I’ve been “collecting” content for many years now. I learned most of what I needed to know about ripping and transcoding over the years, such that each time I need to deal with a new video format, or a new application, it’s not too hard, because I’m building on everything I’ve already learned.

And each time I was learning new things, it’s not like there was a risk that all my previous content might suddenly become unusable or inaccessible.

Meanwhile, a couple years ago I was finally able to build myself a proper NAS. While I know my way around Linux somewhat, I never kept a Linux-based daily driver because most of the apps I use regularly are on Windows, and I’m not confident about running them stably in Linux, nor am I confident about equivalent native Linux apps. And I’m not confident about setting up and administering my own server. My past experiences have shown me that whenever you need to do anything complex and specific, it involves a lot of work.

So at a coworker’s suggestion, I got a Synology NAS that turned out to be a breeze to setup. And then I figured out how to get Plex server on there (not available in the Synology package manager, but the “manual” process turned out to be simple enough)

And it just WORKS! it’s not perfect, but it’s mostly painless to use. I was happy paying for the lifetime Plex pass at the beginning, because it handles all the routing and discovery that needs to happen to allow me to stream to my phone, or to my parents’ TV when I’m visiting them.

My next NAS might not be by Synology due to their recent announcement about supported hard drives, but I’ll probably be looking for something that “just works” because I can’t be bothered to learn how to be a sysadmin, and risk losing my stuff because I’m making the kinds of mistakes one makes as they’re learning.

Just like, if I owned a car, I wouldn’t be digging under the hood to “tweak the timing” or replacing brake discs. I’d be happy paying someone I trust to do that work, leaving me with a car that “just works”.

No, that was precisely my thought process.

It’s easy to claim victory over a non-existent foe

Alien vs. Predator: whoever wins, we lose

Start a registry for people suffering from erectile dysfunction.

Does it taste like you put the lime in the coconut?

Only if you bring your own house with you.

I’ve just been hoping that every meeting Trump has with other heads of state, they bring him a gift of a dozen eggs from their country, while saying something like: “I heard these are hard to come by here, so I thought I’d bring you a treat!”

But like, each one of them does it, at every new meeting, just to irritate and humiliate him.

I’m still hoping something will happen on Mar 10.

Kakistocracy. You’re gonna hear this word more and more over the next 4 years.

“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate… leads to suffering!”

Kinda simplistic, but, boy does it help explain MAGA!

Just an example: in its final years, Radio Shack fired most of its more experienced (higher paid) employees and kept/hired younger employees for less pay.

Usually, g is used to represent acceleration due to gravity, whereas G is used to represent the gravitational constant in the calculation of the gravitational attraction between any two bodies.

Than what?

Why else do you think Trump wants Greenland and Canada?

Programmed obsolescence?

Where do I put in my request for that bluesky money I’m owed, then?

What’s funny to me is, the agile approach seems like it’s a much better fit for open-source, non-commercial software development.

The corporate world and is management practices based around quarters and deadlines can’t seem to see how anything could get done without deadlines, but that’s usually less of a factor with open-source. People laugh at “scrum masters” because in a corporate environment, all the scrum stuff tends to be mostly performative. But it seems to me that open-source projects with multiple contributors already kind of work in an agile manner.

Sometimes, the developers also being the users helps, as in your example. Sometimes, it’s a hindrance, where the developer will just create UI that makes sense to them, but not to others.

In a recent by-election I voted in, the ballots were 2-3 feet long with 91 candidates on them. This was in Canada, where we only have paper ballots. The majority of the candidates only registered as part of a protest to get the govt. to reconsider other voting methods than FPTP.