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Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Turn an Old Computer into a Networked Backup, Streaming, or Torrenting Machine with Ubuntu

June 19th, 2012Top Story

Turn an Old Computer into a Networked Backup, Streaming, or Torrenting Machine with Ubuntu

By Whitson Gordon

Turn an Old Computer into a Networked Backup, Streaming, or Torrenting Machine with UbuntuYou've heard the word "server" thrown around a lot, but usually in the context of web sites or big companies that have a lot of data to store. In reality, a server can be just as useful in your home. In this guide, we'll walk through how to create your own server at home that you can put in the closet and leave on 24/7, ready to do any streaming, downloading, or backup you might need at a moment's notice.

Why Do I Want a Server in My House?

A server, for those that don't know, is just a computer that stores data and "serves" it to other computers on a network, and it can be immensely useful in your house. It's a great place to store your backups, store your media for streaming to all your devices, or even act as an always-on, low-powered computer for seeding torrents and downloading other files.

We've shown you how to create your own network attaached storage device with FreeNAS before, but while FreeNAS is perfect for tiny, low-powered machines, and it doesn't come with a lot of customizability. If you want to do anything beyond what's included, you have to go through a lot of complicated steps. Ubuntu, on the other hand, gives you the freedom to install a ton of different apps, which means you can use your server for just about anything. Plus, it's dead simple to set up, even if you've never used Linux before.

Here, we'll show you how to put together an Ubuntu-based server, connect it to the other computers in your home, and then go through a few examples of how you can use it as a backup machine, a media server for your music, movies and TV shows, and as a dedicated BitTorrent box.

What You'll Need

You can install many different versions of Ubuntu using many different methods, but for today, we're going to go the easiest route possible. All you need is:

  • A PC with a minimum of 512MB of RAM and a 700MHz processor to act as your server (1.6GHz if you want to stream videos). You'll probably want to use ethernet instead of Wi-Fi, too, since it's much faster. An old computer will work fine for this, though you can also build a dedicated, cheap system if you don't have an old PC lying around. Note that an old PC will use up more power, and may cost you more in the long run—but it's a good way to test everything out and see if a home server is right for you.
  • The Ubuntu live CD, available here.
  • Enough storage space to hold whatever files you want on your server. Again, you might be able to get by with whatever old hard drives you have lying around, though if you're storing a lot of media you may need to go buy some new drives with a lot of space. I, for example, have a 2 TB drive dedicated to movies and TV shows, a 1 TB drive dedicated to backups, and a 500GB drive dedicated to music.
  • A router with DHCP reservations or static IP addresses (almost every router has this capability). This isn't required, but it's definitely preferred. If you don't have this, managing your server can get pretty annoying, since its IP address will change when you reboot it.
  • A spare monitor to set up your server. You'll only need this in the initial building stages to set up your drives and apps. When you're done, you can just stick your computer in a closet without a monitor, but for the setup, just use one of your existing monitors or just hook it up to your TV with a spare VGA cable.

We're going to just use the regular Desktop version of Ubuntu for this as opposed to the Server version. It's much easier to set up, and should still run fine on any remotely recent computer. We'll also be installing Ubuntu to one of our storage drives, so you'll need to set aside 5GB or so of space for it. If you wanted to, you could install it on a persistent flash drive, but that's only really useful if you're going to swap out drives often, so most people shouldn't have to worry about it.

Once you've gathered up all your materials and installed your hard drives, read on to see how to set everything up.

Install Ubuntu and Prepare Your Drives

We're going to install Ubuntu on one of the hard drives storing our data. It should only take up about 5GB, so it doesn't particularly matter which one—but you'll probably need the drive to be empty before you install Ubuntu. You can copy all your data back afterwards. Grab the Ubuntu live CD here, and either burn it to disc or, if your server-to-be doesn't have a disc drive, burn it to a flash drive instead.

When it's done, insert the CD or flash drive into your server and boot it up. If it isn't set to boot from CD or USB automatically, you may have to go into your BIOS and change yout boot disk priority to include USB drives at the top of the list. You may need to refer to your computer's instructions for how to do this, but you can usually get to the BIOS by holding the Delete key as it starts up, or whatever key is listed on your computer's startup screen.

Turn an Old Computer into a Networked Backup, Streaming, or Torrenting Machine with UbuntuOnce you're booted into Ubuntu, just choose "Install Ubuntu" from the menu, and choose your desired hard drive from the list when prompted. Remember, you want the drive to be empty before you install Ubuntu, so it doesn't overwrite your data. Also, when you create your user, make sure you set Ubuntu to automatically log you in. You don't want to have to type your password every time you reboot your server.

Once Ubuntu is done installing, we'll set up our hard drives. We're going to want to format these drives as ext4 to make Linux compatibility easy, so if they have any data on them right now, you'll want to copy that data somewhere else. We're going to erase them and start from scratch.

Start up your server and open a terminal. Run the following command:

  sudo apt-get install gparted pysdm

Turn an Old Computer into a Networked Backup, Streaming, or Torrenting Machine with UbuntuThese are the tools we'll need to work with our drives. Next, click on the Dash (the purple button at the top of Ubuntu's dock), and search for GParted. Click on it to start it up. You should see a list of your drives in the dropdown at the top-right corner of the screen. Choose one of your other drives (not the one that has Ubuntu installed), and then go to Device > Create Partition Table. Click OK, and then select the "unallocated" partition. Press the "New Partition" button in the upper right-hand corner, and format it as ext4. Label it whatever you want (like "Media" or "WindowsBackup"), and click Add. Then, click the green check mark in GParted's toolbar. It will format your drive. Note which drive it is on your system (e.g., /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc) and repeat this process for your other drives.

Turn an Old Computer into a Networked Backup, Streaming, or Torrenting Machine with UbuntuLastly, before you share your drives, you'll want to make sure they mount automatically every time you start up your server—otherwise, if you ever reboot, you won't be able to access them. To do this, open up the dash and search for Storage Device Manager. Start it up and find your drives in the left sidebar. For each one, click on it and choose "OK" when prompted to configure the drive. Give it a name (again, like "Media" or "WindowsBackup") and click Apply. Repeat this process for each drive. They should now automatically mount at startup. Reboot your server to make sure they do what they're supposed to—if they're mounted at startup, you should see little "eject" icons next to them in your file browser as soon as you start it up. If they don't have eject icons without you clicking on them first, go back to the Storage Device Manager and make sure you did everything correctly before continuing.

Share Your Server's Drives with Your Network

Your new server can do a lot of things, but first and foremost, it's going to "serve" files to your other computers. So, once we have our data on the server, the first thing we'll want to do is share those drives with the rest of our network.

To share a folder or drive, open up a terminal and run the following command:

  gksudo nautilus

Turn an Old Computer into a Networked Backup, Streaming, or Torrenting Machine with UbuntuThis will start up Nautilus (Ubuntu's file manager) with root permissions, which we'll need to share our drives. Next, right-click the drive in the left sidebar, and choose Properties. Go to the Share tab, and check the "Share this Folder" box. The first time you do this, Ubuntu will probably prompt you to install the Windows file sharing service. Install anything it asks you to, and then restart your session when prompted. This won't restart your computer, it'll just turn on the sharing feature. Remember to go back and check the "Allow others to create and delete files" and "Guest access" checkboxes after Windows installs these services.

Then, give your share a name (like "Media" or "WindowsBackup") and check the "Allow others to create and delete files in this folder". When prompted, click "Add the permissions automatically" checkbox at the bottom. This will make it easy to access that folder from other computers on your network. Click "Create Share" and say yes when it asks you to automatically add the necessary permissions. Repeat this process for your other drives.

Lastly, you'll need to create a password for all of those shared drives, so you can access them from any computer (and so other people can't). To do this, just open up a terminal and type the following, replacing whitsongordon with your own username:

  sudo smbpasswd -a whitsongordon

Then type and re-type a password of your choice when prompted.

Now, head over to your main computer and check to see if the folder was shared properly. On Windows, open up Windows Explorer and click on "Network" in the left sidebar. Your server should show up in the list, and if you double click on it, you'll be asked for a username and password. Use the ones you just created, and it should give you access to your folder, with all the data inside. If you're on a Mac, just open up Finder and go to Go > Connect to Server and type in smb:\\192.168.0.11, where 192.168.0.11 is the IP address of your server. Remember, you'll make your life a lot easier by setting up DHCP reservations or a static IP for your server. Then you can type in your username and password to connect to your files.

Turn an Old Computer into a Networked Backup, Streaming, or Torrenting Machine with UbuntuWindows users can also mount these shared folders as network drives on their computer and give them their own drive letters for easy access. To do so, just right-click on the share you want to mount. Then click "Map Network Drive" to give it its own drive letter. It'll sit in the left sidebar of Windows Explorer, perfect for quick and easy access.

Repeat this process for every folder or drive you want to share from your server. In my case, I've shared the two drives I listed above, named "Media" and "Backup". Your drives will obviously vary, but read on for some cool ideas of what you can do with your new server.

Three Cool Ways You Can Use Your Server

Sharing your drives is fine if all you need is a place to store your files, but your server can do so much more. Here are some ideas.

Back Up Data From Your Main Computer

Turn an Old Computer into a Networked Backup, Streaming, or Torrenting Machine with UbuntuIf you aren't already backing up your main computer, you should. We recommend using a program like Crashplan to back your data up to the cloud, but your server can be a great backup location too—provided you have your really essential files stored somewhere else online, like Dropbox.

You have a number of options for backing data up to your server, but they should all be pretty simple: just share your backup drive as described above, and then set up Crashplan as described here to back up to that network drive. It works on any platform, and only takes a few minutes to set up. It couldn't be simpler. Alternatively, you could use Windows' built in Windows Backup tool, but you'll need to have Windows 7 Professional or higher to back up to a network drives. See our FreeNAS guide for more info on how it works.

Stream Media to All Your Devices

If you have a sizeable collection of movies and TV shows, your server is a great place to stash them. Not only does it free up space on your other computers, but with a bit of magic, you can stream those videos to your computers and mobile devices with almost no effort, so your media is with you wherever you go. The easiest way to do this is with the Plex media server.

To set it up, just run the following commands in a terminal:

  gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/plex.list

Add the following line to the text file:

  deb http://www.plexapp.com/repo lucid main

And then run the following two commands in a terminal:

  sudo apt-get update  sudo apt-get install plexmediaserver

Turn an Old Computer into a Networked Backup, Streaming, or Torrenting Machine with UbuntuWhen it's done installing, the media server will start running. You can add or remove media from your library from any computer, which means your work with the server is done. Just head to any computer and type 192.168.0.11:32400/manage, where 192.168.0.11 is the IP address of your server. To add movies, just click on "Movies" and navigate to the drive or folder on your server where your movies are stored. If they're stored on another drive, you'll find them under /Media/[Name of Drive].

Once you've added your media, Plex should automatically organize it into a library for you. The easiest way to stream it to your other devices is to go to Preferences > MyPlex and set up an account from the Media Manager interface. Then, download the Plex app for iOS, Android, Google TV, or your other computers and sign in with your MyPlex account there. You should see your whole library, available for streaming wherever you are. And, any time you want to edit your Plex library, you can do so by going back to the Media Manager web interface from any computer—no need to futz with your server.

Plex is our favorite media streaming app, but it isn't your only choice. If you just want to share your media with the computers in your house, you can easily add your server's shared media folders to XBMC on another computer, or set up a music streaming service like Audiogalaxy or Subsonic for a more music-focused experience.

Set Up BitTorrent for Constant File Sharing

BitTorrent is great, but it's far more useful when it's always on. Maybe you want new movies and TV shows as soon as they're available, or perhaps you're part of a private tracker that requires you to seed all the time. Whatever your needs, you can use your server to run BitTorrent 24/7 and monitor it from any computer in your house.

We're going to use our favorite BitTorrent client, Deluge, to get this done. To install Deluge, just open up a terminal window and run:

  sudo apt-get install deluge deluge-web deluged

Turn an Old Computer into a Networked Backup, Streaming, or Torrenting Machine with UbuntuWhen it's done installing, fire it up by going to the Dash and typing in "Deluge". Once it starts, to to Edit > Preferences > Plugins, and check the WebUI box. The "WebUI" option should show up in the left sidebar; click it and check "Enable Web Interface" and "Enable SSL". You can change the listening port to whatever you want, but we'll leave it at 8112 for this tutorial. This is how we're going to monitor our torrents from other computers.

To access the web UI from another computer, type the following in your browser's address bar:

  https://192.168.0.11:8112/

Turn an Old Computer into a Networked Backup, Streaming, or Torrenting Machine with UbuntuWhere 192.168.0.11 is your server's IP address. It'll ask you for a password. The default is deluge, though it'll prompt you to change it to something new right away, which you should do. From then on, you can add new torrents, monitor existing ones, and change any torrent-related preferences right from this web UI—no need to dig out your server. Just be sure to set Deluge to download torrents to one of your shared folders, so you can access those downloads when they finish.

Lastly, click on the Dash and search for "Startup Applications". Click on it, and press the "Add" button. Name it "Deluge Daemon" and enter deluged for the command. Click Add and close the window. This will ensure that Deluge starts up every time you reboot your server.

Don't forget to anonymize that BitTorrent traffic with a proxy service like BTGuard, or a VPN like one of these. You also set up programs to automatically download TV shows and movies, or even install a Usenet client on your server too.

This isn't the only way to set up a home server with Ubuntu, but it's certainly the easiest. These instructions should get you started, but once you're set up, the world is your oyster. If you've already put together a home server before, let us know what you use it for in the comments.

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'Am I Rich Enough?': A Girls Recap

June 19th, 2012Top Story

'Am I Rich Enough?': A Girls Recap

By John Cook

'Am I Rich Enough?': A Girls RecapThe appropriate response to Girls, a television show about two African-American boys from Harlem who live with a white Park Avenue millionaire and his sassy but wise housekeeper, is to lock down parliament and unilaterally gut the presidency. But today is Lester Flatt's birthday, and Girls is over Girls is over Girls is over, so here's your last recap.

The only take on Girls that matters is Mick Jagger's, who sang in 1978 (one year before Lesley Arfin was born):

White girls they're pretty funny
Sometimes they drive me mad
Black girls just wanna get fucked all night
I just don't have that much jam

We open with Brian Williams' daughter moving out of the apartment she had shared with Laurie Simmons' daughter. The angry woodworking boyfriend is helping, negotiating a chair and a mattress down a flight of stairs.

Laurie Simmons' daughter is worried about what will happen to Brian Williams' daughter. Where will she live? "You don't have a plan," Laurie Simmons' daughter says.

"I think maybe that's a good thing for me," Brian Williams' daughter says, NOT AS UPTIGHTLY AS USUAL. Has a life-lesson been learned? A life-lesson has been learned.

Standing in her half-empty apartment, her best friend having abandoned her, Laurie Simmons' daughter ponders her future. The angry woodworking boyfriend says, "Maybe I'll move in." A smile crosses Laurie Simmons' daughter's face. She kisses him.

Brian Williams' daughter moves in with David Mamet's daughter. Where is the Drummer from Bad Company's daughter? She has disappeared. David Mamet's daughter invites Brian Williams' daughter to take her place.

Laurie Simmons' daughter goes to her shift at "Grumpy," or Cafe Grumpy, the coolest of Williamsburg coffee houses often populated by the coolest of Williamsburg cats. She pretends to be sick and asks Ray, her boss, if she can leave early. She thinks maybe she drank some bad Mylanta?

"Hmmm," Ray says. "Expired Mylanta. You don't want to drink that."

But Laurie Simmons' daughter is not sick. She did not drink expired Mylanta. She has received a text from the Drummer from Bad Company's daughter reading: "Please come to the most important party of my life 7 p.m. sharp. Dress real nice and come." She wants to leave early to get ready. But Ray got the same text. Embarrassing!

"Use your head," he tells her. "We're in the same friendship circle."

"I just thought—"

"Don't just think," he says. "That's an extremely unattractive feature of your generation." See how she does it?

Ray tells her to go home and get ready for the mystery event.

We are at the mystery event. There stands Brian Williams' daughter. Something is different. Her hair? Yes. Her hair. It's...kinky? Curly? Permed? Wavy? Do her newly coiled strands serve as an outward signifier of her newfound NON-UPTIGHTNESS? Yes, they do.

The angry woodworking actor arrives, dapper in a plaid blazer. "You look very beautiful," he says to Laurie Simmons' daughter. He doesn't seem as angry as he once did.

A jackass, played by one of the lesser Saturday Night Live players, takes the stage. What a jackass this guys is! He telegraphs jackassery, and welcomes everyone to the "mystery party."

Out step the Drummer from Bad Company's Daughter and the Williamsburg douchebag that tried to have a threesome with the Drummer from Bad Company's daughter and Brian Williams' daughter two episodes ago. When we last saw the Williamsburg douchebag, the Drummer from Bad Company's daughter was disgusted by his douchiness and he was calling the Drummer from Bad Company's daughter a "stupid little daddy's girl with [a] fucking bowler hat." There has been literally no interaction, either directly portrayed or narrated in exposition, between their characters since that moment.

And now they are getting married!

Let the record reflect that the television program Girls, which is "like nothing else on TV," and which has at long last brought the previously buried perspectives of 23- to 28-year-old females to bear on mass culture, has bravely broken yet another taboo by choosing to set its season finale at a surprise wedding. Nothing has ever been like that, on TV.

Surprise weddings, by the way, are sure to become a trend among Generation Facebook after Mark Zuckerberg, the generation's founder, recently blazed the trail.

The Drummer from Bad Company's daughter and the douchebag exchange vows. They explain that they used to not like each other. But then, the douchebag says, "I thought to myself that if i ever saw that crazy bitch again, I would make her my fucking wife."

The angry woodworking actor almost starts crying. "People finding each other, taking shelter," he says. "I'm very moved."

A song begins playing. It's called "Yankin'", by Lady. The refrain is, "Ain't gotta tell me / I know this pussy be yankin'." Everyone begins dancing, horribly. Their hands arrayed flatly, in karate chop mode, held in the air. They glance down and to the right, tucking in their chins.

In the bathroom, the Drummer from Bad Company's daughter and Laurie Simmons' daughter are talking. "Like, do you feel like a real adult now?" Laurie Simmons' daughter asks.

Time for the first dance! To some electronic bleep-bloops.

Laurie Simmons' daughter runs into her gay ex-boyfriend Elijah. He admits that he gave her genital human papillomavirus. This means that the angry woodworking actor, whom Laurie Simmons' daughter had previously accused of transmitting the disease to her, did not in fact transmit the disease and had been falsely accused. Laurie Simmons' daughter does not seem to reflect on this.

"Let's just consider it water under my vagina," she says. Then she learns that Elijah is living in a single-room occupancy hotel with "murderers and, like, junkies, and girls who huff." She offers to let him take over Brian Williams' daughter's room in her apartment.

Laurie Simmons' daughter and the angry woodworking actor are dancing. He tells her that he is "in it for the long haul."

"So, you don't have to worry," she says.

"About what?"

"About moving in," she says. "Because I found someone."

Uh oh. The angry woodworking actor wanted to move in. Laurie Simmons' daughter says she thought he was just being gallant, and trying to help.

"Help?" he says. "I don't want to help. No one does anything because they want to help. I was doing it because I love you. Why do you look so surprised?" Maybe because for most of this season you've been portrayed as a narcissistic condom-faking asshole.

The angry woodworking actor walks out of the wedding. He doesn't want to make a scene.

The jackass is back, announcing the cake-cutting. "It's cakey-time," he says. Jackass.

"Cakey time!" says Brian Williams' daughter. "Is it just me or is he adorable?" Then she empties a flute of champagne. She seems...loose! These life-lessons are fast-acting.

Laurie Simmons' daughter goes to find the angry woodworking actor. She brings him some cake, wrapped in foil.

"You love yourself so much," he says. "So why is it so crazy that someone else should too?"

"I do not love myself," she says.

"You're the fucking worst, you know that? Because you think you're not pretty, and you're not a good writer and you're not a good friend. Well, you are pretty, and you are a good writer and you are a good friend." Wait I thought she loved herself. Wait why are you complimenting her?

"I'm scared, OK? I'm really scared all the time. I'm like very scared, all the time."

"Join the club."

"No. Because I'm more scared than most people are when they that they're scared. I'm like the most the most scared person alive."

They carry on like this. I can think of some people who are more scared than Laurie Simmons' daughter.

Then the angry woodworking actor crosses the street. Then he crosses back. Then he stands in the middle of the street and says "I'm just a beautiful mystery to you." Then he gets hit by a car. Yep.

The car doesn't stop.

Back inside the wedding, Brian Williams' daughter, her newly kinked hair falling about her cleavage, is talking to the jackass. They are eating cake. She grabs a handful of cake and begins eating, which is like the LEAST UPTIGHT thing a woman in her situation could do. She starts making out with jackass.

Somewhere else David Mamet's daughter and Ray have sex.

Back on the street, the angry woodworking actor, who is conscious, is getting loaded into an ambulance. Laurie Simmons' daughter tries to get in with him, but he refuses. "Don't let her in here," he tells the EMTs. "She's a monster."

Laurie Simmons' daughter hops on the subway. She takes the F, and falls asleep. When she wakes up, her purse is gone. She doesn't seem to mind. She walks onto the elevated subway platform and looks around. It is late at night, or early in the morning. A group of kids is partying on an adjacent rooftop. "Where am I?" Laurie Simmons' daughter asks them. All New York City subway platforms have markings indicating the name of the stop. Laurie Simmons' daughter doesn't consult these markings. The partying kids don't say.

She's in Coney Island, the terminus of the F. She walks to the beach and sits down. She eats wedding cake.

For those keeping score at home: All major characters on the television program Girls enacted a full character-development cycle over the course of its first season, path-breakingly. The Drummer from Bad Company's daughter began as a wild-child, a homewrecker unburdened by societal norms. She ended as a newlywed starting her own home with a venture capitalist. David Mamet's daughter began as a virgin. She ended as a sex-having person. Brian Williams' daughter began the show as OH MY GOD SHE WAS SO UPTIGHT. Then she was going to get MANFULLY FUCKED BY BROOKS JONATHAN HEY WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT GUY? Then in a Hitchcockian twist she ended up getting MANFULLY FUCKED by a jackass instead but anyway the point is she is no longer uptight. The angry woodworking actor began as an angry woodworking actor but then he was kind of an angry woodworking conceptual artist but he was definitely a self-involved, uncaring dick but then he became a Manic Pixie Dream Guy and then just in the last episode he was a lovelorn romantic.

And Laurie Simmons' daughter. She began as an unemployed, lovelorn romantic. But finally she gets what she wants, and she spurns it, because she is the most scared person on the planet. Isn't that the way? That is the way. Generation Spurn. Also she got a job at "Grumpy."

***************************

So what have we learned here, kids? What is the message, finally? That all television shows are stupid, and that television is not art, and to relentlessly valorize a 26-year-old show-runner with tattoos of scenes from children's books as the voice of a new generation is foolhardy and empty? That youth is callow, and navel-gazing, and small-minded? That wrapping your persona in layer after layer of defensive irony and self-deprecation does not absolve you of the responsibility to be interested in something outside of yourself? That an awareness of your flaws is not a defense?

"But," you will say. "You don't get it. The show is a satire. A gentle satire, but a satire. The flaws are the point."

"And yet you celebrate her as an auteur," I will say. "The 'artist' and the character are virtually identical, and you valorize the artist for skewering the character. Besides, she's not skewering the character. These people are meant to be loved, to be understood and explained. It's a celebration, not a satire."

"Do you apply the same standard to Woody Allen?" you will say. "Is his filmic self meant to be loved or is he a comic foil? Is he the hero or the butt of the joke, or both?"

"Laurie Simmons' daughter is no Woody Allen," I will say.

"Stop calling her that," you will say. "Why do you insist on calling her that? Do you really think a feminist artist who works with dolls can call up HBO and get her daughter a gig? The TV business is rife with nepotism. Why single her out?"

"You misunderstand me," I will say. "I don't think she got a TV show because of her mother. But I think that the concerns of the wealthy private school girls ought to be dismissed as a matter of course and not be taken seriously. There are enough people who take them seriously; for largely tribal reasons I don't want to be among them. Especially if they surround themselves with their well-bred peers. I think that we should fight to rob the Laurie Simmons' daughters and David Mamet's daughters' and Brian Williams' daughters' and Drummer from Bad Company's daughters' of this world of the opportunities they have been unjustly awarded. Or at least highlight the injustice."

"Oh bullshit," you will say. "Ian McKaye's father was an editor at the Washington Post. Marginal Man's Kenny Inouye was the son of a senator. Bullshit."

"They were making something good and worthwhile," I will say. "Something that mortified and angered their parents, or at least their parents' peers. Not working for a giant corporation and smiling from magazine spreads while enacting a pantomime of 'indie-ness'."

"Do you want to know what I think?" you will say.

"No," I will say.

"Then I'll tell you," you will say. "I think that in time the Lena Dunhams are going to conquer the western hemisphere. Of course it wont be quite in our time and of course as they spread toward the poles they will bleach out again like the rabbits and the birds do, so they wont show up so sharp against the snow. But it will still be Lena Dunham; and so in a few thousand years, I who regard you will also have sprung from the loins of celebrated feminist artists. Now I want you to tell me just one thing more. Why do you hate Girls?"

"I don't hate it," I will say, quickly, at once, immediately; "I don't hate it," I will say. I don't hate it, I will think, panting in the cold air, the dank Gawker dimness: I don't. I don't! I don't hate it! I don't hate it!

Skrillex.

There will be no more recaps of Girls.

Last week's Girls recap: 'That's When I Reach for My Revolver'

A counterpoint from Rich Juzwiak: Now That We've Seen Everything: A Girls Reappraisal

Image by Jim Cooke

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How a 375-Pound Lazy Gamer Lost 80 Pounds in Six Months

June 19th, 2012Top Story

How a 375-Pound Lazy Gamer Lost 80 Pounds in Six Months

By Mike Fahey

How a 375-Pound Lazy Gamer Lost 80 Pounds in Six MonthsIn December of 2011 I was not a healthy person. I was eating crap, drinking crap, and the life of video game journalist not located in a major city isn't exactly rife with opportunities to do healthy things like running, walking... getting up out of your office chair.

At my heaviest I weighed 375 pounds. Even with my giant 6'6" frame, that's 100 pounds north of not-gonna-drop-dead-any-minute. Something had to be done, so I lost 80 pounds.

Okay, it's a bit more involved than that.

It's hard to keep the weight off when you're a food lover with a primary hobby that involves staying seated for as long as possible. My day-to-day activities consist of waking up, cleaning whatever mess the children might have left behind the night before, and then sitting at my desk for nine or ten hours (a modest estimate). After work I'll play a game for review, feed the children, maybe squeeze in a quick shower if babies permit.

And I eat.

I enjoy eating; it keeps me from not being alive. Anyone that's read a Snacktaku post can see that I have a passion for food, even if I don't particularly like some of it.

My wife-creature also enjoys eating, though she has a job that keeps her on her feet all day, so when she and I would order a Chinese food feast from the people that keep leaving flyers in my front door, she'd eventually work it off, whereas I would pack it on.

At my heaviest, it wasn't pretty. Sitting up made me out of breath. I couldn't cover a trade show without something aching or hurting. I wasn't sleeping through the night, the extra tonnage invoking sleep apnea, causing me to stop breathing in the middle of the night, scaring the hell out of anyone nearby.

How a 375-Pound Lazy Gamer Lost 80 Pounds in Six Months

That's Christmas of 2011. Where the hell is my neck?

I was fine with looking and feeling like that. I had the love of a good-ish woman; I had my video games. If I was going to die, at least I'd go with the taste of gravy on my lips.

But then the children came.

There's a running joke in our twisted little family in which I say I want to be an anime father. I'll live long enough to get a picture taken of me with the children on my shoulders, my face mysteriously shrouded in shade, and then I would die. Years later that picture would be on the dashboard of the giant robot they pilot to save the world, serving as inspiration. Perhaps I would come back to life and reveal myself to have been their grizzled mentor the whole time. "I'll be dead by the time they reach four", I would joke.

But what if I was? I'd really like to see what Seamus and Archer Fahey look like when they grow up without having to fake a missing persons report to get my hands on that cool police age-imaging software. At the rate I was going, that was becoming a less-likely prospect every day.

So I decided to drop a few dozen pounds.

I started in January of this year at 376 pounds. Triple extra-large shirts were getting tight, my waist was a size 46.

As of right now I weigh 292 pounds, 17 pounds from the target healthy weight of someone of my height and build. Double extra-large shirts are roomy, but I need them for the length. Size 40 pants slip off without a belt.

I did not undergo surgery. I did not completely stop eating fast food. I did not exercise regularly.

What did I do? Let's go over it in a series of simple steps that anyone can follow.

1. See Your Doctor

Seeing the doctor when you're grossly overweight is no fun whatsoever. The only thing worse than someone making fun of your weight is someone making sense of it, something doctors do with frustrating regularity. They understand the health risks. They've seen the damage done. They may have even had patients die because they were too big.

So when they bring the full weight of years of experience to bear on you with that disapproving look, own it. There's a reason you're disappointing your doctor, and there's a way to make them happy.

My doctor was extremely helpful once he finished glaring at me, giving me the key component of my weight loss equation: How many calories I should be eating.

In my case, maintaining a healthy weight would require the consumption of 2,200 calories a day. That's for a man with my build at 275 pounds. I shudder to think how much I was consuming to reach 375.

If your doctor isn't comfortable giving you the number, see if he can refer you to a nutritionist. Whatever you do, don't look the number up on the internet. We've all got different bodies, so going off a generic chart is a recipe for failure, disaster, or weight loss that isn't nearly as healthy as it seems.

2. Grab a Calorie Counting App

MyNetDiary for the iPhone is my constant companion these days. Armed with my calorie target and the fitness app, my eating habits have transformed from stuffing my face whenever I can to "How much can I fit in this 2,200 calorie box?"

It's a game, essentially. I eat breakfast, enter in the calories (MyNetDiary features a handy bar code scanner and a built-in food look-up), and then get a figure telling me how much more I can eat that day.

There's strategy involved here. Do I go for the 250 calorie McDonald's Snack Wrap, saving more calories for a bigger dinner, or do I make a couple of pretzel bread Hot Pockets, knocking out 500 calories all at once?

This method has had the odd side effect of me actively searching for foods with caloric content that's a multiple of 100. They're the line piece of this eating Tetris. I've a drawer full of 100-calorie snack packs ready to fill in a gap at a moment's notice.

3. Change the Way You Think About Eating

Easier said than done, right?

For me this is less of a step than it is a side-effect of the entire process. I used to eat what I wanted, when I wanted. I am a grown-up, I have the income, why shouldn't I?

Well, not only is that unhealthy, I was denying myself one of the best parts of the dining experience: the anticipation. Looking forward to the next day, when I would have room for a couple of slices of pizza. Planning a date on the weekend to go out to a nice restaurant.

Eating is an event now, instead of an automatic process. It's exciting. I look forward to it every day. It sounds ridiculous, but it's true.

And that's really all I've done. I set aside one day a week to cheat; half the time I don't even use it. I watch the pounds go down. I enter them in my application. I watch the stats drop. I play the game.

And it's worked for me.

There's still a long road ahead. I've got 17 more pounds to lose. I've got to maintain. And yeah, I've got to start exercising if I truly want to be healthy.

Now I've got the energy to get that done. During E3 earlier this month I was so excited by how awake, alert and just plain alive I felt that I'm sure I infuriated everyone I met with talk of weight loss and dieting and such.

Hey, at least they'll remember me as the tall chatty guy and not the heart-attack-waiting-to-happen. That I can live with.

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