• corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Systemd was built by a guy who wanted to work at Microsoft with the help of someone berated more than once for an inability to work with others and generate decent kernel code. These are your gods

  • CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    The cost of digital advertising cannot be justified by its effectiveness (or rather lack there of). We’ve collectively spent hundreds of billions of dollars creating the infrastructure for invasive hyper targeted ads that do not get better results that simple billboards and terrestrial TV ads even now. We’ve created an economy solely reliant on technofeudalist overlords based who’ve provided very little actual improvement of anything.

  • csolisr@hub.azkware.net
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    1 year ago

    @protein Many things that you’d think would be under lock and key… are not. Credentials for, say, a database of subscribers to a telephone company? Just ask the team and say you’re working on an integration, they’ll happily send you the password in plain text

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I want to comment here so bad but given that I am one of two people that know and one of maybe a dozen that suspect, it would definitely violate multiple NDAs.

    ProTip: Invest in off-grid solutions for your home.

    • Godort@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The Bucees logo tells me this is probably going to affect Texas more than other regions.

      • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Ha! I used to live in Austin and I don’t fly, so Buc-ee’s and Cracker Barrel hold a special place in my heart. Unfortunately what I am talking about is a US thing, not just a Texas thing.

      • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Hopefully never. I am trying to solve the problem by relieving this single point of failure, but I am not having any luck.

        Worst case scenario: let’s say that what I fear happens tomorrow. Given what I have seen so far, some people (regional) will notice system degradation within a week, and nationwide within one or two months. Time to find a work around is about a year, but that could be me just applying hopeful thinking to cope. I have not idea how long a permanent fix would take.

        • SPRUNT@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’m smelling an awful lot of bullshit here. If the power grid (or any other major infrastructure) had a known single point of failure that would cause the entire system to collapse, there would be more than 2 people who know about it, and they certainly wouldn’t be vague-booking it to Lemmy.

          • Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The power grid does have a major point of failure, in that vital components are on backorder for years out so most places don’t have the spare parts to get back up and running if widespread attacks on the grid occur.

          • Dashi@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            It’s less bs than you think, still unlikely sure, but not a non zero chance.

            For awhile their was a single point of failure in telcom for the midwest in the us. Because the core router was so old and didn’t play well with failover. It took them several months and a lot of intermittent issues to get it replaced and working as expected.

          • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I’m gonna be honest, this sounds about right for 2024. Skeleton crews a dick hair away from disaster as far as the eye can see.

        • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          So you’re not describing the issue where internet connected EV chargers can be easily hacked, and potentially told to dump the charge of the connected vehicle’s battery on the grid en masse, causing overloads and transformer explosions.

          But a slow moving issue like that sounds like a frequency or voltage issue - something goes under or over enough and isn’t detected via monitoring, causing premature equipment degradation, and potential system collapse. Definitely a lot of expensive damage, though.
          (Basically, a stuxnet-style attack on the utility grid - and we’ve already seen evidence that SCADA/PLC’s can be hacked in the water supply system.)

          A destabilizing push, rather than a hit with a hammer.

          • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            The reason the problem I am talking about exists is because it is terribly boring and mundane. It is also 100% a cost center, meaning that it provides only cost and no possibility of profit. Things that explode or can explode are very high profile and people notice them. Mundane problems go unchecked until after the shit has hit the fan and politicians are looking for a scapegoat.

            I deal with information security. Initially when I type that people instantly think “hackers”. True, information security does deal with a lot of “keep out the baddies”, but more than that we also make sure that data reaches its intended destination when it is supposed to reach its intended destination. For example, you might want your fire suppression system to trigger as soon as a fire is ignited and not after everyone in the building is burned alive or dead from smoke inhalation.

            Right now I have a situation where everything is working well but I know that if something happens to this one thing, a very mundane system is going to collapse and literally nobody can fix it adequately. For the past five years we have done everything within our power to add redundancy but as I mentioned before, this is a mundane cost center. Nobody wants to spend money to fix something that works. So, when the thing no longer works, service will be tremendously degraded, people will figure out that it cannot be fixed, and the search for a replacement will begin. Eventually they will succeed but in the meantime things are going to suck and some people might die.

            “Greed is good” – Gordon Geko

            " Greef is self-defeating " – JoMiran

            • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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              1 year ago

              It’s the final decommissioning of 2g/3g and how it’ll affect monitoring tools!
              (I don’t know, now I’m just being silly.)

              But, yeah. I get that. The profit motive/cost to build in redundancy, or a failure of imagination for future technologies so certain kinds of redundancy or features aren’t included is problematic.

              Not saying it is your issue, but the 3g issue is on my mind because it was a big deal in my neck of the woods last year when local carriers shut it down, and it is again because a utility failed to update their meters in a timely manner, causing them to estimate on customer utility bills for longer than is allowable, resulting in statutory violations and customer overcharges. They got a pretty hefty fine and an order to refund the overcharged customers. I could see how similar foundational technology issues could completely fuck a utility for… whatever impacted systems are involved. (Also, going to be editing out this part of my comment in a few hours, because I don’t like how much specific info is in there, even though everything I just described is public record.)

              • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                I’ll also delete this purely hypothetical, definitely did not happen, scenario in a few minutes.

                Imagine a smart gas meter. Regulations state that said gas meter shutdown and alerts crews if a leak is detected within two minutes of fault. The automated system might have missed the requirement by almost 45 minutes before issuing the command. People died…hypothetically.

                People don’t understand how flimsy everything we depend on is. It’s easier to imagine a 13 year old bullshitting and trying to be cool than a man, tired of sounding the alarm, venting on Lemmy.

            • invertedspear@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              When everything works: “What do we even pay IT for?”

              When everything’s broke: “What do we even pay IT for?”

              “When you do your job right it’s as if you didn’t do anything at all”

              • God to bender in Futurama

              When they start looking for a scapegoat, I hope you find yourself far away from the eye of Sauron there.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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      1 year ago

      There are more than 2 people that know that Texas’s power grid is a teetering disaster waiting for the right event to crumble and break in unfixable fashion

      (Or water, water’s probably even more sketchy. Look up the incident in the UK where they accidentally put a shitload of treatment chemicals in the main water supply and a whole bunch of people got poisoned. Harder to do off grid solutions for though.)

      • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        There are more than 2 people that know that Texas’s power grid is a teetering disaster waiting for the right event to crumble and break in unfixable fashion

        OP asked for a secret. The Texas grid sucking is not a secret.

        • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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          1 year ago

          Fair enough. I read your other comments and my current guess is abysmal cyber security coupled with clear indications that hostile state actors are trying to fuck it up, and showing no sign of having any more trouble than would an NFL team pushing past the volunteers who have signed up to work the door at the senior center social hour

          In which case if that’s accurate I would say that yes that fits the brief

    • muzzle@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Just get tor browser, make a throwaway account, post your comment and delete the browser.

      • BCsven@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        As an NDA signer, they could be legit. I would like to comment also, but I don’t like law suits.

  • rbesfe@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Building HVAC engineering (equipment sizing, ducting design, etc.) has been largely handwavy bullshit for a very long time and only recently has moved towards any sort of precision. Not uncommon to find boiler plants that are 3-4 times the maximum heating load in the winter, or fans running at 100% 24/7 when code only requires half of that.

    Costs just get passed on to tenants so there was never much motivation to do better, the only reason building owners are moving now is because of government regulation and incentive programs.

    • Krzd@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Technology connections did a video on this, it’s actually insane how much wastage there is

      • librejoe@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        nice TC plug. One of my favorite channels and one of few reasons I use YouTube via new pipe and download the video. Let me also recommend Asianometery and Plainy Difficult.

    • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Ugh. Yup.

      I learned that after buying my house. My furnace is 3x what my house needs and is expected to be an expensive repair someday.

    • sudo42@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Talking about energy wastage, next time you’re walking around commercial buildings, pay attention to how many lights are on during the middle of the day.

      Drove by a closed car lot the other day. The place has been abandoned for months. Weeds growing up everywhere. The entire lot is fenced off getting ready for demolition.
      The only building on the lot is small and completely surrounded by glass walls, so you can see right through it. The red neon around the outside of the building is still on 24 hours.

      • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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        1 year ago

        condo had a fire and later I could see lights on every evening. I called it in but nothing happened. Seemed dangerous to me that power was not shutdown from going to it.

    • belathus@bookwormstory.social
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      1 year ago

      I used to work in HVAC. I remember we had a small cold room that was struggling to maintain temperature, as in, design was supposed to be 0°F but it couldn’t get below 36°F. There was a large hole in the box that was undoubtedly the cause of the problem, so I asked the installer how they accounted for that. “Oh, I doubled the infiltration value.” When I tried calculating the actual losses it was way, way higher than the infiltration value. Like, the room needed someting like 3-4 times its total refrigeration capacity to reach target with a giant fucking hole in the box.

      No idea who thought putting a giant hole in the box was a good idea.

      • Eranziel@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        “Sealed” is also a vague suggestion with HVAC. Every ducting join, every piece of equipment, all of it leaks. I shudder to think how much heating/cooling is wasted that way.

    • OminousOrange@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      I work in building science. It’s obscene how little actual design and quality control goes into residential homes.

      The typical design is just one step above being illegal, and people are often scared off of doing anything more than that by the threat of increased cost. However, they don’t realize that they pay for it either way; either on their mortgage, or on utilities. Only one of those you can actually own in the end.

      • Tikiporch@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        So how does a homeowner fix it? The duct work is already in, so is it just about choosing more wisely when replacing the furnace/ac/heat pump?

        • OminousOrange@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          It starts early in the design process. But at that stage, it would be best to pause installation, have a mechanical engineer do the mechanical design (including equipment selection) based on an energy model and install the recommended equipment.

      • JackFrostNCola@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Ironically in this case doing the job properly reduces costs significantly.
        Everything in the chain from the outlets, ductwork, damper, valves, condensers, pipes, tray, fans, component ratings & switchboards can be reduced to a reasonable size.
        Which then has peripheral benefits like reduced transport costs, crane lifts, space in service zones between floors/risers, materials & running costs of the completed building

  • TheDarkestShark@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I feel like most people have a feeling one way or another on this topic because it has become quite political, but the facts are the facts. Most new electric vehicle plants in the US are only working at most 50% capacity due to lack of customer demand. People can blame lack of parts and lack of workers, but one thing I know about this industry is that if people want them then they are going to keep building them regardless of circumstance.

    • BlueAure@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      At least one of the big 3 isn’t meeting production demand due to battery assembly. Long series of management and integrator fuck ups where their solution seems to be just throw more engineers at it. Can’t build EVs if they can’t build batteries.

    • TheMoose@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Here’s my perspective, but it might be pretty wrong:

      I think the reason for the low demand is due in large part to the pre-existing gas industry, at least in the US. Not just because of marketing advertising gas-powered more, but also because people don’t like to change, and buying a new car is not cheap. Not to mention that the US infrastructure is so heavily solidified in gas. It’s just easier to continue buying gas-powered because it’s already so supported across the country. Then the industry benefits from this because they can say, “oh, huh, looks like people still want gas-powered! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯” and so the cycle repeats.

      I think a lot of people don’t really understand how much power corporations really have over what the people do or don’t do, like or don’t like, etc… 99% of the time people will take the easy option, and corps take advantage of that by making the easy option the cheapest and best for themselves instead of what’s best for the people. Corporations only do what’s right for them, and are masters of making it out to be that that’s what the people want.

      • sudo42@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        True. And the nepo-babies that lead these corporations are making millions off dollars each year simply by showing up to work.
        Switching over to electric vehicles is inevitable. But who’s going to do that work and take that risk? What if they screw up? Ain’t no nepo-baby gonna screw up that cash cow. They’re going to continue showing up to work every day, sucking up the income and when the end of gasoline happens, they’ll throw up their hands and say, “No one could have seen that coming.”

        (To be fair, it’s not just management. There are tons of people at every level who don’t want to risk losing their job with an uncertain outcome over just showing up to work every day and doing the same job they already know. But it’s the “leadership’s” job to do that anyway for the long-term health of the company.)

      • Colonel Panic@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Similarly how plastic pollution is 99% made by companies. So we banned plastic straws.

        That’s the equivalent of yelling at me to turn the ceiling lights off to save power, but you have the AC running 24/7 and all the windows are open.

        I hate it.

    • Colonel Panic@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I would love an electric vehicle.

      But we have two gasoline cars completely paid off and I can’t imagine adding a car payment (or two) just to go electric. I’m more concerned with continuing to afford food and shelter.

      If I could just magically swap them out I would.

    • mspencer712@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      What? Did I turn it off and on again? I’m a very smart technology person, of course my big brain already thought of that. I develop software for a living. It couldn’t be that simple or I wouldn’t be calling you.

      . . .

      Turning it off and on again worked. My shame is immense and I have wasted everybody’s time.

      (And that is how I learned to embrace my own idiocy and do the recommended, simple troubleshooting tasks without questioning them.)

      • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Dude, I just had my mechanic call and tell me my car was out of oil. I’ve never felt so dumb and ashamed.

    • scottywh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is a funny joke and all but it’s so far from actually true.

      Source: 27 years working in I.T.

    • Mathazzar@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The navy manual for troubleshooting equipment in the field includes “lift 3-6 inches and drop”

      • AdamEatsAss@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Percussive maintenance can help sometimes. It’s not a permanent fix but you can’t always do the right fix in the middle of the ocean. Things it can help with: dislodging debris in mechanical components, reseating electrical connections that are corroding, and making yourself feel better.

      • librejoe@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        isn’t that what they are researching with psilocybin? I could use that big time to reset my head. I have severe health anxiety.

  • CaptnNMorgan@reddthat.com
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    1 year ago

    Dog groomers get almost zero legal repercussions for mistreating dogs. It has to be undeniable that the groomer injured the dog on purpose before anything really happens. That’s why it’s SO important to trust the person grooming your dog if they’re the type of breed that needs it.

  • Elise@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Many game companies specifically target vulnerable people, who end up spending their entire pay check every month, and are called Whales.

  • stufkes@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The use of chatgpt for writing is so widespread in higher ed, it will cause serious problems to those students when entering the workforce.

    Lots of fancy stuff is written about how we just have to change the way we teach!, and how we can use chatgpt in lessons! blablabla, but it’s all ignorant of the fact that some things need to be learnt by doing them, and students can’t understand how they hurt their own learning, because they don’t know what they don’t know.

  • nik9000@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    We knew spooks were all up in the phone network. They’d show up and ask installers to run them some cables and configure ports in a certain way. I was friends with folks who were friends with the installers.