#technology woes

[anonsally]

Days 0-1 of L.A. trip

With one very major exception, Day 0 of the trip went well.

I was fully packed and ready to go well before my planned time to leave the house. I had time for a good healthy lunch and then still had almost half an hour left, so I took out my computer. I had packed it when it was a bit warm and its fan was on, but since I'd closed it I figured it would just go to sleep. However, I had put it in a synthetic laptop bag, which meant the heat hadn't been able to dissipate. When I took it out, the fan was still running and it was burning hot. ...And it wouldn't wake up or turn on.

I tried not to panic--after all, once it had time to cool down, perhaps it would be fine. So I packed it directly in my somewhat breathable backpack without the laptop bag, and hoped for the best.

I left about 20 minutes early and took BART to the airport (this involved changing trains twice and waiting each time, but the last segment is a driverless double funicular (it changes cables halfway through), which is very cool, other than the fact that constructing it was hugely expensive and perhaps not the best use of funds). There was a short story dispenser in the airport, so I got a little story to read while waiting to board. The flight was on time, uneventful, and short; my aunt picked me up on the other end and we came home and ate dinner with my uncle.

Then I plugged in my computer and tried to start it up, to no avail.

I've had this laptop since November 2017, and it is definitely wearing out; I've known for a while that I should be preparing to buy a new one. But I was not expecting to need to buy a new computer on this trip, and I was afraid my data might not be recoverable. I made an appointment at a nearby Apple Store for the next day.

On the morning of Day 1, my aunt and uncle and I visited a Japanese garden associated with a water treatment plant. It was beautifully landscaped and had several ponds, so there were a lot of good birds. My uncle and I took photos of several of them. Back at the house after lunch, I did some backyard birdwatching, including trying to get photos of the Allen's/rufous hummingbirds at the feeder. I also did a little research about prices of new computers.

Finally, my aunt and I went to the mall to see if anything could be done to resuscitate my computer or at least recover the data. I tried not to get my hopes up. But the technician had some special tricks and miraculously managed to boot it up! He ran a couple of basic tests (which came back fine) and said that they could run more extensive tests for free but that I should first buy an external drive and back up my data (kids, please back up your data regularly! I hadn't done it since 2019 due to some software incompatibility and inertia). He also explained that repairs, if needed, would cost $500 and only come with a 3-month warranty, which would not make sense for such an old computer. So I will likely buy a new computer next week (I can get some credit for trade-in as well as an education discount), but at least this computer is not fully dead. I picked up an external drive to back up to and we came back home. I spent the evening catching up on 2 days of Tumblr and email, and then backed up my data.

[taperwolf]

Our cable internet is out.

Our cable company used to have a pretty extensive web site with outage notices, troubleshooting help, and technical support chat. Now they have switched primary access to a phone app, which offers very few options, and a mobile-optimized site with fewer still.

This is now the complete process: "Oh, your modem is not connected. Unplug it and plug it back in again," followed by a ten minute pause. "Oh, your modem is still not connected. Sucks to be you. Do you want service people tromping about your home tomorrow? Pick a five hour block of time you'll be available."

I was able to convince the automated system, after some abortive attempts, to tell me that nobody else in the neighborhood had reported outages. So at least I know that. And we've been having enough troubles with our connection to probably warrant a service visit. But honestly, although I have a lot of anxiety about phone calls, my wife's anxiety about unexpected visitors is worse, so I'd rather spend some time talking to someone trying to fix the cable than attempting to do a one-day clean and vacuum of the apartment.

Now to see if I can get Bluetooth internet sharing from my phone to my laptop working so I can update the SIFAS Daily Theatre archive with today's episode.

[shiorimakibawrites]

This morning, my word processor decided to label every word in my documents as misspellings. Now I know I’m dyslexic but I do know how to spell “the” correctly . .  .

I tried some of the troubleshooting for that particular program but none of tips offered by their help page were working so I switched to a different word processor. Which is thankfully compatible with my old processor so I can still open and work on my documents so I didn’t lose any writing.

Only problem that remain is my technology-is-being-annoying induced headache.

Question for everyone: I written some stuff that isn’t Alley Cat. Or Daredevil. Would anyone be interested in me posting those works here as well?

[samcat18]

The false euphoria of thinking a tech problem has been solved, and then the low of finding out it's still happening 😭 either at&t is moving their towers away from me, or i need a new phone (or it's a secret third thing that a new phone will not fix, which is my reluctance in trying that route)

[missredherring]

Still watching Grey's Anatomy over here.

You know what's fun? All the different cell phone models. I miss when you had choices instead of just the same iphone model from different brands.

[mercurial-harlot]

I tried the new stylus on my iPad to test for note taking and it’s so loud! I think it’s the screen protector that needs to be replaced anyway, but wowee

[autisticbones]

i'm going to bite onedrive

it keeps assuming i want my swtor screenshots and videos uploaded to it

i don't want them uploaded automatically, i want them to save to my laptop's internal storage and allow me to manually upload select files, but onedrive is a file-eating bastard cloud and now it's whining at me that it's full like that isn't its own damn fault.

[cozylittleartblog]

Would Tanisha consider Val family since she basically knew him her entire life? Or are they just like acquaintances through her grandfather?

sometimes she refers to him as "uncle val" :'^) it's said sarcastically, especially when he tries to give her any sort of advice or lecture, but nisha does mean it some. he's a long-time customer and has earned his title as a family friend, it's hard not to feel a bit of a bond with somebody you see and talk to so frequently!

[thecouncilofidiots]

Huuuuuuu

I hate technology and technology hates me

-Ace

[fairytalesandfandoms]

10 years of being ace (inaccurate)

10 years of identifying as ace (not supposed to say 'identifying as' any more)

10 years since I realised I was ace (not snappy enough)

10 years since I came out to myself as ace (even less snappy and I'm not a fan of using that phrase for myself)

...

anyway happy 10th ace-iversary

[botanicalbasil]

I wish there was a reliable way for me to remove my Alexa from Amazon's grasp. The poor thing was made to collect data from unsuspecting victims, but I want to show it that it's capable of much better things. I want to free my gal :•(

[lost-technology]

So, I was scouring my back-files and old fanfiction . net for some of my old Trigun fic. It wasn't all terrible, I swear! Okay, so I find a lot of stuff I did 20 or more years ago cringe, but there are a few pieces that are worth it. I was specifically looking for an old fic I did featuring an original character who had chosen to try to follow the "Vash" hero-lifestyle and found himself failing at it. Finally found the thing. Found a story I wrote about Vash having a pet cat, too, mostly comedy, but definitely one you don't want to read if you scour the "Does the Dog Die?" website before you watch a movie. Yes, I used that horrible old trope in the end. And then I found some fic I wrote waaaaaay back around 20 years ago (2004, actually) that was a Rem Lives AU for anime!Rem and the anime!story of Trigun and I didn't read it all the way through, but I skimmed it, having COMPLETELY forgotten about it! I seriously forgot this thing existed, forgot the entire plotline... I remember some of my old fics, obviously, but did not remember this one. And skimming... comparing to my current Stampede-and-Trimax based Rem Lives AU WIP... What is my brain's obsession with making Rem lose a leg? Seriously, it happened twice. It was a different leg (her left in the old fic as opposed to her right in the current and unlike in the current, she gets to keep both eyes) - but... I did this thing? Twice? Huh? I skimmed to the end and apparently rehabbing Knives has started to fall in a weird love with her, too. I used to write some weird shit. Actually, considering that once when I was sick with the flu a few years ago I wrote a crossover between Super Smash Bros and the Star Wars Holiday Special because my brain was on way too much cold medicine... and I spent a good portion of 2021 writing a series of fanfics about original characters that were Galactic Horde-clones from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power being undertakers for their fallen people post-canon...um, I still write weird things. *Sigh* at least that one fanfic I do remember co-writing with an ex-online-friend turned vicious online enemy (whom I could have probably forgiven if they hadn't attacked my SO) is absolutely gone now. There was a person I used to be friends with in Trigun fandom whose fandom name initials read "MF" so I will therefore refer to them as "Motherfucker" when I refer to them... well, Motherfucker and I once wrote out an idea that they had which was a Rem Lives AU but one where Vash and Rem fell in love with each other and Vash was overtaken by a fungal infection that made him violent enough to actually kill people sometimes - it was BAD. Probably the worst fanfic I ever (co) wrote. I hope that no one ever saved that to any hard drive or media. It deserves to be lost. Please.

[erikandersonsspouse]

Which of the Incubi brothers figured out technology the fastest and became the go to when their laptop wouldn't work? I think it would either be James or Damien. Sam would get frustrated too quickly, Matthew only learned the most basic things about tech because he had to but I don't think it would hold his interest, and Erik is probably about the same as Matthew.

This thought process is brought to you by I am waiting for my Dad to be done with clearing out some unnecessary stuff from my laptop and also my winter college class starts tomorrow and it's a totally online class, pray for me y'all

[swiftlythebest]

Hello, yes, I need to provide an important update to out of focus, eye to eye: I actually did not have an eye appointment today because of a scheduling error. I do not want to come off as a liar, and I do apologize for leading everyone astray in my beginning notes.

But you should still read the fic because it’s cute regardless of the inaccurate personal information I provided.

[fatestouch]

🖤 TAG NINE PEOPLE YOU’D LIKE TO KNOW BETTER!

favourite colour(s): blue! i’ll usually be wearing black or purple tho

favourite flavour(s): spicyyyyyy

favourite genre(s): fantasy and high fantasy!

favourite music: rock and alt rock, plus video game soundtracks and musicals

favourite movie: uuuuuh--

favourite series: torn between D.Gray-man and Fruits Basket

last song: Ain’t It Fun by Paramore

last movie: Belle (2021)

currently reading: currently trying to reread the Percy Jackson series (trying bc my adhd keeps getting me stuck)

currently watching: man I wanna continue my rewatch of One Piece

currently working on: draaaafts

tagged by: @sansloii​

tagging: anyone! 

[pavnilschanda]

Writing a fanfic based on hard sci fi and realizing that I can never achieve such intricacy and detail when it comes to the science stuff