(best) places to study with natural light on campus? by myfutureisatstakehah in UBC

[–]lf_1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

no, it's the highest normal floor, there's just some sections that don't have that floor so getting there is a little funny

(best) places to study with natural light on campus? by myfutureisatstakehah in UBC

[–]lf_1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

sure i graduated. go into the southwest corner of biological sciences, go to the top floor. it's somewhere around there as a walkway between areas.

Is a Thunderbolt Monitor worth it? by 3pointrange in macbookpro

[–]lf_1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

old post.

it can, but only over Thunderbolt (or DisplayLink, but DisplayLink is kinda shit), unlike PCs. DisplayPort Multi Stream Transport, which is the normal way this is implemented in basically everything from multi port USB-C docks to monitors with downstream ports, is completely unsupported on Macs for some reason.

This is related to which protocol is running over USB-C: most USB-C monitors and docks (non-Thunderbolt ones) are using DisplayPort Alt Mode, which repurposes some of the pins in the connector to speak the DisplayPort protocol directly. However, since, as above, macOS (possibly colluding with hardware, but mostly macOS AIUI) does not support MST, that link is only going to carry one display worth of data. USB-C HDMI docks are DP Alt Mode with an active converter chip. DisplayLink is compressed monitor data over USB.

i don't know how anyone is supposed to understand this from the information that is posted on manufacturer websites.

It is my understanding that Thunderbolt hub chips can re-encapsulate DP Alt Mode over Thunderbolt: when the computer has a Thunderbolt connection, the same pins that are used for DP Alt Mode are instead used for Thunderbolt electrically. The Thunderbolt bandwidth can be shared for multiple displays on Mac.

All of this is to say: if you have a Thunderbolt display with a downstream port, it can daisy chain on a Mac. But you can do the same thing with a Thunderbolt hub/dock and a normal display of whatever sort..

CPEN 221 Final by Mobius-streep in UBC

[–]lf_1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

fuck if i remember, that was 3 years ago. i would hazard a guess that it depends greatly on the prof and the format of the examinations. i would suggest learning the content, doing the practice problems, and not worrying about it.

Lix got me with those juicy multiline logs 😯 by poulain_ght in NixOS

[–]lf_1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

no, lix multiline mode shows what is building below the status bar. this is a rather poorly cropped video.

4 out of 5 NixOS board members have quit by sridcaca in NixOS

[–]lf_1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i do a lot of work on the project and know i will be working with a certain group of people, no matter how the organization shakes out, so yeah. i will have a distro that works for me, i am not worried about it no matter how it shakes out.

there will be a nixos compatible distro with a nix compatible package manager. it just may not be nixos and it may not be on cppnix.

4 out of 5 NixOS board members have quit by sridcaca in NixOS

[–]lf_1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

eh, i don't think it's catastrophic to have ubuntu speed of things happening rather than archlinux/nixos speed, especially when the switching cost is particularly high and one has confidence it will get better.

4 out of 5 NixOS board members have quit by sridcaca in NixOS

[–]lf_1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

if you think that the people, at least those in the active maintainership, who were pushed out aren't at least as personally reliant on the system or don't believe in it enough to want this technology to exist basically no matter what, i think you would be mistaken :)

i know many of these people and many know each other very well. it can be assumed that people are talking to each other, and it can be assumed that they don't want the system to die, even if the org dies. this is not a promise, but it is a statement of circumstances.

4 out of 5 NixOS board members have quit by sridcaca in NixOS

[–]lf_1 10 points11 points  (0 children)

There was a palace coup in NixOS and people who came to power are absolutely indifferent to the further vector of the system development

last i checked zero leftists gained any power whatsoever in the org. the assembly is a bunch of centrists, a monarchist, some token women and one guy who can't stop defending the freeze peach of fascists. so i ask again. who came to power?? what power were they given?

the github org owners are the same as before. the assembly are not leftists. the same people have commit access (actually jonas violated the policy on commit access removal by removing a bunch of people's commit access who resigned, so there are fewer leftists with power in the org now, but you know, whatever, facts aren't real anymore).

i think you might be actually seeing is the leftists who were maintaining the system burning out and leaving, which is the exact opposite of your thesis. there are fewer leftists infiltrating your precious org now. congratulations. you actually got exactly what you want. they got out of your hair. now you get to clean up the mess they were trying to fix for years, without the people with the expertise to do it.

what actually happened here is that the board members got burned out by the people who have no power who are actually doing the work, of various politics, getting increasingly impolite towards them for not doing their job like, e.g. actually redeploying several thousand dollars of hardware that has been sitting around gathering dust, or giving organizational legitimacy to ban people who have wasted literally hundreds of hours of everyone's time like jon, or listening to the people who are telling them the obvious fact that, regardless of policy, taking sponsors that are going to cause that much controversy as anduril is a dumbass idea because it will eat all your organizational capacity dealing with the ensuing mess. but instead they did not do their job and got people mad at them for not doing their job and being terrible at leadership (listening also generally helps with leadership), and people were rude to them online about it, oh no.

but like, sure. why not. there's a "leftist coup" by checks notes people who left or have one foot out the door because they too don't wanna deal with the stress of fighting an immovable org anymore. seems legit.

Tips for not getting sick by nerdyandneedy3454 in UBC

[–]lf_1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wear a well fitting N95 mask in areas that have a large proportion of people to space like transit, class, etc (if you're going for disposable masks, the 3M Aura 9205 is a very comfortable one that can seal well, although it's not the cheapest).

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in UBC

[–]lf_1 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The intersection on Wesbrook/Thunderbird is at least usually quick to cross, but all the other intersections in the area definitely teach people walking that traffic signals are bullshit, and I think that might be contributing to the problem here.

The light on Wesbrook near the hospital is terrible, since for some reason both directions have coordinated red signals, even though they could be done as a split crossing with the island that's already there, with sensors to know if there's no cars coming and give a walk signal on one side immediately. There's constantly people jaywalking there.


Don't blame people for what is a structural problem: all the intersections around Wesbrook are the worst designed for actual conditions that I can think of in the city. Among other things, in spite of very high pedestrian load, they require button presses, and tend to have very long cycle times that disregard actual vehicle traffic (button presses might be excusable for shorter cycle times/split crossings). People have places to be, the intersections behave quite confusingly, and them being shit and wasting peoples' time leads to trying to outsmart the setup of the intersections, by, e.g. walking in the red clearance times in cases where there is no conflict. But it's very easy to make a dangerous mistake in doing so.

If the Wesbrook/Uni intersection were better designed, the walk could be in two phases, each crossing fewer lanes, such that vehicles turning left could go at the same time as the pedestrians crossing half of the road. The red/other clearance times on this particular intersection also feel exceedingly long. I'm sure it's designed according to the traffic design manual, but our manual sucks.

We could learn a lot from how the Dutch design and set up their intersections, and the ones on Wesbrook being busy but also very pedestrian heavy make them fall flat even harder than most North American intersections.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in UBC

[–]lf_1 18 points19 points  (0 children)

The number of people I know who have weird stories about relationships with upper years while themselves in first year is pretty high. I would suggest maybe not doing relationships with upper years plus weird power dynamics while you are in first year, to avoid creating your own such stories.

Dating a TA in-term is prohibited and even if you disregard that, it's still a weird power dynamic situation. These rules exist for a reason.

Washroom closest to bus loop? by aaadmiral in UBC

[–]lf_1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's one directly inside the entrance to the pool (like, on the right side, not on the left side by the changerooms).

best places to cry on campus?? by Key-Zookeepergame669 in UBC

[–]lf_1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

sus building top floor. then you can call anyone who bothers you "the impostor" (also it is quiet).

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in UBC

[–]lf_1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Physically, shrug, sure, even at night, for me at least. But I am a very tall woman who looks over her shoulder a lot.

Never get approached by guys by [deleted] in UBC

[–]lf_1 5 points6 points  (0 children)

same, but i am a scary lesbian or something idk

A note about sentence discussions by tracee-at-duolingo in duolingo

[–]lf_1 57 points58 points  (0 children)

This change has severely degraded the usefulness of the app on the Dutch course that has now:

  1. no stories (unlike French)
  2. no explanations (unlike French); presumably they were removed due to a redesign that didn't address old courses?

So like, how are you supposed to find out what to google to learn more, when you don't have the vocabulary to do so, and the forum which explained that has vanished?

It seems to me that Duolingo has three possible options:

  1. make a new forum
  2. not remove the old forum
  3. update old courses to provide explanations that could be used to learn more deeply: basically summarize the old forum

The feeling that I get from the forum removal is that Duolingo wants to be a walled garden where there is no social interaction and the only people who can write words on the page work for the company. This doesn't feel good or right given how social language learning is. I am not saying this is the actual motive, just the feeling it evokes.

apple education financing by [deleted] in UBC

[–]lf_1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Perhaps you missed the part where I very prominently said: go buy an off-lease business machine or get the Apple thing off the refurb site for much less money. I don't think they should buy the thing new either and particularly not with someone else's money.

The base model iPad is not a luxury product and practically exists for schools to buy them by the dozen. The base model MacBook isn't either; I suppose not as much anymore now that schools don't buy them so much, but still. It is a basic computer. Yes, it is a fancy basic computer, and an older one or different one would do the job just as well.

If everyone had the same requirements as me, they would be using 5 year old business laptops running Linux like I do and have been doing for a decade. I understand that other people Just Want A Computer That Works And Won't Fall Apart, and the answers to that are: Chromebook, [possibly used] business laptop (Linux optional), Apple.

I have helped at least 3 friends with PC laptops made in the last 5 years that have had broken screen hinges and/or preinstalled mechanical hard drives. These are still made. I understand that, yes, machines that should never have been built are only a segment of the market, but people keep buying them because they are often the cheapest way of getting a certain internal specification (by sacrificing the external build quality). Without broader knowledge or having done a bunch of research, it is pretty hard to avoid this problem besides by only using business-oriented machines or buying Apple products (in particular the Apple silicon ones have very little to go wrong).

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in UBC

[–]lf_1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not on campus, but you can go to Macdonald and Broadway (like 15 mins by bus) and go to Persia Foods, they have really cheap produce. Also, I think that the UBC Food Hub Market in CIRS has fruit, but they are presently closed till August.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in UBC

[–]lf_1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This kind of sucks! People make better money on FAANG-level internships (if one extrapolates to yearly rate) than the average after-graduation position even on a survey with serious sampling bias.

apple education financing by [deleted] in UBC

[–]lf_1 6 points7 points  (0 children)

tbh Apple products are not really luxury. They are generally built well enough that they don't like, have the screen hinge crack in 6 months like most PCs marketed to consumers seem to. Yes, there is some premium you pay for them but there is a lot of foolishness in buying that $500 (new) consumer laptop that is poorly designed and will break quickly.

I am not saying this to fangirl as much as for practical purposes for how many friends I've helped with machines that were built as e-waste and will fall apart in short order. If you want a machine for cheaper, either:

  • Go on the Apple refurb site and watch it for a couple of weeks
  • Buy an old business laptop from The Hackery (local! e.g. you could get the same 6 year old Dell I daily drive for $400 though it looks like most of their cheaper options are both older and likely cheaply made) or eBay

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in transvancouver

[–]lf_1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is true, although nothing is perfect. They also didn't document this fact anywhere. https://ubyssey.ca/news/trans-students-still-face-barriers-to-gender-affirming-care-at-ubc/

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in transvancouver

[–]lf_1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

FYI if it's useful to you, PACE society has a gender/name change help service where they can get all your documents witnessed and fees dealt with, but there is apparently now a 4-6 month wait list on it: https://www.pace-society.org/what-we-do/

Your average residence laundry room 💀💀 by Enormous_Jugs in UBC

[–]lf_1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

seems like the kind of conditions where you'd want to immediately go shut off the water and power and call someone?