ggtdbz @ ggtdbz @lemmy.dbzer0.com

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201

Joined

1 yr. ago

I’ve always been curious about this stuff and I know I need to make some effort soon, ever since we moved our home recordings from VHS to DVD some 15-20 years ago.

My understanding is that SSDs are also likely to lose data when unpowered for a long time, which is why they haven’t been recommended to me for external backup drives.

“Spinning rust” is much cheaper than I thought, even if I have to pay 200$ in shipping to get a bunch of massive used server drives here. And it seems to not have that problem, with the downside of either needing to be completely powered off or wasting a bit of power when it’s not active. I’m still not sure where the HDD parking technology is at.

Of course ripping all the physical media would also be nice. A lot of the original discs I have (most of my discs are straight shitty copies with one file, yay third world) have things like special features and multiple audio tracks, things like that. I wonder how those should be organized.

Good lord, 1,400 comments, and the first quick scroll is exclusively downvote farming. That’s not even dedication, at this point it’s outright not understanding why people would want to communicate online

I think that one used simple Markov chains and was really entertaining for years.

I also remember there was a bot you could summon that would simulate a comment written by you, and it was funny to see those.

The invention of the torque wrench didn’t severely impede my ability to retrieve stored information, and everyone else’s, affecting me by proxy.

The tech four years ago was impressive but for me it’s only done two things since becoming widely available: thinned the soup of Internet fun things, and made some people, disproportionally executives at my work, abandon a solid third of their critical thinking skills.

I use AI models locally, to turn around little jokes for friends, you could say I’ve put more effort into machine learning tools than many daily AI users. And I’ll be the first to call the article described by OP as a true, shameful indictment of us as a species.

I’ve also wondered if there’s varieties. Maybe where I live, they’re different tasting and smelling? Broccoli has only ever been one of the vegetables to me. Nothing repulsive (or even noteworthy).

Even as a kid it was weird to see cartoon characters complain about specifically broccoli while I literally munched it while watching.

Now when it spoils, yes, it can get a little sulfury, as can cauliflower, its cousin. But fresh broccoli?

It’s so ubiquitous that for about a second I thought wait what I thought that was the good one until I remembered that I’ve been using qBittorrent for a decade.

For a time, it just was the client.

That’s really cool, I miss more things being outwardly interoperable. Very useful feature, I can’t wait until they deem it too usable and remove it.

I was explaining RSS to a friend (I follow their Substack blog via RSS, yes, I read it in the ugly Feedbro interface) and they were a bit weirded out by the idea until I went into how this was kind of a default option a few years ago.

One day I’ll have a home server setup that will keep the Web 2.0 dream alive for me.

The pipe cleaner would probably ruin the valve.

It’s not that bad, you just flush water through it a few times. That’s not really worth it for me, I use my Prismo but not that often. Maybe I’m not enough of a connoisseur to know the difference.

Without it, I basically rinse my Aeropress and then give it a wash when I’m doing dishes later. Super convenient compared to, say, scooping grounds out of a French press.

I have one, I find it fiddly to clean. The rest of the Aeropress is basically zero maintenance.

And it’ll give you a little surprise the first time you use it and seal the Aeropress.

I found that I’m not all too bothered by the liquid coming out the other side before I seal it when doing a standard recipe that doesn’t need inverting. But to each their own.

No physical activity has ever felt as satisfying as a handful of times I chopped wood when I was like 14. I feel like there’s a strong psychological element to it, I really felt like a man in a great way.

I just looked up my orders, it’s the H16. Looking more closely at the receipts it seems like there’s different models with different max brightness but whatever ,they’re all blindingly bright, for me at least, a non flashlight person.

They’re also nominally waterproof, they’ve got a strong magnet at the base so you can stick it places while you work, and comes with a headband attachment and a belt clip.

The bulb is angled which was weird to me at first. I also had to learn the controls over time since there’s one button but several brightness settings.

I hate how promotion-heavy the internet has gotten because it feels like even writing out any endorsement feels like shilling. But it’s a cool little thing. I’m sure there’s more models out there that might appeal to you by other manufacturers but I’m happy with this one.

What do you mean? Early apps was all stuff like this that nobody used. Nowadays apps are useful fintech services and photo filter apps that cost less than a coffee per month and fun free games that everyone can play, isn’t that much better?

/s

I’ve bought myself exactly one “nice” flashlight and it was a big shock seeing how good the tech has gotten since phones took that over in my life. Some Acebeam model with a ridiculous bulb and a convenient rechargeable AAA battery with a USB C port. It’s tiny and super neat.

While I haven’t bought multiple, I did buy more of the same model for family members to carry around. For what it’s worth I don’t really keep it on me, but if you carry a purse or whatever, a powerful finger-sized flashlight could definitely come in handy without being bulky.

I’ve actually written a bit about my gripes with the EDC subculture online, which is how I learned about the flashlight in the first place. TLDR is that there is a weird disconnect that can’t be ignored between a rational interest in preparedness and the phenomenon of online communities of users goading each other into buying more and more widgets, sometimes with financial incentives to make others buy things.

It’s not just flashlights, it’s a whole bunch of things. EDC is a rabbit hole of rabbit holes and while I do appreciate having a lot of options and reviews for said options I genuinely think it’s a consumerist disappointment if you zoom back out.

The Flintstones was originally an adult-oriented cartoon, and became seen as family friendly as time went on and more things became available on TV.

Its role was closer to the Simpsons when that was new, which also became more acceptable for younger people to watch over time.

Just off the top of my head:

Steven Wilson, one of the most influential artists in my creative life. Turns out even some of the songs were even recorded there. I don’t even think he has a familial claim to benefit from Zionism, I think he’s just gotten roped in. At least I tell myself that.

Sacha Baron Cohen, IMO one of the most brilliant comedians. I don’t think he’s necessarily an extremist to the extent that Natenyahu is, knowing his politics, but that is the logical conclusion of Zionism and just being on that path is all the red flags in the world.

Quentin Tarantino, bro why

I actually can’t think of many. I’m from Lebanon and if it’s even a small part of someone’s public life we just avoid them, it’s been that way for very long. So there’s an extent to which these people are filtered out.

I also don’t use traditional social media at all so something like the Sarah Silverman meltdown you mention would be completely off my radar.

Because I was terrorized and not some Americans or Europeans so it’s cool. The Empire is fine, go back to work.

Imagine driving down the road and everyone affiliated with one gang just has their phone explode. While they’re driving, sitting in buses, walking down the road or eating at a local restaurant with their family. Wouldn’t you be so relieved to see them all die morbid deaths? Wouldn’t the screams of their children and their careening vehicles as well as the panicking normal people trying to break their way out of bus windows warm your heart? They were in gangs or something, this is a good thing! 🥰🥰

And the mass hysteria right after, 48 hours of people thinking their phones, computers, CPAP machines, solar inverters, cars, wireless devices, and basically anything with a power button could imminently explode. Like we don’t have other problems.

And then you go online and enough people are smug about it, even on Lemmy (a rare decent space online), that you genuinely lose some remnant of respect for the average person. I’ve been online for almost two decades now, I’ve seen and gotten used to how mean it could be, but this event broke something and I’ve actually cried over nothing more than expressions of callousness online that weren’t even directed at me.

It’s kind of funny. As Lebanese people we are pretty damn racist and judgmental, we think we’re some forgotten actually-European country that’s not like all those countries, I could write a whole essay on why deep down we culturally feel more white than any western white person. But then things like this happen, and everyone pretends you’re in rural Afghanistan and always have been, and worse still, that you deserve it on some level.

Which now just makes me wonder how they feel in Afghanistan.

Ah. I was hoping I was holding on to some long-lost file, I think every one in my list is included in your list. I think the rare ones were limited-time exclusives.

If it’s not too much trouble, you should make sure there’s an up to date copy of all these files somewhere. At least the IA should have it, I’d think.

Best of luck finding the rest.

Here's what I got in my old local archive folder, if it helps. Let me know if I have something missing, I've never been on this side of this interaction!

::: spoiler list of files

banyantreefar.zip
BookshelfMagic.exe
ColumnFrench.exe
Dartboard.exe
Dartboard_001.exe
DormBookcase.exe
DormChairLiving.exe
DormLampDesk.exe
DormPainting.exe
DormSculpture.exe
DormStereo.exe
DoubleDeluxe1.exe
doubledeluxe2.exe
doubledeluxe3.exe
execchair.zip
FunHouseTrack4x1-1003.exe
FunHouseTrackLoop-1003.exe
GreenBedroomSet.exe
HPPottyPack.exe
HungryHamster.exe
IntelComputer_International.exe
McFoodCart_International.exe
PepsiMachine1.exe
PicnicUmbrellas.exe
PlantCarnivore.exe
SCDrinks.exe
StairsSweepingReverse.exe
TableSoccer2.exe
workerdesk.zip

:::

Not entirely sure if this is complete, or if it's even all Maxis. I have a third party mod folder backed up somewhere (and one with those old text guides, loved those) but I didn't find it with a quick search. This folder is from 2010, so it's not exactly period-correct. In case Windows doesn't like these older .exes they seem to just be archives with the .far files inside, so you can rip them open. Not exactly sure why some of these are .zips and others are .exes, but the .zips only contain the .far files.

One thing that sucks is that some disk content was just permanently gated behind these downloads, and there was every possibility that you wouldn't know these downloads existed. Specifically there were Makin Magic recipes for child-only magic stuff that used ingredients only adults could gather. So the Magic Bookshelf was mandatory to see that stuff that came on the damn disk. I'm pretty sure I was using a third party reskin of that item before looking for the original, but I could be wrong.

Good lord, .far files. Remember FARout? Those really were the days. I still like to think I'll revisit TS1 properly someday. That was a proper game, with unapologetic personality.

I still prefer paper, although not having to store moisture-sensitive fragile things is nice. So is the fact that I can read books that are out of print or hard to find (or banned, yay Middle East), even if fumbling with PDFs isn’t wonderful on the device.

And of course, the obvious: downloading them for free. Which is always ethical when Routledge wants to charge you 85$ for a scholarly work of which the author doesn’t see a dollar.

I got a Kobo and just use the networking to sync Pocket articles. Stock system.

I don’t even think an account is available in my country. Just been syncing over Calibre. It’s not perfect (it uses a community plugin) but once you get the quirks of the Calibre-to-Kobo transfer it’s easy enough.

Now the hard part. Actually reading.