majestic

Fun with pricing here in Central Yurop, anyone want to buy 10% less performance for a 30% price hike? AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT: 889,90€ AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT: 689,00€ Retailers have gone completely insane. So far this was limited to strange pricing vis-a-vis the new generation (7900 XTs are cheaper than the 6900 XTs, for instance), but this is new. Eh, guess that is what happens when AI models set prices based on stock and moved units.

Managed to kill Ashava twice, by the way, on Adventurer/World Tier I. It was pretty easy when having a group of players that were not terrible. Well, and without low level gimps taking up character slots in the instance.

Just tried the first world boss event that spawned in Yurop. Leave it to Blizz to not re-tune Ashava while knocking 5 levels off the players. Barely takes any damage, we got it to ~55% before it despawned. Well, perhaps later tonight there'll be more people online and ready to join. Like, way more. Yikes. Edit: This just in: perhaps I'll just drop the world tier back to normal, that should help, yes? silly majestic

D4 "Server Slam" (so, public stress test). I might have to apologize to Blizzard, because this has been almost completely stable, the performance is good and outside of two or three rubber banding issues, the lag was fine. If the game launches like this, that'll be impressive. Well, or else no one is playing the stress test, but that seems unlikely.

Yeah, you know what, I actually managed to empty my tube of Kryonaut Extreme, which is somewhat annoying considering the price of the paste, but I just re-mounted the pump because it kept being audible to the point of being irritating and I wanted to make sure it is not anything mechanical and it is much quieter now - was probably just a trapped air bubble that would have escaped on its own (or maybe it did escape on its own ). I also used more paste than I would have needed yesterday because I'm real klutz and one of the spring screws on the pump is a little too short and doesn't fall into the retention bracket hole to hold the pump in place while fastening it, and I of course had to begin with the other screw that is long enough, cue pump drifting over the IHS, sloshing my precious pink putty all over the contact frame, so I OCD'ed out and cleaned and repasted even though that was a waste of paste... This entire exercise also reminded me why I stopped fiddling with my hardware 27 ago, although installing the the CPU and the contact frame was super easy. Ah, well, the be quiet! coolers all have this less than ideal mounting mechanism, which is the reason why I got the 280mm Silent Loop 2 in the first place. It fits with the installed mounting backplate, and it was the largest one I could fit into my case. On the bright side, the ginormous Dark Rock 4 no longer being back to back with the RTX 4070 TI and two more exhaust fans in the case took another five degrees off the GPU. Thermals are pretty good when everything is taken into account: an exhaust configuration is not an ideal way to cool the radiator and it is only a 280mm AIO on a CPU that is basically a slightly trimmed down i9, but for my use case that is good enough - not that anything else would fit into the case properly, not with the size of the 40 series cards anyway.

Yeah, well, the pump had two plastic sheets, almost forgot to peel one of them off, so...

Upgrades are live, the AIO fits and my Cinebench r23 scores seem to be in line with other results I've found online. Guess that works. The pump is definitely more audible than the Dark Rock 4 was, but hey, well, the DR4 also wasn't on a 13th gen i7.

Looks like some posters here just need to git gud.

To quote Aragorn: Well, we may also yet see a day when me pushing the envelope on our developing platform comes crashing down on my head, but it is not this day. I just changed the entire way our login system for web users works while the system was live, and also introduced changes to the underlying cryptography and generate a whole new set of salts on the fly when someone logs in. Smooth sailing. Changing login systems and having to contact users about it is for amateurs.

Aria The Animation, episode three. Akari and Aika meet Alice, talk to her a little while, and then later Akari meets an old aquaintance who ropes her into giving a free tour, since she's not yet allowed to take on customers on her own. He is annoying and calls her a ridiculous nickname, much like Seiya did with Usagi. Alice hears that and sees him pull Akari's hair, so she tells him to stop bothering her. They then all go on a trip together that ends with them visiting a terraforming station. If nothing else, this series is super relaxing. It's like watching Card Captor Sakura without the card capturing and magic part. Well, also without any Tomoyo style character, no costumes and, uhm, no class for Akari to go to so less characters and yep, one can see this particular comparison fall apart in real time as I type it, even if Akari really does have Sakura's sunny disposition and Usagi's ability to make friends by just saying hello. Watching nothig happen on screen was rarely as entertaining as this episode. Having the guy being a fake customer who is given a tour is also a great way to justify the exposition dump that happened. Still not convinced that the concept will last the 52 episodes and a couple of specials, OVAs and films, but so far this is really nice, even if I can't exactly tell you why.

TL;DR: Suspected root cause is (long term) degradation by unsafe voltages, potentially assisted by manufacturing variances and minor defects, otherwise known as silicon lottery. The lab tech identifies a whole host of other potential causes, but the issue appearing more frequently on ASUS mainboards with their excessive SoC voltage really just points to, well, failure due to unsafe voltages.

I wanted to argue that I enjoyed the first four episodes of Noir, so there's a better than zero chance that if we pick any random Noir episode it could be at least okay, but then I realized that the rest of the series probably soured me even on the episodes I initially enjoyed, and even then, I probably enjoyed the idea I had in my head about what Noir was going to be more than the actual content of the episodes.

My confidence in Asus mainboards took a hit lately. As someone who is pretty much exclusively #TeamBlue I can just look at exploding 7800X3Ds and laugh while I once again feel vindicated and have something to point to when inevitably the next colleague asks my why, but it does not inspire confidence in ASUS' quality control if their OCP cannot detect a short and it just blasts the CPU with enough power to melt the socket off. Speaking of which, you should probably flash your BIOS too, just to make sure the mainboard doesn't put you on a fast track to a killed Ryzen CPU with some ridiculous SOC rail voltage that is higher than the setting in the BIOS, especially if you have EXPO on - and why wouldn't you. 7800X3Ds seem particularily susceptible, but they're not the only ones affected.

Flashed my BIOS to the latest version so I don't forget and can't boot with the new cpu. Forgot to save the custom POST screen, which is more of a minor nuisance, it will just bother me for the next ten or so system boots until I get used to seeing the ROG logo instead of the XMG one. Gotta say that not only is the ASUS download area pretty bad (the bios flash utility is hidden behind a "show more" button even though it is part of the same tool suite you're supposed to install), the tools themselves are not inspiring any confidence considering that they demand to turn off Windows core security features, and for funsies I watched the YouTube video manual which is full of hilarious Chinglish. At least they offer a removal tool, which I just used to hopefully kill every trace of "EZ Updater". Sure, the actual flashing was more comfortable to do than the last time I updated a BIOS, which was, uhm... back in the day when it was necessary to go through a ridiculous song and dance with properly named files on a floppy disc and a prayer to the BIOS gods to not brick your system and all that, so I guess that is not exactly the best comparison point, but man, uhm, yeah. On the other hand, last time I flahsed a BIOS, that was done and over with in 20 seconds, and it certainly never had to update any "LED firmware", really, the idea that SkyNet is going to use nukes to destroy humanity did not age all too well. It will just execute "shutdown_humanity -h now", and turn off every stupid gizmo that has software on it for no real reason.

Not entirely certain what to make of it after just two episodes, and I really don't know how they managed to drag out the concept over three seasons and some OVAs and specials, but after the second episode, I'm tentatively hoping that it won't end in a dumpster fire. If indeed this is, at worst, a somewhat relaxing show about nothing with a scene that reminds me of watching better animes, then I'm willing to call that a win. What I am not certain of is if the setup and the silliness in the second half of the second episode made me laugh on its own merit, or if it worked because it reminded me of, uhm... a certain other anime season directed by Junichi Sato that we all kind of enjoyed. If it really is only the latter than it will probably not stand up to scrutiny, even in the first season, let alone three of them. Well, at least it is a short series regardless.

Going down an Einsteinian Insanity Rabbit Hole (tm), perhaps the fourth time is the charm, ey? After Princess Tutu, Magic User's Club and Tamayura, I watched the first two episodes of Aria The Animation. Why? Who knows. Maybe because this is based on a critically acclaimed manga for a younger audience, so Mr. Sato cannot ruin it too much with "hilarious" slapstick and sexualized young girls in mini-skirts. Maybe because this is a part of its wikipedia page: Nothing happened in the two episodes, and I think that'll remain true for the rest of the first season. The series plays on a terraformed Mars renamed to Aqua, in a city modelled after Venice, creatively named New Venice. It follows a group of gondoliers. No, really, that's pretty much it. The opening episode has trainee ("Pair" in Aqua-speak) Akari ferry a girl from Earth ("Manhome") around even though she is not allowed to as pair, and they become friends. Akari provides the narration of the series, in forms of e-mails to the girl from the first episode. Since she's a recent immigrant from Manhome, things are as curious for her as they are for the viewer. In the second episode, her friend Aika from a rival company has a fight with her superior Akira and stays with Akari over night. Akira comes to visit the company the next day, meeting her childhood friend, Alicia, who is Akari's superior. Alicia, who is the resident gondolier progeny and genious paddler () is rather appropriately voiced by Sailor Neptune. Confused by all the names yet? I sure am, because I just spend some time fixing the errors in this post. The third episode will introduce the final main character Alice (Arisu in the original). Akari is friendly and makes friends easily, and she's just stumbling from one low-key "adventure" to the other. The ending of the second episode made me laugh in that silly way only comedic elements of anime can. Ara, ara... I guess my brain's already fried from looking at too many silly clips from modern shows, but the art of the series is, so far, not making me want to claw my eyes out. The character models are what they are, but, well... , at least the backgrounds are nice in their simplicity.

That's in the specs thread, but the Corsair Vengeance sticks without RGB, which by all accounts should be fine in terms of height. Not so sure about the Asus ROG Strix B660-A's heatsinks though.

Ordered some more upgrades: Rolling the dice on the 280mm AIO here, it should fit into the top mount of my case. If it doesn't due to mainboard clearance, I'll just send it back and change some things around, the DR4 I have will be able to deal with the i7 until replacements arrive. I can live with a couple of days of noise, although... what noise, really, I'm not going to be doing full core workloads anyway, and a 200W TDP air cooler can easily handle any gaming loads. edit: Well, actually, the 280mm AIO would easily fit into the front of the case, but I don't really want to reduce my front intake airflow, so it would be a 360mm AIO, and that would get a bit crampy with the RTX 4070 TI in there. Eh. Should probably get a larger case too.

Ah, Sweden, the land of ketchup on pizza, ketchup on pasta and, uhm, Caramel...la Girls. It is the musical equivalent of a train wreck. I cannot stop staring with my ears.

Binning and VBIOS shenanigans in the RTX 4070 MSRP models. TL;DR: Some RTX 4070 MSRP cards with a decent enough cooling solution and a 215W power limit can easily reach the same clock speeds as the OC models with a 240W power limit. If anyone is in the market for a 4070, which currently appears to be no one on the planet (), it might pay off to go for a three fan MRSP model, as they can potentially reach stable 3GHz clock speeds within the 215W MSRP card power limit. Not that it makes much of a difference, and the OC markup is really not worth it on these cards (arguably on any of them except for the 4090). Speaking of making a difference: Clocked it "down" to the RTX 4070 TI's default boost clock and lowered the voltage some more, 2610Mhz @ 900mV. 3% loss of performance, but a silent GPU even under heavier loads.

What do you mean, Bravehart was not a documentary?

I'm not racist, but brown people complaining about browner people playing brown people? Yeah, don't care, wake me when whites are threatened. Or hot Asian women! edit: Islamic values of Ancient Egypt? Well, someone's historically inaccurate all right.

I figure after three and a half years it should run all right. Got it on the cheap, I guess 13€ is okay.

And for something different: https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/austrian-communist-party-stages-major-comeback/ Völker, hört die Signale! Funny, papers and online news portals have been running communist scare pieces ever since. Major wins for the Nazis? Ah, who cares about that. Quick, someone voted for communists. Yikes!

Well, yes and no. This thread became more irritating than usual, which sometimes prods me to reply in the face of better judgment. The initial draft was much different, and a lot more mocking, and not directed at you in particular, just at the idea that there should be a cultured debate about everything, when historically, cultured debate nary made for change, while protests and people fighting for their rights in the face of bigotry and hate did. Eisenhower did not send a debate team to convince the bigotted concerned governor of Arkansas to desegregate schools when he refused, he sent the 101st Airborne. You can look it up, there is plenty of information available. It is simple to substitute homosexuals with trans persons in her speeches, and you will find that suddenly we arrive at the exact same talking points that concerned parents, feminists and conservatives (what an amazing time we live in, when an originally far-left idea proposed by extremist lesbians is co-opted and turned into a right-wing movement, and you have feminists joining in) spout these days when talking about the transgender liberation movement. There is some bitter irony in all of this, back in the late 60ies, the feminist movement attempted to exclude lesbians, and the lesbians rallied and replied by staging aggressive and disruptive protests. Once accepted by the feminist movement, they then immediately proceeded to try and exclude trans persons, because never let it be said that "the left" or minorities are any better in learning from history. Here we are today, with people like Posie Parker being co-opted and funded by the conservatives in the weirdest unholy alliance ever. Left-wing fringes and right-wingers united in a common cause: dealing with the transgender menace (feminists used to call lesbians the lavender menace, by the way, a rather prominent one even going so far as to call lesbians a CIA psy-op to discredit feminism). I would laugh, if it were not so dire. No, they are not. It is the same pushback against a liberation movement that has always come about in the face of liberation movements. The way these talking points are the same is quite scary, Anita Bryant was very vocal about homosexuals not being able to reproduce, while nowadays gay men argue that transitioning is bodily harm because people who are actually "just gay but confused" are castrated by the gender affirming treatments. The amount of mental gymnastics necessary here is astounding. Gay men, arguing against trans liberation because it affects fertility. Here, have a tweet by one of them. Spoilered because very graphic language. He has that legal right, yes, because from what I have read universities have no legal recourse to stop these student events, which is fine in and of itself. The problem we are now dealing with here, and that is thanks to the protest turned violent (although this is just one such event in a long list), is unfortunately that we are now at the stage where bigots who advocate transphobia are now "people with different views" in public discourse. Sure is a different view all right. One that should not be accepted, of course, but sure is. I should have said false moral equivalence, as it was supposed to allude to the false equivalence fallacy, the idea that points of view are of equal merit even when they are not. Rallying protestors to stop Charlie Kirk from speaking is no different than rallying protestors to stop Anita Bryant from speaking, or rallying protestors to disrupt the Second Congress to Unite Women from speaking against lesbians in the feminist movement, doubly relevant because in this case, the "Lavender Menace" actually stormed a school auditorium and disrupted the talks. In closing, here's a quote from Posie Parker, CPAC funded public "gender critical movement" face TERF: Yes men, please, enter women's toilets and protect them from the lesbian transgender menace. If you happen to catch a couple of butch dykes in the crossfire, well, it is just back to the roots. Just in case anyone considering themselves centrist wonder why people in the movement are so "hsysterical" about it, in the face of bigotry, instead of having calm debates. Hilarious, really, the people in the gender-critical movement are telling trans women, who they consider to actually be men, to be less hysterical, a trait historically ascribed to women. And the politicians enacting the laws to counter trans liberation and inclusion in the US? Why, they're mostly men. Conservative men. Republicans. To use radical left-wing nomenclature: OLD WHITE MEN. Hey TERFs, I have a question for you: have you ever stopped and wondered why you're actually helping your sworn enemy here, the patriarchy? Over what, bathroom policing? Uhm. Edit: There is some clarification necessary, I believe. Calm and measured debate and empathy are important to de-radicalize people, but this is a slow process and does not work with everyone, and most certainly not the instigators and bigots who are tirelessly working to change the political climate for the worse. If you think De Santis or Trump could be convinced to let go of their bigotry, then I have a bridge here I'd like to sell you. Only slighty used.