pedz
joined 1 year ago
Microsoft uses some of these. I remember having to do something like that to setup a minecraft account and at some point I thought I would just give up and lose my money.
No thanks, I'll keep pedaling.
Where I live temperatures can reach -30C in winter and 30C in summer, so storing anything "sensible" in a shed is a very bad idea. Everything has to be stored in a controlled environment or it will quickly get moldy and rusty.
However, I kept my old 5.25" diskettes in a box where they were a bit squeezed together and they obviously didn't like that. It could also just be time. Anyways, a few years ago I decided to copy everything on hard drives and some diskettes were now unreadable.
I waited too long to backup them and now it's too late for some of them.
And even stored "properly", I also have burned CDs from the early 2000 that are also unreadable. It's unfortunate but there's nothing I can do now, except to learn and remember the lesson.
I'm always baffled by people that find old computers stored in barns and still working. Where I am I don't think they would last more than two winters with this kind of temperature and humidity variation.
I work with IBM i/AS400 servers and those are not exactly the quickest thing to "reboot" (technically an IPL). Especially the old ones. I have access to the HMC/console but even this sometimes takes several minutes (if not dozens) just to show what's going on.
It's always a bit stressful to see the codes passing one after the other and then it stops on one and seems to get stuck there for a while before continuing the IPL process. Maybe it's applying PTFs (updates) or something, and you just have to wait while even the console is blank.
I've been monitoring those servers for years and I'm still sometimes wondering if it hanged during the IPL or if it's just doing its thing, because this part, even with codes, is not very verbose.
Fortunately it's also very stable so it pretty much always comes back a few minutes after you start wondering why the hell it's taking so long.
I am fortunate enough to know how to set up VMs and use Linux, so I run my own IRC server with a web interface (TheLounge). I can set the upload limit to what I want and settled for 100MB. This way my friends and I are not at the mercy of some proprietary software.
I do pay for a dedicated server that I also use to host my games' servers and also a mumble server, but it's so worth it, just to have control over our stuff.
In Québec there is a moving company that has been using the same jingle and phone number for decades. Ir's really catchy and sticks in your head.
Le clan Panneton, pour déménager, faut composer le 937-0707.
The ad from 1997: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBIADSFYoVk
The ad from 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_VYYkFMcFk
Ask anyone in QC what's the Clan Panneton's number and they will start signing it.
Knowing the CAQ and how they are literally cutting funding for public transit inside cities, hell will freeze over if they do anything about trains here.
"Get a car, looser" is pretty much their message.
Again? It also happened two years ago with passengers stuck on a train for 12 hours.
I hate VIA Rail so much, yet sometimes I have no choice but to use them, as I made the stupid choice of not having a car.
I always prepare for the worse with them. Bring snacks and water because they can't even do that when trains are running "normally". For example if you have not eaten before taking a VIA Rail train and count on their services, they will probably be late with the food cart and pass 3 minutes before your stop.
And don't forget to buy your ticket 3 weeks in advance (or more) because god forbid you think of going in another city "only" a few days before. Being last minute for them is apparently about one week before taking the train.
I wanted to make Montreal to Drummondville saturday but I thought about it tuesday and it was already "too late". So instead of the normal exorbitant price of $35 that it normally costs if you reserve 3 weeks in advance, it's $60.
They also don't take bikes on the corridor and they can't say if they will eventually.
Employees will also threaten to kick you out of the train in the middle of nowhere if they want to have authority on you. Or they won't let you out when they have an issue. You're basically at their mercy.
And unfortunately buses are not exactly better. Intercity travel in this country sucks soooo much if you don't have a car.
It's so bad that in summer I prefer to cycle the whole 130 km to go visit my family instead of taking a VIA Rail train, or an Orléans Express bus.
I'm in Europe right now and I'm so envious of their trains. I don't even have to plan ahead a few weeks before! This morning I booked a ticket from Aachen to Liège about 30 minutes before the departure and it went so well. And there was another train an hour after this one. Or a high speed one too. Aaah, we suck so bad at this.
I don't want to say it gets worse, so I tell them to enjoy being young and have experiences while they can, because it gets more difficult.
Like, if you do stupid things and break a bone, better do it while it will heal much faster. If you want to get good at gymnastics or anything that requires being physically fit, better do it while being young.
I'm starting my 40ies and can only see how my knees are starting to hurt and my body aches in ways I didn't know it could.
My grandmother is 95 and wants to die. She was active for her whole life but now that she is losing sight, hearing, and is mostly bound to her apartment, she's had enough. And I can understand.
You certainly can stay young and joyful in your head, but at some point your body is not going to help.
ITT: LLM helps me with mundane tasks so fuck the enormous energy requirements and its impact on environment!
And it only consumes the equivalent in electricity of what an American house uses for a few tears.