I have time, it’s just that I can think of much better things to do with it. I spend my free time generally either reading, gaming solo and with my spouse, and exercising. TV is fine occasionally, but it’s such a passive activity.

Damn, I’ll have to keep not subscribing!

Same. I loved the PS1 and PS2.

It’s been easy enough to set up a gaming PC in the living room for both desk and couch gaming (my gaming rig automatically switches to the TV if the TV and receiver inputs are on). Sony exclusives just aren’t what they used to be, and I haven’t really cared much since the PS2/PS3 era. I sold my consoles in 2012 and haven’t looked back, still more games than I’ll ever have time to play.

In the early 00s I made a fair bit of money as a side hustle fixing stuff that the Geek Squad had messed up.

I did this for a bit in the late 90’s and early 2000s. Didn’t really do many jobs (I had two jobs and college to deal with already). Eventually quit altogether after a pastor gave me a computer to fix that was riddled with porn and malware. I cleaned it up, gave it back in good shape, and a few days later he wanted his money back because it had viruses again and said I hadn’t fixed it.

I told him I’d give him his money back if I could look at it right then and there and confirm he didn’t download a bunch of porn again. He took the machine and left without another word. It was small change stuff that was more hassle than it was worth, and that was the end of it for me. I do not need to know this stuff about people.

Fuck. Yet another company I donate to behaving like shitheels. Fuck. No more donations I guess.

Thankfully I’m not paying it. Even before the AI boom I saw the overall upward trend in power costs. I went solar with battery backup when I had my house built and I bought enough to be at or above 100% offset with net metering. The only thing I pay is the grid-tie connection fee each month, and I get a small check from the power company each year for any overage I generate.

How are our public lands doing? Are they being sold to the highest bidder?

They’re literally on fire, if Colorado and much of the west are any indication.

I hope to be on that path. I’m in my 40s and tired of the grind. Nowhere close to retirement yet, but I am likely on track to pay off my house early in the next two years (maybe 7 years into a 30 year mortgage) which will go a long way.

I’m saving as much as I can and hoping I can retire lean in my mid or late 50s.

Right now though all I can think of is that I need a sabbatical after my current job ends (either layoffs or just quitting) because I really need a break.

Maybe consider some of us just want to play with friends and/or spouses or partners.

Reintroduce LAN play and locally hosted multiplayer servers. IDGAF about playing with randos, I just want to play with my wife, and I’d prefer it to not be something that can shut down because the company went broke or didn’t care anymore.

If he’s worried about fraud in government he outta check his pockets.

I’ve actually been in support for random selection for a long time. Treat the offices of the country like jury duty. Random selection every few years, and allow veto power via recall to remove them and do a new election if they do a poor job.

It can’t possibly be worse than what we have now.

the actual source for this framing is Iran, and the news site that is reporting this is controlled by China. Possibly propaganda by exaggeration.

As opposed to the American propaganda by straight up lying.

ಠ__ಠ

Don’t forget about ollama.

Never thought I’d ask this but… how do I determine the gender of my toilet? And how do I confirm it’s cis-gendered?

Paying for plex pass gets you hardware transcoding (GPU), and access to Plexamp if you use it for music. Also the ability to use it remotely outside your network I think (dunno, I don’t use that feature) It’s good stuff, but nowhere near worth what they’re charging. I paid $80 for my lifetime Plex pass some years back.

Honestly, even without the $750 pricing, they’ve been consistently raising it for years now, presumably to encourage monthly subscriptions. I don’t trust them, and it’s falling into the category of “you’ll own nothing and be happy.” The other day I even read something about a user losing access to their Plex because Plex themselves didn’t renew their certificate and they had to reach out to support to sort it out. That’s… just completely fucked up. I hate that it requires an online account to access your local content. They did that years ago, and it’s led to me wanting to use it less and less.

I have a Jellyfin server as backup, and have already moved away from Plexamp to use Lyrion and Navidrome instead for music.

The only reason I still use Plex at all is because I watch a lot of foreign content and Swiftfin hasn’t yet updated to use Apple TV’s accessibility settings for captions (Plex lets you override subtitles with the Apple TV caption settings for readability and consistency). Though I saw the Jellyfin team merged the change the other day, so I expect a fix for that to come with the next major update. If that works out, I’ll be deleting Plex from my Proxmox server finally.

Somewhere in all that covid was a thing until it wasn’t.

Except it still totally is.

If you can run portmaster on it, check out Panzer Paladin.

Hot take: This is to stop the slop tsunami.

When any idiot can vibe code some slop app, things are going to get out of hand very fast.

But the play store is already completely filled with slop garbage, AI notwithstanding.