6 ms·

NO! I will keep adding an /archive folder to every PC I own and copy the complete contents of my previous /home/ folder into it, including an endless amount of

by mavu 3y ago

NO! I will keep adding an /archive folder to every PC I own and copy the complete contents of my previous /home/ folder into it, including an endless amount of recursive /archive folders. I will never look at any of those again. But Archeologists in the far future will find my data and it will revolutionize their understanding of our time.

prawn 3y ago
This is me and my Downloads folder. Apps that will never run again. Fonts I outgrew.
- TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
  My Downloads folder is one of the few that actually is clean. In fact, it's usually empty. Everything downloaded is downloaded for a reason, and gets moved to the right spot as soon as the download is complete.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Every year or so I make a folder in Downloads called “old” and put everything in there (including the “old” from the last time I did it). When I find something I need in Downloads/old/old/older/old I am happy.
    - nicky0 3y ago
      Every week I select all in my Downloads folder and delete.
    - deafpolygon 3y ago
      This is me :) … it’s currently “Downloads/files/misc/old/older files/to be deleted”.
    - boosteri 3y ago
      Anyone figured out how to do that most efficiently? You can't have two "old" co-existign at the same time? I'm using the rename method but struggle each time Which one is better to rename, the old-old or the new-old?
      - bombcar 3y ago
        I'm not sure how I do it since I do it differently each time, but I do see some called "older" so I think I rename the old one then move.
      - Wingy 3y ago
        This should work in PowerShell on Windows or on other systems with a normal shell as long as your downloads folder is called Downloads and you don’t have a folder called old next to Downloads: mv Downloads old && mkdir Downloads && mv old Downloads This is assuming there aren’t any special permissions/attributes on Downloads
        bombcar 3y ago
        Some of them seem to have weird things where renaming a directory keeps it still the "downloads" directory - I prefer moving the contents of downloads instead.
  - UncleEntity 3y ago
    Download folder is just fun. Stuff I download for a reason gets “put away” which leaves random things to go look at when I have nothing better to do. I was poking around in there earlier today after I moved some stuff and found all sorts of interesting things to waste a couple hours. Probably be a different story if I tried to be organized though. It tends to collect “things I need right now and will probably never use again” and pdfs that don’t get saved to the Documents folder.
Aeolun 3y ago
I find it very pleasant to look through these folders and hope I’ve got everything this time. Cleaning it all up has been on my to-do list for the past 5 years or so :/
- cocacola1 3y ago
  I think "cleaning it all up" will remain a perpetual todo item for all digital collectors.
- pseufaux 3y ago
  I feel so known right now. I'm glad I found my people.
- leviathan 3y ago
  > Cleaning it all up has been on my to-do list for the past 5 years 13 years and counting. But I’m sure I’ll eventually clean mine up
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    I just have to keep it all until I retire. I’m sure I’ll get around to it then.
    - Moru 3y ago
      Pro tip: I have noticed that most retired people seem to have even less time in their schedule. So I would not count on it :-)
      - Aeolun 3y ago
        Lol, yeah, my 90 year old grandmother was also complaining about that. But if it turns out like that I’ll happily take it.
  - chaxor 3y ago
    Take a look at aifiles: https://github.com/jjuliano/aifiles https://github.com/jjuliano/aifiles Getting vicuna or alpaca for this could be the best decision for those that want to keep their data. Could you imagine the space saving you can achieve by a system that constructs a real normalized duckdb database with zstd compression and join tables and all from your big dump of tar.xml.gz files? Automagically converting all of your media to AV1 and Opus to save space and remove any private codec reqs? Clear collation with directory choices similar to Linux style? https://github.com/jjuliano/aifiles https://github.com/jjuliano/aifiles seems like one of the best ideas for data organization - just needs some polishing and local-only models
Faark 3y ago
I do look at mine. Rarely for something special / useful. Sure, i won't ever again need the drivers for that dell c600 that died 15 years ago. But just seeing that installer brought back fond memories! Randomly looking in there is fun every once in a while. And with storage still growing decently, why should i delete anything? It's not like physical boxes of photos/etc that would take up more and more space every year.
- CyanBird 3y ago
  Last year I was digging through my archive and found my old Gom player installation folder from ~2011 or so and just got a blashback of when I modded the interphase of it to be Protoss themed when I would watch GSL streams on it! Indeed the emotional value of said sometimes silly things can't be understated
- mysterydip 3y ago
  Probably not in the case of a popular brand like Dell, but there are retro computing enthusiasts scouring the internet for any trace of a driver for some piece of hardware they have, and it might be in someone's backup files right now. Wouldn't hurt to add an iso to the internet archive if one isn't there.
- kitsunesoba 3y ago
  When I look back through mine, it tends to be for projects I worked on ages ago or to find some obscure app or file I know I had a copy of at one point and has good chance of sitting somewhere in my labyrinth of old system backups. Not strictly useful I guess, I think there's value in being able to engage in one's old projects more deeply than screenshots can allow. It can be a bit of a trip to look at code I wrote 5-10+ years ago.
ufo 3y ago
And of course there's a XKCD for it: https://xkcd.com/1360/ https://xkcd.com/1360/
- ChoGGi 3y ago
  Oh, remastered elastomania is on steam. Happy days
kybernetyk 3y ago
Mine was worth like $9000 when I discovered an old Stellar Lumen crypto wallet with some coins on it I got during an airdrop back in the day. So hoarding paid off. But then again - I have the same problem as OP. I have terabytes of photos which I should really cull but I can't get myself to do it because I'm a lazy fuck.
ArchIsGreat 3y ago
I just dd my old drive onto my new drive.
jwr 3y ago
I've been doing just that for the last 30 years or so, and had to go dig out stuff several times. I was always glad I had the silly archives.
jrootabega 3y ago
You will be known in the future as Samuel 🅱epys.
euroderf 3y ago
In less than five years from now, you will let rip an A.I. to go thru it all, and... Hey, Presto!

by mavu 3y ago

prawn 3y ago

This is me and my Downloads folder. Apps that will never run again. Fonts I outgrew.

TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
My Downloads folder is one of the few that actually is clean. In fact, it's usually empty. Everything downloaded is downloaded for a reason, and gets moved to the right spot as soon as the download is complete.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Every year or so I make a folder in Downloads called “old” and put everything in there (including the “old” from the last time I did it). When I find something I need in Downloads/old/old/older/old I am happy.
  - nicky0 3y ago
    Every week I select all in my Downloads folder and delete.
  - deafpolygon 3y ago
    This is me :) … it’s currently “Downloads/files/misc/old/older files/to be deleted”.
  - boosteri 3y ago
    Anyone figured out how to do that most efficiently? You can't have two "old" co-existign at the same time? I'm using the rename method but struggle each time Which one is better to rename, the old-old or the new-old?
    - bombcar 3y ago
      I'm not sure how I do it since I do it differently each time, but I do see some called "older" so I think I rename the old one then move.
    - Wingy 3y ago
      This should work in PowerShell on Windows or on other systems with a normal shell as long as your downloads folder is called Downloads and you don’t have a folder called old next to Downloads: mv Downloads old && mkdir Downloads && mv old Downloads This is assuming there aren’t any special permissions/attributes on Downloads
      - bombcar 3y ago
        Some of them seem to have weird things where renaming a directory keeps it still the "downloads" directory - I prefer moving the contents of downloads instead.
- UncleEntity 3y ago
  Download folder is just fun. Stuff I download for a reason gets “put away” which leaves random things to go look at when I have nothing better to do. I was poking around in there earlier today after I moved some stuff and found all sorts of interesting things to waste a couple hours. Probably be a different story if I tried to be organized though. It tends to collect “things I need right now and will probably never use again” and pdfs that don’t get saved to the Documents folder.

Aeolun 3y ago

I find it very pleasant to look through these folders and hope I’ve got everything this time. Cleaning it all up has been on my to-do list for the past 5 years or so :/

cocacola1 3y ago
I think "cleaning it all up" will remain a perpetual todo item for all digital collectors.
pseufaux 3y ago
I feel so known right now. I'm glad I found my people.
leviathan 3y ago
> Cleaning it all up has been on my to-do list for the past 5 years 13 years and counting. But I’m sure I’ll eventually clean mine up
- Aeolun 3y ago
  I just have to keep it all until I retire. I’m sure I’ll get around to it then.
  - Moru 3y ago
    Pro tip: I have noticed that most retired people seem to have even less time in their schedule. So I would not count on it :-)
    - Aeolun 3y ago
      Lol, yeah, my 90 year old grandmother was also complaining about that. But if it turns out like that I’ll happily take it.
- chaxor 3y ago
  Take a look at aifiles: https://github.com/jjuliano/aifiles https://github.com/jjuliano/aifiles Getting vicuna or alpaca for this could be the best decision for those that want to keep their data. Could you imagine the space saving you can achieve by a system that constructs a real normalized duckdb database with zstd compression and join tables and all from your big dump of tar.xml.gz files? Automagically converting all of your media to AV1 and Opus to save space and remove any private codec reqs? Clear collation with directory choices similar to Linux style? https://github.com/jjuliano/aifiles https://github.com/jjuliano/aifiles seems like one of the best ideas for data organization - just needs some polishing and local-only models

Faark 3y ago

I do look at mine. Rarely for something special / useful. Sure, i won't ever again need the drivers for that dell c600 that died 15 years ago. But just seeing that installer brought back fond memories! Randomly looking in there is fun every once in a while. And with storage still growing decently, why should i delete anything? It's not like physical boxes of photos/etc that would take up more and more space every year.

CyanBird 3y ago
Last year I was digging through my archive and found my old Gom player installation folder from ~2011 or so and just got a blashback of when I modded the interphase of it to be Protoss themed when I would watch GSL streams on it! Indeed the emotional value of said sometimes silly things can't be understated
mysterydip 3y ago
Probably not in the case of a popular brand like Dell, but there are retro computing enthusiasts scouring the internet for any trace of a driver for some piece of hardware they have, and it might be in someone's backup files right now. Wouldn't hurt to add an iso to the internet archive if one isn't there.
kitsunesoba 3y ago
When I look back through mine, it tends to be for projects I worked on ages ago or to find some obscure app or file I know I had a copy of at one point and has good chance of sitting somewhere in my labyrinth of old system backups. Not strictly useful I guess, I think there's value in being able to engage in one's old projects more deeply than screenshots can allow. It can be a bit of a trip to look at code I wrote 5-10+ years ago.

ufo 3y ago

And of course there's a XKCD for it: https://xkcd.com/1360/ https://xkcd.com/1360/

ChoGGi 3y ago
Oh, remastered elastomania is on steam. Happy days

kybernetyk 3y ago

Mine was worth like $9000 when I discovered an old Stellar Lumen crypto wallet with some coins on it I got during an airdrop back in the day. So hoarding paid off. But then again - I have the same problem as OP. I have terabytes of photos which I should really cull but I can't get myself to do it because I'm a lazy fuck.

ArchIsGreat 3y ago

I just dd my old drive onto my new drive.

jwr 3y ago

I've been doing just that for the last 30 years or so, and had to go dig out stuff several times. I was always glad I had the silly archives.

jrootabega 3y ago

You will be known in the future as Samuel 🅱epys.

euroderf 3y ago

In less than five years from now, you will let rip an A.I. to go thru it all, and... Hey, Presto!