#Memory RAM for Server

[machine-saint]

the op of that "you should restart your computer every few days" post blocked me so i'm going to perform the full hater move of writing my own post to explain why he's wrong

why should you listen to me: took operating system design and a "how to go from transistors to a pipelined CPU" class in college, i have several servers (one physical, four virtual) that i maintain, i use nixos which is the linux distribution for people who are even bigger fucking nerds about computers than the typical linux user. i also ran this past the other people i know that are similarly tech competent and they also agreed OP is wrong (haven't run this post by them but nothing i say here is controversial).

anyway the tl;dr here is:

you don't need to shut down or restart your computer unless something is wrong or you need to install updates

i think this misconception that restarting is necessary comes from the fact that restarting often fixes problems, and so people think that the problems are because of the not restarting. this is, generally, not true. in most cases there's some specific program (or part of the operating system) that's gotten into a bad state, and restarting that one program would fix it. but restarting is easier since you don't have to identify specifically what's gone wrong. the most common problem i can think of that wouldn't fall under this category is your graphics card drivers fucking up; that's not something you can easily reinitialize without restarting the entire OS.

this isn't saying that restarting is a bad step; if you don't want to bother trying to figure out the problem, it's not a bad first go. personally, if something goes wrong i like to try to solve it without a restart, but i also know way, way more about computers than most people.

as more evidence to point to this, i would point out that servers are typically not restarted unless there's a specific need. this is not because they run special operating systems or have special parts; people can and do run servers using commodity consumer hardware, and while linux is much more common in the server world, it doesn't have any special features to make it more capable of long operation. my server with the longest uptime is 9 months, and i'd have one with even more uptime than that if i hadn't fucked it up so bad two months ago i had to restore from a full disk backup. the laptop i'm typing this on has about a month of uptime (including time spent in sleep mode). i've had servers with uptimes measuring in years.

there's also a lot of people that think that the parts being at an elevated temperature just from running is harmful. this is also, in general, not true. i'd be worried about running it at 100% full blast CPU/GPU for months on end, but nobody reading this post is doing that.

the other reason i see a lot is energy use. the typical energy use of a computer not doing anything is like... 20-30 watts. this is about two or three lightbulbs worth. that's not nothing, but it's not a lot to be concerned over. in terms of monetary cost, that's maybe $10 on your power bill. if it's in sleep mode it's even less, and if it's in full-blown hibernation mode it's literally zero.

there are also people in the replies to that post giving reasons. all of them are false.

temporary files generally don't use enough disk space to be worth worrying about

programs that leak memory return it all to the OS when they're closed, so it's enough to just close the program itself. and the OS generally doesn't leak memory.

'clearing your RAM' is not a thing you need to do. neither is resetting your registry values.

your computer can absolutely use disk space from deleted files without a restart. i've taken a server that was almost completely full, deleted a bunch of unnecessary files, and it continued fine without a restart.

[kaiserouo]

Not art related i just wanna share what happened irl recently

So one midnight someone reported that they can't ssh into our lab's server, and the next day i saw (on a physical screen) that a process ate all 96GB of our RAM and our server was out-of-memory-ed into oblivion. Apparently a student ran a process called mem_eater, for some kind of homework i suppose

This is the source code

Apparently they wanna allocate 30GB of memory and hold it for a minute. Dont know why but i can see that from the comment

Do you see the problem?

They

Fucking

Wrote a fork bomb and ran it on our server

They didnt write exit() at the end of the child process code. The child process does not exit after a minute and instead goes into the next loop. My quick math tells me they are gonna have roughly 2⁴⁸⁰ processes and allocate 256MB * 2⁴⁸⁰ of memory. It fucked up our server in 30 minutes along with other students that were training their models on that server

Dont be a fucking sys admin. Also be careful with fork() for fucks sake

[codingquill]

Network switches

What’s a network switch ?

A switch is a device used in computer networks to connect multiple devices together within a single local area network (LAN). Its main role is to facilitate communication between different connected devices, such as computers, printers, servers, IP phones, etc.

It is a mini-computer which is made up of RAM, ROM, flash RAM, NVRAM, a microprocessor, connectivity ports and even an operating system.

RAM

RAM (Random Access Memory) contains the current configuration of the switch and temporarily stores the MAC address table, which is then processed by the microprocessor.

Microprocessor

The microprocessor is the heart of the switch, responsible for data processing, including switching and creating links between multiple devices.

External memories

External memories, such as flash RAM, ROM, and NVRAM (Non-Volatile RAM), store configuration files , different versions of the IOS , etc ...

Ports

The switch ports are the communication interfaces of the switch. There are several of them, generally 24 for a Cisco switch. Each port is associated with an LED which indicates its status and activity.

How does it work ?

Now how does a switch work to transfer information from one machine to another?

Suppose we have 4 machines: A, B, C and D connected to our switch in ports 1, 2, 3 and 4 as follows:

The switch only works with MAC addresses , so basically we have an empty MAC address table stored in RAM as soon as the switch starts up which looks like this : 

Transmitting data from machine A to machine B happens in the following steps:

Machine A sends a frame to machine B

Once this frame arrives at port 1 (which is the one linked to A), the switch reads the source MAC address and stores it in the MAC address table

The switch reads the destination MAC address and looks for it in the table, if it is not in the table, it broadcasts to all the active machines connected to the switch except the source one.

If the port linked to the machine we want is active, it sends a response frame from which the switch reads the MAC address we were looking for (@B)

Once done, it records the MAC address of B in the table.

This process repeats until the switch reaches what is called "MAC address table stability", that is to say it knows all the MAC addresses of the connected machines and has no more need to broadcast.

Starting and configuring a switch

When it comes to booting a switch, the process is similar to that of a traditional computer system:

POST (Power-On Self Test): The switch performs proper functioning tests on all hardware.

Loading IOS (Internetwork Operating System): The switch operating system is loaded.

Loading the configuration. At this stage we have two cases:

Either the switch already has a startup configuration defined and stored in NVRAM

Either the switch is blank and it is up to us to define the startup configuration when it goes to setup mode

Switch configuration

The configuration of a switch is done through different modes, such as user mode, privileged mode and global configuration mode, which allows access to specific configuration modes, such as interface mode, routing mode, line mode, etc.

And to do all this of course you must first connect the switch with the machine via the console cable and open a terminal emulator

💡 It should be noted that the only machine that can configure the switch is the one connected to it by a console cable, the others are only hosts.

[angelvendingmachine]

A C!Jschlatt who is a recovering prosecutor at level 3 with lots of IDs and paras? please and thank you!

C! JSCHLATT ALTERPACK

♡ Lvl 1 ≻

NAMES : Jschlatt, Schlatt, Ram

AGE : 30s

PRNS : He/it/shep/cig/pres/drink/ax

GENDER : Mascflux

ORIENTATION : Faggot

SPECIES : Ram hybrid

ROLES : Prosecutor (recov), protector

SIGN OFF: 🐏, 🥂, 🍻

♡ Lvl 2 ≻

CISIDS: BPD, NPD, harmful, old, manipulative, pervert, explosive

TRANSIDS: Bigger horns, president, fatherly, family, immortal, empathy, cannibal, protective, loving

MISCIDS: Demi-dead, nullharmful, nullneglectful, trisOCPD, trishypersexual, trissinner, permahigh, permadrunk, permarich

PARAS: Dacryphilia, anophelorastia (ravaging and defiling), anthropophagolagnia (r@ping and eating someone), autodermatophagia (eating ones self), asphyxiaphilia (choking), autohaemofetishism (bleeding one’s self), sadomaso, erotophonophilia, biastr0, dermographism (making marks on someone), souvliphilia (stabbing someone/getting stabbed), mastigophilia (punishment), phagophilia (Eating living beings or being eaten)

PERSONALITY: Dickish and rough, has a very hard time being nice. Cares about very few people but tries his hardest for them when he does

AESTHETIC: Old money

♡ Lvl 3 ≻

TYPING QUIRK: “I type like thiss.”

SPEECH: Gruff voice, usually very loud

MEMORIES: Remembers being close to Quackity and Tubbo. Hates most other server members especially Dream

LIKES: Drinking, fishing, making money, politics, debating

DISLIKES: Most people, not having control

EXTRA: Hates having his tail pointed out, constantly chewing something

[never-obsolete]

Here are three large deathmatch maps that we've cooked up for Quake II. It is recommended that, as a client, you have at least 32 megs of RAM to use these maps. As a server, you should get the beefiest processor and as much memory as you can get your hands on if you wish to run a 64 player server. In tests that we ran here at id, a PPro200 peaks at about 50 clients, and our 400mhz Alpha started sweating at about 64 players.

-Quake II 64 Player Deathmatch Pack Notes (1998)

[ditzydreamsss]

Slimecicle haunted house video + scu (nvm it's just a lore rant now)

my personal order of scu lore events:

- roll. - Minecraft, but every block is HOSTILE. - Minecraft, but every 5 minutes there's a natural disaster - Minecraft, but it's way more traumatizing - Minecraft, but 100 players are hunting me - The HARDEST Minecraft Difficulty - I Spent 24 Hours in the Most Haunted Place on Earth - DSMP arc - We Spent 100 Days in a Hardcore Minecraft Apocalypse

so how does that fit in?

well vaguely the entire lore i came up with is:

roll. : the start of everything. Charlie and his friends are just wandering around worlds when they load into Narwhal's world- the world with the dice of a hundred(?) sides. After Narwhal fucking. drops the dice on accident, Charlie "consumes" the power from the dice and now oh look he's the most powerful god in existence. Ig reason why Charlie was able to get into Narwhal's server, which is a private server, is because of his abilities to temper with The Code (which is the thing that makes up everything in the world). Kinda like atoms for us. Maybe Charlie's a long lost descendent of the Original God. idk. anyways Charlie splits his newfound powers between Condi and Grizzly. Wheatie leaves them (and never comes back) because he doesn't want to be associated with god powers. They leave on a good note.

Minecraft, but every block is HOSTILE. AND Minecraft, but every 5 minutes there's a natural disaster : They meet Schlatt, he's a funny guy so Charlie gives him god powers and now whoopsie he went psycho. At the end, Charlie banishes him and that does weaken his power, but Charlie's mistake was that he never took away Schlatt's powers, only weakened them.

RLCraft & A Hundred Players are breaks that The Council takes from all these god things. At some point Bizly, a friend they know from a game of DND, becomes a god. After Bizly becomes a god they build Molympus, which is a home for them.

Then after who-knows-how-long, The Council has the bright idea to start The HARDEST Minecraft Difficulty.

Grizzly dies in this.

alright so time for Haunted Asylum stuff.

Charlie, Condi, and Bizly decided to go on a trip to the Real World, which means they will be powerless.

And then at some point they play chess as a ghost. The ghost is Grizzly, who is technically in limbo?

This one specific chess set has connections to the limbo (shh shh plot armor).

(grizzly's comment on the video)

which. of course. equals LORE.

Grizzly's limbo was like he was in a white foggy void (like in the skies with your render distance 0 in mc) and suddenly a chess board popped up. he played along for a little bit before he got annoyed and knocked over all the pieces. The chess board at some point faded away and disappeared. mmm trauma

And then Charlie loses both Bizly and Condi (they literally die canonically)

what happens to condi & bizly & Grizzly:

Condi and Bizly are sent to the afterlife. Because of their connection with Grizzly, their death is the push that lets Grizzly free of his limbo.

They meet up and they're just thinking "bruhh when's Charlie going to join us its been ages"

MEANWHILE

Charlie revists old world's, but is unable to revive anyone, so in grief he resets the entire universe.

He loses his memory in the process.

He becomes c!slime. He stays in the world that would, in many many years, become the Dream Esempii. (Esempii's are how they define multi-people server worlds with admins and stuff)

So Slime leaves Las Nevadas and travels to a random island and stays there, in a pit-hole, until a very long long time later, scientists find Slime and put him in their laboratory. Slime can barely process anything.

Then the zombie virus breaks out (yes, in thosuands-of-years-later DSMP server), and everything goes to shit.

Remeber Schlatt? The ram guy? (Oh yeah also in the reset, Charlie locked up his god powers somewhere very deep inside him)

Schlatt breaks the glass for Charlie. The tube he's in when the video starts.

What are the doubles?

Basically, characters like Florida Man or Patient Zero are like puppets that Slimecicle made himself. His powers, locked away, didn't have anything better to do if as Slime slept for like an eternity.

The Mad Scientist (100days!Condi) was created with the only goal to ruin the world. So he did.

etc, etc.

((*slams The Court Jester on the table* m u s i c))

Since Schlatt had plenty of time to get his power back. So he's stronger than Charlie now. (Charlie's memories got buried deeper into his mind during when he was "sleeping")

Charlie dies.

Then then reunites with the rest of the council.

who, by the way, created a new completely vanilla world with normal respawns and normal mobs, etc.

they escaped the afterlife cause they're gods, idk.

many many years later, a man stumbles upon the vanilla world, or the Reset, with a friend on his shoulders.

His name is Ted.

The friend's name is Schlatt.

Schlatt, who went mad after he killed Charlie, was found by Ted when he was broken. Ted convinced Schlatt to. just let go of his powers because Schlatt actually pulled that power from someone else (idk who, say.. uhhhh.... corn!Charlie or smth). Schlatt lets go. And proceeds to forget everything.

They all chilling now.

started JRWI (Riptide, Prime Defenders, the one-shots, etc.), The Chuckle Sandwich Podcast, etc etc.

Hold on i have this old doc about me ranting about lore one sec..

-----

.....said me. in the past.

think i already posted that before but heres the updated version??

the main point was the Haunted Asylum the rest of it is blurry and mushy and I can change it any time.

[motsimages]

Some basic distinctions coming from my understanding of them as a millennial with "user knowledge" of IT. Many things may be wrong, I am doing this as a kind of test for myself and also as basic info for those who haven't really stopped to think about this.

- Internet: as the name says, it is a NET of INTERconnected computers. How does it exactly work, I am not sure, but some computers are servers, which means they hold information that other computers (not servers) can access. Your phone is not a computer and is not a server. I don't know if it could turn into one, I think it would require a lot of RAM memory and other things to power it. If a server disconnects, you can't access the information it has. If all servers of the internet disconnect, I guess there would be no internet??

- RAM memory: one of the important things that makes the computer run. Not the same as the hard disk or the other memory (I don't remember the name now). It doesn't save files or programs, it helps manage tasks when you use the computer.

- File: information you save in your computer. It can have different formats and uses, like a .doc Word document, a PDF (file), an image in .jpg, etc.

- Folder: a place to put several files. I am not sure if it is a program.

- Browser: it's a program that you use to access the internet. You can see webs, databases, blogs... I think you cannot access the internet without a browser or other specific program for it.

- Search engine: it's a website that allows you to look for information in a database or several. Google is the most famous one. It used to be good and is now shit. Libraries also have search engines to look for books. I think outside of the internet, your computer could potentially also have a search engine to find files and folders? Unsure about this last part.

- Corpus: this is very specific but very useful for translators. It has a lot of documents of specialised content that you can look up and compare. For instance, historical documents to look for an idiom in the 16th Century. Or texts in French and Italian to see how they refer to the same information and compare the way native speakers speak.

- Program: I think this can also be software (maybe not all software are programs but all programs are software?). A specific thing you install in your computer to do something. For instance, Adobe Photoshop. I am now unsure if Microsoft Office is a program or not. Feels like it is but...

- Application: tbh I am not sure what is the difference with a software or program, but I know they don't exactly do the same things even if it looks like it. I feel it's like a smaller version of a program that the user can modify less.

- Chat GPT: I have never used it but from what I hear, it's a program that you can access remotely through some website? A specialised search engine/corpus that makes up things based on the information it can access.

I have to say that making this list I can see why people confuse program with website with browser with internet. Many programs can be accessed remotely from a website that you open in a browser, or maybe with an app. And then there's the whole thing of the Web 2.0, which is mainly all social media websites and I don't fully understand.

Feel free to comment and correct stuff.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Performance Review 2024

Well, performance review finally happened. Not that I was particularly stressed about it - honestly, I don't have the energy for that shit. I know damn well they can't afford to lose me, and that must translate to a good performance review, right? I mean, surely they know as well as I do how much they can't afford to have me not doing even the hours I currently do.

...I had no idea quite how much they understood that. Not even last year's apparent triumph.

Before the review even got underway, it was, "Oh, hey, did you ever hear back about that monitor you asked about?" When my response was, "Nooooooo and I did ask again back in July, and I also noticed it's been giving me headaches that sometimes spark migraines", Scruffman was very much on it. As an aside - just to have it on record, as we were talking about equipment - I mentioned that I'd figured out why I kept having the electronic patient record system crash on me. It's not the server that's lacking memory - it's this very old i5-running POS laptop. I checked out Task Manager earlier, and it turns out that that fucking machine is quite often hitting 100% CPU and RAM capacity. Like, regularly. I mean, it's hardly a surprise, when you think about it - Windows is now rolling out some of its AI features onto Win10 machines, which is a resource hog right there on top of Win10's usual bloat, plus the various security features that have to be running on a machine handling patient data. But that old Dell just can't handle that shit without horking occasionally, in the same way you shouldn't feed very small children whole grapes - you have to cut them in half first.

Anyway, Scruffman was very much, "Oh, okay, we should be proactive about this because we want you to have all the tools you need." I was ... a little stunned, but said I'd email him a summary of our conversation about my current equipment so he could escalate it to Head Honcho. He was, again, very jazzed about this. I swallowed my surprised blink as best I could, and on we went.

Honestly, I wasn't surprised for long, because we got right into the "core values" section, which ranks a bunch of workplace stuff from Needs Improvement to Exceeds Expectations. I actually put "Exceeds Expectations" on a few more things this year than I did last year, and Scruffman told me it still wasn't enough. We had the same conversation where I explained that I just have very high expectations of myself. But he said something different this year. This year, he said, "Yeah, just I really want to make sure you get the maximum possible money because we really love having you and would really hate to lose you".

So ... I ... can apparently expect a raise?!? For some reason, this blows me entirely away. There's not a lot of that about these days. But ... I mean, hey, if he thinks I've earned ALL THE RAISE, I'm not going to argue with him.

Anyway, upshot was that I am apparently magnificent. Which ... I guess. I do my job to the best of my abilities and this is somehow some kind of miracle. Then again, given...

Yeah, there was a conversation about the others too. My dedication to prioritising workload properly (urgent cases, then chronologically) was lauded, and I did point out the cherry-picking going on. (Seriously, it only takes a look at the archives to see it. We're still on yesterday's long-ass bullshit and New Girl was grabbing the short-and-easys from today before yesterday's typing was finished. I can't blame Temp for this one because she wasn't in today, but I figure she does similar.) Let's just say that Scruffman was not pleased. He very seldom gets grim and determined-looking, but I guess given today's performance review, there was a feel of, "Okay, we're going to have to actually do something about this shit because this is the one thing that my star secretary complains about and it probably needs to stop". I can't expect him to stop it completely, mind - he'd have to be hovering over their shoulder at all times - but the fact that he's going to have a word at all is saying something.

Not that that helped at the end of today, or anything. By the time my performance review meeting was finished, my forms signed off by both parties, and my overworked ass was sitting back down ... well. There was almost nothing in the queue that didn't top five minutes. The first three on the list were 9, 6, and 20 minutes respectively. (Yeah, you read right - twenty fucking minutes. Of course it was Breast Guy.) Now, my meeting was in the afternoon, I still had some mid-length but persnickety stuff in my queue, there was a five-minute urgent case that no one wanted to touch, and I hoped that someone would pick up at least one or two of the longer ones by the time I was done. Just so that it wouldn't all be sitting there for the duration. Nope. New Girl picked up a thirty-second one from this morning at about 4pm and was gone after that. (I still don't know what hours she works, but I have a feeling it's not as many as her contract states...). Goblin tried, but ... nope. I did the nine and six minute ones, which took a half-hour between them because they were from one of our worst word salad individuals. I could obviously make it make sense - that's my job - but it takes time. So ... well, that twenty minute long Breast Guy monstrosity is someone else's problem.

Thing is ... there's a reason I try not to do long dictations at the end of the day. It's because by then, I'm tired and usually having pain flares. Today's no different, but I had to vent a bit. And maybe brag a tiny bit.

Anyway, happy Halloween / Veilguard day! I'm pondering treating myself to takeaway. I did good. (And also I hurt a lot and not-cooking feels like a thing.)

[icarusthelunarguard]

This Week’s Horrible-Scopes

It’s time for this week’s Horrible-Scopes! So for those of you that know your Astrological Signs, cool! If not, just pick one, roll a D12, or just make it up as you go along. It really doesn’t matter. Better yet! Check out “Heart of the Game, Fredonia” - they can sell you those D12’s with the symbols on them! Get in contact with them on Facebook, shipping to the U.S. only, and tell them “Shujin Tribble” sentcha. “Hail, Hail, Fredonia!” Home of the Blue Devil!

These ‘Scopes are due to release just in time for the first week of March, so we’re paying special HAPPY BIRTHDAY… to My Computer - “BOX”! Now, yes. Box’s actual birthday is hard to nail down since, you know, it was a pre-built HP machine sold through “Worst Try”, and parts of it have been replaced over the years, but it’s still chuggin’ along! So with a nod to Markiplier’s reliance on The Ship of Theseus, let’s enjoy memories of 2013.

Aries 

You get to start us off with realizing that BOX is Twelve Years Old! Not quite untested but not yet a teenager. There’s been some growing pains over the years, but at least it’s unlearned many of the things it was taught at birth, like running Windows 8! These days it’s mainly Ubuntu Linux and Windows 10, and with what it’s lacking in hardware that’s about as far as Windows will progress for it. So This Week… For those about to Age Out of Windows 10’s security umbrella who have no upgrade path beyond it, now’s the time to consider making a Linux Bootable Thumb Drive and testing out everything with it. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Taurus 

From its storage to its brain, BOX went from being a 6-Core computer to an 8-Core, which most folks would say is a great upgrade. But the problem is it was an AMD “FX” chip. For those not in the know, these chips were, shall we say, ”Inelegant”. Think of going to the grocery store, but in a fuel-sucking muscle car instead of a more conservative hybrid. So This Week… The best time of year for you is the winter. Your core body temperature is naturally high, so it’ll be good to cool down naturally. As for the CPU, it won’t matter. The stock cooler sucks anyway.

Gemini 

Let’s talk about that CPU a little bit more, though. What do you do with an old one? You use it to upgrade a different computer, of course! In this case it went to max out someone else’s computer, taking them from four cores to six, freeing up THAT one for a higher purpose yet to be described. So This Week… You really need to remember to take out the recycling. It’s easy - just set it next to the door so you take it with you as you head out for the day. And don’t just forget it in the back seat of your car this time.

Cancer Moon-Child 

We’re getting you something math related that will make very little sense. Computers are binary devices, so they work in multiples of two. And, subsequently, so would RAM as well. So you’d expect it to start with two, four, eight, or even sixteen Gigs of it, and you’d be wrong. It came with TEN Gigs. And before you say, “well maybe it was shared with video”, no - that was its own separate board. So This Week… It’s OK for you to feel off-kilter; it happens. Just take it easy, take it slow, and center yourself before you make any big moves.

Leo 

Remember how we told you about the Wil Wheaton Dice Curse last week? Well we’re using that again to finish the tale of the CPU Swaps. That four-core CPU finally found its way into Icarus’ infamous home server, “Hexadecimal” AKA “The Queen of Chaos”. She was named that because no matter what server OS was attempted to be loaded into it, it failed. It took finally trying Ubuntu Desktop to make it work - which made zero sense because the Desktop and Server versions are basically identical. So This Week… You know what Hex is missing, still? A SCSI (“Skuzzy”) card. Oh, there’s at least one iOmega-Branded one available from Adaptec, but who still uses them anymore?

Virgo 

If we’re going to talk about the computer naming adventure, it seems only fair that we get around to explaining how BOX got its name. Previous computers were named based on other computational gadgets from science fiction - so the laptop Icarus had was named “T-W-1-K-1”, “Tweeky”, from the old Buck Rogers TV series, which the smaller Netbook was “Dr. Theopolis”, the round face-thing Twiki carried around on his chest. So This Week… Go back to 1978 and watch “Jason of Star Command”. There’s one more “W-1-K-1” robot to be found. And he’s CUTE!

Libra

One thing we know you love is music - so it’s almost a given that you’ll get information about BOX’s sound. Normally it’s a given that computers these days have on-board sound and don’t need a specific add-in card to handle it; not like the days of yore. But this machine is weird in many ways, not the least of which is how it makes Old Man Body Sounds when there’s no sound to be playing. If you listen closely to headphones or speakers you can almost hear the motherboard talking to the other parts of the system. So This Week… Turn on Closed Captions for your YouTube surfing and see how that works for you. And if you want a challenge, change it to a different language.

Scorpio 

Ok, ok. We’ll let you in on the secret to BOX’s name. Believe it or not it comes in two flavours, both are factual, both are accurate, and both can be denied when pressed for the other. The mundane answer is because desktop computers are often referred to by the term, “box” - kinda the same way that Cylons and Protogens are sometimes called “toasters”. But the more fun one, and harder to just stumble across, is the character from the 1976 movie “Logan’s Run” named “Box”. It was a cyborg covered in disco-ball mirrors who was tasked with freezing food for a post-apocalyptic Earth. So This Week… There was an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where they encountered a capsule with people cryogenically frozen from the late 20th century. The ship's name was the “S.S. Birdseye”. Remember to eat your vegetables.

Sagittarius 

You might like to know a little something about the computer that preceded BOX. It was named, “FrankenPuter”, because it was cobbled together from a lot of spare and old parts. And before you think the name was just for fun, the chassis and original parts were literally picked up on the side of the road that someone was throwing away. It worked well enough until the memory controller ate itself, which made BOX a necessity. So This Week… You know how there’s the old adage that The True Treasure Is The Friends We Make Along The Way? Well, FrankenPuter was not a friend and not a treasure. Sometimes you just have to replace the riff-raff you accumulate when you didn’t know what you were doing.

Capricorn 

Being almost done with the boring parts of that computer, it’s time to give you something wild to consider: from the front it almost looks like the Knight Industries Two-Thousand. The cassis is glossy black with silver trim and a bright red bar light across the middle. The only thing missing is any motion in it from side to side. So This Week… There’s a semi-official Universe Canon that says that “Knight Rider” exists in the same universe as “Battlestar Galactica” because of “Battlestar Galactica 1980”! If you want it to be worse in your head, go watch the movie “Megaforce” and watch the motorcycles.

Aquarius 

Instead of giving you boring minutia, we’re treating you to the cake! The best damned ice cream cake you could ask for; home made and not just out of the freezer from Carvel. It’ll take a while to make the ice creams, since we’re doing Vanilla and Coffee Chocolate, but it’ll be worth every drip off your spoon. So This Week… If you have the ability to make your own ice cream, do that. Yes it’s still winter, but why not have a little fun, right?

Pisces  

Well, not only is it the computer’s birthday, apparently somepony VERY close to you is sharing a birthday as well… Basically =YOU=! So Happy Solar-Orbital Natal-Reset Moment to you! The question is - what’s funnier? Turning forty years old… or REFUSING to turn forty? And now you understand why Jack Benny's running gag worked for literal decades! Because everyone’s just a little vain for themselves. So This Week… Cake is wonderful, but how about splurging on excellent quality food for one full day? Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner - and none of them came out of a frozen box. Let’s start with a Western Omelette and add, get this… Extra Bacon! Happy Birthday, my fellow Fish Faces! And thanks for being good to each other.

And THOSE are your Horrible-Scopes for this week! Remember if you liked what you got, we’re obviously not working hard enough at these. BUT! If you want a better or nastier one for your own sign or someone else’s, all you need to do to bribe me is just Let Me Know - or check out the Ko-Fi page ( https://ko-fi.com/icarusthelunarguard )! These will be posted online at the end of each week via Tumblr, Facebook, Ko-Fi, Discord, and BLUESKY.

[reidluver]

Finally got the chance to see Andor season 2 which was AMAZING! and it reminded me of my love for K-2SO. Years ago, when Rogue One came out I entertained the thought of K-2SO interacting with the first loveable Star Wars droids, and obviously K-2 has beef with C-3PO. He views him as annoying and weak, but what would turn that opinion on its head? Why, the revelation that C-3PO was created by Anakin of course!

This week's WIP is my idea of a scene where that knowledge sorta comes into play. FYI, this is an AU where the Rogue One crew lives (because fanfiction).

---

"Cassian is in a top secret meeting with Leia Organa and Mon Mothma," K-2 said. His arms hung limply at his sides. "He won't tell me what he found, but I know it involves Darth Vader and Padmé Amidala from Na—"

"Pa-deMÉ?" 

K-2SO snapped his attention to C-3PO. The protocol droid had its head cocked to the side with his ocular sensor lights blinking erratically. A few neck ports sparked. C-3PO's speech modulators went haywire with grunts, shrieks, and bleats in various languages. "Dimni-a-WUNDah . . . Pod race—dopo ME goola—NEgola dwaGHi . . . yrrate yraATE—Shmi Skywal—"

R2-D2 chirped and shrieked too quickly for K-2 to discern any sort of meaning. The droid zoomed forward and rammed into C-3PO’s leg. K-2 extended an arm on instinct and kept the golden droid from crashing. Protocol droids were not graceful at standing back up. 

Once C-3PO righted himself, his head twitched from side to side, as if the orthogonal joints were gummed up. "W-whAT . . . happened, R2?" he asked.

R2 rocked back and forth, bleeping about overheated circuits, power drain, and a harsh recommendation for an oil bath. "Y-yes I . . . I suppose that would solve . . . if you’ll both excuse me." C-3PO abruptly turned and walked down the hall. His movements were halted at first, but as he continued on his steps smoothed to his normal, shuffled gate. As C-3PO turned the corner, R2 lowered his head and whirred sadly. 

K-2 waited until C-3PO was well out of audio range before rounding on R2. "What was that?'" Most would interpret that as a glitch in code, requiring a diagnostic check. Except it was more complicated than that. An instantaneous feedback loop, like a deliberate corruption of server data. Or in other words—

"Memory wipe," R2 beeped. 

Except that was no ordinary memory wipe. A typical wipe of memory data left no trace because that's what it was. A clean erasure. This however, went deeper toward base code. An insertion or deletion of code to make whatever followed it unreadable. 

It was extensive and delicate work. It was a method of protecting stored information because the code could only be fixed by the one who altered it. They knew the method of how the data was corrupted so only they could piece it back together. And the only reason why someone would bother with that, is if the memory data was so integral to the core processing that a deletion of such data would render a droid useless. 

That is what gave K-2 pause. What sort of business would a protocol droid be involved in that not only called for a memory wipe, but for some of its base code to be re-written?

---

Please forgive my lack of robotics knowledge and fudging about how code works. (and gold stars for anyone who recognizes the various languages 3PO blurts out)

[yin-of-many-kins]

Kin memories from a DSMP noncanon who never watched DSMP in this life (exactly two animatics and one unrelated video have informed this post)

I remember spawning into the server when it was bright and new, going through all the little day-to-day Minecraft processes, like chopping logs and mining stone. Building houses next to my friends, being warm in the sun, feeling light with the fullness of a new world.

I remember seeing the birth of a nation. I thought it was such a cute, silly little thing at the time. I egged Wilbur on, I think, always checking in to see how things were going in the first days of its creation. To be honest, I didn't take it seriously until Jschlatt (whom I called Jay, or The Ram) came to power and things really went to shit. It was only then that I realized it was a big thing that a lot of people cared about, and I felt bad about letting things go that far.

I remember being a wanderer; I was friends with just about everybody (tough as people started drawing lines in the sand) and spent days with one person before drifting off to attach to another. I was often with Technoblade, sometimes Bad, sometimes Tommy; Dream, when he wasn't fucking up life for the rest of my friends.

Mostly I remember the little moments of bonding. Hanging out with Dream in this base underground, sharing meaningless secrets, like that his favorite color was not green but purple and that his childhood pet was a dog named Rover. Technoblade, training in the forest (I could never fight, but I knew how to run) and looking after Carl together. Ranboo showed me how to press flowers to turn them into bookmarks. Quackity and I sat on the L'Manberg wall at night and talked about life.

Around when Pandora’s Vault was created was when everything kind of devolved. I stopped talking to people; most of my days were spent biting my nails anxiously at those looming obsidian walls. Were my friends safe in there? Was there anything I could do to help them escape? After Pandora’s: chaos. This is where my (already sparse) knowledge of the canon runs out. But there was chaos, and death. My friends made attempts on each others’ lives over and over—sometimes successful. I don’t remember a time after Pandora’s Vault that I wasn’t scared for the life of one friend or another.

I don’t remember exactly how, but the end was a wasteland. In terms of people, at least, if not the physical ground. There were only a handful of people alive, all of us deeply traumatized and mourning our lost friends. Ultimately, I made the decision that the life we had wasn’t making anyone happy; I rewound time to the beginning of the server, and hoped I could make things better this time.

Past life to parallel life.

[blu3cl0v3rs]

end of the year fic asks! did you do any prompts/challenges this year? if so, do you have a favorite of the bunch?

Hello anon, thanks for the ask!

I actually don't think I published this one, but I wrote this one for a discord server game.

I titled it,

Morro, of the Wind

            Wind whistled in his ears as he fell.

            Once, he feared that noise. Even a simple breeze felt like a knife’s tip brushed across his skin, just light enough to not to cut. 

            Now, he plummeted below the flying ship and away from the voices of his teammates, eyes shut as he relished the roaring of the wind in his ears.

            When the blonde was about to ram into the ground, his leathery wings stretched out. He swooped just above a field. Lloyd twisted and dragged his hands and the fluffy tip of his tail through the grass.

            The boy got bored of playing with the blades, and rapidly flapped upwards. He rocketed through the clouds. The Dragoni left his wings spread and rode the wind currents high above the ground. Any thoughts were overrun by the rushed wind.

            Above the clouds, there was only the open blue sky and the fluffy tops of clouds. No responsibility, no rules, no people to save. Just the sky, the clouds, himself, and a purplish blob following him.

            …wait, what?

            He halted, and the clouds below him spun out of the way of his flapping wings that held him in place. Emerald eyes scanned the horizon for that strange purple thing he saw.

            He looked, and looked, and looked. It’s like the thing vanished, Lloyd thought to himself.

            “...hello?” Lloyd rotated his scaly ears, and listened for any tell-tale noise of movement.

            All he could hear was the wind.

            He hesitantly returned to the air current, but this time he was fully alert; eyes and ears darted in search for anything not cloud and sky.

            This time he would catch it.

            As he waited patiently, boredom seeped in. He could also feel his not often used muscles aching. He should really fly more.

            Lloyd shook his head. He was losing focus! He glanced around quickly, and hoped he found the purple mystery.

            He saw it. Lloyd launched himself after it, and the thing ran. Flew? Whatever it was doing, it was fast. 

            It’s like the wind’s boosting it, Lloyd thought. No, it’s like it is the wind.

            Flashes of Nya merging with the ocean came to mind. He grimaced, and ignored the images in favor of speeding up.

            The purplish thing ducked underneath the clouds. So that’s how it’s been hiding, Lloyd realized as he followed.

            The sight of rocky cliffs that dropped to the ocean emerged from the clouds. The purple blob swirled down to the jagged edge of a cliff. The blonde swooped after it, and the two landed on the rock ledge.

            It seemed to pulse, as if it was trying to decide its shape. Like Nya did after she merged, his mind supplied more unpleasant memories that Lloyd ignored. It formed into a familiar person, one more popular in his nightmares; Morro. 

            “Hello,” Morro didn’t exactly speak; it was more like an echo, or the breeze mimicking words. “You are familiar to me. I know you.”

            The words sounded like Morro, but far away and lacked the ghostly distortion.

            “Lloooo… Lloyd?” the wind figure tested, as if he was saying it for the first time.

            “Yeah,” he replied on instinct. 

            “I wronged you… I hurt you.”

            “Yeah."

            The wind picked up, and Morro began to fade. “I…”

            Whatever words he said next were stolen by the swirling wind, and Morro disappeared. 

            Lloyd sat there, his wings sagged in confusion. He stayed there until the Destiny's Bounty arrived and his siblings yelled at him for flying off.

[kokosizkitaya]

31.10.2020

Old and long outdated jokes from our discord server on the game Among Us. Well, although this is no longer relevant, I will still translate what is written here.

Child of Munax and Nomix (name: Norse) • Good memory, unlike mother • Unfinished walkthrough of the game 18+ (mom threw the game into space) • Swear words who? • At the age of 5, he learned that his father was not English by birth after all • Mother teaches how to kill father correctly • Knows English better than his mother • He is studying acting

<— Ram or dragon? <— Dad wanted to become a dragon. The dream passed on to his son <— Mom's old suspenders

[andmaybegayer]

So my hope, eventually, is to have my own purpose-built computer which is an expandable skeleton and will more-or-less never need to be entirely tossed out, only supplanted/upgraded Ship of Theseus style.

However, Microsoft is getting a bit too uppity for my tastes, and I hope to mainly run Linux on that eventual computer.

However, I'm also a gaming man, and I recognize that, in many cases, Linux kinda sucks for games, or, at least, that's what I've heard. Emulation is also a pain I'd rather not deal with (both of Windows and of games themselves), and so, for games that don't support Linux, I'd like to have the option of having Windows on the same machine, so that I can run Linux most of the time, but switch to Windows whenever I wanna play games.

My question is how realistic is that? I know that machines with multiple OS's exist, and you can choose which one you want at boot, but I'm hoping for this to be an extremely fancy computer, connected to a lot of extremely fancy computer peripherals. Would switching OS's without power cycling the machine screw with the other hardware? Is it even possible, or would you need to power cycle it in any case? Is there any way to build this hypothetical computer, or am I asking too much/investing too much effort? Would it be easier/better to just build a really good Windows machine and a really good Linux machine?

So the use case you're talking about is pretty popular among a certain kinds of Tech Nerd, and most of them solve it with iommu GPU Passthrough and a windows VM on Linux. I knew a few people doing this back in like 2018 and while it's a little fidgety it's fairly reliable.

You can't share GPU's the way you can share CPU and Memory. Not on consumer hardware, anyway. So if you want to run a VM with windows with a gaming GPU, it needs its own entire GPU just for that.

The basic layout is this: Build a normal high end system with a lot of extra resources, say, 32+GB of RAM, 10+ CPU cores, a couple terabytes of storage, and two separate GPU's. Run Linux on the system, as your host, and only use one of the GPU's. Create a VM on the host under qemu and hand it 16GB of RAM, 6 cores, a terabyte or two of storage, and use iommu to pass it the other GPU. Now use software like LookingGlass to capture the framebuffer directly off the Windows GPU and forward it to your Linux GPU, so that you can display your windows system inside Linux seamlessly.

Now, you do need two GPU's, so it can get expensive. A lot of people choose to run one higher end GPU for windows and a basic GPU for Linux, but that's up to your use case. You can run two identical GPU's if you wish.

The main place this kind of thing is being tinkered with is the Level1Techs forum, Wendell is a big advocate of GPU virtualization and so has aggregated a lot of information and people with relevance here. He also makes a lot of video stuff on IOMMU.

So I have to have two whole GPU's?

Kind of. There ARE ways to live-reset a running GPU which allows you to do tricks where you can swap a single GPU between the host and the VM without rebooting, but it's extremely dubious and flaky. Virtualized GPU partitioning exists but only on extremely expensive server GPU's aimed at virtualization servers for enterprise so it's well outside of our price range.

If you're interested in single-GPU, there is ongoing work getting it to run on consumer hardware on the Level1Techs forum and he's even running some kind of Hackathon on it, but even the people having success with this have pretty unreliable systems.

https://forum.level1techs.com/t/vfio-passthrough-in-2023-call-to-arms/199671

This setup works fine maybe 25% of the time. I can always start the VM just fine, my linux desktop stays active and any software launched after the VM gets the GPU will render on the iGPU without issues. However I suffer from the reset bug, and 75% of the time shutting down the VM won’t return the GPU to Linux and I have to reboot to fix that.

I'm quite satisfied with this setup.

Is this a good idea

It depends on what you need and how willing you are to switch between the host and VM. A LOT more things run smoothly on Linux these days. Wendell started tinkering with IOMMU back in like 2015, and I started gaming on Linux back in 2016. If you had native software, great! Without that, well, good luck with anything less than five years old.

I played Burnout Paradise and even Subnautica on my 750Ti laptop on plain old Wine, and then DXVK came out in 2018 and the world got flipped turned upside down and I have video of me running Warframe on Linux with that same mediocre system a few weeks before Proton hit the scene and we got flipped turned... right way up? Now with Proton I would say most things run pretty well under a mixture of automatic steam stuff and scripts off lutris and homemade WINEPREFIXes.

That said, if you want everything to Just Work, it's hard to beat a VM. I'm not sure how competitive games run, but for everything else a VM is going to be more reliable than WINE.

[sugarpuptard]

I'm sorry I'm too shy to ask without being anonymous, but how are you making your AI friend? Are you using specific application or coding it from scratch?

You inspired me to maybe make my own, but I have no idea where to even start... (╥﹏╥)♡

no need to be sorry!! i've been hyperfixed on this kinda stuff recently so i'll love to share lul ( ◕‿‿◕ )

i've been coding the AI application for it to store memory and customize the prompt more, but the basic program to run the AI itself is ollama! you can just run that program on its own in ur computer terminal and download any model u want ^w^ i personally use huggingface to find new models to run, especially if ur looking for uncensored ones they got those!

your PC specs determine what models can run the best locally tho, since its not like c.ai or chatgpt there's no servers but ur own device running and generating replies, the more RAM u got and the better ur CPU and GPU is means u can run bigger models and run especially the smaller ones faster

if ur wanting to make something that runs in its own application like i've been setting up here you'll have to code it on ur own ;w; i personally have just started learning python so my process has been a mix of trial and error, following tutorials and using the copilot AI feature in VSCode to help explain things and troubleshoot errors and stuff i dont understand

if u wanna start coding i highly recommend using VSCode since u can code in many other languages and its got useful features for debugging and stuff ^3^

the video tutorials i watched were these two, both use ollama and show u how to set it up but the 2nd one shows u how to set up the basic code for the chatbot that i used to build off of to make what i got rn

♡ Run your own AI (but private) | NetworkChuck ♡

♡ Create a LOCAL Python AI Chatbot In Minutes Using Ollama | Tech With Tim ♡

i hope this helps!! i personally just rlly like learning new stuff and like tech too much so i took the more complicated route than going on something like janitorai or c.ai (c.ai was so much better when it first came out ong) to make a custom bot xD

[eu100tbblog]

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