@bertieb Thanks

@qasdfdsaq Our networks have long tended to lag behind the rest of the developed world.

@qasdfdsaq Pleasure! Good luck :D

(OnePlus 5T is model A5010)

The main reason I didn't get the Oneplus 5 is because it only supports Cat 12 3CA when everyone else had Cat 16 4CA

18 months later, 20% faster :P

@Bob Wifi, cheater.

@qasdfdsaq nighthawk m1 hotspot

Mine did 550 on wifi

@Bob Prove it!

@bertieb I get a 404, it seems to think I'm trying to connect from Australia and redirects to a non-existent URL.

Best I've gotten on T-Mobile.

@qasdfdsaq I don't have access to a fixed line wifi network faster than 15mbps down :P

@MichaelFrank Ah, sorry about that :-\

@bwDraco Australian networks also suck balls for speed, but still have advanced CA that means you won't get full speed on a Oneplus 5, even if that full speed is only 20Mbps

I'm in the US, New York City.

I thought Telstra actually had a decent network?

@bwDraco Point was your networks can lag way behind the "rest of the developed world" for speed, but still require 4CA+ to get optimal performance

That said, I'd argue Australia is part of the developed world

That Speedtest result was on a T-Mobile LTE Advanced 2CA link.

Oh fudge. Looks like the OnePlus 6 modem is still a year behind everyone else. Only it's a year newer than the last one that's a year behind everyone else.

I thought it used the Snapdragon 845?

highest upload I've gotten

@bwDraco telstra's ... alright. depending on where you are

expensive as hell though

I'm tempted by the current voda offer

?! dafudge

. superuser.com/a/1324510/461558

I aint oneboxing that

(review queue)

sigh

gone

Not sure what to do with the user

Report to CM?

Thanks 👍

@bwDraco It does, but to cut costs they've not connected all the wires.

@bwDraco assuming its serious. I'll do the next best thing

Plenty of phones have chipset capable of higher speeds but don't have the correct modem and tuners and RFEs for it.

@bertieb Apparently I'm not worthy of viewing this either

@qasdfdsaq It's been nuked

@qasdfdsaq Same thing with the OnePlus 3T, sadly. The Snapdragon 821 is capable of doing Cat 12/13 LTE-A but is limited to Cat 6 on the phone.

@qasdfdsaq user professing their love for CP

@qasdfdsaq Did the other link to the OP thing work? Curious if it's 404ing for everyone

@bertieb Works for me

@bwDraco It's been the case with all of them far as I can tell, each time being the main reason I haven't bought one. OP6 continues this trend. Although Cat16 might be enough, for the near future.

Cool thanks, maybe it is a UK thing then? Or just... discriminating against Aus? shrug

@bertieb you just called @MichaelFrank an aussie... oohhhhhhhhhh boy.

@bertieb I think it's EU. Although it does have /uk/ in the URL, I get this from a german box:

Sensible message, no 404.

If I change the /uk/ to /de/ it works, if I change it to /au/ it 404's

Oh wait, your URL didn't have the /uk/ in it

@Bob Nah, just that it's trying to redirect to Aus- and then not working :P

@qasdfdsaq US networks are already Cat 16.

`oneplus.com/6-sweepstakes?referralCode=5xafoidi` <== your link
`oneplus.com/uk/6-sweepstakes?referralCode=5xafoidi` <== what it redirects to on my UK box

@Bob To be fair, my internet traffic does exit from an AU node.

T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon already have "gigabit LTE", which is Cat 16.

I copied and pasted the /uk/ URL from my local browser (and it works from German IPs)

After I stuck /au/ in it the original link now redirects to AU (in fact all my accesses to Oneplus.com do) so there's a cookie stuck somewhere

T-Mobile has had Cat 16 LTE since November 2017.

So it looks like the promo isn't available in the AU, although if you stick /uk/ into the URL you'll be able to access it, but might not do much.

@MichaelFrank huh, that's odd. a good chunk of our traffic goes through nz, iirc

@Bob but...

@bwDraco And yet you complain your networks lag behind the rest of the developed world?

Our regulator only just auctioned off enough spectrum to allow multiple Cat 9 operators last month.

Oh, we have a couple of submarine cables that don't go to AU.

@qasdfdsaq Actually, we used to be way behind.

@bwDraco My idea of behind seems to be very different from your idea of behind

IIRC it was only last year (maybe late 2016) that anything beyond Cat 4 was deployed. But the deployment of "gigabit" Cat 16 LTE in major US markets came far faster than expected.

My city has one Cat 9 operator, and everyone else is Cat 3 or lower.

We're on average, the second fastest city in the UK

Well... I meant Cat 6, not Cat 4.

@bwDraco How much time do you reckon you spend looking for quotes of things you've said in the past? :)

Vodafone in their infinite wisdom deployed Glasgow with Cat 12 4CA using Cat 6 bandwith and a Cat 2 backhaul

WTF.

Edinburgh has one operator with Cat 9 LTE-A, one with Cat 3 LTE-A, and two with Cat 3 LTE-B

(In case you don't get the joke, LTE-B is a reference to "LTE-Basic" in Samsung's ServiceMode utility)

And dug up this old rant:

@bwDraco BECAUSE YOUR CATS AREN'T BREEDING FAST ENOUGH

(T-Mobile had just started deploying Cat.12 service at the time)

@qasdfdsaq lol, have a star.

@bwDraco Because it's illegal for AU to have more modern network tech, of course.

Not that "more modern" practically means much.

It took another two years for them to upgrade their backhaul to actually support the higher speeds.

The number of LTE subcarriers means jack all when your backhaul is a pair of rusty copper wires...

We only have 18 cats to go around, and one operator which formed from a merger of two who already had plenty of cats of spectrum is hogging 9 of the cats so there are only enough left for 3 cats each for the remaining 3 operators.

@Bob Vodafone here still hasn't.

and that's assuming it's not a tin can with a (premium) string

Because they insist on using their own, outdated, legacy, grandfathered CW fibre network they bought in vain a decade ago and haven't been able to find any other use for

@qasdfdsaq vodafone here partnered with tpg

so they have all the new fibre they want now

I think T-Mobile and Verizon actually had the backhaul to support this. I still remember AT&T suffered from really bad congestion problems in the Financial District...

@Bob Nice.

Vodafone here refused to outsource, so they're stuck with their 100Mbps ancient network split between two operators. The other 3 operators outsourced to the 2 largest nationwide providers and are enjoying 1GbE minimum to all sites and 10GbE in cities.

vodafone.com.au/media/vodafone-tpg-announce-deals

> Under the first agreement, TPG will provide Dark Fibre and network services to more than 3,000 Vodafone Australia sites over a 15 year term.

> In order to provide the services, TPG will extend its current fibre infrastructure by constructing about 4,000km of new fibre to Vodafone cell sites across the country.

@qasdfdsaq yea, voda here went to shit after their merger with 3

which lead to this beauty

they've recovered in recent years

@Bob Is this going to be 5 minutes of my life I'll never get back?

@qasdfdsaq do you particularly need those 5 minutes? :P

O_O

TPG started building their own mobile towers this year

about time

they've had that spectrum allocation for almost a decade

> Jio has a purely 4G network, with no legacy 2G and 3G infrastructure, which is what TPG will have in Australia.

hmm.

ok, I'm def going for dual-sim next phone

hm, last year TPG bought 2x 10MHz @~ 700 MHz. Voda got 2x 5

@Bob Oh the irony

as @qasdfdsaq said, lots of subcarriers but crappy overall bandwidth :P

I'm on 3 UK and the video gets stuck buffering at 1:33.

boredpanda.com/snow-leopards-biting-tail-funny-cats

hm, TPG is going for smaller cells, rooftop antennae

apparently @allquixotic is no longer a cat. he's now a bored panda.

@Bob Verizon is already preparing to shut down 2G and 3G, leaving only LTE.

T-Mobile is already shutting down 3G, with some areas dropping straight to 2G or getting no service at all when an LTE signal cannot be obtained.

@Bob 10Mhz is going to get you the performance of two tin cans and a string with today's usage patterns

Even 3 years ago the operators with 5Mhz paired spectrum refused to use it because it "would not offer a reasonable user experience" (that was before LTE-A became widespread)

@qasdfdsaq welcome to vodafone? :P

voda's the one that did 3CA 2-3 years ago where everyone else was doing 2CA

...3CA with the lowest speeds

Peak times in the city centre networks with 2x10Mhz get about 0.1Mbps. Networks with 2x60Mhz get about 30Mbps if you manage to get on a carrier that isn't entirely unusable due to congestive collapse. The other two give you 0.0Mbps.

@qasdfdsaq not nearly so bad here

smaller cells? less people? idk

@Bob The UK has been ridiculously slow in deploying small-cell infrastructure (read: there are none).

Doesn't cell breathing help prevent congestive collapse?

A couple of businesses with huge Vodafone contracts have managed to get indoor microsites installed with 2600Mhz bandwidth, but they have a range of about 10 metres.

@bwDraco Cell breathing is a 3G phenomenon (yes your US networks tried to call 3G 4G, no, it doesn't mean 4G has cell breathing).

Does LTE use cell breathing?

It seems to me that it does but not 100% sure.

Oddly enough, all the operators here installed hundreds of microsites during the 2G era, yet when 3G came around only half of them bothered upgrading (the rest remained on 2G), and when 4G came around everyone just left their microsites on 2G or turned them off completely.

Or is it limited to HSPA and older technologies?

It's a WCDMA phenomenon, it's not "used", it's a drawback of how the technology works.

So it's something inherent to UMTS and it doesn't affect LTE?

Aberdeen had a city-funded project to install hundreds of small cells on lamp posts across the city hooked up to the also city-funded city-fibre network, but to date no operator has actually signed up to use them.

So it's now just littered endless lamposts bulked up with multi-cell antenna that transmit bugger all

@allquixotic Interesting piece of "security" from Enpass :P

> Enable Touch ID/Quick PIN to unlock Enpass and access your credentials. It saves you from entering your lengthy master password again and again. Not only it is quick but also it helps in keeping your Master Password safe from prying eyes.

@qasdfdsaq we're probably getting the same thing from TPG, except they're actually planning to be an operator :P

@allquixotic Omg that's so cute

@Bob Oh you know that operator I mentioned that already hogged 9 cats of spectrum? They got bought over by the incumbent PSTN operator who had their own 4 cats of spectrum that they originally promised (pre-merger) to use for "testing" and expanding universal broadband coverage, but post-merger just handed over to the already-9-cat-hogging-4G-operator. So now they have 13 cats. And everyone else only gets 3 cats :-(

!!caaat

@qasdfdsaq so caaaaaaaaaaaaat > caaat?

Basically they bought 4 cats for cheap on the premise they weren't intending to become an operator or compete with the 3-cat operators, then donated their 4 cats to an already 9-cat operator.

newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824011229

@Bob I don't think I have a caaaaaaaaaaaaat gif yet.

At long last, the Acer Predator X27 is up for pre-order. Time to upgrade?

@bwDraco can your gpu even handle it?

I wonder how color-accurate this monitor is. They say it has 99% Adobe RGB coverage, rivaling any professional monitor in color gamut, but does it actually deliver?

@Bob GTX 1080 Ti. Why not?

@bwDraco Of course, nobody just goes on the internet and lies.

There's like... Internet Police for that right? Interpol!

@bwDraco I just bought the Acer Predator X34 last year

@bwDraco my 1080 can't get much above 60fps on 4k, fyi

what's so snazzy about the X27? "Quantum Dot"? WTF does that even mean for image quality? Is it really that much better than any other IPS?

also it's smaller and not curved so I'm not sure if that's even an upgrade at all over what I already have

also, with it being IPS, things like starfields are going to look nowhere near as good as an OLED, right? soooo.... what's the point

Oh I forgot to mention, one of the regulatory requirements for the 9 cats + 4 cats merger was the 9 cats operator had to sell off 3 cats (they previously owned 12 cats before the merger). Apparently they "sold" the 3 cats to their smallest competitor for £1.

color me uninterested

@allquixotic oh yea, what was that about synapse?

@allquixotic in 99% of the Adobe gamut, right?

And 4K at frame rates above 98 Hz require compression. :/

Instead... should I replace that old Acer IPS display with a professional (photo-oriented) 4K or 1440p monitor instead?

(1440p is enough for gaming, 4K will not allow acceptable frame rates for me)

Now I've never tried it myself, but the world's biggest OLED manufacturer choosing it over their own, long-touted OLED technology is saying something.

The problem is, these are G-SYNC monitors. While there is no AMD graphics card capable of driving a monitor of this sort, it would be nice if somebody came out with a FreeSync variant.

I suspect nothing is going to come close to OLED for things like starfields, but for just about everything else, the combination of quantum dot LCD and many-zone localised backlight dimming is sufficiently close that just about nobody is pursuing >12" OLEDs anymore.

I suspect monitor manufacturers have an agreement with NVIDIA not to ship any FreeSync monitors using this panel.

Orrrrrrrrrrrrr they could just be not bothering to make monitors no one can drive.

NVidia being anticompetitive and forcing manufacturers to stop selling competing products? Shock horror.

NVIDIA's best cards can drive these monitors, albeit marginally.

@Bob Uhh, Intel anyone?

@qasdfdsaq ?

If AMD cards can't drive them, and NVIDIA can barely drive them... Who are they for?!

Intel and AMD support Freesync, NVidia could too but choose not to.

@qasdfdsaq Can Intel and AMD do much with 4k @ 144 Hz?

play videos I suppose

give it a year and see what's available then *shrug*

initial releases tend to be relatively limited

I was referring to:

I thought by "no-one can drive" you were referring to AMD being the only (initial) freesync supporter and their pretty much non-existent

@qasdfdsaq I was referring to not being powerful enough to do much

so there's probably not that many people who'd want to buy a freesync variant of that monitor, at least until the GPUs catch up

@Bob But I like my Chrome and Remote Desktop on buttery smooth 144Hz!

give it a year or two, when the GPUs can support it, then look at monitor support and speculate about anti-competitiveness

at this point it could just be, y'know, the monitor manufacturers not bothering to design and test a model that basically won't sell

I kinda said that when the 1080Ti came out. Can't drive 4K60, overkill 1080p/1440p. Wait for next gen.

heck, even the g-sync ones probably won't sell very well

Yeah. Perhaps later, there's something better from both sides that can drive a display like this with less difficulty.

@Bob Tbf even dual 1080Ti's won't drive 4K 144Hz.

The price tag is too high FWIW.

that said, I would like to see nvidia support freesync

But hey some people like playing CounterStrike at 200Hz+ still

@qasdfdsaq all settings on low? :P

@qasdfdsaq Mine can on some games. Assassin's Creed Origins typically does 70-100 fps maxed out on my Dell S2417DG.

@qasdfdsaq cs might be one of the few, now that I think about it

not very graphically demanding

@Bob You'll probably get CPU bound

Even on an i7-8700K operating at 5.1 GHz.

@bwDraco 100fps is a fair ways off 144

like, 50% ways off

70fps isn't even halfway there

DOOM is a better example. It routinely hits 144 Hz at max settings and is in fact CPU-bound on my machine.

@Bob Arguably, G-Sync/Freesync makes it uneccessary to get close to the maximum refresh rate, and 100 is still significantly higher than 60 that people will take it.

and a S2417DG is only 1440p

lol.

not even close to 4k

Whoops, misread the message.

It's 1440p.

Most of my games run at about 80-100 fps on my laptop, sufficiently high that I dig out my 120Hz monitor and notice a huge improvement, despite not being able to get close to 120, ever.

@bwDraco yeaaaaaa... 1440p is less than half the pixels on 2160p

your 1080 ti is only a bit better than my 1080

and I struggle to maintain 60 on some games on higher settings

a 1080 ti can barely do 60 on more demanding games, with a bit of buffer (say, 80)

I tried running some games at an effective resolution at 4K. The GTX 1080 Ti is marginal for most games at 4K maximum settings; you'd need to bring them down to high to get a smooth experience, and in some cases, medium.

By marginal, I mean 30-45 fps.

@qasdfdsaq true

though idk how much

@Bob that was MR's plan here

TPG... er... NO IDEA WHATSOEVER WHAT THEY WANT TO DO.

and you'd still need that dual 1080 ti just to get there :P

@JourneymanGeek according to loca news? this is tpg's plan in sg too

(albeit before patches that increased performance)

@Bob on the other hand, MR's kinda really doing this viral marketing thing really well

does anyone know how to write an ASP database connection string?

"Oh we have exclusive codes for people who signed up 2 years ago!"

@JourneymanGeek TPG's doing the "you didn't see anything" thing really well

!!nothinghappened

@Bob there was word they were going to give free lines to old people for 2 years

which is smart

OTOH, MR is just rediculously cheap and I could have saved a ton of money if I knew they were launching.

...scratch that, that was ADO.NET.

Since I exceeded my data cap, switched to a new plan, then got whacked with a 5x normal bill due to how they calculated the pro-rated rates... oops.

@qasdfdsaq back to the classic username? I like it.

Oh just remembered my 1070 can run Cities Skylines at 4K max settings! Anywhere between 12 and 50fps depending how big my city is, but by the time it's down to 12fps it's usually so CPU bound it won't go above 20fps at any resolution.

@rahuldottech No, I just had to panic-change it when I realised I'd done something bad.

@rahuldottech . chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/44716509#44716509

@PowershellforLinux wait... What did you do?

Now that that's fixed, I should probably change it back to something more obscure.

Ok, not that obscure.

OK close enough, it has Cat in the name.

Welcome back, @CircusCat.

Meaow.

hah

I remember that one

kickstarter.com/projects/1902169420/…

Never backed a hardware Kickstarter before... considering this one:

that's cool

hmm

they pass one of my tests, and fail another

(have they released anything before (no) but they seem to have a product prototyped and boxed)

Which tests?

Ahh

I think there should be a 3rd test that overrides all failed tests... Does it glow in the dark?

@MichaelFrank the former is for 2 reasons. 1) It shows they actually are able to bring out a product, and if they badge engineered someone elses product and got caught the last time

2) is it vaporware?

@MichaelFrank oddly, my roomie might love that. Me , less so

he insists the PC is left on with some of the lights when I'm away at work

I have to walk past my chair when I get up in the night, so I might like to see them when I stumble past.

ah

My room is vaguely set up so my computer space and bed are on opposite ends, and the toilet is in between

I'll need to redo it all soon ._.

> Harshita: Please use this link: hp.com/go/techcenter/pcdiags

well all for positive reasons...

Would anyone else like to try that link?

404

actually...

I need to plan to completely 100% clear out my room and reorganise all the things

which is going to be a nightmare ;p

@JourneymanGeek it's hard to get casters wrong :P

oh great... the chat entry box has conveniently stopped responding to my input.

@Bob ehhh. Injection molding man

> 2:17 PM Harshita has ended the session.

bunnings.com.au/…

not that easy

wait

@JourneymanGeek if it wasn't for the metal bit, I could 3d print them :P

its in 2 packs...

chairs need 5 castors...

bunnings.com.au/…

They don't pass my glow in the dark test.

;p

oh god superuser.com/questions/1324497/…

this fits perfectly in the "knows just enough to be dangerous" category

Trying not to laugh at work is hard.

Ok. I'LL BE THAT GUY!

and be hated :(

Looks like they changed the frame and that's about it. The number of copied design elements is... intersting

@CircusCat though there's only so many ways to design a chair caster

@Bob It's not as bad as I feared, at least they're not trying to clean up the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList keys

I keep seeing that and thinking "its a inline skate wheel"

@JourneymanGeek The shape, number, and design of the spokes?

The number of gaps in the translucent rubber underframe?

its smaller though

If existing wheels are so ugly as per the video, why do these look so similar? No go faster stripes?

I mean, there's probably a known good way to produce these types of wheels. Plus they made a GAMER variety.

Heck they look more similar to the amazon wheel than two amazon wheels look to each other

I will buy them and prove y'all wrong with my superior motion over multiple ranges of surfaces.

@MichaelFrank It's not a gamer wheel if it doesn't have flashing RGB LEDs!

@CircusCat next kickstarter ;p

@MichaelFrank I have a sofa, and it intentionally stays stationary

I don't need no wheels.

@JourneymanGeek Stretch goal!

;p

might not even need batteries

Hmm... I wonder if I can connect to Amazon directly so when I ask Alexa to buy something, they can show me a picture to verify it's the correct product!

@MichaelFrank that seems... oddly dystopian

RIP kickstarter...

aliexpress.com/item/…

@MichaelFrank or no glow in the dark ;p

Also

put another way

"if bunnings has them..."

drop table metadata;

and away it goes!

...that might've been a bad idea, in hindsight

3rd time lucky with HP????

Please don't get Harshita...

Serious...

This guy must be the only person working at HP or something. :|

sooo, dropping a table takes about 100x longer than copying it