My work MacBook Pro (mid-2014 edition) only has 512GB of storage. I had tried to order it fully loaded, but somebody upstream fainted from shock, despite the fact that my previous machine was nearly 8 years old.

I’ve got to do a lot of tinkering with VMware and Docker images for working out the IT infrastructure in our new building, and there’s just not enough space for it all on the internal drive. And since Apple solders everything to the motherboard these days, there’s no way to upgrade without replacing the machine. Browsing for small external SSDs, the Samsung T3 seems to be well-rated.

The only problem I can report so far is that it draws more power than the left USB3 port on my Mac can reliably supply. Moving it to the right port got rid of the eject/remount every 2-3 minutes. I’m not using their encryption, because I don’t need it; also, there are some reports of the supplied Mac software being flaky, and I had a few bad experiences with the way the equivalent WD driver works.

By the way, if you use Docker on a Mac, it will graduallyrapidly fill your disk unless you periodically rebuild the Docker.qcow2 file (works best if you supply the names of the images you don’t want deleted). A fix is reported to be in the works.

The pirates you’re hunting can be three systems away from the planet where you got the mission, not two. And it appears their location is pre-generated and they don’t move, so if you never enter the correct system, you’ll never find them. This also means that if you load up on bounty missions, the odds that you’ll run into multiple pirate fleets simultaneously goes way up. When that happens in a system that already has a high chance of random pirates, like Shaula, even a fleet of Shield Beetles can be overwhelmed unless you draw them far, far away from the planet and the incoming hyperspace routes. (pro tip: the “hold position” key can be applied to single ships by selecting them, not just your entire fleet)

[Mac version 0.9.6, based on a small Perl script that does a crude scan of the save file; haven’t figured out how they mark missions as completed yet, though]

The game is free, fun, and desperately in need of a nicely-designed PDF with all the obscure keyboard shortcuts (scattered documentation here, here, and here). You can also get it on Steam for convenience (no DRM applied, because GPLv3).

It’s moddable, replayable, and regularly updated, and doesn’t chew up a lot of resources when paused, so you can easily hop in for a few quick turns while waiting for other tasks to complete. It auto-saves every time you land, and it’s quite stable.

Speaking of free games on Steam, the ancient MMO Anarchy Online showed up there recently. They’ve been trying to get me to come back for about 15 years, and this time I decided to give it a shot. I managed a successful password reset on my old account and created a new character (the old ones were still there but marked “inactive”), and got the dubious pleasure of remembering what it was like before MMOs settled on some basic user interface conventions. I could adjust to the low-res models and textures, but the controls are another story.

As expected, they dodged the usual solution. It is a pool episode with the girls in swimsuits, but it’s not a fan-service filler afterthought.

Ahiru-taichou performs a thorough inspection to ensure that the Yuudachi is sea-worthy… (NSFW)

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I think you’re using the wrong definition of “hard” here…

(the category is actually broken, since it only has 7 obsolete WD drives sold by Marketplace dealers, and you have to go up a level to find anything that’s current and available with Prime shipping)

Not only does the DanMachi Sword Oratoria spinoff anime start in a few weeks, but there’s another spinoff series starting, Familia Chronicle, in both light novel and manga formats.

The first volume focuses on the enigmatic Ryū, and to make sure everyone takes notice, her bustline is considerably more impressive than in the anime. Apparently the Protagonist package includes upgrades.

(via)