Hey that’s super helpful, I really appreciate it! Thank you! I haven’t checked in on the project(s) in quite a while. :)

Do not compare evils, lest you be tempted to cleave with the least of them!

–Victor Saltzpyre

(A raw line probably inspired by somebody else lol)

For context, cosmic ray but flips are so rare that people whose entire careers put them in a position to catch one will likely never see it happen.

Y’know as someone who just couldn’t afford shelling out for ECC RAM for my home server, and seeing all the “BuT wHaT iF” FUD online about bit flips…

…I REALLY appreciate this and it’s lowered my ambient anxiety. :)

I’ll still maintain a reasonable backup strategy, of course!

My highschool was a smaller charter school that was essentially a bunch of connected / encircled modular buildings.

I actually kinda miss it because it had different vocational paths and I ended up in a student-run computer shop. We actually fixed things around the campus and other people’s machines and stuff. Shame that sort of thing kinda fell out of relevance, job-wise!

We also had a large computer lab where we played things like CounterStrike Source, Battlefield Desert Combat or 2142, and sometimes Unreal Tournament maybe?

Lol anyway, to your question: I think I might have been popular-ish. In the sense that I think I was a sort of “ambassador” between groups.

I made friends with the drama kids, the nerds, had some goth friends, stoner / skater friends, and I’d often introduce them to each other. I had my “circle” but I was that guy who sorta knew almost everybody.

I think the thing I miss most is that everyone saw each other as individuals back then. Surface level you might fit with a “group” sure, but we tended to see each other as people and for the most part they got along.

But sadly when I moved away after graduation, only like one friend really made the effort to keep up with me over the years. :( Quality best friend though!

But I still think of them often and hope they’re doing okay in this crazy world…

My “trick” with this is to mv files I’m very sure I want to be “deleting” into /tmp . If it instantly turns out to be a mistake, I can pull it back. Else, it gets purged on reboot.

This is usually A-okay for my home server since it reboots so rarely! A desktop machine might give you a little less time to reconsider. But it at least solved the “trash is using 45% of my hard disk now” issue haha.

In the very worst case scenario there’s the “Drop everything and run photorec / testdisk” as a last resort!

“Especially basic white ones. I’ll take my upvotes now. I’m glad this isn’t reddit!”

transformer models

Surely, more than meets the eye!

Minecraft is still the hardest thing to host lol

I’m actually considering hosting a Luanti / “MineTest” server for this experience, since my wife lost her Minecraft account / key thingy since the time we played in beta ages ago haha.

I wonder if it’s any easier to host or not. 🤔

Mint was my first serious move to Linux too! It’s so user friendly and clean.

I’ve been running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed with an Nvidia GPU for quite a few years now on my gaming / 3D art rig though, and I’ve really enjoyed it. My Win10 partition has been dormant and shrunk for a very long time. :D

Just make sure you stick with the default of using BTRFS at least on root, to get that snapshot rollback support!

For being such an up to date distro, it’s ridiculously stable. Usually issues I’ve had have been Nvidia problems, but I’ve been able to roll back until they resolved. Things have definitely gotten much better over time.

Wayland has also matured wonderfully and things like multi monitor setups with different refresh rates work just fine these days.

Totally get what you mean about KDE too, I really enjoy how much easy customization it has!

Hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

“Excuse me, goat.”

(Goat bleats)

“With utmost respect, would you be so kind…”

(Squeaky valve turning, gas hissing)

(Goat bleats intensify at increasingly higher pitch)

“Thank you, goat. Let’s explore the jungle together. Did you pack a lunch? I’m not 100% sure how this works.”

Oop oop hrk! >=[

In this regard, I absolutely have come to agree.

I always say: “The Internet should be for anyone! But it shouldn’t have been for everyone .”

There it is. Now you can all see it! This is the violence inherent in the system!

You’re right, I try to remind myself to marvel at the incredibly cool science we wield every single day.

But I’m also pained because I understand where the “boring future” folks come from too:

Where would we be if all this incredible technology was actually designed for humanity and not simply for profits at all cost? If optimizing for humanity was the target instead of exploiting it?

Smartphones, for instance. Small, networked computers! In your pocket! Wow! I’ve always wanted a pocket laptop! But they sure don’t feel like it. They’re designed to be content (mainly ad) delivery devices and data miners first, and useful machines second.

(There are some tiny niche actual-computer palmtops now which are pretty cool.)

I think that’s the part that gets people kinda depressive about modern science breakthroughs. The coolest stuff, the working folk don’t even get to tangibly feel much benefit from.

Discovery is locked behind paywall research journals and implementation is marketed in the interests of capital and used against us to make us work harder for longer hours for less pay.

What’s happening to space is a VERY stark illustration of all this. NASA unifying humanity and working globally on projects like the ISS was INSPIRING.

Now it’s all about privatized interests and their stupid desires, like space hotels for the elite.

I bet we’d marvel at technology designed for human beings, and not sheer exploitation.

Long time ago I had one of those “single property renovator man” types move in to replace the nice neighbor girl next door. You know, instantly they freshen up the backyard and put a dozen cameras all over the place.

We let my kitten out back at night for a little exploring. Walled back yard. Within a span of a few minutes found her dead by our sliding glass door with a head wound. We didn’t know what happened at the time. Too shocking to think straight.

But a few days later, the asshole is plinking beer cans in his backyard with some family members or something. Errant rounds are pinging off our windows and leaving rust stains in our pool.

We call the police because someone is discharging dangerous projectiles within city limits, at our house, and the lone, bothered, podgy lawman gives us the “Jus’ sum good ol’ boys, I asked them to take it easy.” routine.

I’m glad I never got this man’s actual name. I’m afraid of what I’d do with it now that we don’t live there anymore. I figure there’s nothing worse I could do to him than the pathetic existence he leads on his way to hell anyway.

(Air guitar riff)

I agree so much. Sadly it’s hard to reach out with how entire neighborhoods are designed. They’re designed like solitary domiciles that only exist because employees need a place to be stored when not in use.

Ours is designed where cars just disappear into garages and only people walking dogs and delivery drivers (or solicitors) use the front door. So everyone hides behind those stupid ring cameras.

“whaa but my neighbors are all assholes”

I’ll admit: Not all of them!

Peoples’ average temperament indeed seems set on being the “leave me alone miserable and lonely” default though.

… Or they’re psychos. I live in a particularly transient city though, people move all the time, most rent, and you barely can tell there’s completely different people next door one day.

I deleted all the details to avoid a wall of text, but we’ve lived through a couple neighborhoods where everyone knew each other, and now it’s barred windows and cameras that shout “YOU’RE BEING FILMED” when you’re 50 feet away.

I notice a common toxicity factor seems to be those “Muh property” NIMBYs that see a house as a “real estate investment” instead of a home. The ones who sic the HOA on people they’ve never met and are mad about everything. (They’re probably also on Nextdoor posting about answering their door “with Smith & Wesson.” Trolls.)

I randomly met a really cool neighbor on a bike ride though. He happened to have his garage open! Sadly we don’t text a whole ton but he’s pretty cool.

People tend to be pretty alright if you encounter them in the wild but nobody’s opening their door to say hi anymore, and I also find that we’re under so much immense pressure that just stopping for a chat feels like it eats a chunk out of a day. This is also not healthy…

I want community, and local friends and all that. But I dunno, I think everybody is just burned out and vulnerability is especially scary these days, especially with the violent polarization of our politics of late.

But I agree, people would be much less likely to vote to harm and oppress their neighbors if they knew more of them personally…

they gobble up insane amounts of RAM to provide almost the same functionality as in 2010.

Critical to using our service? Maybe even an operating system?

ELECTRON APP!

Not 100% relevant but it was in my collection and I thought it was close enough to be funny. :D

Me too! Haven’t had my coffee yet. I was like

“… character…? Charisma…? (blink blink)”