Curious Canid

Just bear in mind that nothing involved in “refurbishing” a drive removes the wear it has already experienced. That may or may not matter to you. The mean time between failures for a particular model is a meaningful statistic, but it doesn’t tell you too much about any individual drive. You may get lucky or unlucky with the lifespan.

If you check and monitor your drives, as various people have recommended here, you are less likely to be surprised by a failure. If you keep them backed up you won’t be out anything more than the replacement cost of the drive when it does happen.

I’ve just been looking for something to replace One Note. The timing of this announcement worked out really well for me. :-)

Thanks!

Taking an absolute stand may be comforting, but it has not and will not actually accomplish anything.

Our existing system is broken. Our current choice is between continuing with it, and trying to influence, or exchanging it for an authoritarian government run by a vindictive child. In the long run there may be other options, but right now you aren’t going to get a third choice. One or the other of those outcomes is going to happen.

Trump has said, at various times, that he would enact violence against protesters, have them arrested and held without due process, or have them deported. How effective do you think your efforts to push for more progressive government policies are going to go under those conditions?

Burning it all down sounds good in theory, but nothing happens in a vacuum. If we allow the current system to fail it is not going to be replaced with an idealized new system. It is going to be replaced by whatever existing movement is in a position to assert itself. Right now, that is will be the right-wing authoritarians.

You’re seeing only ideals and not reality. I’m all in favor of applying pressure toward better goals to both parties. That does not change the fact that a candidate of one of those two parties is going to win the election and run the country.

False equivalence is another problem with ignoring practical results in favor of pure ideology. There is a vast difference between Biden and Trump. It’s obvious from looking at what they’ve done already. It become even more stark if you pay attention to what Trump is saying he intends to do if re-elected. Trump genuinely wants to destroy our system of government, eliminate democracy, and rule as a dictator. He badly wants to persecute those who have offended him or who disagree with him. And he now has detailed plans for how to go about those things. When someone tells you who they are you should believe them.

Biden will run things the way he has been, which does not make me happy, but provides an opportunity for change within the system. How do you expect to enact progressive changes under a right-wing autocracy?

Even if your only concern is the Gaza genocide, Biden and Trump have significantly different positions. Biden has making a weak and unsuccessful attempts to rein in Israel. There is reasonable hope that he does have a limit for how far he’s willing to go in that direction, as evidenced by his temporary halting arms shipments. Trump has said that he supports what Israel is doing, but thinks they aren’t going far enough. He has, in the past, suggested using nuclear weapons to resolve situations like this.

It all comes back to false equivalence. We are not talking about two of the typical business-as-usual candidates. We are on the verge of becoming Nazi Germany. If you aren’t doing everything you can to prevent that, whatever efforts you make toward other goals are going become irrelevant.

Do you honestly think that Trump would be better? Have you read what he has to say about this subject?

I’m disgusted with Biden too, but sometimes choosing between the lesser of two evils is the responsible thing to do. Ethical choices are often the most difficult. One-topic voting is almost never ethical. The ultimate results do matter.

I knew that was true of new articles, but did not realize it also happened with opinion pieces like this one. Thank you for the information.

I generally agree with the content of the article, but the headline destroys its credibility. No one who might possibly have their mind changed is going to go anywhere near it.

I will admit to over-reacting. I’m just sick of watching people with something important to say undermine themselves by adopting the emotionally exploitive rhetoric of the other side.

I suppose it’s inevitable, but the amount of ridiculous propaganda being posted here by a small by a number of people is making this community both less useful and less pleasant. Bizarre conspiracy theories and hatred are not news.

I understand what you mean, but there’s a good chance that some of them will die without heat. And even a few deaths like that are significant, no matter how large the city.

Same here. The author did a good job of laying out there position right up front. And their position is based on ridiculous assumptions. There are some genuine concerns with the way the Ukraine government is suppressing opposition voices, but they destroyed their credibility completely before they even got to that point.

Personally, I think the declaration of martial law and the subsequent moves to limit opposition are probably justified when faced with an existential threat like the Russian invasion.

Glad I could help. :-)

I had somehow missed that one. Thanks for giving me something else to laugh about.

How could even Microsoft release a product named WinCE? I’ve marveled at it for decades.

I don’t know if this will help, but I’ve been using Plex to manage my music and other audio for more than a decade. It pulls in metadata from online sources and allows me to search or apply filters. That is a lot more versatile than anything I could do directly with the files.

If you aren’t interested in running your own server, look at some of the more sophisticated player apps. Many of them can provide similar metadata features. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about how the files are physically organized.

They already did that a few months into the war. They split off a few military units and detailed them to keep the other troop in line. They find and kill deserters, shoot units that disobey orders to advance, and generally do the sorts of things the secret police do.

The United Methodist church recently split over LGBTQ issues. The main branch of the church will remain progressive, but individual congregations are deciding whether to leave or stay. It is being handled well, but there are still a lot of hard feelings on both sides.

A few years ago a group pulled a surprise vote and pushed through some very conservative policies. The majority did not support them, but the process of walking them back is what caused the split.

The Vatican seems to be trying to find a middle ground on these issues. I understand why, but I wish they would just do the right thing (or, in this case, the left thing) and adopt a progressive position. It seems likely that a schism is going to happen anyway.

If you need to add more than one drive you should look at external enclosures. There are 4-drive models just over $100 and 8-drive models just over $200. You connect them with eSata, USB 3, or USB C, depending on the enclosure.

Apple has a lot of its own people on site to validate all the work.

I did get that and it doesn’t affect my opinion. They are less likely to use slave labor in the US than in China, but their executives also lie more in the US than they do at home (because the consequences are a lot more serious in China). Agreements and contracts mean nothing to them. Among other problems, that means their quality control is entirely dependent on whoever hires them watching everything they do all the time.

Knowing that it will be assembled by Foxconn gives me pause. They have been able to achieve reasonable levels of quality, but I don’t put much trust in a company run by con men.