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[Iduno]

Reinstalling windows 7 has been a trip.  Pretty sure I'm past at *least* 8 reboots installing updates, though a couple can be blamed on Nvidia's bloated nonsense driver "experience".

In earlier reboots neither Uplay or Nvidia could authenticate for some reason, but that may have been Windows Firewall's fault.  This time around it's Steam that claimed to be unable to contact the servers, but I was busy disabling Edge (the only thing that particular "update" had added).  Still, I tried to connect to Steam 3 times, and it kept insisting it couldn't.  Only for my laptop to happily mention that "Viric is no longer available for streaming" when I rebooted again.  So Steam WAS logged in, it just... didn't... know that...?

Oh goody it finally rebooted again, and this time hijacked my screen with a lovely message explaining that they'd dropped support.  Thanks Microsoft, this update process has taken literally hours, but good to know you're no longer offering updates.  fuuuuck offfffff

Also fun:  I tried to migrate my Firefox profile by just deleting the fresh profiles and copy-pasting my old one in.  Sure the new profile isn't named right, but surely it'll just open the profile selector dialog?
Nah, just says my profile seems broke and quits to desktop
okay uh...  I'll uninstall and reinstall...

same thing
...I'll uninstall, manually delete the directory from appdata because the uninstall failed to, reinstall, copy my profile back in, and manually edit the txt config file to use the new folder path

It doesn't exactly work, but it pops up the profile selector dialog!  Yay!  I finally select the correct profile and all is well.  not sure why it couldn't have done that several steps ago, woopee.

Meanwhile Steam still claims it can't contact the friend server, but I *am* online and can download games just fine, so whatevs I truly don't care.  I'm always invisible anyway.

This reinstall was largely because Far Cry 5 kept complaining about my video drivers being out of date, so I manually downloaded a new version of their Experience nonsense (because the already installed updater always failed with no more information than "can't do it").  But the installer didn't come with the most recent drivers, the update still don't work, and now I was getting system hangs and awful framerate whereas the games had worked just fine before.  Like it partially installed over itself or some shit.

whatever, it's finally working now, and my files are considerably more organized.
(speaking of, younger me once found a AO DOS adventure game on an abandonware site.  The "8 characters or less" folder name didn't betray the nature of the game, so eventually I started putting other stuff in there.  Security!  Plus the computer default-boots into a broken install I never bothered to remove- by the time the monitor spins up you can almost miss the selector prompt.  I am a master of obfuscation.)
(Beats the time my laptop was partially obscured by a quarter of the screen being a lovely rainbow darkness, and a couple keys - including one in my password - having failed.  Mmm, ascii-codes!)

Slipstreaming, if you can get it to work, also helps. I think Microsoft has a guide to doing it somewhere. You put the disk and all updates onto a new disk. Pretty handy.

[Rolan7]

Oh wow yes, it was extremely helpful for XP particularly.  IIRC base XP wouldn't even install off USB, or there was some similar issue, but slipstreaming SP 2 or 3 made it work.  I was working in a computer lab back then, good times.  Surprising how much I don't remember.

I'm sure nowadays you can find a nice slipstreamed version that does everything except activate the product key, it's abandonware right?  But I wanted to do things the "right" way.  Was almost surprised when the key I lifted from my previous install still validated.  I don't know if MS recognized the identical hardware profile or it's just an enterprise key I held on to.

I've also kept a nice clean XP SP3 virtual machine too, though MS VPC is pretty inefficient for running much in the way of games.  I think I still have the tools to monitor its web traffic, which was the original purpose.

[Yoink]

Reminds me of the time where US county sheriffs infiltrated a far right militia and plotted to blow up a federal court as a honeypot. Half the militia leaves when they keep pressing for this, but before they can arrest the remaining members they get arrested by FBI. After they're arrested by FBI they find out the head of the militia was ATF and every single one of them was an undercover fed of some sort

That's hilarious.    



Edit: a new WTF. A passing mention of somebody named James Thomson in the book I'm reading, where he is described as "the ultimate pessimist-poet", led me to abandon the book for a moment to have a look for his work online. A couple hours later and I've been intensely trawling Goodreads, Abe Books and Amazon for a wide variety of weird and disturbing literature.   
My shopping cart on Abe Books currently sits at just shy of one-hundred and thirty US dollars. Uhhhhhh could somebody please confiscate my internet before I spend stupid amounts of money on books? Especially when I already have so very, very many books lying around that I need to read, a backlog I am forever adding to. I have a demonstrated lack of self-control when it comes to books. Uh oh.   

[Doomblade187]

Buy Terry Pratchett books instead, problem solved.

[TD1]

I have a demonstrated lack of self-control when it comes to books. Uh oh.   

I recently spent £235 on a two-volume book which I won't get until next year. By far the most I've ever spent on a book. I am both pleased and disgusted.

[LordBaal]

New market discovered. A set of 23 books about how to avoid buying unnecesary and crazy amounts of books online. It only sells online.

Also, my new WTF. I have spent like 3 years now writting on and off a compendium containing short histories adapted from my multiple and too far recurring nigthmares. But even since I started writing them they have become less frecuent. Before it was almost everynigth, now they happen one or twice a week.

[Naturegirl1999]

Reminds me of the time where US county sheriffs infiltrated a far right militia and plotted to blow up a federal court as a honeypot. Half the militia leaves when they keep pressing for this, but before they can arrest the remaining members they get arrested by FBI. After they're arrested by FBI they find out the head of the militia was ATF and every single one of them was an undercover fed of some sort

I used to have thoughts about members of mafias goingnundercover at police stations until the mafia eventually became the police, but no one knew anyone was undercover, thus eventually stopping mafia activity, since they were all acting like police, these thoughts were mostly dreams

[Yoink]

Pretty sure I watched that movie, actually. I was just ripping on it the other day.   

Buy Terry Pratchett books instead, problem solved.

Good thinking! A few of those and I might just turn myself off books forever.    

I have a demonstrated lack of self-control when it comes to books. Uh oh.   

I recently spent £235 on a two-volume book which I won't get until next year. By far the most I've ever spent on a book. I am both pleased and disgusted.

Oof. Impressive! Your spending habits definitely make me feel a little better about mine, haha, though I think perhaps we'd need to compare our book-related expenses over a set period of time to get an accurate idea of who is really less fiscally responsible. I'm not sure if that sentence made any sense, I am sleepy and about to sleep.   

New market discovered. A set of 23 books about how to avoid buying unnecesary and crazy amounts of books online. It only sells online.

If you can get the ShamWow guy to star in the infomercial you can count me in. *shrug*   

[LordBaal]

But wait there's more!

[MrRoboto75]

If you call now we'll DOUBLE the offer!

[hector13]

Buy Terry Pratchett books instead, problem solved.

Good thinking! A few of those and I might just turn myself off books forever.    

What is it about Pratchett you dislike?

[Naturegirl1999]

Pretty sure I watched that movie, actually. I was just ripping on it the other day.   

There’s a movie about that? What’s it called?

[hector13]

Pretty sure I watched that movie, actually. I was just ripping on it the other day.   

There’s a movie about that? What’s it called?

Infernal Affairs is the original, a Hong Kong movie. It’s very good. It’s a trilogy, the first film is basically a planted mafia member trying for figure out who the undercover cop is in his gang, using his position as a police officer.

Hollywood remade it and called it The Departed and did some bad things to it, but is still otherwise pretty good.

[Naturegirl1999]

Pretty sure I watched that movie, actually. I was just ripping on it the other day.   

There’s a movie about that? What’s it called?

Infernal Affairs is the original, a Hong Kong movie. It’s very good. It’s a trilogy, the first film is basically a planted mafia member trying for figure out who the undercover cop is in his gang, using his position as a police officer.

Hollywood remade it and called it The Departed and did some bad things to it, but is still otherwise pretty good.

What did Hollywood do to it?

[hector13]

Pretty sure I watched that movie, actually. I was just ripping on it the other day.   

There’s a movie about that? What’s it called?

Infernal Affairs is the original, a Hong Kong movie. It’s very good. It’s a trilogy, the first film is basically a planted mafia member trying for figure out who the undercover cop is in his gang, using his position as a police officer.

Hollywood remade it and called it The Departed and did some bad things to it, but is still otherwise pretty good.

What did Hollywood do to it?

Well... the biggest one is a major spoiler, and the one I was thinking of. It’s been a while since I’ve seen either film.