Homebox and its QR Codes with a brief description on the labels would be my go-to. It’d save regularly replacing labels any time something is moved or tossed. I’m using it just to track my tools so far. I define locations (basement, shed, truck, tool cart, tool bag), and assets (long nose pliers, scan tool, cordless ratchet), and assign those assets to locations. Locations can be sub-locations of another location; so my tool bag could be in my truck or it could be in my basement. I’ve got a handful of tools tagged as “road kit.” When I take them from my cart and put them in my road bag, I search that tag, select all and bulk update their location from the tool cart to the bag (and the bag’s location from the house to my truck). As long as I’m not lazy about updating I can always find where I last left any tools.

For containers I’d create a location for each tote. Homebox automatically generates QR codes for them. I’d run those onto labels a la “QR, Tote 1, Lego”, “QR, Tote 2, Random Cables,” “QR, Tote 3, Xmas Decorations” and so on. A quick scan of a code pulls up that tote’s page in Homebox to see the exact contents. The most tedious part is taking the time to actually organize and catalog all your existing assets. I’d put it up there with using Picard or Beets to work through a massive digital music collection - it takes a lot of initial time but adding new things later is fast and the payoff is meaningful organization.

How are you liking it? I get a handful of channels off a set of cheap hoop/rabbit ears hooked direct to the TV, but I’ve been thinking about sticking a decent antenna up in the attic and an hdhomerun on a shelf in my rack (then add it to Jellyfin). I’m also a little concerned about investing that money and effort just to have the stations around here switch to DRM shortly after. I’m in the states and, as I understand, they haven’t been able to get approval for DRM decoding on their devices. Meanwhile there’s some chance of DRM becoming standard/mandatory(?) for OTA TV within the next year or so.

Popular unpopular take: Our mass produced pisswater is pretty refreshing and perfect for simple cookouts, cracking crustaceans, light yard work, etc. Popular because there’s a reason it sells so well and that reason is the average of American beer drinkers is a palate that wants mild, hopless, lightly alcoholic malt soda fit for washing down plates of vinegar and chili drenched chicken wings. Unpopular because it’s certainly bland or uninspired to anybody that appreciates “objectively good” beer, measured by both their own tastes and the official guidelines for the style they’re partaking.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a potent barleywine or the hoppiest IPA you can throw at me. But I’m also not above sitting at the picnic table with some Millers or a bunch of natty bohs and a bushel of crabs. 🦀

My mother and I took the MSF course some years ago via the local community college (they also have a CDL program at the same lot). It crams a lot into just a few days but there’s no reason anyone who approaches it with a little respect and determination won’t come away competent enough to at least ride the side streets to their nearest parking lot to continue building confidence. I took a similar approach to longboarding, riding around a large local parking lot after hours until I felt in control enough to kick around town.

After completing the course we booked appointments at the MVA and had the motorcycle endorsement added to our licenses. A bonus in its own right, bypassing the MVA testing and waiting there all day. Most insurance providers will also cut a small break for having completed a safety course. I’d definitely recommend that route for anyone looking to ride. Or just for the experience, honestly. It made for a great memory. It’s inexpensive, relatively, and you can still say you’ve rode a bike - even if you have no desire to ever do it out on the roads with all the crazies.

The means of distribution was direct, internet connectivity (for most) was slow, and some technical ability was required but the warez scene was absolutely jumping in the 90s. Granting computers were still niche, of course. I was just a kid but my understanding is lots of Russia was mob run following the CCCP’s collapse. There was a lot of craving for outside media there (games, music, film… everything, really) so lots of FTP servers and fserv bots on IRC were based in former Soviet Union states. It wasn’t like any central authority was left to crack down it or cave to pressure from international authorities that were still very tech illiterate. And those authorities were not yet under pressure themselves by the movie and recording industries. Napster eventually changed that in about a year’s time.

Like a GameShark, there was also “Game Enhancer” for the PSX. I still have mine somewhere. It plugged into the same port and came with a little button/spring to keep the lid detector button depressed. You could boot with a legit game disc (I think a black disc was either preferred or required) then open the lid and swap to your copied game. On top of that I believe it also had the same memory editing/cheat functions that GameShark provided.

Dreamcast had a software exploit that was found pretty quickly. Something to do with Windows CE, if I recall. Wasn’t long before a boot disc came out, no extra hardware required. That evolved into a patcher so copied games could be burned as directly bootable, skipping the boot disc. Also various homebrew from a devoted fanbase.

Before any of the above and before my time, people had been dumping arcade boards and cartridges to ROMs for quite a while. Programmable carts and flash tools were coming out for various systems. I remember a buddy in high school, early 00’s, had something akin to a dev kit for his old Gameboy and was working on writing his own games. Another friend actually had a Game Doctor for the SNES which let you play backups off a 3.5" floppy. Precursor to modern flash carts, before bigger storage started coming in smaller form factors. Neat stuff mostly lost to time now.

I think you misinterpreted their message. Their argument is that it’s an expectation that the professional RTFM (more accurately, to have already done so) which shouldn’t carry over to hobbyists. At least not as strictly. Put another way, “The certified Toyota technician needs to have the fancy book learnin’ while the weekend wrencher or shadetree mechanic shouldn’t be held to the same standard.”

I disagree insofar as, short of inaccessible resources (sadly becoming more common in my automotive example) or a lack of time and money, there’s no reason a hobbyist shouldn’t strive to educate themselves and achieve professional level of excellence. So long as they enjoy it, anyway. That’s really the point of a hobby.

Counterpoint: Aside from disabilities which specifically impact reading, why wouldn’t someone want to read when it comes to their hobbies? A hobby is something one intentionally devotes time to, typically unpaid and nonprofessionally, because they enjoy it and they want to learn more about it. A large amount of my enjoyment is derived from learning more about the things I enjoy, so not wanting to consume that information makes no sense to me.

I can understand, for example, gaming as a hobby and wanting quick answers if one is jumping ship from Windows to Linux. Linux isn’t the hobby there; just a means to an end. I’d still argue the gamer should develop some level of proficiency with their underlying OS. Otherwise it’s like having trail riding as a hobby without any knowledge or tools to patch a tube, tension a chain or tighten a bolt. One might end up in a situation where they can’t just get an instant answer. Investing a little time in the mechanics could keep a short ride from turning into a long trudge out with a bike over the shoulder.

In the context of “Linux”, broadly, as a hobby - what even is that hobby if it isn’t making an honest effort to learn broadly about various tools, the kernel, scripting and programming languages, and so forth? Linux always struck me as a hobby for people who collect hobbies. Or people that have “learning” as a hobby. It’s why, while I’ll probably never work a day of my life in IT, I know how to do some basic SQL queries, hit an API and parse the JSON, do a little scripting in Bash and Python, utilize a load of CLI tooling much more efficiently than any Windows GUI I’ve ever used, and so on. I’ll never know it all but part of the fun is trying anyway.

Chicago95 definitely taps into the nostalgia for us old heads.

I’ve been using Linux for considerably longer, and I started off with things like BB4Win (meant to mimic the Blackbox window manager but on Windows) before I switched, so I was constantly trying different UI experiences and seeking out more customization options even before moving to Linux. Part of the Winamp, “skin all the things,” generation. Switching DEs is a non-issue these days but I have my preferences. I loved old Gnome 2 so I found Cinnamon nice enough. xfce too. I don’t dislike current Gnome but I’ve settled in to KDE these day. I lived in Xmonad for a while so I’ll also happily take any TWM that preferably isn’t it’s own hobby project to configure and maintain.

FFF (Fighting For Fun) made some of my favorites. This is as good a thread as any to ask: I’m pretty sure FFF made a keygen with the main window having a pixel art’ish Milton, from “Office Space,” with his red Swingline stapler and I’m trying to find it. Anyone remember it and maybe have a screenshot or something?

I rarely pirated software back in the day except maybe Photoshop 7 (give or take a release) plus a couple popular plugins like “Eye Candy”, 3D Studio Max 5, or something like Nero Burning Rom but I don’t think it was for any of those. I associate the song at 4:20 of this video with it but I could be mixing memories at this point. The comment with the timestamps says it was used for Virtual Painter. That was standalone software but also a PS plugin (?), but unfortunately doesn’t ring a bell with me.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to find that silly pixel Milton off and on over the years if anyone else happens to remember it.

No break for me but I’ve been doing “old dog, new tricks” by picking up some SMW Kaizo. I’m four exits out of seven in Shell’s Retriever so far. I think I’m doing fair for only being a couple weeks into playing romhacks and for last playing SMW in the 90s. I don’t think I’ll ever get around to “Baron of Shell” or any other crazy hard hacks but it has been fun working on a few of the “easy” ones.

I’ll probably get back to Factorio after I finish Retriever. Possibly not until after the sequel, Shell’s Redeemer, but I’ve previewed it and it looks substantially tougher.

I usually set vi mode to have vi(m)-like line editing but I’ve always liked Ctrl+u over Esc d d. Thankfully it still works even with vi mode enabled. Seems to also be implemented as a shortcut for a lot of login managers and in DEs for settings menus, dialog boxes and such.

For sure. I need to invest in a better Blu-ray drive (or maybe a few for Automatic Ripping Machine ) but MakeMKV, Jellyfin and my library card are all homies as of late. Definitely check your library out.

I don’t know why it took me so long to consider mine. I’m really spoiled having a few branches in my county that lend between one another. Then they further lend with other libraries in counties throughout the state. It’s nothing to put in a few requests, wait to be notified, then swing by the local branch to checkout.

Enter the Fist? Enter the Dragon is in English. Way of the Dragon has Chinese and English dubs. Same for Fist of Fury. I’d have to check my other rips to see about them but I suspect it’s the same. It looks like a lot of the original, Chinese dubs were done in Mandarin for the larger Mandarin-speaking audience. Just how it was done at the time. Here’s an old thread over on KungFuFandom that talks about it.

Anyway, Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits from the Criterion Collection is an exact match to your list. Game of Death II appears amongst the content on the bonus discs and the rest of your list are all feature titles. There are a couple other alternative collections featuring a mostly-identical film lineup but consensus I’ve seen is that Criterion’s is the way to go.

If I’m to believe the AI overview (as you said, Google is useless), Enter the Dragon was the first film to feature his actual voice and it’s an English film. I don’t think I have but one audio track for that . Earlier stuff is dubbed. Search result explanations is that many Hong Kong movies at the time were shot silent then dubbed afterwards. That would make sense, since the “Chinese” audio track I have for Way of the Dragon seems to fit the lip movements rather precisely but it isn’t his voice. I’d have to check the other films to confirm they’re the same.

Your list, sure you’re aware, matches the Bruce Lee Criterion Collection set. I’d be adding “criterion” to the searches, if you’re not already, and hoping someone has full-set rip with multi audio and subs. I got remarkably lucky and my local library actually had the Criterion set (along with some “Universal Horror” Karloff and Lugosi films) so I was able to check them out and rip them myself. Depending on where you are and your local infrastructure, might be a good shout to check your local library too.

I played a lot of Sky Force and Sky Force Reloaded. Pretty sure you have to pay to remove ads. Another single payment doubles the “stars” you earn which cuts back on the grind for upgrades. There aren’t a ton of stages so a lot of the replay value comes from trying to beat stages on higher difficulty. If you’re into v-scrollers it’s a visually beautiful game with fun bosses and solid gameplay.

I sunk some time into Retro Bowl for a while too. Fun little football (Gridiron/American football) game with retro inspired graphics.

Truth be told that’s about the extent of Android games I found enjoyable. Since getting a Steam Deck and TrimUI brick, I bounce between Factorio, OpenTTD (has an Android port but I haven’t tried it), Rimworld and emulating plethora of nostalgic console games.

Edit: forgot about Mindustry and just saw it mentioned above. I’ll definitely add that to my recommendations. I prefer on PC or Steam Deck but it plays well enough on Android.

Intended to prevent accidental input from the side of your palm, when it’s resting on the screen, while using the stylus.

Had to look it up myself. The song was used as the main theme to an older web miniseries about a fictitious scene group. Just watched through the first episode and it tickled some nostalgia; mIRC, ICQ and such. Might have to give the rest of it a watch.

I’m a fucking dolt that dabbles and picks up the gist of things pretty quick, but I’m not authority on anything, so “grain of salt”:

You’re already familiar with OCR so my naive approach (assuming consistent fields on the documents where you can nab name, case no., form type, blah blah) would be to populate a simple sqlite db with that data and the full paths to the files. But I can write very basic SQL queries, so for your pops you might then need to cobble together some sort of search form. Something for people that don’t learn SELECT filepath FROM casedata WHERE name LIKE "%Luigi%"; because they had to manually repair their Jellyfin DB one time when a plugin made a bunch of erroneous entries >:|