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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: August 12th, 2023

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  • For 2 years, I had to set up production environments on RHEL, mostly Apache and Keycloak servers. I had a limited, very specific list of sudo permissions, and I had to ask very specifically what I else needed, which was then granted by people who neither knew nor cared what I was working on.

    SELinux permission problems were always the fallback reason when nothing else made sense. With my permissions, I could not just straight up check for it. E. g. Apache would not server a folder, cryptic error -> check file permissions -> check general Apache config problems -> assume SELinux permission is missing and request it, supplying the exact command they need to type.


  • Evidently, it’s not enough when many people try to block or ignore ads.

    What would stop them would be a sufficiently large minority that really takes note of the ads they see and actively avoids the products. Like, even when it is the best for a given situation, buy the second best instead.

    Only that would take away from the people they still do reach.

    In theory, even a minority (20%?) could make ads harmful for the advertiser.




  • I bought a desktop PC for a little over 2k in late 2011, and still use it. I’m a back-end developer, and certainly I would like to be able to upgrade my 16 GB RAM to 32 GB in an affordable way.

    Other than that, it’s perfectly fine. IDE, a few docker containers, works.

    And modern gaming is a scam anyway. Realistic graphics do not increase fun, they just eat electricity and our money. Retro gaming or not at all.

    Imagine how things were if they were built to be maintained for 15+ years.


  • I’m retro computing, retro everything tech, and I DO need my collection!

    Just had to order a keyboard DIN connector (pre PS-2) adapter for a old 80386. Because I obviously still don’t hoard enough old stuff!

    One of the few things I’m afraid I won’t be able to use anymore are UMTS (3G) sticks and routers. Although, the router still works a perfectly fine mobile Wifi router, hmmmmm …





  • Ideas?

    • CO2 tax - if it’d be high enough to completely pay for the damage, this shit would stop pretty fast. But even less than that would help. Alternative: Certificates without loopholes. Some use would survive, e. g. an IT professional would still use $ 50 worth of energy per day if it gives a 10 % productivity boost, but models would start consolidating and use all tricks to keep it efficient, rather than push out whatever they can. Only works when imports from regions that refuse to participate are taxed when imported, or outright banned.
    • Huge advantage of machine learning: The “when” is completely flexible. Could just use excess power from renewable peaks, or even nuclear & coal nightly production. But as long as it’s cheap enough to just make more power around the clock: Why should they? They won’t do it voluntarily. Solutions could start with a “green” label for consumers, but that would probably not do that much. It also won’t help when we force them to use 100 % renewables and nuclear, and then they just buy all solar panels and wind turbines off the market leaving us with higher costs and trouble switching to net 0
    • Evaluate the market and identify the bubble. Does an AI focussed company make conservative use of existing capabilities, without overhyping them, or put their money on likely near-future developments, or depend entirely on optimistic future capabilities?
    • With such measures in place, we’d still have the models they trained so far. They’d eventually plateau anyway (or already have). When training of new models stops, as we make it too expensive to spend a lot of power for a tiny improvement, a good part of the power waste stops.

  • Could be even worse, look at what happened to Stauffenberg’s family.

    Arguable whether he signed up for that.

    Fight and die in defence of a NATO ally? Yes. Same as the aggressor, if the elected government decides so, such as in Iraq? Also yes.

    Risk having his wife, children, grandchildren taken away and put in Sippenhaft (collective punishment) or put in a reeducation orphanage? Not sure there is a moral obligation to that. Safety for his family was one of the things he got out of all this.

    His risks for resisting beyond what he already did are higher than they would be for the average citizen. On the other hand, he also could do more than the average citizen.

    A tough call, and I would not judge.