ares35

i bought a few smr drives, knowing they were smr. they were cheaper, a lot cheaper than the same amount of space in cmr. used only for static media storage, so that’s not a big deal, really., but holy hell was it slow getting stuff on them initially.

i have a few self-powered externals that are also smr (quite common with those as they use 2.5in notebook hdd). when those things have to start shuffling bits around and rewriting tracks, sustained write speeds fall well under what even usb2 can send.

i bought a big external hdd recently on impulse… a clearance sale. it was really, really cheap. with the thinking that i could ‘shuck’ it because i’m short on space in a couple storage systems. i checked. i can, but i haven’t. hell, i haven’t even used it yet other than to run a full smart diag on it, followed by a full format and a read/write verify. took days. then i put it back in the box and have basically forgotten about it until now.

you have to be careful on what models you buy. some have usb built onto the controller board (no internal sata) or other things (e.g. encryption chip, weird power) that make it more difficult or even impossible to use the internal drive in an environment other than the enclosure it ships in.

patents is what you’re thinking of. and all (afaik) of them relating to mp3 format have expired.

usb nvme adapters are not expensive and it likely won’t be the only time you need it. they are a handy accessory to have on hand if you have nvme storage.

don’t mess around with imaging to a file on the zfs, then restoring it. simply clone nvme -> nvme using a usb nvme adapter then replace the internal with the clone.

first boot: no i don’t want a 365 trial.

still first boot: no i don’t want 365 ‘basic’, either.

(you should know this msa already has a one-off office license on it, you fuckwits)

and yea, still in first boot: no i don’t want game pass trial.

then game pass notifications shortly after from the ‘store’.

this was this past weekend setting up a new desktop with 11 pro.

when i lived down in texas (and a couple other places), the stores had can-sized paper bags for the big cans and for regular 12oz ones. and i’d see guys having clerks at the store ‘bag’ their beer (even each can of an intact six-pack)…

then see them a few lights down the road chugging one at a red.

of course i learn of this today, a day after i just spent $10 each to ‘recycle’ a bunch of dead monitors.

a pallet of 4th gens? i have a dozen left here from around that era that i can’t get rid of without literally giving them away. they’re ‘tolerable’ for a gui linux or win10 with an ssd, but the ‘performance per watt’ just isn’t there with hardware this old. i used a few of them (none in an always-on role, though), but the rest just sit in the corner, without home nor purpose.

these 800 g1s are, iirc, 12vo, so upgrade or reuse potential is a bit limited. most users would want windows, and win10 does run ‘ok enough’ on 4th gen, just make sure they’re booting from ssd (120gb minimum). but they’ll run into that arbitrarily-errected wall-of-obsolescence with trying to upgrade or install win11 when win10 retires in ~ 18 months (you can ‘rufus’ a win11 installer, but there’s no guarantee that you will be able to in the future). that limits demand and resale value of pretty much all the pre-8th gen hardware.

erecting a firewall.

someone spycheck already, dammit!

MEDIC!!!

they’re just trying to con people into using the new data harvesting mail app by calling it ‘outlook’

we still play that game. at least once every week or two, i’m calling a ‘lost’ phone from another or using the handset locator on a cordless system.

there’s still the very real possibility they’re hoovering all the encrypted data, too. and storing the stuff to/from ‘interesting’ end points for later ‘analysis’–that is, if they don’t already have the current tech broken.

it’s not ‘all the time’. far from it. usually only one, sometimes two, windows. i don’t go into the lesser-used ones very often at all. like i said, different purposes–some of which are infrequent but require different configurations.

the portable ‘installs’ can also be zipped-up, put on (and run from) flash, moved to or replicated on different systems, all easier than backing-up and restoring individual profiles.

i quit using profiles ages ago. i use different ‘installs’. each is for different purposes and they each have a different mix of addons and user scripts|styles.

i have firefox installed normally, plus i have firefox developer edition, waterfox, librewolf, and even a seamonkey (some ‘portable’, some ‘installed’). any or all can be run at the same time as the others. profiles are separate and there’s no conflicts.

when i need it, i extract a portable chromium (opera or vivaldi, usually) and then delete it when i’m done with it.

hollywood accountants will inflate the internal markup for everything, shuffle some numbers around, and come up with a 300mil ‘write off’ across all the various corporate divisions and shit.

they went all-in on fake ‘reality’ bullshit years ago.

Mix in Hollywood accounting

there’s definitely some accounting shenanigans going on.

it’s mostly the new ownership. wb isn’t in charge anymore… discovery is. and they’ve been shit for ~ 20 years, at least.

i am intrigued as well. definitely gonna look this up. i’m already coming up with ideas, like using pizza dough for ‘batter’ and toppings, cheese and sauce for ‘filling’…