@Kekkaishi said in Potential problem with ssd boot drive:

@bi4smooth I understand what you're saying. But the problem I see here is that I'm not one to invest on a new computer unless I absolutely must. I have no problem buying a brand-new computer (I also have the means), but as I already mentioned, it's very difficult for me to assemble my "dream" computer right now (shortages), and as it seems for the foreseeable future as well. So unless this computer dies beyond repair, I will not buy "old-new" computer

" when "last year's tech" is a fraction of the price, and only marginally less powerful "
can you suggest me a powerful build that I can most likely buy right now? I am not that tech savvy, but I know the enough imo.
as I mentioned before, money is not an issue, and I will consider it - go wild - only if you want to of course

But thanks for the concern. as long as my files are backed up, I really don't care (but somewhat do) what happens to the computer physically

If it were my system, I'd probably wait to see if it glitches again... depending on the UPS you have your system plugged into, it could also have been caused by power fluctuations... or a dozen other rare things... without a system log, or the ability to visually inspect the MB, it's all conjecture (this is me talking, not my tech)

Believe me, I LIVE by the mantra: if it AIN'T broke, DON'T fix it!

@raphjd said in US State Department says there are only 2 genders:

On Armed Forces Day (21 May 2021), the US State Department tweeted this;

Today on Armed Forces Day, we celebrate the women and men who bravely serve across all branches in the United States military. We are grateful for their dedication and service to the American people.

I see - so, I can't say "Thanks to Apple Growers out there, for all the delicious food!"

Instead I have to say: "Thank you to the growers of each of the following fruits:

Gala
Red Delicious
Fuji
Granny Smith
Honeycrisp
Golden Delicious
McIntosh
Pink Lady
Braeburn
Ambrosia
Bramley
Charles Ross
Crispin
Early Victoria
Early Worcester
Ellisons Orange
Epicure
Gibsons Scarlet
Golden Spire
Greensleaves
Howgate Wonder
Ingrid Marie
James Grieve
Jonagored
Jupiter
Katy
Orleans Reinette
Peasgood Nonsuch
Red Gravenstein
Red Victoria
Rev W. Wilks
Ribston Pippin
Rosemary Russett
Spartan
Sturmer Pippin
Sunset
Superb
Tydermans Late Orange
Warners King
Winston
..."

I could go on - there are over 7,000 varieties of Apples around the world...

So, if I say "I love Apple Pie", please forgive me, growers of Granny Smith Apples, but I mean to say that I love "Braeburn Apple Pie", and the rest of you Apple Growers can go fuck yourselves...

Or, maybe, just a thought, sometimes we could have words or phrases in the English Language, that mean a WHOLE CATEGORY of things - all at once!

For example: "Men and Women" could include, cis-gender, trans-gender, and even hermaphrodite, inter-sex, and even eunichs! And even THAT is just a partial list! ... all without having to name each one, separately!

OMG - consider, just for a moment, how much easier that would make our language!

mind blown

You know how when you buy a new car, all of a sudden you see that car .... EVERYWHERE!

Or, if you have a scary experience with a spider, all of a sudden, you see spiders... EVERYWHERE!

Or, if you get called out for being a transphobe, you suddenly see transphobia in EVERYTHING!

@raphjd knows these things... @raphjd IS these things!

@Kekkaishi said in I don't like bubble butts, at all. Anyone else?:

@bi4smooth well I LOVE hairy butts and holes. In general I love hairy men, I guess in some way this explains my butt preferences

vive la différence!!

@Kekkaishi said in Potential problem with ssd boot drive:

Thank you both for replying
All of my important files are backed up to the cloud. other files and folders are located at different hard drives. Basically I keep the ssd for the operating system and installed programs, so I should be find in that regard (for the most part)

I will however do as @eobox91103 suggested and turn off the computer and unplug it for a few minutes.

@bi4smooth To your point about upgrading the computer, I don't do that. I actually tried to assemble a new computer a few months ago, but due to components shortages I couldn't assemble my desired pc build. (covid)

I may do a fresh install of the os, it's just a pain in the butt....

I'm sorry, but my tech is adamant that this isn't likely a software issue, but rather a hardware one - the reason is because the restart didn't fix it (which resets all of the software), but a reboot/power cycle did (which resets the hardware).

If you still suspect an OS issue, rather than do a re-install, open an elevated command prompt (CMD or PS) and run the command "sfc /scannow" - it tells MS Windows to scan all of the installed OS files for corruptions.

Oh, and we (my tech and I) were not suggesting you upgrade components - only someone reasonably experienced with computer hardware should do that. No, we were suggesting a "new" (not brand new) system entirely. Because an 8 y/o motherboard that has been powered on for most of those 8-years is VERY likely to have bulging capacitors, which affects the voltages on the MB. And if you're going to replace the MB, you should consider that 8 y/o RAM is likely DDR3 at best, so upgrading the whole package makes more sense. So long as you're not paying top-dollar for CURRENT tech, when "last year's tech" is a fraction of the price, and only marginally less powerful.

Just saying...

And I'm not saying you NEED to do this - it's just that you asked for an expert's opinion - and that's my guy's opinion, and he's making $125k/yr fixing desktops today!

@Kekkaishi said in I don't like bubble butts, at all. Anyone else?:

I sometimes hear that the "perfect" butt is a bubble butt, but I strongly disagree. For me it's just not appealing. The more bubble butt you have the more unappealing you are to me. The way I see it is too feminine - it very much depends though on how you define "bubble", but seeing all the self proclaimed bubble butt owners on the web, I don't find it attractive

Now, give me some regular butt and shove it on my face!

I am particularly fond of "skinny" butts (aka: "no butt" butts!) myself! ESPECIALLY if it is smooth (I detest HAIRY butts! ewww... I don't even like typing it out!) LOL

I am a computer professional with over 30 years experience. I owned a computing services company that included desktop support, and I asked one of my old techs about this... his comments are (summarizing):

• 8 years is a longer-than-expected lifetime for the motherboard, CPU, and RAM components - the "main 3" that make your computer go, save for the storage)
• SSD drives DO fail, but unlike spinning drives, they seldom do so slowly with "resets" prevailing to "fix" them - so it is far more likely that your system "glitched" and the motherboard's SATA interface was hosed. That would ONLY be reset with a "hard reboot" (power cycle) - which you indicated you did try, and it worked.
• Given the age of your other components, you should consider upgrading - but there is no need to get the bleeding-edge, latest & greatest, fastest thing out there! You pay a heavy premium for that! Instead, try something like the Dell refurbished system site. Look for systems that are 1-2 generations old (Intel Core i-series CPUs are on their 12th generation! So, any say Core i5 model that starts 10 or 11 (vs 12 or 9) is likely to be a "sweet spot" for price/performance.)
• Your hard drive should be fine, but if you aren't doing backups, you're risking ALL of your data every moment of every day - and eventually, it WILL catch up to you! A recommended cloud backup solution is Code42.com. They encrypt your data at your site, so they have no idea what you're storing, and they have a really good restore process if you do eventually lose the whole system. It's not a bare-metal install - you shouldn't need that, you can get new copies of Windows EASILY - but all of your essential, irreplaceable data will be saved (if you use the program correctly!)

@fromdecatur said in Short film Atraccion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PugsnBRfQso
Short film on youtube posted by the director. I liked it a year ago but it didn't have English subtitles back then. I thought it was worth wider viewing so am suggesting it here.

What an excellent short film!

When I was younger, I fell in love with a woman (I've always been pansexual, though I haven't always self-labeled myself with that term)... when I married her and had a child with her, ALL of my gay friends dropped me like a hot potato!

I got really mad at one and called him a "hypocrite worse than Jimmy Swaggart (a televangelist who was about to be outed in 1988, but went on live TV and tearfully "confessed his sins" - albeit without details, so the nature of his "sins" remained secret for some time).

I told him something akin to "you insist that the world accept you as you are: gay, because God made you that way... yet you insist that I deny who God made ME to be so that I can fit into your closed-minded narrative! No thank you!"

We never spoke again... I had thought of him as a good, close friend... I am sorry it ended that way, but my now-ex wife and I had 12+ GOOD years together (of 15 total years of marriage).

If you care, I'm currently seeing a man - a gay man - who understands that my ATTRACTION to some women is no different than my attraction to some men. What matters is that I remain devoted to HIM, have sex with only HIM, and do not actively tempt myself to stray... those are actions, not attractions! (I can control my actions, but I cannot control my attractions!)

@kalayaan said in Star Trek Discovery TV Series:

@bi4smooth

Maybe I must be one of the very very very few who likes spoiler alert and I am not even joking

Did you mean that you like spoilers? I too like spoilers... sometimes, if I'm having a hard time staying engaged in something, I'll read the imbd entries, or other reviews - specifically to see if it's worth continuing to watch! (Sometimes, it isn't!!! That's how I dropped Discovery part-way thru Season 1!!)

@eobox91103 said in Star Trek Discovery TV Series:

@Dracula975 Thanks very much. I did some checking and it seems that I can get this material on Discovery + with an Amazon Fire Stick, which should plug into my smart-but-dumb TV.

I will be honest - I have been a live-long Trekker (re-watching TOS episodes for YEARS before TNG finally came out!).

I gave up on Discovery near the end of Season 1 (like I said, I detest these "multiverse" themes to "at a whim" just remake the environment where your story takes place). My path BACK to Discovery came through SNW (Strange New Worlds - the newest - and IMHO, best of the reboots so far, save for TNG).

I also enjoy Picard - I'm just starting Season 2...

Oh, and CBS All Access became Paramount+ (they wanted to be able to stream Paramount movies and other non-CBS TV network content too, so they re-named it and raised the rates! Boo!)

@raphjd said in Recent Shooting Being HIDDEN by the MEDIA:

@serenity

I'm guessing you never watch conservative media. If you did, you would know that conservatives have been calling out white supremacists. Of course, liberal media will never tell you that.

Biden completely ignored the victims and families of the christmas parade terror attack because the terrorist was a black supremacist, who killed whites.

Indeed - let's all pity the poor white people - the REAL victims of all of the modern injustices!

Reference: https://community.gaytorrent.ru/post/294794

Another thing I REALLY liked about the writers on Discovery, was slipping in 20th Century Earth cultural references...
For example, in one of the final episodes, a Star Fleet official wryly remarks "It’s nice that they’re all so eager for a three-hour tour outside the galaxy."

No one there gets the reference, and he smooths it over by simply calling it a "figure of speech"... which actually confuses more of them...

Being raised with Gilligan's Island re-runs on our local UHF stations as I grew up, I found this hysterically funny. My 38 y/o son also laughed out loud over it... but my 21 y/o daughter (also a trekker) didn't get it! And when I explained it, she was like "so?"

There are also MULTIPLE references to Alice in Wonderland (actually, several of Lewis Carrol's works) throughout!

I would assume that, eventually, the .ru domains will die... at which time, any torrents who are using the .ru tracker will also stop functioning - well, at least stop functioning with the tracker!

Some others here have surmised correctly that I am a computer professional IRL... I have explained SO MANY TIMES how torrenting works - and how the ACTUAL xfer of data is NOT "through" the tracker, but rather from seeder's PC to leecher's PC... directly! Thus, "torrenting" is a P2P technology (peer-to-peer), and NOT a "client/server" one.

... except that the tracker here is private... so if you want to be "introduced" to the people with the porn you like, you have to be registered with the tracker... Also, so that they can "keep an eye on you" (as-in are you playing fair, not anything beyond that), they assign you a random-ish "key" value that makes all the data you send or receive. I have no idea how specific it gets, but from an outsiders view, it appears very little... best guess, they know how much data you've transferred - not to whom, and not for which torrent.

That "key" information, as well as the address of the tracker, are embedded into the .torrent files you download from the website. Files downloaded from the .ru website will use the .ru tracker, and the .rent site will use the .rent tracker. The data on both appears to be the same, so an educated guess here: they share a database and site source folder in some way.

So, since we've recently re-launched the service at a new domain name (.rent vs .ru), it is safe to assume that all of your currently seeding torrents using the .ru domain SHOULD be re-downloaded with the .rend domain to ensure their long-lasting presence here. ESPECIALLY true for your uploads!

Re: Star Trek Discovery

So, I thought I'd re-start this discussion, though not so much as in how it fits into Star Trek as a whole, but instead on the LGBTQ+ themes throughout.

DO NOT READ if you haven't watched through Season 4, as I make no qualms about revealing plot lines here! SPOILER ALERT!

To start, I am a huge Star Trek fan, I have been (when much younger) to more than a few conventions (tho not in DECADES now), and find something to enjoy in all of the spin-offs. I'm REALLY enjoying the "Strange New Worlds" that has newly arrived - especially with the return of episodic television! But this is about Discovery...

That said, here are some things I hated about the first 4 seasons of Discovery:

• The first few episodes make it clear we'll be focusing on Michael Burnham - a black, female Star Fleet Officer who right at the get-go ("The Vulcan Hello") decides that she's smarter than the rest of Star Fleet and disobeys direct orders from her captain - even to the point of mutiny! Like such a personality disorder wouldn't have shown up BEFORE she'd advanced to her rank of Commander! They should have made it less a choice of hers, and more a requirement of some kind - of a choice of bad options and worse ones... not just that she knows better!
• The first season circles around the whole "infinite alternate universes" plot line that is de-rigueur in current Sci-Fi (from Star Trek to Spiderman!) - while, of course, ignoring the obvious: how could you possibly "jump" into such an alternate universe and see the same people!?!?!? (I hate "multiverses" in SciFi, even in 1967's "Mirror Mirror" episode of TOS!) I was happy to see the end of Season 1, though less so with the carryover of the Philippa Georgiou character into later seasons.
• The Discovery writers weren't loath to copy another "cheap crutch" from TOS - specifically in "Operation -- Annihilate!" when Spock is blinded - except that he has an "inner eye lid" that magically protected him (and hid itself from all of the Dr.s scans until the final scene). Puke! There are several (OK, a few) occasions in Discovery where everything seems lost, save for some miraculous last-second capability or technology "discovered" that saves the day in the last 30-seconds of the episode. Puhleeeese!
• I did like the plot-line about Control - the self-aware AI that, like all good SciFi, decides to "protect us from ourselves" and eventually decides we should just be annihilated. (Sound a bit like "I, Mudd" from TOS? Yeah, I thought so too... but on a wider scale... I didn't mind the borrow here, as they took it in a whole new direction!)

But what I really wanted to talk about here were the efforts this version of Star Trek has taken to be "inclusive" in casting.

• The primary character is a black female
• Her captain (Philippa Georgiou) is an an Asian female
• The Dr and chief engineer are a gay-male couple - 1 white, 1 black
• During the course of the series, "partners" are mostly described with that word, though occasionally a "wife" or "husband" will slip through. I liked that - it seems "futuristic" to me
• The President of the Federation is a white woman (albeit a Cardassian/Human mix)
• The President of Vulcan (now named Ni'Var) is a white woman
• The head of the military on Earth (United Earth) is a black woman
• The President of United Earth is a black woman - laughably, Stacey Abrams, she of failed GA candidate for Governor, but successful GA Democratic activist, fame.
• There is also a young Trans couple: Adira (human) & Gray (trill) - for whom the other crew members dutifully use the pronouns "they" (for Adira) and "it" for Gray... but I did kind-of objected to the idea that the only "foster parents" these two would have are the gay couple. I also didn't like the idea that in the Star Trek future, LGBTQ+ people would still be considered "different"... I have higher hopes for our distant future, our current present course notwithstanding.
• I really REALLY enjoyed the casting of Tig Notaro, a lesbian comedian, as a bluntly brilliant, sarcastic, lesbian engineer (I know, save for the engineering degree, not much of a stretch from her comedy character). Still, I loved the dry wit of her character and felt she was a great asset to the cast! IMHO.

Honestly, though, especially when they popped Stacey Abrams on us as the President of Earth, I originally found the casting to be laughable and obvious - an about-face to standard casting! All the best, smartest (non-crazy, anyway), most important human characters were black women or gay men! (Save for 1 Admiral in the future...)

BUT - when I stepped back and considered this, I changed my opinion and NOW think "turn about is fair play" - not having white men in charge, or in any real "leadership" (or "hero") capacity is for me now (as a white male) what people of color and LGBTQ+ people (ok, like me) have been exposed to since the dawn of television!

So, please comment below - assuming you've watched the show - about the LGBTQ+ characters in Discovery - what you liked and didn't like about their storylines, or the casting, or whatever... I'm curious to hear how others feel...

@didigb said in Condom or Bareback?:

Since I've been on prep, it's bareback all the time. Sex feels so much better and I really get turned on by cumming inside some guy's ass

I agree - I prefer cumming deep inside my guy... but whether that's bareback or in a condom is not of major import... it's that feeling of thrusting and pulsing deep inside him that is so satisfying. For me.

I too am on PReP - and I'm mostly a top. I like to think of PReP as giving us control of our own level of protection vs. depending on (trusting) another. And I respect others' choices on how they protect THEMselves... so, when I encounter a partner who wants condoms, I comply.

Mind you - I am speaking for myself - I do not mean to imply others should (or must) do as I do, or feel as I feel.

If you strongly prefer bareback - and your partners agree to it - it's all good! Just so long as you aren't being deceitful (as in: telling someone who wants/demands condoms that you're using one, when you aren't (really) doing so.)

I know others have had minor issues, but no one (else) has had a complete failure..

For those torrents you already have - and WERE seeding - try re-downloading the .torrent file. Remember, the .torrent file you get from the site has the (new) tracker information embedded into it. If you changed your passkey, that will ALSO be fixed by re-downloading the .torrent file from the site.

Good luck!

@raphjd said

And she calls ME a troll!

Any more conspiracy theories you want to push out?

BTW: If every single person in a retirement home in GA were to have voted for Trump - in GA (a race that was statistically close) - Trump still loses GA by thousands of votes... not as wide a margin, but a loss (and a humiliating one, at that! GA was always predictably RED!)

The assumption that these residents all voted Democrat is laughable - it's just as likely that they were "assisted" by Trumpites as Bidenites!

And it would've been wrong - in both instances... I know you'll conflate my argument that this DOES NOT support your theory that Trump's loss was due to fraud, with the absurd notion that there was NO fraud! There was! We've found it! But, unlike your biased view, the REAL enforcement agencies have found that what fraud WAS there was pretty much evenly distributed - Republican and Democrat. In other words, statistically insignificant noise.

But statistics are a kind of science... and to Trumpites, Science is bad

Funny: you (Trumpites) will decry the vaccines, eschewing them because you "don't know what's in there" and you "don't trust the scientists"... yet, you'll force yourself to the front of the line to get monoclonal antibodies once you GET the virus! What happened to "I don't trust the doctors"?? Why not find the YouTuber who shows you how to ingest disinfectant - safely ROFL - nd take their advise on that one, too?

@raphjd said in Gay Florida student says school stopping him from running for senior class president:

@bi4smooth

Blah, blah, blah, is all our resident troll says

You sad, pathetic White Supremacist... you think I wrote that for you?

Narcissistic much? ROFL

@raphjd said in Former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL) pleads guilty in fraud case:

@bi4smooth

Nope, you're just a troll

And you're just a bigoted White Supremacist hiding behind Trumpite & Russian propaganda!

There! Names traded... I win! Again!

@raphjd said in Gay Florida student says school stopping him from running for senior class president:

@serenity

That is what the laws of the US and SCOTUS say.

Also, NO, the US is not a democracy. The US is a representative republic.

It seems, that you believe that people can break any rules they want, as long as you agree with them.

Even if this student supported the Florida law and protested in favor, I would still say he has to pay the price for violating the rules and knew it beforehand.

1 - @serenity is correct: the religious-right will not stop with "don't say gay" - and they have an insidious new "weapon" they're using: allowing individuals to sue governments over perceived "morals" abuses. Further, the challenge to Roe v Wade is also a harbinger to a sure-to-come challenge to the Obergefell v. Hodges case - the one that legalized Gay Marriage using the 14th Amendment protections to do so. (The religious conservatives consider this JUST AS EGREGIOUS a "moral overstepping" as Roe v. Wade.)
2 - The assumption that outlawing gay activities in the US would make this website illegal is moot. Under US Law, this website is already illegal in many, many ways! And as that legal environment continues to change, the site owners (and staff) have made changes to our rules of behavior that are intended to help keep us "under the radar" of any enforcement... even though I highly doubt that this site is physically housed in the US, coming under attack in US Courts would be - let's just say, crushing.
3 - @raphjd's assertion that the student "broke the law" is absurd, but it follows from his common theme: people who agree with him are to be allowd the MAXIMUM freedoms to express themselves, while other, dissenting views, should be shut down. It is a FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT under the US Constitution for people to protest their Government. The Jan 6 protesters were all well-within their rights to protest... right up until they attacked and broke into the Capitol building! This student didn't break any laws - he just organized a student protest against a new law he thought was targeting he and others like him... and he wasn't wrong.
4 - the idea that all teachers are pushing a "gay agenda" on their students is hogwash and an overstatement of the problem, such as there is one, to a MASSIVE scale. YES, there are teachers who overstep their bounds, "get out of their lanes" - and they should be punished. But that doesn't mean typing the hands - and exposing everyone to frivolous litigation - is even a reasonable solution... UNLESS your goal is to enforce your own moral beliefs on all others. Sieg Heil! (And I thought the "culture wars" were over for the US after the 1980's and 1990s! Silly me!)
5 - the mere idea that you can "groom" someone into becoming gay or trans is a concept debunked in the 1950's! Ref: Kinsey & Associates). That it's being brought back up now is just "cover" for the fear and hate mongering of "people not like US" (In this case: US is code for: white, straight, christian MEN - you know, the people who built this country and that we should all be worshiping - right now!)

BTW: @raphjd's "replacement" is awaiting entry into the UK right now. He is a black, African, Jew who will take his job, his house, and his lover... because they (people of color, people from poor countries, and non-Christians) are all superior to him in every way!
Or, at least that's what he's been programmed to believe!

They're coming for you!

Ooga booga! (hands waving)

@scartoonstar said in Picture Spamming::

They would've been better off just making gifs lol

You won't hear any complaints from me - thanks for sharing the link to the torrent.