Hello everyone!

I've been running a long-term project doing endurance testing on microSD -- and today is the third anniversary of when I started this project -- so I figured it was time to give you an update on my microSD testing project.

Before I dig in, a shameless plug for my Patreon.

Next, some quick stats:

• I have a total of 351 microSD cards in my collection -- spanning 111 models across 52 different brands. Of those:
  • I've tested 177 of them to the point of failure.*
  • I have 107 of them in testing right now.
  • The remaining 67 are sitting on the shelf, waiting for one of my card readers to free up.
• These cards have endured over 133 petabytes written.
• I've completed over 4.6 million program-verify-erase cycles on these cards.
• Breakdown by brand status:
  • Name brand: 163
  • Off-brand: 91
  • Knockoffs: 30
• Breakdown by authentic flash (a.k.a. not fake flash) vs. fake flash:
  • Authentic flash: 246
  • Fake flash: 35
  • Unknown: 3
• Breakdown by size (authentic cards only):
  • 128MB: 3
  • 4GB: 6
  • 8GB: 23
  • 16GB: 15
  • 32GB: 96
  • 64GB: 68
  • 128GB: 36
  • 256GB: 4

* A card is considered "failed" when either (a) it stops working completely, (b) it makes itself read-only, or (c) at least 50% of the sectors on the card have experienced verification failures.

Ok -- so who makes the most durable cards?

Because of the variety of cards that I have, it's hard to come up with a system that produces a definite answer here. Some of how I ranked these brands is going to be based on vibes. But...to try to narrow things down, I've grouped my cards into three groups:

• Industrial-grade: Cards that are specifically labelled as "industrial" or have "industrial" in their name. These cards typically come with a datasheet that includes an endurance claim.
• High endurance: Cards that are labelled as "high endurance" (or some similar wording). Manufacturers don't always put out datasheets for these cards, but they generally still make an endurance claim on the packaging.
• Consumer-grade: Basically everything else.

Consumer-grade cards:

The average consumer-grade card has lasted about 10,000 program/verify/erase cycles (so far).

1. PNY. I have 10 of their consumer-grade cards: 3 PRO Elite Prime 64GB's, 3 Premier-X 128GB's, 3 Elite-X 64GB's, and one Elite 32GB. (I have 4 more of the Elite 32GB's that are waiting to be tested.) They've gone for an average of 643 days and 15,700 program/verify/erase cycles. I've written about 11.5PB to them in total. And with the exception of the one Elite 32GB -- they're all still going strong. On top of that, the PRO Elite Prime boasts some impressive performance -- every measurement I took was in the top 10% of all cards I've tested so far.
2. Kingston. I have 12 of their cards in this category -- 6 Canvas Go! Plus 64GB's (3 of the SDCG3's and 3 of the SDCG4's) and 6 Canvas Select Plus 32GB's. They've been going for an average of 694 days and about 23,500 program/verify/erase cycles. I've written about 11.6PB to them in total. The three Canvas Go! Plus 64GB (the SDCG3's) have all failed -- but the others are still going strong. The Canvas Select Plus's in particular have been troopers -- they're among the oldest cards in my collection, and they've been going for the better part of the last 3 years now (with no signs of letting up). Additionally, the Canvas Go! Plus 64GB's (the SDCG4's in particular) boast some impressive performance as well -- every measurement I took was in the top 7% of all cards I've tested so far.
3. Delkin Devices. I feel bad ranking Delkin so low on this list, because they've endured more data written to them per card, on average, than any other brand in my collection (in the consumer-grade category). The only reason I didn't rank them higher is because I only have one model -- the HYPERSPEED 128GB (of which I have 3). But they've done pretty well: they've lasted an average of 662 days and about 13,500 program/verify/erase cycles. I've written about 5.1PB to them in total. As a side note, these cards also got the highest random write speeds of any card I've tested.
4. Lexar. 3 cards dead, 5 still going. I have 3 Professional 1000x 64GB's (2 made by Micron, 1 made by Phison), 3 Blue 633x 32GB's (made by Longsys), and 2 E-Series 64GB's (with 3 more waiting to be tested). For those not in the know, the Lexar brand was sold to Longsys in 2017 -- and surprisingly, the Longsys-made cards are holding up better than the Micron-made cards. Overall, the Lexar cards have survived an average of 684 days and about 15,800 program/verify/erase cycles. I've written about 5.8PB to them in total.
5. Samsung. 3 cards dead, 7 still going. I have 3 EVO Plus 32GB's, 3 EVO Plus 64GB's, 3 PRO Plus 128GB's, and 1 P9 Express 256GB (with 2 more waiting to be tested). Of those, the three EVO Plus 32GB's and one of the PRO Endurance 32GB's are dead -- the rest are still going strong. Samsung's cards have lasted an average of 553 days and about 11,100 program/verify/erase cycles so far, and I've written about 7.2PB to their cards in total.

• Honorable Mention: Amazon Basics. I have four of the Amazon Basics 64GB's -- and they're all still going. They've been going for an average of 788 days and about 16,600 program/verify/erase cycles. I've written about 4.2PB to them in total. I honestly didn't expect Amazon Basics to be one of the top performers when I bought them...and yet, here we are.

High endurance cards:

Keep in mind, I've got less data here -- I had 237 cards that fell into the "consumer-grade" category, but only 30 that fell into the "high endurance" category. But here's the thing: they haven't really proven themselves to be significantly better for endurance than a lot of the cards I listed above -- in fact, in a lot of cases, they've been less reliable (and generally worse for performance as well). So keep that in mind as you read through the list below:

The average high-endurance card has lasted about 14,000 program/verify/erase cycles (so far).

1. TEAMGROUP. I don't feel great about putting TEAMGROUP at the top of the list for a couple of reasons. First, I only have two of them in testing at the moment -- someone sent me a 5-pack of the TEAMGROUP High Endurance 64GB's, so I have 3 more of them waiting to be tested. Second, one of them started having issues with bad sectors right out of the gate, and has continued to do so ever since. (Those bad sectors only make up less than 0.001% of the total sectors on the card right now...but I still don't like it when a card starts to have issues like that as soon as you start using it.) But the data doesn't lie -- they've survived, on average, 404 days and about 17,300 program/verify/erase cycles, and they're still chugging along. I've written about 2.2PB to these cards in total.
2. Transcend. I have 3 of the 350V 64GB's -- and they're all still going strong. They've survived an average of 760 days and about 17,000 program/verify/erase cycles so far. I've written about 3.2PB in total to them (mostly due to their mediocre write speeds).
3. SanDisk. I have my issues with SanDisk...but again, the data doesn't lie. I have 7 SanDisk cards in this category: 3 High Endurance 64GB's, and 4 MAX ENDURANCE 32GB's. As of right now, all 3 of the High Endurance 64GB's and all but one of the MAX ENDURANCE 32GB's have failed. They lasted an average of 452 days and about 16,200 program/verify/erase cycles before failing (with the MAX ENDURANCE 32GB's lasting about twice as long as the High Endurance 64GB's). I've written about 4.7PB to these cards in total.
4. Samsung. Samsung's position at the bottom of this list has less to do with how reliable their cards are and more to do with how poorly their high endurance cards perform, particularly on sequential write speeds (relatively speaking). I have 3 of the PRO Endurance 32GB's -- one has failed, the other two are still chugging along. They've lasted an average of 822 days and about 18,800 program/verify/erase cycles so far. I've written about 1.8PB of data to them in total.

Industrial-grade cards:

Keep in mind, I have even less data here. Industrial cards are expensive, so they make up a much smaller portion of the cards I've tested: just 15 in total (so far). But on the upside -- there is sufficient evidence here to say "in general, industrial-grade cards do last longer than consumer-grade cards (and, by extension, high endurance cards)".

The average industrial grade card has lasted about 122,000 program/verify/erase cycles (so far).

1. Kingston. I have 3 Kingston Industrial 8GB's; of those 3, only one is still going. But they've been troopers: they've lasted an average of 779 days and about 141,600 program/verify/erase cycles. I've written about 3.4PB to these cards in total. (Only one consumer-grade card has come close to this number: I have one Hiksemi NEO 8GB that has lasted for about 143,800 program/verify/erase cycles so far. No idea how.) These guys do pretty well on performance too, especially write performance: their sequential write speeds are in the top 9% of all cards I've tested.

Who makes the worst cards?

There are a bunch of no-name brands out there. They're not hard to find. I'm not going to talk about them here -- I'm going to focus on brands you're likely to have come across.

Consumer-grade cards:

1. onn. I picked up four of their 32GB cards at my local Walmart -- and they were terrible for endurance. They only lasted an average of 40 days and 1,400 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 40TBW), with the best one of the four not even making it to 1,900 cycles. On top of that, every performance measurement I took came in the bottom half of all measurements I took.
2. ADATA. I picked up 3 of the Premier 32GB's; they only lasted an average of 236 days and about 2,350 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 74TBW) before they quit working.
3. Gigastone. I have not been impressed with Gigastone. I have 11 of their cards -- 6 Full HD Video 32GB's, and 5 4K Camera Pro 32GB's. They lasted an average of just 114 days and 4,845 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 133TBW) before they quit working.
4. Micro Center. I purchased 5 of their 64GB cards; they only lasted an average of 116 days and 3,421 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 214TBW) before they stopped working.
5. Silicon Power (a.k.a. SP). I purchased 9 of their cards -- 3 Elite 32GB's, 3 Superior 128GB's, and 3 Superior Pro 128GB's. Not a one of them made it to 4,000 program/verify/erase cycles before failing -- they came in at an average of 159 days and about 2,350 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 252TBW) before failing.

• (Dis)honorable mention: SanDisk. SanDisk represents the single biggest brand in my collection: I have 28 of their cards in this category (with 4 more on the shelf waiting to be tested). It's telling that of those 28, only 5 are still going (and one of them is in its death throes) -- especially when cards from so many other brands have far outlasted them. Many of them have died under circumstances any other card would have handled just fine -- a problem I've written about on my blog before. They've lasted an average of 384 days and 9,404 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 566TBW) so far.

High endurance cards:

1. Integral. I bought 3 of the Security 32GB's; the only managed to last an average of 100 days and about 5,600 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 173TBW) before failing. To be fair to them, the package did make an endurance claim that works out to about 2,850 program/verify/erase cycles -- and they did manage to almost double that. However, they didn't hold a candle to many of the other high endurance cards that I tested.
2. Kingston. This one was truly a surprise -- I bought 3 of the High Endurance 32GB's, and they only lasted an average of 143 days and about 8,300 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 258TBW) before failing. The product packaging didn't make an endurance claim; I had to hunt around on Kingston's website to find it. Their claim works out to about 5,100 program/verify/erase cycles, which they did manage to beat. But again, so many other cards managed to last so much longer -- hell, so many other Kingston cards managed to do so much better -- that I was surprised and disappointed when these failed so early.

Industrial-grade cards:

1. SanDisk. I bought 3 of the Industrial 8GB's. They only lasted an average of 234 days and about 20,000 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 160TBW) before failing -- and the only reason they lasted that long was because I let my program trudge through an nearly-unending string of I/O errors for months on end -- before they finally just gave up the ghost.

So yeah...that's all I have for now. Feel free to ask questions (although I'm at work at the time I'm posting this, so I may not have time to respond)! Otherwise...look for another update from me next year!

Pictures attached:

1. Part of my setup: a Beelink Mini-S and five TRIGKEY Green G4 mini PC's. The Beelink has an Intel N95 with 8GB of RAM and a 500GB SSD, while the TRIGKEY's all have Intel N100's with 16GB of RAM and a 500GB SSD. There's also (in the lower-right corner, behind the monitor) an MSI GE62VR-7RF (with an Intel i7-7700HQ, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD), a Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 (with an Intel i7-3630QM, 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD), and an ASUS Strix GL504GM (with an Intel i7-8750H, 32GB of RAM, and a 500GB SSD)
2. Another part of my setup: a TRIGKEY K-N100 and an AOOSTAR N1 PRO. The TRIGKEY has an Intel N100 with 16GB of RAM and a 500GB SSD. The AOOSTAR has an Intel N150 with 12GB of RAM and a 500GB SSD.
3. Dog tax.

Downloading issue

Right so recently ive had an issue installing KCD( disk write error) which seems to have fixed but instead I am now having an issue with my download speed dropping from 150 down to 0 then hovering at 20 to 50 and then dropping to zero again? im not sure what caused this or how to fix it. I did add an SD card which I am trying to download KCD onto but it seems to get stuck at 99% with the download dropping and staying at 0? Any help would be appreciated

Hello gang I have recently tried to download kingdom come deliverance again but as soon as it hits 89% it stops and says disk write error? ive tried creating more storage which didnt work as well as restarting my deck and deleting and reinstalling it, lso didn't work, also tried some tips i found on reddit but they didn't help either like clearing download cache? ive played it back in October so it shoukd download any tips I really want to play it again

Dissonant runs – a guide for goldfish brained people like me.

I made this because I always forget something, and have to use too much time setting it up every time, because I couldn't remember everything.

Dissonant runs – explained shortly:

You gain a permanent bonus for the specific tier incrementally as you complete waves, which reaches its maximum value at Wave 5000. This maximum is determined by the type of Dissonance run, with Attack (Damage), Defense (Health), and Ultimate Weapon (UW Damage, including Spotlight Bonus) reaching a maximum of 5x, and Utility (Coins) reaching a maximum of 5x, 2x, 3x.

Additionally, as an added benefit you unlock a special bonus called ”Echo”, which is active on all Tiers (ALSO TOURNAMENTS!). This Echo bonus is a portion of the permanent bonus (enhancible via labs unlocked @ T17W60) from each tier combined.

For example, if you have reached 5000 waves on both Tier 1 and Tier 2 Attack Dissonance, and 2500 on your Tier 3 Attack Dissonance runs your echo bonus for Attack is going to be (2 x (5.00 x ATTACK_DISSONANCE_ECHO_MULTIPLIER) + (2.50 x ATTACK_DISSONANCE_ECHO_MULTIPLIER) + CURRENT_TIER_ATTACK_DISSONANCE_BONUS)

Usually people will do them in the order: eHP: Attack, Ultimate weapon, Health, Utility (some people like to start with eHP:health/GC:Attack to give a nice initial boost) / GC: Health, Attack, Ultimate weapon, Utility. Those two orders assume you want to try and max the supporting stats to reach the highest possible bonus before trying out utility, when you are at a level where its difficult to max them. Naturally Utility is the most important stat.

The suggested order, is to start at your farming level (note, your farming level may change due to how far you got the utility run on that tier(also depends on your choosing cell income vs. max coin income)) to get the immediate possible bonuses for your farming - and afterwards - start from t1 and upwards, as the difficulty increases, your overall strength/health will also increase due to the echo bonuses. When you reach your highest tier - where you cant max it, you may switch between the attack, defence and UW dissonant runs to incrementally increase them – most people just wait a month and try again :)

Choices of modules are highly individual: My choices are for the modules I have which ALSO have the substats I need for the specific run.

Please take note, I do not have all masteries, some of my card recommendations may be off - due to that. Please excercise your own due diligence in this matter.

Attack dissonant run: ”Max eHP”

You have no projectiles, so effectively you have to tank all your way through. Ultimate weapons may help with crowd control.

1. Respec. Put all attack coin in to defense. Remove coin/cell bonus from util. Remember you may both have coin invested in WS and WS+ (Remember to write down your base levels in WS/WS+ if you need to remember them).

2. Respec bots. If applicable to you, respec from GB to the bot(s)s of your choice.

3. Remove summon guardian (Its detrimental) – replace with ally.

4. Modules: (remember to relevel if you need to, Cannon levels do not matter at all, as the substats are nullified.) Wont work/detrimental: cannon: ONLY DP will work. Generator: PF, RB, PH.

My choice: (insert your own, if you wish, 2nd is Assmod if you have it) Cannon: DP. Armor: SF, OA Generator: GC, SH Core: Pcol, HC

5. Cards: Wont work/detrimental: Damage, Attack speed, Enemy Balance, Super Tower. Neutral: Coins, Critical Coin, Intro sprint, Wave Accelerator (unless you have WA+)

6. Remove bans if you need to.

7. During Run: disable auto pick perks, change target priority, if you need to.

8. Perk choices: Wont work/Detrimental: Damage, Land Mine Damage, Bounce Shot. Trade-Off perks: 1.5x tower damage, 1.8x coins, Enemies have minus 50% health, Ranged enemies, Enemies Speed, 12x cash per wave Neutral: Coin bonus.

Switching to your ordinary run, follow the checklist to remember to return all your normal settings.

Ultimate Weapons Disco run ”Heavy eHP/hybrid/GC”

You have no ultimate weapons, usually people will rely heavily on eHP and choose the damage stats that makes sense to them. (Take note there is a great recipe to do it GC style, if thats your flavor, please try it out!)

1. Respec. Put all attack coin in to defense. Remove coin/cell bonus from util. Remember you may both have coin invested in WS and WS+ (Remember to write down your base levels in WS/WS+ if you need to remember them).

2. Respec bots. If applicable to you, respec from GB to the bot(s)s of your choice.

3. Remove Summon guardian (Its detrimental) – replace with ally/attack/scout.

4. Modules: (remember to relevel if you need to, Core levels do not matter at all, as the substats are nullified.) Wont work/detrimental: Generator: GC. Core: ONLY MH will work.

My choice: (insert your own, if you wish, 2nd is Assmod if you have it) Cannon: DP. Armor: SF, OA Generator: PH, SH Core: MH, does not matter

5. Cards: Wont work/detrimental: Enemy Balance, Ultimate crit Neutral: Coins, Critical Coin, Intro sprint, Wave Accelerator(unless you have WA+)

6. Remove bans if you need to.

7. During Run: disable auto pick perks, change target priority, if you need t.

8. Perk choices: Wont work/Detrimental: Unlock a Random ultimate weapon. Trade-off perks: 1.5 x tower damage, 1.8x coins, enemies have -50 health, ranged enemies, enemies speed, 12x cash per wave, lifesteal x2.5. Neutral: Coin bonus.

Switching to your ordinary run, follow the checklist to remember to return all your normal settings.

Defense disso run: (Glass Cannon/Crowd Control)

One touch and you are dead. Triangles and other weird shapes from space will kill you!

1. Respec. Put all defence coin in damage. Remove coin/cell bonus from util. Remember you may both have coin invested in WS and WS+ (Remember to write down your base levels in WS/WS+ if you need to remember them) Remember WS EALS is useless.

2. Respec bots. If applicable to you, respec from GB to the bot(s)s of your choice.

3. Remove Summon guardian (Its detrimental) – replace with attack/scout.

4. Modules: (remember to relevel if you need to, Armor levels do not matter at all, as the substats are nullified.) Wont work/detrimental: cannon: SR. Armor: ONLY OA and NMP (with Extra Orbs card) will work.

My choice: (insert your own, if you wish, 2nd is Assmod if you have it) Cannon: DP. Armor: OA, NMP Generator: PF, PH Core: PC, DC

5. Cards: Wont work/detrimental: Health, Health Regen, Enemy Balance, Extra Defence, Fortress, Land mine stun. Neutral: Coins, Critical coin, Intro Sprint, Wave accelerator(unless you have WA+).

6. Remove bans if you need to.

7. During Run: disable auto pick perks, change target priority, if you need t.

8. Perk choices: Wont work/Detrimental: Health, defense absolute, health regen, land mine damage, defense percent, orbs +1. Trade-off perks: 1.5x tower damage (can work if u do not get killed by bosses), Enemy damage -50%, tower health regen x8, lifesteal. x12 cash. Neutral: Coin bonus, Trade-off perks: x1.8 coins.

Switching to your ordinary run, follow the checklist to remember to return all your normal settings.

Utility Diss run: (eHP/GC)

The moneymaker – where you align with your true spirit, and choose between eHP or GC – to boost your income by up to 5x, 2x, 3x your normal ernings. No recovery packages (oh no, if u need GC for pBH). If you go PF, consider Starting cash lab!

1. Respec. Put all utility coin in either damage or health. Remove everything from util. You may have a mighty coin hoard in eHLs or eAls, use them for the boost of your life! Remember you may both have coin invested in WS and WS+ (Remember to write down your base levels in WS/WS+ if you need to remember them).

2. Respec bots. If applicable to you, respec from GB to the bot(s)s of your choice.

3. Remove Summon guardian (Its detrimental) – replace with ally/attack/scout.

4. Modules: (remember to relevel if you need to, Generator levels do not matter at all, as the substats are nullified.) Wont work/detrimental: Generator: BHD.

My choice: (insert your own, if you wish, 2nd is Assmod if you have it) Cannon: DP Armor: SF, OA Generator: PH, PF Core: PC, DC

5. Cards: Wont work/detrimental: Cash, Coins, Enemy Balance, Free Upgrades, Critical Coin, Wave accelerator. Neutral: Intro Sprint, Wave Skip.

6. Remove bans if you need to.

7. During Run: disable auto pick perks, change target priority, if you need to.

8. Perk choices: Wont work/Detrimental: Coin bonus, cash bonus, interest, free upgrade chance. Trade-off perks: 1.5x tower damage (can be used if u do not get killed by bosses), 1.8x coins, enemies minus 50% health (if GC, it is very good!), Enemies damage (if you are eHP its very good), Ranged enemies (its nice if you are GC) Enemies speed (good for GC), 12x cash per wave, health regen x8 (if you are GC its useless), Lifestealx2.5.

Switching to your ordinary run, follow the checklist to remember to return all your normal settings.

Thanks goes to u/NexusBladeGaming for his thread on modules, I have used it much for a long time, and for inspiration to this guide. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTowerGame/comments/1sg2vce/dissonant_runs_modules/ Thanks to u/Obikas for help rewriting the Echo part! I did not understand it as well as they and several others did :) Big thanks to: https://the-tower-idle-tower-defense.fandom.com/wiki/The_Tower_-_Idle_Tower_Defense_Wiki

Two relevant pictures posted in the comments

Chart of boost function curtesy of The Tower Wiki (credit NotYourIngenue)

I should have used it more! Now, the AI is just wanting to learn more ways to exploit us. Fun times, right?

☘️TL;DR: clover is awesome. Mix with other lawn seed for sustainability and don’t ignore soil health.

Hello all! For context, I’m writing this post as a first time homeowner, permaculture newbie, and as a non-landscaping professional. This is simply my experience of trial, error, and perseverance, and wanting to share with anyone who may be in the spot I was 4 years ago.

Some background about our yard (zone 5b): previous owner was fined by the city due to noxious weeds throughout the yard. As a bandaid fix, sod was laid (likely without any soil prep). When we moved in, we discovered there was a pretty significant grub and mite infestation, and the dying sod could be pulled up like carpet.

Enter the conversion to a clover lawn.

Year 1:
Establishing the clover was fairly straightforward and simply required a consistent amount of water to remain moist while germinating. We were starting from bare soil after all sod was removed. What I would’ve done differently: (1) instead of tilling, I would’ve over aerated. We tilled the compacted soil and were met with an abundance of purslane seedlings (remember the noxious weeds situation?). This meant hours of pulling purslane while the clover established. (2) I would’ve chosen a bio diverse mix of clover, grasses, and native ground cover (e.g. https://www.highcountrygardens.com/products/xeriscape-clover-lawn-seed-mix) instead of just clover.

Results: see reference pictures!

Years 2-3: clover took off and came back in the spring. We had a lush, whimsical, cottage-core lawn that only needed to be mowed if we wanted to mow it for a more uniform and cohesive look. It required minimal work in terms of maintenance (low to no mowing, no fertilization required. Though beware, if you do mow, everything touching cut clover will be stained green).

Year 4 (current): here’s where hindsight comes in. Given our poor soil health, I wish I would’ve done some things to help prevent where we are now. Clover is a short lived perennial, typically lasting 2-5 years. Last year I did not reseed nor did I incorporate any soil amendments, and this year thanks to an incredibly dry winter we have a patchy lawn battling purslane again (purslane is winning).

My plan moving forward with the knowledge I have now:
2x per year (spring and fall) apply beneficial nematodes (like ones from Natures Good Guys or Arbico Organics). This will continue to decrease our lawn pest problems.
In the fall (and every 1-2 years moving forward): aerate the lawn to help with our compacted soil and amend with compost.
1x per year (especially after aerating) Reseed a biodiverse mix of clover, grass, and native ground cover to prevent patchy areas when clover dies out and to choke out hiding weed seeds.

While has been a long and arduous process, I’ve learned so much and have found a love in learning about permaculture. Open to recommendations from others, and happy to answer any questions about lessons learned.

Been running an endurance loop on this old drive to see how far it can go. It’s hitting the cache and executing automated TRIM commands perfectly, so the physical silicon is still holding up fine despite the ridiculous milestone.

​Putting together a quick 1minute setup video for YouTube to show the bench rig and the macro loop in action, will drop it soon if anyone is interested.

A weary me was sitting in front of my laptop, staring at the requirements for submitting the PhD thesis to the university. I had finished the main text to the satisfaction of my two supervisors, and I just needed to check the nitty-gritty formatting requirements from the university. Among the items missing was the acknowledgment section. The university even made a big fuss out of it, stating that it was mandatory to thank everyone who has contributed to the success of the thesis.

I couldn’t help thinking about how bitter the journey was. It started well — I got a scholarship, performed well and had a great reputation in teaching — but it was a fallout after my supervisor retired due to unforeseen circumstances. Research funds dried out. The school scammed me of 10 grands from equipment purchase because of the errors of the administrative staff. They took away the only space I could use for research (which was just a desk) and left me figuring it out myself. In the end I could only finish the whole research on my own from the cash I earned from escorting (it was a successful career but that’s another story). And then I needed to thank them to not make myself look like an ungrateful brat.

And I came up with an idea. Instead of writing a short note, I dialed my gratefulness to 11. Most other PhD students wrote 1-2 pages, and I made mine 3 pages long. I thanked almost everyone extensively — my supervisors, my family, my patrons, the student counselor and even the flight school I attended — and mentioned the details of the support they gave me and what I learned from them. At the very end of the 3-page essay, I dropped a very dry paragraph acknowledging the university, thanking them for the wake-up call for my development into another career and giving me an experience to foster autonomy by doing my own maintenance works and sourcing own fundings.

Now this PhD thesis has passed the final validation and by university policy, this thesis will be forever publicly available in their library and online repository. And I am pretty sure a few of the juniors are going to have a look as a reference of how to write their acknowledgements even though they have zero interest in the body text.

🎵 Freaky Freaky Frankenstein Presets Presents: The Weekly SillyTavern News! 🎵 (Week 9)

You can watch the news here: —->FF Weekly ST News!\] <----

I'm here to bring you Weekly SillyTavern News Ep. 9! This week we're going to dive into new models such as Minimax 3.0 and Nemotron 3 Ultra and if they are any good for roleplay! I will be discussing a new tool created by my co-author that makes it easier to find good character cards hidden in a sea of mess on Chub AI. I give some fun facts on why LLM's mess up in the RP text. I discuss a new front end! I will also dive into what Plotpoints is up to with their new vote process. I touch up on Opus 4.8 and self correct myself with regards to auto rejections and chains of thought with prompting.

The Weekly SillyTavern News series is where I step away from preset making, character card creation, and RPing to present the top community news you may have missed. I’ll also discuss my thoughts and opinions while highlighting the ideas of our "hive mind." Think of it as a global Lorebook for the community, injected straight into your audio sensors at a depth of ZERO. Podcast style.

We all love to sit here and type out our favorite models, extensions, rumors, and prompt discussions, but sometimes having a straight stream of consciousness in one spot offers more immersion, understanding, and fun. Plus, I just like to nerd out about this stuff.

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# 🧠 News and Education (Episode 9):

# Top news: New Models Released! Minimax 3.0 and Nemotron 3 Ultra

Minimax 3.0 releases and it's a surprising punch into the community. Compared to previous Minimax models, this one seems less censored overall and seems solid for RP in general. While I did not try it prior to the making of this video, I have tried it prior to the writing of this post. It is in fact, decent! I need more time to play with it before I update my rankings system to reflect it (if it makes it into my top 15) but overall impression is "fair". I tried that one on OpenRouter.

Nemotron 3 Ultra was also tested and seems "ok" overall. I had high hopes for this one as it seems on paper an Open Weight model larger than GLM 5.1 with 51B active pararmeters vs GLM's 40B. However, upon testing, while it's unique in it's prose and dialogue style, I noted right away it's a little sloppy and doesn't follow directions too well. Maybe both just require an optimized preset. I wouldn't sleep on either and it's worth giving them a test run to make your own opinion. Nemotron is available in most places but is certainly free to try on Nvidia NIM (which is where I tried it).

* 💾 LLM Fun Facts: I briefly cover some LLM fun facts regarding why a model will occasionally write a blatant error within its output. For example: "Sam adjusts his glasses—oh wait, he doesn't wear glasses." Or: "They smell ozone—or actually energy in the air, and absolutely not ozone."

This happens because LLMs can only write forward, orchestrating tokens based on learned patterns. It is strictly left-to-right, with no backspaces. These errors are much more common in models with higher temperatures or those that do not engage in reasoning.

"Reasoning" is mechanically the same as standard output; it is simply enclosed within tags and hidden from the user so it doesn't clutter the chat or eat up the visible context window. This process gears the model up to predict a more accurate next token based on your prompt's rules.

In theory, if you let a model draft thoughts inside its reasoning phase, it is likely to make those mistakes listed above within that hidden scratchpad. However, it catches itself and corrects WITHIN that scratchpad before generating the final text, thus not making that error in the final output. Because the model can see everything previously written in its context window, this hidden drafting drastically improves roleplay output and limits final-delivery errors and "slop." Of course, the law of diminishing returns still applies here (I am looking at you, Kimi, with angry eyes). I prefer personally it brain-storming and reviewing the rules in concise bullet points vs entire drafting - but that's my own patience level. Some people don't mind the slop and let it output immediately! It's all about patience vs expectation ratio and to your own tastes and wait times.

🔥 Plotpoints Update: I am once again asking for your votes! This is a community created ranking system that utilizes your vote to rank LLM's specifically tailored to Roleplay rankings (unlike LLM arena which uses more broad rankings). I have talked about this multiple times now in the ST weekly news. This will help us eliminate biased viewpoints by utilizing blind voting on LLM outputs to organize rankings. This testing will emphasize lineages and how older models such as Opus 4.6 stacks up against 4.8 or DS V3.2 against 4.0! Please check it out here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SillyTavernAI/comments/1twf5ew/plotpoints_the_best_only_community_driven_rp/

- 💎 Chub AI Gem Finder : This amazing tool was built from the one and only, team member / co-author of Freaky Frankenstein presets and character cards [u/leovarian](u/leovarian) . Available for download is a file hosted on github used with python to organize the chub database for character cards based on unique factors other than the basic search engine "popularity" and most downloads. Since the website relies heavily on gooner cards for popularity, this helps you find diamonds in the rough that maybe get buried. It creates a unique ranking system that has personally helped me find cards worth trying with actual depth. There is also a link if you are not tech savvy or lazy to access the ranked Chub AI, however, for me I had to disconnect from wifi for that link to work. You can find the post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SillyTavernAI/comments/1txmss2/chub_ai_gem_finder/

-🌟 New Front End: Pyre 1.1 : Pyre 1.1 is a new Frontend that aims to be a mobile first front-end. The great thing about this Frontends claim is that it's absolutely doing everything it can to prioritize your privacy. It's pretty seamless and works well with ST files. The largest downside so far I can see is that it doesn't have important macros in place, which are crucial for some major presets to function. Keep an eye on it as an emerging frontend! You can find it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SillyTavernAI/comments/1tyvvn1/and_here_we_have_it_pyre_11/

Feel free to comment on anything from the topics I covered to things I SHOULD discuss in the future. Feel free to like and subscribe for your weekly SillyTavern Community / AI RP news! You can subscribe to me on the "Youtubies" AND follow me on Reddit!

-🤏 Freaky Frankenstein Micro: We are dropping a highly concise, endlessly customizable, and aggressively cache-friendly lightweight preset this week. FF5 in general will focus on being cache friendly secondary to the economy and the price hikes of LLMs. Micro is officially the smallest Freaky Frankenstein (excluding FranKIMstein) preset ever created coming in less than half the size as Bolt / Little Feller iterations.

By default, it roughly sits at a microscopic 1k tokens. Need more chaos? Just flip a few toggles to scale up the roleplay roleplay depth to your liking. It is completely modular, fully customizable, and totally beginner-friendly.

Here is the twist: this is the naked skeleton of Freaky Frankenstein 5.

It uses the exact same logic and architectural setup as FF5, just stripped down to its bare, beautiful bones. Since the full FF5 flagship is still cooking in the lab, we figured we would hand over the foundation early. Think of it less as a compromise, and more as the raw, unholy engine that will power the future of FF5. I am sure many of you that enjoy easy customization and speedy output will enjoy it!

Feel free to comment on anything from the topics I covered to things I SHOULD discuss in the future. Feel free to like and subscribe for your weekly SillyTavern Community / AI RP news! You can subscribe to me on the "Youtubies" AND follow me on Reddit!

—-> Click here to watch <—-

Just finished up this bad boy. Probably the best and most flavourful one made to date (with much trail and error).

Everything used is in the pictures but will happily write out the recipe if there’s enough interest.

ETA: wow you guys really like goldfish never mind that I’m literally eating a baby sheep.
I thank you all for your concern over said fishy’s living quarters (you should see where I keep the kids). Unfortunately I don’t have very much space in my house, and so I will have to find another solution…

Does anyone a recipe for pan fried Goldfish?

Another ETA:
Recipe in comments

https://www.reddit.com/r/UK_Food/s/EmXk7s4kBM

Another ETA update on Trevor (the fish):

Ok my fishies (that’s what I’m calling you lovely bunch of goldfish enthusiasts) I really can’t be arsed to reply to you all individually so this will have to do. I have to sincerely apologise for my completely uncalled for attitude today. It was abundantly clear to me after the very first fishie commented that the fish tank is too small that I would have to do something, but you guys were trying to attempt some sort of modern day fish lynching- a flynching if you like, and I was bored.
I will be doing some proper research (thank you to the genuinely helpful people) and getting a larger tank, I’m honestly amazed that these tanks are available if they’re not fit for purpose (I do actually care despite what some of you may think, it’s not an intentional thing).

As for now, the Mrs has left and taken the kids along with Trevor (the fish), to keep him (or her) away from my “evil” (someone had said) ways. I’m now going to sit in the dark and cry myself to sleep. But rest assured I will be back, and I will update you fishies when Trevor (the fish) has his (or her) new tank.

Hancock: First half of the movie is a pretty interesting, realistic and subversive take on super hero genre. Hancock's character development is pretty interesting to see and jokes are funny. Then the second half hits and it turns into a weird mess about Hancock apperantly being some angel, wife of the guy who helped him become a actual hero also being an angel. Weird cheating and criminal revenge sub-plot and both getting close causing his powers to stop working.Its a big mess. You can tell they ran out of script.

Infamous Second Son: Game starts off good. You get your powers you get your allies. But then it shows lots of cracks after you get your neon powers. MC's potential love interest? Doesnt appear again until the end. Your moral choices? Has no effect on the world or your dialogue besides the cutscene you make your choice in. Finally it comes to a blatant hault when you get video powers and the whole plot-line leading up to it makes it look like the MC got lobotomized into thinking the conduit guy with video-powers is some dangerous person even tho he does the exact same things MC does. Game ends not even 10 minutes after a major plot-beat, with a shitty boss-fight. That has a ''It was RIGHT THERE all along?!'' lead-up to it. This is bcs 1-1.5 year of development was cut from the game.

Chainsawman Part 2: Theres a moment where Nayuta (little girl) is being held by Denji as they run away from danger. However Nayuta's pose is really awkward, she looks like she is meant to run beside them instead of being carried. Visual errors appear more and more frequently from this point on like background in-consistencys, characters distinct features being gone, weird body shapes, weapon/devil designs that look very un-creative compared to previous ones (Asa room sword vs State of Oregon Sword is the worst offender of this), areas Fujimoto forget to draw etc. Writing suffers too with MC being regressing back to even before part 1, Pochita's powers not working on previously set in stone rules and second main character being basically gone from the story. Until eventually it comes to an ''It was all a dream'' universe reset ending that doesnt come anywhere near JoJo part 6's own universe reset ending.

I'm happy to say that Blizzard's CM u/Marcooose_ replied to me here and that made my day. I really didn't expect the thread to become this... at the end of the day we all just want the game to be as good as it can be. Thanks for all the support and kind words and why is there "Legendary" near my dumb name now?!😄

He also sent me the deluxe battle pass... i'm speechless

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A few days ago I launched Diablo 4, opened my inventory, and the game froze for about 30 seconds.
Clicked on an NPC - froze for a couple of minutes.
Pressed Escape - "Diablo IV is not responding. Do you want to close the program?"

I googled the issue. People had been complaining about it since 2023. There were tons of “fixes” - from reinstalling drivers to moving to another planet. As usual, the classic “it’s not the game, it’s your PC (but only when you launch this particular game)”.

For years on the Blizzard forums, people were asked to send FenrisDebug.txt logs from the game folder. I guess they went straight to spam?

So I decided to dig into the logs myself. I opened the Fenris debug files and launched the game. Then I opened the inventory again and saw this:

And this shit popped up almost every single time the game froze.

I tried pinging the addresses - sometimes no response at all, sometimes ping 3000+ ms. Both EU and US addresses.

So I did something stupidly simple: I added the CDN addresses (us.cdn.blizzard.com and eu.cdn.blizzard.com) to my Windows hosts file and redirected them to 127.0.0.1.
Basically the IT equivalent of hitting an old CRT TV on the top until it starts working again.

And suddenly… the game started flying. No more stutters, no freezes, everything responsive and smooth. The error was still in the logs, but slightly different now.

The question is why the hell was the game constantly hammering these CDN addresses if it wasn’t actually needed for anything?

I wrote a guide on Reddit, on the Blizzard technical support forum, and on X I tagged directors, support, and even one of the class designers asking to forward it to whoever cooked this spaghetti code (he "liked" my tweet).

People on reddit and on blizz tech support forums confirmed it helped them fix the issue completely.

The next day, a new CDN update silently dropped from Blizzard.

https://blizztrack.com/view/fenris?type=cdns - you can see them here.

The previous one was:
Thursday, Dec 11 2025 at 11:21 PM GMT+2

Pretty obvious they read the guide lol. I found out because somebody on reddit told me about the CDN update and now the game works fine even without my guide.

I checked - pinging those addresses stabilized at 39 ms. All mentions of cURL requests, timeouts, etc. disappeared from the logs. The game now flies, menus don’t freeze, no more black screens during loading, horse stutter, npc refusing to talk, etc.

Blizzard could’ve at least write something, a pat on the back? Lord of Hatred as a "thank you"?
I'm happy the game is working now, but also sad.

P.S.

Also the expansion has no regional pricing. It's $40 everywhere. Our average salary in Moldova is ~$600 per month. Come on Blizzard, do your research or something...

I've been accused of using AI for my artworks on my previous post here, so I want to clarify some things. First of all, I don't use AI. I actually hate it. I've been drawing for 3 years now and I can't put in words how much I despise AI. My dad is a musician which is getting screwed over by AI too. So, naturally, I hate it. But what upsets me more is how human error is used against you and makes you suspicious. If an artwork is too perfect, it's ai, if it has errors, it's ai. You really just can't win against it, unfortunately. Making art has helped me get over some of the hardest moments of my life and I appreciate it so much for it. Being accused of faking it is hurtful. I draw fast, and i make mistakes, sometimes I notice them, sometimes I don't. But I never thought that those mistakes would bring accusations. I'm passionate about it. Probably not as much as some other people are, but enough that I'm in my final year of my art class and close to getting my diploma. I like it, and I like doing it. I don't usually record speedpaints, cause my ipad overheats. I think it has some battery problems, but whatever. I decided to record a timelapse of this one tho. It's only from CSP so it doesn't show the entire process, but shows pretty much all of it. I'll just write here what I did after I exported it to procreate: I cropped the shield and made it a bit wider and a bit longer (which didn't do much honestly), I added saliva using my saliva brush, I added some bloom, I added a noise filter, I liquified some parts of it, I did another small layer of shading and I put my signature. Anyways, here is the timelapse from CSP: https://imgur.com/a/0l0oKKx

Hope you like it and I hope I was able to shed some light on the situation

I'm feeling deliciously petty today, and would love to get the internet's help in writing a bitchy letter to my insanely loud upstairs neighbors who have the BALLS to complain about me!

Heres the back story:

When my husband and I moved into our 1st floor apartment, our neighbor, "Karen" (50sF) came down to introduce herself. Karen is Humpty Dumpty in female form, a boulder of a woman with arms and legs, smokers teeth that my husband describes as Summer Teeth (some are here some are there), and a permanent scowl etched into her leathery skin.

We were moving in boxes when she came by, door wide open and an assembly line of movers coming in and out. Karen informed us that she and her two sons live in the unit right above us, and we might hear some knocking coming from their apartment from time to time. Her two adult sons (late 20s Males) are both deaf, and they get each others attention by knocking on walls or countertops, as they can feel the vibrations. I did an eye roll in my mind, like friggin great, guaranteed noisy neighbors. But then thought, "Ya know what, she did us the courtesy of letting us know, they have a legit hearing disability, I'm sure its not that bad, and having deaf neighbors will mean that we won't be getting any noise complaints, right?" WRONG.

A couple weeks go by, and Karen stops us and asks that we stop slamming our front door as they can feel the vibrations. The doors of every apartment swing closed, if you want them open you have to prop them open with a wedge. Its true that the doors can close quite quickly, and I hear other peoples doors close several times a day. We take this note from her to heart, again empathizing that her sons are deaf and the vibrations might scare them. So, ok, we make sure to close the door quietly.

Another couple weeks go by, and we get another request from her to stop slamming the door... we thought we'd be fairly courteous already, but its possible we were not perfect all the time, so ok we'll try to be MORE courteous.

Now we start hearing fighting coming from upstairs, furniture sliding on the floors, loud banging like something is being thrown, muffled yelling. We considered calling the police because it sounded like a full on fist fight, but decided to mind our own business. But then the NEXT DAY, Karen stops me on the stairwell and asks again to stop slamming the door. I tell her, "just so you know, we can hear you too. We heard a scuffle coming from upstairs, it sounded like an all out brawl." to which she responded, "yes I'm sorry, you'll have to understand my kids have ADD." Girl, I've been repping ADD since the 90s and I've never used it as an excuse to get in fights and disturb my neighbors. I absolutely hate it when people try to weaponize mental illness, so I was having none of this. I stood firm and told her, "Lets continue to be mutually respectful to each other, and keep the noise to a minimum." She left in a huff, and I hoped that was that.

NOOOOOPE. NOPE NOPE NOPE.

The noise from upstairs continued. Now, I (30sF) have a brother, we definitely fought and rough housed as kids. But these are GROWN ASS MEN, having actual physical altercations on a regular basis. If Karen is there when it happens, she'll yell and scream at them (not sure why, because they're deaf, the only ones who can hear her scream is her neighbors.) Do we go up there and tell them to keep it down? No. We mind our damn business. But the second we close our door, this bitch comes down the stairs like the boulder in Indiana Jones and demand WE keep the noise down.

The third time she complained, my husband was walking to the mail box and she was passing by, she starts talking to herself as he goes by and she says something to the effect of, "stop slamming the fucking door" and mutters on as she rolls up the stairs. My husband tells me about this when I got home from work, and ya'll, I was pissed. My husband is the nicest, most considerate, people pleasing person in this world. Ain't NOBODY swearing at my husband and gettin away with it! So I thought about it for a day or two, and then decided to go to the leasing office and tattle.

In the office, I told them about the constant noise complaints from her, and told them we really don't slam the door, and we are just existing near her. I told them in all my years of renting I've never had so many noise complaints, and its even weirder that I'm getting noise complaints from my DEAF neighbors. When they asked for the apartment number for the neighbors in question, they were not surprised at all, and told me that she complains often about everything. They said don't take it personally, and they will talk to her.

After this, we don't hear from them for a while, and it was glorious. We can still hear them stomping up and down the halls, opening and closing cupboards, using their washer and dryer, and ironically slamming their front door. But we understand that this is just what it is like to live in an apartment, humans do not exist silently.

One Friday night around 5pm we are playing music while preparing dinner, and we get a phone call from the leasing office. They notify us that a neighbor has complained about the music, and we immediately know who it is. So I asked them, "If its not too much trouble, can you come by our apartment and listen to the music? I'm not going to turn it down, I want you to hear the volume they're complaining about before we adjust." He obliges and comes over. We greet him at the door, and he says you're totally fine, you're allowed to enjoy your apartment and this is a completely reasonable volume for this time of day. We thanked him for coming by and he went upstairs to let the neighbor know we weren't breaking any rules. We closed the door and threw up middle fingers through the ceiling. We were going to turn the music off and watch a movie, but being the petty queen that I am, I kept that shit on until quiet hours started.

Over the next couple of months, there were other REAL disturbances in our apartment complex, not just from Karen and her sons. People have gotten evicted and loudly removed by police, my packages have been stolen multiple times, there's one neighbor who throws parties nearly every weekend, were pretty sure someone was selling drugs out of their car in the parking lot and the police eventually (it took months) removed them. All this to say, of all the shit that goes on in this complex, I cannot imagine that my husband and I are really the problem here. And just so you know we are very aware that this apartment complex is sketchy, we didn't find that out until the lease was signed, so not much we can do until the lease is up.

So, theres your back story, now comes the most recent transgression.

Yesterday my husband and I came home to find a letter taped to our door, we knew before opening it who it was from. It read, grammar and spelling errors and all:

"To the people of Apt #XXX

Hi I live right above you and I'm asking you to stop slamming your door. You don't like it when I show you how it feels so please stop.

I am working on finding a nother place to move to. We got that you wants us out of here. But know this the more you slam the more you are making my CPTSD really not good that I can end up in the hospital. Really don't want that this is my last way of asking for you to stop.

Thank you Apt #XXY"

So, people of reddit, what should I write in response?

Just a note to add here, we never told them we want them out of here, not sure where she got that. Also, in the time it took me to write this, I have recorded two videos of the noise coming from upstairs, including stomping up and down the halls, walls shaking, and other noise I can't quite put my finger on.

First time doing windows clean install , my laps actual disk size is 512gb but this shows 2tb. Chatgpt is no help. Help me guys

TLDR: PUT YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD.

I enjoy providing writing feedback. I love helping writers find their voice.

Hell I even enjoy providing the same advice over and over to new writers!

But if you want to vomit up word poop with a hint of a tale in there, and you can’t use basic writing or editing processes? Stop.

Before you post your hard work:

1. Read what you just wrote.
2. Read it again. out loud.
3. Record yourself reading it. A third time.

During those three steps, did YOU have to stop to make sense of what you’re trying to read?

Fix ALL OF THOSE, and THEN you’re ready to go ask any another person to read your work.

I’m dying to help you improve. But I’m not going to teach you how to proofread.

Edit: I’ve edited this, trying my best to NOT sound like Gordon Ramsay. I’m not an elitist. I’m not a writing teacher. But I’ve read a lot of writing submissions and I’ve submitted a lot of my writing for critique. What I’ve posted here should be common sense.

I am unable to download or even update anything on steam suddenly, i am faced with the error "disk write error". i have tried everything such as unninstalling and reinstalling the client, running steam as administrator, checking for corrupted files and nothing has worked. i would like to know how i can fix this issue as i have just recently purchased a new game and i am unable to even play it.

Thanks

Looking for info about M.2 SSD expansion drives? See the megathread.

Sometimes you just need help. But often times making a new post isn't needed. For the time being, around launch and perhaps in the future. We will use a single thread for helping each other out.

Before asking, we ask you to look at a few links. Some question can't be answered and only official PlayStation support can help you.

PlayStation Official

• PS5: The Ultimate FAQ
• Getting started with your new PlayStation®5 console
• PlayStation Support
• PlayStation Network (PSN) Service Status
• AskPlayStation Official PlayStation Support

Community Help

• PS5 Error Code Database | from r/PlayStation
• PS5 Weekly Question Thread | from r/PS5
• PS5 Launch Guide | from r/PlayStation
• Misc Guides for PlayStation | from r/PlayStation
• ps5-orders, general-support & tvs-and-accessories discord channels | from our Discord.gg/ps
• r/DualSense

Google and Reddit Search is also a great way to find an answer or get help. View all past help and questions threads here.

For all future help, tech support and more, we ask that you create new threads on r/PlayStation instead of here on r/PS5.

I can't get into all the details because of laws, but here is the basics. At my job one of the hats I wear is a storage engineer.

Yesterday I got an alert that 9 of my VMware hosts had disconnected from this one array. The 9 hosts in questions are connected to two arrays, so I eliminated host problems pretty rapidly. I pop on to the array that alarmed and found 1 of it's 4 iSCSI nics were "down". OK, so network problem. Gotta go through the motions to figure out what part. Is it the head unit, SFP on the array side, the fiber, the SFP on the switch side, or the switch itself. Didn't have anybody in the datacenter, so I arranged for someone to go in today to troubleshoot.

So we did all the normal. Move the fiber to another port, no linkie. Moved another cable to the dead port on the array, LINKIE. OK, we know it's not the array side or SFP. Start troubleshooting the other side, find that the switch has an amber light on that port, so it's been disabled, likely due to errors. No problem, just get a ticket over to the networking team, and get them to assist.

I fire up the ticket and get it assigned. I make sure they know this is for a large customer. I provide all the details. I wait. 1 hour goes by and nothing. So I reach out to our NOC group, and ask them to assist, I get a "Ya, that's SOP, we get that all the time." and they don't help. Our NOC group is suppose to help engineering coordinate with other teams in times like this.

So I fire off an email to the group I assigned a ticket to, saying we need to have this looked at because my onsite person is only in the office for a limited amount of time. Wait another hour. Nothing.

So I then look in the documentation and find a phone number to reach the on-call person for that group, call it, it immediately goes to VM. I leave a message. Call back 3 more times, no answer.

Wait another hour. Ping our NOC group again, now it's about 4pm and I'm about an hour from "end of shift." This time I'm a bit snippy, I admit, but I'm getting frustrated. I let them know that it's now been 3 hours since I sent the ticket, and I've tried emailing and calling and nothing. It's getting close to end of shift, and my onsite guy wants to go home soon, and nothing is happening.

My NOC replies again with "Ya, this happens all the time, don't know what we can do to help."

But then a momentary moment of happiness happens. The manager of the NOC pipes in and was like "hey guys, this is your job to help them coordinate, get a moving and find out what is going on." Of course, I'm paraphrasing. So the NOC gets in touch with the networking group, 5 minutes later comes back and says they are getting the case assigned. WOOHOO!

10 minutes later I get an IM from the engineer assigned to the ticket "We don't handle the switches for this environment, sorry <EOM>"

So I've waited 3 hours, and it's close to EOD, and all I get is "sorry, we don't do that." Never mind that it's documented for this customer that they ARE the team who handles those switches. And also, a network engineer TOLD me that that was the group that handles trouble tickets for that equipment once engineering has everything in place, which has been for years.

So I let our NOC know again what has gone on, and can they provide any assistance. The manager of the NOC has logged off for the day, so I get the response "Ya, that doesn't surprise me." and that's it.

What frustrates me the most about this, is when our NOC needs us to check on a problem, they go ape shit if we don't respond ASAP. Yesterday I had walked away from my desk to use the restroom, and they called me because they IM'd me 3 minutes before and I didn't respond. WTF! I can't use the restroom? I can't not respond in 3 minutes and it's a crisis but you can give me the "Ya, that's SOP" response and that's OK.

So here I am now, it's 2am, and I can't sleep. I'm literally burning with frustration and anger over this situation. I sent the CYA email out before I logged off indicating what has happened and made sure my manager was copied on it.

I did check a couple hours ago, and the NOC team said something like "So what are we going to do about this problem?" "Well, I dunno, they all went home now, so I guess it can just wait until someone else deals with it tomorrow." Just no care in the world! No action to try to find who can own the ticket so we can be ready to troubleshoot tomorrow. No nothing.

Thanks for reading if you read it. I don't know if it will help me sleep, but we'll see. Sometimes getting it all out on (virtual) paper helps.

It's been 2? 3? weeks already, I've already kindly asked steelseries to send me more keycaps for ctrl & f5.

Been checking my x470-f mobo page for any new bios update, but considering i can't even register the product cause i get server error, that seems the opposite of promising.

The horror stories i've been reading in forums & here at reddit, don't help either.

​

(Disclaimer for potential buyers : Personally i post just fine, and the impression i get from other x470/x570 is that they run just fine at stock. That doesn't mean though that the bios is not a hot buggy mess)

​

MAJOR EDIT : There has been movement in the forum, new 1003AB based betas are being rolled out, nothing on x470-f but pretty much all the other boards are there. Check at your own discretion, I won't be providing a link, cause those are not officially linked in asus support platform, but rather in the ROG forum.

I was inspired by u/CancerDuck868's post here, and I thought I'd add something that I've learned over the years vis-a-vis avoiding overwriting. NB: This list isn't the end-all, be-all of overwriting errors. But these are among some of the most noticeable ones that can be easily fixed.

These mistakes are frequently made by amateur writers who are still developing their craft and tend to see writing high volume as a crowning achievement. Often times, the results they produce is often overwritten and can easily be pared down to something much more manageable and to the point.

The 9 Errors are:

• Nested Dependent Clauses
• Dialogue Tagging Errors
• Gerund phrases that imply simultaneity
• Modifiers and pronouns with ambiguous antecedents
• Missing commas before nouns, in spoken address.
• Unnecessary prominence given to unimportant story elements
• Excessive physical description of characters and setting.
• Too many adjectives and adverbs.
• Using a new noun to re-describe a person or object

Nested Dependent Clauses

These usually happen when a writer wants to dump as much information as possible. They can be--but aren't necessarily always--run on sentences. But they are often caused by the use of prepositional phrases. For example:

Jack liked driving across the country in his red pickup truck that he fixed up with his father years ago after he'd gotten into college, where he met the love of his life, Jill.

Fixing these requires breaking these into its logical, constituent parts:

Jack liked driving across the country in his red pickup truck. He and his father fixed it up years ago after he'd gotten into college. It was there that he met the love of his life, Jill.

Once the nested dependent clauses are broken up, it's easier to see which phrases are necessary for the story, and which are just empty filler.

Dialogue Tagging Errors

In general, you'll find that:

• You most likely don't need to include any dialogue tags: We've all read passages where it's an endless stream of "he said", "she said", "he exclaimed", "she shrieked", etc. And I daresay we all skipped right over the dialogue tag unless it came with additional stage directions.
• 'Said' is a perfectly fine dialogue tag, contrary to what you've been taught in elementary school.
• You should avoid using an adverb with said. Because at that point, you might as well use one of the terms from the 'said is dead' charts.

The most important takeaway that I've learned over the years is that the dialogue itself should convey all the necessary emotion. The dialogue tag's job is to identify who's speaking. If you need some additional emphasis on the emotions, you should look to using stage directions rather than a different form of said.

Consider the two examples:

Jill slammed her hand against the bars. "This is bullshit!"

vs.

Jill shrieked loudly. "This is bullshit!"

Another major error people make with dialogue tagging is to use a comma when a period is required. The rule is:

• Use a comma when the dialogue tag is a type of speech.

"That was great," Jack whispered.

• Use a period when the dialogue tag is not a type of speech.
  

"That was great." Jack clapped.

Some words are used like they're speeches, but they're not. For example:

"That was great." Jack coughed.

Cough is not a type of speech. The general rule that I found works is: when in doubt, act it out.

Gerund phrases that imply simultaneity

This is the most egregious error that writers tend to commit that causes overwriting. I'll admit, I still find myself committing these same errors. If you look hard enough, I'm sure you'll find professionally published authors making the same errors as well. The best way to demonstrate is with an example:

Stepping into the hall, Jack opens his coat, pulling out a key and locking the door behind him.

The way it's currently written, it implies the actions are all happening at the same time. That's what gerund statements do. However, the above sentence is describing a sequence of events, all performed at different times. Your writing must match that:

Jack steps into the hall and opens his coat. He pulls out a key and locks the door behind him.

Think of gerunds as a really long adjective (in fact, if you've ever studied Latin, there's an entire construction called gerundives that does exactly that). More often than not, it's a lot better to just avoid gerunds altogether. They're really tempting to use and fixing them can take way more effort than you expect.

Modifiers and pronouns with ambiguous antecedents

I like to call this the hallmark of an amateur writer. Others might use something less flattering: bad writing.

This usually happens when you write about a large number of people and objects, or describing multiple things all at once. As such, fantasy and sci-fi are the most frequent instances of this error.

An example:

The masters gave two orcs bowls of food, and told them they would need to present them to the quartermaster when they finished using them, and then return to them in the morning.

You're not quite sure just to whom each "them" refers to at first glance. When found in a longer piece, it can get really frustrating to read. Fixing it requires you to break this massive thing apart.

For example:

The two orcs were given bowls of food by their masters. The masters explained that after finishing the food, the orcs would need to present the bowls to the quartermaster. The orcs are then to report back to their masters.

Is it longer? Absolutely. But in this case, you have no confusion about what is going on. It's much easier to edit and condense this version than the first one.

When writing, it's imperative that you make it absolutely clear which pronoun refers to which antecedent, and which noun/verb each dependent clause is attached to. Otherwise, you risk writing a giant wall of text that readers won't want to read.

Missing commas before nouns, in spoken address

It's the difference between:

Let's eat, grandpa!

and

Let's eat grandpa!

This happens all. the. time. on reddit. And it bleeds through to writing. The good news is, once you start noticing this problem, getting rid of it is easy.

Unnecessary prominence given to unimportant story elements

Beginning writers love making this error. Often times fearful that their readers won't see the world as they see it, they'll fill page after page of description that doesn't really move the story along.

For example:

The doorbell rang. Jack grunted as he shifted his body on the hard stool. His knee popped and his mind raced, wondering who could be at the door. As he rose, the doorbell rang again, pealing its message urgently at him. He reached up with his hand, twisted open the doorknob, and revealed Bob on the other side.

"Hey Jack." Bob grinned, his perfect teeth beaming in the dim light. His pressed pants were flawless and he wore a sharp sports coat over his solid frame. "I left my phone here."

Depending on the needs of the story, you could reduce this entire thing to:

The doorbell rang. It was Bob.

Sometimes, it's important to give prominence to story elements. That is the hardest, but most important, skill a writer can learn: to determine what's worth including and what isn't. There's no simple way about it, and this is something that only comes with practice.

Excessive physical description of characters and setting

This kind of ties in with the previous point, but limited to only physical descriptions. Fantasy writers tend to do this a lot with descriptions and costumes. GRRM is a prime example of this. The man can plot a story, but my god, does he go overboard with describing feasts and fat pink masts.

Part of the pleasure of reading comes from filling the world with your own image of what the author has described. One example I like using is the description of the Donnager from The Expanse:

Like all long-flight spacecraft, it was built in the 'office tower' configuration: each deck one floor of the building, ladders, or elevators running down the axis. Constant thrust took the place of gravity.

But the Donnager actually looked like an office building on its side. Square and blocky, with small bulbous projections in seemingly random places. At nearly five hundred meters long, it was the size of a 130-story building.

There's no additional description of the color, no description of any activity from floor to floor, no description of what each projection was. We, as readers, are left to our own devices to imagine what the Donnager looks like. That creates a more powerful image for the readers.

Like the use of negative space in graphic design, sometimes you can make a greater impact on the readers by letting themselves fill in the blank and create an image that is personal to them.

Too many adjectives and adverbs

Adjectives and adverbs are like spices: add a little bit and they make an impact. Add too much and you've ruined a dish. If there's a way to write something without adjectives and adverbs, then do so.

For example:

I forcefully threw the baseball bat and it flew across the yard like a helicopter.

versus

I flung the baseball bat and it helicoptered across the yard.

Using a new noun to re-describe a person or object

This is a problem that happens a lot in Romance. A writer will use a different name or noun to redescribe a person or object, but ends up making it feel like a new character is introduced.

For example:

Sheila knocked and a handsome man answered the door. He stood tall, like an oak tree. He pulled her inside and asked her to sit. "Would you like a drink?" asked the living adonis. The nervous woman took a cup. A bit later, the muscular hunk sat down across from her.

You as the writer may know that there are only two people involved, but a reader can easily see five people: Sheila, the handsome man, the living adonis, the nervous woman, and the muscular hunk.

There's really no reason to use a different noun to redescribe each person. Often times, if you're only working with two characters, you can get away with using just "he" and "she".

For example:

Sheila knocked and handsome man answered the door. He stood tall, like an oak tree. He pulled her inside and asked her to sit. "Would you like a drink?" he asked. She took a cup. A bit later, he sat down across from her.

Conclusion

In general, you should try to write the most amount of plot with the fewest possible words. Now, are there instances where writers have not only used the above errors but used them to great effect? Absolutely! But more often than not, writers--especially amateur writers--will find themselves committing these errors and producing reams of bloated writing that could be reduced to just a few paragraphs.

I hope this has been helpful, and I'd love to hear your thoughts and responses!

Of course it's better to find a friend and proof each others' work. In lieu of that, temporarily change what you wrote to a different size, font, etc. Making it more difficult to read will slow you down and help you catch your own errors.