The silence is deafening, because there isn’t a FOSS program that comes close to Obsidian’s functionality. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen someone drop the “lul just use FOSS instead” line to garner upvotes, when literally no FOSS alternative exists. There are some FOSS programs that come close in some regards, but none of them do everything Obsidian does and support multiple platforms.

Lemmy has an obsession with FOSS (for good reason) but that means many users basically try to act like FOSS vegans. They’d use six different (and largely incompatible) FOSS programs just to scratch the surface of what a closed-source program can do. And their hackles start to raise if you ever point out that there aren’t FOSS alternatives for everything.

Long story short? The subnet mask determines which numbers can change. A mask of 255 means there is no change. A mask of 0 means any number can change. So for instance, a range of 192.168.1.0 with a mask of 255.255.255.0 will only find other devices in the 192.168.1.x range. Because the last octet is the only one that isn’t 255.

And writing the range as 192.168.1.0/24 is simply a shorter way to accomplish the same thing. Each group of numbers is an octet made of 8 bits. So masking the first 8 bits (255.0.0.0) is /8. Masking the first 16 bits (255.255.0.0) is /16, and masking the first 24 bits (255.255.255.0) is /24. So 192.168.1.0/16 would be able to find anything in the 192.168.x.x range.

If you want to get really deep in it, you can manually calculate subnet masks. Remember that computers work in binary, and the octets are each a group of 8 bits. For example, the IP address 192.168.42.67 could also be written as 00000011.00010101.01010100.11000010 but that’s a nightmare for humans to remember so we use base 10 by default.

The subnet mask tells the computer which bits may be different. So a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 looks like this: 11111111.11111111.11111111.00000000. So the computer will only scan for neighbors on any bits that are 0’s (unmasked). So in this case, if the range is 192.168.42.0/24, it will assume that the first three octets (192, 168, and 42, respectively) are going to match. So it will only scan for differences in the last octet.

Yes, each number can land somewhere between 0-255, but there are some default reservations on specific IP ranges.

For instance, 0 is typically used as an identifier for the subnet, not as an actual device IP. For instance, a DHCP server may tell a device “your IP address is 192.168.1.168. The subnet range is 192.168.1.0/24 (meaning the mask is 255.255.255.0). But the 0 won’t (or shouldn’t) get assigned to a specific device.

255 is another special address, as it is used for broadcast messages. A packet sent to 255 gets sent to everything in that subnet. So for instance, if I wanted to broadcast a message to everything on the 192.168.1.0/24 range, I would send it to 192.168.1.255.

In regards to reserved IP ranges, there are a few standard private IP ranges:

192.168.0.0/16 one of the more common. (Subnet mask of 255.255.0.0). This basically means that (if everything is configured properly) your WAN IP won’t ever be something inside of that same range, as the router would very quickly throw up its hands in defeat. Like if your WAN IP from your ISP was 192.168.1.50, and you also had a device on your network with that same IP address, the router wouldn’t know which one (WAN IP or LAN device) to send traffic to.

The second private IP range is 172.16.0.0/20 (subnet mask of 255.240.0.0) meaning the second number can range from 0-31, and the last two octets can range from 0-255.

The last common private IP range is 10.0.0.0/8, (subnet mask of 255.0.0.0) so the last three octets can range from 0-255. You tend to see these more in corporate settings, as it allows for a truly astronomical number of devices to be connected.

Basically, all of this means that if you see an address in the 192.168.x.x, 172.0-32.x.x, or 10.x.x.x range, you know it’s a private IP address, not a WAN IP.

Except for when it isn’t, and even then it sometimes is.

Step 1: Make a small, basic app. Include lots of in-app purchases for no reason.
Step 2: Use dirty money to buy those in-app purchases.
Step 3: Receive washed money from the App Store, minus the ~20% commission that the store takes.
Step 4: That’s it. You’re done. You’ve successfully laundered money in the App Store.

Do you think the EU is immune to money laundering? Because that’s what KYC laws are meant to prevent. The EU absolutely has KYC laws to prevent money laundering.

My (admittedly limited) understanding is that the ID requirements aren’t entirely their fault. Know Your Customer laws have started requiring things like IDs, so it’s likely that lawmakers are to blame for that gripe.

Still happens in the US, sadly. The EU forced them to allow sideloading, but the US version of iOS still tries to prevent it.

I wasn’t talking about DMCA takedowns. That’s not why you’d want a VPN at all. I was talking about being able to monitor the IPs of everyone who is seeding the torrent, which the media companies can then use to get those seeders’ internet access cut off and sue them. They have done so successfully numerous times.

A VPN hides your real IP from everyone else in the swarm. So all they see is the VPN’s IP. And with a reputable VPN, they won’t have any logs to turn over to authorities, so they won’t be capable of ratting you out when the courts start subpoenaing their shit.

Oh, and (super dystopian) fun fact, bankruptcy doesn’t disburse punitive damages. You’d still be on the hook for losing/settling the case, even after going bankrupt.

If you (a Joe Schmo nobody) were able to get an invite, you really think a media company with millions of dollars of funding wouldn’t be able to do the same? They could easily get moles into every single private trackers, complete with full backgrounds to pass the interview process. Private trackers aren’t preferred because they’re inherently more secure. At best, that is only security theater, the same as the TSA. They’re preferred because enforced seeding rules, verified uploaders, etc ensures their torrents are healthy and helps prevent “video.mp4.exe” types of malware uploads.

Plus most people use a mix of public and private trackers. Private trackers are obviously preferred, but sometimes you don’t want to kill your existing ratio with a massive download that will take weeks to seed back up to 1.0.

Depends on what I’m doing with it.

If it’s a vocal input, I’m probably boosting the 2k-5k a little, because that’s where lots of the vocal clarity and intelligibility comes from. A small boost somewhere in that range (exactly where varies slightly from one vocalist to the next) usually keeps the audience from straining to hear. Unless it’s a true bass singer, they’re getting a high pass filter, probably around 160Hz-180Hz. Anything below that will just be mud for anyone except a bass. Lastly, most people sound a little less harsh with a small shelf cut around the 8-10k range. Not a lot, you just want to take some of the harsh squeakiness out of things. Maybe a de-esser too, but that’s a different topic.

And if it’s an instrument, I’ll probably consider cutting a little bit out of that same 2k-5k range if it’s stepping on the vocals. Too much noise in that same range will make the vocals sound muddy, because they’re getting steamrolled by the instruments.

Basically everything on the drums (except the kick, and maybe the floor tom) gets some sort of high pass filter. Especially the cymbals. I don’t need to hear kick drum in my ride cymbals. And inversely, basically everything over ~2k gets rolled off of the kick, because I don’t need to hear the cymbals sizzling in my kick mic.

A stringed instrument like a violin or cello will EQ very similarly to a singer in the same range. In terms of instrument voicing, instruments played with a bow sound the most like a human voice, so I guess it makes sense that they would EQ the same. But it also means that strings will tend to overwhelm vocals if they’re in the same range. For example, a bari-bass singer will compete with the cello for the same auditory space. So you’ll want to be careful that you don’t accidentally make both of them sound too much alike. Otherwise you’ll run into the same trap of having them both occupy the same auditory space, and they’ll make each other sound muddy.

They don’t offer port forwarding. Due to the way torrents work, at least one person (either seed or peer) needs to have port forwarding enabled for the connection to be stable. So if you don’t have port forwarding, you’ll only be able to connect to people who have forwarded theirs. So even if a seed pool shows a lot of available seeds, you may only be able to connect to a few of them. It also means your torrents will take ages to seed, which can be important for private trackers where you need to maintain a certain ratio or you’ll get banned.

If you take nihilism far enough, you loop back around to absurdism instead. And that’s where things go from “why bother? Nothing matters so what is the point” to “why not? Nothing matters so I might as well enjoy life.”

I know this may be a joke, but I have used timers to great effect in the past. One instance comes to mind:

My players were looking for a missing child. They suspected a kidnapping. The Druid had transformed into a wolf, and was using scent to track the suspected kidnapper. The trail led them to the edge of a lake. In the middle of the lake, they could see a man in a rowboat. He had rowed out to the middle of a lake, and was in the process of dumping a squirming sack overboard. The players heard my description of how the sack hit the water, floated for a few seconds while it thrashed around, then sank below the surface.

The players fell into analysis paralysis. Would it be best to row out and stop the kidnapper? Focus on retrieving the sack that obviously had the kidnapped child in it? Risk splitting the party to do both simultaneously? While they were bickering about what to do, I quietly started a timer and set it in front of my DM screen. It was a not-so-subtle “you’re all wasting time arguing while a child is literally drowning” reminder.

The party saw me set the timer down, a silent beat passed as the realization hit, and then the entire party immediately sprang into action. Everyone piled into the rowboat on shore, while the paladin was asking to make a strength check to shove off and get the boat into the water. He rolled a natural 20, so the boat skipped a few times across the surface before the warrior took over rowing with a constitution check. He rolled a natural 19. They made it to the middle of the lake very quickly. The Druid wildshaped into something aquatic (I think a dolphin?) to go diving for the child, while the warrior and sorcerer piled into the kidnapper’s boat to prevent his escape. While all of that was going on, the paladin was making constitution saving throws to swim out to the middle of the lake (in heavy armor, I might add) to be on standby in case the child needed healing.

I didn’t actually intend on using the timer for anything. But the simple fact that I had it running pushed them into action. It was a powerful reminder that their characters wouldn’t have the time to fully analyze the situation and arrive at a plan of action by committee.

I mean, that feels a little like saying “Andrew Jackson’s plan wasn’t to kill all native Americans. He just wanted to deport them across the country. Then things just got worse and worse, and now the only thing anyone remembers about that deportation plan is the Trail of Tears.”

It’d be nice to be able to walk down a street without making other people uncomfortable because men in general are less assholish than bears.

A part of it is large numbers bias. Very few people encounter bears, so very few people experience bear attacks. Even if every bear was predisposed to attacking people, there would still be very few bear attacks. But virtually everyone encounters men on a near daily basis. So even if the likelihood of an attack is extremely low on a case-by-case basis, the overall number of incidents is much higher simply because there are more cases of people encountering men.

That’s why the go-to response to “it’s not every man” essentially boils down to “sure, it’s not every man. But it’s enough of them…”

The funny part is that votes are public, to ensure they get counted correctly during federation.

My wife initially hated my piholes, because they broke some of her phone’s stuff. She runs stock Samsung Android, so lots of the built in Google stuff got broken. She was constantly complaining about it. We eventually spent an evening hunt-and-peck’ing the various blocked DNS requests, to see which ones were required for her phone to work properly, and which ones were just Google Adsense BS. Got her set up with a WireGuard VPN connection that automatically activates when she’s disconnected from the home WiFi, so she’s always protected.

Now that she’s used to it, it’s like a wake up slap whenever she encounters ads. We moved a while ago, and all of my more advanced networking stuff (including the pihole) was sitting in a box until I had time to set it all up. She suddenly started seeing ads again, and was absolutely gobsmacked at how pervasive they are. What really sent her over the edge was when our Roku TV was paused, and went to its idle screen. The idle screen is an auto-scrolling image, and it had an ad plastered across the scrolling image. She was like “what the fuck we’re not even watching anything right now! It’s just idle! Why the hell are they advertising to us on the damned idle screen??” That was what finally pushed her to give me an evening to set all of the networking stuff back up.

Yeah. Sort of like holding two ends of a chain and dragging it back and forth. Even if the chain isn’t traveling the full length, it’s still moving and you could still extract power from the system if you attached something to the middle of the chain.

Microsoft: “Let’s fire our QA teams. We’ll force our dev team to use AI in coding. Then we’ll have the public test it.”
Also Microsoft: