Willowwizard

.bk2 are Bink Video files commonly used in games. There isn't any way to play them other than using the aforementioned software. As long as you download from the previously linked website; it shouldn't be contaminated with any sort of virus. Either your antivirus is drawing a false positive (in which case, add an exception for the executable), or you're downloading from a shady website that does include malware with the software download.

Because that's still essentially what it is. It's a piece of software that tests the hardware and checks that it's all good to go, then it changes the 1's and 0's being processed by the CPU into the graphics and sound that you see on the screen.
Sure, it doesn't fit the thing we usually refer to as 'BIOS' in a computer system, but that's because computers need a dedicated BIOS firmware, because on top of it we can put other software like Linux or Windows. 
Consoles don't need to load any other low-level system software other than the one it already comes pre-installed with, so to be a bit more efficient it's generally 'combined' (although still somewhat separate) into one single interlocked thing.
 
Consoles aren't just some magic box that outputs games, at their heart they still use RAM, CPU, GPU, DACs, etc., and they need the low-level software that every other electronic device uses to operate.

Because that's still essentially what it is. It's a piece of software that tests the hardware and checks that it's all good to go, then it changes the 1's and 0's being processed by the CPU into the graphics and sound that you see on the screen.
Sure, it doesn't fit the thing we usually refer to as 'BIOS' in a computer system, but that's because computers need a dedicated BIOS firmware, because on top of it we can put other software like Linux or Windows. 
Consoles don't need to load any other low-level system software other than the one it already comes pre-installed with, so to be a bit more efficient it's generally 'combined' (although still somewhat separate) into one single interlocked thing.
 
Consoles aren't just some magic box that outputs games, at their heart they still use RAM, CPU, GPU, DACs, etc., and they need the low-level software that every other electronic device uses to operate.

Because that's still essentially what it is. It's a piece of software that tests the hardware and checks that it's all good to go, then it changes the 1's and 0's being processed by the CPU into the graphics and sound that you see on the screen.
Sure, it doesn't fit the thing we usually refer to as 'BIOS' in a computer system, but that's because computers need a dedicated BIOS firmware, because on top of it we can put other software like Linux or Windows. 
Consoles don't need to load any other low-level system software other than the one it already comes pre-installed with, so to be a bit more efficient it's generally 'combined' (although still somewhat separate) into one single interlocked thing.
 
Consoles aren't just some magic box that outputs games, at their heart they still use RAM, CPU, GPU, DACs, etc., and they need the low-level software that every other electronic device uses to operate.

Decent modern motherboard and a 750 Watt 80+ Gold PSU ?
Of course it will work! There's no way it wouldn't work unless the card is faulty on arrival, just be sure to plug your display into the card and not into the motherboard once you get it, otherwise you'd still be working on integrated graphics

That's a 7-pin SATA connector, most commonly used to fit Blu-Ray or DVD drives in laptops.
Although in this case it looks like it's being used with a converter board to connect a standard HDD.

Well, it depends on the script. If the script needs to use/modify files present in the home directory, and if it uses the current path to execute, then yes.
However, if the script is like the one you've posted, which doesn't modify anything under the home directory, then it's not required. You can place it anywhere you want

Actually, TRIM is needed. The lack of TRIM in RAID was an issue in Win 7. I agree that properly done backups are far superior to RAID for protecting data but there is nothing wrong with using a RAID on a desktop to ensure continuous operation as long as proper backups are still used (yes, even a RAID needs to be backed up).
 
One can recover from a drive failure using a backup far faster than rebuilding a RAID. Home servers with only a couple of drives may use RAID 1 but better home servers use higher forms of RAID and commercial server farms are moving away from RAID in favor of less clunky and more reliable forms of redundancy, mostly because of the time required to rebuild a RAID with today's much larger HDDs.
 
You are absolutely correct that backups are superior to RAID for protecting data.

Yes, it's a BASH script. No, you shouldn't run BASH scripts with SH, BASH has features that aren't available in SH (basically, it's an improvement on SH).
See if you can run it by setting the execute bit (chmod +x ./script.sh) and running it (./script.sh) (it already has a shebang (#!/bin/bash) which tells the OS what shell/program to run it with)

AMD Dual-Core E2-9000e (1.5 GHz base frequency, up to 2 GHz burst frequency, 1 MB cache) VERY low end
AMD Radeon™ R2 Graphic Integrated 32 GB eMMC good luck upgrading it but the only reason it has any responsiveness is its a ssd
14" diagonal HD SVA BrightView WLED-backlit (1366 x 768) old basic screen 4 GB DDR4-1866 SDRAM (1 x 4 GB)
theres a reason you only spent 180 on it

And you can easily restore a backup if a drive fails. RAID doesn't help if you have corruption, user error, randsomware, or other issues that are often more likely.

*sigh* It's just Windows being Windows again.
 
In Windows, what it displays as "GB" (Gigabytes) is actually GiB (Gibibytes).
1 Gibibyte is 1024 Mebibytes, 1 Mebibyte is 1024 Kibibytes, etc.
Meanwhile,
1 Gigabyte is 1000 Megabytes, 1 Megabyte is 1000 Kilobytes, and so on.
What Ubuntu displays is actually Gigabytes, in this case, 128 Gibibytes (Windows) is 137.4 Gigabytes (Ubuntu).
 
So, no, there's nothing broken here; it's just different operating systems using different units to display disk size. With Windows using the wrong SI suffix ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
As for why your Ubuntu installation is smaller than 137.4 GB, it's because the EXT4 filesystem needs to use some space for journaling (i.e. recovery in case of power failure), and in this case it's using 2.7 GB for journaling, which won't be available to the user to use, so it's not counted as usable space. It might also be partially taken up by the boot partition.

I was horrified at the title, and then I lol'd at the post.
It's just like Apple to sacrifice device integrity and functionality for dat slimness.
Although I guess their mentality might be that since it's an expensive device, the user would take care of it carefully? It's no excuse for absolutely abysmal structural integrity though, in my opinion. ESPECIALLY on a device seemingly targeted towards "pro"s (whoever those may be...)

I was horrified at the title, and then I lol'd at the post.
It's just like Apple to sacrifice device integrity and functionality for dat slimness.
Although I guess their mentality might be that since it's an expensive device, the user would take care of it carefully? It's no excuse for absolutely abysmal structural integrity though, in my opinion. ESPECIALLY on a device seemingly targeted towards "pro"s (whoever those may be...)

I was horrified at the title, and then I lol'd at the post.
It's just like Apple to sacrifice device integrity and functionality for dat slimness.
Although I guess their mentality might be that since it's an expensive device, the user would take care of it carefully? It's no excuse for absolutely abysmal structural integrity though, in my opinion. ESPECIALLY on a device seemingly targeted towards "pro"s (whoever those may be...)

Source: https://www.techspot.com/news/77481-apple-shiny-new-ipad-pro-has-set-new.html
It's bendgate all over again, you'd think they would have learned their lesson by now.
 
Even worse, this is happening on their new "pro" device.

VMWare is really good but is paid software.
VirtualBox is good enough, free and pretty self-explanatory to use, but lacks some more advanced features.
QEMU is also pretty good, and you're able to do a lot of low-level advanced stuff with it (e.g. PCI passthrough for graphics cards, full raw access to drives), but it's a lot more difficult to set up.

Can you boot into the firmware/BIOS and see if the SSD is in the boot order?
If it's there but still doesn't boot, you'll have to reinstall the bootloader onto your SSD.
(If you only have an old-school BIOS, follow the instructions at the bottom of the page about repairing MBR,
if you have a newer motherboard with UEFI, follow the upper instructions)
(Guide is from Dell, however it applies to all Windows' based computers)

Well, brains don't really work like.. well, anything else we know of, really.
A brain is a collection of neurons that, in response to certain stimuli, communicate with each other.
For example, if you see something, the protons bouncing off the object you're seeing will go into your eye, hitting what are called cones (basically, biological light sensor) which sends a signal to your brain, that signal then triggers a set of neurons, and those neurons trigger other neurons, and so on.
The connections between neurons will strengthen the more they are triggered, and weaken the less they are triggered. Which is why you forget things when you haven't done them for a while, and why you can memorize things by repeating them over and over again.
 
On the other hand, an electronic storage device just stores data. It doesn't have neurons that fire in patterns, it's just either a metal or metal-coated glass platter that stores a 1 or 0 at a certain position by way of magnetism, or it's a flash chip that stores a 1 or 0 by way of an electric charge.
Both are nothing like the brains that humans and other animals have.

That would be 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1, or 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.  Always best to include the secondary DNS server.

Firewall software only protects you by preventing certain inbound/outbound connections (e.g. if you have a webserver running and don't want other people to access it).
It has pretty much zero benefit to a normal person.
If you really want a firewall however, perhaps try TinyWall.
 
If you want protection from potentially downloading malicious software, since you're on Windows 7; install Windows Defender & Malwarebytes. If you don't like Windows Defender for some reason, I've been installing Bitdefender on my parents' computers. Be warned that it requires you to make an account with them however, and the user interface is incredibly simple.

I'm so glad it's satire
I'm gonna be honest, I don't really get the stigma around socks with sandals.
If it's comfortable, why shame people who do it?

Well, brains don't really work like.. well, anything else we know of, really.
A brain is a collection of neurons that, in response to certain stimuli, communicate with each other.
For example, if you see something, the protons bouncing off the object you're seeing will go into your eye, hitting what are called cones (basically, biological light sensor) which sends a signal to your brain, that signal then triggers a set of neurons, and those neurons trigger other neurons, and so on.
The connections between neurons will strengthen the more they are triggered, and weaken the less they are triggered. Which is why you forget things when you haven't done them for a while, and why you can memorize things by repeating them over and over again.
 
On the other hand, an electronic storage device just stores data. It doesn't have neurons that fire in patterns, it's just either a metal or metal-coated glass platter that stores a 1 or 0 at a certain position by way of magnetism, or it's a flash chip that stores a 1 or 0 by way of an electric charge.
Both are nothing like the brains that humans and other animals have.

I'm so glad it's satire
I'm gonna be honest, I don't really get the stigma around socks with sandals.
If it's comfortable, why shame people who do it?

Honestly, even if Russia gained access to that information somehow,
America should NOT be taking cybersecurity lightly. Falling for a phishing email is easy to protect against with basic training on checking the legitimacy of emails. So Russia is not the only one at fault here, America should be defending themselves as much as possible, e.g. mandatory cybersecurity audits for government agencies and such. That's just my 2 cents however.