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a1studmuffin

@ a1studmuffin @aussie.zone

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3 yr. ago

Software engineer (video games). Likes dogs, DJing + EDM, running, electronics and loud bangs in Reservoir.

  • Big Decimals: Stop Using Floats or Cents for Money

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  • Floating-Point Determinism | Random ASCII - tech blog of Bruce Dawson https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/floating-point-determinism/

    The short answer to your questions is no, but if you're careful you can prevent indeterminism. I've personally ran into it encoding audio files using the Opus codec on AMD vs Intel processors (slightly different binary outputs for the exact same inputs). But if you're able to control your dev environment from platform choice all the way down to the assembly instructions being used, you can prevent it.

  • Best way to transport a computer out of country?

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  • The Instapak stuff I'm thinking of was basically medium sized bags that acted like a heat pack, where you break something inside the bag to combine two chemicals then shake it, which makes it expand and harden quickly.

  • Best way to transport a computer out of country?

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  • I think the stuff is called Instapak expanding foam. Personally I think I'd remove the GPU and any mechanical drives to play it safe, but I've had a PC shipped to me before fully assembled with Instapak around the GPU (no HDDs, only SSDs) and it was fine. Ideally ship it in the original box for the PC case.

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    Best practice for connecting lots of HDD to motherboards with few SATA ports?

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    Best practice for connecting lots of HDD to motherboards with few SATA ports?

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  • Piggybacking off this, it's worth noting if you're adding SAS capability to your PC via one of these cards, you can look into used enterprise SAS HDDs for cheap. They're often sold in bulk - I just picked up 72TB (12x6TB) of 7200RPM drives for AUD480 total. Availability is very region-specific and of course it's up to you to decide if it's worth the risk for your needs, but if you're using RAID6 or equivalent (capable of handling two dead drives at once) the risk is minimal. Be sure to buy from sellers with a warranty (12 months minimum), and check the drives once they arrive. But in general enterprise drives are MUCH more resilient than consumer drives.

  • Choosing my first printer is driving me mad.

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  • I'll go against the grain here - I'm still rocking an unmodded Ender 3 Pro from 2019. It sits in my garage now as a tool for functional prints, though I've done the odd articulated print for kids.

    I generally only ever use black or white PLA. I pretty much never calibrate it any more now it's set up. I just don't see the need to upgrade. Yes, it's slower and louder than newer 3D printers and there's no web interface, but the dimensional accuracy and quality is there for 99% of functional prints.

    My friend has a Bambu Lab P1S and for fine detail it's definitely higher quality, so if you're designing micro parts (eg. PCB housings) I'd go with something newer, but if your functional prints are going to need around 0.05-0.1mm accuracy, an older 3D printer will do the job just fine.

    I imagine they're dirt cheap on the second hand market right now. Might be worth trying one before diving into something more expensive?

    Edit: forgot to mention, the only time I get a failed print is when I give it something stupid to attempt, like with no supports. This will be the learning curve with any 3D printer and getting used to how slicers work. You'll eventually build an intuition around this workflow, but I don't believe the choice in printer will matter here - correct me if I'm wrong folks.

  • Anyone automate anything with smart thermostats and outdoor temp?

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  • I cheated and just used a webscraper to pull the data from a local government website.

  • Anyone automate anything with smart thermostats and outdoor temp?

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  • Here's a screenshot of what my diagnostic interface for it looked like. The Python script took all the sensors as inputs and decided on a strategy for upstairs and downstairs, and gave the reason for its decision in a separate sensor for debugging purposes. The script performed all the necessary actions whenever it changed strategy.

  • Anyone automate anything with smart thermostats and outdoor temp?

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  • I went down this rabbit hole a few years back. I'm in a house with 3 separate HVAC split systems over 2 floors, and we always had large temperature differentials and needed to constantly manage HVAC settings.

    My goal was to never need to touch the settings for any of the HVAC units all year round, and I had plans to automate my windows so if it was nice outside, the house would ventilate automatically... but only if the pollen count was low, as I have allergies.

    It became clear very early on that using the standard Home Assistant automation logic wasn't going to be adequate for my needs, so I ended up running a Python script every half hour that reassessed the state of all sensors, using whatever crazy logic I dreamed up, then decided what actions to perform (if anything).

    The general approach worked well, though I hit two snags and lost interest:

    One was finding a (cheap) solution to physically open and close my roller windows. I came close, but didn't want to make any permanent changes and had concerns about home insurance, so ultimately chickened out there. Everything still worked without this, but it would have been pretty cool to open windows automatically on a nice day for fresh air.

    The other snag was more fundamental - I don't think it's possible to have a perfect temperature, even for one person. If I'm sitting still for long periods, I tend to want warmer temps. If I'm cleaning the house, I want cooler temps.

    Ultimately my "ruleset" for the perfect solution became more and more complex, with edge cases and bugs popping up as the months rolled on, and it became clear I couldn't represent this problem with a set of sensor inputs.

    It was a fun experiment and I learned a lot, but I ended up going back to simpler automation rules after a while, like just turning on the heater in the morning if it's cold, or vice versa. Solve the biggest problems first.

    I think trying to automate to the extreme is sometimes a trap. Our hacker mindset wants the problem to be perfect and solveable, when in reality us humans are fickle creatures whose wants and whims change on the regular, and that can't be captured easily in zeros and ones.

  • Google will block sideloading of unverified Android apps starting next year

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  • Two minor concerns about this approach:

    1. Will the lesser known domain name make your emails more likely to be filtered as spam? I don't know the answer, but I am fairly sure it wouldn't help.
    2. Will having your email routed through a middleman open up security issues? Probably solveable with diligence and awareness, but I recently had a non-technical friend with this setup get his Gmail breached because he was forwarding it to an email inbox on his personal domain from decades earlier that he forgot about, and didn't have 2FA on the domain webmail. IMHO an easy oversight for anyone, honestly.

  • U.S. takes 10% stake in Intel as Trump flexes more power over big business

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  • Also "Thank you for your attention to this matter." has such "Facebook local area group" energy, like a Boomer shouting into the void about teenagers always loitering at the bus stop.

  • Deal to get ChatGPT Plus for whole of UK discussed by Open AI boss and minister

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  • I think OP meant the UK

  • Scientist makes horror prediction that the world will 'collapse in just 25 years

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  • "Why 49% and not 50%?" "I wanted it to sound more accurate than it is"

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    Permanently Deleted

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  • The forgotten war on the Walkman

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  • The car horn on your bike is hilarious. Tangentially, a fun thing to try is using a bike bell on an escalator while standing behind people. We're so conditioned to being dinged and moving aside that people do it before they even think about what's going on.

  • Australia's pedestrian deaths have increased by almost 50 per cent in 4 years

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  • And the article didn't even mention the increase in monster truck SUVs/pickups we're seeing on our roads, which we know are more deadly for pedestrians from studies.

  • Just got a Fairphone 6, AMA

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  • No, that's why it bought a phone.

  • Senior lawyer files AI-generated submissions in Victorian teen murder case

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  • British High Court Justice Victoria Sharp warned in June that providing false material as if it were genuine could be considered contempt of court or, in the "most egregious cases", perverting the course of justice, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

    IMHO there should be a written warning followed by being disbarred for this kind of unethical behaviour. If you're too lazy to do the legwork yourself and verify your work, you don't deserve your role.

  • Setting up a server for a research team. What should be in my checklist?

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  • I guess as a starting point most of us in this thread don't really know what university research teams do.

    If they had a laptop or phone, what kinds of things would they want to do that requires a server? Will they need email? Instant messaging? File sharing? Document collaboration? Will there be sensitive information? Do they need specific software? Or put another way, without this server, what can't they do?

    If you can give some hints on that kind of stuff, I'm sure people in this thread can help out more with specifics on software/tech recommendations.

    Edit: obviously Unreal Tournament is non-negotiable.