Welcome to the Hard Drive

Old writing blog: @elizaditton G/t sideblog: @smolgirlbigdreams Hey there! I'm Caitlyn, and welcome to my sideblog where I post just about anything. Expect memes, SpongeBob, UTAU and Vocaloid stuff. Currently rethinking my online presence so hang tight lol.

[caitlynwithalyn]

Aight so I forgot the email for my old sideblog... so I guess I'm using this one! (That's actually attached to my g/t sideblog!) Hopefully I'll actually be using this blog!

Here's what you can expect to see:

Behind the scenes on my projects!

Vocal synth stuff!

Memes!

My thoughts and random updates!

Doodles!

Why "caitlynwithalyn," you ask? Welllllll let's just say my childhood nickname (which I utterly despise when it's used when talking about me (it's ok if it's someone else's name)) is a short form of my regular name, "Caitlyn," with an added y. I still have relatives that call me the short name and it drives me absolutely bonkers. So, Caitlyn. With a lyn. Please don't forget the lyn I'm literally begging you I am on the floor crying coping seething and foaming at the mouth-

Ha ha! Anyway! :)

Here's my "professional" blog where I post Perthea stuff: @elizaditton

And my G/t sideblog: @smolgirlbigdreams

I hope you enjoy my posts! Please feel free to send asks! :D

[never-obsolete]

PC Mag - November 1999 Throw Out Your Software

[pavelow]

Hmmm

[yan-town]

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Honestly bizarre that tomatoes get all the flack for “not being a vegetable” because they're technically a fruit when:

A) There are a ton of fruits that get categorised as vegetables. Like this also applies to pumpkins, squashes and cucumbers.

B) The fucking mushrooms are standing there at the back of the crowd in this witch trial, trying to look inconspicuous because they somehow got into the vegetable club with no fucking controversy despite the fact that they're not even plants.

[mortimermcmirestinks]

"technically tomatoes are fruits--" THAT MUSHROOM OVER THERE IS MORE CLOSELY RELATED TO A FUCKING SHIH TZU THAN IT IS TO LITERALLY ANY PLANT

[teaboot]

@mortimermcmirestinks

[mortimermcmirestinks]

IS THAT FANART?

[teaboot]

it’s a warning

[jaypgartifacts]

an incomplete taxonomy of christmas music

[nonporous]

[gtlurker]

"Magic is just science we haven't explained."

No, science is Magic we HAVE explained. Have whimsy.

[skribblegurl]

some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.

[heywriters]

I couldn't remember the word "doorknob" ten minutes ago.

[bumblewyn]

ok but the onelook thesaurus will save your life, i literally could not live without this website

[breelandwalker]

REBLOG TO SAVE A WRITER'S LIFE

[myfairkatiecat]

LIFE SAVED

REBLOGGING TO SAVE ANOTHER WRITERS LIFE

[sirowsky]

I use this every time I sit down to write. It's the best tool in the world and I would be lost without it!

[veryluckyclovers]

[sadsongsandwaltzes]

Remember to leave out your 95 Reese’s for Martin Luther tonight

[yamada-ryo]

So it turns out the windows 11 'shut down' button no longer shuts down the computer entirely. I know this because task manager snitched on the runtime. So I shut it down and turn the main switch off and guess what happened on the next boot. American Megatrends. How the hell does windows 11 even manage to fuck up shutting down

[yamada-ryo]

Apparently it fucked with my bios settings? Now I can't even run my emulator.

[yamada-ryo]

This shit was NOT set to off before. This OS is a virus that fucks with your system. And not in a good way.

[switch-to-linux]

I have a suggestion

[h-nry]

[aeori-o]

For anyone who has any modern Windows PC: This has actually been broken since Windows 7! Maybe 8, I don't remember, I just remember being the exact same level of horrified as OP when I finally noticed an 'up time' of like three hundred some odd hours on my old PC despite it having been shut off regularly. Anyway.

The usual culprit of Windows not "fully" shutting down is "Fast Start Up" being turned on (which was and is "on" by default, because it does help a slow computer or a computer with a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) start up faster). Anyone with a modern Windows PC running an SSD as your boot drive should turn this off. The computer not fully shutting down can lead to weird compounded errors. So please follow along!

Type "power options" into your search bar and click the result, should look like this:

Which should open this:

Now we're going to back up to "Power Options" by clicking that in the upper bar or hitting "Cancel" on the bottom right. Now you should be here:

On the left hit "Choose what the power buttons do". Now you should be here:

Ignore the power button thing, but if your "Turn on fast startup (recommended)" is still on then turn it off! If yours is also greyed out make sure to hit that little blue thing with the shield near the top that says "Change settings that are currently unavailable" and then turn it off. Remember to hit "Save changes". Now your computer should fully shut off!

If you don't know how to check your "up time" to even know if this is a problem for you the easiest way to check is in the task manager. In the "performance" tab under your CPU at the bottom it will have an "Up time" like this:

(No comment on the SVM mode randomly disabling itself, it may or may not be related to this. I've never made use of and therefore never paid attention to mine and a lot of people aren't going to have it because that's AMD and while it's been more popular lately Intel is still really big out there. AMDs known to be quirky though (I say this as an AMD user) so who even knows what happened there.)

I know the post became memeing on windows but this can cause actual issues on modern hardware so figured I'd hijack in case it helps someone out. (It's something I have forgotten to check in the PCs I've helped friends make recently so I'm now having a "wuh oh" moment wondering if quirks one of them has been exhibiting is related to this.)

[caitlynwithalyn]

GUYS WAIT THERE'S MORE!!!!!!!!

I had to do this on a used Lenovo Legion 5 I bought to prevent the keyboard from breaking on startup. Went to power options an lo and behold there were no hibernate OR fast startup options. These Microsoft guys think they're so clever :/

Okay so here's how to undo their bamboozlelry and get these options back if you don't have them:

This is going to sound scary but I will hold your hand I promise. I do information technology for a living you can trust me

STEP ONE: Open the search on your PC. Search "cmd.exe". When it pops up in the results (THIS IS IMPORTANT OR IT WON'T WORK), right click the command prompt and select "Run as Administrator." A user account control menu will appear asking if you're sure you wanna do that. Hit Yes.

STEP TWO: You are about to enter some scary looking gobbeldy gook. Trust me. You will survive. Enter the following and then triple check it is correct before hitting enter:

powercfg /hibernate on

STEP THREE: Hit Enter. After a second or two you should get a message that says you were successful. Once you get this message, go back to your power options (you may need to reopen it if it wasn't closed before) and the options should be there!!! Now you can disable that fast boot crap.

Congration you done it!!!!!! I'm so proud of you. ☺️ Have a cookie: 🍪

[and-corn]

[a-chaotically-small-lunta]

So at work one day I was just doing my job and this lady with kid kid comes up to me and she goes sigh “sorry about this, but my daughter wants to give you something cause she like your shirt” then the daughter shyly gives me a tiny Rock and I Gus and say thank you. I spent HOURS thinking about it cause it was so cute. It’s also funny cause my shirt was just a simple red and white striped shirt that my coworkers always go “hey there Waldo” when I where it. But this little girl gave me a rock cause she liked it and I’m just

Look at this lil rock

I love it and I will TREASURE IT!!!

[teaboot]

I just reada really good fic but halfway through I realized "oh shit this is really familiar.... didn't I write something like this once?" And as I kept reading I kept predicting what happened next and the further I went the more convinced I was that they'd ripped off my story-

like, copied the ENTIRE plot and re-written it, just better than I had? The characters were more fleshed-out than mine were, and the POV was more interesting, and the pace made more sense- but it was MY STORY?

So close to the end I was like "holy shit.. do I message them? Ask if my story inspired theirs? Should I be angry? Flattered?" Cause their tags and description didn't mention me AT ALL, which, sure, it's fanfiction to begin with, but if you're using my work than at least credit me as inspo, right? Just to be courteous?

But I get to the end of the final chapter, and it's not finished, and I'm kind of disappointed cause I never finished my story and I was really immersed in their version now and had been looking forwards to seeing how they tied up my loose ends- so I scroll to the bottom to leave a comment, and.

It's MY URL.

IT WAS MY STORY THE WHOLE TIME.

THE ONE *I WROTE*.

In *2013*.

And FORGOT ABOUT

BECAUSE I WAS SO INSECURE ABOUT MY SLOPPY, SHALLOW, AMETEUR WRITING

And I'm just sitting here now staring into space thinking about every shitty story I've ever written now like

IT WAS ALL GOOD?

IT WAS GOOD THIS WHOLE DAMN TIME??

I'M A GOOD WRITER?????

[teaboot]

I’m gonna shit my entire pant

[punchdrunkdolly]

i exist and i love you

[caitlynwithalyn]

I think someone else posted something similar but I'm thinking about the time I was playing Mario Galaxy 2 as a kid and asked my mom what "Yoshi" meant in English, and she said it was the Japanese equivalent of "John." I think she meant it was just a common name but kid me thought for a while Yoshi's name in English was actually supposed to be John

So my brother and I have been joking about this recently while playing Mario Kart. We've idled on the menu by ourselves and have just been like "join me John" to each other and "I'm gonna be Navy Blue John today," it's been amazing

I also happen to have as part of Perthea/Too Small To Be Afraid an OC named John, who is associated with the color red, which makes it even funnier when one of us plays as red Yoshi-- I mean John. Add to this his identical twin brother Derrick being associated with yellow, so then my brother will be playing as yellow Yoshi John and I'm just like "I'M COMING FOR YOU YELLOW JOHN" and I can imagine Derrick dying a little 🤣

Like please I can imagine a scenario with this I need to make this a comic 😭

[xenosaurus]

I turn 30 next month so here’s what I learned in my 20s:

—don’t work for startups, they’re always one ‘innovative idea’ away adding ‘sell your kidneys on the black market’ to your job description.

—keeping a collection of basic OTC medicine on you will save your life one day. I recommend Advil, Imodium, and TUMS.

—those little single-use glasses cleaning wipes are 1000% worth the money

—overly self-depreciating jokes just make people uncomfortable, wean yourself off of them

—you can buy dehydrated mini marshmallows in bulk online and they’re a godsend for hot cocoa

—people don’t care if you have fidget toys on your desk they just want to play with them

—try to go to bed BEFORE the existential ennui kicks in

[thelittleblackfox]

Also drink water and eat a plant

[liz-squids]

This is all GREAT. I turned 40 last week, so permit me to add what I learned in my 30s:

keep on not working for startups

sometimes there comes a point where the thing (fandom, hobby, friendship, romantic relationship) you loved no longer brings you joy. And that's okay. Try to mourn the loss, take joy in the memories, and don't burn any bridges in case ten years go by and you find yourself back in that fandom/hobby/relationship again

it turns out that (ugh) moderate regular exercise is (spit) good for you. The sooner you make it part of your life, the easier it'll be

related: if you throw yourself into a new exercise regime too hard and too fast, without stopping to rest or consider whether a particular move is good for you ... well, shoulder injuries are painful and consults with orthopedic surgeons are expensive

knees are bastards too

don't even get me started on ankles

there may come a time when your digestive system is too fragile for ibuprofin. I'm sorry

one day you're gonna wake up and realise you no longer give any fucks about some things that used to bother you

on the other hand, you might be alarmed to realise what you still give a fuck about

never get down on the floor without an exit strategy for getting back up

[covington-shenanigans]

I turn 50 this year. what I have learned in my 40s:

"loving yourself" is less of a feeling and more of an action. you can start doing it any time and it will make your life better and better as you go on

this will happen incrementally - be patient

along those lines, if you haven't started making an active effort to quit shit-talking yourself, suck it up and do it

no, shut up. do it. "but it's haaaaard!" don't care. do it.

whether you like it or not, you are mortal and you need to go to the doctor for an annual checkup

stretch regularly - your future self will thank you

at some point you will encounter people much younger than you arguing passionately and incorrectly about history you personally remember and experienced

this will be infuriating and annoying

otoh, most other things just... will not matter to you as much

at some point you will shift from wanting to go out to being like "eh" and deciding to stay in. this is okay.

you will have absolutely no idea what The Youth are talking about and you will not care

but if you keep your mind open to new ideas you'll never be irrelevant

your company still doesn't love you - don't give them more than they pay you for

get a fucking hobby, especially a hobby that involves physically creating/handling something and/or moving your body in physical space. it will do you more good than you can imagine

[atlinmerrick]

Just turned 60 and let me say:

Find joy, every kind, it's always worth it

I'm talking that massive, never-ending Discord chat with your bestie? The one that makes you giggle through the day? It's not a "waste of time," it's what time was made for

If that's fanfic for your favorite characters who never even met on screen celebrate that!

If that's building a tiny fleet of snake villagers for your snake town and they just cover your mantel hell yes!

If that's collecting pillows and making a fort of them every weekend I'll be right over

Feeling and sharing joy is the whole point

[cricketcat9]

This is too tempting…, so, I’m 74, and: don’t fund startups

Please keep stretching and exercise enough NOT to need an elaborate strategy to get up from the floor. IT MAY SAVE YOUR LIFE

Say bye to your employer as early as you possibly can, unless you really love your job. You won’t be sorry.

Keep doing the annual checkups 🙏🏼

Enjoy that fucking hobby you’ve acquired in your 50, or find something new. Do try new things & adventures.

[worldheritagepostorganization]

World Heritage Post

[sea-beam]

who is Electric Bill and why do we all have to keep paying him