gridlockjoe | Reading

denise posting in

Hello, friends! It's about to be December again, and you know what that means: the fact I am posting this actually before December 1 means

karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.

The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.

( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )

Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.

On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.

amalthia

Last month I had 4 external hard drives and my husband convinced me to buy a new hard drive to replace my two oldest drives. So I did what most people do and I went to Amazon and bought a Seagate Expansion 22TB hard drive. It arrived in the retail box on my front porch, which was kind of weird, and I'm glad I was home because it required zero effort to figure out what was delivered.

My concern then became is this a safe way to transport external hard drives? So I started down the internet research rabbit hole to figure out if this was a safe way to transport these types of drives and how to verify that the hard drive wasn't physically damaged in transport.

( cut for the rest of the post )

lil_m_moses

Family Thanksgiving is done. We kept it low key and just got BBQ from a good local place that does some good smoking. We have so much meat left over, but I can't be mad at that. I also introduced my family to the delights of Rumchata. And then I slept for 11 hours, which I sorely needed based on how much I think I was (and was told I was) snoring.

Today I decided I wanted to look into replacing at least one of the bathroom vent fans, cause they're pretty loud. I started out just trying to get to where I could measure the opening, but ended up digging all the way into the hall bath one to clean it. I learned how to take it apart, and discovered that it was installed pre-sheetrock, which would make replacement harder. I also found out why we get a cold draft out of that fan all winter, too - I'm pretty sure the check valve housing was installed upside down, so the weighting on the flapper was causing it to tend to stay open instead of closed. The flapper was designed in such a way that I was able to stick 3 little washers to it, just enough to make it want to fall closed rather than open. Between the cleaning and the flapper, it's less rattly, if not much quieter. Turns out they sell a replacement motor and fan assembly that moves 10 more CFM with 1 less sone of noise, and Lowe's has them, so I picked up 2 and that'll be a project for my 4-day weekend next week, including cleaning out the housing of the master bath fan before putting the new guts in. Just measured in the hall bath, and my phone says it's running about 60 dB. Ostensibly the new one should be closer to 50 dB, though I also noticed a pretty sharp turn in the flex duct right outside the check valve that will cause some back-pressure and likely a little extra noise. Less than now will still be good, though.

lil_m_moses

I'm trying to load up a new memory stick with music for my new car stereo, since I hadn't updated the old one in forever and I'd acquired more music in the interim (and it was an SD card). In poking through my files I was reminded that I got my mitts on old IPM* recordings from 2000 - 2002 at some point, then realized the reason they weren't in my mix already is that they're all RealMedia files. Holy blast from the past, Batman!

I just installed RealPlayer for the first time in at least a decade, maybe longer. The fact that it's still a going concern is the extra crazy part. But, thankfully, it's allowing me to convert all those old shows to .mp3, so I can listen at will in the future, and they can join my Fross Convergence mixes for when I'm missing the net.goth crew and Convergence. [EDIT: the conversions took forever and were finicky, but they're done. Unfortunately, the audio quality is terrible. But it turns out the USB file navigation on my new car stereo is even worse, so that whole idea is likely a bust.]

I'm a fogey and haven't explored Twitch streams at all, though I hear they really took off during the pandemic and are still going. I just don't really have the bandwidth to sit and listen like that these days, though I imagine there are probably phone apps too. I should look into that...

* Oh, wow, IPM resurrected? But Facebook...ugh. And also https://www.mixcloud.com/IPM_Radio_net/?

amalthia

Here is the lowdown, this year for Thanksgiving I traveled from Alaska to Texas. That part went well.

The part that annoys me is my mom just told me one of my aunts and uncles plan to attend Thanksgiving and they plan to watch football in the living room. My mom's house has an open floor plan so the dinning area, the kitchen, and living room are all in the same space. They are planning on at least 12 people attending this party.

The biggest problem beyond my own irritation at that level of rudeness is that I can't hear well when there are too many competing noises and I've noticed over the years I don't do well with crowds or too much noise.

I'm like why the fuck are you even visiting people if you plan to watch TV? They could stay home and do that, or show up for an hour two, then leave to go home and watch TV. There is no visiting and catching up if someone's attention is focused on a TV show. Also why does "football" get a pass on family holidays in terms of what is played on TV but not other shows?

I was sort of looking forward to catching up with aunts, uncles, and cousins, but not sure that's going to happen. It's hard enough talking when there are a lot of people around and there is just conversation happening, but add in TV noise and it's just unbearable. I'll probably eat and bail. Too much noise stresses me out. I already told mom when I get overwhelmed I'm leaving the party to go hide out away from the noise.

Which is what I did a lot of when I was growing up, parties with large groups of people make me miserable. Small gatherings are fine but I think after 10 people it's just too much.

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The Canadian Embassy

Reading

Look! I remembered to post before December started this year!

External Hard Drive Rabbit Hole

Early Holiday

Blast from the Past

Thanksgiving isn't even here yet and I'm already annoyed

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January 2017

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