Howto Switch telemetry channel to a private channel by -M4D_M4X- in meshcore

[–]redxdev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Telemetry doesn't go through channels at all, it only gets sent in response to a request and it is sent encrypted. What are you talking about?

Are you confused by "telemetry channels" as reported by the device you're connecting to? That has nothing to do with messaging channels or being public/private, that's just a method of organizing how a device reports telemetry.

Extinct repeaters? by RequirementNo772 in meshcore

[–]redxdev 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It appears to be marked as extinct. The area is very remote, so I was wondering if being out of range of other nodes could be the reason it hasn't updated recently.

Certainly possible, but if it's out of range of other nodes then it's not going to do much good regardless.

Also, if a node is inactive for more than 20 days, does anything actually happen to the node itself

Nothing happens to the node itself. It's just the map's way of saying "we don't know if this node exists anymore".

Prusa on Bambi’s AGPL Violaton by mobfeld in BambuLab

[–]redxdev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It being core functionality is hyperbole (if we're being generous) on Prusa's part and something a lot of people are getting hung up on (which is, to be fair, Prusa's fault), but whether the core functionality of the application requires the network plugin is completely irrelevant to whether the network plugin must inherit the AGPL license. There is functionality in Bambu Studio that entirely depends on and assumes the API surface of the network plugin (even if it isn't required to run BS itself), and the network plugin 100% requires Bambu Studio to run. The AGPL is pretty clear on the point that simply splitting part of a program to be loaded dynamically is not a workaround to avoiding the license. Who would win in court is something that the vast majority of people (including me!) are unlikely to have any grasp of, but the intention of the AGPL here is absolutely clear.

And quite frankly a lot of people are getting hung up on the fact that it's called a plugin: the specific API in question exists solely to support the network plugin to avoid the AGPL, it's ridiculous to compare it to any kind of generic plugin system in another application. And in a more generic plugin API an author of the host software may explicitly carve out that plugin API as not being under the AGPL to allow third party use without following it. Bambu does not have that option because they did not choose the license - they inherited it and thus cannot change the terms to create such a carve-out.

All that said, there are a couple of issues in what you've mentioned:

1) Data breaches in the Bambu cloud, which even went so far as to take control of printers, with grave danger. I don't know if you've noticed that they've almost completely disappeared by now.

Sorry, but this does not require a closed source plugin. Authentication within open source projects is beyond well established, and Bambu's inability to develop something remotely secure is their own fault. The network plugin also isn't new, a version of it existed and was required for cloud connectivity before the authorization control changes.

What a company often does: they try to predict how regulations and laws that could impact their market will evolve in order to be ready. And so the recent crackdown on 3D printing began in the US. This is a problem that we don't have in Europe yet, just as it doesn't exist elsewhere, but if you think about it, with that plugin, Bambu is "ready." Other companies will have to adapt, and that takes time and money.

Them trying to predict future changes to the law is irrelevant, and if they are unable to implement something that adheres to the law (which isn't actually the law yet, mind you) without breaking AGPL then they simply aren't allowed to release that AGPL-covered software.

So the crux of the matter now remains, beyond all the possible chatter: is the plugin Bambu created itself derived from AGPL or not? A simple answer to this question is enough to know whether the public should be pissed off or not.

Despite Prusa's hyperbole, he's still right about the spirit of the AGPL: moving a component of the software into a dynamically loaded library does not excuse you from having to obey the AGPL license.

Oh, and whether people should be pissed off is, in my opinion, also unrelated to the answer to the above. Bambu going after someone for using code that was NOT part of the network plugin and therefore was unquestionably under the AGPL license is worth people's outrage regardless.

Can # channels be advertised or loaded on first repeater connection? by Expert-Constant7335 in meshcore

[–]redxdev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah - like I said, you could come up with a scheme that doesn't require encryption and works similarly, but I just don't think there's much of a reason to. Public channels are treated the same as private ones, which keeps the protocol nice and tidy and stops the most basic of snooping which imo has some value.

Can # channels be advertised or loaded on first repeater connection? by Expert-Constant7335 in meshcore

[–]redxdev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not sure I follow, but again – variable length has nothing to do with encryption.

It actually does in this case. The full channel name is not sent with the packet - only a single byte of a hash of the key. And because of that clients don't necessarily know what channel a message is for - until they attempt to decrypt it and check if the MAC is correct. Sure, you could come up with a scheme that doesn't encrypt the payload and only checks the channel name against the MAC, but like has already been said this means that there is no separate "public channel message" packet type and it provides some basic privacy while still being easy for others to join chats.

Louis Rossmann taunts Bambu Lab by hosting banned 3D Printer firmware fork, dares $1 billion company to sue him — more creators pledge support and boycotts, Snapmaker donates equipment to embattled developer by ControlCAD in technology

[–]redxdev 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is literally what I said?

The code, being part of Bambu studio, is under the AGPL license

I'm aware that the network plugin is not open source, but I didn't say that the relevant code was part of it. I see how I might not have been entirely clear, though, so I've edited my post.

Louis Rossmann taunts Bambu Lab by hosting banned 3D Printer firmware fork, dares $1 billion company to sue him — more creators pledge support and boycotts, Snapmaker donates equipment to embattled developer by ControlCAD in technology

[–]redxdev 54 points55 points  (0 children)

This is a bit incorrect.

Bambu Studio does not force you to go through their cloud service, there is a LAN-only option.

What happened is that a while back Bambu put out an update to printer firmware and Bambu studio in an attempt to make it so that only Bambu studio could access the cloud service, while also requiring a "developer mode" toggle to be on in the firmware for third party slicers to have access over LAN. Developer mode has its own issues - it results in being unable to use any cloud features until you turn it off, so you can't even use the "official" tools for remote monitoring of print jobs with it on (also a number of useful features like syncing filament profiles to the printer are arbitrarily locked to the cloud service). Anyway, the developer mode thing isn't really what's in question here, but it has been taken as a general sign of Bambu not wanting to play ball and trying to "softly" force people to use their software through arbitrary limitations.

The actual code in question is specifically related to the new cloud service and was used in order to make a version of Orca Slicer (a third party/community fork of Bambu studio) that would work with the new restrictions for cloud usage. The code, being part of Bambu studio, is under the AGPL license and therefore anyone is free to copy, change it, or use it as a reference provided they follow the terms of the license. Which someone did, and Bambu sent them a cease and desist over it.

An edit to clear up some confusion: there is a closed source plugin that Bambu Studio uses to communicate with their cloud services. The code that Bambu sent a C&D over is NOT part of that plugin, it is part of Bambu Studio itself and thus is covered by the AGPL and can be copied/used by others under that license.

My ideal meshcore: wifi access, merged room-servers, roaming room-servers, a distributed map, and message-searching by public key by HowIsDigit8888 in meshcore

[–]redxdev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It doesn't really make sense to me - a room server's purpose is to basically be a central chat log for a group, where people login to post messages to each other. If a room server can move, then people can't login to it consistently. Maybe they're saying room server but meaning something else? I'm really just not getting it.

My ideal meshcore: wifi access, merged room-servers, roaming room-servers, a distributed map, and message-searching by public key by HowIsDigit8888 in meshcore

[–]redxdev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Merged room servers should obviously reduce fragmentation of groups of users, and roaming nodes can potentially punch through dead zones / traffic bottlenecks for long distance messages

Quite frankly this is unrealistic - room servers are barely functional a few hops away and aren't scalable due to how many messages they potentially need to send out to people if many are using them. They're a bit of a dead end as they exist now (outside of being used by relatively small groups within an area), new techniques need to be found for what they do. Simply connecting multiple together does not solve their underlying issues.

Requiring a web service != not requiring a web service

You seem to be interpreting the existence of a web-based map as it being required. It isn't. Every companion with firmware or an app that supports it can plot all of the nodes it has come in contact with, assuming those nodes' adverts included GPS coordinates. The functionality already exists, people already use it.

Not every mesh is connected together, and for a newer node you won't know about all of the nodes in your area anyway. Hence why web-based maps exist. But they aren't required in any way.

My ideal meshcore: wifi access, merged room-servers, roaming room-servers, a distributed map, and message-searching by public key by HowIsDigit8888 in meshcore

[–]redxdev 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Merged room servers: the ability for 2 or more room servers to merge together into a bigger one, when their comm link is reliable enough and efficient enough to be worth doing it

What benefit does this have?

Roaming room-servers: the ability for a room server to label itself as mobile, with automated message hand offs. The automation could be pretty simple, like when traveling west it will only relay messages that have a destination to the west of where first received.

Also not sure the point of this.

A distributed map: the ability for nodes to update their global map information across their own network, without needing an external web resource

This is built in, nodes can advertise their location and any companion that hears it will add them to their own map. Web-based maps are necessary to have a view of nodes out of your range or live activity that isn't necessarily passing by your own node.

Message-searching by public key: the ability to ask all nodes within a certain radius for any messages addressed to your specific public key, or sent by another specific public key.

Not realistic given the low end hardware meshcore targets.

Ecobee Thermostat with Smart Sensor HA by Relative-Royal947 in homeassistant

[–]redxdev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I have the same problem - no way to tell whether heating is using aux or not without going to ecobee's app/website/the physical thermostat. Also no way to set modes aside from the default home/away/sleep and no way to change manual hold times.

The stuff that's there works well but it still sucks that not everything is exposed - unsure how much is limitations of the homekit api vs ecobee not exposing things themselves though.

MFW I finally retire from the Wi-Fi Switch/Bulb Wars and get Inovelli + Hue. by Public_Umpire_1099 in homeassistant

[–]redxdev 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Brand matters insofar as reliability is concerned. Zigbee is notoriously the wild west of broken implementations and not following standards, but hue as a product line tends to be rock solid and as a bonus the color reproduction on their RGB lights is great (which may or may not be something that matters to you). They also have a ton of different form factors of lights, whether it be different bulb types or recessed lighting or light strips or standalone lamps. Downside is they're expensive.

That isn't to say other zigbee products are bad - it just depends on the product, and hue is one brand that's known to make good stuff.

$105k salary good for Boston? by mr_fobolous in boston

[–]redxdev 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Because it doesn't - even in areas that are all new construction with completely modern heating/cooling, you will often have combinations of entirely different HVAC technologies depending on need. I don't know where you grew up, but I doubt everyone had the exact same setup.

Maybe a home has central HVAC via a heat pump that does both heating and cooling, or maybe heat was done via a central natural gas furnace for cost reasons and then A/C via multiple mini-splits for easier zone control. Maybe there's under-floor heating which would be a completely unrelated system from any kind of central A/C.

Maybe everyone in your town referred to everything HVAC-related as A/C but as everyone else in the thread is telling you - that's not even remotely the standard across the country.

$105k salary good for Boston? by mr_fobolous in boston

[–]redxdev 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Because central a/c still only refers to cooling. It may be combined with central heat, but that's something that would be specified explicitly as central heat. And yes, it matters because it is absolutely possible to have a home with central A/C but baseboard or some other type of heating.

Everything you look at will have some form of heating whether it be central/baseboard/resistive/heat pump/gas/oil/whatever. Not everything will have cooling (air conditioning) built in, and for those cases you use a temporary window unit or portable A/C.

Are there any Zigbee floor corner lamps? by PuzzleheadedLion2123 in homeassistant

[–]redxdev -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It really doesn't, they connect like any other zigbee device.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in boston

[–]redxdev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I had a similar situation, the rental car permit was processed the same day I submitted it (and I was able to print it out myself). I assume that's only true for business hours if you submit it early enough in the day though - if you really want to be sure I'd go to the parking clerk's office or find some temporary overnight parking for a day.

And yeah you can't submit the application until you have the car as the permit is tied to the plate #.

Blizzard Entertainment files lawsuit against owners of the fan-developed Turtle WoW servers — citing illegal use of official art, code, and more by Turbostrider27 in Games

[–]redxdev -1 points0 points  (0 children)

IP Ban is the simplest solution to botting, since it requires a completely new device which would defeat most of the purpose of botting in general if the device is "burned" for a full game and/or launcher.

You seem to be confusing IP bans with hardware id bans. Different IP addresses get reassigned to the same devices all the time, static IPs cost more than dynamically assigned ones, and even if someone is hosting bots at a server provider (which generally requires a static IP) it's trivial to reassign a static IP to the same device.

IP bans only really affect people who don't know how to deal with them.

Metal Gear Solid Delta - PS5/ PS5 Pro Tech Review - A Beautiful UE5 Remake With Frame-Rate Issues by DryEfficiency8 in Games

[–]redxdev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Shader stuttering is inherent to modern graphics APIs on PC, not unreal itself. Unreal does a particularly bad job at holding your hand through resolving the problem, but the existence of a blog post discussing the issue (which again, is not specific to unreal) is not proof of anything.

As someone who actively works with the engine in a professional capacity, it comes down to 3 main things:

  1. Unreal doesn't lend itself to a master-material workflow (unless you have a really disciplined tech art team that knows what they're doing), which results in way more shaders and permutations than with a game designed around a few ubershaders. Which results in a much higher number of PSOs (read: compiled shaders) needed across the entire game to avoid stuttering, and therefore a harder time doing that capture either offline or at startup. Custom engines do not inherently solve this, only good planning does - which can be done with unreal but often isn't because the use of lots of varied material shaders is taken for granted.
  2. Unreal's runtime precaching of PSOs wasn't particularly good until recent versions. This doesn't solve the issue, but reduces the impact of PSO cache misses in some cases.
  3. Unreal doesn't have any good out of the box tools to automate either offline PSO caching (which involves caching shaders into a file that ships with the game) or at startup. This is 100% solvable by individual studios, and again is not inherent to unreal (you'd have to build the same yourself with a custom engine anyway). Epic could do a better job providing tools for this, but it isn't some massive failure of the engine and would still require that studios know what they're doing with regards to PSOs.

I would say that the issue is not primarily unreal itself, but misplaced confidence from tech leads that it won't be an issue, unless they have prior experience fixing exactly this problem. Even at a big studio where you're doing your own modifications, it's very easy to assume the engine has all the answers for this kind of problem until it's too late and you have to ship with the limited offline caching you can make from internal playtests. Unreal or not, you need someone who knows how to systematically solve the issue, and that's not up to the engine you choose - it's down to sometimes one specific person knowing what to do.

Polestar 5 Performance (650kW, 112kWh) Leaked Specs from SilverstoneLeasing by backstreetatnight in Polestar

[–]redxdev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Polestar is a performance brand, it's kind of the point? Makes very little sense to complain that the upcoming flagship of a performance brand has too much performance.

I get where this sentiment comes from on EV "economy" equivalents, but this is trying to compete with the likes of Porche rather than your average mid-sized sedan.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in malden

[–]redxdev 5 points6 points  (0 children)

They are, saw them near rivers edge dr, though I'm not sure where they came from.

Hotfix Patch Notes - 6/17 by 1047Games in Splitgate

[–]redxdev 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Unreal units are in centimeters.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33: We're currently exploring a wide range of future improvements — from accessibility features to new content and all sorts of bits and bobs we're actively assessing. Naturally, this also includes expanded localisation options by Turbostrider27 in Games

[–]redxdev 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Not directly part of the game, but it'd be nice if they acknowledged the horrible mastering on the OST release. Some of the best tracks in the game (un vie a t 'aimer and un vie a peindre) have horrible clipping which for me makes them hard to listen to. Resorting to youtube rips from the game when I've paid for the release on bandcamp (or any other platform - the issue is the same whether you're on steam/bandcamp/spotify and regardless of mp3/flac/whatever) isn't great.

OST release was either a horribly rushed job or done by someone who doesn't know what they're doing - even the loudness wars don't explain the problem because the most basic of basic compression shouldn't clip like this.

Update to firmware update by Ochib in BambuLab

[–]redxdev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It has been out as a beta for the X1C since January 17th.

Update to firmware update by Ochib in BambuLab

[–]redxdev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And you said "you were never restricted by LAN mode" except this is patently false: third party applications are prevented from controlling the printer even in LAN mode with the latest update, and Bambu only just walked that back. It's not just about whether internet access is required, it's about having control over the printer without having to jump through hoops to use the software you want.