[-] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 43 points 1 week ago

Having lived out of the US for two years, returning is a shock to the system with the size and exhaust volume of the vehicles on the road. I am skeptical that these changes can get through the gauntlet of lobbyists, however.

[-] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 35 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Reminds me of a frustrating tale: Where I used to live, in New England, there was this daycare run out of a home with a massive parking lot for a driveway. Still, the owner/proprietor instructed parents to park on the sidewalk when dropping off. Not in the driveway, obstructing the sidewalk, but in front of her home, parking much like this, straddling it with their tires like the grass in this photo. There was no sidewalk on the other side of the road.

The effect was to completely obstruct the walkway (which in the winter, the only way around was for kids walking to the elementary and middle school to walk out into the very busy street, which led to the highway on-ramp. 50+ small children ages 5 to 14 walking out in the street in the winter (Nov to May in N.E.) every day so that the daycare owner could have kids dropped into her living room instead of her kitchen.

No amount of complaining to the city ever got her to stop. The officials didn't see a problem. In fact, when the police and code enforcement came to assess, they parked there too, since her plow guy made it obvious they could park there, and kids walked around their vehicles as well.

What worked? The neighbor across the street was an older gentleman, and he began putting on a high-vis and stopping traffic for the kids. That got police to question why he was stopping traffic on a busy road, who initially came and PARKED THERE TOO to ask him to stop, then an officer finally put the single digit math together and began stopping traffic for him for months, until the city installed bollards at the cost of many thousands for installation, and nobody could drive up on the sidewalk again.

Imagine if they had simply ticketed the drivers and fined the homeowner. Instead, taxpayers foot the bill for police man-hours and a passive aggressive solution that also kept the city sidewalk plow off the sidewalk.

Edit: Just spoke with my sister, who let me know the bollards came out two winters ago and never went back, and the problem is as bad as ever. Fuck cars.

117
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by s38b35M5@lemmy.world to c/thepoliceproblem@lemmy.world

According to court records, detectives told Perez that his father was dead, that they had recovered his body and it now “wore a toe tag at the morgue.” They said they had evidence that Perez killed his father and that he should just admit it, records show.

Perez insisted he didn’t remember killing anyone, but detectives allegedly told him that the human mind often tries to suppress troubling memories.

At one point during the interrogation, the investigators even threatened to have his pet Labrador Retriever, Margosha, euthanized as a stray, and brought the dog into the room so he could say goodbye. “OK? Your dog’s now gone, forget about it,” said an investigator.

Court Decision (PDF)

20
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by s38b35M5@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

When I use yt-dlp -x to grab audio only, the resulting opus files are often troublesome to play back in strawberry, stopping unexpectedly. They also sometimes don't index at all, and metadata including embedded cover art don't seem to stick.

So, since most of my library is already vorbis in OGG files, I have been converting the files, but my inexperience with audio codecs and YouTube audio formats in general is shining through. I use 320kbps, but the resulting files are typically about twice the size afterward. I'm thinking I'm probably wasting space for no reason.

What is a comparable bitrate for the OGG files for a given bitrate opus source file?

EDIT: Here is my conversion script find ./ -iname "*.opus" | parallel --load 0.9 ffmpeg -i {} -c:a libvorbis -b:a 320k "{.}.ogg"

EDIT2: Here is the updated version with a suggestion from @Supermariofan67@programming.dev find ./ -iname "*.opus" | parallel --load 0.9 ffmpeg -i {} -c:a libvorbis -q:a 6 "{.}.ogg" which results in only slightly larger files (5.4MB > 7.2MB).

74
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by s38b35M5@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

Received notice of a change to the service in my inbox today. Seems icky to me.

Devices in the network use Bluetooth to scan for nearby items. If other devices detect your items, they’ll securely send the locations where the items were detected to Find My Device. Your Android devices will do the same to help others find their offline items when detected nearby

Your devices’ locations will be encrypted using the PIN, pattern, or password for your Android devices. They can only be seen by you and those you share your devices with in Find My Device. They will not be visible to Google or used for other purposes.

ETA: here's the link to opt out: opt out of the network

340
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by s38b35M5@lemmy.world to c/cat@lemmy.world

Stats
Age - ~10yrs
Weight - 10lbs
Claws - present and trimmed twice monthly
Disposition - Alpha male, but gets scared of his 7lbs sister when predator mode is activated
Favorite food - spicy chip crumbs
Intelligence on 1 to 10 - 6 (kind of derpy but knows about twenty words and does tricks for food)

History
Charlie was a wild feral trapped in 2017 by a shelter in Maine as part of a spay/neuter program (hence the missing ear tip). When they prepared to release him to the wild again, he had come down with a respiratory infection, and had to be treated for over a month. During that time, he became docile toward some people, so they decided to try to adopt him. They named him Banana. Prospective parents didn't like him because he was indifferent at best or hissing and growling at worst. He also didn't get along with other cats. We're suckers for cats with hard stories, so we scooped him up and brought him home as our only cat (for a time), where he quickly became my buddy. He was 13 pounds when we brought him home, but he's a much more lithe weight now. He lives with a 7 year old female tabby who is tiny and forever kitten. She and Charlie play a lot, and no matter how much he bullies her, she always gets right back in his face and doesn't back down. When he can't find her, he cries; not from loneliness, but fear of where her tiny sharp teeth will come out of hiding from.

I'll be sharing fun pictures of Charlie and his sister from time to time. Enjoy your weekend, Lemmy!

7
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by s38b35M5@lemmy.world to c/general@lemmy.world

When using qBitTorrent to download Linux ISOs, I am seeing that the total size of the download is one thing, then the total downloaded when complete exceeds (sometimes by almost double) that size.

For example:

Size           Downloaded  
900MB            1.56GB
1.6GB            1.91GB

Why is that thing?

134
6
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by s38b35M5@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

Anyone have experience getting an HP EliteBook 840 G2 to boot from M.2? There's only one setting in BIOS to enable it, and it's enabled by default. Latest BIOS update. It's in the boot order. It's even seen when pressing F9 for boot options. I see MX23 but no grub (under legacy) or EFI files found in the ESP partition (under UEFI).

I've tried cloning my functional SSD install with dd and clonezilla with no errors, but both result in no boot disk found. Same with a fresh install to the drive from live USB.

I've moved through full legacy, to hybrid, full UEFI, but none see the device as bootable after install.

Loading GRUB or Syslinux and attempting to boot from HD also fails to boot from the M.2.

TIA

Edit: added clarification what was being cloned

35
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by s38b35M5@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

spoilerI very limited as to what computer hardware I have access to in where I live (not the USA), but I managed to get my hands on a used HP Elitedesk 800 G3 SFF and waited months for an AMD FX 6400 Low Profile to arrive. Now I am having trouble with this card.

I know the reviews state that the card can't take advantage of my x16 slot bandwidth, but I expected to be able to use it in that slot, as the x4 slot is right against the power supply, and the card doesn't breathe well at all there, and thermal throttles.

However, when I slot the GPU in the x16 slot, the PC won't POST. I find no settings in the fairly limited BIOS options that would prevent this, and a test Nvidia GT 720 works in the x16 slot just fine.

I'm out of ideas to get this to work. Legacy/UEFI Option ROM settings make none. The port is enabled in the section that toggles availability.

I thought this would be related to my M.2, but the 720 is a x16 lane card, and it works fine in the x16 slot, so now I'm just left scratching my head.

Anyone have experience with this issue? Most results I find on my search terms are for custom builds with more BIOS settings than a business-class HP Elitedesk. That said, my search-fu is not what it once was before my mental illness advanced, and now I can't as easily assimilate information, so it's possible I am missing something right in front of my face.

EDIT: After days of fiddling, I made this post and went back to troubleshooting. It just booted with no problems. Scratching my head, but something I did in passing was the trick. Now to make sure I save these exact settings!

EDIT2: It turns out it was always working, and it is just BIOS/UEFI screens that will not display. This kept me from installing my base OS at all until I moved the GPU to the x4 slot. Since I installed the OS with the GPU in the x4 slot, now it boots to the point where I enter my luks encryption key and I'm good, but it still won't show the BIOS screens. Perhaps I need to enable the legacy Option ROM for video?

492
submitted 6 months ago by s38b35M5@lemmy.world to c/general@lemmy.world

I'm cleaning out my gmail folders this weekend, and went deep into the archive to 2011, when I got my invite to Google Music.

It's funny, because I just (November) moved all of my music out of cloud and back to local-only. Amazon was the last straw, when I tried to play purchased music, and was forced to listen to it on shuffle with other songs not of my choosing.

Anyway... there was a time when Google (ahem, Youtube) Music was set to be a game-changer. Imagine if enshittification wasn't a thing.

108
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by s38b35M5@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

I wake up at 3am to 4am daily as a neighbor makes noise walking their dog. This cannot be helped. Once I am awake, my mind won't stop going over details about everything from the mundane to the critical. Often, I am able to fall asleep again after three or more hours of wakefulness, but only minutes before I have to wake for the day.

Does anyone have success with quieting the mind without substances so that they can fall back to sleep?

Edit: I want to thank you all for the helpful comments. I'm reading through them now and wioo be internalizing some of the suggestions.

To provide more context for those who asked:

I do have ADHD and OCD and Anxiety.
I sleep with a fan and a white noise track (10hrs of non-repeating noise I d/l'd with newpipe). My apartment building has a fire escape that the neighbor uses as their front door. This path means using a heavy steel door on a power hinge. (Slam!) The door is against the wall that my headboard is on. They have every right to use whichever door they like, and I don't know them well enough yet to ask them to change for me. They are trying to be as quiet as they can, other than using the loudest path possible. They seem very nice, and their dog is quiet and well trained.
I'm in the middle of a long period of unemployment and I am beginning to worry about finances, as my savings are about half gone in a year.

Thanks again for all the suggestions! I'll report back with my results in a few days.

2
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by s38b35M5@lemmy.world to c/ente@sh.itjust.works

An empty community?! Not anymore! Here is a feature request I opened this morning.

Does anyone else dislike the current notification?

Edit: May be fixed by #1707

19
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by s38b35M5@lemmy.world to c/voyagerapp@lemmy.world

I decided to check a few of the trending communities suggested on the search tab, but they're all new communities with one or none subscribers and little to no content. How is that trending? Is Lemmy or voyager suggesting these to me?

[-] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 36 points 7 months ago

My SO got a "job offer" from a nonexistent company that 20 min of research uncovered a single applicant being scammed out of $75k when they shared bank details, presumably for setting up direct deposit.

The "company" didn't even have a website, but just because they were lazy doesn't mean other scammers won't go the extra mile to make a real-looking website with postings. Its a tough world out there...

[-] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 31 points 8 months ago

tl;dr for someone who doesn't come to Lemmy to watch YT videos?

[-] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 29 points 8 months ago

Must be checking if you copied a phone number, but still creepy.

[-] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 26 points 9 months ago

I'm pleased with activityPub beginning to make "protocols not platforms" a reality.

[-] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 27 points 9 months ago

The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has proposed cloud and messaging service providers should detect and remove known child abuse material and pro-terror material “where technically feasible” – as well as disrupt and deter new material of that nature.

The eSafety regulator has stressed in an associated discussion paper it “does not advocate building in weaknesses or back doors to undermine privacy and security on end-to-end encrypted services”.

I so love these magic wand-waving legislators. "Spy on your users and control what they do on your encrypted platform, but in a way that doesn't break encryption or violate privacy..."

[-] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 28 points 10 months ago

I just noticed a Disney film with the 100 years logo, and realized they still have copyright on their OG stuff. Too bad. It was never meant to establish a dynasty, just a bit of crumb before your work went into public domain. Sigh...

[-] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

Wary or weary?

One means you're watching carefully, expecting a problem, while the other means tired.

[-] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think your fundamental premise is flawed, as the believers of conspiracy theories are rarely involved in building the backbone framework. Its usually a con man who knows exactly how to convince those who want to believe that the things they don't understand are just proof of their brilliance, if you shine an oblique light on it.

Can con men grift intelligent people? Sure.

Do con men prefer dupes? Ya huh.

[-] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

A literal shower thought

[-] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They likely won't see this unless you tag them or cross post to !support@lemmy.world

That said, I suspect the version is what's standard in the docker image, so hidden or not, it's easy to discover.

Edit: on the other hand, does the latest nginx get pulled at time of creation?

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s38b35M5

joined 1 year ago