🖥️ 🖥️ 🖥️ 🖥️ 🖥️ 🖥️ 🖥️Who doesn't know what github is or how to use git? (or 2022 computer questions thread) 💻 💻 💻 💻 💻 💻 💻

[Dirty_habiT]

Github is "crowd sourced" software development..... or really "anything" development.  It works on the concept of repositories and pull requests..... or repos and PR's (in industry lingo).

 

A git repo is a storage space where code (or documents, or anything) can be parked.  There is very fine grained control over who can access the repo.  So you could make a private repo for 12oz and then members could contribute to some document or set of files, or code or whatever.

 

Once a member has "cloned a repo" locally onto their computer, they can make a "branch" of the code.  The branch is an exact copy of the main repo that you choose a different name for.  So you make your branch, then you make your changes to the code/docs/whatever in the repo.  After you're happy with your changes you create a Pull Request in which you can select other git users to review.  They look over your changes and if it's approved you will then be allowed to merge your changes into the main branch (that anyone in the future gets if they clone the repo).

 

What does this mean?  It kind of democratizes development of software or documents.  Git can be an incredibly overwhelming if you don't understand that it can actually be very simple and there are only a few concepts to understand to be effective using it.

 

I'll provide you all with a "fun" repo to clone to get started..... the purpose of cloning this repo isn't to make changes or contribute anything other than the fact that you have a copy of information that has been scrubbed from the internet.  Thank you to Casek for providing this to me yesterday.  I have not yet tried to figure out what application can digest this information and plot the points but I'll post screenshots once I do.

 

https://github.com/adsbxchange/Jeffrey_Epstein_Lolita_Express (<--- Jeff Epsteins 3 jets and all of the places they traveled)

 

If you look up what adsbxchange is, you will find that it's a crowdsourced airplane tracking network.  It is easy to setup an antenna attached to a raspberry pi running a custom operating system and "contribute" your data to increase the accuracy of airplane locations.  Airplanes broadcast their data over public channels that anyone can listen to with the right equipment.

 

To clone a repo:

 

Create a github account.

Install git on your local machine.

Configure your git client on your local machine.

Find a repo you want to clone on github by searching around for things you're interested in.

Click the "code" button on the upper right side of the repo's file list..... and copy the link.

Go to your computer terminal and type "git clone <paste>".

 

I'm going to use this thread to help people understand things they don't understand about computers.  You can ask about whatever you'd like whether it's software, hardware, bitcoin miners, engine computers for vehicles, etc..... whatever technical shit regarding computers you want to ask, I will do my best to help answer.  I'm sure there are some others lurking that are also knowledgeable on these things and they're welcome to contribute as well.

[mr.yuck]

Cool thread. I was literally about to post this in the random thots thread a few days ago but didn’t. I don’t think I really understand what RAM is or how it functions.

[Dirty_habiT]

RAM is "random access memory"... why it's called random, I dunno.  It is a method of storing data for "short periods of time" vs a hard drive that stores data "indefinitely".  The main concepts are as follows:

 

RAM loses it's data completely (well, nearly completely) when the power to the chips is removed.  Forensics can recover data sometimes from RAM, but it's a technical process that is above the pay grade of most computer engineers.

 

RAM is VERY fucking fast for read/write times vs. traditional Hard Drives.  The old drives of yesterdecade were "spinny disks", as I call them, with motors and magnetic storage media inside.  These took a ton of time to retrieve data and hand it off to the CPU in the computer to do things with compared to asking for data out of the RAM chips.

 

New hard drives like solid state and the newest m.2 drives are just about as fast as the fastest RAM chips now.

 

RAM is more expensive per MB/GB than a hard drive is so traditionally you did not see RAM space be anywhere close to what the hard disk can hold.  An example is my gaming PC's have "alot" of RAM in them (32GB each)..... but the hard drives are over 1TB each (1000GB).

 

Nowadays people are doing shit like what one of my friends is doing and installing entire operating systems, that would be installed on hard disk, into RAM.  This means when you turn on your computer from a powered off state, it will be booted up at the login screen in less than 10 seconds.  This was basically unheard of 10 years ago or more.

 

Does that answer it for you @mr.yuck?  If not, ask about anything that isn't clear about it and I'll try to make it make more sense.

 

 

[mr.yuck]

Yes. So to clarify with an example:

 

If I’m writing something in Word, RAM remembers what I have typed on the screen while I’m writing it and once it is saved, the hard drive is what remembers it.

[Dirty_habiT]

3 hours ago, mr.yuck said:

Yes. So to clarify with an example:

 

If I’m writing something in Word, RAM remembers what I have typed on the screen while I’m writing it and once it is saved, the hard drive is what remembers it.

perfect. Nailed it. Ram is temp storage that is super fast for an application to use. 

[mr.yuck]

I’m fucking hacker man in this bitch. 
 

But for real though It’s always been the hardware that has made little sense to me. Thanks for the in-depth description.

[craig]

On 12/24/2021 at 3:29 PM, Dirty_habiT said:

Github is "crowd sourced" software development..... or really "anything" development.  It works on the concept of repositories and pull requests..... or repos and PR's (in industry lingo).

 

A git repo is a storage space where code (or documents, or anything) can be parked.  There is very fine grained control over who can access the repo.  So you could make a private repo for 12oz and then members could contribute to some document or set of files, or code or whatever.

 

Once a member has "cloned a repo" locally onto their computer, they can make a "branch" of the code.  The branch is an exact copy of the main repo that you choose a different name for.  So you make your branch, then you make your changes to the code/docs/whatever in the repo.  After you're happy with your changes you create a Pull Request in which you can select other git users to review.  They look over your changes and if it's approved you will then be allowed to merge your changes into the main branch (that anyone in the future gets if they clone the repo).

 

What does this mean?  It kind of democratizes development of software or documents.  Git can be an incredibly overwhelming if you don't understand that it can actually be very simple and there are only a few concepts to understand to be effective using it.

 

I'll provide you all with a "fun" repo to clone to get started..... the purpose of cloning this repo isn't to make changes or contribute anything other than the fact that you have a copy of information that has been scrubbed from the internet.  Thank you to Casek for providing this to me yesterday.  I have not yet tried to figure out what application can digest this information and plot the points but I'll post screenshots once I do.

 

https://github.com/adsbxchange/Jeffrey_Epstein_Lolita_Express (<--- Jeff Epsteins 3 jets and all of the places they traveled)

 

If you look up what adsbxchange is, you will find that it's a crowdsourced airplane tracking network.  It is easy to setup an antenna attached to a raspberry pi running a custom operating system and "contribute" your data to increase the accuracy of airplane locations.  Airplanes broadcast their data over public channels that anyone can listen to with the right equipment.

 

To clone a repo:

 

Create a github account.

Install git on your local machine.

Configure your git client on your local machine.

Find a repo you want to clone on github by searching around for things you're interested in.

Click the "code" button on the upper right side of the repo's file list..... and copy the link.

Go to your computer terminal and type "git clone <paste>".

 

I'm going to use this thread to help people understand things they don't understand about computers.  You can ask about whatever you'd like whether it's software, hardware, bitcoin miners, engine computers for vehicles, etc..... whatever technical shit regarding computers you want to ask, I will do my best to help answer.  I'm sure there are some others lurking that are also knowledgeable on these things and they're welcome to contribute as well.

 

Appreciate you doing this...

 

So I have git already installed (Mac OS)... I pasted the clone code into terminal and it cloned.

I have some very very basic Terminal navigation skills so I can see the files are there.

 

Is there any advantage to using Git here over just saving the files via web browser?

[Dirty_habiT]

Git allows you to have "version control". So now at any time you can go into your directory you cloned and type git pull and it will pull in any new changes. You can also see all the history of what changes happened previously. 
 

On this repo it probably won't ever be updated or added to so in this instance using git to clone is just an easy way to pull a copy of files that exactly matches what the creator of the files had. Http downloads can corrupt or files can fail but still look ok.  Git ensures that what you have matches what is in the GitHub repo. 
 

Super cool that you did this and if you learn git and some software dev stuff you are well on your way to financial independence. 
 

Please ask any questions. The only dumb question is one that wasn't asked. 

 

[Dirty_habiT]

I still haven't had time yet to figure out how to display the data in the repo but it's for lack of effort not talent. 
 

it should plot on a map all the places and flight paths those jets took. 

[craig]

Thanks, understood. I guess git comes into it's own once you're actually developing stuff.

 

I dumped one of the CSV's into google maps and it populated, which is cool!

Obviously this way is is quite straight forward. How else would you think think about displaying the data?

 

I know excel and Power Bi have some map functions but don't know how well they would do with this kind of thing.

 

 

[Dirty_habiT]

Awesome work!

 

I think there are likely some standalone applications that could process and display this data.  I hadn't considered using the easy answer of apple or google maps..... however, my concern here is, not that anyone else cares, that it'd be easy for any of these orgs to set up a fingerprint of people pasting this info and then linking it to their accounts.  The only way it'd be "safe" IMO is to use a vpn + private window + a not logged in acct on google/apple to view the maps.

 

This website probably has a forum somewhere that people are talking about applications that can consume the CSV files and display them. I think what you did works great though.

 

I found this with a quick search, it seems pretty cool and you can try out some code in the process.

 

https://blog.hugo-larcher.com/flight-data-visualisation-with-pandas-and-matplotlib-ebbd13038647

[MOOGLE?]

You shoulda led with " GitHub can let you get porn"

[Dirty_habiT]

I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest. I do know free accounts have a cap on data transfer per day or per pull. 

[craig]

1 hour ago, Dirty_habiT said:

Awesome work!

 

I think there are likely some standalone applications that could process and display this data.  I hadn't considered using the easy answer of apple or google maps..... however, my concern here is, not that anyone else cares, that it'd be easy for any of these orgs to set up a fingerprint of people pasting this info and then linking it to their accounts.  The only way it'd be "safe" IMO is to use a vpn + private window + a not logged in acct on google/apple to view the maps.

 

This website probably has a forum somewhere that people are talking about applications that can consume the CSV files and display them. I think what you did works great though.

 

I found this with a quick search, it seems pretty cool and you can try out some code in the process.

 

https://blog.hugo-larcher.com/flight-data-visualisation-with-pandas-and-matplotlib-ebbd13038647

 

This looks cool. I enjoy the analysis part of my day job and am slowly trying to develop my data skills but haven't got to pandas or matplotlib yet.

I think this is probably too advanced for my current level but will give it a go..

[Dirty_habiT]

This is a cool project ( @craig) .  Uses an FPGA to "emulate" hardware of old gaming systems.

 

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel

 

I have already built one of these things, it works fantastically well.  The reason I say "emulation" in quotes is because it's not taking system calls from old gaming systems (processor specific instructions) and translating them with software (to x86 like your computer uses).  An FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) can be reconfigured in real time with a set of software instructions to effectively behave EXACTLY like some piece of hardware.

 

So a 555 timer is a really common integrated circuit used in all kinds of electronics.  An FPGA can easily just "turn into" a 555 timer without doing any certain kind of translation of instructions.  In this way, it can also "turn into" a Super Nintendo, a Neo Geo, etc...... and you can load the same roms you'd use with your emulators, except on the FPGA they look and behave flawlessly and exactly like the original hardware would have run them.

 

It's a no BS no fuckery solution to playing retro games.

[Dirty_habiT]

The three letter agencies use FPGAs to effectively "hack" targets because they can make it emulate basically any piece of hardware.  It also has the added advantage of being extremely fucking fast at anything it's doing.  So, for instance, an FPGA could be inserted on an ethernet cable and intercept AND decode the information in real time dumping it all to a disk somewhere else on the internet.

[craig]

4 hours ago, Dirty_habiT said:

This is a cool project ( @craig) .  Uses an FPGA to "emulate" hardware of old gaming systems.

 

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel

 

I have already built one of these things, it works fantastically well.  The reason I say "emulation" in quotes is because it's not taking system calls from old gaming systems (processor specific instructions) and translating them with software (to x86 like your computer uses).  An FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) can be reconfigured in real time with a set of software instructions to effectively behave EXACTLY like some piece of hardware.

 

So a 555 timer is a really common integrated circuit used in all kinds of electronics.  An FPGA can easily just "turn into" a 555 timer without doing any certain kind of translation of instructions.  In this way, it can also "turn into" a Super Nintendo, a Neo Geo, etc...... and you can load the same roms you'd use with your emulators, except on the FPGA they look and behave flawlessly and exactly like the original hardware would have run them.

 

It's a no BS no fuckery solution to playing retro games.

Looks like fun and guess there is a lot of other stuff you can do with the board once you’re done..? 

I assume your regular computer can’t be figured to behave like a given piece of hardware as easily as a FPGA can?

 

On a separate note, what do you do for data storage/back up?

I looked into setting up a synology NAS a while ago but it would have ended up costing way more money than using a cloud service, and without the benefit of offsite back up. Although I still like the idea of setting one up one day. 

[fat ralphy]

So this where all the smart motherfuckers are hiding…

[Dirty_habiT]

I stopped backing up most of my stuff when I started using iCloud.  Building a nas is ok but do you really want to be a NOC monkey? That's for network operations center or data center. 
 

My point is that using Amazon glacier to backup your important data is way better/stronger than anything you could make at home. Disks wear out so you would need at least six identical disks to start out with. Four for the nas and two for the shelf when one of the drives in be nas fails. 
 

You'd need power control with a backup generator. You will need fire suppression and a steel man trap with badge access into your computer room. You will need to build a locked cage in your computer room to put the servers in. Your hvac system would need to be built to cool a room like this specifically. 
 

The reason I say this is because it costs a lot of money to get the durability and redundancy your data gets in glacier storage..... at home. 

Should you really worry about someone breaking in and stealing your nas with all you data?  Absolutely you should. No serious dc doesn't. 
 

The ONLY people I'd say a nas is good for are people that need a much larger storage space than normal for work they're doing or for someone that collects torrents.
 

As a side note I don't really mess with pirated anything these days. When I did I had way too much data to lug around with me and ended up likening it to being a data pack rat. I eventually reasoned that I didn't need to save the movies I watch. It's like saving a pair of your blown out undies because they were your favorite knowing damn good and well the chances of using them again for their intended purpose is slim to none.
 

Most people I know with a nas barely use it and it only comes up for nerd bragging rights purposes. I have every movie or every season or every album blah blah.
 

 I know that may not be super helpful but I'm highlighting the fact that I kinda outgrew the idea of warehousing date on "temporary storage". Because of this you cannot "sell me" on the idea of a nas. Please don't take this as me saying they're useless. They aren't but I just don't think most people have a true need for something like that. 
 

If you want to build one for learning how it works and how raid works the id say go for it. 

[craig]

1 hour ago, Dirty_habiT said:

I stopped backing up most of my stuff when I started using iCloud.  Building a nas is ok but do you really want to be a NOC monkey? That's for network operations center or data center. 
 

My point is that using Amazon glacier to backup your important data is way better/stronger than anything you could make at home. Disks wear out so you would need at least six identical disks to start out with. Four for the nas and two for the shelf when one of the drives in be nas fails. 
 

You'd need power control with a backup generator. You will need fire suppression and a steel man trap with badge access into your computer room. You will need to build a locked cage in your computer room to put the servers in. Your hvac system would need to be built to cool a room like this specifically. 
 

The reason I say this is because it costs a lot of money to get the durability and redundancy your data gets in glacier storage..... at home. 

Should you really worry about someone breaking in and stealing your nas with all you data?  Absolutely you should. No serious dc doesn't. 
 

The ONLY people I'd say a nas is good for are people that need a much larger storage space than normal for work they're doing or for someone that collects torrents.
 

As a side note I don't really mess with pirated anything these days. When I did I had way too much data to lug around with me and ended up likening it to being a data pack rat. I eventually reasoned that I didn't need to save the movies I watch. It's like saving a pair of your blown out undies because they were your favorite knowing damn good and well the chances of using them again for their intended purpose is slim to none.
 

Most people I know with a nas barely use it and it only comes up for nerd bragging rights purposes. I have every movie or every season or every album blah blah.
 

 I know that may not be super helpful but I'm highlighting the fact that I kinda outgrew the idea of warehousing date on "temporary storage". Because of this you cannot "sell me" on the idea of a nas. Please don't take this as me saying they're useless. They aren't but I just don't think most people have a true need for something like that. 
 

If you want to build one for learning how it works and how raid works the id say go for it. 

Lol yeah nerd bragging and torrent hoarding sounds about right. 

 

One of the key considerations was the fact that my 11 year old laptop is on it's last legs and liked the idea of potentially getting something with a smallish SSD but that had access to all of my stuff & unlimited storage. I (used to) take a lot of photo and videos and there a lot of things I want to keep forever and add to without maxing out my HD storage.

 

 

[Dirty_habiT]

I'd buy a sata/ide to usb convertor, remove that drive from the laptop, and then move the data to a newer drive. 

 

Drives have what's called power on hours and they're rated to only do so many. If it smokes itself before you move your data you're going to be in a really tough spot getting your files off a dead disk. It can be done but it's beyond what most computer engineers can handle since it usually involves swapping  a controller onto the hard disk that will drive it properly. Finding one for an old drive could be impossible. 
 

my gaming pc's are setup with the OS installed on a 125G m.2 drive and my data storage is on a 1T SSD. 

Edited December 29, 2021 by Dirty_habiT

[Dirty_habiT]

Check out this project.

 

https://rclone.org/

 

If you run a mac I suggest installing Home Brew if you haven't already.

 

As a general rule, you should ALWAYS be careful about "curl bashing" or "piping curl to bash" etc.  The below example installs homebrew, but if we did not trust the source of this install.sh file, we'd want to first download the install.sh file to look at it's code and determine what it is doing.  The last thing you want is an "install.sh" deleting files that it wasn't supposed to delete, or doing anything else weird like adding a user to your system quietly.  If you paste the below code into your mac's terminal window it will install homebrew.

 

Homebrew lets you have a "package manager" for a lot of common linux based tools that are not installed on a mac by default.

 

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

[Dirty_habiT]

You can do "brew install rclone" from the command line after homebrew is installed and it will give you the rclone tool which can be used to put data on a variety of endpoints, like AWS S3 or Glacier.

[craig]

Yeah thanks, I have a sata/usb adaptor somewhere from when i had to rescue a hard drive from a broken laptop before. 
I think I will get back in to using my desktop more and have that as main storage device backed up to iCloud. 
My laptop can store a lesser amount of stuff and I can survive without having every file on every device at all times. 
 

I do have homebrew from trying something a while ago. Hacking the Switch maybe. I have definitely installed a whole load of stuff via the terminal without checking properly what it is and whilst being slightly terrified it could be something malicious. 
 

 

[MOOGLE?]

The fact the you can walk into Walmart and buy a 128 gb thumb drive for 20 bucks or so still blows my mind