百 · 10:06pm January 4th

Ah yes, my hundredth blogpost on Fimfiction.

I know I should try to find one single topic to spend it on, but I've got several going through my head and only one milestone to do it in, so. . . what the hell, I'll just talk about all of them.

Buckle up; this is a certified Anthology Blogpost.™

Back Up and Running

"Oh God," you're probably thinking, "it's another episode of 'Chicago Ted Bitches about His Computer/Hard Drive/Lack of Viable Backup Software.'" Not so! Perish the thought! I have arrived at a solution!

Though it was not without its trials and tribulations.

The Persistence of Memory

I don't remember when exactly it started; I think it was around a year ago: LibreOffice started crashing immediately on launch. I couldn't exactly function well without it as an author, both because I keep several important .odt documents, and because I use LibreOffice Writer as a middleman when crossposting between Scrivener and this site (doing it directly wipes the rich text formatting).

Eventually I managed to get it to work (don't ask me how I did; it was very convoluted and it escapes me anyway), but then I ran into another problem: it had a habit of hanging on autosave and hard-crashing back to the desktop, which happened especially if I left it to idle for too long. I've lost a good amount of work that way.

This should've been a wake-up call for me, but I assumed it was Windows being Windows and kept on trucking.

Then the BSODs started coming and they didn't stop coming. This was very unusual for me---the last one I had was in 2020---so I took it into the repair shop again. I thought I traced the cause to a faulty SSD---the one that shop installed back in October 2022, to replace the broken mechanical hard drive I once booted from (yes, I was insane enough to do that).

They called me back that afternoon: while they were on the phone with the SSD's manufacturer, it suddenly sprang back to life, apparently needing a discharge (for me, this just means unplugging it and holding down the power button for a few seconds). They updated its firmware, but otherwise left it untouched. They did jot down the serial number, so if it did stop working altogether it would make a quick RMA.

But it didn't stop the BSODs. No matter; I could simply discharge it again and it usually went away for a while. But eventually it stopped working. Even though the shop said they've never had a problem with that particular drive model before (Crucial MX500; mine is the 2 TB version), they simply RMAd it. And as it was still well under warranty, I'm down nothing for my trouble.

Or so I thought.

All was well for a week or two before the BSODs returned for a third time, and that was when I knew the SSD was not to blame after all. I still remember the issue vividly: I was playing The Talos Principle II, specifically when Prometheus appeared over New Jerusalem right at the start, and the purple particles making the whole thing hard-crash. You know the drill: I took it back in, and this time they ran the full battery of tests on it, checking every possible part. If a capacitor needed a firmware update, they checked that too.

Eventually the problem was traced to faulty RAM (although it was rather touch-and-go with the PSU). They took out the bad stick and left me running at 8 GB instead of 16 GB. It was fine for basic productivity, but the important thing was the BSODs finally stopped happening. Ever since my rig crossed the doorway, I've never seen one since.

But by then I had already built a reputation from a circle of friends for being able to fry electronics just by being near them. All manner of jokes were made about getting a job at Backblaze/Cloudflare/Comcast.

Of course, 8 GB of RAM just isn't appropriate for my workflow, so I ordered a new 16 GB kit from Amazon (this time choosing a different manufacturer), along with a new smaller CPU cooler since the old one was too large and had to cover some of the DIMM slots. Once they arrived, I threw them in and my problems were solved for good.

But amazingly, through all of this, I never lost any data. Both SSDs were perfectly fine, even the supposedly-"defective" one, but I always had a copy of all the irreplaceables sitting on my shelf. What solution did I finally, finally go with? I'll get to that, but first, the morals of the story:

Back up your stuff, whether it's a hard drive on your shelf, a NAS in the next room, or a cloud service like Backblaze. Ideally all three. For mission-critical data, there is no such thing as too many copies.
If you're building your own machine, vet your individual part manufacturers carefully.
(leading from 2) Don't buy RAM from PNY.

It's Time for the Moment You've Been Waiting For!

So what's the magical MacGuffin I used to back up my stuff through all of that, the same one I still used to this day? I hate to go back on my word in a previous blogpost, but it looks like I'm going to have to do just that.

If you're on macOS (unlike me), my previous point still stands: use Time Machine. It's just as idiotproof as the day it first came out (though I do have a short wishlist of enhancements, but I suspect it'll fall on deaf ears). Plug in a drive, point the program at it, let 'er rip.

If you're on Linux (also unlike me), I'm afraid I can't offer much advice on that, but since you're on Linux (Android/ChromeOS users notwithstanding), I assume you've got your own solutions all worked out. Feel free to chime in with a comment---I'm open to ideas, and I'm sure other users will benefit.

But if you're on Windows (like me)? Here it is; here is my solution, my unsponsored recommendation from me to you; and it is called

BVCKUP 2.

Pronounced like plain old /ˈbækˌʌp/ (not [ˈbʌkˌʌp] or God forbid [ˈbv̩ˌkʌp]), it's a very simple program designed to do one thing: copy files from one drive to another, and do it so well it makes any equivalent programs look amateur. To that end, it boasts ultra-clean code with minimal file size, system requirements,* and dependencies---there are splash screens bigger than it. Whether you need to back up just several dozen megabytes of irreplaceable baby photos or multiple terabytes of work datasets across two servers, it makes no difference---no job is too big or too small. It also works fast, copying multiple files simultaneously, saturating whatever connections you're using. And it has one of the most beautiful GUIs of any program out there, not just any backup program.

*Seriously, I got this thing to run in a Windows XP VM.

It's not just clean---this design language is outright sterile.

I'm just scratching the surface of what this program can do. Just scroll down their homepage and you can see everything it can offer.

One unexpected benefit of its minimalist engineering is the fact that it runs with very little memory and only sporadic disk usage---I regularly had it run while playing games like Death Stranding Director's Cut, Atomic Heart, and Scorn, and never once did I notice. This isn't just backup software, this is gaming backup software.

Now I know what you're thinking: "Ted, how in the world did you come across this wonderful thing?" Funny story: one day I was taking a break from constantly researching various backup programs, instead researching if I could safely put a few particular hard drive models into a RAID.** I knew that WD's Red, Gold, and Ultrastar drives were made for RAIDs (stepping up from home NASes all the way to enterprise servers), but what about their Blue or Black drives? Those were respectively made for everyday use and gaming, but the general consensus (supported by quoted customer support messages) is that two-drive arrays are generally safe for them---it's when you start getting creative with your ZFS pools that you should start considering different colors.

**Yes, I'm perfectly aware that RAID isn't a true backup; all it does is protect against drive failure and/or expand volume capacity, which in their own right are still pretty handy.

Then I happened upon this Reddit thread. Going down the top comment chain, starting with someone someone suggesting just manually duplicating two WD Blues instead of RAIDing them together, and eventually pausing on this reply from hmind4:

Or with https://bvckup2.com/
Has delta copy (save only changed stuff), has archive for old stuff (can be set up to keep forever or delete archives older than X). Gud shite, and is made by a redditor if I remember correctly.

That Redditor in question is Alex "alex-van-02" Pankratov, and yes, he regularly posts new releases with changelogs on a dedicated subreddit.

The price is a little steep, but very reasonable when you see how much work regularly goes into it: $50/machine, with a year of support. Volume discounts start with as few as two units, and you can renew for $10 before it expires (or $25 after it expires). Don't worry, it won't crash and burn if you don't pay the piper; you just stop getting new features.

I immediately plunked down $90 for two licenses---one for myself, the other for my mother. I'm proud to say it's comfortably solved all my problems with data retention.

I know I sound like a desperate paid shill, but I promise you I'm not; it really is that good. It's as close as Windows will ever get to a proper equivalent to Time Machine---and, in some respects, it's even better!

Some Extra Tidbits

And if you're like me and want to know more about what Pankratov's done, this is about as close to a software portfolio as he's made. The site design is just as clean and minimalist as Bvckup 2, yet no less functional. You can learn about:

Other software he's created, like Hamachi, CertTime, and Diskovery
An essay outlining his rationale for why he made Bvckup in the first place
Logotypes he's made for his own projects and paying clients

and more!

How to Build Two Computers at Once

When I finally graduated from college in May of last year (and please don't congratulate me; my degree's really nothing to write home about), I decided to treat myself to a brand-new PC. My first build, not a preconfig from Dell or HP. I had watched over countless hours of PC tech videos on YouTube for several years; I knew the various standards in and out. I was ready.

I bought up all the parts left and right, salvaging some of them from my old PC (the boot SSD was a given, but I had also salvaged my GPU).

I first got the idea from Linus Tech Tips on YouTube---more specifically, their video "Your Old PC is Your New Server." Turning an old spare computer into a home server isn't anything new, and they've laid out the basics using a tough-to-work-in compact prebuild from Dell (with the understanding that you can adjust their instructions for your particular usecase), but it did give me an idea. An awful idea. That video gave me a wonderful, awful idea.

What if---and hear me out on this one---I could design a PC for easy conversion into a server from the start?

That meant having to reorient myself away from the usual "custom bespoke PC" mindset so many people like to go for. RGB lighting would be pointless if it'll just stay hidden. Tempered glass is but another point of failure. And don't even think about using water cooling. Once the main foundation of the computer is complete, it needs to stay complete and functional for a time best measured in decades.

It'll serve me dutifully for some time, but when the day comes that I can retire it from general computing use, that just means swapping out boot drives, installing a server-oriented OS, loading it up with mass storage, clocking it down to save power consumption, and leaving it in one location pretty much forever.

"So Whacha Running under the Hood?"

I'm glad you asked!

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X
- My old PC was running on a Core i5-4440---one of the last good Intel chips, but it was starting to show its age. AMD is not known for their clock speeds, but in recent years they've excelled in core count; this chip was an upgrade in both departments.
- I was also planning on jumping to Team Red anyway, following the discovery of the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities.
Motherboard: ASRock B550M Pro4
- Little-known fun fact: Ryzen chips have unofficial ECC RAM support (which is vital for maintaining any ZFS pool competently), but it depends on motherboard manufacturer support. ASRock and Gigabyte can do ECC RAM on Ryzen chips (I think ASUS can too?).
- This was also my second choice of board, since I couldn't find an ASRock B550M-C in decent condition. Oh well.
GPU: PNY GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
- Yes, it's PNY (even after saying not to buy their RAM)---they made my first dedicated card, and they've yet to let me down in that department.
- Funnily enough, I bought it in the summer of 2020, at the height of the cryptomining craze. I was that desperate to jump from a GeForce 635.
RAM: Crucial 2×8 GB DDR4-3200
- Formerly PNY 2×8 GB DDR4-3200 (don't think I need to reïterate that drama).
Boot: Crucial MX500 2 TB
- I'm considering upgrading it to a 4 TB NVMe SSD (maybe Crucial, maybe Samsung), just to free up a drive slot in my case.
Other storage: WD Elements 1 TB, WD My Passport 4 TB, WD My Book 8 TB, WD My Book Duo 36 TB, Panasonic UJ265
- The 1 TB was my first external drive, inherited from my grandfather's estate after he passed away in 2013. At first I used it to house everything related to this very fandom, but now it's relegated to archival (owing to its slow speed and tendency to hibernate).
- The 4 TB I picked up for a video editing class, mostly since it's small enough to take too and from my college campus. It didn't pan out well for me, but hey, that's where all my ponies live now.
- The 8 TB is my general media drive. Among other things, movies, TV shows, tons of YouTube videos, and most of my Steam library (the stuff that doesn't need an SSD) lives here. I originally picked it up for a beginner video game development class---which was very much overkill, but I bought it with the foresight that I was going to reuse it for a different purpose.
- The 36 TB is configured into an 18 TB with RAID 1, and is used for local backups of all my drives. Yes, even the 8 TB. No, I don't miss the extra space.
- If you had to Google that last model, your eyes do not deceive you. I insist on having an optical drive with every build I make, because I live in an area with very unreliable Internet connection. (Hell, I started writing this blogpost specifically because my ISP started doing unannounced maintenance for almost 24 hours!) Not to mention this optical drive can read, write, and erase just about every standard out there---even triple-layer M-DISC Blu-rays!
- Maybe for a laugh I'll pick up a Seagate ST3000DM001---or as I like to call it, the "Demon Drive."
PSU: Seasonic PRIME Fanless TX-600
- One fine day out of the blue, my old PC started making a weird sound like it was breathing. After a few days I isolated it to the PSU fan, so I knew I had to shop around for a replacement. At some point I put down my foot and insisted on a fanless PSU so that issue would never rear its ugly head again.
- I picked this part up from Newegg, which offered it for about half the price compared to everyone else (even Amazon!). Sure, I could have picked up a similar PSU elsewhere, but (little-known fact) many PSU "manufacturers" just sell rebadged Seasonics---so you might as well check with them first.
- Compared to the previous PSU, it delivers more juice (600 watts, up from 460), more efficiently (80 PLUS™ Titanium, up from Silver), dead silently, and against all my expectations, it somehow runs even colder. (Yes, I know I'm pretty crazy for running a fanless PSU in what is supposed to be a server environment, but at least I don't need to risk electrocuting myself to swap out a dying fan.)
Chassis: SilverStone RM41
- Yes, that is a rackmount server chassis. No, I literally do not care.
- Since I'm planning on mounting it in a server rack, I might as well plan ahead for that day. Until then, I'm using a kit to convert it to desktop use (moving the handles to the top, adding feet to the bottom).
- I also swapped out the six 5.25" drive bays for two 120×25mm fan mounts. I don't need that many internal drives right now (despite having room for four 3.5-inchers), but if I ever need to stick one in, I still have the option. It also has a front drive bay for a slimline optical drive, which is where the UJ265 conveniently lives.
Other considerations:
- The CPU cooler is a ID-Cooling IS-47-XT---formerly their IS-55, before it became too cumbersome with the RAM slots. I salvaged the longer screws from the IS-55 to mount a 92×25mm fan onto the IS-47-XT.
- Speaking of fans, they're all by Arctic---the fronts are P12 PWM PSTs, the rears are P8 PWMs (replacing the stock fans that came with the chassis), and the CPU cooler uses a F9 Silent. (Why Arctic? Because they offer Noctua quality at a fraction of the price.)
- There's a APC UPS on the floor, with all my external drives, monitors, and PC hooked up to battery backup. I got it in December 2021 (surprisingly enough, not as a Christmas present), and it paid for itself literally the next week. (That's how shoddy the electrical grid is here.)
- Monitors, peripherals, &c. are recycled from the previous build; there's nothing wrong with them.

"And Whacha Gonna Change?"

The Micron RAM is fast, which is perfect for gaming---but it has no parity, which makes it inappropriate for ZFS. I'll drop in some ECC RAM, which, thanks to the magic of AMD Ryzen and ASRock, should work without a hitch. (Undecided on capacity, but the board does max out at 128 GB.)
As amazing as the Ryzen 5700X is, its main drawback is the lack of a built-in GPU (for that, I'd have to get the Ryzen 5700G, or the Ryzen Pro 5750G if I want to keep my ECC capabilities). And while the GeForce 1050 Ti fills that role well, it's far too beefy for just a simple display, so I'm considering "down"grading to a much smaller (and fanless!) card. It won't play games well, but then again, it's not supposed to. (And even then, it'll only be used for (re)installing the OS; the rest of the time I can just SSH into there from any computer.)
With the number of drives I plan on mounting, I'll have to add more SATA ports---six are just not going to cut it. And while it's easy to add a port multiplier card, those have notoriously shoddy reliability, so I'll need to shop around for a proper SAS HBA. Open to ideas.
Just because I took out those external drive bays doesn't mean I threw them out. I'm putting them back in, this time slotting in two SilverStone FS305-Es, loading them up with ten WD Red Pro 16 TB drives---all removable without opening the chassis, so I can swap it like it's hot. When configured in a RAIDZ3 vdev, it'll let me lose up to three drives before it all comes crashing down. (Though of course I'd be a lot more proactive than that.) (I may replace the fans on them.)
This does leave the option on the table for installing a few internal drives, preferably on the aforementioned HBA. Those would most likely be WD Red 4 TB SSDs---they're not hotswappable where they're mounted, but the nice thing about rebuilding that array is that reading from NAND flash incurs no wear and tear. (I'll likely put them in a RAIDZ1 vdev, sorted into its own pool.)
The whole system will boot from an NVMe drive---while fast, I don't need it to be that fast, so I'll settle for PCIe 3.0. When it dies, no big deal---replace, reïnstall the OS, and import my ZFS pool(s), and I'm back in business in less than an hour.
Speaking of the OS---and this is where my more tech-literate audience will really raise their eyebrows---I'll be going with OmniOS Community Edition. Now why in the world would I do that?
- Everyone and their mother runs some flavor of Linux in their NAS, and while it's doubtlessly led to much greater support, it also leaves them exposed to all the same vulnerabilities. You likely know what Ubuntu, Debian, openSUSE, and Unraid are, maybe the various BSD flavors (besides macOS), but past that I have my doubts. The weirder your OS, I find, the stronger your protection. (Of course, the best way to keep a computer safe is to airgap it outright; then it won't matter what OS it runs.)
  UNIX was one of the first general-purpose operating systems created, and its no-nonsense reliability makes it legendary. However, AT&T has always been historically overprotective of its source code (to the point where you have to sign several NDAs before you're allowed to read it). That didn't stop UC Berkeley from creating their own version of UNIX (now known as BSD), resulting in AT&T and Berkeley duking it out in various lawsuits in what has now become known as the "Unix Wars." The winner, it turned out, was the surprise release of GNU/Linux, mostly because it was both free and unencumbered by AT&T's legal threats. (Seriously, the Unix Wars are a complex topic to write about; I may do a proper blogpost dedicated to it.)
  One UNIX vendor, Sun Microsystems, released their own flavor called Solaris. It was a hotbed of computer development, mostly for servers than for home consumers, but no less important for it. (Arguably their greatest one is ZFS, a file system that implements its own volume management capabilities, all running on cheap commodity hardware.)
  In 2008, they began the process of making Solaris open source, through the aptly-named OpenSolaris. Sadly, just two years later, Sun Microsystems was acquired by Oracle, and OpenSolaris ceased development. (Not surprising, since Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is comically opposed to open-source development; he's basically the opposite of Richard Stallman or Linus Torvalds.) But just before that happened, OpenSolaris was forked into illumos to continue development.
  This makes illumos (OmniOS being one such distro) the only open-source implementation of UNIX, and while I doubt it has any genuine AT&T code in it anymore, I can trust it to keep my NAS running for years to come.
  (Yes, I'm well aware that what I've just told is a massive oversimplification, but all the important and relevant information is right there.)
Then for my finishing touches, I'll reconfigure the chassis back into its rackmountable version, put some rails on it, then slide it into a 19-inch rack. To that I'll add some room for a UPS, maybe some storage for spare drives, and call it good.

Ready, (Type)set, Go!

In case my most recent story didn't hint at it (likely because you haven't read it, in which case I can't blame you), I've also got an interest in typesetting media for print, whether it's a book, a magazine, a newspaper, or something else altogether. I mean, sure, when you write an assignment for school that's technically typesetting, but in the publishing business that's just known as plain copy, something to hand off to an editing team to fix up. After that, the editors then hand it off to the book designers, who may either use a standard house layout or create something new and unique for the given text.

While the designers might wait for artists to deliver art for a book (the cover almost definitely, maybe the interior too), typesetting in its own right is also an artform. Yes, there's a right way to do it and several wrong ways, but one needn't be so stiff as to do it by the book (no pun intended). There's always room for more creative interpretation. I should know: I maintain a bookshelf of stories that have been put in print and ended up on my shelves in one manner or another. (If you pay attention to the default sort order, you can determine in which order I got them.) I know what works and what doesn't.

Ponies of a Feather Flock Together

Several fandom publishing houses exist: the big ones are Nonexistent Publications, Absolutely Everything, Ministry of Image, and Ponyfeather Publishing. Each of them has a particular house style, and if you pay enough attention to their respective catalogs, you'll learn to recognize them.

But just because they exist doesn't mean individual authors can't publish their own work---and there you'll find a whole swath of styles, some of them good, some of them really good, but more than a few just turn out, for lack of a better word, mediocre or even bad.

Indeed, there was an explosion of self-published books from fandom authors in 2019, as part of a bookstore at the very last BronyCon that August. Although Aquaman spearheaded that effort, Ponyfeather worked as a middleman for authors who lack the know-how to get their stories on dead trees: in addition to their initial catalog offerings, it also maintains a list of self-published books on their site.

And because Ponyfeather wants other authors to get their start with printing their own stories (because it's run by literally one person and he's only got so much time), RBDash47 provides a handy-dandy primer for anyone to look over. It's an excellent resource in its own right, and that's not (just) my opinion, but keep in mind it's just that: a primer. There are some much finer nuances, both with aesthetics and with technicals, that Dash doesn't cover in his primer, and for good reason: he doesn't want to confuse novices, especially those who are very much sticklers for what they see as hard-and-fast rules.

With Dash's permission (or more likely without), I'd like to write my own supplement to his primer, tentatively titled "The Art of Typesetting," that lays bare these nuances, so you the potential printed author can go from a rough-and-tumble good-enough layout to a work of art in its own right.

Pimp My Book

But who would I be to talk about typesetting without doing any of it myself? I first picked up the practice during my time in my high school's journalism class, and it only expanded from there. I added LaTeX to my toolbox starting in Spring 2021, learning the strengths and weaknesses of InDesign's WYSIWYG philosophy and TeX's programmer-oriented approach.

In short, I can typeset words. I can make them look good, even.

And that applies to horsewords too.

I'm interested in sharing my efforts and my artistic vision with you, even if the books aren't in print per se for one reason or another. Over the coming weeks and months I'd like to write up a few blogposts showcasing my work, explaining what I did and, perhaps more importantly, why I did what I did. In a way, they would be extensions to "The Art of Typesetting"---after all, what better way to explain my points than to demonstrate them in action?

Do stick around for those; I've got quite a lot to cover.

Two Brief Questions for You

Before I close out this blogpost, I do have a couple points I want to put to you. They're serious ones, too. Put on your serious hats for these, please.

Sand Dunes and Green Hills

If you're here from Fallen-Song or (far more likely) The Children of Planet Earth, you could probably connect the dots on what I'm talking about by now. I've seen so many other authors turn their best and/or most popular stories into printed books you can add on your library, and make no mistake, I have my fair share of those adorning my shelves, so I don't get a free pass here.

But what if. . . I could put my own on there?

I know, I know, this is just me stroking my ego at this point, but I'm genuinely interested in your opinion at this stage: do you want to see these stories in print? There's not going to be a bespoke print run or anything; I'll just dress them up nice and fancy in InDesign and put them on Lulu, where print runs can be as small as a single copy. (The height of convenience!)

Most everything about the book design progress I can do on my own. The one exception, a major one in my opinion, is art. I'd have to look around for artists who are willing to take on either (still hypothetical at this stage) project, and Lord knows they won't be cheap. And that's just for the cover---imagine doing interior art too!

Out of the Pasture

While I won't deny that this fandom is brimming with creativity, from writing to art to music to animation and everywhere else you can think of, at the same time. . . why stick with ponies forever?

Far be it for me to proclaim that the fandom is dying---from what I've seen as of late, it's still chugging along, and the fifth generation has introduced a new generation of fans in its own right, both from migrating G4 fans and new ones just discovering G4 itself. No, what I mean by all that is writing original fiction.

Surely I'm not the first one to do that. My colleague JawJoe has two books out already, for instance, having used Fimfiction as a springboard to get enough writing experience. Several others with already-professionally-published works have found their way here, interested in dipping their toes in the world of pony fanfiction.

I suppose what I'm trying to say, in so many words, is what if I published something original? I may have hinted at something like that in an earlier blogpost, so you know I'm capable of it. I'm not asking your permission to write and publish it; I'm doing it anyway. What I want to know is if that's something you want to read from me. If all you want is fanfiction, sorry to say I'm going to disappoint you.

And that's it! Tomorrow I'll get started writing "The Art of Typesetting"; for now, I think I'll try to take my mind off writing so many words in so few sittings. As for you, I've given what I believe to be rather complex thinkpieces, so I'd appreciate if you commented on them below. Don't be shy; I don't bite.

Good night, and good luck.

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