I chose my username when I was still a teenager, originally with the meaning that I’m a nerd, but not like an amazing or extremely smart nerd, nor extremely awkward. Just your average guy with autism and nerdy on particular subjects.

I’ve mostly kept with it because it’s how most of my online friends know me, and I still think it’s part of my identity, although I’ve since developed interests that a stereotypical nerd might not have such as cycling, mountain biking, travelling and hiking.

This whole article is a 5 minute write up about a PCMR post from Reddit where a user had their memory stolen. That’s it. Not even surprised this article is a nothingburger given it’s Toms Hardware.

They had me at “Sustainability - Save the planet by talking about it.”

I was joking unfortunately, I don’t have a Land Rover. However a close relative of mine has a Discovery 2 (2.8L i5 Diesel, TD5 engine) and sure, it’s a damn solid and capable vehicle, when it’s running.

My god, doing any work on it requires custom tools (that relative fabricated his own spanner tool to hold the radiator fan while undoing its locking nut), a custom aftermarket computer to do basic functions you’d typically do via OBD (talking about the proprietary Nanocom, car isn’t compatible with OBD2) and extra effort for the odd engineering choices made (coolant system runs through the oil system, separating some part of the motor to service this immediately mixes your oil and coolant).

When that relative bought it I was pretty onboard with getting a Land Rover, maybe a Freelander or Discovery 1, but after his experiences I’d never touch one. No thank you, I will stick to my small Japanese cars.

You leave my Land Rover’s proprietary oil check system out of it!

I’m not an experienced developer, I’ve just done stuff in Java and Python before, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

If we’re strictly talking interfaces, most modern software is a web browser showing you their interface made in HTML. Common ones that come to mind include Discord, Microsoft Teams and Spotify. You can usually tell from how hovering over action buttons always results in a pointing hand cursor, and how absolutely sluggish they run even on decent hardware. This is often done with Electron, and these apps are often called Electron apps.

The problem with this is that now you’re not running a native application with minimal overhead, you’re running a whole ass web engine

This is (probably, IMO) because it’s much easier to hire a frontend web developer and have them do up an interface, than have a dedicated backend developer do it for whatever window library. It also makes it easy to port the app to many systems (including mobile) given how HTML5, CSS and JS all can be made to work on any platform that can run a web engine.

I also imagine that it makes the user interface consistent to the company’s brand, rather than consistent to your operating system. If you look at Discord on Windows, macOS and Linux, it looks almost identical on all three except for only where necessary such as the top window border. Meanwhile if you look at LibreOffice (native application) on Windows, macOS and Linux, the window styling is completely different per system.

Update I realise after posting that I never otherwise explained other performance considerations outside of the interface - but I hope that just briefly going into interfaces gives a good idea already for software. If you are talking games, then that’s a whole separate conversation

And such is the circle of life right. I also feel that if we as a species can move beyond meat, then we should. I can live a perfectly normal life on my current vegan diet, and if that carcus is then left for other animals and fauna to have, thus leaving the cycle undisrupted.

I suppose what I’m getting at is that I’d rather let the animals that need those nutrients have it, as I’m already sorted.

From my end, I’m a registered organ donor because I feel that I won’t need this body once I’m done with it, and if anything is useful off it for someone else, then hell, let them have my liver.

However, an animal can’t consent to that and yeah, an argument could be made that who gives a fuck, it’s a pig/chicken/cow, it’s not gonna give a shit, but death is unfortunate for anything and I’d feel more at ease that the carcus is either left for nature to do what it does than me harvesting it for food.

Australian here, decorations go up in about early December and come down by early January generally; I imagine similar to the US.

Otherwise given there’s no snow during that time of year, it’s usually celebrated by doing summer things like going to the beach, having a barbie, and generally just a time for families and friends to come together while no-one has work.

I admit I’m using my 1,1 as an extra seat in the office, but it’s form of use.

My dad had a G5 (essentially the same case design externally) and this guy is probably not kidding, those things felt like a massive aluminium block

As much as I don’t like LMG, I’d still suffer one of their videos if it had Torvalds in it just out of plain interest

Edit: seems my comment is being misunderstood - I know their collab video is happening, I’m saying that’s why I’ll watch it when it comes out despite not being a huge LMG viewer anymore

Unpaywalled link: https://archive.is/6UiCT

From the headline I surely thought it was a bit clickbaity and maybe they wanted to use a ML algorithm to monitor some states of the facility.

Microsoft and nuclear power company Westinghouse Nuclear want to use AI to speed up the construction of new nuclear power plants.

The construction of a nuclear plant involves a long legal and regulatory process called licensing that’s aimed at minimizing the risks of irradiating the public.

Nope, seems that tech companies are trying to further feed the electricity demands of their data centers even if it means trying to fast track licensing.

Trump’s done a lot to make it easier for companies to build new nuclear reactors and use AI for licensing. […] The goal of [Trump’s May 2025 Executive Order] is to speed up the construction of reactors and get through the licensing process faster.

At the same time, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has gutted the NRC.  In September, members of the NRC told Congress they were worried they’d be fired if they didn’t approve nuclear reactor designs favored by the administration.

Of fucking course Trump and DOGE is in the mix here too.

All of this extra radiation risk so that the top 1%r’s have their pockets lined and we end up with Copilot and Recall. God damn.

I ran into the same thing - they seem to change (potentially to other outputs from the same model?) when you click on the Question mark and go back.

Previously, they had the versioning system 1.MAJOR.MINOR, where Major referred to a feature update, and minor referred to bug fixes or other non-breaking technical changes

The first instance where they broke this was 1.16.2 by adding the Piglin Brute, but this was so minor that hardly anyone really cared, and hey, free feature with a minor update!

Well, now they have update “drops” where the minor version means either what it used to, or it’s also a feature update, just not as big as a full update.

From the wiki:

• 1.20: Trails and Tales Update
• 1.20.3: Bats and Pots Drop
• 1.20.5: Armored Paws Drop
• 1.21: Tricky Trials Update
• 1.21.2: Bundles of Bravery Drop
• 1.21.4: The Garden Awakens Drop
• 1.21.5: Spring to Life Drop
• 1.21.6: Chase the Skies Drop
• 1.21.9: Copper Age Drop

I need to migrate a server off Windows

Why is this? I think we’re missing a step here. Especially in the self hosted community, it’s safe to say we are all very pro Linux, but it’s not an automatic benefit for every possible use case. Why is the business seeking to move off Windows Server and why do they care about this?

I’m only a level two tech with not a wealth of experience, but deviating from industry standard tools like Windows Server is setting off alarm bells because:

• No professional would do this unless there was a very niche purpose or requirement
• Is the business trying to cheap out on a Windows Server license? If so, as a tech it immediately brings their operations and priorities into question
• How will the server be managed long term? If you’re not the one doing it, it’s going to require specialised technicians that are experienced with Linux, which is going to be more expensive
• Not being a professional setup, how do you plan to address security concerns and protecting the server? Will there be any intrusion detection or prevention?
• This breaks the principle of least astonishment

If a tech was called in to look at why the CCTV isn’t working, or the music not playing, the place they call is going to send out a level 2+ tech, and they’re expected to know Windows Server and figure out third party applications on that server (or find their support line for further information). That tech is not going to expect a Linux server, and they’re going to rightfully walk the fuck away from that, and tell the business to call a Linux technician, which are way less common, probably remote only and more expensive.

Probably a different instance to the one you’re thinking, but I have not forgotten that TechRax video of him pouring molten aluminum onto live hissing cockroaches. I don’t even know why he added the cockroaches, the subject of the video was the iPhone 6 vs molten aluminum.

My god, the onion article from yesterday was not actually a total joke? What the hell does it even mean when you don’t believe the onion article when it’s actually true?

I’m going off memory from 10+ years ago in my recount, and I suppose similar to those who played 8-bit or 16-bit games and swore they looked better than they actually do, I just fondly remember just how much the 4th wall was broken there and how so much integrated together in the moment.

Dude yes! I had an idea to play those in my car when I met up with a friend interstate, but I then decided to do something that was higher effort, and I made my own mock radio station where I was the host, heavily inspired by the VC radio stations

It started off completely normal with subtle hints (the station name was BSFM), and then started having odd songs play like Minecraft parodies, music from other games and small indie artists only we would know, and towards the end I did “talkback” interviewing all of our friends that were in on it, giving weird takes on bread of all things.

Portal 2 - The Part Where He Kills You

The player is put into this spike trap by the antagonist (Wheatley), and at this point the chapter text comes up saying “Chapter 9: The Part Where He Kills You”, you get an achievement of the same name, and Wheatley then says “Hello! This is the part where I kill you!”

The timing and delivery of it was so perfect.

GTA Vice City - taxi and ambulance driving

I loved the part of VC (and I think other installments have this too) where you jump into either a taxi or ambulance and you can then become an actual driver for them, earning money. Loved that minigame for being such a different thing to all the other missions.

Driv3r - the Bascule Bridge

In one of the maps of Driv3r (kind of a GTA clone), there was a Bascule bridge you could actually toggle, and so I’d usually get a wanted rating, bait as much police and cars onto the bridge (even blocking the roadway with my own car) and then draw the bridge up with all of them on it, and watch how the physics bug out and some officers end up in water (should never happen in normal gameplay) and the cars just all explode in the water.