grissallia

grissallia, 9 months ago to random

"Gah! Why does it feel like the side of my back tooth is missing?"

Oh.

grissallia, 9 months ago to random

GP: "OK, I want you to use the steroid inhaler twice a day."

Me: "Last time I did that I ended up with a terrible oral thrush, and I rinsed so much to try and avoid it."

GP: "Don't worry. As long as you rinse properly, you will be fine."

Me, 24 hours later. "What's this horrible taste..." [grabs mirror and torch]

grissallia, 9 months ago to random

Made the mistake of posting a very specific technical question on Reddit.

I had a gut feeling I knew how to solve it, but I was hoping I’d missed something and wouldn’t need to spend money.

What I quite happily could have missed out on is the reply-guy who responds to the problem by suggesting spending thousands of dollars to change the parameters of the issue.

When I reply and point out that I don’t have an unlimited budget, and since posting I’ve resolved the issue with a configuration change and a $30 fan, he DOUBLES DOWN insisting that I’m a fool and behind the times for not going with his “solution”.

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

I'm sitting here trying to process the Seagate "support" experience I've had over the past nine days, and the only word is "enshittification", per @pluralistic

It's as if Seagate management set out to individually enshittify every single step of the support process to making as close to impossible to get support for a consumer level product, without just saying "Fuck you."

There are virtually no consequences for this deliberate enshittification of their support process. What other options are there?

Seagate no longer have a support number.

Seagate no longer have a support email address.

Seagate have a pop-up live chat. That's it.

The live chat will intermittently lose contact with the server and just say "Error" forcing you to reload the entire webpage.

The only way they could enshittify this process further would be to replace the apparent "live agents" with AI chatbots, and that may well be an improvement.

1st August: my less-than two year old Seagate Barracuda drive failed under warranty. After navigating my way through the live chat, and providing all of my information, I asked for an advance warranty replacement, which i was promised (per the chat logs). I receive an RMA form. I wait.

4th August: I put my RMA details into the Seagate RMA lookup to find out what's happening.

"Invalid details."

I reach out by the Live Chat. I have to enter ALL of my details again, in spite of having an RMA number.

The live agent officiously tells me to "be patient" and "you will get your drive", and that sometimes the form is slow to update.

7th August: The form is still reporting invalid. I reach out via Live Chat again. I provide all my information, yet again. The agent insists he has to create a new case, in spite of me having an RMA number. "This is your case number, please note it down for reference."

Him: "Oh, the lab is waiting for your faulty drive."

Me: "This was advance replacement."

Him: "It wasn't."

Me: "Here's a screenshot of the agent telling me it was an ARO."

Him: "Oh, OK. I'll arrange an ARO. You'll get some forms in your email, and a link to provide credit card details in case you don't send the drive back. This is your case number.

Me: "Fine."

ARO form. Nothing else. No link. No details.

9th August (today): An email from another new person at Seagate with my case number. No other information. I reply via email "What's the next step."

"Thank you for your email, this email address is not monitored. Please use Live Chat."

I. Go. To. Live. Chat.

AI bot: "Please enter all of your information:"

Me: "No. Here's my case number. Sort it out."

Live agent: "How can I help?"

Me: "I received an email from Support. I cannot reply via email. I don't know where my replacement hard drive is."

Agent: "Actually, you can reply via email, it's just faster via live chat."

Me: "Here's a screenshot FROM SEAGATE telling me I CANNOT reply via email."

Agent: "Oh. Please wait."

Eons pass. Glaciers melt. [#Enshittification continues.]

grissallia, 9 months ago to random

Sorry dude, don't have time for your shit. That's a block.

I said what I said. If you want to police what I said, that's up to you, but I don't need a fucking novella in response to my reply.

grissallia, 9 months ago to random

Well, to add insult to injury on this ridiculous hard drive debacle, I used up all my energy last night doing the final set of hardware changes on the PC, and setting it back into position, with a sigh of relief.

New hard drive installed next to the known working Seagate.

Faulty hard drive bagged and ready to return. New fan mounted on drive cage to keep the spinning rust cooler.

I started copying files to the new hard drive from the various external drives.

Tick... tick... tick...

You have got to be kidding me.

Yeah, so... it turns out that when I did the hard drive testing, then disconnected the apparently faulty-and-clicking hard drive ten days ago, I didn't leave it disconnected for long enough.

The ticking drive appears to be the other Barracuda.

The cherry on the sundae is that the drive fan isn't helping, so now I need to rethink that as well.

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

Are you a trans woman who hates shaving, and finds it frustrating and inconvenient?

Have you tried "Plucking all of the hairs out of your face with a pair of tweezers"?

It's super-inconvenient and painful as well!

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

When that unexpected gender euphoria hits, particularly after a rough few days, you gotta enjoy the moment.

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

I've mostly got my voice back, but my coughing has suddenly gone into overdrive, and I'm not sure what that's about, but combine it with exhaustion, and I'm in a filthy mood.

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

safelosing [ seyf-loo-zing ]

noun

1. (ADHD): the act of carefully putting something very important in a safe place so as not to lose it, then forgetting where you put it.

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

Made another urgent GP appointment this morning. Scary new symptom, I now rattle when I walk. No idea why.

Sorry, BRB. Someone's banging on the front door, and yelling about "an unregistered pharmacy"

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

For those playing along at home.

I went and saw the GP again today.

1. Seeing them was the correct course of action given the lack of improvement.
2. Continued non-talking for 7-10 days. Talking is not the cause of the laryngitis, but will make it worse.
3. The cough is the cause of the laryngitis.
4. The cough appears to be a combination of a bacterial infection of some kind, and my lungs are apparently hypersensitive to everything right now, which means anything except gentle breathing.

So I'm on 75mg of prednisolone daily, 100mg of doxycycline, and augmentin twice a day.

No exertion, no talking, stay inside and away from irritants (so I guess I'm staying off Twitter).

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

Just overhead a zoomer ranting to someone else about how much they hate the X logo, and that they removed the app from their phone after it updated.

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

OK, can I ask what might be a silly question for an adult?

I had someone mock me a few days ago for "always going to the doctor", except (other than transition-related stuff) I only go to the GP when it's required for work. I don't go by choice (since they don't bulk bill!)

How do I know when I should go to the doctor?

I went to the doctor on the 18th. She said sinusitis. My non-stop cough cycled through hacking and productive, to hacking and dry, back to hacking and productive, and now I've had laryngitis for almost a week, with my ADHD psychiatrist telling me "Stop talking, don't talk for a week."

My head and lower abdomen are aching from coughing every 5 to 15 minutes. The cough becomes non-stop if I move around.

But that snarky little quip about me going to the doctor has now made me feel like I should just wait it out.

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

One little "new" thing that's driving me a little bit mad is that intermittently & inexplicably in Windows, my mouse pointer will jump to the centre of my primary monitor.

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

OK, so... time to infodump on the new rig.

• History
• New specs
• Build process
• Mistakes

This will likely be the last large-ish tax refund I get. I last built a new-ish PC in March 2018, with a new GPU Sept 2018 (GTX 1070 Ti Mini), a CPU upgrade in July 2021 (i9-9900k), and a new GPU & PSU upgrade in July 2022 (RTX 3070 Ti & Corsair 850W modular PSU).

I put the 2018 build on my credit card, something I won't do again. Since then, I only upgrade if I've saved, or gotten a tax refund, or both.

The starting point for my 2018 build was an ITX system I purchased from my previous employer at the end of 2016. It was a fairly beefy shoebox proof-of-concept build (in a Silverstone SG06 case) that we'd done that was no longer required when we were acquired, and I swooped in before it was listed as an asset in the purchase and bought it.

2018 Specs:
Mobo: Gigabyte GA370N WIFI
CPU: Intel i5-8400 8th Gen
RAM: 16Gb (2x8Gb) DDR4 3200MHz
Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i
SSD: Samsung 960 EVO 250Gb
Graphics: GTX 1050 Ti*
Case: Silverstone SG06*
(carried over)

I'd purchased the 1050 Ti in 2017. I'd seen it on special, got all ADHD impulsive and chucked it on the credit card as an upgrade from whatever I'd had before.

Because it was an ITX-based system, and I decided to re-use the existing case, this lead to some decisions that went on to bite me down the line. I had this vision of this tiny little ninja powerhouse of a PC, none of that silly RGB lighting, and damned if I was going to let things like reality or cooling to get in my way.

The first build problem was the USB 3.0 case header. I think for maybe the first time in any PC I've built (and there are a LOT), I mashed one of the pins on the motherboard, and it snapped off. It turned out that it wasn't necessary*, and the lack of that pin meant that the front USB ports were restricted to USB 2.0 speeds.

All up, it wasn't a badly performing system for what it cost me, and I burbled along quite happily for six months.

Then my kids bought me a second-hand Vive OG VR system for Father's Day in 2018; the 1050 Ti was really struggling and so I kept an eye on prices until I saw a ridiculously cheap (relatively!) Zotac GTX 1070 Ti mini that would fit in my little ITX case.

In November, as the weather was heating up, I realised the GPU was overheating. I assumed that it was just lack of cooling in the case, and bought a Corsair AIR 240, a mATX case with an acrylic window. I didn't want a windowed case, but I needed airflow, and I wanted a case that would still fit on the left hand side of the monitor shelf I'd hacked together from IKEA parts.

I transferred it all to the new case. I turned it on. The funky little Zotac card lit up. Oh? It has a light. Cool. Hadn't noticed it in the small case.

Turns out that the reason it was overheating was because some numpty had been playing with fan curves just after installation in Sept, and forgot.

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

Apropos of everything, via @pluralistic

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jun/30/fracketeering-capitalism-power-hosing-estate-agents-cakeage

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

Last night, I thought I'd bought the final thing I needed for my PC.

This morning, another order.

Because it's an inverted build, the intake fans are at the top.

Guess where the kitten has decided to sit.

[orders mesh filters for the intake fans]

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

I need a device that I can plug a USB-C cable into that will tell me on a scale of 1-5 how useless it will be in a given scenario (short data transfer, sustained data transfer, charging a device).

My external USB-C enclosure literally slowed down to a crawl from 435MB/s, and it was, apparently, the bloody USB-C cable.

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

Had forgotten how much I didn't miss this kind of bad-faith rage-reply. Fortunately Mastodon makes it easy to squelch him.

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

He's calling it X because he was like "You want divorced dad energy? I'll give you divorced dad energy!"

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

"GOING DOOOOOOWN,
IN A BLAZE OF GLOOOOORY!"

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

This Twitter is no more! It has ceased to be! It's bereft of life! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!!

THIS IS AN X-TWITTER.

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

…aaaand now my Network card has up and disappeared. I was supposed to be relaxing today.

grissallia, 10 months ago to random

I'll say this, Game launchers could stand to learn everything from Steam.

I transferred my old data drives from the old PC to the new one.

Add the Steam libraries to Steam, boom. Done. All my installed games are back, most ready to play. Five minutes work, if that.

Xbox Gamepass? "You have no power here!"

Ubisoft: "FINE. If I must. You must point me at each game individually."

Epic Game Store: "GFY."