Tech myth debunk thread

[Anomnomnomaly]

2 hours ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

The most common myth I've seen is that RAID 1 and up is a backup.

technically, a mirrored array is a backup of the other drive... But I've had an array fail and never got any kind of warning or notification that it had failed... by the time we noticed it was too late to rebuild the array. So I replaced the array with a single SSD and a 2TB, and scheduled a regular backup. (this was on my folks PC years ago). Back then cloud backup wasn't really a big thing and was really expensive especially if trying to back up more than 5-10gb.

[dalekphalm]

27 minutes ago, Caroline said:

Oh I'm safe then, I sit at about 1m from it, idk how much inches is that

That’s about 40 inches - you’re totally fine. 

6 minutes ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

technically, a mirrored array is a backup of the other drive... But I've had an array fail and never got any kind of warning or notification that it had failed... by the time we noticed it was too late to rebuild the array. So I replaced the array with a single SSD and a 2TB, and scheduled a regular backup. (this was on my folks PC years ago). Back then cloud backup wasn't really a big thing and was really expensive especially if trying to back up more than 5-10gb.

Difference is that with an actual backup, you get versioning and a totally separate copy. 
 

with a mirror, a corrupted file (or malware infected, or accidental deletion) is immediately synced to the mirror, destroying the file. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

11 minutes ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

technically, a mirrored array is a backup of the other drive...

Technically

 

But backing up is being selective with your data. RAID1 will simply mirror everything. Including that malware you didn't really mean to get.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

...Difference is that with an actual backup, you get versioning and a totally separate copy. 
 

with a mirror, a corrupted file (or malware infected, or accidental deletion) is immediately synced to the mirror, destroying the file. 

Couldn't have said it better. Also, if something happens to the computer (PSU failure, theft, fire, etc.), your "backup" wil also be history. RAID is redundancy which will only protect from drive failure (up to a point). Drive failure is not the only cause of data loss.

 

For a backup to be a backup, it must be separate from the computer. If using backup drives, they must be separate from the computer, kept powered down, and disconnected from the computer at all times except while updating the backup.

[Drak3]

20 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Difference is that with an actual backup, you get versioning and a totally separate copy. 
 

with a mirror, a corrupted file (or malware infected, or accidental deletion) is immediately synced to the mirror, destroying the file. 

"An actual backup."

 

RAID 1 is an actual backup. It's just not the same vein of backup as a versioned library on a NAS. Instead, it's just a way of preventing a disk failure from causing significant down time. Right tool for the job, and all that.

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

The most common myth I've seen is that RAID 1 and up is a backup.

I still think that one is partially true in some situations. It only works at all if backup is not considered a binary. It’s a lot better than nothing, and if that’s the other option it gets a provisional “yes”.  Anyone dealing with business level stuff needs better though.  Home users only, and nothing they can’t live without.

[SolarNova]

Jumping in on the CRT pixel debate.

 

A digital image, be it a photo, a video, a game, text, etc,  is measured by its 'resolution', a 'resolution' is defined by the number of pixels. All digital images are stored, and made up of pixels.

 

A LCD has a 'static' 'physical' number of pixels. Going above or below this resolution results in interpolation of some form.

 

A CRT has no static defined number of physical pixels, HOWEVER its maximum 'fully resolved' 'resolution' is limited by its shadow mask. Going beyond the shadow mask resolution causes the image to start getting to bleed/get fuzzy/get softer starting from the edges of the screen moving inward.

It is possible to have a full resolved center screen and a slightly less resolved edge if one wants to go beyond the native shadow mask resolution slightly without negatively affecting the entire image.

E.G: the infamous FW900 has a native shadow mask Aperture Grill resolution of around 1920 x 1200 iirc, but many people run it at 2304 x 1440, technically thats not fully resolved, but the nature of CRT allows for such a resolution to still visually look better than at 1920x 1200.

 

Anyway, No CRTs don't 'HAVE' pixels, but they do 'display' in pixels , because the image is digital and thats what all digital images are ..pixels.

[Mira Yurizaki]

I suppose I could share a few things I encountered as  "practical tips", but aren't really necessary, are wrong, or some combination of the two.

• You need to uninstall/nuke the drivers using some program before updating drivers
  • You really don't. The installer typically overwrites what's already there.
• You can't boot Windows on one machine when the OS was installed on another
  • Modern OSes can figure out what hardware is installed and what drivers to load just fine.
• Windows doesn't know if it's on an HDD or an SSD
  • It can.
• You can get rid of the page file if you have enough RAM
  • The operative is "have enough RAM". You probably need to have a lot more than you think you need so as to not run into issues outside of applications potentially complaining there isn't a page file
• You should tweak with Windows Services and the Registry for optimal performance
  • This doesn't really do anything at best, at worst you may run into an issue where an application requires a service and the reason why it's not working isn't obvious.

I feel like there are more I've encountered, but I can't remember them.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

4 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

"An actual backup."

 

RAID 1 is an actual backup. It's just not the same vein of backup as a versioned library on a NAS. Instead, it's just a way of preventing a disk failure from causing significant down time. Right tool for the job, and all that.

The problem with that is it will protect only from drive failure. However drive failure is not the only cause of data loss. User error (such as accidental deletions), fire, flood, PSU failure frying the drives, viruses and other malware (especially ransomware), theft, power surges, etc. can all cause data loss.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

7 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

I still think that one is partially true in some situations. It only works at all if backup is not considered a binary. It’s a lot better than nothing, and if that’s the other option it gets a provisional “yes”.  Anyone dealing with business level stuff needs better though.  Home users only, and nothing they can’t live without.

Home users can also have important data on their computers. RAIDs above 0 only provide redundancy which only protects against drive failure (up to a point). However, drive failure is not the only cause of data loss.

[Bombastinator]

32 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

Jumping in on the CRT pixel debate.

 

A digital image, be it a photo, a video, a game, text, etc,  is measured by its 'resolution', a 'resolution' is defined by the number of pixels. All digital images are stored, and made up of pixels.

 

A LCD has a 'static' 'physical' number of pixels. Going above or below this resolution results in interpolation of some form.

 

A CRT has no static defined number of physical pixels, HOWEVER its maximum 'fully resolved' 'resolution' is limited by its shadow mask. Going beyond the shadow mask resolution causes the image to start getting wors,e starting from the edges of the screen moving inward.

It is possible to have a full resolved center screen and a slightly less resolved edge if one wants to go beyond the native shadow mask resolution slightly wihtout netativly affecting the entire image.

E.G: the infamous FW900 has a native shadow mask resolution of around 1920 x 1200 iirc, but many people run it at 2304 x 1440, technically thats not fully resolved, but the nature of CRT allows for such a resolution to still visually look better than at 1920x 1200.

 

Anyway, No CRTs don't 'HAVE' pixels, but they do 'display' in pixels , because the image is digital and thats what all digital images are ..pixels.

Heh. Fine points of language.  Yes and no?

How do you define an image?

 

What you are describing is called a rastor image.  Effectively a mosaic.

 

There is a lesser used kind though called a vector image, which is basically a lot of math describing a bunch of lines and curves. Basically all type for example is vector.  They have advantages and disadvantages. They’re often a lot smaller in storage size, and unlike Rastor images they can be scaled.  One of their big problems though is they can’t actually be displayed.  At all. You can look at the math that describes the image but unless you have a really special kind of brain (which I do not have) one can’t even imagine what it might look like.  To be imaged a vector image must be converted to rastor.  So they exist but you can’t see them.  You can have a vector based monitor, but the monitor converts vectors to rastor a on the fly.

 

Back in the day, long ago there was adobe photoshop and adobe illustrator, and the two did not meet. (I understand they do now) Photoshop was rastor only and illustrator was vector only.  Scaling photoshop images sucked because when you expanded them you got jaggies.  So if you wanted to make billboards you used illustrator.  The problem was that illustrator couldn’t do photos.  Photos are rastor.  So you got stuff that looked like it had been airbrushed.  If you wanted to do a photo on a billboard you had to place the photo IN the illustrator file keeping in mind the final size that the vector would be when it was rastorized.  They often got kinda big.

 

Are vector images real though?  You’re reading this aren’t you?  Every letter you are looking at (assuming you’re not using an amiga or something) is stored as a vector.  Do you have a GPU in your computer?  The whole and only job of that thing is to take vector images and rastorize them.  If vector images don’t exist why do you have a GPU?  It’s a definition of terms thing.

[Anomnomnomaly]

49 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

That’s about 40 inches - you’re totally fine. 

Difference is that with an actual backup, you get versioning and a totally separate copy. 
 

with a mirror, a corrupted file (or malware infected, or accidental deletion) is immediately synced to the mirror, destroying the file. 

Now you are trying to redefine what a 'backup' is... a backup in it's simplest form is a direct copy of the other. I was being a little pedantic, yet what I said was completely true... and now you're trying to move the goalposts to suit your 'specific' narrower requirement of 'backup' that agrees with your side of the debate.  

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

Now you are trying to redefine what a 'backup' is... a backup in it's simplest form is a direct copy of the other. I was being a little pedantic, yet what I said was completely true... and now you're trying to move the goalposts to suit your 'specific' narrower requirement of 'backup' that agrees with your side of the debate.  

In this case though, I would argue the point is what is the intent of making a copy? A backup typically has purpose, you want to have a contingency plan against data loss. Simply copying it may not have the same purpose. For example, I do CTRL + C on an image then paste it multiple times on Discord. Discord uploads each paste as a separate copy of the same image. Except it's not my intent to make these because I want a contingency plan against data loss, so it's not backing the image up.

 

You could argue that manslaughter and murder are the same thing because they both involve taking a human life. But for legal purposes they're not.

[Bombastinator]

17 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

Home users can also have important data on their computers. RAIDs above 0 only provide redundancy which only protects against drive failure (up to a point). However, drive failure is not the only cause of data loss.

True.  But asteroids can come screaming out of the sky and strike hardened Cold War era nuclear bunkers filled with servers.  Or someone can leave a door open during a hard rain.  Or a piece of malware can get in and destroy everything.  Nothing is 100% safe.  It’s not binary.  I do agree that raid +1 is on the squishy end of the continuum.  Way too squishy for a lot of levels of safety.

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

In this case though, I would argue the point is what is the intent of making a copy? A backup typically has purpose, you want to have a contingency plan against data loss. Simply copying it may not have the same purpose. For example, I do CTRL + C on an image then paste it multiple times on Discord. Discord uploads each paste as a separate copy of the same image. Except it's not my intent to make these because I want a contingency plan against data loss, so it's not backing the image up.

 

You could argue that manslaughter and murder are the same thing because they both involve taking a human life. But for legal purposes they're not.

Bad example.  Manslaughter is a kind of murder.  A subset.  I take your point though.

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Bad example.  Manslaughter is a kind of murder.  A subset.  I take your point though.

Murder and manslaughter are categorized under homicide as far as legalese is concerned.

[Bombastinator]

Just now, Mira Yurizaki said:

Murder and manslaughter are categorized under homicide as far as legalese is concerned.

They’re all homicides.  “Murders”.  Homicide is divided up into various categories but the term “murder” is not one of them. There is “murder 1 and murder 2” and “aggravated murder” 1 or 2, but they’re all subclasses and they do not sit by themselves as “murder”. It’s a language issue.  There is “murder” as a synonym for “homicide” and there is “murder X” as a subset of homicide.

[mr moose]

5 hours ago, tatte said:

CRT and pixels? There's a myth for you.

If you don't want to call the holes in a shadow mask pixels then by all means, but the fact is all CRT's have a physical resolution limit that cannot be exceeded because it cannot produce individual dots of light smaller than the shadow mask. 

 

EDIT: they also have physical limitation electrically, ever heard them whine and make hissing noises trying to create a resolution higher than the coils/drivers can handle?  They don't like it.

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

They’re all homicides.  “Murders”.  Homicide is divided up into various categories but the term “murder” is not one of them. There is “murder 1 and murder 2” and “aggravated murder” 1 or 2, but they’re all subclasses and they do not sit by themselves as “murder”. It’s a language issue.  There is “murder” as a synonym for “homicide” and there is “murder X” as a subset of homicide.

 

[MadAnt250]

49 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

the infamous FW900 has a native shadow mask resolution of around 1920 x 1200

The FW900 uses an aperture grill not a shadow mask,

 

Also for comedy, here is a myth: LCD monitors are better than CRT monitors in every way.

The answer is... False, most off the people who refuse to believe or try not to understand this are more likely to buy a smart-toaster and pay $10 per month for a subscription to listen to AM/FM radio.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

41 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

True.  But asteroids can come screaming out of the sky and strike hardened Cold War era nuclear bunkers filled with servers.  Or someone can leave a door open during a hard rain.  Or a piece of malware can get in and destroy everything.  Nothing is 100% safe.  It’s not binary.  I do agree that raid +1 is on the squishy end of the continuum.  Way too squishy for a lot of levels of safety.

I totally agree nothing is 100% safe. That's why when I recommend that data exists in three separate places--on the computer, on an onsite external backup drive, and on an offsite external backup drive--I say it's to ensure data is reasonably safe. Asteroid and meteor strikes are not likely even though they have happened (offsite backups may also be able to protect from those depending on the size of the object, where it hits, and how far away the offsite backup is). Leaving a door open in the rain (or have a major roof leak, such as when my neighbor's roof caved in during a rain) or getting malware is far more common. If done correctly, backups can protect against data loss from malware. Get ransomware? Wipe the computer drives, then restore from a backup.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, SolarNova said:

Jumping in on the CRT pixel debate.

 

A digital image, be it a photo, a video, a game, text, etc,  is measured by its 'resolution', a 'resolution' is defined by the number of pixels. All digital images are stored, and made up of pixels.

 

A LCD has a 'static' 'physical' number of pixels. Going above or below this resolution results in interpolation of some form.

 

 

Just to muddy this.

 

I have a 4K screen. It runs at 200% scale. So the question is, do I have a 3840x2160 pixels displaying 1920x1080 pixels or do I have 3840x2160 pixels displaying 3840x2160 pixels that has been scaled up? For those who haven't used HiDPI screens, the latter is truer. If I run something that has native 4K, it's running 4K, not 1080p HD. YET

 

I have a 1920x1080 screen cloning the 4K screen because it's a display tablet. So follow the logic here, It's a 1080p screen cloning 4K resolution at 200%. So "subpixel" rendering is what is going on here, but it's kinda just hilarious since it's the inverse effect of running 1080p on 4K.

[Bombastinator]

41 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

I totally agree nothing is 100% safe. That's why when I recommend that data exists in three separate places--on the computer, on an onsite external backup drive, and on an offsite external backup drive--I say it's to ensure data is reasonably safe. Asteroid and meteor strikes are not likely even though they have happened (offsite backups may also be able to protect from those depending on the size of the object, where it hits, and how far away the offsite backup is). Leaving a door open in the rain (or have a major roof leak, such as when my neighbor's roof caved in during a rain) or getting malware is far more common. If done correctly, backups can protect against data loss from malware. Get ransomware? Wipe the computer drives, then restore from a backup.

Exactly.  It’s where you draw the line.  You are drawing it at “Reasonably” as in it requires something truly unreasonable to happen.  Conspiracy theory level multiple events.  Above 99% safe.  Makes a lot of sense for something people rely on. It’s also quite expensive. What if they don’t though?  What if the cost or difficulty of the act changes?  What if the importance level of the data goes down?  There are reasons to draw it other places.  I’m not saying yours is bad.  I think it’s wholly appropriate in many situations.  Backups saved the entire US economy when the World Trade Center collapsed.  All of these things seem to be about definition of terms. “What is an image?”, “What is a backup?”  English is one of the most fine grained languages in the history of speech, but it is still granular.

[Giganthrax]

I recently discovered that my console peasant friends believe that playing video games and video game streaming is one of the most demanding things you can do with your PC hardware. I tried explaining to them that even a mid range PC can destroy most AAA games in high settings on 1080p and also stream them at the same time, but they still think you need a 2080ti for that or something.

 

I also know people who genuinely think that Apple products are magically faster and more powerful than PCs and androids that have the same specs. 

 

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

14 hours ago, MadAnt250 said:

Also for comedy, here is a myth: LCD monitors are better than CRT monitors in every way.

The answer is... False

I would buy the answer on the basis that the qualifier is "in every way."