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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • I used to buy external drives when they went on sale, and I’d shuck the case off of them. In my opinion the quality of the drives in those externals went downhill sometime in the last several years. You might get lucky and get a drive meant for a data center, but I’ve stopped playing that lottery.

    These days I just buy retired but warrantied data center drives from sellers on eBay. They’re big, tested, reasonably priced and the seller will replace them within their warranty period if they do die (I usually see 3-5 year as the warranty time). So far I haven’t had any of these die in the last couple of years. Seagates used to fail me constantly thought. I’m now down to only one Seagate still working.










  • Most definitely. I have autoimmune problems and a genetic heart condition. I went from working a decent job and having some financial security to being unemployed for 2.5+ years and taking money from my family so I could keep living - certainly not living well.

    It got to a point where my chronic pain and other problems weighed on me so badly that I would immediately curse my existence the very moment I awoke in the morning. I hated that I didn’t die in my sleep.

    Of course doctors weren’t helpful - under their care and instruction I actually got worse. The cost of this care also largely wiped out the savings I had. The rest of my savings were used to just stay alive because in no way was I fit for employment.

    It is a years-long battle to get any kind of public assistance (yay USA!) because my problems are not typically classified as a disability even though they totally are.

    A few specific things kept me alive and fighting:

    • My dog was basically my child, and as long as she was with me, I would stay alive and take care of her. I had a very deep bond with her. She was family. I’m not exaggerating when I say I wouldn’t be here today to type this message to you if not for her loving presence. I had her for 11 years. She died on New Years Day this year. Had I still been suffering the way I used to, I probably would’ve killed myself on the 2nd. Being without her this month has been awful, and I owe her my life.
    • I finally found a decent endocrinologist who helped me stabilize my hormonal problems. The others I went to actually made things worse and seemed not to have any understanding of why.
    • I discovered that responsibly taking kratom leaf powder drastically cut down on my chronic pain and helped in a lot of other ways. I have been taking it a couple times a day for over 3 years now (with some breaks here and there ). I’m no longer dependent on it just to function, but it’s still tremendously helpful.
    • I read a book by a back surgeon who also went through something similar with chronic pain and being unable to do anything about it. Changing the way I was reacting to my circumstances based on his advice was very, very impactful. I still had pain, but it wasn’t crushing my spirit anymore.
    • I discovered that a huge portion of my pain, tension and anxiety stemmed from eating gluten and corn. I don’t present classic food intolerance symptoms, so it took a lot of trial and error to figure this out.

    After around a year of struggling through bad jobs (the only ones that I could get due to a long unemployment period), I’m now working a decent office job again and my pain has improved enough that I can at least work full time again without wanting to die.

    It wasn’t an easy road, and I’m not sure I would have the fortitude to go through it again - definitely not without my dog to keep me motivated. Life isn’t grand, but I sorta get by. This is still way better than I was a few years ago, which I didn’t think was possible.