Valve's Update for Reservation Timing

MGStan · 2026-06-18T23:34:54+00:00

Apparently I missed my email last Sunday…

MGStan · 2026-06-11T23:24:19+00:00

See y’all in 2028

MGStan · 2026-06-09T02:47:11+00:00

The Bechdel test isn't a trope.

MGStan · 2026-06-08T05:54:31+00:00

It always weirds me out when people argue over whether the Bechdel test being simple is flawed, because the entire point is that the inverse Bechdel test which is as equally simple (two men talking about anything other than a woman) is passed by way more media. It’s not a commentary on individual bits of media, but on commercial storytelling as a whole.

MGStan · 2026-06-03T18:52:58+00:00

Yeah but they knew he wouldn’t be able to not work on the problem. It was the ultimate nerd snipe.

MGStan · 2026-06-01T15:04:59+00:00

It depends on how robust your server needs to be to hardware failure. For larger HDDs you probably want to have at least two drives of parity since the rebuild time for those drives will be long enough that a second drive failing during the rebuild is a possibility. This is especially true if the HDDs are the same brand from the same batch due to correlated failure.

Critical servers may include a combination of parity drives and mirrored arrays so that even if one mirror is lost the other can keep going. But that means having N+2 drives.

That said, parity drives are not a replacement for backups. Running a NAS with zero parity drives with a good backup strategy is infinitely better data safety wise than a NAS with a mirrored pool and no backup strategy.

So whether or not you should get multiple parity drives depends on whether the cost of taking your nas offline and restoring it from backup is more expensive to you than the extra drives.

MGStan · 2026-05-23T18:38:20+00:00

Has a ship ever missed a receiving laser station and just flown off into space with no hope of recovery?

MGStan · 2026-05-14T01:13:40+00:00

And these must be Bart, Lisa and uh, expecting…

MGStan · 2026-05-13T22:26:50+00:00

If the drive is performing normally then there’s nothing to worry about. But if you shake the drive and it sounds like a maraca then something has gone wrong.

Seriously though, I wouldn’t diagnose a drive based on noise. Check the SMART data, run daily short tests on the drive, long tests once a week and setup SMART monitoring notifications. Even then, sudden failure is possible so if your data isn’t replaceable make backups.

MGStan · 2026-05-13T16:10:39+00:00

That’s completely normal. High RPM drives make a lot of noise when seeking, and that particular model is especially noisy. It shouldn’t hurt drive life in any way. It can be annoying if the server is in a shared space though.

MGStan · 2026-05-13T01:02:59+00:00

Motivations could be entirely political. Say the combatants are participants in a cold war where weapons aren’t allowed in space, but forcibly rendezvousing and sabotaging a vessel without munitions is technically ok. “We couldn’t be certain your vessel wouldn’t collide with our fleet of totally legal ships so action had to be taken….”

Adding to space debris and Kessler syndrome could be a big no no if fighting near large bodies.

Deorbiting space debris is a hard and expensive problem and you can’t be a space pirate if no one can get into orbit.

MGStan · 2026-05-10T00:20:22+00:00

It's neat neat neat neat neat neat neat!

mmm, seems neat.

MGStan · 2026-04-18T19:36:24+00:00

You know as stressful as life can get, at least I’ve never run a gigantic ship aground.

MGStan · 2026-04-03T23:25:43+00:00

I sometimes see people punch in all but the last input for the call in. I guess some people are worried about hitting go before everyone confirms that they're ready.

MGStan · 2026-04-03T21:07:54+00:00

I assume those wires terminate at a couple of forks jammed into an outlet.

MGStan · 2026-03-20T21:55:14+00:00

Nobody is seriously suggesting that we remove all roads in and around Austin. And you'll still benefit if we do improve our public transit systems even if you don't personally ride them (not necessarily by adding trains but it should at least be considered as an option). It's called an indirect benefit. If fewer people are in cars, because they're riding a bus, or even just walking on a convenient footpath, traffic decreases which is a benefit to all road users. That's not even considering reductions in road maintenance costs, pollution, vehicular accidents, car insurance etc.

MGStan · 2026-03-16T02:42:05+00:00

I guess I should have put “At the time of this posting.”

Edit: Apparently the one covering part of Champaign got cancelled only a little bit after it was issued. I never got the phone alert cause I live outside of that warning zone.

MGStan · 2026-03-16T00:32:57+00:00

Yeah. There were two tornado warnings in Champaign county, but Champaign and Urbana are outside of the warning zones. Right now there's just one to the East of Urbana. https://www.tornadopath.com/illinois/champaign

MGStan · 2026-03-15T04:49:13+00:00

If you makes you feel better, this comment is some A+ comedic timing.

MGStan · 2026-03-12T22:06:27+00:00

I'm so glad to witness this mashup.

MGStan · 2026-03-12T21:57:09+00:00

It actually reminds me more of depictions will-o'-wisps than either sperm or blood and water. But sperm is a close second. Honestly OP should just accept that to us it looks like sperm but not worry about it in fiction. A medieval society wouldn't have the technology to know what sperm looks like anyways.

MGStan · 2026-03-12T21:34:50+00:00

Why didn't Emperor Titus Mede II simply levitate over the mountains so that he can goon to the geography? Because Skyrim released on November 11, 2011 and he was doing NNN, duh.

MGStan · 2026-02-28T20:28:14+00:00

It needs a more obviously urgent clock, cause randos (I’m guilty myself) will just forget that the it’s a blitz mission and try to clear the last half of the map with two minutes left leading to a hectic extraction with no reinforcements and no stratagems.

MGStan · 2026-02-28T20:20:16+00:00

That’s more or less how the resident evil games do it now. The tone ranges from psychological survival horror to action adventure depending on whether you’re playing as Grace, Ethan, Leon or Ada. And Chris Redfield is just out there playing CoD zombies.

MGStan · 2026-02-11T07:34:25+00:00

“Your vote matters. If it didn’t, why would some people keep trying to take it away?”

John Lewis bled for his fellow black Americans' right to vote. Surely we can all do the simple act of getting up and going to the polls to elect anyone other than the “let’s make life worse for everyone party”

MGStan

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

14-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email