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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • I started down the Jellyfin path after they made that announcement. It’s super easy to install, and in many ways the UI is nicer than Plex. But I ran into challenges getting my server safely accessible for users outside my LAN. And I haven’t had the time to look into that further.

    Would be great if there was a clean, easy way to set up the webserver portion so it’s as easy to share content entirely as Plex. But I get they are a volunteer project with a lot on their plate.


  • It started happening a few years ago in my area. Maybe like right before the pandemic?

    For a while some of the stations had a hidden option where you could hit one of the unmarked selection buttons and it would at least mute the ads. But starting around the end of last year they took that option away.

    The only stations I know of that don’t show ads are Costco (and I assume Sam’s Club too, but idk). Plus they have slight discounts on gas because they are member only. But my local Costco station is such a headache to get through these days - even at around 9pm after the main store closes - that I not just go to a local Shell or Valero and resentfully try to ignore the fucking ads that always play.





  • It’s basically the evolution (or devolution?) of the Internet in a capitalist global economy. This is just the next step in the effort to profit off digital Data and communications.

    Back in the early 2000s pretty much everything was free to use, and revenue came from passive ads. Then ad blindness and ad blockers kicked in, revenue went down, and the cat and mouse game began of companies trying to find ways of getting clicks and views while the consumer didn’t want to do that. This has escalated over the last 20-odd years.

    We’re now at a point where paywalls are fairly effective (for now). So that’s what’s being pushed. Plus, subscriptions and everything-as-a-service is in vogue right now.

    I expect that will end when the money-making enshitification of the Internet reaches a critical mass and the economy nosedives for various reasons.





  • Zorin is a good transition point from Windows to Linux, since it’s an easy distro to install and it’s pretty Windows-like from a UX perspective.

    Here’s a more general recommendation: start off by installing a VM platform (VirtualBox or similar) on your Windows system and spinning up a few VMs, each one with a different beginner-friendly distro on it (Zorin, Mint, etc). That way you can play around with them, get more comfortable, and choose the one you like best, before you go all in.




  • I just got back from taking one of my kids trick or treating with his friends. It was great. My wife and I got to walk and chat with the other parents while all of our kids knocked on doors and shouted “trick or treat!”. Lots of friendly, generous, nice people. And lots of shouted reminders from us for the kids to not walk on people’s front lawns, to say thank you, to be careful crossing the quiet roads. There were so many other kids out too. It was pretty crazy, but in a good way. About half of the houses were giving out candy in some way or other, with only about a quarter having an un-monitored bowl.

    Then on the way home we drove past a church that was having a ‘trunk or treat’ in their parking lot. That just looked sad. There was no excitement for going up to the really cool houses that were decked out in amazing props and decorations. There was no need to hone analytical skills to determine which houses were giving out candy and which ones probably weren’t. Just going very short distances from one car to the next getting candy. My kid asked why they do that. I said it’s probably because they are a closed community who don’t really want to associate with ‘outsiders’. Give me the conventional experience over that all day every day!


  • I was looking into something similar recently, and asked around on Lemmy. The general consensus I heard was that a Mini PC weren’t ideal, mostly I think due to the fact that they aren’t designed purely for streaming.

    One think someone said piqued my interest, and I might try this. They recommended buying a cheap, Android TV compatible streaming box (like an Onn brand one), and side-loading an open source (and ad-free) launcher onto it.

    I found this thread over on the Huffman Shitshow that had some good instructions.


  • I have no idea why anyone still goes to McDogsbreath (I’ll likely hear some reasons in responses to this comment, but I’ve heard them before and don’t buy them). Back in the day I rarely had positive experiences when I was dragged out there reluctantly. Plasticy food of subpar quality, and very uncomfortable, plastic furniture.

    And in recent years, between the prices quadrupling, the limited menu for people who don’t like burgers, the shite Wi-Fi, and now them not even being willing to lose 10c on a relatively small % of customers who get a soda refill… Why go there at all! There are so many better fast food options than that disaster of a chain.