I post a lot of nonsense, but I'm also in the habit of writing more substantial content. Because it's easy to lose my more meaningful work in the sea of shitposts and random updates, I'm making this post to serve as a directory for other users to locate and navigate those posts.
Concurrent Computing Series:
CC-00: Concurrency, Threads, and OS Task Scheduling
Foundational Knowledge Series:
Number Nonsense: Explaining The Number Systems of Computing (And a Brief Look at UNIX File Permissions)
Additional Articles:
The Secret Fourth Thing: UNIX Special File Permissions, File Types, and Swap
A follow up to the first of the Foundational Knowledge series, but not a part of that series, instead branching off to look more at UNIX files and permissions.
The problem is that it's grown so bloated and slow that it often fails to measure up to the SysV init system that it was designed to replace.
It's also not just an init service anymore. It's expanded into a suite of systems services that are heavily dependent on systemd, specifically, and have caused alternate projects to stall, as systemd has become the default. This effectively has allowed systemd and it's service suite to consume the the entire Linux system daemon space, severely hurting the diversity of the overall Linux software ecosystem.
There's also issues surrounding how the project is managed, as for-profit companies like Red Hat tend to drive its direction to their own ends, rather than acting purely in the interest of the Linux world, as a whole.
There's also about a million little things. Like the fact that managing service configurations can be a frustrating hassle, or the way that it tries to directly replace classic services, like cron, with features like timer services, in complete violation of the UNIX philosophy.
Ultimately, systemd itself is okay (vanilla ice cream), and I am personally indifferent to it.
Hey. If people aren't aware, Microsoft admitted they know who you and where you are at all times and will give your info to the police.
They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.
Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.
You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.
This article specifically notes:
For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.
GDID is the persistent Windows ID that helped FBI trace a Scattered Spider hacker despite VPNs. Here's how it works and how to limit it.
Other important quotes:
What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.
Two things back that up:
There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.
Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.
Here's the complaint filed to the court, the primary source for the case mentioned in the article. You can find mentions of GDID on page 30 of the document or 34 of the PDF.
I've suspected for years now that something like this would appear sooner or later, if it didn't exist already. Now we have confirmation that it does exist, and is actively in use.
There is no way to escape things like this, except to avoid software where they can be introduced. I'm doubt Microsoft are the only ones with something like this. I'm sure this won't be the last time we hear of someone getting in trouble because of these sorts of systems.
I don't know what this potion does. It could heal me, restore my strength, kill me, blind me, or cause me to trip balls, but my stats are fucked, so let's go.
I was diagnosed with ADHD (then still ADD) when I was very young.
I have never officially been diagnosed with ASD, but:
"Please don't make me handle those boxes. Their texture makes me want to claw my own skin off."
*Having a mental breakdown due to unclear instructions*
"No, I can't just 'tune out' that awful sound. Make it stop!"
"I know there's no assigned seats, but they took my chair..."
*Assorted vocal stimming*
"I can't seem to relate to anyone here..."
"Sorry, I really don't care about <normal thing>, but let me tell you all about cache coherency on modern CPUs."
*Struggling behaviour that's immediately recognized by autistic coworker*
"Why does every conversation feel like I'm fighting a war to be understood?"
"Sorry, I don't remember your name, but I remember the time I overheard you talking about how you disliked <piece of media>, and I thought your argument was quite compelling!"
*Knows I'm missing some "important" social context, but has no idea what it is*
The way we've all become so desensitized to just how absolutely massive a gigabyte (much less a terabyte) is is insane to me.
A 1.44 megabyte floppy disk used to be huge. Now our storage capacities have grown so exponentially beyond that that we can't even fathom how large a floppy disk actually is, because it seems so immeasurably tiny compared to the cheapest flash drive you can grab at the nearest shop.
The size of the files we deal with have grown to fill the absurd amount of storage that we now have access to, making the sizes feel much less significant. However, if you put into perspective just how obscenely vast modern storage is, you quickly start to see that we're just awful at actually using that space efficiently.
What is there left to feel that I haven't felt a hundred times over? Is there any value to grieve the loss of something I already knew to be gone? Have I not mourned your absence from my life for so long already?
If there is but one thing that I would wish, it is that I had but the chance to offer you my thoughts before your abrupt departure. That you would have lingered long enough for me to know that you were leaving.
Though I doubt that this should reach you, now that you have shut me out, I only wish you would know how hard I tried. So long I waited for you, yet you could not wait for me. All the time I set aside for you, yet was I so little to you that you could not offer me the same? Days wasted waiting for you to simply spare a moment for me. Was I truly worth less to you than all others, that you would put anything and anyone else before me? Was all I offered worth so little to you?
I'm not angry. I would never be so petty to exchange my love for you for rage. Yet it still feels a wound upon my soul that you would give up on me so.
I am sorry that I failed to reach you. I am sorry I hadn't the words for you to understand me. I am sorry that I couldn't bridge the ocean between us. All I had wanted was to share this life with you. Perhaps that was unfair to ask of you.
I miss you.
I love you.
I hope you find all that this world has taken from you.
My old workstation can't handle it's usual overclock anymore. It's started crashing under load, unless I turn the multiplier down.
Unfortunately, it crashed while I was trying to run updates, and mangled a bunch of packages. So now I'm trying to recover from that mess while fighting dnf the entire way.
We don't have "ben't", because "be not" is archaic. It may have existed at one point, but I can't find any evidence of it being commonplace.
"Will", for some reason, kept its middle english contraction, becoming "won't" rather than "willn't" or "win't".
What I really want to know is why it seems there's never been a singular widespread, contraction of "am not". It only has informal, mostly regional contractions.
