#HDD Engineering

[lifconltd]

A Comprehensive Guide to Horizontal Directional Drilling Methods:Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) has revolutionized the way we install and maintain underground infrastructure. This trenchless technique utilizes a directional drilling approach, employing a HDD drill with a steerable head, to create a precise pathway beneath the surface. But the world of HDD isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. This blog post delves into the diverse methods used in HDD, focusing on their applications in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and beyond.

[minotaurfemme]

brought a 15 year old thinkpad back from the dead just to use it as a shitty cd player

[thekingdomofdong]

"The adventure is in the spirit of the warrior, and the warrior is you!"

Ys III: Wanderers from Ys - Pc Engine 1991

[livingdeadhorse]

idk what this is. i like robots. i’ll clean these up later. i think.

anyways while drawing these I started thinking abt like. idk does this count as an AU.

General shit:

I didn't make it clear, but the robots that have pupils were built without a hardcoded purpose. They've always been free to explore what they want to do. The robots with fully colored "scleras" were created with a purpose from the jump, so their creators didn't feel the need to make them appear more "human".

The more expensive a robot's parts are, the less clunky it is.

Right now, I'm going with "their human family built them" but that's liable to change.

The designs are also liable to change because uh. duh.

Celestia Ludenberg:

Viewed the robots with an imbued purpose as interesting and superior (something something humanity's advancement). She wants to be praised like that, so she emulates them

Her cat loves how much heat she radiates so it's always near her.

Most of her upgrades are cosmetic but if they aren't, they're stupid. She won't upgrade her CPU or her motherboard, but she'll load up with three 4090s that her other components can't even keep up with. Yes, she does it to flex.

She'll distract from bootleg, refurbished, or shoddily painted parts by turning on her RGB. It gets annoying.

She knows that she's fairly unsettling and she revels in it.

All things considered, her cable management is pretty good.

Her gambling skill is still just luck here, but she tells everyone it's because she has a never-seen-before GPU(& CPU) that does calculations at insane speeds.

Most don't believe her but have no way to disprove her lie.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru

I can't decide if he was built by his father or his grandfather.

Either way, he was built before Toranosuke's downfall, so his internals were all pretty expensive for the time. Luckily for him, that means he was slightly future-proof and has a viable upgrade path.

Unluckily for him, this means he's stuck with really old parts and his 8gb of RAM can barely keep up in a 32gb world sadge

His chassis is built from secondhand or scrap parts. It's why his joints are so ancient in comparison to the rest of him and why he has so much cabling that he can't seem to manage.

Shit chassis = shit airflow = he is always overheating

BUDDY IS YOUR CPU BURNING HOW IS THERE SMOKE

Older tech = LOUD AF. The class bought him new fans to avoid the loud ass whirring. It's not quiet but he used to sound like a jet engine.

He runs on Debian. It was originally going to be Arch since it's lightweight but Debian's whole "old but stable" reputation fits him more. I don't see him properly dealing with bleeding edge software anyways.

His room is filled with past HDDs that no longer have storage. He deems all educational material important so he refuses to delete any lessons. He doesn't have the money for SSDs.

Mukuro Ikusaba:

Is usually in reconnaissance mode, meaning she has a shit ton of hidden cameras in her chassis

This used to benefit Fenrir. Now it benefits Junko.

She can have her parts shifted around with no issue to make room for a better arsenal.

She’s durable in her reconnaissance mode but she’s nigh on untouchable in her combat mode. Her chassis gets 10x bulkier and she can split her attention to several different tasks on the battlefield.

Fenrir Mercenary Group doubles as a weapons company. Mukuro is the only model of her kind though.

They tried to give her reconnaissance model the look of a “normal girl” so she could gather info more efficiently. They failed real bad. They also didn’t account for the fact that Mukuro isn’t good at socializing.

She allocates a CPU core to a process dedicated to Junko. 24/7 365

She believes herself to be less capable of emotion than she actually is. She can’t seem to find the system process that triggers such painful emotions.

Chihiro Fujisaki

Each “fold” in her skirt doubles as a screen. Think of the skirt as having two layers: the top shell and the under shell. The top shell is what doubles as a screen.

Optimized her hardware to work on code as fast as possible (fingers, skirt, etc).

She tends to test out new software on herself regardless of their compatibility with her pre-existing shit. She constantly has to reinstall her OS, but it’s all fun for her.

Speaking of her OS, I was going to make her run on Gentoo but IDK cause of the compile times. It’d be faster if she used distcc but I can’t see her screwing over her classmates like that lol.

So I’m between Nix and Arch.

Insecure about the fact that she overhauled her original model so extensively. Got made fun of for being a ‘defective’ robot. Her father supports her modifications but she still feels bad about having ‘failed’ somehow.

Cue identity issues

She helps out her classmates when it comes to repairs.

Tendency to stay up programming leads to high uptimes. If her friends notice her lagging or crashing, they’ll try to get her to shut down. (In a computer sense lol, not an emotional shut down)

Do y’all remember the xz utils backdoor? Yeah that’s how extensively she combs through code.

Sayaka Maizono

I can’t decide if she was built to be an idol or was originally some other type of robot.

Loves to make kids smile, so she has a sort of candy mechanism in her arm.

Everything about her glows or spins. You will never get bored looking at her.

Her skirt isn’t actually see through I just didn’t feel like erasing the hip joints lmao.

If corpos give her manager enough money, she has to perform with literal ads on her.

State-of-the art facial recognition software. It makes her fans feel special to have their names remembered.

She has a regular sleep cycle due to how load-intensive her everyday life is. Has to shut down for a couple hours every week at least.

Her psychic ability is just her running a million calculations based on people’s behavior and sensing which one is most plausible. This feature is in place to avoid PR disasters during interviews or public appearances.

There really aren’t enough worker’s rights regulations in place for robots.

The company gets alerts whenever she freaks tf out, so she feels even more stifled and repressed. Chihiro helped remove this.

Kyoko Kirigiri

Can’t decide if she was built by her father or grandfather. Probably just built by Jin and he “left” her in Fuhito’s care.

Fuhito made her go through several modifications, hardcoding his own investigative skills into her system.

Her grandfather loves her but has fucked up ideas about her own autonomy.

The events of DR:K still happen. She chose not to replace her hands.

Fuhito doesn’t make much use of a backdoor in her system anymore. He used it a lot more when she was a child but he sees her as a viable heir of the Kirigiri clan now. Chihiro isolated the backdoor to a separate SSD anyhow.

Still complicated father-daughter issues

Everything about her (but her OS) is proprietary, probably commissioned from Towa Industries. Her OS is a fork of Mint. The Windows 7 UI is just because I imagine her grandfather is One of Those lmao.

Has way too many scanners and sensors. She can’t test any evidence herself but she can gather a fair bit of information. Has a vast database for cross-comparison anyways.

Same issues as Togami and Mukuro: sees herself as less capable of emotion than she actually is.

The ramen noodle incident called for actual repairs.

Byakuya Togami

His superiority complex is far worse because he was literally CREATED to be the perfect Togami. You can’t tell him shiiiiiiit.

Gold joints. Scoffs at those with unoptimized cable management or software.

He’s constantly streamlining his own processes. Brings up that he runs on his own OS when Nobody Asked.

Had a similar backdoor to Kyoko’s but Koji did check that one. Obsessively. Nobody would tell Byakuya but He Just Knew. The lack of privacy irritated him. Aloysius helped fix it once Togami finally took over.

Only trusts Aloysius with his repairs. Has a hard time admitting when he needs repairs in the first place so Aloysius hides it under “monthly maintenance”.

Does everything from the terminal even when he 1) shouldn’t and 2) can’t. Bragging rights. He has written a bunch of his own scripts though to speed things up.

Kernel and OS provided to him by Koji. (UNIX-based. Proprietary) Byakuya maintains and builds his own updates. Doesn’t trust cheapskate peasants to do it for him.

Anti-FOSS. For him at least.

Has glasses for the aesthetics. Doesn’t need them.

[faolonfiendrender]

How I imagine the mechs run cons:

Jonny kinda just gets drunk and improvises. It works really fucking well a lot of the time. Also, slight penchant for rigged games of chance, picking a random but lethal game, becoming the dealer in any casino game, that sort of thing. (Wonder where he picked that up)

Ashes considers fraud to be like the second or third funnest crime, obviously not beating arson and murder, but still rather fun. Ashes also has a wide range when it comes to what con they choose, but often it includes showing off manipulation skills.

Brian’s favorite con is fake prophecies or real and not useful prophecies. Granted it often isn’t a con, and he’s just being a prophet, so I’m not sure this counts.

Marius just gets up to all sorts of medical quackery, sometimes he starts a radiation fad on planets in that critical development phase where they know what radiation is but don’t know it hurts you. Sometimes Marius does sell working medicine as well as fakes or simply functional and deeply stupid medicine, depends on his mood.

The toy soldier is kinda bad at cons, more because sometimes it commits to the bit too hard and actually renders promised services even when not logically plausible. It is rather convincing it just tends to pretend to fulfill the service as opposed to pretending to pretend to fulfill the service.

Calling Raph’s cons cons is kind of not accurate, She often publishes science that works and is greatly in advance of what they have and as such is hard to replicate. Also sometimes just walking into a lab and leaving with hard to find tools or materials.

Ivy is very very meticulous when she does run a con. Every detail planned and documented, the methods vary, but there will be at least five ways to pull the plug, and the targets to get access to are often books, archival hdds and the like.

Tim tends to go violent enough that it can’t really be called a con anymore, though he did steal the identity of the “war hero” Achilles for a bit while in the city.

Nastya’s preferred scam method is becoming an engineer for the mark, and as such gaining widespread access to everything.

[aroacesigma]

kai. kai. you can upgrade ur laptop storage (most of the time idk ur laptop model). i am shaking you by the shoulders. please. shove another hard drive in that bitch. my 1tb hdd didn't come w/ the laptop. or maybe it did and the ssd is the one that didn't? IDK. DOESN'T MATTER. u can have more space............................

i know but this laptop only has to last me one more year so im just not bothered. im getting a new one for my 18th :) cause my ass is NOT doing a software engineering / computer science degree with a 6 year old acer

[boxeboxer]

FRANCIS EUGENE ARCHER

Origin: asalee

Status: organic

Nationality/Ethnicity: British, Somali

Age: 30s

Occupation: Computer scientist, WEAVER for OURO R&D

About:

Francis (they/them) is a renowned British programmer and one of the key members of The New Disciples of Mesmer along with Cassandra Mallory. Not much is known about their family or personal life. Has a cat named Ganymede.

After studying under roboticist Choshi Amaterasu in Korea, Francis became the second person to earn the title of WEAVER—a specialized computer science degree focused on HDD memory analyzation and fabrication in posthumans. Seeing their success in asatya research, Cassandra recruited them into the NDofM. Their main role is overseeing posthumanistic technologies such as proxies, software maintenance and troubleshooting.

Francis is very eccentric, though soft-spoken. When not glued to a terminal screen, they enjoy playing pranks on their krtrim coworkers Bheema and Devi, or playing with the NDofM's Ira intelligence engine, Melisende. Their humor borders on cruel at times. While they appear aloof, they are ceenly observant and clever. They have an unbeatable poker face and usually have something up their sleeve.

Background:

After graduating from college with a degree in computer science in the early 2030s, Francis traveled to Korea to study under Choshi Amaterasu. Around 2035, Cassandra recruits them into the NDofM.

[amygobrrr]

my PC suddenly started making the most horrific rattling and grinding sound so in a panic I took off my headphones and started listening around to see if it was the gpu or the hdd or the case fans or what

but no, the awful noise was in fact someone running some kind of tiny gasoline engine in their yard outside my window lmao

[bigweldindustries]

random question but can i ask if you have any advice for upgrading a pc to have more storage space? or just upgrading computers in general, i feel like i remember you talking/rebloging a post about that kind of thing before?

YOOOOOO hey anon!! For what it's worth storage space is absolutely always the easiest thing to upgrade on any given computer, including laptops. Quick disclaimer in that I consider myself fairly casual at actually working with computer hardware (I'm the defacto computer repair guy at work but work for a tiny org with around 20 employees so my experience comes down to fixing a couple of busted laptop keyboards/hard drives/batteries/I replaced a screen once, and I built my younger brother's computer) but I'm unusually comfortable with gutting hardware due to a combination of a longtime (like a decade now, woof) hobby of fixing games consoles and having a degree in computer engineering.

putting this under a read more BC I wrote an entire guide LMAO

You've got a few options depending on your exact situation (if your motherboard has extra slots you can add another harddrive but this usually involves having to add extra data cables and power cables - I've never done this so I'm no good lol) but your best options are either to get an external harddrive or just straight up swap the drive for a bigger one.

external harddrive is the easier scenario; you just... buy an external harddrive. back when I set up mine it was cheaper to just buy a usb harddrive enclosure and regular internal harddrives than to get an out of the box ready to go external harddrive, and you can even buy multi harddrive enclosures if you wanna go all in on massive storage (I like to think of myself as an archivist as opposed to a data hoarder, but regardless I frankensteined myself a 14tb external harddrive that plays host to my personal data like every photo I've taken in almost 2 decades, but also a stockade of leaked data I find interesting, a few more obscure shows I'm worried about losing, my own lost media finds, and so on).

if you don't want to deal with external harddrives (they take up some physical space albeit not much these days, you have to deal with slower usb transfer speeds, etc.) swapping out the harddrive for a bigger one on your computer is relatively easy, but you will need these prerequisites:

-knowledge of your computer make and model. this seems trivial but it makes working out what kind of harddrive you've got easier, as well as how to get into the boot menu. if you Google "how to find computer model" there's a myriad of guides - I know it's in windows settings somewhere but I don't remember, hahaha

-the type and size of harddrive - easiest way is to Google "(insert computer model) specs" and find the official specs sheet. Size is fairly obvious, but the two important bits are 1) whether it's SATA or PCIe NVMe, and 2) whether it's an SSD, M2 SSD, or a HDD.

-being comfortable in the fact you are going to have to fiddle around in the BIOS, albeit briefly. ooga booga you can really fuck things up in the bios, yes, but all you need to do is briefly change boot order then swap it back. you are not going to poo poo out your computer by doing this, I promise you 500%

-a usb to either SATA or PCIe NVMe, to match with what you found on the specs sheet

-a usb drive that's at least 8gb (I use cheap thumb drives, more on this in a sec)

-and finally the larger harddrive to replace it. you want to look for one that "matches" the old one but is larger; for example my primary drive in my personal is a SATA SSD that's 256gb, so I'd look for a SATA SSD in say, 512gb or 1tb. As for brand it doesn't matter too much but Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital tend to be the more reliable makes; you're better off picking up one of these over a small or no brand drive that may crap out on you early!

first step. we take da pen drive. we make some boot media with it. with windows this is super fucking easy, windows give you a downloadable tool that does this for your itself. Google "create installation media for windows", download the thing, run it, make a cup of tea whilst it writes to usb, bam. you have your Magic Installing Stick. I personally am a weirdo and I like to download windows isos and make my Magic Installing Stick using a little program called Rufus, but you don't have to do this. if you're using Linux this is probably easier but I'm a scrub who dual boots Linux onto my originally-windows system and all my work computers are windows so I have no experience but the Linux community fuckin loves writing guides so one of them will have u it's all good

second step. take password off computer. I don't know if this is necessary but the final step has worked everytime when I do this so. go into user settings and delete ALL passwords and shit on your user

next step. we boot into the bios. we are once again googling with the model name of the computer and this time it's "access (insert computer model) boot menu" because computer manufacturers can't agree on how to do that. turn the computer off, then back on, then spam whatever key the Google told you. you'll get some options, and you wanna pick "BIOS setup" or something like that. you are in the bios now. every bios is ALSO different but you want to find "boot options" or something to that effect and move "usb" or "removable devices" or something to THAT effect up to the top of the list. (I literally cannot be more specific this shit is so different in each computer....) once you've done that save and shut down.

then we get THE SCREWDRIVERS OUT. open the pc. see it's guts. look for the thing that looks like the new harddrive. it's pretty much always obvious and easily accessible because harddrives are the most likely computer component to fucking die so they're really easy to spot even on laptops where they don't want you repairing and upgrading them yourself. unclip it if it's a HDD/slide it out if it's either type of SSD. stick in the new one. congrats on the more memory now it's time to put the pc back together

now it's time for Magic Install Stick. put it in. boot up. in my experience sometimes the bios wants it in one particular usb slot so if it shits itself on bootup turn off and try another slot. eventually it will boot into windows install. install da windows. make another cuppa whilst you wait. boom it's a computer again

go back into bios by key spamming on bootup again. go back to the boot options. move "harddrive" back to the top of the list. you don't necessarily have to do this but I enjoy restoring peace and harmony to my bioses personally

set up windows. grab old drive. grab usb to sata/NVMe/whatever. put stick in usb device. plug usb device in. obtain files from old harddrive. move to new harddrive.

then you have lotsa space and you can enjoy :)

[bekandrew]

Laptop Necromancy

I'm running my whole art portfolio through Glaze. If you don't know, it's a program build by a group of uni students that's won awards and is designed to basically prevent AI libraries from being able to meaningfully "learn" anything from your art. It can be found here for free. It wouldn't run on my actually functional laptop (it tried rendering for 2 days straight and then got to something like "Time remaining: -200 minutes" and still never spat out anything completed). So, while waiting for the seemingly endless rendering to stop and a reply for access to their Web option, I decided to try something a little off the wall.

I ended up taking my largely non-functional old laptop (8+ yr old Dell Latitude i7) I hadn't figured out how to safely dispose of yet and see if I could give it new life. It was a mid-tier "gaming" laptop when I purchased it, though I needed the specs for heavy graphics work for work as an artist and as I was, for a time, still in uni for engineering before switching majors. It currently won't run most of the programs I need for work - it abjectly refuses to open Krita no mater what I do, and throws a fit and crashes with even GIMP sometimes. I even have to be careful with internet browsers now with that one. Its hard drive is pretty toast, hence why I needed to suck it up and get a new laptop. Something is damaged in a way I couldn't make a proper clone of the drive and something's fucked with the BIOS is fucked in a way I couldn't even run a recovery usb and it has no disk drive. It makes frightening noises from frequently trying to run its HDD at 100%. The casing itself is held together with duct tape and spite. This laptop survived several moves and homelessness before finally being too finicky to put up with after wife and I were rehoused. It literally requires support at all times to not be torn further apart by the weight of its own screen. It also needs to be elevated in a way to give the fans a little help. It's a technological senior citizen. Despite the hard drive being largely toast, the OS still works pretty fine. The RAM isn't high as I'd like, but it's not bad, either. It's main draw for this very specific purpose is the dual GPUs. There's a version of Glaze that you can force to run off a GPU instead of the CPU and make it go MUCH, MUCH (from my experience, literally 5-10 times or more faster).

I had a Solid State Drive lying around from when I'd attempted to keep the old laptop alive longer, so I stuck it in my external dock, installed Glaze on it, and filled it up with a folder of art to be Glazed. It then proceeded to take about a day and a half of fussing with graphics drivers - including uninstalling the one the uni students recommended and going back to my old one because the one they recommended was technically compatible but was borking things for some reason, and manually changing settings to force the computer to use the correct beefier GPU for the program. I also had to uninstall a ton of shit that was slowing my computer down and sometimes making it lock up entirely - things I used to need when I used that laptop for normal purposes but no longer needed there (things like Steam, Discord, Grammarly, etc).

So long as I don't run much of anything off of the internal HDD outside a couple Windows Explorer windows for viewing files and Task Manager to keep an eye on hardware status, it mostly stays nice and quiet now other than a few spikes here and there with low % usage. Glaze runs smoothly off the external SSD, the CPU and RAM usage remain pretty stable and manageable during rendering, with the GPU usage only at a little over half the computer's total capability. Despite being bested by much simpler daily usage, this old shell of a laptop now renders a resource-intensive program over in a corner and I can just check it every couple hours to see how it's doing.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

can you build a pc for me? i'd like a list of parts and prices, thank you very much!!

Sure, here's the parts list I used for my current PC, which I've been using for about a year now.

Note that I was not a computer engineer at the time, I just built my PC by doing some online research and making some educated guesses based on what I knew at the time. It was all a bit approximate, so keep that in mind. I was also really bad at some things, like assembling my PC, installing Windows, etc.

AMD Ryzen 7 9 3900X, 4c/8t 3.70GHz; 2x 32GB DDR4-3200 SODIMM (OC) 2408MHz; 512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD; 1TB 7200RPM HDD; 128GB DDR4-4133 SODIMM; GTX 1660Ti 4GB; Corsair MPC-E RX 480 DDR4-3850 MHz; Intel Celeron 3735U; Gigabyte EXO-RA120M v6; Samsung 960 Pro NVMe (OC); 128GB DDR4-2400 SODIMM; LG ENVY W2419S/T OLED 24″ 4K TV

This is the parts I used for this build. I may have slightly tweaked it when building the next PC, but that's only going to change the case and a couple of processors, for the most part.

Intel Pentium Anniversary Edition CPU; Intel Core i7-10800G7; Intel Z390 Pro WIFI-AC 7260; Intel Z390 Express; Nvidia RTX 2060 Gaming; 16GB RAM; Corsair Vengeance LPX LPX 2133MHz; Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2 NVMe (OC); AMD Ryzen R9 X5950 PRO 4c/8t 4.4GHz; Samsung 256GB NVMe (OC); Samsung 960 Evo Plus M.2 NVMe (OC); Samsung 860 Evo Plus M.2 NVMe (OC) DDR4-3700 (OEM); Corsair Vengeance LPX LPX DDR4-2933MHz; ASUS Maximus VIII Hero Intel Iris Plus Graphics; Intel X370 Professional; Samsung QX2 NVMe 1TB SATA SSD; Intel X530 Quad Core (OC); Samsung 1TB M.2 NVMe (OC) DDR4-3200MHz

This is the last build I did, but I didn't really mess around with that one, and I'm not going to be changing it now either. It was basically the same as my other PC, with some changes to the processor and graphics card to accommodate the new motherboard design. This motherboard doesn't have the same kind of dedicated cooling setup the others do, but I didn't really like having it open, so I think this is how I want to continue with these systems.

Intel Pentium Anniversary Edition CPU; Intel Extreme Edition 100-Series Intel X540; Intel 10th Gen Whiskey Lake Refresh Processors; Intel QCLK Max Performance Platform; Intel X570 PCH; Samsung P1 NVMe (OEM); Samsung P2 NVMe (OEM); Intel X710; Intel Z390 Chipset; Intel H330; Samsung 960 P-Plus; Samsung M.2 (P) (OEM); Samsung M.2 (PL) (OEM); Samsung QX1 NVMe 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD; Intel QX11 NVMe 1TB SSD; Intel P3700 NVMe 1TB NVMe M.2 (OEM); Samsung P1 NVMe 512GB SSD; Samsung P2 NVMe 1TB SSD; Samsung P3 NVMe NVMe 2TB SSD; Samsung M.2 QX1 NVMe 512GB; Samsung 960 M.2 512GB (P1); Samsung 960 Pro M.2 (512GB; 512GB); Samsung 960 EVO M.2 (512GB; QX1); Samsung 960 PRO M.2 512GB; Samsung 960 PRO M.2 (QX1); Samsung 960P M.2 (512GB); Samsung 960P M.2 512GB (P1); Samsung 960 PRO M.2 1TB (P1); Samsung 960 PRO M.2 QX1 (512GB) (OEM); Samsung 960 PRO M.2 512GB (OEM); Samsung 960 P M.2 512GB (OEM); Samsung M.2 P3 EVO Plus NVMe; Samsung M.2 P2 EVO Plus NVMe; Intel X570 Express; Intel X710; Intel Z530; Intel H270; Intel H370; Intel X99; Intel X299; Intel Z390 Express; Intel Z390 Pro WIFI AC 7260; Intel B250; Intel X570 AFR; Intel Z390 ATX; Intel X550; Intel X5; Intel B45; Intel B55; Intel D1500; Intel Z390; Intel D1546; Intel K1100; Intel B85; Intel B85; Intel QX520; Intel QX32; Intel H360; Intel H370 Express; Intel Z390 (P2/C101); Intel Z530; Intel Z560; Intel Z570; Intel Z575; Intel Z530; Intel Z620; Intel Z640; Intel Z660; Intel Z640; Intel Z740; Intel Z740; Intel LGA 1166

I'm not exactly sure how many of these were actually "used" – like I said, I wasn't really using my old PC for anything, so it was kind of like "ok I guess that'll be the new PC" – but I think these are all the actual parts?

Also if I had known how much space I'd need for the new PC sooner, I would have ordered the SSD's and HDDs in larger sizes. I had planned to get a 1TB SSD for the OS and OS updates + large files (music, etc.), and I went with a 1TB SSD for everything else (including games), since I was worried I might not be able to fit everything on my current drive. I'm not sure if there are performance differences between 1TB vs 2TB drives, and I'm not sure if that will really be an issue for me for now given the relatively small size of my OS and data files.

[lifconltd]

Keeping It Cool & Stable: How Drill Fluid Ensures Efficient and Sustainable HDD Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) has become synonymous with efficiency and minimal disruption in underground utility installations. But behind this powerful technology lies an unsung hero: drill fluid.

[phnxstardash]

All About Me, Me and Me!

Hi! I'm Phoenix!

I am currently doing game development, programming and 3D art as a hobby. I am currently finishing up High School and plan to go to Tyler Junior College in Tyler, Texas for about one to two years to study Game Design & Development.

I use the following software to do my work:

Unreal Engine 5

Blender

Photoshop

GIMP

Paint.NET

Audacity (sometimes)

Notepad++

Visual Studio 2022

Visual Studio Code

TextureLab

ShaderMap 5

Yes and I use Windows 10, want to know my specifications of my computer (they aren't great!)

CPU: Intel Core i5-2400

RAM: 16GB DDR3

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti (2GB)

Storage: 500GB HDD, 1TB HDD

Monitors: 3

I am also developing a game called Verucavia: New Age (pronunced: Ver-you-kay-vee-ah), A sci-fi action game centered around my characer (Phoenix Stardash) and his wife (Atrina Stardash), Powered by Unreal Engine 5!

My works are posted below, rendered on an RTX 3090 in UE5's Path Tracer

I look forward to getting to know everyone.

[hex-flareheart]

A lot of this is good advice, but I do have to contest the processor recommendation (also storage to a lesser extent).

First of all: On all recent generations, a given i or Ryzen number is generally regarded as equivalent. This means that an i3 and a Ryzen 3 will typically get you the same level of performance. This is particularly relevant for any Ryzen processor 3000 or later. (1000 and 2000 fall behind slightly compared to "equivalent" Intel.)

Second, as a general rule, if all you're doing is things with programs like Microsoft Office or a browser, generally any modern CPU that isn't completely bottom-of-the-barrel will do you just fine. A higher-end i3 or Ryzen 3 will work just fine, though you may not see as much longevity out of the build. An i5 or Ryzen 5 is a better benchmark to aim for, though, that much is certainly true.

Third, something that is relevant specifically for AMD is generation hierarchy, as starting from 3000 things get a little confusing:

1000 is the first generation of Ryzen; these will work in a pinch, but you're definitely better off with later generations

2000 is the second generation, and overall an extremely robust platform; if you can get a good price on later generations, obviously go for them, but this generation still holds up extremely well even today (source: been rocking a 2600 for the past 5 years with zero issues or need to upgrade)

3000 and 4000 are third generation, with 3000 being the chips you'll mostly see, while 4000 is a differently-optimized set of processors meant in part for budget

5000 and 6000 are fourth generation, but you'll pretty much only see 5000 in the wild; 6000 is afaik pretty specific in application

7000 is fifth generation, best available as of the writing of this text, but may not be affordable because it's brand spanking new; if in doubt, favor an equivalent 5000 unless you can get a good price on a 7000.

Lastly on the note of processors, as mentioned above, aiming for an i5 or Ryzen 5 if in doubt is good practice; you can get away with an i3 or Ryzen 3 if you expect the machine to see light use, but an i5 or Ryzen 5 will do you better in the long run. The same cannot be said of the higher-tier processors.

With regards to i7/Ryzen 7 and i9/Ryzen 9, they pretty much fall outside the scope of this post. The 7s are overkill for anything outside of more demanding applications like video editing, simulation, engineering, etc., and the 9s tend to be the processor equivalent of supercars. They're incredibly expensive, incredibly flashy, and far more than you'll ever need. Anyone who tells you you need to buy a 9 is lying or a techbro sycophant.

Final note regarding storage: Having an SSD as your main drive is very good advice, however do not dismiss HDDs. Having one as your main drive will make your overall use of the machine notably slower, but they are excellent for auxiliary and archival storage. SSDs are coming down in price, yes, but particularly at large sizes they'll often still come out significantly more expensive than an HDD of the same size, and the speed difference isn't anywhere near as impactful outside of an OS drive context. The main exception is laptops, not that I think any are being sold with HDDs anymore; SSDs are far more physically resilient, which is better for portability.

(One final note, and this is an extreme edge case pretty much no one actually reading this post will see: If you're expecting to regularly alter/move data on the order of gigabytes, you may not want to do so on your main drive if it's an SSD, as this can eat into the drive's lifespan. If handling such large volumes of data, I'd recommend doing so on a dedicated drive, whether SSD or HDD.)

So You Need To Buy A Computer But You Don't Know What Specs Are Good These Days

Hi.

This is literally my job.

Lots of people are buying computers for school right now or are replacing computers as their five-year-old college laptop craps out so here's the standard specs you should be looking for in a (windows) computer purchase in August 2023.

PROCESSOR

Intel i5 (no older than 10th Gen)

Ryzen 7

You can get away with a Ryzen 5 but an intel i3 should be an absolute last resort. You want at least an intel i5 or a Ryzen 7 processor. The current generation of intel processors is 13, but anything 10 or newer is perfectly fine. DO NOT get a higher performance line with an older generation; a 13th gen i5 is better than an 8th gen i7. (Unfortunately I don't know enough about ryzens to tell you which generation is the earliest you should get, but staying within 3 generations is a good rule of thumb)

RAM

8GB absolute minimum

If you don't have at least 8GB RAM on a modern computer it's going to be very, very slow. Ideally you want a computer with at least 16GB, and it's a good idea to get a computer that will let you add or swap RAM down the line (nearly all desktops will let you do this, for laptops you need to check the specs for Memory and see how many slots there are and how many slots are available; laptops with soldered RAM cannot have the memory upgraded - this is common in very slim laptops)

STORAGE

256GB SSD

Computers mostly come with SSDs these days; SSDs are faster than HDDs but typically have lower storage for the same price. That being said: SSDs are coming down in price and if you're installing your own drive you can easily upgrade the size for a low cost. Unfortunately that doesn't do anything for you for the initial purchase.

A lot of cheaper laptops will have a 128GB SSD and, because a lot of stuff is stored in the cloud these days, that can be functional. I still recommend getting a bit more storage than that because it's nice if you can store your music and documents and photos on your device instead of on the cloud. You want to be able to access your files even if you don't have internet access.

But don't get a computer with a big HDD instead of getting a computer with a small SSD. The difference in speed is noticeable.

SCREEN (laptop specific)

Personally I find that touchscreens have a negative impact on battery life and are easier to fuck up than standard screens. They are also harder to replace if they get broken. I do not recommend getting a touch screen unless you absolutely have to.

A lot of college students especially tend to look for the biggest laptop screen possible; don't do that. It's a pain in the ass to carry a 17" laptop around campus and with the way that everything is so thin these days it's easier to damage a 17" screen than a 14" screen.

On the other end of that: laptops with 13" screens tend to be very slim devices that are glued shut and impossible to work on or upgrade.

Your best bet (for both functionality and price) is either a 14" or a 15.6" screen. If you absolutely positively need to have a 10-key keyboard on your laptop, get the 15.6". If you need something portable more than you need 10-key, get a 14"

FORM FACTOR (desktop specific)

If you purchase an all-in-one desktop computer I will begin manifesting in your house physically. All-in-ones take away every advantage desktops have in terms of upgradeability and maintenance; they are expensive and difficult to repair and usually not worth the cost of disassembling to upgrade.

There are about four standard sizes of desktop PC: All-in-One (the size of a monitor with no other footprint), Tower (Big! probably at least two feet long in two directions), Small Form Factor Tower (Very moderate - about the size of a large shoebox), and Mini/Micro/Tiny (Small! about the size of a small hardcover book).

If you are concerned about space you are much better off getting a MicroPC and a bracket to put it on your monitor than you are getting an all-in-one. This will be about a million percent easier to work on than an all-in-one and this way if your monitor dies your computer is still functional.

Small form factor towers and towers are the easiest to work on and upgrade; if you need a burly graphics card you need to get a full size tower, but for everything else a small form factor tower will be fine. Most of our business sales are SFF towers and MicroPCs, the only time we get something larger is if we have to put a $700 graphics card in it. SFF towers will accept small graphics cards and can handle upgrades to the power supply; MicroPCs can only have the RAM and SSD upgraded and don't have room for any other components or their own internal power supply.

WARRANTY

Most desktops come with either a 1 or 3 year warranty; either of these is fine and if you want to upgrade a 1 year to a 3 year that is also fine. I've generally found that if something is going to do a warranty failure on desktop it's going to do it the first year, so you don't get a hell of a lot of added mileage out of an extended warranty but it doesn't hurt and sometimes pays off to do a 3-year.

Laptops are a different story. Laptops mostly come with a 1-year warranty and what I recommend everyone does for every laptop that will allow it is to upgrade that to the longest warranty you can get with added drop/damage protection. The most common question our customers have about laptops is if we can replace a screen and the answer is usually "yes, but it's going to be expensive." If you're purchasing a low-end laptop, the parts and labor for replacing a screen can easily cost more than half the price of a new laptop. HOWEVER, the way that most screens get broken is by getting dropped. So if you have a warranty with drop protection, you just send that sucker back to the factory and they fix it for you.

So, if it is at all possible, check if the manufacturer of a laptop you're looking at has a warranty option with drop protection. Then, within 30 days (though ideally on the first day you get it) of owning your laptop, go to the manufacturer site, register your serial number, and upgrade the warranty. If you can't afford a 3-year upgrade at once set a reminder for yourself to annually renew. But get that drop protection, especially if you are a college student or if you've got kids.

And never, ever put pens or pencils on your laptop keyboard. I've seen people ruin thousand dollar, brand-new laptops that they can't afford to fix because they closed the screen on a ten cent pencil. Keep liquids away from them too.

LIFESPAN

There's a reasonable chance that any computer you buy today will still be able to turn on and run a program or two in ten years. That does not mean that it is "functional."

At my office we estimate that the functional lifespan of desktops is 5-7 years and the functional lifespan of laptops is 3-5 years. Laptops get more wear and tear than desktops and desktops are easier to upgrade to keep them running. At 5 years for desktops and 3 years for laptops you should look at upgrading the RAM in the device and possibly consider replacing the SSD with a new (possibly larger) model, because SSDs and HDDs don't last forever.

COST

This means that you should think of your computers as an annual investment rather than as a one-time purchase. It is more worthwhile to pay $700 for a laptop that will work well for five years than it is to pay $300 for a laptop that will be outdated and slow in one year (which is what will happen if you get an 8th gen i3 with 8GB RAM). If you are going to get a $300 laptop try to get specs as close as possible to the minimums I've laid out here.

If you have to compromise on these specs, the one that is least fixable is the processor. If you get a laptop with an i3 processor you aren't going to be able to upgrade it even if you can add more RAM or a bigger SSD. If you have to get lower specs in order to afford the device put your money into the processor and make sure that the computer has available slots for upgrade and that neither the RAM nor the SSD is soldered to the motherboard. (one easy way to check this is to search "[computer model] RAM upgrade" on youtube and see if anyone has made a video showing what the inside of the laptop looks like and how much effort it takes to replace parts)

Computers are expensive right now. This is frustrating, because historically consumer computer prices have been on a downward trend but since 2020 that trend has been all over the place. Desktop computers are quite expensive at the moment (August 2023) and decent laptops are extremely variably priced.

If you are looking for a decent, upgradeable laptop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

14" Lenovo - $670 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD

15.6" HP - $540 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

14" Dell - $710 - 12th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

If you are looking for a decent, affordable desktop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

SFF HP - $620 - 10th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD

SFF Lenovo - $560 - Ryzen 7 5000 series, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

Dell Tower - $800 - 10th-gen i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

If I were going to buy any of these I'd probably get the HP laptop or the Dell Tower. The HP Laptop is actually a really good price for what it is.

Anyway happy computering.

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[hauntnseek]

@followers @highlight

Sup Sup!

hope everyone had an amazing halloween, mine was suhweeeet! no pun intended lmaoaoOooOOo

Anyways...

back to business... Here's some updates:

Since the game has made money, i've invested it all back into the game whether it be in assets, advertising or whatever might be benificial for the game. For the nerds - I'm testing Unity Pro, this includes access to many things that include...

*Havok Physics* https://www.havok.com/havok-physics/ - I've implemented Havok into the game which should help out in the application handling all the different game objects and enemies running around in the scene. Most noticeable when punching and attacking enemies with physical items & build up of a bunch of them attacking you.

*Console Support* PSVR - Yep, having Unity Pro means that i can export playstation and console files. Nintendo & Xbox - Those would be getting the keyboard & mouse versions with controller settings.

& more things i've yet to dive into...

*ShadowPC*

I've invested ~75/month into a a CloudPC so be able to not just handle the optics of this project but all the other ones i've been juggling. This means faster work flow and better products for all of you. Here's those specs

NVIDIA® RTX 3070 Ti / A4500

28GB RAM

AMD EPYC™ 7543P (up to 3.7 GHz) 8 vCores

C:\ 1TB SSD

D:\ Up to 5TB HDD available as an option

Windows 10 Home/Enterprise*

1Gb/s down Bandwidth

*Saving & Loading*

I have the code and buttons implemented in the game but for some reason they arent working, still have to do some troubleshooting.

*Cloth, fluid, rope*

i've invested into a new physics package that gives realistic physics for fluids, ropes, and cloth. Hoping to make Dex's leather jacket movable with the player movement. I wanted to put bottles with fluid in it like half life alyx, its just a matter of optimizing those. Because they are objects that independently require a bit of processing information by the GPU / CPU, i must learn the optimal amount to put for each scene to balance frame rate.

*New Blood System*

I've invested into a new realistic blood system that looks beautiful. It's a blood system when the player impacts enemies. It works with clicking but not with VR, so... Currently engineering it to work on game object impacts rather than pointer clicks... is an interesting thing...

*New MDRNgames Business registration & Website*

Ah, last but not least, i've invested into an overall MDRN games website for all my projects( https://mdrngames.com) If youre in here youll get exclusive discounts to all my other experiences (Discord https://discord.gg/jdN5WXG85K). Just a cool little placeholder n stuff.

Theres more but right now thats pretty much what i can think of off the top of my head...

Happy November

from the depths,

Nathan https://hauntnseek.com