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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • That first part is eerily similar to what I was about to post.

    In 2011, I was a lonely introvert. I spent my time binging TV shows and reading.

    In 2012, on an IRL meetup thread on the 4chan x (paranormal stories) board, I met a new friend. I think deciding to meet them was the critical moment. They introduced me to a local arts and crafts club, a certain sci-fi fandom, and Minecraft.

    The arts and crafts club became the basis of a friend group that is still my main friend group today. They brought me to a local convention in 2013 where I discovered I was trans.

    In that sci-fi fandom, at a 2016 convention, I met my current partner, and a bunch of new friends.

    I played a lot of Minecraft from 2012 to 2016, but then my partner in 2016 introduced me to Factorio.





  • Sounds like what you’re looking for is an ATX12V plug. It’s a 2x2 connector that normally has two yellow and two black wires. It normally goes into the 2x2 receptacle on the motherboard to power the processor. In this case, the eGPU enclosure needs it for some reason, maybe for more power.

    The good news is that the 2x4 breakaway connector (called EPS12V I believe) that splits into two 2x2 connectors is probably compatible with this receptacle. One of the two 2x2 pieces of the connector should fit into the eGPU’s power receptacle, and the other won’t. If it fits, it is probably the right connector. If two of the wires going to that connector are yellow, and two are black, then it’s almost certainly the right connector.

    You may have multiple of these 2x4 breakaway connectors. If so, they should behave identically, and you can break up any of them and try to fit the pieces into the ATX12V receptacle.

    List of ATX power supply connectors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_supply_unit_(computer)#Connectors (without images, unfortunately.)

    Don’t forget about the big 20-pin or 24-pin main ATX motherboard power connector. Your second power supply, since it is non-modular, will need something to simulate the motherboard’s power button. That’s can be as simple as a switch between the PS-ON wire (green) and any ground wire (black). But hopefully your eGPU has a place to plug in the ATX motherboard power connector, and handles that on-off switching for you.





  • Yeah, it’s definitely a problem, and genetic information could end up getting linked. Even if a person thinks they might not have DNA in any existing database, whether criminal, medical, or otherwise, there’s no telling what might happen in the future. I can think of a few different ways a person might involuntarily, through no fault of theirs, get their DNA forcibly taken with no legal recourse.

    Every path here will have some tradeoffs. But the odds of getting linked are probably much lower outside your home country.



  • My best recommendation would be to go to a testing lab and provide a fake name. It should work. I’ve never been ID’d at any doctor’s office, and one time did even receive healthcare under a fake name with no trouble. Of course, that means your insurance won’t cover anything, but that’s the unfortunate reality of US healthcare. Also, they probably won’t delete your data. HIPAA includes no right to be forgotten, and in some cases, may even mandate retention for several years.

    Sorry I don’t have a better solution. I think your best bet is to distance this genetic data as much as possible from your real identity.

    Alternately, you could try going somewhere outside the US.

    I completely agree that HIPAA is dead. One time when I went to a new doctor’s office, totally unaffiliated with any doctor I’d ever seen before, the doctor instantly pulled all my medical records from several other places. They didn’t even get my verbal permission; they just did it. If that’s the level of security on these databases, and doctors are allowed to access them on old unsupported Windows computers, then it’s almost certain that the databases have tons of undetected data breaches. They’ve probably been scraped completely by multiple attackers.


  • I have three ideas: First, you could switch the desktop environment to one of the ones that has a GUI settings tool to set passwordless automatic sign in. I think Gnome 3 on Ubuntu, and Mate Desktop on Linux Mint have that feature. There are probably others.

    Second, you could switch your display manager to “nodm”. The display manager is the thing that runs the X server or Wayland, and it starts the greeter (the greeter is the program that shows the login screen). nodm is a special display manager that doesn’t use a greeter or ask for a password. It immediately starts the session using the username and desktop environment specified in its configuration file.

    I use nodm for my HTPC and it works very well. The only downside is that you have to edit its configuration file, /etc/default/nodm , using a text editor. I’m not aware of any GUI configuration tool for it. However, it’s pretty easy to configure.

    Third, you could abandon all display managers, and start the session manually, either from a shell script, or over SSH. This is a little more complex. You will probably want to get comfortable with SSH before trying this (SSH is the command-line analog of remote desktop).




  • I cannot recommend any USB-connected drive for long-term use. (Only for portable devices that get plugged in for a little while at a time.) In the long term, any USB drive will randomly reset during periods of heavy use – including heavy writes, meaning some data will get lost.

    USB enclosures tend to just crap out completely after a year or two, if used continuously on a server. I know because I twice used 1TB external drives with OpenWRT (home router) devices. The data will be safe on the drive, but you’ll have to replace the enclosure.

    1. My first recommendation would be to look very carefully at the chassis and see if there’s any way at all to fit another SSD inside it. 2.5" SSD’s are usually thinner than 2.5" hard drives, so it may be possible, and most motherboards have more SATA ports than they need.

    Is there possibly an NVMe slot on the motherboard? Or an open PCIe slot where you could put an NVMe adapter?

    1. My second recommendation would be using a 2.5" hard drive. Newegg has a 5TB one for $135, but unfortunately that’s as large as they seem to go. It will be a bit slower than an SSD, but still probably around 150MB/s for sequential access.

    2. My third recommendation, if money is really tight, would be an additional server, with a large 3.5" hard drive. This will be a lot cheaper than an 8TB SSD, but adds complexity, electricity use, space use, and possibly fan noise.


  • What do you expect them to say? That they’re proud of this guy? Even though he’s clearly a madman?

    I know IRL gun nuts, and none of them would identify with this person. Also, none of them subscribe to the fallacy/straw-man of a “good guy with a gun”. The ones who carry concealed would remind you that they are carrying for themselves, not for you. If you find an active shooter in a mall, you can count on them… to run away.

    Skillful gun nuts know that shooting defensively is never worth the legal hassle unless it saves your life (or a family member’s life).

    The shooter in this article is nothing like any of the gun nuts I’ve ever met. This shooter is another Kyle Rittenhouse, someone anxious for a chance to kill a person and get away with it under the excuse of defense.



  • Limonene@lemmy.worldtoMildly Infuriating@lemmy.worldMFA
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    6 months ago

    I agree with this sentiment. Steam notably falls into the third category, while otherwise being pretty good.

    But I’m quite disgusted now seeing an image of a Yubikey for the first time. I’ve heard so many good things about them that it’s a major disappointment to see now that they use that awful noncomplaint shape of USB plug.

    There are two very important reasons for the metal shield around USB plugs: 1. For ESD protection, and 2. to hold the receptacle’s tongue in place and prevent it from bending away and losing contact. Every USB device I’ve owned that was a flat plug (like this Yubikey image in this post) has within a month deformed the USB receptacle it’s plugged into to the point that the device no longer works in that port. Compliant USB devices still work in that port’s deformed receptacle, because they have a correct metal shield that bends the tongue back into the correct position.


  • Haha. I sent them an opt-out notice by email, and it bounced!

    They are using Google email servers for discord .com and Google has apparently shadowbanned me. It gives an error message saying “The account [my email address] is disabled.” but I have never created a Google or Gmail account, and my email address is on a domain not associated with Google at all.

    So I’ve completed my obligation to opt-out. Discord will have no record of it, but I have the email server logs to prove I sent it.

    If, in the future, anyone needs to sue Discord and forgot to opt-out, feel free to use this same excuse.