We should have stuck with network file shares and FTP instead of outsourcing everything to Google. ‘Unlimited storage’ for select organizations was really good bait, but it was never sustainable.

Same, too many clocks, all getting out of sync, and some on power strips that get turned off periodically.

I was thinking something on those lines the other day. We like to say that Linux revives old computers, and I wouldn’t for a second consider putting Windows back on them, but I also have a case of hardware support so close, yet so far. I’ve two old laptops with nvidia chips from before the days of Optimus switiching, so you are forced to use the dGPU. Believe me, I wasted a whole weekend trying to make them use only integrated graphics. It was fine while they were supported under the proprietary nvidia driver, but as soon as support ended, nouveau became the only option and it absolutely crippled 3D performance, even on very old titles. Meanwhile, Windows still supports the old 340 driver needed for those graphics chips.

Mostly comes down to hardware vendors not bothering with Linux support and open-source in general. Which leaves support for affected devices down to volunteers having time to reverse-engineer a driver from scratch. To be clear, I don’t blame nouveau at all. It must have been a ton of work to even get the nouveau driver to its current state.

I have heard those terms in the past, albeit not too often

Back in the early 2010s, I bought a new PC with Windows 8 on it. Hated the way it looked and the way it worked. I wanted my Start menu and Aero and Classic themes back. Led me to learning about Linux. But uxTheme and Classic Shell kept me happy for a couple more years.

Then I got a laptop with Windows 10. Felt my heart rate spike as I went through the settings and found out how much more hostile to user choice and privacy Microsoft had become. When the semi-annual updates kept undoing all my hard work debloating Windows, I decided it was time to begin using Linux in earnest.

At first, I had a dual-boot setup and jumped around between Ubuntu, Deepin, Arch, etc. Found myself booting into the Windows partition less than once a month, at which point I moved it out onto its own drive. Distro-hopping went on for about a year, after which I decided that Debian met all of my needs. Continued DE-hopping for about another year until settling on XFCE with Chicago95. Brought me enough joy to make a standardized setup in a VM, which I have since cloned to all of my computers except for the Windows laptop I keep around for work.

Mixed bag. I’m lucky enough that most of my work can be done on a Linux machine. Workplace does require us to bring our own devices, but the policy is extremely lax, no need to install any monitoring software or the like. Which lets me have a Linux desktop chilling on my desk.

But I do have to keep a laptop with Windows around. We sometimes have to work with overcomplicated Office documents that break on alternatives like LibreOffice or the occasional piece of proprietary software that needs direct USB access, which Wine cannot yet provide.

New local. I’m only subscribed to a handful of communities.

It’s definitely one of the ways I fidget when alone.

I don’t know if it’s related, but my problem is that sometimes I think my head is upright but it ends up being tilted a bit in photos.

I write a brief journal entry each day. Would have loved to read the day-to-day musings of past generations in my family, so I’d like to do this now for posterity. I even designed a custom printable planner with space for it, Letter/A4 sized so I can easily scan them in once I’m done. It’s just a section of my planner so the context of what I did that day is right there and the limited space keeps me from feeling pressured to write in gory detail. Printed out because the digital equivalents never really worked well for me.

That only captures a small amount of my life and I’m not big on taking photos, but even a brief daily journal entry takes much discipline, so I won’t push it and risk giving up.

While I like to consume documents and photos on paper, I don’t trust it in the long run. Vulnerable to water, fire, UV, and theft. You could say the same for electronic media, but it’s easy to duplicate, encrypt, and verify with checksums (or replace if it fails). All of my photos and documents to date fit within 128gb with room to spare, so I store encrypted copies on hard drives at home, a SSD hidden among cables and chargers at work, on my personal laptop, and in a microSD in my wallet. All verified with btrfs scrub and synced at my leisure.

Bought an automatic-feed scanner to gradually digitize the hoard of paper documents and photos I have remaining. I ought to look into digitizing old home VHS tapes from my childhood and backing up the really important stuff to M-Discs sometime, but that’s all I have time for now.

For sure. Mine did fill higher when it was new, but the low water level issue developed a few years in.

A luxury car complete with touchscreens, back when a touchscreen was magical and revolutionary. Car maintenance and privacy concerns have taught me to love the very opposite, a 90s Chevy.

New appliances. A matter of time until the fridge chokes itself since the coils are covered in dust and impossible to reach without tipping the whole fridge over. Also sorely regret replacing the old electromechanical washer instead of repairing it. New one fills with too little water at random and apparently it’s a controller board issue with no easy fix in sight.

Also Apple mobile devices, I understand they can’t keep supporting them forever, but the bootloader’s locked so I can’t even put something less demanding on it.

Words starting with th- (th-fronting) and plurals ending in -ths, -sps, etc.

Perhaps inflating it with upgrades, but very few original parts remain on my ThinkPad X230. Swapped parts include the motherboard, RAM, SSDs, wireless card, fingerprint reader, keyboard, LCD panel, speakers, cooler, battery, screws, bezel, palmrest, and hinges.

The multi-tool pen in my pocket everyday carry too. Originally had ruler markings, Phillips and slotted bits, stylus tip, and a level. Didn’t need the level and wanted it shorter so it fit in my key pouch, so I took all the parts out, sawed off part of the barrel, and put it all back together, sans level. Refills are easily available online or can be crafted simply by popping the ink stick out of a regular ballpoint pen and cutting it short.

My 90s Chevy is also very repairable and the parts are still very plentiful. In no mood to get something newer, especially after seeing the engines and touchscreens of some my friends’ newer cars.

Kemove K87 with Red switches and o-rings at work. Keeps noise down and the tenkeyless layout is a nice compromise between desk space and functionality. Might switch it out for an ikbc tenkeyless with Cherry MX Silent Red switches that I got for cheap once. That I purchased to see if something without o-rings would feel better, but I’ll have to fix a couple broken switches first.

At home, a no-name tenkeyless with blue switches because that was what was on discount and I didn’t mind the clicking. Before that, I used a Monoprice full-size with brown switches and o-rings to keep the loud pinging down. Miss the feel of the brown switches, but not how much space it took on my desk.

I originally worried that my typing accuracy would suffer on the reds due to the lack of tactile bump, but I’m growing to prefer it since I don’t find myself making more typos, while the low actuation force makes long typing sessions more comfortable. Haven’t looked at more niche low-profile, etc. options though, can’t quite convince myself to drop more than $50 on a keyboard.

Check out zint

• Bulk unarchiver or a frontend for ffmpeg (using existing tools, both get very messy when special characters or multiple directories are involved)
  • Existing ffmpeg GUIs have had fixed lists of formats and options, making new or obscure ones inaccessible. There also needs to be an option to export the command based on GUI selections so the user can learn if they choose, or fix the command if something isn’t right.
• Adding the little details of Windows File Manager (i.e. Format dialog, search by attribute like MP3 bitrate) to some existing Linux file manager
• Mounting of network drives in Linux graphical file managers: many of them handle it through gvfs, which for some reason insists on mountpoints with long directory paths and special characters, breaking compatibility with various utilities
• Extending Linux Mint’s libadapta to further restore theming in libadwaita apps. This I am personally looking forward to contribute to as more programs move to libadwaita and disrupt the look I’ve painstakingly set up for my desktop.

~/.drafts, in which my text editor taskbar shortcut script creates files YYMMDD_text_N. I passionately believe in eliminating the chore of manually naming my spur-of-the-moment notes and text files.

~/progs or ~/bin where loose programs not provided by my package manager reside.

If there’s a secondary drive, /media/disk1 as the mount point in fstab.

Seems fine if it only pops up with cursor activity or hovering. Agree if it’s permanently there though. When I use mpv, I have to configure it with some semblance of GUI controls or I’ll lose my mind.

As for specific UI needs, I have went at length to seamlessly theme my desktop like NT 4.0. I could use a fully libadwaita-themed system if I had to, but it just doesn’t spark the same joy that makes working on my computer just a bit more enjoyable.

Have been guilty of this when placing an online order, one time I simply forgot, the other time an obligation presented itself and I didn’t have time to go out of my way and pick it up. As for ordering at the counter and abandoning, IDK. Could be having to run for some urgent matter, but I’d agree it happens way too often to be just that.