this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2026
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

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Post title at limit, but meant to be peak tactile feedback in computer storage.

The space saved from being thin made it bad for looking up and finding a specific disk within a stack, tho, as it couldn't fit an end label

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[–] teft@piefed.social 91 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

"didn't take too much space"

Someone never installed an operating system from floppies. Win98 was 38 floppies. Heaven help you if you didn't notice you only have 37 disks until halfway through the install.

A media format with 1.44mb per disk is not conducive to space saving even back in the day.

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 27 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

They're talking about the tactility of the format, not the actual data limits on it.

You could build SSDs today with the exact same tactility of floppy disks but with terabytes of storage.

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago

You better patent this.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 24 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

To be fair, by 1998 something as big as win98 wasn't supposed to be shipped in floppies. Then again, win95 was available as 27 disks

[–] grue@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Windows 95 on CD-ROM included three music videos, presumably to show off the capabilities of the format.

[–] BartyDeCanter 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I remember my copy had Buddy Holly by Weezer, and I think something called Good Times. What was the third?

[–] teft@piefed.social 7 points 2 months ago

The third was the trailer to Rob Roy.

[–] SippyCup@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I still occasionally use floppies and I can assure you that they do in fact occupy more space than I'd like.

[–] TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] YeahIgotskills2@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Those distros even have a GUI? Amiga Workbench on 720k all the way! 😁

[–] froh42@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ok, you forgot the Kickstart boot disk loading the Kernel before. But yes, the Amiga was amazingly resource efficient.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I learned a lot about the Amiga reading Ars Technica's history of the Amiga series. Such a shame that that computer never reached Brazil

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago

Don't fret. Only snobby kids whos parents bought it for them had them. Because they wanted to one-up you. And they didn't even appreciate it. Like I did my C128D that had a built-in floppy drive.

Fuck you, Csabika.

[–] bufalo1973@piefed.social 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I see it and rise it to Atari ST TOS (256 KiB), GEM included.

[–] YeahIgotskills2@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yep, an Atari ST man myself, but I had the STFM and then the STE, so TOS was in ROM. Wonderful machines. Still going to this day.

[–] bufalo1973@piefed.social 1 points 2 months ago

But it could be copied on a 720 KiB floppy with space left after writing.

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 months ago
[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 1 points 2 months ago

Or you could try KolibriOS or MenuetOS, both have images that allow you to install the OS from a single 1.44MB floppy