Yeah, it’s a toss-up between the Nvidia Shield and the Apple TV 4K. Go with Nvidia if you want to be able to load your own custom launcher. Go with Apple TV 4K if you want ease of setup. Either one will be a workhorse of a device, both have robust app stores to run whatever streaming services you prefer, and both will run whatever custom media you want to throw at it via Plex, Kodi, or VLC’s network play.

Yeah, the issue was with Windows doing funky things with GRUB during an update. GRUB is a popular bootloader, which detects which OSes you have installed, and presents them in a menu. But Windows has been setting Windows Bootloader to run instead of GRUB when it updates. And Windows’ Bootloader doesn’t automatically detect Linux installs. If you use your BIOS to choose your OS (instead of using GRUB) you’re fine.

Even then, the fix is relatively simple in most cases. It’s just running a command in Windows’ Command Prompt, (the specific command is a little bit different depending on your specific distro) to re-enable GRUB after the update disables it.

Warning: You basically get no time off. Even when you’re off, you’re expected to be on-call. And no, you’re not paid extra for that.

With the rise of computers, railroad scheduling got precise. It eventually reached a point where railroad companies began cutting workers, because they were able to bounce one conductor from train to train the same way airlines bounce pilots from one flight to the next. They cut so many workers that it got to the point where a single sick person can bring the entire system to a screeching halt. Instead of actually keeping enough people on the roster to actually fill their needs, they just started implementing increasingly strict attendance policies, to the point that railroad workers have basically zero time off.

This led to the 2022 strike, where railroad workers were eventually allowed one day of PTO per year. They’re either working or on call for the other 364 days.

The most common reason to get a new number is because you were the victim of identity theft. The gross part is that getting a new SSN doesn’t actually remove your old SSN. It just ties your new SSN to your old one; You can use either one interchangeably, because the new one just automatically routes back to the old one. This means there are now two numbers that can be used to steal your identity, instead of just one. And it doesn’t prevent the people who already have your old number from continuing to use it.

In this two thousand and twenty fourth year of our lord, there are still people using databases that don’t automatically append a unique number to entries to avoid this exact scenario…

If it was just an expired license, did you get it renewed afterwards? Oftentimes, cops will issue a “fix it” ticket to encourage people to actually take care of their stuff. Basically, you’ll be able to show the judge that you got it remedied. The judge will likely look at your (otherwise spotless) record, and outright dismiss it, or knock it down to a small fine. The cop knows this will likely be dismissed if you get it taken care of, so they really just issue the ticket to force you to actually stop procrastinating and get it done. It basically puts a deadline on your renewal.

If you haven’t renewed yet, you should start that now. At least be able to show the judge that you’re working on it.

I could fit 90% of my survival-related stuff into a 5 gallon Home Depot bucket in the trunk of my car. I know this for a fact, because I literally have a 5 gallon bucket full of survival gear in the trunk of my car right now, (because I’m going camping this weekend, not because I’m a crazy prepper…) It holds everything I need, except for my sleeping stuff and clothes, which just get thrown into a duffle.

It wouldn’t cover consumables like food or water, but it would at least be enough to survive in relative comfort. It’s really just a matter of how off-the-grid you want to be. I have a small saw and hatchet for making firewood. A wood burning stove for cooking and heat. The 5 gallon bucket actually doubles as a camp toilet, (I use compostable bags and toilet gel,) and a few other essentials like cutlery, a mess kit, cordage, etc.

As for living like you’re always ready to vanish, it can be a lifestyle choice, but is often done out of necessity or survival instead. Victims of abuse, for instance, often learn to pack light and avoid buying things. So if their abuser ever finds them, they can ghost in less than a day.

My guess is that OP was caught street racing. They tick a lot of boxes for someone who would street race. My guess is that they’re stationed at Fort Dearborn, in Chicago. That’s an army base. Freshly enlisted army chuds tend to see their first paycheck, get excited that they suddenly have big-boy money, (and aren’t paying rent because they’re living on base) and they impulsively buy a sports car. And this means they’re only one step away from street racing. All it takes is a weekend of off-base shenanigans when he sees some local car enthusiasts, and now OP is hit with street racing charges.

Many areas have begun cracking down on racing, to the point that it can outright get your car seized (not just impounded for pickup later. Completely seized), and your license revoked. Not sure about Chicago/Illinois specifically, but many areas have started implementing harsher and harsher penalties for it on the city/county level.

If this is the case, the cop is basically saying “rat on your street racing buddies so we can bust all of them, or else we’re throwing the book at you.”

OP needs to delete this post and talk to an attorney.

You don’t need to run it on a pi. In fact, I’d actually argue against it; A pi will be underpowered if you’re ever needing to transcode anything. Transcoding is what Plex/Jellyfin does if your watching device can’t natively play the video. Maybe you have a 4k video, but you’re playing it on a 1080p screen. That video will need to be transcoded from 4k into 1080p for the screen to be able to display it. Or maybe the file is encoded using ACC (a fairly recent encoding method) which isn’t widely supported by older devices. This often happens with things like smart TVs (which often don’t support modern encoding and need to be transcoded even if the resolution is correct.)

Basically, if you’re 100% positive that every device you’re watching it on will never need transcoding, then a pi is acceptable. But for anything else, I’d recommend a small PC instead. You can even use an old PC if you have one laying around.

Or if you want to use a new machine, maybe something like an HP Elitedesk. They’re basically what you see in every single cubicle in every single office building. They’re extremely popular in corporate settings, which means there are a ton of used/refurbished systems available for cheap, because IT destroys the drives and sends the rest to refurb when they upgrade their fleet of PCs. So for the refurb you’re basically just paying the cost of an SSD they added in (to replace the one IT pulled out), plus whatever labor is associated with dusting it out and checking the connections to make sure they all work. You can pick up a modern one for like $250 on Amazon (or your preferred electronics store).

Worth noting that the elitedesk generations are marked by a G-number, so google the model (like an EliteDesk G9, G7, etc) to see what kind of processor it has; Avoid anything with an intel 13th or 14th generation CPU, (they have major reliability issues) and check with Plex/Jellyfin’s CPU requirements list to see if it supports hardware accelerated transcoding. For Intel chips, look for QuickSync support.

For storage, I’d recommend running a NAS with however many hard drives you can afford, and one that has extra ports for future expandability. Some NAS systems support Plex and/or Jellyfin directly, but the requirements for full support are tricky and you’ll almost always have better luck just running a dedicated PC for Plex. Then for playing, one of two things will happen. Either the device is capable of directly playing the file, or it will need to be transcoded. If it’s directly playing, the plex server basically just points the player to the NAS, and the player handles the rest. If it’s transcoding, the PC will access the NAS, then stream it to the player.

As for deciding on Plex vs Jellyfin, that’s really a matter of personal preference. If you’re using Plex, I’d highly suggest a PlexPass sub/lifetime purchase; Wait until Black Friday, because they historically do a (~25% off) discount on their lifetime pass. Plex is definitely easier to set up, especially if you plan on streaming outside of your LAN.

Jellyfin currently struggles from a lack of native app support; Lots of smart TVs don’t have a native Jellyfin app, for instance. But some people have issues and complaints (many of them justified!) with Plex, so if the FOSS sounds appealing, then consider Jellyfin instead. Jellyfin is also rapidly being developed, and many people expect it to have feature parity with Plex within a few years.

And if you’re having trouble deciding, you can actually set up both (they can run in tandem on the same machine) and then see which one you prefer.

And the nice part about using a mini PC is that you can also use it for more than just Plex/Jellyfin. I have the *arr suite running on mine, alongside a Factorio server, a Palworld server, and a few other things.

Most of the episodes aired before at-home VHS was common, and TV stations weren’t in the habit of archiving their old footage for nightly broadcasts; The show was viewed as transient since it dealt with current events, and nobody expected people to want to re-watch old episodes. It’s likely that a lot of them aren’t available simply because nobody (including the tv station) has recordings.

Mozilla doesn’t have a VPN. It’s literally Mullvad servers, with Mozilla’s branding on top. Mozilla doesn’t deal with any of the actual server stuff; It’s all handled by Mullvad.

FWIW, it’s a nice little drop shipping side hustle for Mozilla. They get to skim off the top of every Mozilla VPN sale, while doing none of the actual server maintenance and having no ongoing costs (hosting, electricity, etc) related to the VPN servers. But to be clear, you can get the exact same service (for a little cheaper because Mozilla isn’t skimming off the top) directly from Mullvad.

Paying for a VPN through Mozilla is like paying for a Spotify subscription through Apple’s App Store; You get the exact same service as if you had gone straight to Spotify’s site, but with an added convenience fee tacked on by Apple.

Cats do pant, but they’re also just better adapted to heat than dogs are.

Smaller frame means less body heat to disperse; As size increases, the volume:surface area ratio heavily skews towards volume. More volume means more trapped heat. By minimizing volume and maximizing surface area (skin) cats are able to effectively stay cool passively.

Cats also have a higher basal metabolism, which means their body temperature is naturally higher. And creatures don’t feel heat in an absolute sense. Temperature is felt relative to your own body temperature. That’s why a warm shower after swimming feels downright scalding, (because you’re cooled down from swimming, then hopped into a warm shower,) or why the regular room temperature bedroom feels chilly when you have a fever (because you’re warmed up from the fever, so the room feels colder than it normally would.) You’re feeling those things relative to your own body temperature. Since cats have a higher base body temperature, they feel warm environments less than we do. This is also why they spend so much time lazing around in patches of sunlight, or snuggled up next to the radiator; Room temperature is comfortable for us, but slightly chilly to them.

Third, they are originally adapted from the desert. This means they also have some quirks, like tolerating high temperatures better, and having a high tolerance for thirst, (the latter often leads to kidney issues later in life, since cats don’t tend to drink enough water even when it’s readily available.)

Sure, but it’s worth asking why the management is so poor. Many people have theorized that it’s because Google is pulling the strings; It would be in Google’s best interest to keep Firefox around on life support, because it helps them avoid antitrust lawsuits if they can point to Firefox and go “nope not every browser is Chromium based!” But it’s also in Google’s best interest to whittle Firefox’s usage down to near zero, which is what every single recent Mozilla decision has been aiming to do.

Mozilla was getting paid a lot of money by Google before Google got their hand slapped in an antitrust lawsuit. Many people have theorized that since that lawsuit, Google has pivoted to making deals directly with Mozilla’s management instead.

They also recently added built-in AI chat support, which just gives you contextual “summarize this text” type of stuff on your right click menu. But still, it just goes to show that Mozilla is really leaning into AI.

I also use my guest network for the (notoriously insecure) IoT stuff. Oftentimes I’ll take it a step further and use my PiHole to block whatever servers they’re phoning home to.

A good example is my smart TVs. My TVs are the single most blocked devices on my network, by far. Like on a day of heavy use, my phone or PC may generate ~2000 blocked requests. On an average day, my TVs generate 7000+ blocked requests. That’s ~5 attempts to send telemetry data back to the mothership per minute, even when they’re not in use.

My neighbors had the FBI Surveillance Van SSID, so naturally I set mine up as “Definitely Not Russian Hackers”

Pretty sure everyone in the late 90’s and early 2000’s knew some poor kid who was dragged out of class for “hacking” the school network with net send. Send “you got a virus lol” to every computer in the computer lab in 6th grade, and suddenly you have your school computer privileges revoked for “hacking all the computers” until you graduate 6 years later.

If you already have a NAS, (since SMB was mentioned, I’m assuming there’s some sort of NAS setup going) then you may even be able to host Plex directly on the NAS. It likely won’t be powerful enough for things like video transcoding, but just audio should be fine.

It also helps keep your grass healthy, because a dull blade will rip the grass instead of cutting it. If your grass clippings look frayed, it’s because they’re ripping.

That would actually be the safer scenario, as a failure in the PD handshake simply defaults to 5v which every USB device can accept. It would be more dangerous to only have the PD negotiation be on one of the three ports, because then you could potentially burn out devices on the other two by sending them too much voltage.

I guess the best case scenario would be to have the PD signal run on all three, then default to low voltage if any of them fail. But that’s likely not what they’re doing, because then things would only fast charge if all three ports are plugged into fast charge devices. Because an unplugged tail would likely register as a failed PD handshake.