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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • Open source devices will become more mainstream as a push back by consumers against enshitifcation, privacy invasion, disposable products, ever rising subscription costs.

    Not just things like phones and laptops but things like mice, keyboards, headphones, even tvs and kitchen appliances. I know some of these are possible now, I use a ploppy trackball and qmk based keyboards but a wider spread of these across the home and more than just hobbyists like myself.

    Large chunks will be 3D printed, moving the large component parts of manufacting to the local area. Plus things will be endlessly fixable and upgradable.


  • I purchased a bunch of dlc for Train Sim World (tsw). I only buy dlc for tsw when its on sale, save a small fortune that way.

    Bonus savings if you can get one of the bundles on sale for double discount. I got £150 of dlc for about £55. Yeah dlc is super expensive for tsw but it doesn’t go out of date and nor is it needed for a multiplayer mode so why rush?

    Been after the expansion pack for Germany and the Preston Route for ages.

    Train Sim World® 5: West Coast Main Line: Preston - Carlisle Route Add-On Train Sim World® 5: Schnellfahrstrecke Kassel - Würzburg Route Add-On Train Sim World® 5: DB BR 101 Loco Add-On Train Sim World® 5: Maintalbahn: Aschaffenburg - Miltenberg Route Add-On Train Sim World® 5: Hauptstrecke Rhein-Ruhr: Duisburg - Bochum Route Add-On Train Sim World® 5: Ruhr-Sieg Nord: Hagen - Finnentrop Route Add-On Train Sim World® 5: DB BR 363 Loco Add-On




  • I moved from Redhat when they started pulling the shit around getting paid for their source. I understand why they did it, but I disagreed with that choice and I moved.

    I quit Ubuntu when I finally had enough of their insistence on their way for everything such as firefox via snap, sure I can and did work around their shit, but why the fuck should I?

    I would move from Opensuse if they did something similar, if it became unreliably maintained, or if something much better came along.


  • I can snap the heads of cheaply made screws or ones made from softer material like “brass” with a screwdriver let alone an impact driver.

    If I am doing something with a lot of screws, say decking, then I will spend more on my screws simply because I want better quality if I am going to be fitting a few hundred in a day. I also want to know that if I come back to it in a few years that the screw will unscrew quickly when I come to it. Sure it can be a significant cost increase but the time and frustration saved makes it back.

    Quality screwdrivers like Vessel Megadora or Wera or Swisstools or similar tend to cam out less than the pack of ten you got from the dollar store. Same with the hex bits for your impact or drill driver.

    Last test I heard had Roberson above Torx for reducing cam out, but if you camming Torx that easily I would just switch to an actual hex headed screw if it needs that much torque to tighten.



  • Question difficulty makes no difference whatsoever with proxying, these are already long form questions in the main. The whole point of it is you are paying somebody else to take the exam for you, either directly by something like screen sharing or indirectly by relaying questions and answers. The AI voice assistant is another form of this, its higher risk as LLMs aren’t always right but its still proxying.

    I personally know of half a dozen people who used Cheggs to indirectly proxy their engineering degree exams as they weren’t proctored and had 12/24 hour exam window. The uni was meant to require an in person defense of similar questions from anybody getting unusual results, something people who cheat simply cannot do, but because they had done it the whole way through they never triggered the flag. This is why proctoring is so important.

    One of the reasons so many companies use Pearsons for their exams is because they have centers everywhere, they are by far the largest. If you cannot do it online then you have to go to your nearest center. Simply too much cheating is attempted otherwise. As always the actions of a minority ruin it for everybody else as rules have to be put in place.


  • Yup, exactly that. You are not allowed to proceed if you have additional devices including your mobile visible during the setup phase, you have to sweep the area with your webcam so they can see. When the exam is proctored if they see a phone or anything suspicious that you introduced into the frame you are generally fucked and have to go through a review.

    Pearsons run a lot of different exams on behalf of a lot of different companies so the rules change depending on what that company wants and will pay for.

    I know of one that you have to connect with your webcam and again with your phone camera so the phone can capture from behind you.This is one is live proctored by a real person throughout, it is pretty damn expensive so its not the norm. Many are just at the start and end, with AI triggers and random sampling to find cheaters.

    I know of another than limits how many screens you can have connected to just one, this is principally to reduce the chance of a IP KVM being used for proxying. Its trivial for the software to detect how many displays are connected, same with number of HID devices.

    I think you are underestimating how much cheating is attempted with these, and how much they have already been through the loop of being able to detect it.





  • What subjects are you comparing it to? At its fundamental level math is a building block same way your native language is a building block to learn other subjects such as history or biology or cooking. I am splitting out language from literature the same way I would split Maths from engineering or physics, theory vs. application.

    I can only speak for English as that’s the only language I have ever really studied but for the average student whose native language is English you simply do not need to study English language to the same level as somebody looking to apply Maths to Biology or Physics to a advanced high school level. You simply do not need to do this to the same level, high school English language simply isn’t as deep a subject. High school literature is potentially, but again, that’s application not theory.

    On top of this, you use English far more often than Maths both in school and out of school. Average kid isnt going to use much Maths day to day other than wondering about basic fractions for sharing a pizza/cake, or simple addition/subtraction for pocket money type stuff. Sure, there will always be exceptions but I am talking about the majority.