pretty much set to leave the country if it comes to this.
Yeah exactly. Other countries are looking onto us right now. Maybe that raises support in the EU in the long term.
No idea where this will lead at all. I'm still surprised this law even comes into effect. :D
I never ever have thought that I will grow weed at home. Things change, I guess.