Otherbarry

Brent Spiner does often appear in random roles here and there though he’s slowed down more recently. He was the wacky scientist guy in the Independence Day movies for example, LOL. He was also great in the Outcast TV series but I get the feeling it wasn’t as well known.

Most/all the main web browsers in use support kiosk mode, you’ll just need to search around for how to do it. This should get you going for Firefox

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-enterprise-kiosk-mode

Am not too sure how to get out of kiosk mode afterwards, maybe test it when you don’t have anything else running just in case.

EDIT: If you need to run kiosk mode for a specific amount of time as you say, you’ll probably need to also run a scheduled cronjob or similar to maybe kill the web browser at a specific time. I’ve seen kiosk mode for a few web browsers but they don’t usually have an option to set them for a specific amount of time.

Could try !AskUSA@discuss.online too

For the most part .mp4 / .m4a are interchangeable, you can go lossless --> lossless by going FLAC to ALAC like the earlier comment mentioned e.g. using ffmpeg

ffmpeg -i yourfile.flac -acodec alac yournewfile.mp4

In fact, now that umt@lemmynsfw.com mentioned it, you can create a out-of-spec .mp4 with a flac codec inside it if you really wanted. again using ffmpeg

ffmpeg -i yourfile.flac -c:a copy yournewfile.mp4

You’d have to test that whatever player you’re using can actually play them, I suspect a lot of players won’t know what to do with a .mp4 containing a FLAC codec unless the player already supports FLAC anyway.

PS - The files actually come out a tad bit bigger FYI, I guess there’s more padding and metadata in a .mp4 container.

You can’t go lossless (FLAC codec) to lossy (codec in M4A/MP4) without losing something.

Not sure which codec specifically you’re referring to in your M4A/MP4 but usually those containers are for lossy codecs and judging by the file size going down you definitely went lossless --> lossy. If the resulting file sounds okay to you then maybe you don’t need/want the lossless file anyway, that’s you’re choice.

Personally I keep everything in the original lossless FLAC, only generate lossy MP4 files when needed for a specific purpose. (but I’d still keep the original FLAC regardless)

Yes, though for a long time my employer never offered one so mines is only a few years old. But I do contribute up to the employer match.

Before that I’ve had an IRA that I’ve always contributed the max amount yearly.

Not a high wage earner so will probably need to work until unable to - but at least there will be some savings beyond the bare minimum social security that may or may not exist in 20-30 years.

Bro

Nope, I generally assume people I run into speak english even if it’s not fluent. That includes all the asians I interact with, there’s a lot by where I live.

Even newer immigrants speak at least some english.

Hans Gruber and the Die Hards

Got to see them when they did a tour playing with Escape From the Zoo, that show was wild!

Yup there’s already a pretty good list going in this post!

Not sure what to add, their sound is a bit different but I’ve been digging Playboy Manbaby and one of their newer songs Criminals definitely fits the post topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Abj78ccwPbg they’re amazing live. Robbie also has a whole side project with Spaceman Bob, he’s going to be playing at the Leftover Crack show this weekend so that should be fun.

got into RATM around this time last year and nothing else has come close to scratching the itch of “maaaan fuck this shit.”

Coincidentally Tom Morello mentioned Kneecap earlier this year when talking about bands of the moment https://www.nme.com/news/music/tom-morello-hails-kneecap-as-the-rage-against-the-machine-of-now-3877562 (around 20 mins in that interview).

Plenty of punk and punk adjacent music still around, lots of local shows still occur if you know where to look. I’m in the U.S. but can say for sure this stuff is still happening here and other countries too.

Bob Vylan and Kneecap were banned from the U.S. earlier this year and Zionists are still going around trying to get their shows cancelled just for speaking out on Palestine.

In general Zionists seem to be easily triggered, last year while on their tour playing a show in New Jersey Apes of the State had a big FREE PALESTINE banner at their shows and some guy at the venue flipped out and tried to take it down.

On tour last month in the U.S. Bad Cop/Bad Cop was selling FUCK ICE shirts while the other band on tour with them (The Iron Roses) were speaking out on LGBTQ issues and the general fucked state the U.S. is in right now.

Later this weekend Leftover Crack is playing a show in Brooklyn, I’m sure they’ll have plenty to say on the current state of things.

Best all around is to just remember to include fiber in all your meals. Veggies, nuts, seeds, whole grains, that sort of thing. You won’t have much trouble going when you’re ready to go. In the U.S. that also means not buying much take out / fast food junk, hardly any of those foods have fiber.

If you meant “quickest” then you might be thinking of foods with a laxative effect, a quick drink of black coffee cold brew concentrate works for me. Something I discovered by accident when in a rush to get my day going one morning LOL.

Did way more Halloween stuff in my 20’s-30’s, slowed down a bit in my 40’s but still go out to events in October.

I was a Chilean miner in 2010, that one was fun since the mining accident in Chile was all over the news at the time and people immediately recognized the hardhat and whatnot.

Another year I had dressed up as a sort of sleepwalker complete with bathrobe, slippers, etc. But it turned out that was way too vague and everyone called me Hugh Hefner that night.

But most years I was a bit lazier and just turned myself into a zombie with makeup, fake blood, ripped clothes, that sort of thing.

My manwich!

Uncle Joey, you missed your cake again! Maybe you’ll make parole next time!

Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell

Especially if you’re into anything Aqua Teen Hunger Force related, the whole series has the same vibe with Dave Willis / Dana Snyder being involved. And Dana Snyder gets some on screen time in this one, it’s great!

Yeah I was going to say the same. Currently work at a small business run by a boomer so if the random person walking in looking for a job happens to catch him there’s a 50/50 chance that person will get hired. Bonus if the person looking for work has a degree from a ivy league university, boomers love that shit. I don’t know why someone with that sort of degree would be applying for a low wage small business job but the job market is a bit crazy nowadays.

The practice can backfire of course - I’ve seen the same boomer boss hire other boomers that barely know how to use a computer and then proceed to fail at his/her job spectacularly. It’s interesting when you run into boomers looking for work and it turns out they spent most of their career relying on others to deal with the mundane tasks of dealing with email, spreadsheets, etc. So many of them spent their careers falling upwards into management roles until they were laid off/fired/whatever.

You should update your post with the actual model of enclosure you are using, you mentioned it’s a Western Digital 4TB but what’s the model? Maybe you’re referring to a My Passport Ultra 4TB (?) since those have encryption but that’s just a guess.

How easy is it to remove the hard drive from the enclosure and install it into something else for testing? If feasible could be a first step to determine if it’s an issue with the drive enclosure vs the drive itself. (keep in mind I’m asking without knowing anything about the enclosure you’re using so it may/may not be doable)

Is the entire thing plugged into the computer via USB cable? Try swapping USB cables just to rule out a cable issue, maybe it wasn’t that great and you moving it around made it worse.

Do you know what type of drive is inside the drive enclosure? e.g. a 2.5/3.5 HDD, or a 2.5 SSD, or a M.2 SSD stick.

If it’s a regular HDD, not SSD, then it’s possible you accidentally moved the drive enclosure before the drives actually finished spinning down during power off. I’ve lost a external drive that way.

Not something I use but did notice that https://www.pandora.com/ still has a free ad-supported tier.

Are you referring to a different Connect app? The one on Google Play had an update a few months ago, does not seem abandoned.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kuroneko.lemmy_connect

I don’t actively use the app, just curious.