renard_roux @ renard_roux @beehaw.org

Posts

7

Comments

373

Joined

2 yr. ago

Just spent 3 hours today with my stepmom trying to tame the "backup" situation on her work computer (a Mac). I'm just going to dump the (somewhat angry) rant I wrote my wife on the way home on the train:

... and then helping [stepmom] with computer backup for ~3 hours. Made a lot of progress but will need to go back for round 2, need her to get another external drive first.

Apparently her "IT guy" is some old colleague from previous job. Most braindead setup I've ever seen 🤢

Use Carbon Copy Cloner to "backup" (copy) her Desktop and Documents folder to a local OneDrive folder, hope that gets clouded from there. Last time I was there, OneDrive wasn't even running, so nothing was happening. Even if it had been, it was set to "leave local files where they are", so her HDD was almost out of space. This time, it couldn't even be opened because her OS is too old to run it 🙄

Another CCC backup set to copy "full computer" to an external drive (to external root folder, relevant later); CCC full backups are 1:1 clones, so can be restored onto new hardware ... unless the external drive isn't formatted with same filesystem as computer. Of course, it wasn't (FAT32 for a 5TB drive🙄). Oh, and only set to backup on "drive reconnected", so no backups if she leaves it plugged in. Which of course she did.

On top of that, her main working folder is, of course, her Downloads, all 400 GB of it (and none of it added to any cloud backup in any way) 🙄 So once in a while she would manually move (not copy) files to both of her external drives, one reliable LaCie Rugged, one sketchy no-name drive, to clear up space. Except that "full system" CCC backup that runs on "reconnect" is pointing at the reliable drive's ROOT folder, so every time that runs it would delete ALL the files she had manually moved there 🙄

Luckily she has that secondary (sketchy) external drive; all the files on the rugged one are gone forever.

Also - OneDrive for "backup" - what would happen if that folder was deleted locally? It's fucking SYNC! OneDrive would simply remove the files from cloud (if the program had even been (capable of!) running)!

What an idiot 🙄 Wonder how many other people he's "helping" 😬 I should just follow in his wake and make a living fixing his stupidity.

Also on the To-do for next meeting:

1. set up a password manager, as her current system of manually copying her passwords (all of them the exact same 5-letter word, followed by the exact same 4-digit year, followed by one of 5 symbols, rotated for "security") from last year's paper calendar to this year's paper calendar (with little or no notes about what they're actually for) is ... less than ideal.
2. install software (Eagle) to manage her ~600 GB collection of work image files, half of which are in folders in her Downloads folder, the other half living dangerously on that sketchy external drive, all of them in semi-randomly named folders with nothing even remotely resembling any sort of system.
3. copy the files on the current Rugged external drive to the new Rugged external drive so I can format the current one to a FS that can handle TimeMachine.
4. upgrade her OS so OneDrive can actually run, although I won't be using it for "backup", because:
5. setting up a proper cloud solution (B2) with proper backup software (Arq or Kopia) to make daily cloud backups of the primary external.
6. setting up her external drives (at that point two Rugged drives) so one does daily backups (CCC + TimeMachine), and the other does a weekly backup of the first one before getting locked in the safe, with primary also hosting all her images.

Wish me luck 🙄

Sorry, it wasn't meant in any negative way, and could have been worded much better. I can see how that would be annoying, and I'll try to do better in the future 😊

I'd love to see the sketch work, curious how your vision of Solemn differs from the end result 🙂

Looks very nice, and story sounds interesting!

Not that it matters, but it looks like some if the typical generative AI cues are present (looking at eyes, button, fingers, especially).

Out of curiosity, could you share how much did you pay the artist (ballpark)? And were you expecting something "handmade", or did you know you were getting AI generated (if that is the case, of course).

Sounds like what you need is a database.

Maybe have a look at Airtable and Notion? Both have database capabilities and are quite user friendly.

Iirc the pirate bay guys made something like that, but only in the browser, and only for very few websites. It gives the content a like button. Periodically it then distributes money over all your likes from a preset pool of cash.

So, micro payments? 🤔

I really hope we end up on something with Lemmy/Fediverse/Activitypub compatibility, e.g. PieFed or Sublinks.

The only reason I can have a good time on Lemmy is because of Voyager, which I use on my phone and computers, and I'm hoping it might be possible to get an app for whatever platform gets chosen (and preferably Voyager!).

I was always an app user for the 15 years I was on Reddit, and using a website for Beehaw/Fediverse stuff would be too far out of my comfort zone 😐

• They don't like the phone.
• Battery life sucks.
• Camera sucks.
• Stopped watching at that point.

Hope that helps 😊

Deep.

I second @ben@feddit.dk, it's a really nice game! Extremely well-polished, the UI and color theme are gorgeous, and the sounds work perfectly.

Initial thoughts on the game difficulty:

Having to add up the number values adds an incredible amount of complexity (for my brain at least) — even finding a word to start with takes a lot of time, especially since you don't know how many letters you're aiming for.

I don't want to spoil the current daily, but my first word gave me three greens. I thought I remembered the tutorial saying that green means "correct letter", without saying anything about the position.

Personally, I think this is a bit of a shame; after the initial relief of finding a word that fits the Dot Requirement (DR), I'm now stuck with knowing three letters, but I still don't know the word length, and I don't know if the letters are in the right place.

I have to go hunting for words that contain my three green letters (and none of my grey ones), but even when I manage to think of something, I then have to fulfill the DR, which means a lot of the words I come up with don't even work.

For a second just now, I thought I had come up with a workable strategy: since there is no apparent word length limit (other than dictated by PR), I could just take my green letters, and try to find a single letter to add. Slow going, but at least I'd be working towards a solution. Then I start typing my new, 4-letter word, and I realize that I've forgotten about the DR. Which promptly negates the word I wanted to try.

Obviously, everyone’s brains work differently, and I might just be particularly bad at this specific task, but I simply find it too hard.

I understand that optional settings that affect difficulty are a bit iffy because they could affect any scoreboards that might be added (not seeing any as of yet), but I think those could be taken into account.

Some ideas and suggestions that I think could make the game more accessible to players who find it a bit too hard:

• Letter Placement Clues (LPC) — Consider differentiating between whether a correct (currently green) letter is in the right place or not; grey still means "wrong letter", yellow (or maybe that delightful peach color from the Enter button) indicates "correct letter, wrong placement", and green indicates "correct letter, correct placement". LPC could be an optional toggle in Settings. This genre of game can usually be condensed down to "Mastermind with Letters", and even Mastermind indicates correct placement (although omitting which letter is correctly placed).
• Word Length Clues (WLC) — Consider letting the player know how long the target word is. WLC could be an optional toggle in Settings.
• Tackling scoreboards vs. clue use — If the above (or other) clue settings were implemented, and if a scoreboard gets implemented, the scoreboard could have a tab for each combination of clues:
  • No Clues Used — main scoreboard, doesn’t need to explicitly say anything about clues.
  • LPC used — scores from plays with only LPC enabled.
  • WLC used — scores from plays with only WLC enabled.
  • LPC + WLC used — scores from plays with both clues enabled.
  • Maybe a simple icon could be created for each clue type, and a small icon key shown at the bottom of the scoreboards to indicate which tab has which scores, without having to actually write “LPC” and "WLC”, or some other silly acronym.
• Point of friction: “Not a Valid Word” — When typing words, a Friendly Chime (FC) sounds when the DR is Satisfied (DRS), supported by the X/Y Counter (XYC) numbers turning green. However, when the word is submitted (Enter button), and only then, the "XXX is Not a Valid Word" notification (NVW) appears (only if it's not a valid word, obviously). The NVW is not accompanied by a sound, nor any other visual indication, and it's a bit anonymous. I just had this happen, and I kept pressing the Enter button a few times before noticing the NVW. Is it really necessary to have to Enter to get the NVW? If PRS, I'm clearly not going to add any more letters; I already spent the pip dot quota. I think DRS should trigger the NVW evaluation, without the player needing to press Enter, as it seems an unnecessary step. I'll call this DRS→NVW.
  • Suggestion: Better / more NVW indicators upon NVW-eval causing DRS→NVW (in addition to current notification):
    • Entered letters could turn grey.
    • Enter button could be greyed out.
    • Entered letters could do a Little Shudder (LS) / shake from side to side.
    • A different sound from the FC could play, maybe a Low Note from a Marimba (LNM) or something similar?
• Consistency: "There must be Exactly X Dots" notification (EXD) — Similarly to the points made for NVW notification above, EXD-eval could trigger on each entered letter, and show EXD notification if total dots entered > DR, instead of only happening after player presses Enter. Some of the extra NVW indicators from above could also carry over to EXD for the sake of consistency:
  • Better / more EXD indicators when player presses Enter without DRS (in addition to current notification):
    • Entered letters do a LS.
    • LNM plays.
    • X in XYC turns red.
• A thoughts on learning braille — I know available space is a bit sparse, but I think adding the dots to the letters of already entered words would make it more likely that I started associating the dots with the letters. Seeing the dots in the context of a word I spelled would just hammer the point home a bit more; currently, I can see the dots on the keyboard, on the letters I’m currently adding, but not on the words I already entered.
• Bug? "There must be Exactly X Dots" (EXD) — I actually can't reproduce this now, but I just had a situation where EXD was displayed at the same time as DRS. Not sure how I did it, though. If DRS, then EXD shouldn't be shown, because DRS = exact number of dots is satisfied = no need to explain how many dots are needed.

That’s what I have, off the top of my head. Would love to hear your thoughts, and will come back and update if any other ideas pop up 😊

If you made it this far through my acronym bonanza, thanks! I don’t know if any of the above is useful, but I thought it was worth spending some time on this, as I think the game has great potential, and would be something I would like to play more, were it not for the current difficulty.

(wink wink)

I figure it's not flammable.

Unless you live near a fracking site, I guess 🤔

Yeah I know what you mean, I've reached a point where I can just about stomach going there if a Google-search finds relevant information on something I'm researching, but I draw the line at active participation or even logging in.

I've done a quick search and found a list of Discord boards that are tagged with #grammar.

This one looks promising, and the list says there are currently 20 people online (take with grain of salt, though): The Grammar People

If you could share your specific question, maybe there's more research that can be done (or maybe someone here knows the answer) 🤔

Not super helpful, but have you looked for Discord communities?

Maybe Sublinks could be(come) that new platform you guys have been searching for, re: Beehaw thinking about leaving Lemmy? 🤔

I just hope it will be compatible with the available Lemmy apps (Voyager in particular) 😓

Edit: Or PieFed I guess 😊

Seconded! I'm on a small Danish instance as well, and they have a weekly, bot-posted "What are you watching/playing/reading?"-thread that I really enjoy 👌

I'm not even sure I understand it if it's not a joke, and I read the entire thing 😳

Peter Dickinson's "The Ropemaker"?

I was thinking more along the lines of being the people living in the house 👍

I've been mulling over my previous comment in one of the threads here, and think I've found the best way to condense it into a single line (not including this one, obviously), which can also serve as my response to the original post:

You don't put out a kitchen fire by letting the house burn down.

Are you not confusing "some politics I don't agree with are being represented" with "none of the politics I agree with are being represented"? Granted, I don't know what your politics are, but you're clearly not a trump fan. I'm having a difficult time imagining a political leaning that has zero overlap with Bidens politics.

I'm having a hard time with this whole thread. Yes, it's a shitty choice, but that doesn't make it any less the only choice. It's not like a trump victory "nudges the country further towards a fascist state". He, and his followers, have made it quite clear that the immediate goal is full-on fascism.

If wouldn't be terribly surprised if this was a spoiler campaign, honestly, but even in the more likely event that it isn't, the results are nearly indistinguishable. It does a great job of sewing sowing doubt and spreading fatalism/doomerism. Does anyone seriously think we're comparing apples to apples here?

• Biden is not fantastic. Agreed.
• The glaring psychopathy of the right makes it easier for the Democrats to also shift right. Looks like it.
• Biden is bad, so the alternative can be ignored. Uhm, what?
• Withholding my vote for Biden will teach the Democrats a lesson, and it's not like I'm voting for trump or anything. You're going to get us all killed.

I think the implication above is that the person with the most votes wins; by not adding your vote to pile A, there are fewer votes for pile B to beat.

Again, it's not a great set of options, but how can anyone who is even remotely sane consider furthering the risk of trump winning to prove a point? If he wins, will there even be any more elections? Who are you proving the point to?

It's been 4 years since trump left office. 4 measly years. How such large swathes of the country seem to have collectively forgotten how utterly insane, deadly, and brazenly corrupt that whole shit-show was is completely beyond me.

None of the American presidents are great. Not one of them. Every single one of them has blood on their hands. None of this is new. At least people are waking up now, even if it's too late. There's a great shift towards unions. Attempts at making healthcare less horrible. An actual debate about student loans. About minimum wage. About housing. Will it all be fixed under the Democrats? Unlikely. Will it all be actively and aggressively fought by trump and the fascist right he represents? Guaranteed.

Want to make a difference? Fight it all with every fiber if your being. Join movements, unionize, support better candidates. Helping trump does not help anyone, and all but guarantees that the already rickety societal framework that lets you even have a dissenting opinion will be torn down in the blink of an eye.

Foil the fascist autocrat first. Then spend the next 4 years making your point clear to the democrats. Find better ways to try to steer the country away from its race to the right. There are many good suggestions on this thread as to how. None of them are "don't vote for Biden".