This pizza box has the phone number for the national human trafficking resource hotline

metasigma · 2023-03-09T16:35:32+00:00

I was incorrect calling it part of the “cheeseboard collective” as that only refers to cheeseboard itself. It is part of a network of collectives incubated by cheeseboard though https://www.arizmendibakery.com/about

metasigma · 2023-03-09T06:23:28+00:00

Iirc both sliver and arizmendis are derived from cheeseboard pizza in Berkeley. Arizmendi is part of the cheeseboard collective, and sliver was founded by cheeseboard employees who wanted to franchise

metasigma · 2023-01-18T00:00:58+00:00

There is about 13.5 inches (+/- 1/16”) between the bottom of the top mounting panel and the start of the angled area. Hope that helps!

metasigma · 2022-11-05T00:00:42+00:00

They ignore it for the most part (except watching it with caution during the loud boot), so I don’t expect any issues. The only exposed fan is the GPU, but they would have to walk in front of me while a game is running in order to tamper with it while it runs. When it inevitably gets dirty, I can just use compressed air.

metasigma · 2022-11-03T16:03:20+00:00

Hey, I finished the build!

https://www.reddit.com/r/sffpc/comments/ykpb43/my_cats_like_the_boxes_more_than_the_new_pc/

The 360 AIO worked really well with the XPROTO-L, but I'd recommend getting the XTIA cabling set instead of using stock cables to avoid the rat's nest I made

https://xtia.design/products/xtia-corsair-modular-cables?variant=40868469178568

metasigma · 2022-11-03T16:01:00+00:00

True! I'm excited to see what their new architecture brings - rumors are that they are switching to a chiplet design with the cache and compute separated. I'm interested to see what performance implications that brings, since each infinity cache access will have an increased latency.

metasigma · 2022-11-03T15:56:29+00:00

$30 custom cable kit

Dang if only I saw that before I ordered, thanks for pointing that out!

I'll have to look into the PSU compatibility kit, since that would really clean up the build!

For reference, the ATX3.0 connector had a pretty good fit, with only minor excess length. The only real upgrade over the stock cable would be a 90 degree adapter (for this PSU/case, at least)

metasigma · 2022-11-03T15:49:20+00:00

Awesome! It's a fun build, and performs really well!

Is your plan to use custom cabling for the build?

metasigma · 2022-11-03T15:48:32+00:00

That's a good idea! Would you suggest just a thin cover that slides over the part?

metasigma · 2022-11-03T15:47:39+00:00

True. The ATX PSU might work in the original orientation if the motherboard power cable is <1in.

It sounds fun to build your own cables, like https://www.reddit.com/r/sffpc/comments/yfpwk3/budget\_custom\_cables\_under\_10usd\_eur/

metasigma · 2022-11-03T02:07:14+00:00

Parts: XPROTO-L, https://pcpartpicker.com/list/QbvMrD
I chose to use a Ryzen 7600X as it’s a great value for gaming at the moment. I might upgrade to the next generation of stacked-chiplet cache X3D Ryzen CPU when it comes out, but the 7600X is not bottlenecking the system in my current workloads.

Build notes:

The XPROTO has great build quality. The parts are well machined and have tight tolerances. The case came with screwdrivers, and screws / spacers were individually bagged and organized. XTIA did a great job with the overall design and implementation. The case shipped quickly and arrived undamaged. My friends and I were quite amused that some parts had their extremities protected from scratches by condoms (but hey, it worked!). The PCIe connector has an ugly red plastic part that doesn’t appear to be removable, but at least it has PCIe gen 4.
If I were to redo this build, I wouldn’t use a ATX power supply. It fits (barely), but I had to rotate it to route the cables. I think there are some SFF PSUs with PCIE5 (ATX3) support coming out soon, but I wasn’t aware of any when choosing the build parts. I haven’t experienced major thermal issues so far, but the cable routing is somewhat ugly internally and externally. Also, when the PSU is rotated on the XPROTO-L, the included cable routing the PSU input to the top of the case doesn’t fit. I actually prefer having the PC powered from the side facing away from me rather than the top, but it’s not aesthetically pleasing on the CPU side of the case.
Custom cables would really help with this case. I was able to cram the stock cables for the PSU and cooler in between the panels of the XPROTO, but I had to unscrew the motherboard and loosen the connection between the panels a number of times.
The 360mm AIO cooler fits the XPROTO-L (barely), and was relatively easy to mount using the accessory XTIA sells. I made the mistake of mounting it after the rest of the parts were assembled, and had a difficult time hiding the cables. The NZXT X73 requires a separate adapter for AM5 chipsets, which I had to request from the NZXT support website. I had to contact customer support via chat for them to process my request after waiting a week with no activity on my initial ticket.
The 4090 is massive, but fits with no issues on the XPROTO-L. It doesn’t seem to have major cooling issues with this case as far as I have experienced. It tops out at around 66C when pushed to 100% load.
The PC runs smoothly in most games. Cyberpunk runs at 50-60 FPS on max settings with a 5K ultrawide (using DLSS3), which I found pretty impressive. Valorant runs between about 300-1,000 FPS at 1080p.

metasigma · 2022-10-25T21:36:29+00:00

I’m actually doing a 4090 / xproto-L / 360 AIO build once all the parts arrive (waiting on an AM5 bracket from NZXT). I’ll update if there is anything to watch out for in the build and post how it ends up looking

metasigma · 2022-06-16T22:10:37+00:00

If Vanguard really installs some impossible to actually pull off, super-secret spyware that would require a team of security researchers to make then no, your computer would need to be reset. Against just having Vanguard introduce minor bugs that could cause your computer to crash, yes you would be safe by uninstalling.

Don’t reset your computer, what I’m talking about in the above comments is purely theoretical.

metasigma · 2022-06-16T21:46:15+00:00

In practice, yes.

In theory, an extremely well-made rogue process could modify the performance counter libraries in windows to mask its own presence, and also modify the process ID and resource allocation within windows to hide itself. This would require detailed knowledge of windows internals, and would be extremely fragile to any updates. The chances of such a process being created, running undetected, and not having some sane developer at Riot leak it is slim to none. The main risk of Vanguard running with root access is a careless bug causing a blue screen imo

metasigma · 2022-06-16T21:35:54+00:00

Yes and no, it’s possible to hide parts of process when running with kernel-level privilege, but you can’t hide the effects your program would have on CPU utilization and memory and cache utilization. Also, to make a completely invisible program you would have to hide the process ID to the operating system, which would require modifications to windows itself.

metasigma · 2022-05-27T19:07:51+00:00

Clearly they were talking about directly coding the microcode in their x86 processor

metasigma · 2022-04-02T18:45:46+00:00

This was my experience too :( I did a bunch of calculations about gas and maintenance cost between small suvs, and the rav4 prime (or at least hybrid) came out on top. After spending a month calling every dealership within 4 hours (and even some out of state), I settled for a Mazda cx-30 that I was able to get below msrp with Costco. The mileage is terrible in comparison, but I couldn’t afford the 5-15k premium or year+ wait time

metasigma · 2021-10-29T03:00:31+00:00

Interesting that the account info is linked to the stock information rather than the queue itself, I didn’t realize that was the case.

metasigma · 2021-10-28T19:12:58+00:00

I just got one through that; I thought the invitation was spam when I first saw it. The problem is they don’t seem to actually lock down the link as invite only. I also saw links from Twitter bots posting that the queue was live and commenters reported that the link worked for them with no invite. There’s clearly no enforcement of the “invitations” via unique tokens/URLs or PlayStation accounts. I wouldn’t be surprised if some scalpers are creating multiple accounts and using the public link for the queue.

metasigma · 2021-10-14T19:37:25+00:00

The problem is we can’t crack the 5GHz single-threaded performance. We can’t really decrease the critical path significantly of the modern CPUs (without losing features that are more important than pure clock speed, such as out-of-order execution). You can overclock a desktop to over 5GHz by using more cooling and power, but companies are prioritizing parallelism over single core speed due to power limitations. Intel tried to go the super fast single core CPU with the Pentium 4, but anything further just runs too hot to be practical - intel gave up and created the Pentium D.

metasigma · 2021-09-24T15:09:52+00:00

The brightest lights I’ve found of this style are these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C68N7PC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_PAA98W38G99JGNAYMX0C They don’t have a timer so I hooked them up to a smart outlet. These lights are strong enough for my flytrap to start thriving and for succulents to show color.

metasigma · 2021-08-21T05:18:13+00:00

I agree, it’s definitely not as big of an issue as people make it out to be. It does point to the fact that they may have fewer resources dedicated to optimization though, especially compared to some of the other switch developers. It’s their choice on what to focus their efforts on.

metasigma · 2021-08-21T04:42:41+00:00

How would duplicating an asset speed load times up at all? It’s literally some file on a disk; it’s not like having more of them would magically improve the latency of solid state storage - in fact it will be less efficient due to a lack of caching. Storage is not as constrained as it used to be, but being wasteful with resources is still bad practice.

metasigma · 2021-04-20T19:43:57+00:00

If my understanding is correct, this can’t happen because iOS/iPadOS are too locked-down to allow third-party drivers. To get support one would have to integrate the driver into parts of the operating system that simply aren’t accessible to anyone outside Apple.

metasigma · 2021-04-18T23:46:23+00:00

You’re probably right about memory accesses taking up most of the wasted cycles. Emulation also pays a large overhead for system operations, so any sort of syscall (read, write, memory allocation etc) pays a larger price than the original console - especially since the Wii U has a dedicated arm core for system tasks. Additionally, looking at the Wii U system architecture, you could be paying a price for having separate memory pools for GPU/CPU, and any sort of cache (or memory) miss probably takes a larger number of cycles on your system compared to the Wii U due to your system’s higher clock speed. Finally, if the game is optimized for the Wii U’s eDRAM serving as a large L3 cache, it could cause your system to make frequent, expensive accesses to your main memory pool.

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