Dark_Arc

joined 1 year ago
[–] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

You should try Brighter Shores.

The original RuneScape developers and owners (i.e. Andrew Gower and his brothers) are back with a new game, at a new company, with an industry shattering $5.99/mo subscription price for all content.

No micro transactions, no pay to win, no outrageous DLC pricing, no bull shit ... just a fun game with many similarities to OSRS but also modernizations, formula improvements, and lessons learned.

[–] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 41 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's the most complicated dad joke I've ever heard... I'll have to add it to the dad-a-base.

With Linux you just open the software manager and search for it with effectively 0 chance of your grandma downloading a virus.

The app store model is the Linux model. Linux just doesn't have paid apps in said stores.

The problem is a hash algorithm is exactly the sort of thing that copyright would be horrible at protecting. The source code is hardly relevant at all, it's the operations that matter.

A big part of patents is to allow private sector research to occur. RCA failed and maybe patents should just fail too.

It's not about logic it's about feeling.

Yeah all that is true (at least I'm fairly sure), but because it's a virus the "feeling" of responsibility just isn't there.

[–] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 1 points 5 days ago (2 children)

It's too abstract. The virus has a life of its own. Blaming Trump for those deaths is kind of like blaming Biden for hurricane that hit North Carolina.

Yeah, Trump could've implemented policies that he didn't that the experts have told us could've saved lives. However, that's all hypothetical savings.

That's very different than "Trump deported my friend" or "Trump's FDA let heavy metals into my Little Debbie's" or "Trump's economic policy resulted in me losing my home because I couldn't afford to live."

[–] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

like the umbrella wedge/spring to make it open automatically.

That to me is a very specific algorithm. It's a simple mechanism but putting it together might be a bit tricky.

That's very similar to SHA, it's a fairly simple set of mechanisms but the actual composure of those ideas into something that works as well as SHA does takes very specific research experience. It's not at all an abstract idea, it's a very concrete and specific set of operations that you invented first.

Imagine if the patent was "an umbrella can open itself with the push of button" no further details. That's close to the level of detail some software patents are argued at and effectively what the "put a game in your loading screen" patent was awarded on.

You can't patent the idea that "an umbrella should be able to open [somehow]" so I likewise think it's ridiculous that someone was able to parent "your game [somehow] runs another simpler game before it runs."

Patents should be to protect very specific research so that the private sector can do said research and profit from it. Patents should not block out broad concepts. The patent in the video game situation was and should've been ruled as bogus. It's not the type of thing anyone needed to research or think about, you just literally go "what if I added a game to my loading screen" and you're in violation.

I kinda felt that way about the entire show... Some people really loved that show and I watched it just to know what they were talking about... But for the most part I kept wondering what I was missing.

I watched all of the seasons and ultimately felt like it was a good time passer but not a particularly captivating show.

[–] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 16 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (7 children)

I think software patents should really only apply to extremely tricky algorithmic "discoveries" (which I would consider inventions, as someone that's written a SHA256 implementation from reference material, nobody is "just coming up with that").

"Ingenuity patents" like that loading screen game are everything that's wrong with software patents. It's not all that crazy of an idea to add a game while waiting to play the main game. There's no radical research required there, just an idea.

I don't think vague ideas like "a game in a loading screen" are sufficiently creative to warrant a patent.

[–] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 31 points 6 days ago (12 children)

Or at least the bar should be much much higher. Like if you've invented the SHA algorithm... Fine.

However, if you've just invented "a way to purchase something over the network via a phone"... That is not patent worthy.

[–] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 14 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Yeah, unfortunately I think we're at a point where people are going to need to get burned first hand to have their minds changed.

We're also living in an era where regulator bodies have been repeatedly weakened by large companies and interest groups.

Does that fire resistance hold up over a decade, two decades, a century, etc? Even if internationally regulatory bodies are 100% in good hands ... there's no way everybody is using the same blend of wood + fire retardant.

Also how realistic are the laboratory conditions? Do the same testing rules apply if an accelerate has been used to increase the burn rate?

What about the human impact? What's the impact of inhaling smoke off of these? Environmental impact from the gasses inevitably produced?

How repairable is the timber structure in case of fire?

These questions have pretty reasonable answer for steel and concrete because we have decades of experience with it.

I'm not an expert in this space but this seems like an incredibly dangerous gamble to take for not much gain. Concrete and steel are reliable building materials that are mostly issues because of the energy cost to produce them. Fix the energy supply chain and they're about as green as anything else.

This isn't being pitched because it's "better than steel and concrete" it's being pitched as "green" and call me a cynic but if it was actually "better" than concrete and steel and safer than concrete and steel, they would outright say that. Arbitrarily being "more green" with no other information (and being based on a material that is supposed to combust but doesn't), is a huge red flag.

 

So, I'm trying to clone an SSD to an NVME drive and I'm bumping into this "dev-disk-by" error when I boot from the NVME (the SSD is unplugged).

I can't find anyone talking about this in this context. It seems like what I've done here should be fine and should work, but there's clearly something I and the arch wiki are missing.

21
TikTok’s Pro-China Tilt (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg to c/usnews@beehaw.org
 

The times dives into an intelligence report on how TikTok's political algorithm anomalies align with the CCP's Geostrategic Objectives https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing-Timebomb_12.21.23.pdf

This report highlights major differences in the prevalence of hashtags related to subjects like Hong Kong Protests, Tainanmen Square, Tibet, the South China Sea, Taiwan, Uyghurs, Pro-Ukraine, and Pro-Isreal when compared to other major social media platforms.

Additionally the times cited a Wall Street Journal analysis (https://www.wsj.com/tech/tiktok-israel-gaza-hamas-war-a5dfa0ee) which "found evidence that TikTok was promoting extreme content, especially against Israel. (China has generally sided with Hamas.)"

-1
TikTok’s Pro-China Tilt (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg to c/news@lemmy.world
 

The times dives into an intelligence report on how TikTok's political algorithm anomalies align with the CCP's Geostrategic Objectives https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing-Timebomb_12.21.23.pdf

This report highlights major differences in the prevalence of hashtags related to subjects like Hong Kong Protests, Tainanmen Square, Tibet, the South China Sea, Taiwan, Uyghurs, Pro-Ukraine, and Pro-Isreal when compared to other major social media platforms.

Additionally the times cited a Wall Street Journal analysis (https://www.wsj.com/tech/tiktok-israel-gaza-hamas-war-a5dfa0ee) which "found evidence that TikTok was promoting extreme content, especially against Israel. (China has generally sided with Hamas.)"

3
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg to c/linux@programming.dev
 

Hi all,

I'm visiting a relative that has a Google WiFi system with multiple access points. There's an access point literally right next to me that I can see in the KDE BSSID list with 100% connection strength.

For some reason, it's instead picking a BSSID with only 60% strength. Does anyone have any thoughts on why it's choosing this access point instead of one of the others? Is this something the Google WiFi controls/suggests to the laptop, is something bugged, or is there a good reason Linux might be choosing this particular access point?

EDIT: It turns out the access point placement was actually just really bad, and the access point in question was not even making it to the rest of the LAN... The speed difference between my phone and laptop seems to be just that, something to do with a difference between the framework and the Pixel's wireless cards (or drivers). Even with everything corrected, the Pixel is significantly out performing the framework.

 

Hi folks,

I was wondering what people's thoughts are on the state of font rendering on Linux and if there are any important settings/packages I might not be aware of.

I've never been particularly font sensitive. So despite being a long time user at this point... I'm still a Linux fonts noob. However, I know a lot of people are big into fonts.

I recently installed Debian KDE as a desktop for my father. He likes it, but he wasn't crazy about the fonts. We turned the normal subpixel rendering on in KDE Font settings, but some pages definitely had blocky looking fonts (e.g. the Yahoo home page my dad still uses 🙃).

Any tips? The documentation in this area seems to be lacking... and maybe it's just the resolution of the mintors and things (my dad had gotten used to his high resolution phone so jumping back to a 28" 1080p monitor is going to look blocky no matter what). Regardless, if there are any tips or things I might have missed, they'd be much appreciated!

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