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I recently went into my attic and pulled out my old 1990s 4-track Fostex X-26 tape recorder. I was hoping to transfer some of my old band tapes to the computer. Alas, it is dead. While it turns on, the motor appears frozen, and the device hums. (I don't mean there's line noise when you plug a speaker into it, I mean the device itself audibly hums, even when not using the tape controls.)

I have seen online that some people repair theirs. It's probably beyond my skill level to do so, though. (And I don't really want to do it myself.) I have contacted a few shops near me (Los Angeles), but have gotten no replies, unfortunately. I was wondering if anyone here knows of a good shop that would repair an older device like this.

I have also contacted some places that claim to do cassette to digital transfers, but none have replied to my questions about whether they can deal with a 4-track recording. Also, just looking at their prices, it seems like it would cost significantly more to have them convert my tapes than to get the recorder repaired. (And I'm not sure what's on all of the tapes, so I don't really want to hand over some embarrassing practice tape or tape containing some out-of-context banter between takes on it.)

I've looked online for a used one, but all the listings I've found have been "for parts only", which is what mine would be if I were to sell it. And knowing how these things go, they probably all have the same broken part. So any recommendations are appreciated!

By B-Tier anime I mean anime that is "average", nothing that you would consider the best-anime-in-the-world, or so-bad-that-is-good, or something that you would have strong opinions about; but animes that are just "ok" but can hook you up from start to finish.

The best that would fit this category for me is Uninhabited Planet Survive, which is about some kids in the future who get space-shipwrecked in an unknown planet. The premise is so simple but every episode is enjoyable and have a decent overall story.
It's not the best anime in the world nor it tries to be (it's mostly aimed for children), the animation is ok, the soundtrack is nothing special, and the characters aren't very original but they feel real (every one with their own flaws).

So, it was an interesting experience for me to find an anime that fit this category, and I would love to read if anyone else feels the same with any other average anime.

I saw another Tildes thread that was discussing radio stations, and it threw me back to when I was very young and not totally digitized - the tactile feel of the dial as you click-click-click your way to your desired radio station, or the kind-of-subconcious-but-not-really memory you have of which buttons to press to jump to a saved frequency.

What do you miss about analog controls and devices? What do you think we're missing out on in the digital age? If we're missing out, did we still make a leap forward into the digital age?

Hey Tildes!

I need some help with a specific tech issue, and I'm sure someone here can help me do it way quicker than I would be able to on my own.

General Request

I'd like to be able to scan a directory and find all of the largest files of a specific type (e.g. the largest .jpg files). I'm running Pop!_OS and I'm assuming there's some way to do this in the terminal, or alternately some utility I could use.

More Specific Details

I'm cleaning up my digital music library, and I realized in setting it up I made some errors by saving some very high res cover art. Many of my Bandcamp purchases come with a cover.jpg or cover.png file that is several megabytes large. I made the mistake of writing these into the files (adding, for some albums, an extra, say, 100 MB across all tracks). They also take a lot longer to load when I pull them up in my cloud music player. I'd like to be able to identify the albums with the largest cover.* files so that I can go in and replace the album art with a lower res version and gain back all that wasted space lost to unnecessary duplication.

I could go folder by folder and take a look at the sizes of each, but I figure there's an easier way to surface the ones that need my attention. Everything I've looked at online so far has helped me figure out how to identify the biggest files in general, but all that will do is surface the actual audio files, when it's the cover art that needs the specific attention.

Also, in case it's necessary information, the directory structure is Music/[artist]/[album]/cover.*

Any help will be very appreciated!