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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: April 17th, 2024

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  • I’ve always been curious about this stuff and I know I need to make some effort soon, ever since we moved our home recordings from VHS to DVD some 15-20 years ago.

    My understanding is that SSDs are also likely to lose data when unpowered for a long time, which is why they haven’t been recommended to me for external backup drives.

    “Spinning rust” is much cheaper than I thought, even if I have to pay 200$ in shipping to get a bunch of massive used server drives here. And it seems to not have that problem, with the downside of either needing to be completely powered off or wasting a bit of power when it’s not active. I’m still not sure where the HDD parking technology is at.

    Of course ripping all the physical media would also be nice. A lot of the original discs I have (most of my discs are straight shitty copies with one file, yay third world) have things like special features and multiple audio tracks, things like that. I wonder how those should be organized.




  • Just off the top of my head:

    Steven Wilson, one of the most influential artists in my creative life. Turns out even some of the songs were even recorded there. I don’t even think he has a familial claim to benefit from Zionism, I think he’s just gotten roped in. At least I tell myself that.

    Sacha Baron Cohen, IMO one of the most brilliant comedians. I don’t think he’s necessarily an extremist to the extent that Natenyahu is, knowing his politics, but that is the logical conclusion of Zionism and just being on that path is all the red flags in the world.

    Quentin Tarantino, bro why

    I actually can’t think of many. I’m from Lebanon and if it’s even a small part of someone’s public life we just avoid them, it’s been that way for very long. So there’s an extent to which these people are filtered out.

    I also don’t use traditional social media at all so something like the Sarah Silverman meltdown you mention would be completely off my radar.



  • Here’s what I got in my old local archive folder, if it helps. Let me know if I have something missing, I’ve never been on this side of this interaction!

    list of files

    banyantreefar.zip
    BookshelfMagic.exe
    ColumnFrench.exe
    Dartboard.exe
    Dartboard_001.exe
    DormBookcase.exe
    DormChairLiving.exe
    DormLampDesk.exe
    DormPainting.exe
    DormSculpture.exe
    DormStereo.exe
    DoubleDeluxe1.exe
    doubledeluxe2.exe
    doubledeluxe3.exe
    execchair.zip
    FunHouseTrack4x1-1003.exe
    FunHouseTrackLoop-1003.exe
    GreenBedroomSet.exe
    HPPottyPack.exe
    HungryHamster.exe
    IntelComputer_International.exe
    McFoodCart_International.exe
    PepsiMachine1.exe
    PicnicUmbrellas.exe
    PlantCarnivore.exe
    SCDrinks.exe
    StairsSweepingReverse.exe
    TableSoccer2.exe
    workerdesk.zip

    Not entirely sure if this is complete, or if it’s even all Maxis. I have a third party mod folder backed up somewhere (and one with those old text guides, loved those) but I didn’t find it with a quick search. This folder is from 2010, so it’s not exactly period-correct. In case Windows doesn’t like these older .exes they seem to just be archives with the .far files inside, so you can rip them open. Not exactly sure why some of these are .zips and others are .exes, but the .zips only contain the .far files.

    One thing that sucks is that some disk content was just permanently gated behind these downloads, and there was every possibility that you wouldn’t know these downloads existed. Specifically there were Makin Magic recipes for child-only magic stuff that used ingredients only adults could gather. So the Magic Bookshelf was mandatory to see that stuff that came on the damn disk. I’m pretty sure I was using a third party reskin of that item before looking for the original, but I could be wrong.

    Good lord, .far files. Remember FARout? Those really were the days. I still like to think I’ll revisit TS1 properly someday. That was a proper game, with unapologetic personality.


  • I still prefer paper, although not having to store moisture-sensitive fragile things is nice. So is the fact that I can read books that are out of print or hard to find (or banned, yay Middle East), even if fumbling with PDFs isn’t wonderful on the device.

    And of course, the obvious: downloading them for free. Which is always ethical when Routledge wants to charge you 85$ for a scholarly work of which the author doesn’t see a dollar.









  • 10K is a home solar investment. Where I live, people tend to live in multi-family buildings about 3-6 floors high, often split between siblings and their families. Depending on how many are in the country year-round, that might even be enough for the whole building with careful management. Obviously wouldn’t be the same if the neighbors are strangers. (I appreciate that the familial emphasis might seem a bit random in your culture). Ideally 10K might just be enough for one or two households.

    The much more interesting prompt is 10B, imo.

    10B? Oh man. I’m in Lebanon. We’ve effortlessly squandered more generous fortunes than a measly 10B grant, but here’s how I’d do it:

    1B: buses, trams and parking garages to decongest some of the nicer (and underperforming, touristy) old town areas. Should give them a sorely needed boost 3B: modern seaside train running from north to south, with a small number of branches into the interior. Mostly freight. 3B: start phase of a Beirut metro. It’s not enough for a full metro system especially with our geological conditions, but the core city isn’t too big and one line should be feasible? 2B: functional army so we still have civilian infrastructure next time our noisy neighbor gets a hissy fit (infrastructure is worthless if it’s destroyed) 1B: modern fossil fuel power plant. Yeah it’s not green, but we generate a fraction of our needed power, meaning most people have to pay off a local generator mob for electricity. They use diesel and relatively inefficient smaller generators. Our existing ancient power plants use dogshit-tier diesel. I insist that some kind of LNG plant maybe would actually make the situation more green. As it stands the convenience of combustible fuel is more pertinent than the environmental cost