[X] My Assistant

For cd's/dvd's, i am continually surprised when people (especially the kind that might rip discs or make backups) don't have optical drives.

I got rid of most of my optical backups, my current NAS has been pretty good. I still have some high quality archival DVD media.

The problem is that you have to burn it at a low speed and there are also drive compatibility issues. When burnt properly it lasts 20-50 years in regular storage or up to 100 years in proper storage.

I only bought some because everyone was freaking out that it was being phased out.

Similarly there is high end blu-ray media for archiving but its super slow to burn and has loads of burner compatibility issues.


I switched to external drives a while back, as you can build the comps a lot smaller

I got rid of most of my optical backups, my current NAS has been pretty good. I still have some high quality archival DVD media.

The problem is that you have to burn it at a low speed and there are also drive compatibility issues. When burnt properly it lasts 20-50 years in regular storage or up to 100 years in proper storage.

I only bought some because everyone was freaking out that it was being phased out.

Similarly there is high end blu-ray media for archiving but its super slow to burn and has loads of burner compatibility issues.


I switched to external drives a while back, as you can build the comps a lot smaller

Would you say it's slower than a tape drive?
Certainly cheaper than one. If I do three or four backups a year that's enough for me. And not everything needs backing up; just my server contents, pictures, and so on.

Since I put that fan on my WRT1900ACS, it has been running like a train. I guess power management is the big difference between stock firmware and the openwrt firmware I've been using as far as stability goes.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 11 2022, 06:16

Would you say it's slower than a tape drive?

High end newer enterprise tap drives are definitely faster than the M Disc Blu-rays, not sure if they got faster. The gold metallic DVDs, depend on your optical drive, it supported up to 16x but only on certain drives, 4x on most drives.

Cheaper/older tap backup was mind destroyingly slow.

Certainly cheaper than one. If I do three or four backups a year that's enough for me. And not everything needs backing up; just my server contents, pictures, and so on.

I considered tape when I was doing an absolute shit ton of optical burning. Not sure if its worth it though. Their life expectancy is still only 5-10 years in the real world. The advantage is that they are like $25 per TB these days, which is better than optical.

Edit: Price has come down? $100 per 12tb uncompressed for the latest LTO drives. Up to 30tb in compressed data, and 360mb to 900mb/s write speeds.

Edit2: Oh wow, due to demand for 4k/8k storage, they are now up to LTO9 which is 45 tb (compressed) 18tb native per tape. Which is $5-15 per TB. LTO 9 drives are currently stupid expensive. The read speeds dropped a little in return for the latest gen increasing storage.

LTO12 - 2026 - is 144tb per tape.

This post has been edited by EsotericSatire: Apr 11 2022, 07:16

Cheaper/older tap backup was mind destroyingly slow.

If you're talking commodore datasette old, yes.

I considered tape when I was doing an absolute shit ton of optical burning. Not sure if its worth it though. Their life expectancy is still only 5-10 years in the real world. The advantage is that they are like $25 per TB these days, which is better than optical.

Edit: Price has come down? $100 per 12tb uncompressed for the latest LTO drives. Up to 30tb in compressed data, and 360mb to 900mb/s write speeds.

Edit2: Oh wow, due to demand for 4k/8k storage, they are now up to LTO9 which is 45 tb (compressed) 18tb native per tape. Which is $5-15 per TB. LTO 9 drives are currently stupid expensive. The read speeds dropped a little in return for the latest gen increasing storage.

LTO12 - 2026 - is 144tb per tape.

IIRC, LTO6 or 7 is the sweet spot for drive prices right now. I'd have to look.

I had a VXA2 drive last for about 15 years. But it was VXA2 so pretty low capacity.

My main purpose for tape drives would be incremental backups in case of HDD failures. So tapes themselves don't need to last for too long.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 11 2022, 09:55

I considered tape when I was doing an absolute shit ton of optical burning. Not sure if its worth it though. Their life expectancy is still only 5-10 years in the real world. The advantage is that they are like $25 per TB these days, which is better than optical.

While hard drives cost more, they are certainly compete against $25/TB if time is taken into consideration.

The magnetic field strength of bits doesn't decay too fast on hard drives, but since it does, I fight that by recopying the data to another drive. The 8TB drives are still the sweet spot, so I haven't gone larger until the pricing improves. I've gotten lazy so I wait until about 2 years before recopying the drives to refresh their magnetic data. I don't run the individual RAR files (which have RAR Recovery Record set to 5% overhead to recover from larger drop outs) as that takes time and trouble. Instead, I have a bunch of [en.wikipedia.org] PARCHIVE files done for sets of subdirectories containing the RAR files. While I set a little bit of redundant overhead for Parchive, I am using it mostly to remove tedium in checking a trillion individual RAR files.

M-disc would be a viable choice too. Less initial cost and more durable media.

While hard drives cost more, they are certainly compete against $25/TB if time is taken into consideration.

The newer drives can seek faster and write faster. If you are using only for backup its not bad now actually.

Its approaching more like $10 per tb.

M-disc would be a viable choice too. Less initial cost and more durable media.

Only the m-disc DVDs have been tested as much. Seems that they are the leaders in optical longevity.

The blu-ray version might not last as long though.

Been experimenting with GraalVM native image, to squeeze out all the resources I could use in an attempt to comfortably run H@H client in one of my smallest machines. Compiling the .jar into native executable that does not require jvm/jdk to run.

Getting good results after series of optimizations. Almost half ram and significant cpu overhead reduced, means more resources for memory cache.

original .jar: 130-140mb
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/4o30C27.png)

native :66-68mb
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/uKJe4Cl.png)

Native, with G1
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/L8BgOKR.png)

This post has been edited by rozos: Apr 12 2022, 22:46

Is there some industry standard for the sizes of media boxes/books, etc.? Or is it just convergent evolution?

Because I noticed how similar in height manga, VHS boxes, DVD cases, Sega Mega Drive game cases, NES game boxes, and various other bits of Japanese media are. Is it so storekeepers can dependably stock things in their shelves? Most of it is roughly 18-19cm tall.

Actually I know there are some standards and pseudo standards for books, but I'm left wondering if the other media was designed to fit on existing bookshelves. [en.wikipedia.org] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_size

Most of my manga is "duodecimo" (12mo) according to that page.

Also, I wonder how long it's going to be before most of my "perfect bound" books start falling apart as the glue fails. A few of my nintendo power guides already have.

And I also wonder how hard it would be to do DIY hardcover rebinding for stuff. it sounds like it might make an interesting project. Especially if I wanted to sew/stitch bind them.

Finally, I have a couple that are already delaminating. looking at various options to correct this.

This all came up because I finished getting all the tanks of the official english version of a manga I helped scanlate on /a/ a while ago (6-7 years now). I noticed the first volume is delaminating. And I was happy to find that the complete set is the perfect width to fill a bankers' box longways. These tanks are [en.wikipedia.org] B6-sized.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 13 2022, 06:43

The newer drives can seek faster and write faster. If you are using only for backup its not bad now actually.
Its approaching more like $10 per tb.
Only the m-disc DVDs have been tested as much. Seems that they are the leaders in optical longevity.

Costco in my area is currently flushing out the Seagate 8TB external drives for $119 each. So it's down to $15 per TB if you can stomach SMR (shingle magnetic recording) If you aren't churning writes on them, they might be suitable as backup drives where the data is written once since your data won't be written in fragmented form. Fragmented writes cause a lot of shingle churning.

If you have shingle drives, you may want a uninterruptible power supply (UPS). That's because shingle drives typically have a bunch of DRAM to accept the data to be written. That way, the operating system can send the large file(s) over and be done. But the drive itself may continue the writing and churning of large files for many seconds after you see that the O/S has finished transferring the file to the hard drive.

This post has been edited by Anime Janai: Apr 15 2022, 04:07

I updated NoScript today...and eventually reverted back to a previous version.
It looks like they fired the previous person responsible for the GUI, so the new one "marked its territory" by going to the toilet over all the gui.
There are traces of urines in the sites lists that have an inconsistent color depending on the amount of absorption, and big poops appearing when you temporarily disable NoScript for a tab or the whole browser.
Hopefully the stinkingness will go away eventually (IMG:https://forums.e-hentai.org/uploads/post-2051615-1452205981.gif)

Software only gets worse over time; it almost never gets better.

I had not felt as frustrated as today, because Windows occurred to be corrupted since yesterday and Linux does not have good support with Lenovo

I hate software with all my soul

Linux does not have good support with Lenovo

Excuse me.
I swear I'm not trying to be too rude when I say this, but what the fuck are you talking about?

I have used almost nothing but lenovo products (mostly thinkpads) for linux since 2009. Thinkpads (historically) are well known for being good linux laptops.

What model is this? And what is the exact part that's not working under a Linux kernel?

Disclaimer: My newest laptop is 11 years old this year.


This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 16 2022, 02:37

Excuse me.
I swear I'm not trying to be too rude when I say this, but what the fuck are you talking about?

I have used almost nothing but lenovo products (mostly thinkpads) for linux since 2009. Thinkpads (historically) are well known for being good linux laptops.

In Thinkpad only

I have a laptop from the more "modest" IdeaPad line, and there are no official Linux drivers for the latest models and also lacks ideal support for Linux, even with Windows they have a certain incompatibility, it's funny, because ThinkPad has a lot of support, on the other hand you have to rack your brain a bit when something goes wrong on an IdeaPad

In Thinkpad only

I have a laptop from the more "modest" IdeaPad line, and there are no official Linux drivers for the latest models and also lacks ideal support for Linux, even with Windows they have a certain incompatibility, it's funny, because ThinkPad has a lot of support, on the other hand you have to rack your brain a bit when something goes wrong on an IdeaPad

My first linux laptop was an ideapad G550 (truly a terrible laptop, btw). It was about a year old when I first ran Ubuntu on it (around 2009/2010). The only annoying thing was the broadcom wireless card firmware.
I still can't quite believe you.

What are the exact incompatibilities? Might just need to run a newer kernel (e.g., in a rolling release distro). I have a friend with a 1-2 year old HP laptop that wouldn't work right on Debian Stable (no wifi), but would 100% work on debian unstable (sid) or arch. "release quality" distros usually use ancient kernels because that means there's been a lot of time to test them.

I'd be happy to walk you through it with you and try to help figure everything out. If you hop on [qchat.rizon.net] IRC, it might even be doable pretty quickly.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 16 2022, 04:35

What are the exact incompatibilities? Might just need to run a newer kernel (e.g., in a rolling release distro). I have a friend with a 1-2 year old HP laptop that wouldn't work right on Debian Stable (no wifi), but would 100% work on debian unstable (sid) or arch. "release quality" distros usually use ancient kernels because that means there's been a lot of time to test them.

I'd be happy to walk you through it with you and try to help figure everything out. If you hop on [qchat.rizon.net] IRC, it might even be doable pretty quickly.

Well, things like the GPU, the screen, the HDMI, USBs, as well as details like the keyboard do not work.

The same and I have already solved problems such as excessive CPU consumption, touchpad and sound by installing generic drivers. I think it also has to do with the fact that I'm half stupid and sometimes I have to see things twice to solve them, but other than that Linux runs decent

Well, things like the GPU, the screen, the HDMI, USBs, as well as details like the keyboard do not work.

The GPU will require a firmware blob if it's newer than I think Broadwell.
By "the screen" i am guessing you mean it's at the wrong resolution, not that it's entirely blank?
If you install the gpu firmware blob I suspect HDMI will start working, too.
I am surprised to hear you say the keyboard and USB's don't work. Are you running a cutting-edge kernel or a "stable" one? I'd recommend trying a newer kernel.

if you can post or PM me the output of 'lspci -v', i might be able to guess more. You may have to install lspci.

Better still, if you are comfortable doing it, a copy of /var/log/syslog or dmesg output would be helpful for determining why stuff like the GPU or USB's don't work properly.

Just try to be sure there's no sensitive information in whatever you post/PM me, if you share logs from it.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 16 2022, 06:50

finished bodging together a leftover pc psu into a fixed voltage general purpose bench use thing. basically added an on switch and broke out the 3.3v, 5v, 12v and '24v' to barrel connectors.
one wierd thing I already expected, combining a -12v and +12v does not result in a usable 24v output, cuts off with the slightest bit of amperage. not sure what the point of that -12v even is.

finished bodging together a leftover pc psu into a fixed voltage general purpose bench use thing. basically added an on switch and broke out the 3.3v, 5v, 12v and '24v' to barrel connectors.
one wierd thing I already expected, combining a -12v and +12v does not result in a usable 24v output, cuts off with the slightest bit of amperage. not sure what the point of that -12v even is.

Usually the -12V is just a reference voltage rather than anything to be used for powering stuff.

Things like RS-232 use it, for instance. Normally the kinds of cables you see carrying RS-232 signals don't include a power pin.

How an old serial mouse gets power [www.epanorama.net] https://www.epanorama.net/circuits/rspower.html - that page also sort of explains the -12v rail.

Update: This got me remembering to try out my serial mouse and trackball I bought a year ago.
Both work. Wish the trackball had a switch to put it into "mouse systems" (3-button) mode automatically without me having to hold a button when powering it. The no-name non-trackball 3 button mouse had a switch hidden under the "ball cap" that does what I needed, but the memorex branded trackball doesn't.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 18 2022, 05:15