I actually like when that happens. Like when people "correct" me about how reddit works. I appreciate that we still focus on the content and not who is saying it.
That's not really what happened on this thread. Someone said something sensible and banal about vulnerability research, then someone else said do-you-even-lift-bro, and got shown up.
I played this on the original IBM PC. (Un)fortunately, my dad got the 8MHz upgrade, so the game was really hard, because it was built for a 4MHz clock.
Luckily someone eventually realeased a DOS utility that would fake a 4MHz clock by making everything take two cycles.
AFAIK no first-party IBM PC ever had a turbo button, only clones, and my only personal recollection of pre-286 clones running significantly faster than 4.77 MHz were the Compaq Deskpro and AT&T PC 6300.
I don't know about the PC 6300 — I only ever used it to run Aldus PageMaker, which, running under Windows on an 8086, could use all the speed it could get — but the Deskpro had a keystroke combination to switch between native and compatible speeds rather than a button.
The Turbo button worked wonders for Tetris. You start it with turbo turned on, so Tetris adjusts to the computer’s speed - but it only does this once, at startup. As soon as the blocks start falling, you turn the turbo off, and now your Tetris runs at half speed. I even managed, a few times, to roll over a score of 32,768 (ah, those signed integers).
Hmm, maybe my memory is betraying me. I remember our first family computer was an XT and then later we had a 386. Maybe I'm misremembering and it was the 386 that had the turbo button or maybe the earlier one was a clone. My first own PC was a 486 as well that I built together with my dad. Good memories.
Was the utility called slomo? I recall having to do something like `slomo sopwith.exe` to bring the processing loop back down into human ranges of reaction times.
This seems like a good place to ask: What is the current state of the art for connecting back to my home network while remote? I want:
access to my home server
ability to stream US TV when abroad (by exiting from my home network)
ability to make it easy for others with non-tech backgrounds to connect with their devices (parents, kids, etc)
ability to have remote linux servers connect automatically on boot. This one is because I can't get OTA TV at home and want to set up a simple streaming box at someone else's house to do it that connects back to my house, so we can stream off all of our devices.
I'm guessing tailscale will be a part of this setup which is why I ask here.
> ability to stream US TV when abroad (by exiting from my home network)
Should note that Tailscale does not work natively with hdhr for mpeg television streams b/c wireguard doesn't natively support udp multicast/broadcast. Also can't directly port forward b/c hdhr sets a default ttl of 2.
My understanding is that most VPNs in general don't support udp multicast due to operating on the network layer rather than data link, though iirc OpenVPN supports multicast traffic through its virtual TAP (Layer 2) rather than TUN (Layer 3).
Tailscale does create a TUN/TAP virtual network[0], though udp multicast is still not natively supported.
By 'stream US TV' I assume they just mean using popular streaming services like Netflix. If that's the case, than UDP multicast packets aren't involved at all, since it's all unicast.
Your advice would apply if they're using a local TV tuner or IPTV setup to share live TV on the local network or something, but that seems unlikely. But for content coming from mainstream Internet streaming services, it's good bet they're not using multicast.
For $5 a month you can also get a Mullvad VPN exit node. It’s billed directly through Tailscale which makes it painless.
When I’m outside the U.S. I get much better speeds through the Mullvad exit node than through my (U.S.) home exit node. I’m not sure why, since my home internet is gigabit fiber and I confirmed that I had a direct connection (no DERP relay).
Where's the Mullvad exit node located? It may just be geographically closer to your travel location than your home is. Even if it's about the same distance geographically, the routing path is different and traffic to whatever datacenter is running the mulvad node can be routed to more efficiently than your residential ip.
poking around with MTR (traceroute and ping combined) using various exit nodes and destinations would give you some more information if you're interested.
Yes, you've described Tailscale + Exit Nodes + Tailnet that you invite your family to. Install Tailscale and enable some devices as exit nodes - it's pretty much as simple as that.
I would phrase that as what Tailscale does that is more convenient than wg. If you “barely know what a subnet is” go for it. wg is easy as pie though, and just don’t maintain 90 tunnels… You don’t need a full mesh. An extra hop or two, especially within a lan, won’t hurt.
I would recommend WireGuard as well, I primarily use it with Tailscale as backup. WG is straightforward to set up, and with LLM the knowledge gap is now nothing if you have trouble with it
Surprised noone mentioned netbird. I got annoyed of unpredictable speeds I'd get via tailscale and the fact that I am not in charge of my VPN. I now rent a 5 euro VPS at Hetzner(get an ip with it) and host netbird running on it and my home server/pc as an exit node.
I'm using tailscale for this and am finding it great. I have an Unraid home server/NAS, which has quite nice tailscale integration. The server can be used as an exit node, and each containerized application/workload can be configured to use tailscale and get a nice (https) address that works in your tailnet. I'm not close to hitting the free tier limits, though I'd be happy to pay for it (and I do pay for mullvad through them)
Tailscale is probably what you want, but if you care about privacy you'll have to be sure to disable the telemetry/logging/spying option on each of your nodes.
By default it will leak your so-called “private” network behavior to Tailscale (connections on what port, from what node, to what node, opened when, closed when): https://tailscale.com/docs/features/logging
I found good success with OpenWRT/Tomato and WireGuard.
The interface is bad when it comes to provisioning but it can be done with a QR code and once it works the native experience of turning on the VPN was just stunningly fast. In this day and age you expect things to be slow with negotiation and various unreliable steps but it was just amazing that I tap the VPN button on iOS and it's connected in a fraction of a second.
Related question: how are people handling adding family members of varying technical abilities to your tailnets? Does each family member get a separate user so you can manage their access? For my immediate family I was just logging tailscale in as me on their devices, but that becomes a pain when they get logged out and need me to log in again before things go back to working.
- For homes with close family (parents and siblings), I setup a subnet router and local DNS server on a Dell Wyse, making it one of their DNS servers so it can point them to services
- Yes, they should have their own account. However you can only add a few before you need to move to a paid version
- You can disable the expiry for nodes, which should keep it connected and prevent you needing to sign in again for them, for the most part
if you are behind cgnat (both ipv4, ipv6) then vps, have public ipv6 then you can connect via public domain (ddns openwrt) and if you have a public ip, wireguard it is
All the roads around the Apple Spaceship were closed yesterday, and I was surprised I didn't see any news about announcements. Apparently they just closed the roads for their 50th birthday party?
My Amazon layoff notice came at 5am. Same deal. I thought it was fake because it came to my personal email. Then I logged into my work computer and found that all my email had been erased except for a copy of the layoff notice and an invite to a 10am Zoom with HR. The funny part was the invite had everyone who had been laid off in the To: line.
I was able to send internal only emails until 1pm, and then it logged me off and the computer was a brick.
I'm not sure if companies understand the emotional impact on the laid off and the layoff survivors. It almost seems like a terror campaign, whether intended or not.
One of my past employers tried to give laid off employees a dignified send offs including not immediately revoking their access.
The number of people who snap and make rash decisions to try to exfiltrate data, plant backdoor logins for themselves, or sabotage company work in those hours was a much larger number than I would have guessed prior to seeing it.
Maybe the solution is to not do mass layoffs. Not sure there's a dignified way to let go of many humans at the same time with almost no reason for why they're being let go except maybe a vague profitability scorecard.
And also to expect and manage people snapping and giving them an off-ramp, financially but emotionally as well and maybe professionally, too. Why not try to help them find other jobs?
Companies don't just provide money, they provide people with meaning, routine, social circle, and so much, and layoffs cut all of those immediately.
> Maybe the solution is to not do mass layoffs. Not sure there's a dignified way to let go of many humans at the same time
The number of people included in a single layoff wasn't a factor.
The people who snapped treated it as a personal affront and wanted revenge on the company. If anything, being laid off in a large group made it feel less personal to people. The people who felt unfairly singled out were the angriest. If an entire satellite office was closed or a department was laid off together they didn't take it as personally.
Yeah that makes sense to me and I appreciate you saying it. If the whole team gets laid off, it's we all go down with the ship. But if one person gets laid off on a team, I think it can create intense dynamics. Like why them specifically? It wasn't about the department, it was about them. I can see why they'd take it personally and why the survivor guilt might be stronger on that team as well.
> Companies don't just provide money, they provide people with meaning, routine, social circle, and so much, and layoffs cut all of those immediately.
I think that in a way, to really learn why you shouldn't depend on your company for your social circle, it sort of requires being laid off (not really, but kind of; some sudden permanent intervention in your work-life). I consider it a blessing in disguise that I realized this early, even if it meant a job loss. People who get comfy in marriages or long-term jobs or buy a house early on tend to spend their resources in the obvious optimal efficient ways, which is to make their friends at work or through their partner or literally right next door to their house. But those are not generally or reliably resilient to significant change. Proximity will always be important, but if your friends need to be literally where you work every day or over the fence, you are isolated and socially vulnerable. If you leave the job or move, it's now dramatically more expensive for both parties to encounter each other, and it's best to incur that expense intentionally before you end up needing to.
I have seen that too. People on the way out trying to get access to production systems. Layoffs suck, but the business needs to protect itself from those who are departing. The company used to have more lax separation procedures but after that incident everything got locked down.
I've been through two restructures and both times I'd full access to everything for a month until my position was being decided. There thousand plus employees affected and not a single one did anything like what you've described. I'm Australian if that helps.
They understand, but they are more concerned about you exfiltrating data and suing them.
But you're right, the survivors don't even get a list. They have to find out when something they're waiting for never shows up because that person doesn't work there anymore.
Eh, that's brutal, wondering why someone isn't replying to your email only to find out they get let go. Almost like finding out a friend died, in a professional way.
I think we often just don't understand the full dimensionality of layoffs.
When i was first laid off during the dot com bust I was working on a sales floor. All open no cubes. We didn't know layoffs were coming. Manager walks in and taps this one guy on the shoulder, says grab your personal things and come with me. Manager came back in did the same to a few others. Then it was me. Talk about embarrassing! Also, was 2 weeks before quarter ended. If you were not working for the company at the end of the Q, no bonus. 2 weeks! I'll never forget that. That was my first taste of how nasty a company can be. Not the layoffs, hey things happen. But the timing. Feels diabolical.
Yeah, our litigation culture to me is just an inability for individuals/companies to resolve conflicts and escalate it to the legal system. And unfortunately there are many elements in the system that discourage us from reconciling and push us towards escalating.
I've noticed people are shockingly good at filtering out their empathy through bureaucracies. Instead of feeling bad about their personal decision that they made to lay someone off, they instead can tell themselves it was the only way to do business and then happily absolve themselves of guilt.
One of the most surreal meetings I've ever been to was a company All Hands after a 20% layoff round. The upper management people who decided who was laid off took turns talking about how upset it made them to have to do it. They showed a diagram of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief and went back and forth talking about what stage of grief they were in having to lay all these people off. Was like something out of the UK version of The Office. It was so tone deaf that it was bleakly comedic at a certain point.
The extra kicker was that there were a bunch of UK people in this meeting who knew they'd be laid off, but it takes longer to do the redundancy process over there, so they had to listen to these people complaining about how sad firing them feels.
Contrary to what people may think, the most humane way is a fast clean cut. Drawing it out in anyway doesnt help anyone. This does assume communication is clear about employee next steps for HR related tasks.
This is also why in the other direction a fast clean cut works too. I mean if they want two weeks of “work”, i always consider that severance.
The fast clean cut is true in all industries. Drawing it out only makes it more painful. It is similar to breaking up in a relationship.
It sounds as if you're describing how to humanely kill a living being.
There are alternatives to killing things and I don't think fast clean cut is true in all industries. I think people want it to be true because then it hides away the complexity of the emotions we feel. Just cut it off and pretend that the cutting off won't bother us or them after the event.
I think that strategy may appear helpful but just buries most of the feelings, which don't go away, most likely just to fester underneath and erode trust.
The reality is the layoff decision has been made. There is no undo. It is better to cut cleanly as it allows people to move on faster than drawing it out.
The best thing for the most people is to help them move on to the next gig quickly.
The people u work with bosses included, are what make or break this. In my experience, people help one another. I have seen ceo’s push resumes of people let go to other execs in their network. This is outside company policy or communication for legal reasons but not everyone is dirt bag.
Oh I didn't mean to say that's what you wanted it to mean, just that I've heard clean cut in two main spaces: taking off bandages and slaughtering animals.
If you mean clean cut as in only cleanly cut the contract, but then maintain the relationship in other ways, I think that could make sense, as it doesn't pretend the decision hasn't already been made. I think I was reacting to clean cut the relationship completely, which I don't even think works well. But yeah, I'd appreciate if the individuals or even the company helped the people out.
It'd be like ending a relationship with someone who was financially dependent on you and just letting them fall of the cliff, compared to saying that you know it doesn't work for you two together, but you'll financially help them transition. I dunno, some people should say clean cut the relationship, drop friendships, never talk, cold turkey, I just don't know how well that works for human well being in the long term.
Yes in my (somewhat tinfoil) opinion the point is to have an emotional impact on the workforce overall (or at least, one of the points is). Tech workers had a really good 20 years in the US, and kind of forgot that they were ultimately still wage workers. I think the culture circa 2018 took for granted a basic level of respect and cooperation from upper executives, and were beginning to exercise their power to achieve political goals, which was annoying to the tech ownership class. I think one of the major strategic turns of last 4ish years is the usage of precarity and high turnover to corrode worker solidarity in fields which used to be ironclad and respectable white-collar work. By simultaneously narrowing the hiring window ('junior devs are replaceable with AI') and also expanding the opportunities to be culled ('we are axing this division to cover our moonshot outlays') capital cultivates a desperate and compliant workforce. Bottom-up culture is woke, in the 2020's the folks in power want top-down directives that are followed unquestioningly; similar approach to how the executive branch was brought to heel by DOGE.
Or the current crop of companies has just ossified and are waiting for a disrupter to kill them. You can’t get that big and be around for that long without having the original culture die, it seems. This isn’t the first wave of companies this sort of thing has happened to, is it?
Some employees in the company might understand the emotional impact, but companies themselves would only look for certainty in protecting what belongs to them, which will hardly align with fairness or emotions towards employees in a situation like this.
Managers do know. Some of them are better at it than others. But even for the best it never is easy. And they are still humans, don't go to harsh on them with your blame.
And that includes them, the people doing the layoffs, who are employees as well. And what we often don't realize is that causing the pain to others most often causes pain to us as well. Human group output and productivity can rely a lot on trust, and if that trust is damaged, it can hinder all productivity.
The last time my company did layoffs they offered the same generous severance package afterwards to anyone else who wanted it. We had three people take the offer.
As far as actual people? Depends on their personal moral code and is why colleges make people take ethics, even if I don't think that results in anything other than more elaborate ways to justify doing whatever they feel like anyway. Most people would agree that you should minimize suffering in others if you can, but people who make it to upper management and C suites often got there by not being bothered by such scruples.
As far as the company is concerned, obviously there's no reason not to care aside from not wanting to lose any critical employees who value stability. That's why many of the labor protections we take for granted now were fought for many years in the past.
> But it goes both ways, if I want to leave I have to work the mandated period
Do companies actually force people to continue working during that period? I would expect that in tech they'd allow them to leave early because employees who have chosen to leave the company are some times not the most helpful to keep around for months
I was forced to work out a 3 month notice period at my previous company in the UK. I don’t see the point of keeping an already-checked out employee around so long when you have basically no way of getting anything but the bare minimum out of them.
I have never, ever understood this whole mandated period thing. Aside from what you mention -- do you really want to keep these people around against their will -- I don't understand how your (ex-)employer can force you to do anything against your will. All you have to do is say "no".
Yet people keep believing mandated work after a layoff is a thing.
It's not against their will. It's a part of the contract they signed when they started working at the company. The contract stipulates how it can be terminated (in accordance with the local law). If it says each party can terminate a contract with a prior notice of two weeks, the contract is enforced for those two weeks after giving in the notice. There's still an employee-employer relationship at this point, even if the employee gave their notice.
In some countries the notice period can go for months. Usually it gets longer with the tenure. It allows both parties to transition and prepare in advance.
You can get "arbetsbefriad" / "Exempted from work" / in the UK called Garden leave / Gardening leave and you leave early. But employer decides.
>I would expect that in tech they'd allow them to leave early because employees who have chosen to leave the company are some times not the most helpful to keep around for months
It's called work ethics. Have some pride. Also if you bail without garden leave, you have to pay.
I've been laid off or fired ~7 times, in slightly different ways, some more humane than others, and it's quite a... traumatizing/colouring experience that stays with you from that point forward, even when I was over the job anyway.
I once had my access cut off while I was working late, albeit from a much smaller company. Got to go to sleep knowing I didn't have an income in the morning. Incidentally, in retrospect I'm glad they made the decision for me, since I eventually was forced to leave my awful hometown in search of greener pastures, so it's not always a bad thing long-term, and I ratted them out to the tax man which I'm sure they had fun with.
I somewhat expect that if Forbes is tracking people working on some of the trendiest / most exciting stuff and also trends attract frauds then this is sort of inevitable
I don't have strong feelings about the watch list (use and like several of the products on there so not that worried about them all being frauds), and I think the concept is kind of humorous
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