The greatest flaw in the system is the fragmentation and consequential cost - when things were consolidated under Netflix, things weren’t perfect but it can’t be said that they weren’t far better.

The true underlying flaw is capitalism, but isn’t it always?

What are you talking about? David kicked kinda good while having hair, and Victoria was in a band called the Spice Girls despite being a set square haunted by the ghost of a rice cracker.

I came here for this, and I appreciate you.

Edit: I’m not sure if that advice is apple-pie specific.

Because the AI isn’t needed, and would be computationally expensive.

Extensions like ublock origin and sponsorblock work just fine.

What if we swap “gender” for “cool”? I think it’s pretty inarguable that’s a social construct. I think I’m cool, and while walking around in socks and sandals isn’t cool, I know I’m cool nonetheless.

Yes, gender is inherently associated with sex, and correlates with it the majority of the time, but it’s not defined by it. This is similar to driving and being an adult - most adults drive, and most drivers are adults, but some grow up on farms, driving as kids, others live in live in accessible cities and never get their license.

Why bother when you can just do it with Google search?

Likewise!

Yeah - I think we more or less agree… I’ve loved watching The Expanse, but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet - though I’m keen… This might just be the nudge I need - thank you!

More spoilers (though I’m pushing at the bounds of my memory here, so possible inaccuracy)…

!The attack on the three Trisolaran stars worked because it was a trinary system, and that was sufficient to destroy the civilisation. In the case of 3 standalone star systems (what I assume is the case here), the destruction of one star is unlikely to eliminate the residual threat of the remaining systems, and gives them motivation to develop deterrent, defensive, or offensive capabilities. The first priority of the attack is to destroy the civilisation (presumably because they’re a would-be threat). Efficiency is a secondary concern. A single-system attack on a multi-system civilisation gives no assurance.!<

A relatively low-tier K2 civilisation could almost certainly do it, but why the fluctuation in the IR signature rather than a more steady “shadow” indicative of a more consistent harvesting/drain?

Well that’s a lot less terrifying than the possibility of a multi-star-destroying dark forest attack.

No worries!

The upside of synology (and I say this without having used them) is simplicity, and low power usage at the cost of flexibility.

On unraid, I can toss in extra drives when I like (or remove them with slightly more hassle), and spin far more up, including VMs.

Feel free to check in whenever though.

Welcome to the fun!

If you need any guidance from this idiot, feel free to reach out.

The best general advice I can give is if you want something reasonably large and flexible is to start with Unraid from the outset - I mucked around with a good number of alternatives, with all the hassle that involves before finding this straightforward, super-flexible solution. Otherwise, maybe look at a synology-type appliance for something smaller-scale and less versatile.

TBH, it would depend on how many services I’m theoretically replacing, and whether you count the people I’ve shared my library with. Before I went down the rabbit hole, cost was the motivation, but I’m long past that.

Between the usenet subs, paid search engines, power for a 24 bay server running 24x7, and adding a new drive every few months, I can’t really defend it on a cost basis for my own use (though that’s not to say it can’t be done considerably cheaper).

Similarly, I’m giving my data to a handful of usenet search engines and 2 usenet providers my data (though I trust all of them more than the likes of Disney and Netflix)

With all that said, I’ve never looked back. It’s a hobby project for me, I have total control, can help out my friends and family, and use the server for other stuff like private cloud hosting, home automation, network ad-blocking, etc…

…and now I’m paying for power, usenet, search, hardware upgrades, and so on.

I regret nothing - I’m in control now.

Why shouldn’t people comment on international affairs?

• It seems reasonable to condemn both terrorism and genocide.

• The current landscape is a product of foreign parties drawing the map.

• The US props up Israel, who in turn have propped up Hamas to justify their treatment of Palestine.

• The bulk of the middle east has some stake in this issue for one reason or another.

I’m not quite sure what that means - or that we should lead with that bit, but an advantage is an advantage… Even if it only benefits Japanese readers.

We should really normalise the Japanese system - it makes as much sense as the European system and has the benefit of being “alphabetically” sortable.

Oh - they definitely weren’t magic mushrooms, but people will definitely overlay the general danger of amateur mycology over the risk and (US) illegality over the magic mushrooms.

There’s been a few poisonings lately, including half a dozen people in Australia about 2 months back that may have contributed… orrrr it might just be US law and broad optics.