Thanks! I learned something new today, and that makes today a good day. I’ll strike out a few relevant parts of my answer when I get a minute to open the beast.

I mean… DX 9, 10, and 11 were all released prior to Nadella being CEO/chairman.

But in software, it’s very commonplace for library versions not to be backwards compatible without recompiling the software. This isn’t the same thing as being able to open a word doc last saved on a floppy disk in 1997 on Word 365 2024 version, this is about loading executable code. Even core libraries in Linux (like OpenSSL and ncurses) respect this same schema, and more strongly than MS.

Using OpenSSL as an example, RHEL 7 provides an interface to OpenSSL 1.0. But 1.1 is not available in the core OS, you’d have to install it separately. 1.1 was introduced to the core in RHEL 8, with a compatibility library on a separate package to support 1.0 packages that hadn’t been recompiled against 1.1 yet. In RHEL 9, the same was true of OpenSSL 3 - a compatibility library for 1.1, and 1.0 support fully dropped from core. So no matter which version you use, you still have to install the right library package. That library package will then also have to work on your version of libc - which is often reasonably wide, but it has it limits just the same.

Edit because I forgot a sentence in the last paragraph - like DirectX, VC++, and OpenGL, you have to match the version of ncurses, OpenSSL, etc exactly to the major (and often the minor) version or else the executable won’t load up and will generate a linking error. Even if you did mangle the binary code to link it, you’d still end up with data corruption or crashes because the library versions are too different to operate.

DirectX 12 was released in 2015 with Windows 10, so it’s unlikely to have been ported back to 8.1 and lower.

MS usually only does current+ with compatibility - so for example FF11 (DirectX 8.1 I think) still works (mostly) on Windows 11, but DX12 won’t work on W7

DirectX, OpenGL, Visual C++ Redist and many other support libraries in software programs typically require the same major version of the support libraries that they were shipped with.

For DirectX, that major version is 9, 10, 11, 12. Any major library change has to be recompiled into the game by the original developer. (Or a very VERY dedicated modder with solid low level knowledge)

Same goes for OpenGL, except I think they draw the line at the second number as well - 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4.

For VC++, these versions come in years - typically you’ll see 2008, 2010, 2013, and the last version 2015-2022 is special. Programs written in the 2013 version or lower only require the latest version of that year to run. For the 2015-2022 library, they didn’t change the major version spec so any program requiring 2015+ can (usually) just use the latest version installed.

The one library that does weird things to this rule is DXVK and Intel’s older DX9-on-12. These are translation shim libraries that allow the application to speak DX9 etc and translate it on the fly to the commands of a much more modern library - Vulkan in the case of DXVK or DX12 in Intel’s case.

Edited to remove a reference to 9-on-12 that I think I had backwards.

Who let out 426?? I thought I was supposed to be in a windowless room!

(/j)

Oh totally. I have a pile of RS-232 adapters that you still need to program just about every modern Ethernet switch, and they’re all type-A ports.

No we’re not OK

I remember in grade school my district had a system where everyone who bought anything at the cafeteria went through an internal “type in your ID to the pin pad” system. Internally, the computer would decide whether the student was charged against their account or if it did a discount/free. This was how they dealt with that.

Not on all vendors tho - coloring was an optional part of the standard. Dell often uses grey for USB3

If you’re trying to get Lemmy to print the backslash, you need to make it a double backslash since backslash is an “escape” character that means “ignore any special formatting meaning of the next character” (among other meanings)

You’d be surprised. My mouse only needs 2.0, but uses a C connector for compatibility. It provides an A to C cable with only 2.0 wiring, which is a decision I assume they made to allow the wire to be more flexible as it can be charged during use or used entirely wired.

Where I went to college, they probably didn’t directly have the key, that’d have to go through maintenance. But one of the things you signed on to initially was for maintenance to enter if they needed to while you were out.

Plus, at least half of the WAPs were actually in rooms and not hallways, so to service the network beyond IDF problems they’d have to get in

This is true of a even some public universities in the US. I can’t remember if it was a rule where I was, but definitely most freshman did just live in dorms.

Lot of folks brought their own desktops to set up, and we were allowed Ethernet switches to hook up multiple devices - had to be wired. Wireless had two options, WPA# 802.1X or unencrypted captive portal guest. If your device didn’t support that, it had to be wired by policy.

And they weren’t wrong, I did a radio scan and they had the full sized enterprise access points about as good as they could (with a few low signal exceptions, and the air waves were still overloaded with too many people. The building uplink was perfectly fine, it was just overcrowded wireless.

If it’s a dorm they have the key.

I’m an American android user and I’m confused too. At least in my area, contactless is pretty ubiquitous now. (I accept adoption is slower, but it’s getting there)

Sure Apple Pay seemed to come to a lot of terminals first, but NFC Google wallet or whatever it is the phone does automatically I’ve only seen fail at certain terminals. In that rare case, usually someone behind me with Apple Pay often also fails, so I’d be more likely to attribute it to a system glitch rather than lack of support.

question

What’s a RAN?

Memory unlocked that’s been a hot minute ago

Didn’t apple used to make their own IR remote for that? Is the hardware onboard the Mini preset to use their hardware or is it more generic once Linux is installed?

I didn’t even know ETC existed until now, I thought that was a typo

The first few screens look like a combination reverse job board and Coinbase. But your description says “post stuff and create tokens”, which doesn’t quite seem to line up

Why?

I don’t think Web3 contracts have tested case law yet, so who knows if it’s enforceable in court, at most it may only be as strong as a gentleman’s agreement. And the token part looks like an easy way to create rug pull coins, just on the ETH database instead of an independent database.

I hear it’s also bad to get into a battle of wits with a Sicilian - especially when death is on the line.

Others have some good information here - all I’d like to add to the root is that Windows and Mac have a built-in DNS cache and it’s pretty straightforward to add a DNS cache to systemd distros (if it’s not already installed or in use) using systemd-resolved or dnsmasq if you really dislike systemd. Some distros enable this from install time.

Systems that utilize a DNS cache will keep copies of DNS query results for a period of time, making the application-level name lookup speed essentially 0ms for a cached result. Cold results obviously incur the latency of the DNS server itself.