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Did you do anything to brace or remove the GPU and the ehatsink on the CPU during moving? They have a lot of mass attached only at one end, so any kind of acceleration.decerlation can put a strain on the mounting and cause damage.
Well, ironically enough, working heavily with an AI helped me with the retail market pricing searches, and equipment specification research enough that I'm saving close to $1,000 on buying the hardware system to be able to render the dForced, strand based, over textured, and sometimes over-priced items that require 12-16 gb of vram to render. I consider myself paid back.
.. not sure if this was mentioned before, but there is a way to disable AI on Google searches by prefacing your search string with -AI (not case sensitive).
Complaints: 1. TL/DR, I hate dealing with state's unemployment website. 2. after a few days of reasonable temperatures early last week, the heat wave returned. 3. Restaurant's AC is still effed up, and it's never worked well because it isn't the correct unit for the building. I took a shower this morning & came home after 4 hours sweaty & smelly. Yuck. 4. Just got a notice that the release date for a fantasy novel I pre-ordered has been pushed back from December 2026 to August 2027. This is the third one this year
Mixed: Had a rainstorm come out of nowhere. The forecast was no rain until a week from today. We need the rain but it got pretty bad in parts of the county. My friend said big branches got blown down near her place, and stuff from her porch was also blown around. We just got a short, fairly heavy shower at our home.
Non-complaints: Tomorrow afternoon we are going to see Coyote vs. Acme with the (grown) kids. We'll probably get milkshakes or some sort of snack afterwards. And a cookie exchange, as me, Son, & Daughter independently came up with the idea of baking cookies. Yum! It's shaping up to be a fun but not pricey early joint celebration of our anniversary & Daughter's birthday on the 21st & 22nd.
I didn't, but the CPU and GPU are fixed in place rock-solid anyway. It was caused by a stray cable pressing against one of the GPU fans, preventing it from spinning up. Thankfully, nothing was damaged and I've not lost video since the fans are free to run again, so technically it's fixed now, although I'll have to pick-up a packet of those adhesive cable clamps that you stick on the inside of the tower to hold your cables in place. I was very lucky really, cause if I'd not heard that drill sound, I would never have known about it!
It served as a timely warning as well; to not be so incompetent when I build my next PC, and to make damn sure I'm careful with cable management!
Additionally, if you leap over to the DuckDuckGo browser, there's a setting for disabling AI on DuckDuckGo searches. I made the switch a while ago because I got frustrated with myself at how often I was forgetting to add the modifier (the planet shouldn't be suffering because I had a brain fart). Seems like something that should be opt IN instead of opt OUT, but at least going Duck fixed that.
Duck is a very good search engine & it's my default. I do still use Google. I wish I liked their browser. Maybe I don't have it set up correctly but I find it awkward to use. For example there's no back-forward arrows
It is possible to change the default search engine the web browser uses, even in Chrome. I also like the DuckDuckGo search engine, particularly for image search.
That's what I did. I use Chrome browser on my Lenovo Nook tablet, with DDG set as default search engine. If I don't get many hits with a given search in DDG, I will try Google as it sometimes gives better results
Yeah, I know it's possible to change out search engines. I'm just in general trying to get away from Google and the like in the places where I can manage it.
Been trying to find the Stonemason Main Street USA thread for absolutely ages. Forum search sucks ass! It brings up every damned instance of each word. Can someone please find a way to search by thread title only?
Looking at the product page, I'm seeing these threads listed with DazDeals:
Hopefully what you're looking for is there.
Thanks, but I was looking for the PA thread.
I don't think there is one. Stone did make this post shortly after Main St came out:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/762691/americana-what-do-we-want-what-do-we-need/p1
These are threads started by the PA: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/profile/discussions/31795/stonemason
Non-complaints: 1. Had a fun time at the movie. Coyote vs. Acme was hilarious. We didn't end up going to eat for assorted reasons but still a great time. Did get chocolate chip cookies son made with a Dolly Parton mix. Mmmm
2. I made split pea soup. In addition to the purple onion I added shredded carrots & some hot sausage. It was good & we'll have plenty of leftovers. Alas the sausage is too hot for me but Husband will eat it.
3. Assorted doggo antics - yesterday the doggos convinced husband I hadn't fed them before I left for work, so got 2 breakfasts; they have an ancient sofa for their very own but still want to take over MY loveseat; Bear seems more flexible & active than his usual senior dog self; & both have been vying for my attention.
Complaint: The GFI outlet our bedroom AC is plugged into stopped working but it's an easy fix for Husband.
Complaint: Still having problems sleeping at night, napping scattered throughout the day, wakeful at night. It was okay when I was younger but I want to sleep when it's dark.
And I don't want to take medication for it. I just want natural sleep. I've even cut way back on my caffeine intake. Now I'm more irritable and still awake. No better.
Non-complaint: Still alive.
Yeah, sleeping through the night is only a dream for me these days.
I've found that regularity helps. I stay up late enough to be really tired, start for bed at 10:50, in bed by 11:00, bedroom TV on showing something boring, fall asleep by 11:30, wake up & pee in bottle and turn off TV at 12:00, turn over, plump pillow, adjust body on right side, dream, wake up at 1:30 & pee, I'm asleep within 10 minutes or so, wake up at 4:00 & pee, turnover onto left side, wake up in dream at 5:30, turn over on right side, wake up at 7:00, get up. I've tried (and sometimes couldn't help) napping in mid-afternoon, but then I'm not tired enough to fall asleep at 11:00 and lay awake until 3:00. I used to make fun of ancient people who were on strict schedules of eating and sleeping and everything else. Now I am one!
I actually used to sleep better after "wacky-weed" was legalized in NY State, I could get through the night with only one pee, but even though I was smoking only the tiniest, tiniest amount, just a pea sized lump in a small pipe, of this modern stuff at 6:00 would give me a decent high in the evening and extreme drowsiness by 9 or 10:00, and sometimes I could even sleep through the night.
Unfortunately, my kidney problems seem to be unable to flush the stuff from my blood over the day, and it would accumulate and after a few days I'd be sluggish, & weirded out all day. I finally decided I'd "been there, done that" enough over my life, and tried to wean myself from the daily, introspective, good high every evening, but three days was about all I could manage until I'd dig out the pipe and bag-o-buds and be stuck in the pattern for another week or so until my body reminded me just how old I am.
I finally just quit, "cold turkey". (Which has worked well for all my addictions over my lifetime.) I threw out a quarter ounce of really nice buds
, went through a week or so of "gee, wouldn't it nice for just one puff tonight" without being able to give in to it, and I'm sober again. Wheee!
The fact that I'd acquired a whole ounce of good buds and kept it for a year, and still threw out a quarter of it, indicates how little I was using. This modern stuff is powerful juice!
But now that I'm not smoking again, my dreams are fantastic but I've resumed waking three times a night. (*sigh*) But the fact that I pee into a bedside urinal bottle instead of fully waking to walk downstairs to the toilet, lets me fall asleep again quickly, I think. Whatever, I'm surviving.
Note: This is in no way an endorsement of partaking of "wacky-weed". In my personal circumstances I had been introduced to it in college in the late '60 and continued to use it periodically over much of my life. Stopping after my early 50s when cost and availability became a problem. But back then, it was not nearly as strong (well, not for the casual user, anyway. Major stoners got all the good stuff and continued to make it better over decades. The rest of us got leaf, stems, & seeds). I enjoyed the light temporary high, socially and spiritually. When it became legal in NY State I jumped on the chance to try to get that feeling back. I found out that social sharing was terrible for me because of the loose sharing of "joints" between people now had disease transmission threats, and the long tokes, heavy smoky air, numerous "joints" that reappeared around the circle was too much for this old man. So, I got my own supply and settled into my meager daily habit. Any moderate drug, whether it be marijuana, or alcohol, or caffeine has its issues. It's just that as my age exposed sleep problems, I tried a familiar solution in marijuana, and it sort of worked for a while, but wisdom (spiritual and otherwise), and physical issues stepped in and I decided it wasn't really necessary for me any more. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting clearer, I want to see it on my own time.
non-complaint; My bunny has started waiting for me every morning. He doesn't trust me enough to get close (which is good!) but when we come rolling up the driveway, he gets very expectant and starts dancing around like his little bunny brain is going "oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy APPLES!!" and then as soon as he sees me heading for the drop spot, he'll make a beeline for the bush and hide under the near side of it, watching.
It's like a little kid sighting the ice cream truck. It's awesome.
Interesting. I used to dream about my parents a lot, both before and after they passed. I think I still dream when I sleep, but I never have any memory of them after waking. Which leads me to believe I am even forgetful in my sleep.
P.S. Just when I think I've seen the weirdest things nature has to offer. A real cat-erpillar.
Depending on where you fall on theories of the afterlife, maybe they're dropping in to say hello? Or, if such things don't seem plausible to you, maybe your brain just wants to hang out with them some more, and that's the only way to do it...
Opposite of you, about the only nice dreams I ever have are the ones where I get visits from folk I can no longer see in the waking world...
I do not dream of other people that I know or knew. My dream people are ID-less actors in the story. After the passing of my ex (Max) 32 years ago, however, I did used to dream new experiences with Max once in a while. It continued for many years. Then stopped. Or at least instances were infrequent enough that I don't remember them. My recent spate of vivid dreams has been visited with his "spirit" a few times. But only after I wake up do I realize that I was thinking of him.
But one's take on the afterlife determines what one makes of it. Personally, I view dreaming as my own memories recrystalizing into new virtual experiences to analyze or teach me something subconsciously. I suspect that if there is an afterlife, it isn't concerned with this world or perhaps only as an afterthought. Although since I model my thinking along the lines of The Buddha (Not Buddhism. "The Buddha".) you'd think I would more readily accept spiritual connection, and embrace reincarnation, etc. But I think even those words imply an incorrect or perhaps inaccurate idea shaped by our spacetime limitations. And the truth, whatever it is, is beyond, and even more wonderful than the words imply.
I have ideas that seem great in my head when I am daydreaming and talking to myself before I fall asleep. but then I write them down the next morning and they just seem like utter crap. then sometimes i re-read them 6 months later and i'm like, did i write that? thats pretty good. I have no idea how people complete screenplays, novels, etc. When I was a kid short stories came easy to me because I didn't care what people thought of my work, it was just play to me. But now I overthink everything to the point of it causing me to never finish anything I start. I have a thousand first drafts. I think I allow the fake audience in my head to destroy my stories before they are finished.
This reminded me of how our Gingers behaved at first. Charlie was the first to get close, but Simon of the 3 Paws was a harder nut to crack. When he finally jumped onto my bed, it took months of play with the 'hand under the covers' and 'pat paw' and gradually him learning not to bite or scratch/slice/dice or stab said hand or finger with his paw's ninja swords. He now runs in to get his brushing in the morning, watch YouTube cat videos (birds baths, squirrels & birds fighting over nuts, music), and demanding I feed them in the 'way too early hours of the morning'. We have had them for four years now! Charlie is 7 or 8 and Simon 5.5 years old! Bossy guys.
This is what ZZ Top looked like when they started out. Here they played a high school prom in Texas.
That's Dusty, Frank and Billy G. before they were famous.
click and choose your fate: https://numbergenerator.org/randomnumbergenerator/1-3
1) new york cab driver
2) chinese factory worker
3) influencer
My belief system is heavily influenced by Christianity. However, I have to be able to reconcile logic with my beliefs. And I don’t trust everything in religious text due to the potential for the text to be manipulated by people based on their personal beliefs. To a great extent, I have to believe what seems right to me. But yes, I believe life is sometimes eternal so there must be some form of afterlife or reincarnation.
But I don’t think the appearance of lost loved ones in my dreams is actually those people returning from beyond. I think if it was, maybe they would be telling me something unexpected based on some new experience, or at least going out of their way to get a message across to me. But it all seems more mundane than that. Just another day like it used to be.
Now my family basically has this philosophy, that we don’t want you to die. But if you do, don’t be coming back and scaring the hell out of us. So even though I miss those people, I don’t want them showing up in my dreams or anywhere else to say hello. In accordance with my belief in “life after death”, I will wait until the time is right. And I’m in no hurry.
I think the people and things in my dreams were crafted from my own memories and mind. I think they are meant to reflect some real life situation that I may or may not understand, and offer a way to process that situation outside of the normal realm. Usually there is something in the dream that causes the same type of feeling I get from some real world situation, so I know the dream is connected with that situation.
Obviously I remember the loved ones and the one or two people from my dreams who were celebrities. The woman in my dream, whom I did not recognize, was in my kind of skirt. She had my kind of style. I would look at myself and look at her, and I wasn’t sure where the line between us was. I like to think the woman I didn’t recognize may have been myself that I was looking at. Or at least the woman I want to be. Or perhaps the woman I want. Maybe all those things.
As usual, I don’t know where I’m going with this.
Complaint: Tooth problems: Last Wednesday(10/2) I went to the dentist for an X-Ray and test to verify which of my molars was acting up. Dentist recommended a root canal & crown at over $3,000. Or extraction at about $350. I opted for the extraction (of course I did, I have no insurance for the right solution.)
Tooth had been giving intermittent signals for the last couple of months, so I figured it would last another month and the extraction was scheduled for Oct 1 so that I could get to my 60th high school reunion on Sept. 19 (next week!)
But six days after my X-Rays, the tooth decided to begin acting up, louder and louder. Still intermittent, but insistently attention seeking.
"Ah-ha" says I, I have a bottle of toothache juice for just such situations. But no. After tearing my medicine hoard under the bathroom sink to pieces, it was no longer there.
Probably discarded as too old when I last organized the hoard. So, I suffered a near sleepless night of babying my tooth and decided to go uptown today to the drugstore and grocery shopping a week early. I went this morning, had breakfast at BurgerKing, toddled to the CVS drugstore for toothache drops, toddled to the grocery store and completely over extended my budget for the month.
It's a good thing payday is next Wednesday. But at least I should be able to keep my tooth under control and get some relief from flareups until extraction day Oct. 1st. Maybe.
Non-complaint: When I got home with my groceries, I found my pen that I lost a few days ago, laying in the driveway. Still works. Cool beans!
I have heard/read psychologists say our dreams are where we work out things in our subconscious and why it is so critical to experience REM sleep. Possibly you are using familiar people from your life to help you do this?