You have all your devices attached to a console server with a serial port console set up on the serial port, and if they support accessing the BIOS via a serial console, that enabled so that you can access that remotely, right? Either a dedicated hardware console server, or some server on your network with a multiport serial card or a USB to multiport serial adapter or something like that, right? So that if networking fails on one of those other devices, you can fire up minicom or similar on the serial console server and get into the device and fix whatever’s broken?

Oh, you don’t. Well, that’s probably okay. I mean, you probably won’t lose networking on those devices.

You have remote power management set up for the systems in your homelab, right? A server set up that you can reach to power-cycle other servers, so that if they wedge in some unusable state and you can’t be physically there, you can still reboot them? A managed/smart PDU or something like that? Something like one of these guys?

Oh. You don’t. Well, that’s probably okay. I mean, nothing will probably go wrong and render a device in need of being forcibly rebooted when you’re physically away from home.

You have squid or some other forward http proxy set up to share a cache among all the devices on your network set up to access the Web, to minimize duplicate traffic?

And you have a shared caching DNS server set up locally, something like BIND?

Oh. You don’t. Well, that’s probably okay. I mean, it probably doesn’t matter that your devices are pulling duplicate copies of data down. Not everyone can have a network that minimizes latency and avoids inefficiency across devices.

All of those systems in your homelab…they aren’t all pulling down their updates multiple times over your network link, right? You’re making use of a network-wide cache? For Debian-family systems, something like Apt-Cacher NG?

Oh. You’re not. Well, that’s probably okay. I mean, not everyone can have their environment optimized to minimize network traffic.

You have an intrusion detection system set up, right? A server watching your network’s traffic, looking for signs that systems on your network have been compromised, and to warn you? Snort or something like that?

Oh. You don’t. Well, that’s probably okay. I mean, probably nothing on your network has been compromised. And probably nothing in the future will be.

All of your systems are set up, but are they capable of being redeployed using a configuration management software package? Ansible or something like that?

Oh. They’re not. Well, that’s probably okay. I mean, you could probably go manually reproduce configurations, more or less.

logging is probably down

You do, of course have a dedicated rsyslogd server? An isolated system to which logs are sent, so that if someone compromises another one of your systems, they can’t wipe traces of that compromise from those systems?

Oh. You don’t. Well, that’s okay. Not every lab can be complete. That Raspberry Pi over there in the corner isn’t actually doing anything, but it’s probably happy where it is. You know, being off, not doing anything.

ping spikes

If you’re talking about the game-server time, I’d want to isolate that to the WiFi network first, to be sure that it’s not something related to the router-ISP connection or a network issue even further out. You can do something like run mtr (which does repeated traceroutes) to see at what hop the latency starts increasing. Or leave ping running pinging your router’s IP address, the first hop you see if you run a traceroute or mtr. If it’s your WiFi connection, then the latency should be spiking specifically to your router, at the first hop, and you might see packet loss. If it’s an issue further down the network, then that’s where you’ll start seeing latency increase and packet loss.

You might need to install mtr — I don’t know whether Fedora has it installed by default.

Please help. I don’t want to go beneath house to run cat6. It’s dark and there are spiders.

Honestly, I think that everyone should use wired Ethernet unless they need their device to be able to move around, as it maintains more-consistent and lower network latency, provides higher bandwidth, and keeps the Ethernet traffic off the air; 2.4 GHz is used for all sorts of other useful things, like gamepad controllers (I have a Logitech F710 that uses a proprietary 2.4GHz protocol, and at some point, when some other 2.4GHz device showed up, it caused loss of connectivity for a few seconds, which was immensely frustrating). And you have interference from stuff like microwaves and all that at the same frequency range. Avoids some security issues; we’ve had problems discovered with wireless protocols.

But, all right. I won’t lecture. It’s your network.

If you think that it’s Fedora and maybe your driver is at fault, one thing you might check is your kernel logs. If the driver is hitting some kind of problem and then recovering by resetting the interface, that might cause momentary drop-outs. After it happens, take a gander at $ journalctl -krb which will show your kernel log for the current boot in reverse order, with the most-recent stuff up top. If you have messages about your wireless driver, that’d be pretty suspicious.

If the driver is at fault, I probably don’t have a magic fix, unless you want to try booting into an older kernel, which may still be viable; if you still have it installed and GRUB, the bootloader that Linux distros typically use, is set up to show your list of kernels at boot, then you can try choosing that older kernel and see if it works with your newer distro release and if the problem goes away. I don’t know if Fedora defaults to showing such a list or hides it behind some splash screen; it used to do so, but I haven’t used Fedora in quite some years. You might want to whack Shift or an arrow key during boot to get boot to stop at GRUB. If you discover that it’s a regression in the driver, I’d submit a bug report (“no problems with kernel version X, these messages and momentary loss of connectivity with kernel version Y”) which would probably help get it actually fixed in an update.

You might also try just using a different wireless Ethernet interface, like a USB wireless Ethernet interface, and seeing if that magically makes it go away. Inexpensive USB interfaces are maybe $10 or $15. I’d probably look for some indication that it’s a driver problem before doing that.

I care less about speakerphone than I do Bluetooth headsets or regular phone speaker use near me.

The speakerphone makes more noise!

Yes, but people already have conversations between each other in public where we can hear both sides. We train ourselves to tune those out. A speakerphone is analogous to that case of another human talking.

What I find most disruptive about phone conversations near me versus listening to two other people talking (which I can tune out) is that the speech pattern of a phone user is to say something and then pause. The problem is that that is exactly the signal that someone has said something to you, and that your attention is required. I have a harder time ignoring those one-sided conversations than turning out a conversation where I can hear both sides, because it’s basically constantly giving my head the “you just missed something and need to respond” signal. It’s like when someone says something to you, waits for a few seconds, and then your attention gets triggered and you look up and say “what?”

Now, the article does also reference someone turning a speakerphone way up, and that I can get, if you’re playing it louder than a human would speak. But that’s also kinda a special case.

I think that in general, the best practice is to text, and I think that most would agree that that’s uncontroversially the best approach in public. But after that, I’d personally prefer to have speakerphone use, above headset or regular phone use.

EDIT: One interesting approach — I mean, smartphone vendors would always like to have new reasons to sell more hardware, so if they can figure out how to make it work, they might jump on it — might be phones capable of picking up subvocalization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization

Subvocalization, or silent speech, is the internal speech typically made when reading; it provides the sound of the word as it is read.[1][2] This is a natural process when reading, and it helps the mind to access meanings to comprehend and remember what is read, potentially reducing cognitive load.[3]

This inner speech is characterized by minuscule movements in the larynx and other muscles involved in the articulation of speech. Most of these movements are undetectable (without the aid of machines) by the person who is reading.[3]

You’d probably also need some sort of speech synthesizer rig capable of converting that into speech.

A conversation where someone’s using headphones/earbuds and a subvocalization-pickup phone would avoid some of the limitations of texting (not limited to text input speed on an on-screen keyboard or having to look at the display), provide for more privacy for phone users, and not add to sound pollution affecting other people in the environment.

EDIT2: Other possibilities for the speaker side:

Bone conduction

This has actually been done, but has some limitations on the sound it can produce, and you need to have a device in contact with your head.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_conduction

Bone conduction is the conduction of sound to the inner ear primarily through the bones of the skull, allowing the hearer to perceive audio content even if the ear canal is blocked. Bone conduction transmission occurs constantly as sound waves vibrate bone, specifically the bones in the skull, although it is hard for the average individual to distinguish sound being conveyed through the bone as opposed to the sound being conveyed through the air via the ear canal. Intentional transmission of sound through bone can be used with individuals with normal hearing—as with bone-conduction headphones—or as a treatment option for certain types of hearing impairment. Bones are generally more effective at transmitting lower-frequency sounds compared to higher-frequency sounds.

The Google Glass device employs bone conduction technology for the relay of information to the user through a transducer that sits beside the user’s ear. The use of bone conduction means that any vocal content that is received by the Glass user is nearly inaudible to outsiders.[47]

Phase-array speakers to produce directional sound

Here, you need to have the device track its position and orientation relative to a given user’s ears, then have a phase array of speakers that each play the sound at just the right phase offset to produce constructive interference in the direction of the user’s ears — it’s beamforming with sound. Other users will have a hard time hearing the sound, which will be garbled and quieter, because of destructive interference in their direction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamforming

Beamforming or spatial filtering is a signal processing technique used in sensor arrays for directional signal transmission or reception.[1] This is achieved by combining elements in an antenna array in such a way that signals at particular angles experience constructive interference while others experience destructive interference. Beamforming can be used at both the transmitting and receiving ends in order to achieve spatial selectivity. The improvement compared with omnidirectional reception/transmission is known as the directivity of the array.

We more-frequently use this for reception than for transmission, with microphone arrays, but you can make use of it for transmission. You’ll need a minimum number of speakers in the array to be able to play beams of sound with constructive interference in the direction of a given number of listeners.

Should have been more clear about the remote part. The systems operate remotely from me, I can access them via the internet. The users need to use the screen to operate it. This is just a windows 11 computer after all.

Ah, okay. So then they aren’t getting any video display from the BIOS when the problem comes up. Okay, yeah, then that’s pretty convincing that it’s early in the boot process. So, yeah, OS probably isn’t a factor.

But 0 packets are getting sent from the computer. I believe those are ARP, but the router page doesnt define it. Just has a table with packets in and packets out. Packets going in will usually have a couple from the router. Always 0 with packets coming out. Theres actually a ping function built into the router, and that doesnt respond at all.

Okay. So, strictly-speaking, “frames” are what one calls things at the Ethernet level, and “packets” at the IP level, so if one assumes that the router page is actually being technically-correct, it’s possible that the computer is still doing things at the Ethernet level. But, yeah, gotcha.

considers

Well, let’s see. This is kinda more at the brainstorming level. You said that you stuck the thing in a fridge, so I’m assuming that the user is at a colder-than-normal situation, not warmer. I guess you’ve got:

Temperature. You said that you tried that. If it’s colder than normal specifically around the time that the problem shows up, you might also consider humidity – if it’s high humidity, then condensation inside electrical devices can be a problem. Like, especially if this thing is outside and you’re getting (electrically-conductive) dew forming on surfaces in the morning or something like that, that can wreak havoc on electrical devices. I don’t know what the best way to diagnose that would be. A hygrometer will tell you the relative humidity. If it’s in the open, maybe leave a small space heater aimed at the system, which should produce lower-humidity air where the air is warmer than the surrounding air, and see if the issue goes away. If it’s in an enclosed space, maybe run a dehumidifier.

You’ve got the possibility of problems coming in from your external electrical lines — you have at least serial, power, and networking going into that machine. You might try, for troubleshooting purposes, if it arises again, having the user pull all of the lines connected to external stuff other than power, including the Ethernet cable and that serial thing, and seeing if it becomes impossible to reproduce then.

You said that some motor was involved. If you’re talking some kind of industrial setup with other machinery around, I guess something could theoretically be emitting some kind of strong electrical field that creates problems. I’ve never heard of a situation where a PC won’t work because of that, but I’d imagine that it’s possible.

I once recall hearing about a situation at a company I was working at where our support people had problems with vibration in a customer’s environment affecting the device — they couldn’t reproduce the problem back at the company. That took them some time to work out.

Some of that’s pretty exotic, but if you’re just looking for potential leads to consider, that’s all that immediately comes to mind.

OpenAI exec highlights the rising importance of AI compute in tech job compensation.

In other news, Roblox executive thinks that having companies pay employees partly in Robux would be a great idea.

I don’t presently need to use any service that requires use of a smartphone. I’ve never had a smartphone tied to a Google/Apple account. I don’t even think that I currently have any apps from the Google Store on my phone — just open-source F-Droid stuff.

It’s true that hypothetically, you could depend on a service that does require you to use an Android or iOS app to make use of it. There are services that do require that there. Lyft, for example, looks like it requires use of an app, though Uber doesn’t appear to do so. And I can’t speak as to your specific situation, but at least where I am, in the US, I’ve never needed to use an Android or iOS app to make use of some class of service.

But I will say that services will track what people use, and if people are continuing to use other interfaces than smartphone apps to make use of their services, that makes it more likely that that’s what they’ll provide.

I can’t promise that somewhere in the world, or in some country or city or specific place, someone might be required to use an Android or iOS app, or if not now, down the line, and not have an alternative. They can, at least, limit their use to that app, rather than using it more-broadly. I don’t make zero use of my smartphone software now — like, when I’m driving, I’ll use the open-source OSMAnd to navigate. I sometimes check for Lemmy updates when waiting in line or similar. I don’t normally listen to music while just walking around, but if I did, I’d use a music player on the phone rather than a laptop for it. But I try to shift my usage to the laptop as much as is practical.

I don’t intend to get rid of my smartphone, but I do carry a larger device with me, and try to use the phone increasingly as just a dumbphone and cell modem for that device to tether to.

That may not be viable for everyone — it’s not a great solution to “I’m standing in line and want to use a small device one-handed”. And iOS/Android smartphones are heavily optimized to use very little power, and any other devices mean more power. It probably means carrying a larger case/bag/backpack of some sort with you. And most phone software is designed to know about and be aware of cell network constraints, like acting differently based on whether you’re connected to a cell network for data or a WiFi network for data.

However, it doesn’t require shifting to a new phone ecosystem. It also makes any such future transition easier — if I have a lot of experience tied up in Android/iOS smartphone software, then there’s a fair bit of lock-in, since shifting to another platform means throwing out a lot of experience in that phone software. If my phone is just a dumbphone and a cell modem, then it’s pretty easy to switch.

And it’s got some other pleasant perks. Phone OSes tend to be relatively-limited environments. They’re fine for content consumption, like watching YouTube or something, but they’re considerably less-capable in a wide range of software areas than desktop OSes. A smartphone has limited cooling; laptops are significantly more-able to deal with heat. Due to very limited physical space, smartphones usually have very few external connectors — you probably get only a single USB-C connector, and no on-phone headphones jack. You’re probably looking at a USB hub or adapters and rigging up pass-through power if you want anything else. Laptops normally have a variety of USB connectors, a headphones jack, maybe a wired Ethernet connector, maybe an external display jack. Laptops tend to have a larger battery, so it’s reasonable to use the laptop to power external devices like trackballs/larger trackpads, keyboards, etc. You get a larger display, so you don’t have to deal with the workarounds that smartphones have to do to make their small screens as usable as possible. You don’t have to deal with the space constraints that make a touchscreen necessary, having your fingers in front of whatever you’re looking at (though you can get larger devices that do have touchscreens, if you want). You have far more choices on hardware, and that hardware is more-customizable (in part because the hardware likely isn’t an SoC, though you can get an SoC-based laptop if you want). Software support isn’t a smartphone-style “N years, tied to the phone hardware vendor, at which point you either use insecure software or throw the phone out and buy a new one”.

He says that he doesn’t like the official software.

This particular port drives a DC motor. Power is injected to drive the motor.

On one hand, that does sound suspicious. It’s an external factor and it’s unusual.

But on the other hand, you said that having it not plugged in doesn’t consistently see the thing working, which doesn’t really mesh with what I’d expect if it’s the cause.

You can get optical isolators for serial ports. Those basically run the signal into an LED and then to another LED, which keeps two separate isolated electrical system; those will eliminate ground loops. I haven’t looked into them for serial ports, but I was looking at hooking up a breadboard to USB at one point, and there it seems to be kinda a best practice for USB device development work, to keep any mistakes from damaging a connected computer system.

https://www.amazon.com/rs232-isolator/s?k=rs232+isolator

In your case, it sounds like you are also using the serial port as a power supply, so you might want something that can provide external power:

https://www.amazon.com/External-powered-Repeater-Mini-size-PhotoElectric-Full-line/dp/B00GI9GRMC

It might also be possible to use an isolation transformer, which would be simpler and possibly cheaper. That would, I believe, provide ground isolation without providing protection against more exotic things, like a short in your external device frying a serial controller. I’ve used isolation transformers for coax TV to avoid ground loops, so I imagine that it must be possible to have them handle serial port speeds. But when I search for “RS-232 isolation”, everything I see seems to be opto-electric.

If you can change the serial port being used, maybe also use a different serial port interface, like a USB serial interface.

Hmm. First, I’m a little fuzzy on the symptoms. To clear that up:

You say “that operate remotely”, which sounds like it’s a headless server, but you also say “there is no issues with the monitor”. Do you mean that they attached a monitor to a video output and that they could see video display?

You have:

We’re unable to access the bios when the computer stops working.

Like, is this via a video output, serial port, or some kind of dedicated hardware management system?

As to troubleshooting, when you say “no packets”, and since it sounds like you have access to and familiarity with the router, you mean not even stuff like ARP? Like, it’s not “I’m not pinging anything”, but “no Ethernet frames have reached the router on that port?”

I’m…a little confused about you saying that the NIC is negotiating speed, because I’d have thought that on typical systems, a NIC wouldn’t be doing that until the OS is up and tells the NIC to become active. But it sounds from your systems like whatever is happening is happening pretty early in the boot process, before the OS or even bootloader is doing anything. Do you have the BIOS set up to make use of the NIC in some way, like using DHCP or BootP or something to do network booting?

EDIT: Or wake-on-LAN?

EDIT2: Because if you do, and don’t actually need wake-on-LAN or network booting functionality, I’d think that I’d try turning it off to see whether the issue might vanish.

I’ve never used it, but:

https://github.com/Vidi0/scratch-io

Says that it’s a Rust-based command-line client, which is probably the sort of thing that I’d use myself, if I were on the hunt for a client, sorta analogous to lgogdownloader for GOG.

Note that it says:

Due to how the itch.io API works, it is not possible to update a game in-place. To update a game, you must remove it and install it again.

Relevant:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forge_(software)

If companies are going to place increasing reliance on review due to having lower-quality submissions, then they should probably evaluate employees weighting review quality (say, oh, rate of bugs subsequently discovered in reviewed commits or something like that).

Yeah, there’s some nuclear power plant here in the US that uses sewage for cooling. It’s out in the middle of the desert, Arizona or New Mexico or something, somewhere where it’d be a pain to bring in a bunch more water.

searches

Arizona.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_Station

The Palo Verde Generating Station is a nuclear power plant located near Tonopah, Arizona[5] about 45 miles (72 km) west of downtown Phoenix. Palo Verde generates the second most electricity of any power plant in the United States per year, and is the second largest power plant by net generation as of 2021.[6] Palo Verde has the third-highest rated capacity of any U.S power plant. It is a critical asset to the Southwest, generating approximately 32 million megawatt-hours annually.

At its location in the Arizona desert, Palo Verde is the only nuclear generating facility in the world that is not located adjacent to a large body of above-ground water. The facility evaporates water from the treated sewage of several nearby municipalities to meet its cooling needs. Up to 26 billion US gallons (~100,000,000 m³) of treated water are evaporated each year.[12][13] This water represents about 25% of the annual overdraft of the Arizona Department of Water Resources Phoenix Active Management Area.[14] At the nuclear plant site, the wastewater is further treated and stored in an 85-acre (34 ha) reservoir and a 45-acre (18 ha) reservoir for use in the plant’s wet cooling towers.