Not gay, but this song was always SUPER fun to sing in Rockband. Not sure if it’s too on-the-nose or what, but I stand by it as an absolute banger, regardless of who you’re attracted to.

Electric Six - Gay Bar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XNFokmDKrE

Maybe open with that to lighten the mood? Also, it’s only about two minutes long (plus an intro). Plus, taking the piss outta Lincoln.

You can’t “never” get malware on Windows, but you can avoid a lot of it with common sense. I used Windows for ~30 years before jumping ship a few years ago (to Mac) and I had a couple malware issues, but nothing major. No ransomware (did get it on Android once, but right after flashing custom firmware, so I just wiped and re-flashed). Just being very careful.

Anything that tells you to disable your antivirus is probably not your friend and is probably trying to get malware on your system. Anyone telling you to disable any part of your security software (even if, and especially if it’s “just” your ad blocker) is not your friend and is probably trying to get malware (or specifically ransomware) on your system.

Now, I know… you can’t really pirate software without cracking it… but when a game is on GOG (no DRM) and Steam (DRM), and you see the “Steam version, but cracked”, you have to ask yourself, why they didn’t just get the GOG version? Part of it is the thrill of the challenge. But then it wants you to disable your antivirus? That’s someone looking to make a buck or two off of you. They didn’t go with GOG because they wanted to turn your computer into part of a botnet or something. Fuck what they say, look at what they do. Now, if the game’s not on GOG… you have to trust others who say that group is not shady, and even then, something can still go wrong. But riddle me this… if you can supply a program that cracks a game or program for me to make it so it runs DRM-free on my machine, but I have to disable my antivirus to run it… why couldn’t you just crack it on your end? Why do I need to run that program on my end… to put it another way, why can’t the one guy who released it do the work one time? Why do the 500+ people who download each need to do it? Unless you’re trying to build a botnet, so of course you need them to run it.

Around 45 minutes an episode.

So, VHS tapes (for those who don’t know — not saying you don’t, but, for the benefit of others) were limited in how much video they could hold by the length of tape spooled up. That had a physical limit, but tape could be recorded at three speeds (possibly more, but home players could only play three speeds, so that was the standard). If you had 2 hours of tape at SP, you had 4 hours at LP, and either 6 or 8 at EP (I forget which). Not sure if they had formal names, but we called them Standard, Long, and Extended Play.

Some cheap tapes came with like half an hour at SP but were recorded at EP speeds so they could save pennies on the tape.

I imagine the Star Trek tapes were your bog standard 2 hour tapes, but they might have cut some off at the end as it wasn’t needed.

If you had extra tape, the tape would continue to play (with nothing to show) until it reached the end, so it was a waste for all involved, especially since some home players, when they reached the end, would automatically rewind the tape.

I miss cassettes. 8-tracks, VHS, Betamax, and audio cassette tapes. They just had a feel to them. The media quality sucked, but nostalgia is always rose tinted.

Tribalism. Same mentality as giving a shit what brand someone’s phone is. It’s a phone. The real question is, can you use it for secure communication? Or are you just paying tribute to the tech bros? But yeah, go on giving a shit who makes the hardware so you can judge the person on whether or not they’re your fucking tribe.

Same thing with babies, they wanna congratulate you if it’s a boy and offer future condolences if it’s a girl.

I bought .hack//SIGN like that. Except I think it was 4 per disc. Something like 24 episodes, it had six discs. But some had more than others. What was cool was if you put the DVD cases together, they had letters on them, and they spelled LOGOUT. So it was basically SAO before SAO was SAO… only it was one guy trapped in the game, not ten thousand. Ton of other similarities. Not that I like it more — SAO did almost everything better, even if it was completely derivative.

Back in the day, Star Trek episodes used to come on VHS, two episodes to a tape.

I’m not. Naruto is on my server because my wife asked for it. But, she’s watching One Piece instead. It’s still on my server because I haven’t had to make room yet.

(One Piece is not on my server. She’s watching that on Netflix.)

So only the user process is locked out of the C drive, not the boot/system. Fortunately, the way Windows 10/11 works by default, if you sign into a Microslop account, it backs all that stuff up to OneDrive. At least your documents. And no one’s saying it’s not bad, it just seems like most affected individuals will be able to go about most of their day. I have a Mac, so I don’t need to worry about any of this have separate issues to worry about.

In addition to other tech forums named, there’s also the Ars Technica forum. That’s been around for over 20 years. It’s a freemium forum, so some of those members are funding it as well, and have been doing so for years. That should at least speak to the dedication of the community.

But Reddit isn’t just a tech forum, it’s mostly casual stuff. If you go to Ars Technica’s forums, or some of the other forums, or hell, even /r/AskScience (and similar subreddits) and you’re not an expert, you will get burned. So with some of these places, there is a wall of IQ/expertise most users can’t surpass, and they tend to get weeded out. Reddit as a whole has a much lower barrier of entry, and you can avoid the smart areas if you aren’t. So it appeals to more people.

Well, it tells you I was right about the resolution (720x480) and it gives you the frame rate, 29.97 (effectively 30 but not quite, mathematically). And the audio is basically uncompressed 48khz at 1536kbps. And that you’re watching in Japanese (ja) and English (en) isn’t available.

It looks like you’re 14:20 into a 1:09:27 DVD which is like 3 episodes?

But it can boot into Windows, which is also on the C drive? So it’s not locking users out of the C drive, it’s locking users out of parts of the C drive.

Well I’m obviously not, I’m just saying, if the system wouldn’t boot at all, they’d lead with that. For most users, it won’t matter. For the more technical users, we’re either using Linux or macOS.

When you’re done laughing, read some benchmarks. They absolutely have. Used to be they were a generation or two behind. Now it’s a lot closer. And doesn’t really matter all that much, outside of high-end gaming.

Post that you think people who abuse children should receive stricter punishments under the law.

Reddit will make the decision for you.

.iso is a disk image, DVD is an optical disc format, and MPV is a software media player. None of these really have anything to do with anything.

You’re probably dealing with MPEG-2 video (what was standard on DVD) with low frame rates and the player is trying (badly) to fill in the gaps. But let me be clear, I’m not besmirching MPV, it’s probably doing the best it can. It’s probably the source. If it’s from DVD, it’s max 720x480 (16:9; 640x480 for 4:3, not sure what these old Naruto eps are in). So you could do better with some webrip from Crunchy or whatever where it’s 1080p, either natively or, for the old Naruto, possibly upscaled. Or just find it in 720p (1280x720).

(Just checked mine, it’s 480p.) (Let me know what episode and time stamp this is and I’ll check mine.)

Can you still use the computer? Other than the home folder (or the user folder), I think it’s fine if regular users go a week without touching their C drive until Microslop fixes it (which they will, inside like a week).

I use Windows at work, and it’s fine. I do use the home/user folder just because it’s there and it’s how everything’s set up, but there is no other drive to use instead. If I were using it at home, especially if I had a laptop, I’d want the home drive to be on an SSD I could move between machines… maybe. But, I use Macs at home.

The Samsung keyboard is bad? I remember when it had a number row and we were all just like “whoa, this is what we asked for.” I just use Gboard on mine (S10). If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

$600 for most people. $500 with educational discount — like the Chromebook I said it was an alternative to. Most Chromebooks are sold at “education” rates, hence that price. Also, there are a lot of ways to get an educational discount.

Gifts aren’t checked at the door. You are expected to bring a gift (a lot of people just bring cards, some containing cash or gift cards) but it’s not required.

Parents not being able to afford to throw a good birthday party for their kid is not uncommon, either, even before all this shit went down in the world. Growing up, I was often given the choice between not having a party, or having a postponed party, or a combined party with one of my siblings or cousins.

Now that I’m married to a baker, we offer to bring the cake. That saves the parents some money. Some grandparents are prejudiced against homemade cakes for some reason, and prefer the nasty ass fake frosting of store-bought cakes, so they will offer to buy a sheet cake or a couple dozen cupcakes and sometimes the parents go that way instead. So, there are ways to save money. Of course, if you know a baker, you should not expect them to bake your child a birthday cake (and decorate it!) for free, but if you have a skill they don’t have, you can work out a trade. They make your child a cake, you do work on their car, around their house, whatever. It’s less of a formal transaction and more of “we all help each other.” And when there’s a birthday, my wife’s way of helping is, she bakes a cake. Me, I do tech stuff. I can fix or upgrade computers, I can make a computer block ads and install other helpful software, I can solve a bunch of problems that are minor and small to techs, but your “average Joe” (or Jane) knows nothing about.

I listen to mostly Japanese music, because after the west bid adeiu to rock radio and rock music in general (there are some exceptions), I followed the music I liked. And the best rock music made today is made by people who grew up in Japan. Some of them speak English. Some of those sing in English, but they’re ethnically Japanese. Like ONE OK ROCK, formed in Japan, grew up there, then sold out 10-15 years ago, moved to Los Angeles, and signed with Fueled by Ramen. Still my favourite band, though despite their name (which is a play on “one o’clock,” the time in the early morning they’d rent studio time, when it was cheapest, and the fact that Ls and Rs can be pronounced the same in Japanese), they play mostly pop punk, like others on their label (e.g. Fall Out Boy, Paramore, etc.). But I listen to a lot of others. Recently been listening to the new hyde album.

So yeah, wonder what that says about me. If language matters (I don’t know Japanese) or if it’s the genre.

I still do listen to western rock, but most of it is not new. I still listen to rock music from the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.

Geometric.

Not scientific