I have about 10 Portable 2.5" HDD's I somehow built up over the years, plus an additional 10 2.5" HDD's laying around that aren't in enclosures at the moment. I'm tossing up between wiping them all and disposing of them, and buying an enclosure to use them in a NAS. 7 of them are reasonable at between 2TB and 4TB capacity. It's just, they're so fucking slow. Is it really worth it to keep using HDD's in this day and age, or should I accept that their time has come and throw them out? I think I will just be dissapointed and annoyed with how slow they are if I keep them around and use them for hosting media on a plex server - But I haven't tested them out for that so I'm not sure.
I'm leaning towards wiping and getting rid of them. Any suggestions for a use I might find for them? Are you still using a HDD? Why? What do you use it for? I feel like the time it takes for shit to load on them isn't worth it and it just detracts to heavily from whatever I'm doing on a computer.
if you want to post links or discuss Reddit over the next while, please localize it to this thread in order to keep things tidy, thanks! (a more formal body may be forthcoming, but that'll come in the morning if so)
I didn't really follow the recent "drama" (for lack of a better term), but I'm glad it came about because it created a lot of buzz on hackernews about reddit alternatives which got me to check out the Fediverse (kbin/lemmy), and a few other alternatives. I really like the look and feel of Discuit, but it's inevitable for it to become essentially another digg v4/reddit 2.0 clone because apart from a nice UI and the creator/owner not being a dick, it's still a centralised forum that will limit or censor discussion at the whims of the owner in the end. I don't want that.
The Mac Mini M2 Pro is the best fucking computer I have ever owned. I wish I had forked out a bit more and got a Mac Studio. It would 100% have been worth it. I've been using this thing for a couple of months now and I still can't get over just how fucking good it is.
It doesn't break a sweat when I'm running a typical workload. I can have multiple documents open, multiple browsers with multiple tabs, a couple of VM's running in Parallels, Notes, Outlook, PRTG, Remote Desktop Software, Terminals, Calendar, Discord, Teams, and any other shit I might need to open all running simultaneously and this thing doesn't break a sweat with everything displaying damn-near instantly the second I click on it or need it.
And VM's run like a dream on this thing.
I wouldn't even know I was running Linux or Windows 11 in a VM. It feels like it's running on native hardware.
It's just such a fucking good computer I can't fucking believe it.
There are just a few downsides to it for me:
Cost. It's fucking expensive. Customising you mac with additionial RAM and Storage feels like a rort. (But it would have been worth it even so)
RAM: I wish I had more RAM so I could run more VM's with more RAM simultaneously.
Cores: I wish I had more CPU cores for the same reason I wish I had more RAM. More simultaneous VM's running.
Storage: I wish Apple weren't such pricks about storage and would just give me 8TB for a reasonable price.
I purchased the base model Mac Mini M2 Pro because it was my first foray into Apple shit and macOS. Fuck me, I wish I had known how fucking good it was earlier and I would have forked out double for a Mac Studio with an M2 Max and 64GB RAM. Ideally, I would want around 24+ Cores and 128GB RAM and the Ultra can pull that off... But somewhere deep down I feel uncomfortable about spending that much on a computer. $4000 would really be a sweet spot for me and a dream for something the equivalent of an M2 Ultra Mac Studio with 128GB RAM. I would just use a NAS for my storage needs. I'm excited to see what the future brings and if they release an M3 Max Studio that has 128GB+ of unified memory and a core count approaching 20+ I'll be buying it day one.
Using a computer that actually helps me get work done and achieve the things I want to achieve on my hardware, while being able to do it quick and responsively has been a game-changer for me. I've never had this experience before, where the computer I'm using is actually behaving in a way that makes it a tool that's not just "able to get the job done", but is able to get the job done well without wasting my time and energy while I wait for things to open, or load, or process, or parse... It's night and day.
I live with my long-term partner in a tiny one-bedroom apartment. It's been messy for months on end, with short gaps where one or both of us get our shit together for a day and do a big tidy up, only for it to be a disgusting mess again a few days later for another couple of months on end. This can't go on. My partner is a bit of a hoarder and accumulates a lot of useless shit. I'm guilty of my fair share of shit too. Enough is enough. I've made a start on one room in the apartment today. Five bin bags full of useless shit. I am only throwing out my shit, with a few exeptions where it's clearly junk or rubbish that my partner won't miss (e.g. an old can of coke that was in one of her handbags at the back of the wardrobe).
I made a list of things I need in order to have a healthy and productive personal and professional life. That included things like Clothing, Personal Hygeine Products, and Electronics. I am building out the list as I go. Based of this list I put together, I realised which things I actually need and use on a daily basis. I also realise I have things I haven't touched since I moved into this apartment years ago but have held on to "just in case" and/or for sentimental reasons. Some of the sentimental things won't be going just yet, but I do think there are a few things I've held onto out of sentiment that I could do without.
For example, an old video game console and a reasonably sized library of games for it. It sits collecting dust. Those games can be played on an emulator. I don't even really care for it... Yet, the thought of letting it go is difficult.
Anyway, that's my less than minimalist rant for today. My journey of minimalism has begun.
lxer.com has been compromised for years and it's barely gone without mention. Is it due to a lack of popularity or something? The website doesn't have a valid SSL certificate and has been prone to URL redirects for a long time. I made a thread on there a long time ago that they should secure their website, but nothing came of it. If you do use Lxer... Don't. Getting redirected to an advertisement or dodgy website is minor, but what's not minor is visiting the lxer page, everything appearing normal and you login with your username and password. What you don't realise, is that there could be an invisible overlay right over the "username" and "password" sections you have just been typing in, and that's been sent off to who knows where. Don't use Lxer.
Megathread for Reddit News & App Shutdowns
if you want to post links or discuss Reddit over the next while, please localize it to this thread in order to keep things tidy, thanks! (a more formal body may be forthcoming, but that'll come in the morning if so)