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  • Showing only topics with the tag "ask.help". Back to normal view
    1. Anyone know of any good way to transfer Apple Music playlists onto a hard drive?

      EDIT: As one user pointed out, this is not about Apple Music the streaming platform, this is about basically itunes but itunes no longer technically exists as an application. So a little...

      EDIT: As one user pointed out, this is not about Apple Music the streaming platform, this is about basically itunes but itunes no longer technically exists as an application.

      So a little background: my father just died and a big part of his life was listening to music, for most of his life he's been building themed compilations of songs he liked using whatever medium was available, magnetic reel tapes in the '60s and '70s, then cassette tapes, then CDs, and of course playlists for the last 20 or so years. Now my mother and I would like to back up and save a lot of that work as those compilations have a lot of sentimental value and are pretty unique. There's lots of old obscure rhythm and blues and soul songs that you aren't really going to come across anywhere else. However, it's pretty much all locked into Apple Music, which isn't really a problem in the here and now, because we all have tended to use macs since my mother adopted them in the '80s or '90s. However, we don't really want that data just locked into a private ecosystem that has been getting more and more restricted and where we have less and less control.

      So I'm looking for a way to keep those playlists intact and export them out of Apple Music in a playable format and into a less locked in system to then back them up. Most of the music should be DRM free as a lot of it would have been taken off of CDs probably as MP3 files, though a lot of that would've happened 15+ years ago.

      Does anyone have any ideas about the best way to do that? I seem to be able to manually export each one into a .txt file but of course it's not really playable sound files. My tech skills are pretty limited, I have about an average amount of knowledge or even slightly more for someone my age (30s) who grew up around computers and the internet but I grew up after it necessary to have basic coding skills to use computers so my experience doing even basic coding or running scripts is pretty much nil. Any ideas would be appreciated.

      Edit: it’s version 1.0.6.10

      18 votes
    2. Tildes login session management?

      Does Tildes have any way for me to logout of a device I'm not currently using? I don't see any session management or "logout of all devices" in the settings. Would resetting my password invalidate...

      Does Tildes have any way for me to logout of a device I'm not currently using?

      • I don't see any session management or "logout of all devices" in the settings.
      • Would resetting my password invalidate all active sessions?
      • Do I need to email someone?
      21 votes
    3. The Netflix app on Android TV

      I have resubscribed to Netflix after cancelling about 6 months ago and I think there's been a change to the GUI which I really don't care for. I could be wrong but didn't the TV app use to work in...

      I have resubscribed to Netflix after cancelling about 6 months ago and I think there's been a change to the GUI which I really don't care for. I could be wrong but didn't the TV app use to work in the following way: after selecting a movie or television show, the first click would open a menu that would then allow further options including playing the movie or an episode of the TV show? I miss this. Currently, they're is one option at the to of my screen when I open the app that has a selectable 'More Info' option but everything else does not and the media just starts playing immediately upon selection.

      I miss the 'menu on first click' behavior. Is there a way to get back to that?

      Thanks.

      2 votes
    4. Request for help: Backing up NASA public databases

      TL;DR: NASA's public Planetary Data System is at risk of being shut down. Anyone have any ideas for backing it up? Hi everyone, Bit of a long-shot here, but I wanted to try on high-quality tildes...

      TL;DR: NASA's public Planetary Data System is at risk of being shut down. Anyone have any ideas for backing it up?

      Hi everyone,

      Bit of a long-shot here, but I wanted to try on high-quality tildes before jumping back into the cesspool of reddit. I'm posting it in ~science rather than ~space as I figure interest in backing up public data is broader than just the space community.

      I work regularly with NASA's Planetary Data System, or PDS. It's a massive (~3.5petabytes!!) archive of off-world scientific data (largely but not all imaging data). PDS is integral for scientific research - public and private - around the world, and is maintained, for free, by NASA (with support of a number of Academic institutions).

      The current state of affairs for NASA is grim:

      And as a result, I (and many of my industry friends) have become increasingly concerned that PDS will be taken down as NASA is increasingly torn down for spare parts and irreparably damaged. This administration seems bent on destroying all forms of recording-keeping and public science, so who knows how long PDS will be kept up. Once it's down, it'll be a nightmare to try and collect it all again from various sources. I suspect we'll permanently lose decades worth of data - PDS includes information going all the way back to the Apollo missions!

      As such, we've been pushing to back-up as much of PDS as we can, but have absolutely no hope of downloading it all within the next year or two, nevermind in a few months if the current cuts impact us soon.

      If you or someone you know would be interested in helping figure out how we can back-up PDS before it's too late, please let me know here or in a DM. I've already tried reaching out to the Internet Archive, but did not hear anything back from them.

      Edit: to clarify, the larger problem is download speeds - we've topped out at 20mb/s with 8 connections.

      61 votes
    5. How can I combine several ranked lists into one mega list?

      Hello smart ~comp people! I have a very basic, layman question. The kind of question I'm scared to make on Reddit and gettting flamed. Tildes is usually more patient ;) Suppose that I get get a...

      Hello smart ~comp people! I have a very basic, layman question. The kind of question I'm scared to make on Reddit and gettting flamed. Tildes is usually more patient ;)

      Suppose that I get get a bunch of "best of" lists for several videogames. Like "the best RPGs on the Nintendo DS" for example. The lists have varying lenghts. Is there an easy way for me to combine those lists into one that doesn't require (really) learning to program?

      I can follow instructions! Thanks!

      24 votes
    6. Show Tildes - Gametje V2

      Hi All, It's been coincidentally EXACTLY 1 year since my previous post about Gametje. I've been busy creating some new games and re-designing all the main pages with the help of a UI/UX designer....

      Hi All,
      It's been coincidentally EXACTLY 1 year since my previous post about Gametje. I've been busy creating some new games and re-designing all the main pages with the help of a UI/UX designer. I have posted a few updates in the weekly What programming/technical projects have you been working on? threads but I thought this milestone deserved its own post. I published the new site earlier this week and also migrated to a new backend server. Here's a refresher of what it is for those that may have missed my previous post a year ago. I also recently started working on it full-time last month after not really working on it much from January-June this year. You can read more in my recent blog post.

      What is it?

      It's a set of online games that can be played in person with a central screen (like a TV) or remotely via video chat. It's also available directly in Discord as an embedded activity. It is playable in 9 languages and doesn’t require any downloads. Most games revolve around creativity in some form. None of the games require fast reflexes and can be played by just about anyone.

      Where can I try it?

      https://gametje.com and directly on Discord

      You can use the "quick play" option to launch directly into the game as a guest.

      What's different from last year?

      There are 2 new games (Sync Think and Hide & Peek) and the main pages have been redesigned. I also implemented a game room concept which allows you to bounce between games without having to recreate it each time. I also integrated with Discord, which means you can play directly in their interface and also use Discord as an Identity Provider when logging in. The games themselves need a bit more polish (especially the two new ones) but overall they should work.

      What am I looking for?

      I'm trying to gather some feedback about the games and the overall concept. Are the games fun? Is this something you'd try with your family? What could be improved? Is the site clear about what you can/should do? Should I add some gameplay videos to give you a quicker feel for the games?

      I'm also open to game ideas, I have a few in the backlog already but need to focus more on the business side at the moment. Any advice on the games/marketing etc would be highly appreciated.

      Side note: I'm probably going to rename the whole site soon since the name Gametje doesn't exactly roll off the tongue and has caused some debate with Dutch speakers. The branding for the new name isn't quite ready. I am considering calling it GameBuffet as my avatars are all food related and its more of a "all you can play" offering for any games added to the platform.

      Thanks for reading.

      10 votes
    7. New linux user: dual boot Mint install fatal error

      Following this guide (linuxtechi) and got Mint Cinnamon 22.2 (Zara) - yes the iso is verified, created bootable USB with Etcher, and after the screen where I input user details and password, well...

      Following this guide (linuxtechi) and got Mint Cinnamon 22.2 (Zara) - yes the iso is verified, created bootable USB with Etcher, and after the screen where I input user details and password, well along the install process, got a fatal error (screenshot) :
      Unable to install GRUB in /dev/sda
      Executing 'grub-install/dev/sda' failed
      This is a fatal error
      Here is a screenshot of the GParted, fdisk, df, lsblk and what re-running the install now looks like.

      Restarting (after pulling out USB) , instead of going to Windows 10, goes to a black screen that says

      This is not a bootable disk. Please insert a bootable floppy and press any key to try again ...
      Turn it off, back on with USB, at least I can still boot from there into USB-space mint for now.

      I'm guessing this has something to do with some peculiar hardware/BIOS settings than the fault of Mint. Worth mentioning that this is a refurbished 2013 HP box (order excerpt) , with a windows 10 digital key license, and that upon every fresh boot up (first time ever to now) it shows a black-background screen that says

      The preboot authentication application cannot be found.
      Press any key to attempt boot without authenticating.
      so it's very possible something is bork'd from the get go or else it has some very unorthodox settings to begin with.

      Can confirm running Mint off the USB is fine. The screencaps are sent from Firefox within, and I'm super happy with how clean everything is. Just not sure what to do now. If it's complicated, I can try sending the box back for refund and try again with another brand new box. But now I'm shy about trying dual boot on my regular desktop.

      Questions after looking around for help:

      1. am I booting from UEFI or Legacy? I don't know -- how do I check ?
      2. Fatal error installation hard stop: is there a way to access a log of what happened ?
      3. How do I boot back into Windows 10 for now ? use GParted to delete all the "new" partitions and try booting again?

      Edit: gave up . It's now a Mint box. Goodbye Windows you can kiss my dust

      18 votes