whbboyd's recent activity
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Comment on What happens when the internet goes out at your work? in ~talk
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Comment on America's dumbest crop: grass in ~enviro
whbboyd Link ParentYeah, this is pretty much where I am. I hate doing yard work; I can pretty easily pay someone to mow it every few weeks, but it would be a lot harder (and a lot more expensive) to hire someone to...Yeah, this is pretty much where I am. I hate doing yard work; I can pretty easily pay someone to mow it every few weeks, but it would be a lot harder (and a lot more expensive) to hire someone to put in and maintain a xeriscaped yard. It doesn't get any maintenance other than mowing, but turf grass is pretty resilient (much like the invasive English ivy some long-previous owner planted in the neighborhood, thanks a lot Fifties Developer Dude), so it basically just sticks around.
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Comment on Connor McDavid puts his money where his mouth is with shockingly-low contract in ~sports.hockey
whbboyd Link Parent"Centi-" definitely threw me for a minute. "Wait, this professional sports player is a ten-thousand-aire? Oohhh…" The problem with "hecto-" is that the only common unit to use it is the hectare,..."Centi-" definitely threw me for a minute. "Wait, this professional sports player is a ten-thousand-aire? Oohhh…"
The problem with "hecto-" is that the only common unit to use it is the hectare, which is a special form and doesn't actually contain the whole prefix.
Despite the Wikipedia argument above, I think the standard way to say this in English is just "hundred-millionaire".
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Comment on I need headphone/mic recommendations for gaming before I rip my hair out in ~tech
whbboyd Link ParentThis is not to excuse bad product design, but you can fix blue status LEDs with a little piece of electrical tape. (Supposedly, nail polish also works if you don't want to totally black out the...This is not to excuse bad product design, but you can fix blue status LEDs with a little piece of electrical tape. (Supposedly, nail polish also works if you don't want to totally black out the indicator.)
Now to convince every dumb trend-following designer the world over that blue LEDs look cheap and ugly…
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Comment on US solar will pass wind in 2025 and leave coal in the dust soon after in ~enviro
whbboyd Link ParentInteresting! Shows me for being Americentric, I suppose. =) Everywhere (all in the US) I've ever paid electricity, the delivery charges have been per kWh. There's definitely downsides to a...Interesting! Shows me for being Americentric, I suppose. =) Everywhere (all in the US) I've ever paid electricity, the delivery charges have been per kWh.
There's definitely downsides to a per-unit-time connection fee, like, as you note, it reduces incentive to conserve energy. Regardless, if it already is established in some places, I imagine that makes it much more likely to spread, rather than needing to be established totally from scratch in a likely-hostile customer base.
(Also, a minor nit: the unit of energy in which electricity is typically denominated is the "kilowatt-hour", abbreviated "kWh". "kW/h"—that is, "kilowatts per hour"—has a physically meaningful interpretation, but isn't very applicable to everyday use, and in particular is not a unit of energy. I would prefer we used megajoules for this—1kWh = 3.6MJ—but alas, here we are.)
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Comment on US solar will pass wind in 2025 and leave coal in the dust soon after in ~enviro
whbboyd Link ParentThey're called "delivery costs" on my bill, but the critical thing here is, they're charged per kilowatt-hour. If I get 90% of my electricity from solar panels on my roof, I'm only paying the...They're called "delivery costs" on my bill, but the critical thing here is, they're charged per kilowatt-hour. If I get 90% of my electricity from solar panels on my roof, I'm only paying the electric company a tenth the delivery costs, but their cost to maintain that infrastructure is essentially fixed. Trees don't stop growing into power lines just because they're underutilized.
A connection fee is a flat fee per unit time. This brings the customer's cost structure in line with the utility's, which is generally desirable, but is a big change for electrical customers, and also appears to penalize light users of the utility's power. (Strictly speaking, those light users' infrastructure is subsidized by heavy users' delivery costs, and a connection fee eliminates that subsidy.)
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Comment on What are some of your personal misheard lyrics? in ~music
whbboyd Link ParentMy childhood was in the '90s and early '00s, but my parents listened to oldies stations on the radio (which at the time meant mostly '80s music), and my personal tastes were more towards classical...My childhood was in the '90s and early '00s, but my parents listened to oldies stations on the radio (which at the time meant mostly '80s music), and my personal tastes were more towards classical and… Weird Al. And so something like 70% of my knowledge of '90s and '00s pop music is from Weird Al, not the original artist. There's a lot of songs that I instantly recognize but don't know the actual words to.
(Also Smells Like Nirvana is highly relevant to this topic.)
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Comment on UK's Jaguar Land Rover cyberattack shutdown to hit four weeks in ~transport
whbboyd Link ParentAs a point of… clarity? Additional confusion? IDK. But anyway, Jaguar ("Jaguar Land Rover", "JLR") outsourced their cybersecurity to a company called "Tata Consultancy Services", or TCS, which is...As a point of… clarity? Additional confusion? IDK. But anyway, Jaguar ("Jaguar Land Rover", "JLR") outsourced their cybersecurity to a company called "Tata Consultancy Services", or TCS, which is also owned by Tata Group, the umbrella company. It's not clear to me (and probably, intentionally, to anyone) if this was JLR's MBAs stupidly jumping at a sweetheart deal offered by their owner; Tata Group handing down a decision to further consolidate their holdings; or just run-of-the-mill corporate incompetence.
TCS has, obviously, completely and utterly failed at their job, but it's very important that nobody be allowed to scapegoat them. Whoever pulled the strings here made the intentional decision to gut JLR's security, and they should be the ones held to account for the harm done.
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Comment on The perfect lighting in ~life.home_improvement
whbboyd (edited )Link ParentHue bulbs which are off but powered use on the order of 0.5W. The bulbs are active Zigbee routers, so they're constantly listening for and forwarding messages to other devices on the mesh. (This...Hue bulbs which are off but powered use on the order of 0.5W. The bulbs are active Zigbee routers, so they're constantly listening for and forwarding messages to other devices on the mesh. (This is actually an important role; Zigbee is intentionally very short-range, so routers are needed to span a home.) I imagine you could design light bulbs which aren't routers and save quite a lot of that idle usage, since Zigbee is designed for low energy (as /u/tibpoe noted, battery-powered devices can get years of runtime on a single coin cell); but you'd have to start thinking about where to place routers or your network would be unreliable, and it's understandable that manufacturers don't want to impose that on users of already extremely fiddly smart home tech.
I have roughly 20 total light bulbs in my house; if all of them were Hue bulbs (and money grew on trees, lol), that would be an idle load of about 10W, or roughly a single additional LED light bulb left on all the time, or 90 kWhr over the course of a year, or $15/year at average US electricity prices.
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Comment on The perfect lighting in ~life.home_improvement
whbboyd LinkFYI (not to try to derail your finally-attained lighting nirvana), you can connect Hue bulbs directly to Homeassistant via Zigbee, no Hue hub in the middle. If you're going to control them from...FYI (not to try to derail your finally-attained lighting nirvana), you can connect Hue bulbs directly to Homeassistant via Zigbee, no Hue hub in the middle. If you're going to control them from hass, this setup is much better, as you avoid the delay from hass talking to the hub. (Given that my bulbs all have a few hundred millisecond transition time set, the delay is imperceptible to me.)
Technically speaking, this setup is what I would recommend to anyone with Hue bulbs looking to do home automation, since it lets you avoid Philips's consumer-unfriendly practices. However, it must be noted that Homeassistant can be extraordinarily unpleasant to set up¹, as you're surely aware. But IMO the entire field is a big continuum between "enshittified", "garbage", and "difficult"; my recommendation for normal people would be to invest in some decent-quality dimmers and bulbs which change color temp with brightness (annoyingly, Philips makes the best—only?—bulbs like this).
¹ It comes by the unflattering nickname "h-ass" honestly.
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Comment on Are touchscreens in cars dangerous? in ~transport
whbboyd Link ParentIt frustrates me greatly that people with your attitudes are allowed to share the road with others. Tesla's "autopilot" is L2 automation, which means it is never doing the actual driving. (This is...It frustrates me greatly that people with your attitudes are allowed to share the road with others.
the Autopilot is commonly the one doing the actual driving
Tesla's "autopilot" is L2 automation, which means it is never doing the actual driving. (This is true of every system below L4, by the way.) You are responsible for paying attention to what your car is doing, and when your car runs over a pedestrian, you have just committed vehicular manslaughter.
You need to be present in case of something going awry, but only casually.
No, you need to be paying complete attention at all times, exactly to the same degree as if you were operating the steering and throttle yourself. There are two reasons for this:
- the vehicle's automation may not recognize that something has gone awry; and
- a situation where the automation gives up control may require the driver to react within tenths of a second. A driver who isn't paying attention will take at least multiple seconds to understand the situation, long after their car has decapitated them with a tractor trailer.
Situations in which airplane autopilots (systems which are several orders of magnitude more reliable than anything ever installed in a consumer car) disconnect are a rich source of plane crashes, for precisely this reason.
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Comment on California attorney fined for using twenty-one AI hallucinated cases in court filing in ~tech
whbboyd Link ParentYou can't actually get this. There's not a knob between "obsequious bullshitter" and "obstinate realist". You can train models between "obsequious" and "obstinate", but they always bullshit (it's...You can't actually get this. There's not a knob between "obsequious bullshitter" and "obstinate realist". You can train models between "obsequious" and "obstinate", but they always bullshit (it's a fundamental property of being a language model—they don't "know" anything in any reliable sense); obstinate models will refuse to answer more often, but when they do, you definitely shouldn't assume the resulting output has any real-world validity.
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Comment on Is OpenWRT worthwhile at home? in ~comp
whbboyd Link ParentYeah, I agree with this take. I use and am very happy with OpenWRT on my home LAN. It's not so much these days because it's way more powerful than stock firmware on high-end consumer network...Yeah, I agree with this take. I use and am very happy with OpenWRT on my home LAN. It's not so much these days because it's way more powerful than stock firmware on high-end consumer network equipment¹; rather:
- Hardware support window is extremely long. I use a Buffalo WZR-600DHP², which was released in 2012 and for which Buffalo's latest firmware is (apparently?) from 2018.
- There's negligible risk of OpenWRT deciding to brick, cripple, monetize, or otherwise degrade my router with updates. Even if they tried, the project would be forked immediately.
- Generally speaking, I have a strong preference that any software on my network be open-source. Am I going to rebuild the kernel to do ad blocking at the network layer? Probably not—but the capability is important, and not there with proprietary OEM firmware.
It's way less involved than running OPNSense or building something bespoke. And I'm not a Ubiquiti customer, so take this with a grain of salt, but my impression of the gestalt is that Ubiquiti has fallen far the highs of the 2010s as a purveyor of pro-quality equipment to consumer users.
¹ Although I assert that it is in fact more powerful than almost all OEM firmwares. For example, it was very straightforward for me to plug an
old cell phone5G modem into the USB port on my router, share network through it, and configure uplink failover. Can you do that on, like, a stock TP-Link? Maybe, I don't actually know, but I kind of doubt it. But it's obviously possible on OpenWRT, because it's just a Linux box.
² I actually have two, lol. One is the router, the other one sits at the far end of the house and is just a "dumb" WAP. Both run OpenWRT. Turns out the cheapest, easiest option for a consumer-grade WAP is just a consumer-grade wifi router configured not to do any routing. =P -
Comment on The day return became enter in ~tech
whbboyd Link ParentThe author literally wrote the book on the topic.The author literally wrote the book on the topic.
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Comment on What's a question you could ask to determine if someone is an expert in your line of work? in ~talk
whbboyd Link ParentNonsense! Solving security problems with technical solutions is extremely straightforward: go into the basement and take diagonal cutters to all the uplink cables. Now, solving security problems...Nonsense! Solving security problems with technical solutions is extremely straightforward: go into the basement and take diagonal cutters to all the uplink cables.
Now, solving security problems while keeping a bunch of oblivious pigheaded stakeholders happy (or at least, just sufficiently not mad at you not to take it up the chain), that's a much thornier problem. ;)
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Comment on 7/11 closing down 444 locations in ~finance
whbboyd Link ParentOne day, hell; with robberies at 8:30, 9:30, and 11:30, those were almost certainly all in one shift. The poor clerk. =(One day, hell; with robberies at 8:30, 9:30, and 11:30, those were almost certainly all in one shift. The poor clerk. =(
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Comment on Seeking advice for back-up internet connection at home in ~tech
whbboyd LinkI don't know exactly what capabilities Ubiquiti provides. OpenWRT can install the USB drivers to just tether to a phone plugged into a USB port, and you can then set up automatic connection...I don't know exactly what capabilities Ubiquiti provides.
OpenWRT can install the USB drivers to just tether to a phone plugged into a USB port, and you can then set up automatic connection failover. They make dedicated modems for this, or you could get a router with a built-in LTE/5G modem, but a used low-end smartphone will be a lot cheaper. A data-only SIM with a low cap could run you $5/month. This isn't the most professional approach, which depending on your priorities for your LAN may be a significant downside, but I've done a decent amount of research (thanks for fuck-all, Spectrum), and it does seem to be by some margin the cheapest.
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Comment on What are your favorite and least favorite airports? in ~transport
whbboyd LinkBroadly speaking, I do not like airports. They're very emblematic of all the worst things about air travel (i.e. literally everything except the fact that you're flying through the air, which...Broadly speaking, I do not like airports. They're very emblematic of all the worst things about air travel (i.e. literally everything except the fact that you're flying through the air, which under ideal circumstances you do not ever do within the airport buildings). My least favorite is probably Atlanta (ATL)? Or maybe O'Hare (ORD), though I've transferred through Atlanta more. Any gigantic, soulless airport that turns into an irresistible attractor for travel plans.
However, I will highlight one, which, while I don't like it, I do think is interesting: Hilo, HI (ITO) is a rinky-dink little airport serving the east (rainy, and therefore less popular) side of the Big Island. The terminal is like a time capsule to the '70s. Absolutely without a doubt the most dated public space I've ever been in that's not explicitly a museum, and therefore weirdly charming. (Our flight was delayed by something like four hours, which was a lot less charming.)
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Comment on What happened to your first car? in ~transport
whbboyd Link ParentIf you're driving a decent car on a more-or-less suitable road, then no, 190km/hr does not feel dramatically faster than 130km/hr or so. It'll stay stable and planted; you'll have a lot more wind...If you're driving a decent car on a more-or-less suitable road, then no, 190km/hr does not feel dramatically faster than 130km/hr or so. It'll stay stable and planted; you'll have a lot more wind and engine noise than usual, and probably more vibrations, but the main experience is that you run out of sight distance very quickly.
If you're driving a shitbox from the '00s or earlier, then it is absolutely terrifying. Everything will shake, shimmy, and rattle; steering and braking will get very floaty (more than usual, even); all the mechanical systems will make noises suggesting they are about to explode violently. You will be certain you are about to die.
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Comment on What is the most insane, tedious, difficult, and/or noteworthy gaming achievement you have completed or given up on? in ~games
whbboyd LinkWhat, no mention of the infamous gnome achievement from HL2:E2? ;) This sort of thing just kind of sucks all the fun out of a game for me, so I very rarely feel any particular desire to do them....What, no mention of the infamous gnome achievement from HL2:E2? ;)
This sort of thing just kind of sucks all the fun out of a game for me, so I very rarely feel any particular desire to do them. (The closest I got to getting Little Rocket Man was pulling the gnome out from the table he spawns under, looking at him for a second, and throwing him across the room.)
So, I have a few different answers here. For context, I'm a software engineer, so I'm generally working pretty closely (but not at the IT/ops level) with the relevant equipment.
WFH
Currently, like several others here, I work from home; so if the Internet goes out "at work", it's gone out at my house and fixing it becomes my top priority. Even if I could work offline, nobody else will fix it, and I'd be fixing it as soon as I signed off for the day regardless. Until recently, I was with "horrible ISP monopoly du jour" (or "HIMDJ" as I'm going to call them going forward) and this process generally consisted of:
I'm now with a local fiber ISP, and have had zero outages of note so far (a better record than HIMDJ despite only a few months of service). I suppose when I do have one, the process will be similar. When I'm unable to resolve the issue, I have a "5G modem" (an old cell phone) which I can tether to my router via USB to connection share, which works great as long as you don't have anything that automatically snarfs a ton of bandwidth if it decides all wifi is unmetered.
(As I've mentioned a few times in previous comments, it's possible to set up automatic uplink failover in OpenWRT, and I did in fact do that at one point and it worked great. I got more use out of the plan by putting the SIM in a different old phone and using it as a "pager" for work, though, so this changeover is currently manual, which hasn't really been an issue.)
Office—just Internet
I… actually can't remember this happening? Most offices I've worked in have had redundant uplinks and reasonably professionally-managed local networks, making Internet outages pretty rare. What did happen was:
Office—power outage
I worked for several years at a job whose office lost power hilariously frequently, something like four to six times a year on average. If the outage went for more than half an hour or so, everyone went home. This was before laptops with a whole work day's worth of battery were commonplace, so you probably couldn't work for more than a few hours with no power, and the UPSs for network equipment wouldn't last even a fraction that long. (This building actually had a generator in an enclosure, but I never saw it running. Maybe we weren't paying the landlord enough for backup power?)
There's another somewhat related case, though:
Major Clod Service Provider outage
Remember the big AWS S3 outage in February 2017 that took down a solid chunk of the Internet? I sure do, because all our infrastructure at work was on AWS, so we were 100% down for the duration and could do absolutely nothing about it. We updated our status page to blame Amazon and everyone went home. I could in principle have written code offline, but most of my day-to-day work required some interaction with our hosted infrastructure (debugging customer-reported issues, for instance), so in practice, without having prepared to work offline, there wasn't much I could do.