I don’t know why I didn’t think of that! I have a number of pis and a few outdated mini-pcs. I didn’t connect that fact they can be miserable to use so long as it validates it works. Thank you so much!

So I had questions on practicing restore! I wanted to start by just making sure I had something, but how does one validate, short of having a duplicate hardware setup to restore to?

Some of this is a bit extreme but a lot of it is capabilities I’ll be slowly building up. Read only backups is a fantastic point. I am indeed working at offsite backups. I have a separate drive for all the “untimely exit” stuff, and, most importantly, a physical printed folder in a fireproof safe. I have had/have some health issues that make it relevant. I strongly encourage practicality of air-tight security there. A plain text with accounts and passwords is a bad idea, but plain text naming where accounts are is reasonable. Yes, there’s always social engineering, but the people at those firms should be looking for proper legal documentation from the executor of the estate, and 98% of people are more likely to have a loved one who is cleaning things up than have someone stealing their identity. There is so much to handle when someone passes, any impediment makes it more likely someone just brute forces things.

Re: Scrubbing “impolite” data. I lost someone last fall who was a data nut (tons of personal and professional videos and photos). We joked about finding their porn stash, but mostly we got drunk clicked around, and laughed at them flubbing a take at a work video, I cried a bit at a motorcycle maintenance list they never got to, that kind of thing. End of life is messy and gross. If it doesn’t carry jail time I can promise you no one will care whats on the computer after cleaning the endless bodily fluids out of the bed and carpet.

I may pattern the backups of some drives, but there’s no way I’m going to have enough space to do that for 20+ TB of media. I like my media archive, I’ve spent a long time building it, but having the main drive, the local backup in a RAID, and an offsite is probably where that will end. The offsite will probably be a monthly one so that should help.

On the other hand, I am working on cool genealogy project through gramps, which is intended to be a “forever archive” kind of thing. That I may pattern as the data would be incredibly difficult to replace and there’s an increased chance of non-malicious issues given I’ll be opening it up to extended family of varying technical expertise. THAT I may pattern more extensively the way you suggest.

This is really helpful thank you! I think it’s samba share? Whatever Unraid has just baked in and calls “shares”.

Googling rsync that looks like it’ll work, and faster is better!

While I do want true backups of a few drives (as in: if a drive fails, restore the backup to a new drive, physically swap it out, and you’re good to go), the majority of the data I’m just looking to have it “backed up” (as in: all of the files are present in more than one location). The majority of the data is ~18TB of media for my plex server. My unraid is: 1x 2TB, 1x 10TB, 1x20TB and 1x20TB(parity). It sounds like Rsync-ing the 20TB drive with my plex media and the 20TB unraid disk would get me what I need?

Thanks for the pointers, getting a few things to google is incredibly helpful.

Not really “pink”, and lacks romance, but very pleasant: Dave the Diver. Cozy-ish game with nifty characters. Only thing would be I don’t know if you meant “no/minimal combat” because you don’t want the mechanics or the vibes. Dave has not particularly challenging combat mechanics, and paw patrol levels of violence levels (although you are catching and eating fish).

If you like park builders, Zoo Tycoon is cozy as hell. Beware the DLC trap though. You can get the base game with a lot of meat pretty cheap, but the DLCs are like $10+ each and not really a good value IMO. But the game has a great vibe with some really neat mechanics that try and imitate real conservation efforts.

What would check the boxes through a “Hot Topic” lens is Promise Mascot Agency. Surprisingly wholesome, completely off the wall, combat is all card/deck builder based… I… it’s a hard one to describe.

Doughnut county checks all the boxes but is rather short. Katamari if you haven’t done it.

I hear good things about, but have not played: Naiad, Tempopo.

you are correct. On holiday with a few beers I’m surprised I got that close lol

For anyone in that spot of being savvy-ish but having fellow users that finally got used to plex:

A work around is Xteve and owncast. I was successfully able to make an owncast broadcast into a “DVR channel”.

Its cluegy but it does work. My tech level in this stuff is spotty. I’m used to stacks of tech but more for physical control systems (NOT consumer facing). But I was able to get that to work.

Edit: little bit of clarification: Xteve will let you add DVR to your plex server. It’s possible to tie owncast into Xteve. That allows users to cue into a “DVR” channel which is kind of “simulcasting” whatever you’re pointing owncast to. In my case it was a screen share of sportsball, but it could be whatever.

Not going to lie, despite loving the stories about the monkey king, I skipped it entirely because of the notes they sent to content creators. Which would also be why I skip movies and games that take the US’ DoD money. I’m glad it got passed over.

I loved FC5. Ubisoft gets a lot of crap because they make the same game over and over but there’s a reason they started doing that. Good characters, and the pacing is pretty solid unless you’re a completions (which is your own fault). There’s some weird mechanics that progress the story that kind of break immersion that they chose because of the open world setting, but it’s a solid game. Enjoy!

If you like it, “new dawn” is pretty OK. Wait for it to be cheap, it’s basically really meaty DLC.

No but it’s got a demo for free

People who don’t want to use the epic store. That was me. I just don’t want another launcher, another account. I’ll get around to it at some point I’m sure but I didn’t buy AW2 and probably would have if it wasn’t an exclusive.

Or just… Don’t make a launcher?

I mean you’re spot on, it’s really not the end of the world, and you’re correct on the parks and rec.

I think people get prickly because of what you mentioned about the substance of the article probably being way worse, everyone’s just primed these days lol. We’re kind of sorting some shit out over here…

Anyway thanks for the conversation, it’s always fun to see your own culture through someone else’s eyes.

I guess what it comes down to is there a plenty of things, big and small, that I don’t have an issue with as an American but I know matter to the other person. Usually it’s small stuff (how people comport themselves in relation to work, the line between direct and rude, etc) , but when it comes to things where people died, I think it’s best to defer to the people involved.

Maybe that’s a trap of my upbringing as well but I don’t see that as American lens, I see that as recognizing there are a lot of lenses.

And again, the original joke is decent, its a role reversal and punches up not down, but I wouldn’t want an American paper making jokes about Finnish biathalon Olympians spanking the Russians.

Any joke with cultural baggage carries the risk you miss context. Again, I don’t think that’s just true for Americans.

You do you, it’s just in poor taste. It’s not the end of the world or anything, it’s just funny to me that it’s the same thing “boorish Americans” get flack for.

What’s ironic is you’re displaying exactly what you’re critiquing. This joke is a bit funny, but it’s on par with something like “Prince Charles asks NRA to fix his car”. There’s just baggage. And lord knows Italy has plenty of its own.

Right, said Fred.

1. Yes: you absolutely want the outdoor rated PVC if you’re getting sun exposure. You can cheat, it’s not like the white stuff will be immediately destroyed, but if you want something that will last a bunch of seasons, the “grey” stuff is the way to go. Double check that it’s UV rated though, and doesn’t just happen to be grey.

2. To get around all of that, you can bury it. Because you’re just doing it for the garden, you don’t need to dig down to the frost line. Just make sure you clear the line at the end of the season. Another advantage is that you’ll minimize the amount of water that’s been baking in the sun idle in the pipes. If it’s a heatwave and they’re in direct sun, that water can get downright hot to the touch. I’ve never lost a plant because of it but frankly I’m kind of surprised by that. If you do bury, you might consider running some electrical conduit at the same time, even if you don’t put wires in it (DO however include a pull cable for later use). What you do at either end of that is a whole other project, but you can always just cap it and get it to it when you get to it. Solar + Battery usual works great for garden automation stuff, but being able to run an ethernet cable can simplify a lot.

3. Plastic will hold up fine, but as others have mentioned you might want one of these.. The union allows to remove it. You could do a more simple threaded system IF you are able to completely and freely rotate everything “down stream” of the valve. I’m just going to say the stupid part out loud because I learned pipe stuff the hard way: A ball valve threaded on both sides cannot be loosened from one side without tightening the other (again, unless that other side can freely rotate). Edit: alternatively unions are sold separately, and sometimes you can eek out some flow advantages that way but it’s in no way worth thinking about at garden water flow rates.

4. Finally, a last alternative I’ve seen done well for gardens that sort of “wrong done right” is putting posts up and stringing a hose over head. It kind of seemed like as much work/expense as burying it, but I guess they had the posts, it came out really sharp in the end. You need a pretty high quality hose though. Baking in the sun and sagging under the water weight can end badly.

Yeah agree. They’re kind of sold as a cure all, which they’re not, but if you have a very specific problem they’ll help. I think the thing is a lot of times people use them without addressing the root cause. But it’s definitely saved me a deep clean before.

I think that’s exactly the point though. “We didn’t mark it up to mark it down, the price is just the price”. As a chronic patient gamer part of me hates that (I love finding older classics for like $10) but I don’t mind shelling out for a good game. The biggest expense is my time, and if a bunch of years later the price hasn’t moved it’s probably worth my time.

Oh I’m well aware lol. The game is a godamn miracle. But thats the thing, Bethesda has been on this trajectory for a good lonnnnnng while. Like the whole “obsidian good bethesda bad” thing isn’t quite right, but what is true is Bethesda has been incredibly strategic about shittifying their games: there’s always just enough there to keep you going “ok… one more”.

Starfield is the first one I just didn’t even bother with.