#I have all my music downloaded on a music playing device

[rubberduckyrye]

Getting my playlists sorted for the big Move to....... my iphone......

Ick!!!

[clover-the-awesomest]

AYO????????????

This was also fine.

[dumbratinjade]

Why was I sent a link on anon for a music player app with what I assume is an nft on two of the preview pics.

[nvrswrld]

Hi there!

so, how about some headcanons of the PJSK boys as Shimeji? Those are like tiny characters that walk, climb and jump all over your screen, and interact with apps and whatever’s happing on your screen! Hope that doesn’t sound to complicated, have a nice day!

Lots of Laugh — FANTASISTA SQUAD

— headcanons: fantasista squad as shimeji

note: thank you for requesting!! this took me a while to make since i've legit never heard of shimeji before this LOL, but i had a whole lotta fun with it, so i hope it's good enough for you. have a nice day as well <3

Akito Shinonome:

dude, out of the whole game, akito is my absolute favorite

i can totally see him just sitting there and eating some sort of sweet desert

like if you have google open, he'd sit on the search bar and watch you type whatever it is that you're searching for while nibbling on cheesecake

if you pick him up and try dragging him somewhere, he will throw a FIT

i can just imagine him kicking his legs with a little text bubble above his head and it's just full of censored swear words

"$!@#*" etcetera etcetera

if he's just standing idle, he's going to be glaring at you most of the time

sometimes he'll pull headphones out and start listening to ken's music, just bopping his head

that's one of the rare times he doesn't look pissed off

he'll fall asleep for like twenty seconds

he'll fall asleep standing up or sitting down

you know those big ass snot bubbles that appear when characters fall asleep?

he'll have one of those

and it'll pop once he wakes up

Toya Aoyagi:

second favorite character

please don't pick him up and drag him, he'll get scared

he'll take a book out of his pocket and read for a bit

he'll sit and clean his violin bow

takes out a little console, like a 3ds, and plays it

will mindlessly nibble on a cookie at random times

sorry this is short, i couldn't think of much for him and i feel like shit for that

Rui Kamishiro:

downloading a plugin where rui can mess around with your device is like downloading a virus

seriously, he will fuck everything up

on purpose

'rui' is literally in the word 'virus' if you mix the letters around a bit

expect random mini explosions

he'll build robots in the span of, like, five seconds and only for it to break down immediately after he finished

he'll make various balloon animals

24/7 smug look on his face

he'll move around all your apps and windows out of spite

makes blueprints for shows

falls asleep and drools on said blueprints

he'll just let you pick him up and drag him, no problem

no matter how far he is from the "ground", he'll always stick the landing

he's just like that

builds a jetpack and starts fucking flying all over the screen

again, he's just like that

Tsukasa Tenma:

no shot he doesn't start doing random poses out of no where

every time he does a lil pose, a star pops up and shimmers

he trips over literally nothing

i can just imagine a bug pops out of no where and he just starts losing his shit

running around the screen with a look of despair on his face

poor guy

if you pick him up, he'll also lose his shit

because who are you to pick up the worlds biggest star like that

if you drop him from a high distance, he'll land flat on his face and stay down for a few seconds

fun fact: i originally put that in for akito, but changed it since it was more fitting for tsukasa

will move windows since they're "in his way" and are "trying to steal his spotlight"

multiplies into fifty different versions of himself because who doesn't want more tsukasas in their life?

written by @nvrswrld

[cl0ckworkpuppet]

time for my monthly mp3 player propaganda post!

yall. don't fucking stream music off of youtube or spotify. they pay their creators shit. the most generous estimate i could find was artists being paid $1 for every 200 streams (0.5¢ per stream), and unless you're listening to songs on an album thousands times in total, it helps tremendously more to just. buy their albums or subscribe to a patreon-like service for them

mp3 players are laughably inexpensive (you can get a decent one with bluetooth for like $40-50 and you can get away with even less if you forego some features), many of them are drag-and-drop, no ads, decent enough sound quality for the average person, unlimited skips, track selection, regular play and shuffle, playlists, being able to shut off your screen, and more importantly, ALL OF THIS IS AVAILABLE WITHOUT A SUBSCRIPTION. i've always been an avid hater of subscription models. there are some things where it's understandable, but you shouldn't lose access to basic QOL features just because you can't or won't fork over $10-15 a month.

"b-b-but $50 is so expensive!" WRONG. $50 (which is more than i've EVER spend on a single mp3 player) is the equivalent to 5 months on spotify premium without discounts. if you can afford that, it's worth investing into a device that can last you literal years if you get a good one and take good care of it

"but i don't wanna carry around another device!" fair enough, but these things are small enough to fit in tiny pockets (mine fits snugly in the watch pocket of my jeans) and are typically light enough to not be burdensome. if you can carry around your phone, you can carry around an mp3 player

"what if people think i'm weird for having outdated technology" let them. it's worth it in my opinion if it means i get to listen to music ad-free. the most I've ever gotten was "wooooah bro's got the dinosaur tech" and i just thought that was funny personally

"but what if the artist collapses without a constant stream of money!!! i'm not supporting the artist!!!!!" companies try to pay as little as they can get away with to artists. most of that money goes to the CEO and other higher-ups.

"but piracy is bad!" Piracy is a Crime. However, downloading youtube videos/audio for your own PERSONAL, NON-COMMERCIAL USE and NOT REDISTRIBUTING THEM is legal (generally, in the US, check your laws, i am not a lawyer, not legal advice, blah blah blah). besides, i never said you had to pirate your music. in fact, i encourage you to buy the albums of and support your favourite artists in other ways. some artists might even provide links for people to download their songs for free in high quality anyway

not gonna link products just in case someone thinks i'm a shill. but literally just look up "mp3 player" on your search engine or shopping site of choice and find something that doesn't look like it'll fall apart if you breathe on it too hard

seriously guys. if you listen to music more than like a few hours a week, and you don't get all of your music from livestreams or radios (although mine can connect to AM/FM radio), consider investing in an mp3 player. i tried out using one regularly in fall of 2021, and I haven't looked back. don't let companies drain subscription money from you

[magentas-dystopia]

Something I really lament is the move towards digital media. Slowly we start to never own the things we like. Even if we "buy" a digital game, or movie or show. It's locked behind a certain platform or service. Once it shuts down we lose it forever.

(me when big booby anime girl explosion Is taken off of Netflix)

I also feel like there's a certain charm to owning physical media, like things you can hold and the satisfaction from pressing a clicky button or putting a disc or cassette in and seeing it work.

(oooh so classy so retro so.. expensive in the modern day)

More people should try to make copies of what they own digitally, or try to buy physical media before it's lost from streaming services and digital storefronts forever. Like the case with certain games like Godzilla 2014 and Transformers War for Cybertron. They don't exist digitally anymore. Only hard copies exist outside of emulation and at insane resell prices like... INSANE ones for a mediocre Godzilla game

So yea. Buy some more CDs of those albums you have on replay! Buy a DVD of that niche obscure anime you like! And most importantly PLEASE PLEASE START MAKING HARD BACKUPS OF SHOWS YOU LIKE THAT YOU PIRATE!!! media preservation is important!

(me downloading every episode of Daredevil onto my hard drive to burn to a DVD later so I can give it to all my friends)

This is now going to be a Comprehensive guide on how to rip a CD

POLL TIME!

Burning and Ripping Disc's❤️❤️💕💕🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

STEP ONE:

BUY A CHEAP BLU-RAY/DVD DRIVE FOR YOUR WINDOWS COMPUTER

here are some I recommend!!!

i personally use this pioneer one :)))

DVD drives in general are relatively cheap from 30-20 smackeroos, but Blu-ray drives are around 80-100 bucks depending on the manufacturer but offer better support for copying HD video such as on a Blu-ray.

STEP TWO:

FIND A PIECE OF MEDIA YOU ENJOY.

in this case its gonna be a CD!!

i really enjoy Vespertine by Bjork, but i wanna have it on my computer just in case anything happens to my CD. SO. ill open Windows Media Player

(she hasn't changed since 2011 <3333 be urself girl)

NEXT

ill insert the disc into the player. and it'll start playing!

Pause the disc and go into Rip settings

NEXT!! select the format!

if you want to conserve space and don't mind sacrificing audio quality select MP3! if you want to hear the same level of audio quality as preserved on the CD, select a format labelled LOSSLESS. I recommend .WAV files as they'll work with most devices including an android phone or iTunes on PC (more on that later ;3 )

NEXT!

create a folder on whatever u wanna save ur music to! (u can call it whatever u want the world is your oyster bestie)

THEN!!! FINALLY

go into more options on the Rip Settings menu!

select ur folder and press Rip CD!!!!

the fun thing of this now, is that you can pull these files on your computer and put it onto your Android device so you can listen to your hearts content without lugging around your CD in a player at high quality without any subscription service with free reign of who you can give your download to!

But Magenta! what if i have an iPhone?

ohohoo fear not bestie because iTunes on PC has an even EASIER way to do it

because simply putting in a disc with iTunes downloaded prompts THIS

(oooo so new age)

and if you have apple music on your iPhone this will sync to your phone if you logged into iTunes on PC!!

thank you for coming to my TED talk

[deedee-sims]

Tutorial - extracting stuff from Disco Elysium (+ viewing the models in blender)

Due to... recent events, I decided to finally get myself to write a tutorial about this, because all I found was some half-assed reddit comments when I was trying to figure out how to do it sometime last year.

I'll show you how to extract... pretty much everything (including voice lines) from the game.

This is a beginner tutorial, so you don't have to know shit about any of these programs, I'll try to explain everything.

I promise it's pretty easy! I extracted stuff from various games, and this is one of the easiest I ever did, so yeah.

You'll need:

Disco Elysium on PC

AssetStudio

Blender

+1 Interfacing

+2 Endurance (mostly to survive my bad jokes)

First of all, open AssetStudio. You don't have to install it or anything, just unzip the file you downloaded and open the program inside (AssetStudioGUI).

This is how the bad boy looks like, we'll be able to see the asset list on the left and the preview on the right.

Click on File../Load Folder.

Select the folder where the game is installed. For me it's Steam\steamapps\common\Disco Elysium\disco_Data. You can load individual files too, but it's easier to just list everything and then filter them imo.

Wait... for a while. It's a lot of assets. Make a tea or something (hydration is important).

After everything loaded up, click on the Asset List tab. You can see all the stuff! Well, it's rather confusing. Let's see what is what!

If you click on Filter Type, you can see the types of the assets. These are:

AnimationClip: I think these are supposed to be the animations, you can export them if you select an animator asset alongside and right click Export Animator + selected Animation Clips (couldn't get the animation to play but that's probably on me).

Animator: These are the rigged models, you can export them to .fbx format, but I couldn't figure out what to do with them in Blender because they were kinda distorted (funnily enough, when I imported it to the shitty Milkshape program it showed up just fine... and people wonder why I prefer shitty Milkshape XD) Anyway, I hope someone can figure this out that actually knows something about Blender lol.

Audio Clip: Sounds, voice lines, background music. (.wav format)

Font: Well, fonts. Can be exported and installed to your device like any fonts.

Mesh: 3D models of the characters, objects, scenes. (.obj format)

MonoBehaviour: No fucking clue.

Shader: Shaders for the game. Not interesting in our case.

Sprite: Images that the game uses: portraits, object thumbnails, user interface elements.

Texture 2D: The textures that belong to the 3D models. (.png format)

TextAsset: ??

VideoClip: The stuff that plays when you open the game.

You can preview any assets (well, the ones that you can preview), if you click on them. You can view them in the right panel.

You can extract by left click on the asset in the list -> Export selected assets. You can select multiple assets and export them at the same time.

The program will ask you to select a folder where you want to export the stuff. It'll export them into separate folders, by assets.

Well, yeah, now you know what is what, and how to extract them, but there are still a lot of assets. Good news, you can filter them with the little search bar too, if you type in some gibberish! Some stuff are a little tricky to find.

Voice lines are grouped by task / place, so if you know where the particular thing takes place, you can try to filter for those. The assets are named with the speaker's name - either a character or a skill. I think the numbers mean some kind of order, but I couldn't really figure it out. If you click on one of them, you can preview, and listen to it in the right panel! Super easy! (if you want your own daba-doop-doop-dead it's Kim Kitsuragi-YARD  HANGED MAN-556. Just saying)

For objects and characters, you can find them by name, although some characters are named differently. Like, Harry is referred as Tequila in the game files.

Basically if you want to have a character or an object extracted, you’ll need to extract a mesh and a texture that belongs to it. You can quite literally play dress-up game with Harry, because all of his clothes are separate files (and named with kinda the clothing item name). The Kineema has multiple parts (exterior - interior - door - whatever else).

Anyway, let's move on to the Blender part before I forget how to do it (I learned it this morning lol). (Disclaimer: I don't know jack shit about Blender, I use it for extracting stuff and creating the simplest shapes in existence. I use the godforsaken program Milkshape on a daily basis.)

Open Blender.

Hit delete to get rid of this beautiful default cube.

File.../Import.../Wavefront (.obj)

Select the thing you want to import (I'll import the gremlin child).

There he is! And he doesn't fucking care!

Btw, you can zoom with the middle mouse button scroll or middle mouse button + Ctrl, rotate with middle mouse button, move the view with middle mouse button + Shift. So you can see his itty-witty mischievous face from very close!

Now, that's great, but he doesn't have textures still. First of all, change the Viewport Shading to Material Preview.

Select him (just click on him, you'll see an orange outline). And go to the Material Properties tab on the side.

Click on the little dot next to Base Color, and select Image Texture.

Click on the Open button that appeared out of nowhere, and search for the Cuno texture.

Tada! He looks beautiful now! (and he still doesn’t fucking care)

You can do the same with any 3D models, objects from the game, really.

Well, that's it lol. I hope it made sense! And I really hope someone runs away with extracting the animators + animations, because I'm pretty sure it's doable, I just have no clue how.

[ystk-archive]

“I feel like we released a party-in-a-box album” (Nakata)

He makes music for Perfume and MEG, created the soundtrack of the TV drama “Liar Game,” and wrapped up an album with Sakai Kate as part of the unit COLTEMONIKHA. The number one producer on the cutting edge of now is unmistakably Nakata Yasutaka, and his main project capsule released their eighth album “Sugarless GiRL,” followed it with a remix best-of compilation called “capsule rmx,” and are already set to release their third album in a single year.

“Up until now, I’d been sort of following the oldschool pop format to a certain extent. I think my songs until the ‘Sugarless GiRL’ album were easy to listen to, but I don’t feel like they need to be that way anymore because capsule isn’t the type of unit that would appear in music programs on TV. I’ll leave the karaoke-friendly songs to idols and pursue creating something with capsule that can only be done in the kind of environment we exist in. Our remix album that came out in October falls in line with this: it’s a collection of tracks that we use often, so there is the implication that it’s a best-of album, but I wanted to refresh the sound instead of just re-releasing the songs as they were. It takes the ‘party’ feeling and packages it up all neatly, like a party-in-a-box. But I do fundamentally want people to listen to our newest album first and foremost.” (Nakata)

“We’re having fun creating things that we think are interesting.” (Koshijima)

That new album is “FLASH BACK,” their ninth overall and first original release in ten months. It breaks from their previous works in that it isn’t like the soundtrack to a film that doesn’t exist; “FLASH BACK” instantly conjures up images and memories from the past in the way that a movie inserts a literal flashback sequence. It doesn’t use a story or specific pretense to do this — instead, particles of sound flood out from the listening device (whether that be speakers or headphones) and form intense, hard-hitting electro music, bit by bit.

“I thought it was interesting to have several moments in time playing simultaneously, like I’d cut out scenes from a movie. There isn’t a pattern to how it changes; the entire album is constantly shifting. I thought it’d be good to have a strong contrast like that. My mental image of it is a sort of inner dive. I made it with a clear contrast in sound so that the listener can really delve into it, and I think if you sync up with the music, you can get into the album quite easily. However, I did think it would be kind of tacky if the album was too trendy-sounding. It’s perfectly situated in that space where you can’t decide if it’s cool or not.” (Nakata)

“During recording, we’d get all excited like ‘this is SO lame!’ (laughs). But we’re really into just making whatever we feel is interesting to us right now, so we hope everyone will enjoy listening to it.” (Koshijima)

from spring magazine・scan & translation by ystk-archive・HD download (Google Drive)

[posthumanwanderings]

brief ramble, but had a good two days off chiseling through Persona 1 for the first time ever (and first Persona game I’ve given a serious play on) which is a big deal for me because from the early days of this blog I’ve vaporwaved a lot of the series’ music to upload to here and youtube without knowing any of the context. so it’s cool to see the actual areas and cutscenes that these tracks play on and will upload more loops / NoPlays / a new mix accordingly. might continue streaming it this week cause I’m already looking forward to play Persona 2 so it’ll be nice if I can have P2 ready to start by next Halloween. also hung out with one of my besties I haven’t seen in forever playing all the random N64 games I had downloaded from my recent multistream. was really fun and reminder I should really seriously try to be a ‘human’ again chilling with my friends more instead of the retail industry being the only human interaction I have... 😵‍🔫 as far as next blog and stream themes go, that all depends if I can get XBOX OG emulation running alright... which last time I checked both XEMU and CXBX it’s not looking too hot... from what I read even if you have a super beefed up gaming PC it’s still janked so I know it’s not just my setup. I do have a capture device in these situations but it’s MIA ATM so I’ll just look around for it more, but if any of you have experience with XBOX OG emulation and can give me some pointers or even a forum to explain how to tweek settings better please hit me up! otherwise we’ll go straight into GameCube and Wii stuff for the majority of the month since Dolphin runs just perfect these days = )

[musings-from-an-elder-goth]

Every October from 1966 until 2020, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" etched itself into across the collective consciousness of young darklings with it's once a year broadcast on network television. (To watch it, click on the above link & jump to 5:45 on the timeline.) The importance of "The Great Pumpkin" to me and my fellows, regardless darkling or normie, cannot be overstated. Elementary school children simply did not miss "The Great Pumpkin." However, it lost much of it's 'weight,' for lack of a better term, once VCR's became available. Prior to those wondrous devices, you literally only had one chance per year to watch "The Great Pumpkin" - that's it. To be a kid & miss "The Great Pumpkin" airing was akin to Linus fainting and missing the arrival of The Great Pumpkin, himself. I recall hearing the tragic tale of one kid on the school bus who had missed the airing the previous night as his house had lost power & we all sat in silent horror at this revelation - a fate worse than death or dentist visit.

Of course, me being me, I had already somewhat prepared for such an unthinkable eventuality by having acquired a copy of the 1967 book adaptation of "The Great Pumpkin." In the 70's, my folks choose to live in the boonies, so losing power for no reason was something that could happen. Fortunately, I never did have to cower in a dark corner, clutching my well worn book copy, silently cursing the Fates for inflicting such an indignity upon me. After all, this was one of those vanishingly rare instances where the book version was objectively not as good as the TV version.

(Just as an aside, my fav Charlie Brown character was always Schroeder. I never gave it much thought, but Schroeder is actually kinda goth with his dark colors, quiet demeanor, & music obsession, so...makes sense. I imagine when he hit his teen years, he joined a goth band, died his hair black, & played wicked dark keyboards at countless gigs.)

Fast forward a few years & I can still vividly recall my profound shock at learning a friend of mine, who owned an early VCR, had recorded "The Great Pumpkin" upon it's previous airing. It was a singular wonder to be able to watch something you could previously only have seen once a year, watch it whenever you want, & not even need to find the most sincere pumpkin patch as prerequisite to do so. It was as if you could reach up into the heavens &, with a simple twist of hand, rewind the celestial sphere back in time to the previous eclipse or passing of Haley's Comet, so staggeringly cosmic in power it seemed. There we sat, watching "The Great Pumpkin" in early December of 1981 & it was a big enough deal to me that I still remember it as if it happened merely a month ago. And I wasn't even really that much into it anymore as I was 11 going on 12 at that point & was eager to put 'childish things' behind me. But I still watched it right the way through. I'm sure it found it's way to most folks VCR's during the 80's, & was officially released on VHS in 1988 & DVD in 2000, so I'm sure nowadays it's a rare household with children which lacks their own copy of "The Great Pumpkin."

Of course, there were other Halloween children's specials eager to rake in the chips like "The Great Pumpkin" did, but none of them ever reached the same level of quality as "The Great Pumpkin." Unlike most other Halloween children's specials, "The Great Pumpkin" has several sequences that, to a child, are legitimately spooky, such as the intro sequence, Snoopy making his way behind enemy lines, & the rising of 'The Great Pumpkin' in the pumpkin patch. I can still recall cynically thumbing through the TV Guide at any given year's new entries & weighing each against "The Great Pumpkin." Be it "Halloween is Grinch Night," "Fat Albert's Halloween Special," or "Bugs Bunny's Howl-oween," all were decidedly lacking. There were some older ones that I'd see on local independent stations that were reasonably good, such as the stop motion "Mad Monster Party" but even that was still a distant second. To this day, no Halloween children's special can hold a Jack-o-lantern to "The Great Pumpkin."

So this Halfway to Halloween, take a 25 minute break to revisit everyone's favorite Halloween special, & may the pumpkin patch in your particular neck of the woods always be the most sincere.

creaturesfromelsewhere 4-29-2024

[thatscarletflycatcher]

A starter guide on Ubuntu-Linux, from a non-techie to other non-techies

Preamble (a.k.a. the story/rant before the recipe, feel free to skip or not as you wish)

Several years ago, I got a laptop for college purposes; it ran on Windows 10 with decent reliability for a few years, but then it started getting slower and slower, the bloatware (programs and apps that companies pre-install in your devices that you cannot remove) was just tremendously bothersome, my computer would start updating all of a sudden and be at it for hours, etc, etc.

And so my dad suggested I switched to Ubuntu (he had been using it for a few years himself at that point), and... I'm not going to lie to you. I was scared. Was it going to be too different? Wouldn't it require far more computer knowledge than what I already had? Wouldn't the learning curve be too steep? Wouldn't I be unable to do a lot of the stuff I used to do?

Years later my answer is: I don't miss Windows. The learning curve wasn't nearly as steep as I thought it would be. I got acclimated to the system within a couple weeks. There are parts of Ubuntu itself that aren't that up to date (mainly stuff about medium-advanced audio management, streaming through Discord, and semi-pro to pro levels of photo processing), but I have managed to work around most of it with little difficulty (the image processor I use for making gifsets is proprietary sofware --the code of it is not open for transformation by third parties-- but I can work with it mostly fine through a tool called Wine). If what you do with your computer is mainly internet surfing, document writing, listening to music and playing videos (and similar basic stuff) you are unlikely to have any problems working with Ubuntu. But the best, best, best part of it for me? No bloatware. No 8256754 attempts at getting my personal information or tracking me. My computer is fast, as fast as it was when I first got it (the couple times it broke in the last two years had nothing to do with software: it was first the hard drive, and then the fan). No computer deciding to update and leave me waiting whenever it wants. And honestly, that makes every little inconvenience I have faced in Ubuntu worth it, very much worth it.

Linux has a problem

And it is that a loud section of its userbase is made up by techies who have a very unrealistic notion about how much the average person knows about computers.

A few months ago there was a post making the rounds, where OP explained that you can put ubuntu in a pen drive and carry it with you (yes, it is possible and relatively easy to do) and there was a bunch of people in the notes explaining how much better it is to pick Linux Mint, or use a raspberri pi, as if people who don't know you can carry Ubuntu in a pen drive could understand what they are talking about.

My goal with this post is to explain some of the very basics in an accessible language. I will probably use inacurate and generalized language in it for the sake of explaining simply, and will focus on Ubuntu because it is what I know. If you are a Linux fan who loves Linux Mint or whichever other, go ahead and make your own post.

Definitions, yada, yada

So, what is Linux? in plain terms, it is an operating system (Windows and Mac are operating systems) with several variations called distributions. Think of it as Linux being like a family, and the distributions being the members of the family. Some """famous""" members of the Linux family are Ubuntu, Debian, and Red Hat. One of the main distinctive characteristics of Linux distributions at the basic level is that they are free software: it can be used, modified, and redistributed under certain conditions, by everyone.

Where do you get Ubuntu, and how to install it?

You go to www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop. There you will see two items: the first one is a "LTS" (long term support) and the other isn't. What is the difference?

Ubuntu releases a new version every six months, one in april and one in october. So, for example, the version released in april this year is Ubuntu 22.04, also named Jammy Jellyfish, and the one released in october, Ubuntu 22.10 is called Kinetic Kudu. Every two years, in april, a LTS version is released. Jammy Jellyfish is a LTS release. That means it has a 10 years stay, and is a stable, well tested and tweaked release.

What I'm saying here is, get the LTS release.

When you click download, you will see an ISO file of about 4gb. Save it to your hard drive, and get yourself a 4gb or bigger pen drive that is empty and you don't mean to use for anything else.

To install Ubuntu in that pen drive, follow the instructions here. They are short and simple, and the whole process shouldn't take more than half an hour (probably around 15-20 minutes).

Now that you are in possession of Ubuntu-on-a-stick, you can go ahead and reboot your pc, with the stick still connected. Usually the computer itself will recognize the system and open it, or ask you between the two options of system. This is not installing Ubuntu yet, but you need to be careful.

Next it will show you a menu with two options: to install Ubuntu, or to try it out. DO NOT CLICK ON INSTALL UBUNTU IF YOU STILL HAVE UNBACKED STUFF OR ARE UNSURE YOU WANT UBUNTU YET. It will format your hard drive and all of that will be lost. The try option, on the other hand, works from the stick and does not format your hard drive.

Try Ubuntu will allow you to see how the basic system would look upon installation, and it will also be what you'd use if you were carrying Ubuntu on a stick to use in other computers. You cannot really modify much there, but if you choose to install the system, it is very, very, very customizable. You can tweak it and add and change the position of menus, clock, desktop icons (At first I thought you couldn't have those because they don't appear there by default! But you can! You just need to add them yourself).

To install Ubuntu on your computer, follow the instructions here. The process, again, is described short and simple, it doesn't take long, and the thing itself guides you step by step.

It is possible to make a disk partition, and have Windows in one part of the hard drive, and Ubuntu on the other. I myself have never done this and don't know how it is done. But if you want to try that, there are many tutorials on the internet about how to do it, I just don't have a specific one to recommend.

A couple more things

Once your new system is up and running, and you are customizing it, there are a couple basic things to know that are helpful:

Between the programs that come with the system, there's one called terminal. Terminal allows you to write direct commands to your computer. For example, instead of opening a program from its icon, you can type the name of the program (for example, "VLC") in terminal, and it will open it.

Similarly, you have two ways to install programs: one, like windows, by downloading the package and opening it with double click, the other by writing in the terminal "sudo apt-get install [name of package]". Some packages will already be in the cloud in what is called repositories, and just by typing "sudo apt-get install [name of program]" terminal will download and install it for you.

Like Windows, Ubuntu will give you messages about updates being available; unlike windows, you can install those whenever you want, and they run on the background (you can use your pc while it updates).

Alternatively you can just update your computer whenever you want by opening terminal and writing "sudo apt update" and then "sudo apt upgrade". I myself do that every day.

There are a few programs like get-iplayer (to get stuff from BBC Sounds) and youtube-dl (to get stuff from YT) that work in terminal only.

Terminal is very cool and if you are like me it will make you feel like a hacker in a 90s spy movie.

www.askubuntu.com is a forum that has answers for everything you might face as a problem or challenge while using Ubuntu. It is great.

If you do give Ubuntu a try and have any relatively basic questions I can answer about it, feel free to shoot an ask or message me, and I will help if I can!

[faraway-sunshine]

Since we're talking about computers, I'll ask something bigger: what would be your DREAM tech setup? Like, if you could have any setup in your room (including computer, TV, any other gadgets or whatever), what would you want and how would you want it to look? No sci-fi stuff obviously, lol

I'm fairly up to date with computer and console stuff, a bit less with the rest, but this was fun for me to figure out:

First, TV. One of those ones that's big, but not so big that it takes four people to carry it out of the apartment, stacked on top of a cabinet that can house the other devices below it without being too much of a mess.

VCR because we have a lot of tapes and the video stores are still nearly all tapes, but maybe something that reads DVDs for when they surpass them. I mean, CDs replaced cassette music for ages, DVDs are surely going to replace movie tapes. I'm not sold enough to buy a DVD player for real but hey, dream setup, got to be prepared in case.

One of those TiVo digital recording devices they started making last year. A friend of mine at school has it and he says it's great because he doesn't have to keep buying tapes.

Oh, and a cable box, which I'm pretty sure you need for the TiVo. With the package we have now that has most of the entertainment channels.

Nintendo 64, and if games are allowed, Ocarina of Time and Pokémon Snap.

Seeing as this is Dream Setup and money doesn't seem to be an issue, a PlayStation would also be cool so I can try Final Fantasy out. Come to think of it, they're releasing the PlayStation 2 this month, so maybe I should say that? But would Final Fantasy be ready to go for PS2 on launch? I'm not sure.

All the cables so I can set up the consoles, VCR, cable box, TiVo, and possible DVD player underneath with the wires bundled up neatly in order to make swapping them out easy. Honestly that's the biggest change I'd enjoy immediately from the current setup; the back of the TV right now is a mess, and if I want to dig out the Genesis for instance it's a bit of a chore.

Honestly my current PC and monitor is pretty good so I'd stick with that, or maybe wait for that new operating system Quo hinted at for computer. The only other thing I could ask for would be something that can play those music files I download from Napster onto that's portable (or something that can burn CDs for my Discman). There's some devices that do that I think but it hasn't caught on much yet. It would be cool if it did as that way I could have all my music on me all the time instead of having to choose between discs.

I hope this doesn't come across as me seeming greedy. I'm lucky to have what I have and I'm using my computer and Gameboy more than anything these days anyway when I'm not doing homework or some sort of practice (although I have started watching some TV there's only one new episode every week and that's like half an hour or so and I can watch while playing). I'm just trying to dream big for this ask.

(Monday 9th October, 2000, 6:29 AM)

[fructidors]

@radioactivegeorg cassette tips!!!

ok so. generally it is very easy to record cassettes. i for one was surprised about how easy it was. it is however a little timely but worth it because cassettes are god's most beautiful children.

you will need a cassette player obviously. i have bad experiences with the small walkman-type guys but i think that might just have been mine. this is the one i use to record them & play them most of the time

got it from my dad and she is my favorite firstborn son who is 30 years older than me. yeah you heard it right this bitch was made in the SEVENTIES and she hasn't let me down once except when she ran out of batteries that one time. as long as yr cassette player has a record button it should be fine though

you also need:

cassettes! fun fact you don't actually need blank ones (although they are a little easier) you can record over regular ones! i don't personally have experience with this though so here is an article on it

your Device! so Hypothetically i think you MIGHT be able to record from a phone if you have either a headphone jack on your phone or a very functional headphone jack to lightning adapter. again i have not personally tried this so i would recommend Computer

your music! Another Fun Fact you don't have to have any music downloaded to record it onto a cassette! cassettes will literally record any audio coming from your Device so all you need is a playlist from your streaming service of choice, a youtube playlist, a playlist of files on some media player, something like that. you could record a whole episode of television if you want no one can stop you. i will explain how to arrange yr music further on.

a cable that goes between the cassette player and the Device! typically a male-to-male 3.5mm headphone jack cable (gayyy). this guy.

this is probably the only thing on the list that isn't like. immediately obvious-- i got mine at a local guitar store but they're very cheap online

and of course fun things to decorate the cassette with!!! the Most Important part. i use sharpie paint pens.

OKAY!! step one!! get yr music organized. yr tape is probably either 60 or 90 minutes long or maybe 110 or 100 or possibly some other strange number if you're using a prerecorded tape. either way you need to make two playlists each the length of one side of the tape. so if i'm making a mixtape i usually make one big 90 minute playlist and then divide it up into 45 minute playlists when i'm done. if you're doing an album you Might be able to get one on each side (again depending on what length yr tape is). since the playlists generally end up a minute or so under the exact length my very favorite thing in the entire world to do is add a random song and let it play out in part at the end and not write it down on the tracklist. music dessert.

step two!! get those guys connected. my tape player has this hole labeled MIC

but yrs might not. so just plug one end of the cable into whatever hole looks like an audio input or headphone jack and hope it works. i am the farthest from an expert here. & then plug the other end into yr Device's headphone jack! congratulations you are now practicing Mad Science & yr devices are having transgenerational gay sex. (at least that is what it feels like)

step three!! play that audio!!! so this is the part where trial & error is key. because if you record your music on full volume it will sound Bad. i typically turn the volume on whatever platform my playlist is on way down. like.

but you don't want it Too Quiet or else you'll have to turn your player's volume so far up that the tape hiss will start to overpower the music. it's a balancing act. which is why you should...

step three point five make a test patch!! what i usually do is play the first ten seconds of the first song, ten seconds from the middle of that song, and ten seconds from one or two more songs on the playlist, just to get the full range of volumes & frequencies & whatnot. then rewind and listen to it back and figure out if it should be louder or quieter. this might not be super obvious right away (my first cassette Sucked) but it gets pretty easy to tell eventually.

step four record that bitch!!!! don't press play on your music the Second you press record because there's a bit of plastic at the beginning of the tape that can't be recorded onto so you'll lose the first few seconds of your music. this is also why you shouldn't have a playlist that's Exactly the length of a side but rather a little shorter or a little longer w/ a song you're cool with getting cut off. and then. you wait. my absolute least favorite bit. recording is basically the same as playing (in that the entire tape gets run through the player, at the same speed) except you can't listen to any music. you should also probably refrain from using the Device while recording to avoid any other sounds playing because like i said the tape isn't recording your music specifically, it's recording all the audio from the Device. i have So Many tapes with text tones interrupting the music :( generally i like to record tapes when i'm out or doing something off my computer or on occasion sleeping. once the whole side has been recorded there's a click (like when the whole side has been played) and you turn the cassette over, go to your second playlist, and do the whole thing over again!!

step five best step the reason we do it all DECORATE!!!! coolest thing about cassettes is you can decorate literally the whole thing. all the case all the card all the cassette itself!! anything that works on plastic should work. here are my children:

& yeah that's it!!! sorry this got so long & over-explain-y i just. love talking about cassettes. number one activity. lmk if you have any other questions!!

[alantea87]

So, I’ve clocked my first 24 hours with the Nokia 2660 Flip. Truly a flip-you to my iPhone and its addicting qualities. Nothing groundbreaking to use a dumb-phone, but I wanted to challenge myself again to rejoin reality and reconnect with my friends and family properly… by stripping back my use of technology to its bare essentials.

Why…

After many months of wanting to pull away from social media, WhatsApp and iOS, I was apprehensive yet elated at the very idea. What about the memes? Thirst posts? Corgis? I’d miss them all. But much needed clarity came crashing in: my iPhone had become my adult pacifier (or dummy for us Brits). Using your smartphone during times of boredom, times of stress, or times of wanting connection has become a habit of many. And, I was no exception. Especially the doom-scrolling for hours on end after work. Luckily, after some realisation… my emotions were at the mercy of this bloody thing. Not to mention the continued horrors of witnessing violence or harassment on Instagram reels - content like this seemingly slipping through censorship safeguards. I had enough and wanted to go back simpler times, even at the dismay of others. I finally bought my second dumb-phone in two years, but this time it was far more usable (bigger buttons, predictive texts, foldable display). I wanted to really try much harder in having an iPhone-less life, even if it created a touch more inconvenience.

Neck-deep…

Sometimes I feel that tech companies invent inconveniences in order to sell more solutions directly to you. And as someone who used to work at Apple’s Regent Street store years back (when the first iPhone was launched, mind you), Apple has turned into a capitalist nightmare. I miss their earlier days of really creating a tech solution to improve your life. Now it’s all about that coin and I forget I am neck-deep in their eco system and feel like I’m drowning in their “YOU’RE MY ELITE EMPLOYEE” energy, so I feel I have to keep on buying more. Yes, the integration of all of their devices work incredibly well. But sometimes I feel that innovation doesn’t always address your ability to connect (naturally) with other people. In fact, my self and a lot of my friends (at my age), now feel that modern technology hinders deep, meaningful connections e.g. good old face-to-face conversations in the real world. I think as a millennial (and listen up gen z), I forget that conversation in person is incredibly nuanced: one has to balance tone, emotion, inflection and practice patience. It involves drama and full expression - hands, legs and otherwise! Real connection. No avatars, no emojis, no hiding. Worst case scenario, make a phone call and use your voice. Having said that, I will have to practice what I preach now that it’s much harder to write big messages via SMS on an alphanumeric keypad, lol. I’m more likely to text “can I call you in a bit instead?”.

Current tech hoes…

I have in fact have not fully compromised my relationship with tech. I am using an iPad for emails and internet. Plus, I have resorted to using my Apple Watch as a “mp3 player” paired with my AirPods Pro 2s. I forgot that if you have an Apple Music sub, you can download songs/albums/playlists directly to your Apple Watch via Wi-Fi etc. Perfect for the gym and the commute. Because I am sure as hell that I won’t be touching those dodgy Temu-like music players on Amazon. Frankly, they look like they would crumble in your hand and would be carcinogenic. Remember guys, tech companies have turned once a useful tool (the smartphone) into a slot-machine in your hand. Your emotions are being played with and sometimes I did enjoy aspects of that (memes, targeted videos/content etc) but I say: no bloomin more. For now. Lol. Famous last words. I’m going to try and do two weeks minimum with my Nokia 2660 and see how I survive.

Challenges to expect…

Unlike the Nokia 2680 Flip (only sold in North America, I think) as a fancier operating system that allows WhatsApp and a stripped down version of Google Maps. GPS navigation on that version of the 2660 apparently works alright, but you wouldn’t be able to use it in car for driving (I don’t drive anyway). But my main concern about using a feature phone is that lack of mapping. And I chronically get lost in London, despite being born and raised in Hackney/Islington. So I do plan to use my iPhone (loaded up with a data eSIM) to use it like it was a good old TomTom. Sorry gen z, these were old standalone GPS screen/devices you retrofitted in your car. But only if I plan on going somewhere totally new. Otherwise, I will try and relearn the bus network (within reason, lol) and tube map relative to my needs. I kinda miss those days of printing out directions and/or relying on your actual brain to problem solve and to get your bearings. Other things I may or may not miss out on: QR code scanning/presenting, tube/weather updates, voice notes.

Final words…

Scaling back to a dumb-phone has actually already reduced my levels of anxiety, sense of disconnect or being part of comparison culture. The very act of adding in your contacts manually one-by-one like the 90s/2000s into a cellphone was quite therapeutic despite its novelty. I think you can import a vCard, but couldn’t be arsed. *Carrie Bradshaw voice* But then I thought to myself (as I typed each contact into my Nokia keypad): damn boy… do I only really have three (actual) friends?

Two books I am currently reading and recommend.

[netscapenavigator-official]

How do u like jellyfin? I've been using kodi since i've been looking for something more featured than VLC for browsing media but it feels bloated and makes wayyy to many internet connections automatically for me to really enjoy it or feel safe running it on any device that seeds torrents. I'm strongly considering jellyfin since I despise plex and ember is proprietary.

It’s the only media server software I’ve ever used, so I don’t have any points of comparison. Also, a transparency preface, the device my server is hosted on is an M1 Apple iMac that's running up-to-date macOS (as of the time of writing, that’s macOS Sonoma 14.1), so as always, your mileage could always vary on other operating systems and chipset architectures.

I also view content exclusively via the iOS app, Apple TV app, and Firefox for Linux x86-64, all of which I’ve never had a problem with.

For the most part, however, I haven’t had any complaints. I keep all of my content on a 2TB USB External HDD that I bought from Walmart. It stays plugged into the computer 24/7, and all I had to do was tell Jellyfin where the files were, which you have to do regardless of where they are.

I’m not an advanced user by any means. I’d love to get outside network support going, but even that is proving too intimidating for me. I probably don’t take advantage of most of the advanced features, either. From my experience with Jellyfin, though, it does what I wanted it to: allow me to view my videos and photos without having to download them onto my phone. I have three users set up (including the one mandatory admin profile), and that’s probably the most non-out-of-the-box thing I’ve done.

The only issue I’ve had is that if your host device loses power (or somehow force shutsdown or crashes without first properly quitting the Jellyfin app) during a library sync (which can take a long time if you’ve added a lot of data at once and are running it off an external HDD), the on-device database file seems to corrupt easily. When this database file gets corrupted, it makes the Jellyfin app panic and shutdown without actually closing the app. As a result, the app looks like it’s running properly, but when you try to access it from anywhere, it’ll fail to load. You have to check the .txt file logs to actually see the panic code and shutdown command. I’ve had that happen twice, and it isn’t very pleasant. Luckily, I also use macOS’s Time Machine feature, so I had plenty of backups. However, it is annoying to have to sort that out, and if you didn’t have backups, you’d basically have to restart the server from scratch. Your content would be fine, but all of your manual IMDb data, custom thumbnails, reported file locations, etc. would be factory reset.

Of course, if you’re running the server on something with a backup power supply or a built-in battery, that eliminates a lot of the risk. The iMac I run my server on also acts as a secondary computer, for me. So I'm also at a heightened risk of crashing and whatnot. If you had a dedicated server computer that did nothing but act as your Jellyfin server, that'd also probably help alleviate some risk.

The extent of my daily use of Jellyfin is constantly playing ambient music from an old iPad next to my stereo, and occasionally viewing images and videos from my phone or laptop. I’m certainly not a power user, but for me, I’ve never had any reason to dislike Jellyfin, so I don’t exactly have a desire to go looking for an alternative. It does what I need it to do, and it does it smoothly, simply, and reliably.

If you're looking for a more advanced user's opinion, however, I'm afraid you've come to the wrong blog.

[what-if-doctor-who-was-yuri-yaoi]

95 https://www.tumblr.com/quadruple-a-battery-under-ur-bed/754072180004929536/weird-asks-that-say-a-lot?source=share

95. favorite app on your phone?

OKAY i have a load of handy dandy non shitty apps on my phone which i really like having so ima make a list: (these r for android btw most prolly arent on ios yet so uh. switch if u can at some point it is so much better over here trust) 1) FDROID - basically google play store but all apps are foss (afaik) and also stuff that goes against gplay tos (like yt to mp3 apps) but also just. normal apps lol theres links to the github repo on every app + it lists "antifeatures" (like dependent on external service (ie: website like yt or wikipedia so its not just on ur phone) n shit like that!! u can get most of the apps im mentioning here via fdroid and its risk free! u do need to install the fdroid apk which looks a little dodgy if u dont know what ur doing but yk w/e 2) novalauncher - no clue if this is on fdroid but its on the playstore so like. its fine this is a much more customisable launcher (like standard icon pack support if ur device dont got that, half grid, shit tons customisation) and i use it on litterally every android device i have bc its just so good and consisitent lmfao 3) icon pack studio - another play store one but this lets u make custom icon packs! basically u controll things like icon position, colour, shadow, scale, tile colour, shape, effects, etc! it doesnt work great for every app + u gotta re-exoport it whenever u install new apps BUT IT COVERS EVERYTHING i use it loads 4) genius - another playstore one its just handy u can set it to have a little notif u can click on to get the lyrics for a song if they have em + u can make little lyric cards which r super duper funky i love em 5) kustom widget - NAOTHER playstore one IM SORRY ILL STOP SOON I SWEAR but it lets u make custom widgets AND ITS SO CUSTOMISABLE its also really complex but like. its still easier than app dev so like. i used it to make a widget of my cat that opens the gallery when i click on it ^^ 6) RI MUSIC - THIS IS AN FDROID ONE - its basically yt music premium but with a different UI and free and much more customisable its soo sfadjfghasjdhgg its a fork of vimusic but it works better its so good it also supports yt playlists so if u use yt music SWITCH TO THIS] 7) wikipedia - its on fdroid and play store yall know what it is the app is great also does dark mode without having to dive into fifteen settings etc 8) i forgor the app name but its free spotify premium its 10/10 no notes (when i say free premium i mean permenant but its just ad free and actual control over the songs so no downloads or anything sadly :( 9) spotiflyer!! - it was on fdroid but its been changed to an extention of smthn it was great when it was an app havent looked into the extention ver yet- if u have a pc use zotify instead its a cli but its much faster and more reliable (change the output folder + file name to just be the track number to avoid it skipping songs w funky chars in it u can use mp3tag to fix the names it gets the metadata also dont forget to download as mp3 or its big) basically spotiflyer and zotify r spotify to mp3 but spotiflyer also does other platofrms like yt music n shit spotiflyer broke now but i was its number one stan lmao