tuxrandom's recent activity

  1. Comment on Getting older and nostalgia - what do you miss? in ~talk

    tuxrandom
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    That must be it. In recent years, there have been almost no efforts regarding holidays due to certain issues I prefer not to go into further. Maybe I'll try to do something this year, but then...

    That must be it. In recent years, there have been almost no efforts regarding holidays due to certain issues I prefer not to go into further.

    Maybe I'll try to do something this year, but then again it's a ton of work to do alone. I might start with just my room.

  2. Comment on Getting older and nostalgia - what do you miss? in ~talk

    tuxrandom
    Link
    If I had to pick a single thing that I miss the most, it would be that kind of magic that Christmas (and holidays in general) used to have. As I've grown up, those just started feeling like...

    If I had to pick a single thing that I miss the most, it would be that kind of magic that Christmas (and holidays in general) used to have. As I've grown up, those just started feeling like basically any other day to me.

    Also, very high on that list is that the biggest problem in life was my parents sending me to bed before sunset in summer.

    24 votes

  3. Comment on What game encouraged you to make your new PC, or upgrade? in ~games

    tuxrandom
    Link Parent
    Buying used tech can save tons of money. You can get as low as $200 for very decent laptops that are 2-3 years old. I just don't do that for mobile devices since their batteries tend to be done...

    Buying used tech can save tons of money. You can get as low as $200 for very decent laptops that are 2-3 years old.

    I just don't do that for mobile devices since their batteries tend to be done for. Unless of course replacement batteries are available from the original manufacturer and replacable with reasonable effort, but especially the former is practically never the case and I don't trust the safety of aftermarket lithium batteries.

  4. Comment on What game encouraged you to make your new PC, or upgrade? in ~games

    tuxrandom
    Link
    Last year, I upgraded to an RTX2060 (I never buy current gen, way too expensive) from a GTX750Ti for RDR2. After that, I noticed that my old 3570K became the bottleneck even when overclocked to...

    Last year, I upgraded to an RTX2060 (I never buy current gen, way too expensive) from a GTX750Ti for RDR2.

    After that, I noticed that my old 3570K became the bottleneck even when overclocked to 4GHz, so I upgraded to a used 5600X in April this year. That upgrade was just a general quality of life investment (even my non-gaming laptop had a stronger CPU at that point) and not for a specific game, even though it still obviously improved gaming performance noticibly. Also, I can transcode video files much quicker now which is nice.

    2 votes

  5. Comment on The Password Game in ~tech

    tuxrandom
    Link Parent
    I made it past rule 16 thanks to your comment. I sadly ended up starving Paul shortly after because the whole thing is a bit buggy. It was a fun run anyways!

    I made it past rule 16 thanks to your comment. I sadly ended up starving Paul shortly after because the whole thing is a bit buggy. It was a fun run anyways!

  6. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    tuxrandom
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    I've been making a lab power supply with two galvanically isolated channels. Originally it was supposed to be a single channel with symmetric positive and negative output voltages, but since the...

    I've been making a lab power supply with two galvanically isolated channels. Originally it was supposed to be a single channel with symmetric positive and negative output voltages, but since the transformer I'm using has two secondaries (instead of a single one with a center tap) I decided to make it two channels which can be switched to a single symmetric channel if needed. I might add a possibility to switch them to parallel internally for more current capability. The only thing missing is the case which I have yet to design and print (If anyone can recommend a free CAD that works on Linux, stores all data locally and isn't FreeCAD, please let me know). The output will be 1.2-15V / 2A per channel regulated with slightly modified LM2596 modules to keep it simple.

  7. Comment on What password management solution do you use and why? in ~tech

    tuxrandom
    Link Parent
    Another FF sync user here. It started off with me wanting to sync between Linux and Windows on my first dual-boot system and I have never bothered to switch to anything else, not that I would have...

    Another FF sync user here.

    It started off with me wanting to sync between Linux and Windows on my first dual-boot system and I have never bothered to switch to anything else, not that I would have ever felt the need to. It just works on basically every platform and doesn't require any additional software.

    Even if it were less secure than a 3rd party password manager, I still have 2FA for all accounts that support it (which every major site does by now), so a password leakage wouldn't be the end of the world.

    2 votes

  8. Comment on Where ya from? in ~talk

    tuxrandom
    Link Parent
    It's probably the algorithms directing us there. I get tons of stuff like 'fun' facts about Germany / the German language in my recommendations. It's even worse when I switch my YouTube location...

    It's probably the algorithms directing us there.

    I get tons of stuff like 'fun' facts about Germany / the German language in my recommendations. It's even worse when I switch my YouTube location to Germany. Also, the amount of content in my algorithm-generated feeds that mentions Germany in any form (i. e. the main topic isn't Germany-related) seems a little overproportional considering there are close to 200 countries, many of which would be way more interesting.

    2 votes

  9. Comment on Are we stuck on a innovation plateau - and did startups burn through fifteen years of venture capital with nothing to show for? in ~tech

    tuxrandom
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    I define the word "innovation" as completely new things that haven't been there before; so it's kind of a synonym for "invention" to me, maybe a bit stronger than that word. So, in my books, there...

    I define the word "innovation" as completely new things that haven't been there before; so it's kind of a synonym for "invention" to me, maybe a bit stronger than that word.

    So, in my books, there hasn't been any real innovation in the last 50 years or so; only improvements (albeit some very major ones) since then.
    The internet or even 3D printing (which are the latest "new things" unless I'm forgetting something big) have been done in the mid to late 20th century.

    The age of groundbreaking inventions / discoveries seems over to me, everything anyone does these days is improving on existing things. Now, this is obviously a good thing, I'm just saying I highly doubt that we will see any real innovations within our lifetimes, except maybe a strong AI which I'm honestly not looking forward to.

    4 votes

  10. Comment on Should retail businesses be required to accept cash? in ~finance

    tuxrandom
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    I'm in a country where cash acceptance is mandatory and I appreciate that for privacy reasons. However, I am all for getting rid of coins less than 10 cents (and setting prices to multiples of 10...

    I'm in a country where cash acceptance is mandatory and I appreciate that for privacy reasons.

    However, I am all for getting rid of coins less than 10 cents (and setting prices to multiples of 10 cents accordingly). Paying with small coins at a human checkout just inconveniences literally everyone and vending machines tend to not accept them either, so they just end up wasting space in my wallet until I get rid of them at a self-checkout in one of the very few stores that have them here.

    2 votes

  11. Comment on Which theme are you defaulting to? I'm loving Atom One Dark. in ~tildes

    tuxrandom
    Link Parent
    Dracula is one of the very few themes I can look at for hours without straining my eyes for reasons yet unknown. It also helps that there is a pre-made version available for pretty much every...

    Dracula is one of the very few themes I can look at for hours without straining my eyes for reasons yet unknown. It also helps that there is a pre-made version available for pretty much every popular piece of software out there that supports theming. That makes it a very seamless experience.

    5 votes

  12. Comment on Pour one out for HDDs because PC games are starting to require SSDs in ~games

    tuxrandom
    Link Parent
    It would be nice though if it were possible to download the textures in a lower resolution version. Correct me if I'm totally wrong here, but my hardware isn't that powerful and my eyes aren't the...

    It would be nice though if it were possible to download the textures in a lower resolution version.

    Correct me if I'm totally wrong here, but my hardware isn't that powerful and my eyes aren't the best either (also, I just don't care as much about graphics as I do about story and gameplay), so I could probably go with 2048x2048 instead of 4096px². That would cut texture file size down to a quarter, and since that seems to be the bulk of a game's file size, would use up significantly less storage.

    I guess we'll have to see what the future brings us compression-wise. Maybe some algorithm based on neural networks that optimizes game files automatically so development companies don't have to 'waste' time on reducing storage size?

  13. Comment on The Reddit blackout is breaking Reddit in ~tech

    tuxrandom
    Link Parent
    Addiction is a pretty fitting term for my Reddit experience. The two "main" days of the blackout in which most of the major subreddits went private, I still caught myself opening Apollo quite a...

    Addiction is a pretty fitting term for my Reddit experience. The two "main" days of the blackout in which most of the major subreddits went private, I still caught myself opening Apollo quite a few times, even knowing fully well that there was not much to expect.

    In a way, I'm actually kind of looking forward to the API changes to kick in. As the official Reddit spyware app is a bad joke at best and the mobile site is much worse than that, I won't have access to Reddit on my phone anymore, which means that one of my two doomscrolling sources (the other being Instagram reels) will run dry essentially permanently, hopefully freeing time for more meaningful things in life.

    For the things on Reddit I'm actually interested in, there are other ways to discuss them or obtain news about.

    29 votes