Seems like the best solution for my needs. Thank you!

Backups are definitely a task I have been sleeping on. I will set that up.

I own a MacBook Air basically for GarageBand and other DAWs. I know how to get Jack to work. Pipewire made life easier. Still, music production on linux still sucks butts.

Too many butts for me to do anything other than other computer things and programming.

Universities all have programs that let you rent out computers.

Thank you! I have been looking at Fedora Silverblue and ran it for a couple weeks. My only issue is that sometimes I need programs that only got .deb files, and they are meant to run on Ubuntu not debian.

I have found happiness on Pop!_OS.

The differences do seem enormous when one first encounters linux. They shrink every install though, but it takes some time for the magic to wear off.

Nice! I need to learn recovery methods. I am so used to scorch earthing an install when it goes wrong, which is not useful.

THANK YOU EVERYONE who recommended PHOTOREC! This community is fantastic.

I guess I can try it, since I did not like, wipe everything.

I feel you misread. I mean what I spelled, county, the collection of cities that define the specific region I live in.

My library card gives me access to many libraries in that county, which yes, has works from people across the globe.

I have been rekindling my patronage to my county’s libraries and archive.org.

Sure, these are DVDs, but they can be upscaled and are easily backed up.

I buy a crap load of books like I have a spending problem, but I get them used from bookstores and thriftstores. Libraries will always have something I can’t find, with the added glory of browsing serendipity.

Sure, I like to pirate, but there is more treasure at your ports than you think.

Everything you typed out was a painful rediscovery on my part. I basically had to ignore my principles at every moment, but using Windows eventually became too gross, I had to get out.

For the money I spent experimenting with proprietary software, I could have donated to projects making the alternatives.

This is not a lesson I will need to learn again.

Yes. The cost is reasonable, and think it is worth it!

Right now I am using Tracktion Waveform, but I do not love it.

I am looking at Reaper, and I do like the workflow, but the way it loads plugins puts me off. Not horrible, I just need to do extra work to make it work.

Thank you! I will check those out.

I absolutely have old capbable computers I need to put to work.

Proxmox is awesome. Sort of the answer to most of my server wants.

In principle, anthropologically speaking, the depth and breadth of data that has been collected is at its face outstanding and valuable. The full range of human experience is documented. What can be learned if it were studied would perhaps help save the world.

Unfortunately, that “public” data is only available to the companies that harvest and buy it, not to the world at large. Not unless you are already in the shit that is collecting information on you

To echo what other people have said, any benefits of public data is immediately squashed by the heinous abuse of power that comes from not protecting privacy.

Information is freely given by those who care about the world and want to see it improve. No need to take away human rights for that.

Honestly, a terabyte can be filled up pretty quicky just with video games. High resolution films add up quicker than you think.

The library is good if you have the hardware to rip.

Not to mention stuff from the Internet Archive, which has all the things you definitely have never seen. It is nearly bizarre the gems one can find in the public domain.

For sure that is a limitation of an LLM. I was hoping the capabilities of Google or Bing would overcome that with extended formatting.

I am ignorant of the ownership of Opera, so I will reserve judgement. I will say that the browser is great, despite its problem foundation.

That is an awesome usecase. ChatGPT lets you get niche and weird, which isnwhere it is most productive.

ChatGPT has the issue that it has no date beyond September 2021, which is not typically an issue.

Hm, I guess I haven’t paid attention to the ownership, I just skip past the ads to the content.

They will always be worth listening to.

I get that too drom Bard sometimes, but it is for specific queries. I think the key is working on the prompt until it gets it. Sometimes you need to start over with a new chat.

Bing does not work like ChatGPT despite having the same base, even in creative mode. No idea why. However I like creative mode when I don’t just dont want to see links embedded. I also love taking advantage of free Dall-E.

Bard is great for anything that can be put into a list or chart, like comparisons. Literally put in a chart.

I am dissapointed in that I have not been able to get a single mathematic equation produced (like famous ones), but I know they can?

If you get the chance and willing to download a full ass browser, Opera has Aria, which is like the cleanest version of ChatGPT I have seen. Just the formatted answers with hyperlinks are worth it. It is good. It is hard to explain, but Aria mostly just works. It is closer to Bard in responses, and does what you want out of Bing without messing with convo styles.

Whatever prompts that Bing put for the convo style may be messing with the results.

All things said, I switch between them often, depending on my needs. It takes some time but I have built my intuition of which one will give the best response for the prompt, but I often just search the prompt in all of them.

Anyways, I hope you find more success using them!