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sedrosken

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AMD's drivers are better on the Linux side and yes, they've always kinda sucked for Windows.

On the other hand, my life-long experience with nVidia has involved under-specified fans that would kill cards. To this day I still don't trust anything with an nVidia GPU that's not on a dual-slot cooling solution. There was a point in time when Dell was sticking low-spec video cards in everything and every time a Dimension something-or-other crapped out it the fix would be to swap in some other cheap POS GPU.
Seconded on the first point, AMDGPU is indeed far better than really anything else on Linux. As much as I try to run it on my main machine, I end up taking up gaming again or something and end up chafing and reinstalling Windows before too long much as I hate Microsoft as a company.

As for the second, I have a PCI GeForce4 MX4000 that originally came with a TINY heatsink and no fan at all. I modified the heatsink from a dead AGP card -- literally filed out a little spot for one of the quartz crystals to poke through so it'd sit flush -- and it runs far cooler. I keep it around on the off-chance I end up with a Socket 370 or 478 board that's PCI-only, as their integrated graphics reek.

Thankfully I don't have to worry about cost-cutting designs with my 1070, it's the superclocked version from EVGA. I'll be cleaning it and repasting it as a matter of course, and making sure the fans are in decent shape.
 

Mercutio

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I suspect very strongly that they were reference designs, as the OEM cards in consumer and fleet desktops that shipped with low or mid-spec GPUs of the time weren't particularly different from branded cards from the usual suspects. It's all ancient history now, but I think the small HSFs that used to sit on nvidia cards from the 2000 - 2010 period were proven generally inadequate based on what we see cooling graphics cards these days.
 

Mercutio

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One of the things I love to photograph when I can is cosplay at comic book conventions. Today I went with a bunch of dancers to Exxxotica Chicago, which is quite literally a sex worker convention, held in the same convention center as most of the other nerdy convention events I've been to. I was badged in as a professional because I have an association with a strip club; the club owner is someone I've known for 25 years. I was there as kind of the designated adult for a bunch of dancers who went to have a good time, but honestly, it was exactly like going to a comic book conventions. It's one of the most surreal and silly experiences I've ever had in my life.

Sex work is very weird in its opposed political views. There's a lot of extremely sincere libertarian viewpoints, the people who just want to be allowed to make money from their bodies without restriction, which are opposed by the equally serious workers who are vocal about social justice as it relates to human rights and acceptance of difference. The result was something that was way, WAY more tense than I ever would've expected for a convention where the primary decorative theme was things you'd see at a bachelorette party.
 

sedrosken

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In another episode of Sedrosken Overshares™, we talk about my renewed living space issues.

My roommate/landlord is selling the house, looking to close at the end of June, and this could not be happening at a worse time!

I hit salary next month, so I'm not necessarily worried about money, though it is a bit tight right this moment, I have help should I need it though I'd rather not need it. Availability and application success are what I'm worried about. I have no significant rental history of my own, I've been here three months, that's it for formal rental stuff. My credit, while still good, has taken a minor hit from putting some car service and parts on credit for a special offer that seemingly up till now never materialized. I'm still really young and most importantly, my new position/salary is not effective yet. I commented that I will be promoted at the start of next month, and my employer is willing to provide proof of contract if they ask, but with my current income my chances for approval at the place I applied at are not very good I fear, since they want rent to ideally be 1/3 of your monthly income or less. The problem is, other places with availability are priced even worse -- like, 300 dollars more for less square footage and one less room, worse.

My boss and his wife are helping me figure it out, and thank god for them, because I have no clue what I'm doing.

On the upside, if I do clear this, I'll have a year lease probably with the option of renewal.

Regardless by next month I should have a stable income that I won't have to actively worry about money and bill timing with. The near-final figure for my salary is not quite as high as originally projected, but it's still a ~66% raise and I overall plan to live exactly as I do now, with surplus used to get rid of debts and begin saving for a down-payment on a house, perhaps retirement even.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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A lot of my dancer friends absolutely swim in money but can't get a lease on their own to save their lives. And I also know a lot of kids who have finished college but wound up in low-paying jobs due to other factors, like industry reliance on contract workers who don't get insurance benefits within their field of study.

I don't see how young people are doing it.
 

sedrosken

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I have decent credit, especially it's good for my age, so I think I have a decent shot especially if an actual human reviews my application. Hopefully I wasn't late getting to it. If I don't hear anything by mid-day tomorrow I'll call them over lunch. And start throwing my application at some other places. I really hoped I was going to get this one as it's the most affordable, so I held off a little.

I pay for my own insurance, which will get problematic as I took some tax credits for that when I enrolled not thinking my position would change anytime soon, so I have to account for that for next year's tax bill I guess and make sure I have some extra money put back to pay for it. I amazingly did not take every credit I qualified for at my current income, but I took probably 66% or so.
 

LunarMist

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A lot of my dancer friends absolutely swim in money but can't get a lease on their own to save their lives. And I also know a lot of kids who have finished college but wound up in low-paying jobs due to other factors, like industry reliance on contract workers who don't get insurance benefits within their field of study.

I don't see how young people are doing it.
I'm finding that many younger people are asking for unrealistic salaries these days. Somewhere they read that it's an employees market and are they just looking for jobs without any clear plan other than hopping around to move up. I've been a hiring manager since my mid 20s and it's worse now than ever, but never was easy to find really good staff. In large companies many of the contractors work for 3rd party companies that provide some benefits, but nothing like employees get. CWs working for themselves don't get any, but they get 100% of the pay. Mostly those are high-level consultants or maybe work for small companies since large companies don't want to deal with co-employment issues.
 

jtr1962

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A lot of my dancer friends absolutely swim in money but can't get a lease on their own to save their lives. And I also know a lot of kids who have finished college but wound up in low-paying jobs due to other factors, like industry reliance on contract workers who don't get insurance benefits within their field of study.
I'd be in the same boat myself if I had to get a lease. No steady paycheck type income. And no prior leases to use as references.

That said, if your dancer friends make all this money they probably have nice bank accounts. Can't they use that as collateral for a lease?
I don't see how young people are doing it.
Me neither. It was hard enough when I started out. I remember I was taking home about $200 a week after taxes and car fare. My student loan payments were about $100 a month. Not even counting food or clothing, I had maybe $750 a month left. Rents for even a not so great apartment were about $600 a month. Needless to say, I just stayed with my parents, like lots of other people.

It's way harder now. Rents are at least twice as much in real terms.
I'm finding that many younger people are asking for unrealistic salaries these days. Somewhere they read that it's an employees market and are they just looking for jobs without any clear plan other than hopping around to move up. I've been a hiring manager since my mid 20s and it's worse now than ever, but never was easy to find really good staff. In large companies many of the contractors work for 3rd party companies that provide some benefits, but nothing like employees get. CWs working for themselves don't get any, but they get 100% of the pay. Mostly those are high-level consultants or maybe work for small companies since large companies don't want to deal with co-employment issues.
Well, consider happened to their parents. Their parents did everything they were told to do. Stayed loyal to their company for years, worked late in the hopes someone might notice and give them a promotion and nice raise. Came to work sick, or with injuries. What did decades of coming to a soul-draining office get them except tired broken bodies and spirits? At best they got garbage raises that kept pace with inflation, if that. After doing "extra" work without extra pay their bosses came to expect it of them. If there were any promotions, generally someone else got them, either a person who kissed the boss's behind, or slept with them. Merit didn't factor into any of this. And the biggest insult of all? When the company no longer needed them, they were unceremoniously let go despite spending half their life there. Often they were fired by email, told to clear out their desk by lunch, and let out by security.

So yeah, you expect today's younger people to start working for peanuts and to not hop around? They're being smart in my book. Ask for stratospheric salaries. You might get a company that actually falls for it. If not, accept the highest offer, but be ready to jump ship the minute something better comes along. And unless the company has a clear path of advancement, where if you meet certain defined goals you move up, just do the bare minimum to keep the job, and not a bit more.

There's also perks. If companies can't afford to pay top salaries, that's fine so long as they offer things like remote work. Not having to physically come to an office each day is worth earning somewhat less in my book.

I've overhead people complaining that they can't pay their workers $4 an hour. Their reasoning? It's what THEY made when they started out, so why should today's kids get more? They forget how much less things cost back then, especially housing. If your business depends upon virtual slave labor, then your business model isn't viable.

BTW, I saw the handwriting on the wall back when I was starting out. It's only gotten much worse since. At least lately the tide is shifting back to the workers.
 
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sedrosken

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I really got lucky ending up where I did. By all rights I shouldn't have been able to get this job, I was completely unqualified, and by some definitions (including my own) it was practically nepotism -- my uncle connected me with my boss.

Not only did I get lucky just getting the job, I got lucky in that my boss is a damn saint -- I need time off, for a doctor's appointment or what have you? I just have to tell him and I have it. I got in a fender bender last week (guy hit me at a stop light, it's being handled) and the guy called me on the way out of the house saying he was coming to get me -- he finally calmed down when I told him I'd already made it home.
 

jtr1962

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It sounds like that job is a keeper, and the boss really likes you. You definitely lucked out.

I had a great boss on the last job I worked as an employee. The job itself wasn't that great. It was a taximeter repair shop. The pay was low. I really wasn't planning to stay there long term. The boss made it tolerable for as long as it lasted. In September 1990 the parent company closed the shop. My former boss used his savings to buy it out and run it as his own business. I worked at home as an independent contractor for him for many years. He still comes into his place part-time, even though he's 76 now. I still keep in touch, although he's had no work for me for a while. His son-in-law is eventually going to take over the business.
 

Mercutio

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There's a web service called Cameo that lets users pay small amounts of money to get video messages from a celebrity. I just used it to fire my most annoying customer.
 

Mercutio

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I could in theory look at it but I'm out. Apparently the person who makes the video does get to see the recipient's response but it doesn't get shared with anyone else.

Also, it's REALLY inexpensive to get a lot of well known voice actors to make one, but shockingly expensive to get a lot of Youtube/IG/Reality show regulars to do them. I had a good time yesterday just looking through the listings.
 

Mercutio

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A comedian named Bill Engvall.

OK sed, this Youtube channel is basically a breakdown of all the weird crap I've done in my life as a techie. Half-hour long breakdowns of old UNIX workstations and tours out outdated network tech. You'll love it.

The newest A+ exam requirements were released at the beginning of the month. For the first time, the test is asking candidates to have some familiarity with topics related to scripting and automation, things that basic hardware enthusiasts probably won't pick up just from tinkering with vanilla desktops. I think it's a positive change.
 
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sedrosken

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I know a just enough bash to be dangerous, a little bit of powershell, and a distressing amount of batch scripting, so while I'll likely need to brush up I should be okay? I probably need to actually buy and read through a book on powershell sometime. It's the kind of thing that'd be awfully useful if I could leverage it.

Thanks for the channel link Merc, but I actually already watch them!
 

Handruin

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Given you can run a shell in windows now, I'd probably focus on the basics of bash to have most of those solid. Aside from that, maybe move on to some basic Python. That can go a very long way for scripting most everything on all platforms. Containers and kubernetes orchestration is pretty growing and hot still. Plenty to learn and leverage in there and most cloud related infrastructure will use it in the front and backend.

Maybe try here and see:
 

Mercutio

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The Epic Games freebie this week is all the Bioshock games. Not my thing but my roommate was thrilled about it.

While I'm at it, Humble Bundle has a huge collection of ORA Programming cookbooks for $20. The Powershell Cookbook has been really handy for me over time.
 

Handruin

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There are some good books in that bundle and the cybersecurity collection also looks interesting.
 

sedrosken

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Welp. I've all but signed a lease on a place -- 2 bedrooms, 850 or so sqft, I can use the second bedroom as an office space -- it's not perfect but nothing is down here, you're compromising one way or the other. Given my timeframe for moving I really didn't have time to be picky. There's no in-unit laundry, but there's a laundromat down the road and I'll be living not even a mile from family, and I only do one load of laundry a week, so I don't see that being much of a problem, just annoying. It costs more than I'd have liked, too, but I can at least afford it with my salary, so that's nice.

I'm kind of caught in a bad spot on my car -- I discovered after the initial evaluation that my trunk will no longer close due to frame damage, and the body shop the other guy's insurance prefers is booked out until the end of August. Once I'm moved, I'll see if another body shop in town can take a look, and tell me what my course of action should be. When my boss saw the damage on the inside of my trunk he told me he thought they might even total it out -- but I'll only accept that if their payout pays off the rest of my car note. In that case, I might take this as an opportunity to get into a vehicle I actually want -- I'm eyeing a used Mitsubishi Outlander pretty closely, especially if I can negotiate it below 20k. The company car is an Outlander Sport, and I really like it -- I can actually see what I'm doing, and even with the 4-cylinder it's still got plenty of power. It can even tow small trailers -- before my boss signed it over to the company, he used to pull a boat with it. The company car's a manual, and I don't like those for driving in traffic (but I can drive it!), so I'd want an automatic for myself, though.
 

sedrosken

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FYI - the Ryzen 5 5500 is US$134.99 on Newegg with a promo code. Not that I expect anyone here to be in need of a budget part like that, but it's a huge leap over my 1600AF in the same power envelope -- my 3700X consumed almost twice the power, so I sent it off to my friend for his 1070 -- so if you have any older Zen machines that could use a bit of extra pep, this may be just what the doctor ordered. Blows the doors off of the Zen and Zen+ hex-cores just by the better IPC, higher clocks, and having a unified L3 cache. It even trades blows with the 3700X -- multi-thread benchmarks do typically go in the older chip's favor but given that it has double the cache to work with and 2 more cores, the difference isn't nearly as large as you'd think.

The 5500 is essentially a 5600G with the iGP disabled. So, half the cache of the 5600X, but right now it's some 60 dollars cheaper. I grabbed one because I've been having some frametime judder issues, and of course the AVX2 implementation in Zen and Zen+ is half-baked so anything that relies on it suffers. For 143 dollars after tax I essentially made it so my PC will hopefully last another couple years without a platform upgrade.
 

jtr1962

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For me the idea of integrated graphics is a plus. The A10-7870K I'm using now is more than adequate for my needs. I love the idea of not needing a graphics card. The 5600G and 5700G have a much more powerful integrated graphics engine than my current APU. We're fast getting to the point where the vast majority of users can get by just fine with integrated graphics, even if that's not the case for some of the people here.

The only other thing I would like to see eventually from AMD would be on-chip graphics memory. Their APUs love faster RAM, but it's probably more cost effective to go with slower system RAM, and have maybe a gig of faster RAM on chip.
 

sedrosken

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Well, the 5600G is only, like, 20 bucks extra right now I think. For me, considering I'm running a dGPU anyway, I don't care if it has an iGP or not. In fact I'd prefer to save the money and TDP. Granted, I'm told by reliable sources I want to keep the iGP if I go Intel, because for some reason in Alder the encode block is really, and I mean really good. So while my 1070 outperforms overall, there are certain things media-wise it can't do just because it's so old now. But I have not heard the same thing in regards to the iGPs on the Zen APUs.
 

LunarMist

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So four years later Nadal has 21 in what may be the best AO final ever. I can hardly believe it.
And now 22, with the 14th French Open win. 🏆 Nobody in any major professional sport has won such an event 14 times. No baseball, basketball, hockey, golf, football, etc. It's almost superhunan especially considering the degenerative effects of Mueller-Weiss syndrome.
 

LunarMist

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I'm kind of caught in a bad spot on my car -- I discovered after the initial evaluation that my trunk will no longer close due to frame damage, and the body shop the other guy's insurance prefers is booked out until the end of August. Once I'm moved, I'll see if another body shop in town can take a look, and tell me what my course of action should be. When my boss saw the damage on the inside of my trunk he told me he thought they might even total it out -- but I'll only accept that if their payout pays off the rest of my car note. In that case, I might take this as an opportunity to get into a vehicle I actually want -- I'm eyeing a used Mitsubishi Outlander pretty closely, especially if I can negotiate it below 20k. The company car is an Outlander Sport, and I really like it -- I can actually see what I'm doing, and even with the 4-cylinder it's still got plenty of power. It can even tow small trailers -- before my boss signed it over to the company, he used to pull a boat with it. The company car's a manual, and I don't like those for driving in traffic (but I can drive it!), so I'd want an automatic for myself, though.
I thought you wanted to keep that car just a few weeks ago. LOL
 

sedrosken

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I thought you wanted to keep that car just a few weeks ago. LOL
Well, sure, obviously if they can fix it I'd rather they just do that. It'd be a lot healthier for my wallet and I could get something better when I'm actually, you know, prepared for it. I'm just trying to keep my options open in case they say they can't. It'd sure suck to be told that and have to start shopping essentially from scratch. In fact, if they try to total it out but the payout won't cover what I still owe, I plan to fight it and make them fix it.
 

LunarMist

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Well, sure, obviously if they can fix it I'd rather they just do that. It'd be a lot healthier for my wallet and I could get something better when I'm actually, you know, prepared for it. I'm just trying to keep my options open in case they say they can't. It'd sure suck to be told that and have to start shopping essentially from scratch. In fact, if they try to total it out but the payout won't cover what I still owe, I plan to fight it and make them fix it.
Oops, I misunderstood. Normally a totaled car is paid out at the current value at the time of the accident. That is irrespective of your financial interest in the car. I also assumed that most lenders require gap insurance to pay off the loan in the event of a shortfall.
 

LunarMist

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It's written in "cat" so we'll never know.
Are you saying that the cat was typing on the keyboard? How is it that the three paragraph endings are the same or similar, e.g., =w2126-h1594-no and =w2676-h2007-no? I assume that means something to the machine language, but not humans outside of IT.
 

sedrosken

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Oops, I misunderstood. Normally a totaled car is paid out at the current value at the time of the accident. That is irrespective of your financial interest in the car. I also assumed that most lenders require gap insurance to pay off the loan in the event of a shortfall.

I don't know if it's required. I also got my Corolla through a pre-approved loan with my bank, rather than dealer financing, so YMMV.

I remember being offered gap insurance, I don't remember if I took it or not, and I was a cheap bastard in June of last year, albeit necessarily so, so it's entirely possible that I don't have it. I'd rather not find out the hard way. Even if they cover the whole thing I'm not likely to go onto a lot and get something like what I wanted without something to put down especially since I don't want to pay upwards of 400 dollars a month -- moving expenses have all but bled me dry.

@Handruin I do not see pictures, I see the following

1654828081385.png
 

Handruin

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I don't know what happened the first time, I guess whatever I did the forum software didn't like. Thanks for letting me know you can see them now.
 

Newtun

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It's written in "cat" so we'll never know.
When I saw JTR's comment yesterday, I thought he meant the "cat" command in Linux.

Now I see the cute Creamsicle® feline photos. ❤️ 🐱

(It reminds me of a pic I have of my cat looking at the touchpad I used to use, which I captioned "Where's the mouse?" 😉)​

I wonder why he could see the pix and I couldn't - maybe it's a Linux thing.
 

jtr1962

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I wonder why he could see the pix and I couldn't - maybe it's a Linux thing.
I didn't see the pics, either. I just saw text that was gibberish and assumed Doug's cat had walked across the keyboard. My last cat died last February but when I had cats that happened pretty often. Of course, I thought it was strange that some sequences of characters were repeated but I chalked that up to the cat either moving in the same pattern, or finally figuring out what all those strange letters meant. Cats work in mysterious ways. I still sometimes think cats are really aliens sent here to spy on us. Maybe the gibberish they type is communication with the mother ship.

Cute kitty. 😻
 
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