This is a topic I can absolutely get behind, I love physical mail, corresponding, it is just so much fun
I have terrible handwriting, and I resent my younger self for not taking penmanship and the cursive lessons I took in second grade seriously because my handwriting is now illegible and I would love to have beautiful handwriting. Maybe over the summer I can practice and sort out all of my bad habits.
I love this claymation indie movie called Mary and Max that is about this sad, lonely girl living in the suburbs Melbourne starting a penpal correspondence with a man in New York City with Asperger's syndrome, and the movie is heartwarming, heartbreaking, adorable, just thinking about it makes me watch it again, it's an phenomenal film. Here's a link to it on Tubi, apparently Tubi is a free streaming service, I haven't used it before but it's the only place that I see streaming it and after some clicking around on the website it seems above board. I watched it on Netflix a while ago when it was on Netflix and it made me cry so do check it out if you like letters and crying : )
The Max in the movie uses a typewriter to write letters, which is in my opinion a nice middle ground between writing by hand and just writing something in a word processor on a computer and printing it out to mail, which works I suppose but it's not as fun, you don't get the romance of clicking keys, or getting to draw little doodles in your letters. I suppose you can after typing them out, I can't justify it there's just a certain something that typing and writing by hand have that comptuers don't for letters. I think it's just that when you're already on the computer writing a letter I can't help thinking to myself this is goofy I can just send this as an email, why am I using a stamp?
Funnily enough Martin Heidegger, the German philosopher, didn't like using typewriters because of how the homogenized writing and limited the creative possibilities of language, and now people are romanticizing typewriters in contrast to computers, and now we're all on a forum reliving the early web in contrast to the alienating wasteland which is modern social media. There's no winning, is there?
Of course the thing is glued on. Fortunately I would never have opened the machine in the first place, Macs are not exactly made to be easy to repair, at least the laptops aren't, which is true for most laptops to be fair.
I meant that it would be a 2014 model or that it was made in 2014, My overview page says mid 2014, and I'm not sure which one of those two things it means.
I will post whenever I get a chance to try the thunderbolt cable for file transfers. I'm glad there is at least some reason for the switch to only thunderbolt, I assumed it was just another ploy to sell more cables and accessories : P
You will be happy to learn that I am actually running time machine as I type this, I have an old portable mechanical hard drive that my backup is on so this will take forever, I should probably just get an SSD for backups. I checked the backup history and it says the last time I backed it up was in 2016, which means I would lose just about all of my stuff if I didn't go through with this.
What about extracting the hard drive from the case? I've heard, that's not intended to do on Apple products, but if it's kaput, can't be more kaput, right?
That's an odd SSD on an PCIe card. You probably need an adapter to put it in other computers.
What's funny is I know the machine still works, I can get it to display stuff on an external screen so I know it's working, but it just doesn't work consistently. I don't know what sort of state it was in. Not to put my sister on blast but she is not very tech literate, there were a gajillion files open any time she asked me to fix something, and she seemed to never close anything or know to save anything. It might just have been too much for the poor computer, but again I'm not sure what the issue is beyond the screen not working. Extracting the hard drive might work, I'll have to look into that, thanks for the video!
Yeah.. that cable may be a hard one - you need a true Thunderbolt cable (it looks the same as USB-C but its different! Thunderbolt 3 looks the same as USB-C, but it will have a thunderbolt symbol on it, where as Thunderbolt 2 is like a lil house and is the same as MiniDisplayPort except it has a thunderbolt symbol)
Apple used to sell Thunderbolt-2 to Thunderbolt-3 adapters, but those were really expensive
The 2017 mac I assume is Thunderbolt 3, so your best bet is to find someone with another mac made after 2016, and then find a Thunderbolt 3 cable or buy one (although they are also expensive, so if you know some who uses one already for a hub or an e-gpu that would be best!) - I use one with my CalDigit dock, that might be one of the most common use cases.
My Macbook Pro is a 2013 (it might be '14) model, so I might be able to connect with a thunderbolt 2 cable and get the file transfers that way. I don't know why they changed it for computers running later versions of Mac OS that you had to use thunderbolt, and I don't know if it would accept the old thunderbolt/mini display port cable. I guess if it doesn't work I will just return the cable, but fingers crossed this will do it
Easy as a lemon squish Iv worked with some doomsday mac situations before!
You can boot the laptop into something called "target disk mode" - this lets you plug it into another mac and then you can copy the files off like it was an external harddrive. It's very handy! There is a lil tutorial here: https://support.apple.com/en-ie/guide/mac-help/mchlp1443/mac
Failing all of that there are some techy ways you can copy files off from the recovery partition using Terminal and SSH (enable SSH access on another computer and then use Terminal on the failing mac to copy files to it) but target disk mode is a much easier first option.
Finally, to be very unhelpful, this is a reminder of why you should keep Time Machine backups every day
Oh my goodness thank you so much, I have never heard of target disk mode. I tried it, and it doesn't seem to work with the USB-C to USB-A cable I already have; according to the Apple website you linked I need a lightning cable. Well I guess that means I'm back to the cable mines, the thing is I cannot find a thunderbolt 2 to usb-c cable, and I don't even know if that will do what I want it to do ༼☯﹏☯༽
It's funny I used to be much more tech-y when I wasn't in college, I installed arch linux on an old laptop and did all kinds of fun stuff with computers but I feel like I've forgotten how to do so much stuff. I just generally have less patience for computer nonsense now, it no longer feels as fun and whimsical as it used to. I will report back if I can figure out what works, or how to pry the files out of the computer.
As for time machine, I backed up my laptop once several years ago and I refuse to learn the error of my ways...wait no actually thinking about it now losing all of that stuff would be a real pain I'm going to find my hard drive and back it up now.
My sister's laptop has finally gone kaput. The screen shows a beautiful array of lines and squiggles, and the bottom quarter or so is occasionally just solid black or white. It's a 2017 Macbook Air, and I am trying to migrate the files from it to a new machine, and then send this thing to the recycling center.
Being the clever clogs I am, I decided to buy a small adapter so I can connect the computer to an external monitor via hdmi, so I could use the computer long enough to migrate the files and programs from the old mac to the new machine using the Mac migration assistant. But things are not going as I would like. For a brief moment, I was able to use the computer, seeing it on the external screen, it would stop occasionally, but I was able to get it to work for a bit until the signal was lost.
Now the only time I get any signal and image displayed is when it goes to a hard drive recovery dialogue. I've gone through it, tried restarting, and none of it has allowed me to get to actually using the computer.
I'm at my wits end. I know this isn't a fun discussion topic, or at least it isn't for me it's just annoying to me, but if anyone has any suggestions or experience trying to recover files from a working laptop with a broken screen (everything else, as far as I know, works just not the screen). Is there any way to get it to use the external monitor if I can't select any display settings? I've tried using the PRAM command a few times, plugging and unplugging it, restarting the machine with it plugged in, plugging it in after starting up. I've nearly lost all hope. I can feel my hairs going grey and falling out trying to get this thing to display correctly.
Having played it on my old Latitude E6540 when it first came out for a little while, I can confirm that the soundtrack is indeed there on the PC version! I recall it was a roll of the dice of whether or not the game worked due to Vulkan being wonky on it (but that may have changed between the many updates and me putting the NimeZ drivers on it... and getting a new laptop, for that matter.) Might check it out again one day. When it worked, it was surprisingly good!
(My experience with it was: the QuakeCon in 2020 or 2021, they gave away the original on the Bethesda launcher. Then it got upgraded to the remaster. Then I had to move everything there to Steam. Not bad for a freebie!)
Thanks for sharing your experience, that's super cool! I love hearing about the history of pc gaming, it makes me appreciate how much more straightforward pc gaming is now. At the same time, some of the fun of messing around, changing up the settings, working through problems, it hasn't gone away at all, but it is less of a thing : /
I'm really kicking myself for missing out on when they had quake for free, I remember seeing that bethesda was allowing you to claim the game through their launcher but I never got around to claiming it, so now I guess I will just have to bite the bullet and get it for the $10 on steam or wait for a sale ;w;
Hmmm, when I was like 12 I was SUPER into drama's.. Im not really sure why; it was a weird time when I was moving around a lot and DVDs were super expensive, so when I found a movie I was into Id just watch it over and over - Im not sure how well it's aged but I remember being really into Chocolat (2000) which was about a mysterious lady opening a chocolate shop in a prudish town in rural France in the 50s.
As far as Disney movies go; I think it's about time I rewatched Atlantis (2001); it seemed so cool at the time I haven't seen this one but omg Tarkovsky; Stalker (1979) was one of my favourite films growing up (movie buff parents) - its another id love to rewatch now as an adult!
It's super cool that your parents showed you Stalker, I'm surprised it was one of your favorite movies growing up, it doesn't seem like a movie kids would enjoy, I guess it depends on if you mean preteen or teenage years. To be fair I was...I don't remember 11, 12? when I first started getting into movies and I remember just loving 2001, the whole aesthetic was so cool to me even if it was a bit of a slow burn (it still is it's a gorgeous film), or A Clockwork Orange for that matter (probably not a movie I was ready to see then but I still loved it), so I can imagine Stalker grabbing a yonug person's imagination in the same way
I haven't played with VMs much but this is a great project. Maybe you could get some of the earlier versions of Windows, 3.11 or even earlier and see how you like those?
If you're planning on using Windows 98 try and get the SE (Second Edition) version, the original was very buggy.
I'm definitely going to try out Windows 3.1 next, the microsoft entertainment pack versions that I found were made for 3.1, and while I could set them up in dos mode in windows 95, I still want to try out the different versions of windows, maybe try emulating some old macintosh operating systems too. Thanks for the tip on using the second edition of Windows 98!
Nowadays a lot of games run easily on newer machines thanks to GOG and remasters, so what I'm interested in testing out is some word processors, spreadsheets, just to see how things have changed, what sort of features have been added.
This is super cool! I love the look of it, reminds me of other grayscale newgrounds platformers I used to mess around in. In terms of feedback, maybe I'm just bad at platformers but I find myself sliding just barely into the spikes and dying, and the cheery, breezy music (which is nice I like it) is starting to aggravate me ;w;
Obviously if that's what you were going for, the sort of classic tough as nails flash game, feel free to ignore my complaints; if I have more time I'll give it a better go when I have time and I'll come back and give better feedback, just my first general impression is I like the concept it's really cool.
One thing you might want to add is a more obvious distinction between being a ghost and being an alive cube. Maybe give him some angel wings? A little halo? That would be cute, and give the player a better sense of when they can and can't phase through stuff
This might be a bit too narrow to be a topic, if so feel free to delete it, but I was wondering if anyone had taken the new version of Quake that is on steam for a spin. From what I have gathered reading around this is pretty solid on PC, I got the switch version and have been liking it a lot.
Having the original soundtrack without having to do any modding is a huge bonus. I assume the PC version also has the soundtrack. What's annoying is on steam they merged the original and remaster game pages so there are forum posts and reviews saying that the soundtrack isn't there.
My other question is if the game comes with an executable so you can run it through nquake or another source port?
If people are up for it I'd love to play some deathmatch, the port is cross-platform so even if I don't end up getting the pc version we can still play
It didn't just start in 1970! It poped-off in 1970, the first earth day was the biggest mass protest in human history (and still is) with over 20 million people taking to the streets in the US Even the president at the time (Richard Nixon) got his boots on and planted a tree in the Whitehouse garden It was a very big deal!
Im pretty disappointed at the events around me; from what I can see there are no major things going on in the city I'm in - but I decided not to use the heating at all today and wear a blanket My first thought was to close the forum today; but that would probably annoy people, and it would not actually be very environmental since the server this runs on is shared and would stay on anyway
That raises some questions about the web revival and eco-friendliness - we rely on big data centres that are huge polluters. Even using old technology is not exactly energy efficient (although keeping old tech in use and out of e-waste dumps is great!). I wonder if there's more we could do though; things like encouraging hosting services that put effort into reducing emissions - as far as I know, Neocities has no environmental info - we have no idea what its impact is
It's definitely a LOT better than things like blockchain services, but we do promote tech and tech is often a big polluter. My small pledge will be to provide environmental info in tutorials and hosting recommendations whenever possible; and also to consider where my sites are hosted!
This is an interesting topic for me, I took environmental and it's a very interesting area to think about. One of the big challenges is just how to decrease carbon emissions when so much of what individuals can do when so much power is wasted by companies, just lights being on in buildings, or for that matter inefficient power grids. Even so there's a lot that individuals can do that has an impact.
What a great get! Congrats! Unfortunately I do not have a lot to contribute in this area, since I was a baby in the 2000s, but those machines are beautiful, they have such a a great look to them, and the ads for the Power Mac G4 were great too, the weapon spot was so goofy, I used to watch those ads on youtube just to enjoy looking at the machines.
Unfortunately software-wise I don't have any recommendations, as I know literally nothing about the scene or how you might go about obtaining and installing software, I'm sure at this point there are tutorials and explanations on how to run downloaded software on a power mac.
How was VCF? Did you see anything really cool computer-wise?
So I recently went to play solitaire on my windows 10 computer and ran into the terrible fact that the current Microsoft Solitaire Collection has 30 second unskippable mobile ads, which is terrible. So I decided to install an older version of Windows into a virtual machine to play Solitaire in the future
I followed this tutorial, and it was fairly straightforward. The only problem I ran into was getting virtualization enabled in my bios, and enabling the games in the control panel. After that it was smooth sailing, I have sound, all the classics. I'm thinking of getting Windows 98 set up next so I can experience Bonzi Buddy, because Windows 95 is a bit too old for that.
I was going to put a screenshot of Windows 95 running Solitaire here but you all probably know what that looks like and I don't feel like uploading it to a hosting platform since that isn't an integral part of the experience.
So anyway my question is, has anyone else tried messing around with old versions of Windows in virtual machines? Are there any programs I should try installing? Any games? These days most games are already ported to run in dosbox or whatever else, but I'd still like to try out some fun stuff, maybe space cadet pinball if I can find a version that will play nice with my installation.
This reminds me I didn't see a bunch of disney movies, I've been meaning to though, just binge some classic disney movies and fill that gap in my cultural awareness. I'm not sure what the rationale is, my parents were fairly conservative/religious but they didn't censor anything I ended up reading/watching, we mainly just watched whatever was on public broadcast, I don't remember there being a mickey mouse ban. The only disney movie I watched as a kid was Cinderella while over at a friend's house and I don't remember it very well, I remember the mice, and the bubbles, and being jealous of Cinderella, but other than that not much : P
In terms of a movie I haven't watched in a while, I'd have to say Andrei Rublev. It's a movie based on this largely fictional life of a Russian icon painter, and it is this gorgeous meditation on the nature of artistic creativity caught between powerful forces, religious, cultural, personal, and is at least in a very oblique way a commentary on being an artist in the Soviet Union (the film was of course censored and for a while banned). I watched it a while ago and it just blew me away, floored me, and for a while I considered it my favorite movie, it still might be, it's just that it is over three hours long and I rarely have a 3 hour chunk of time to just watch a movie ;m;
I just watched a video of a basking shark and now I have a favorite shark too, they're so adorable and silly : D
I definitely get it, puppies are too much for me, they're super cute but the energy, the barking, I feel overwhelmed. I feel like I get along better with old dogs, if getting along with is the right word. A friend of mine has this rescue lab that's just a sweet old lady and I love her so much, just as sleepy and chilled out as me. I've never had a dog but if I did I would want a retiree rescue, that would just want to take a nap, enjoy some head scritches, we could go on walks and listen to old jazz music togethe
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Iv worked with some doomsday mac situations before!
Even the president at the time (Richard Nixon) got his boots on and planted a tree in the Whitehouse garden 
It was a very big deal!
