Unless I’m mistaken, and I probably am, the patents on blueray should have expired by now. Software side might be covered under copyright right though. Not sure if software can be copyrighted though tbh.

I do both. I buy the media, usually a physical release, and then put it on my Jellyfin server to stream to my devices. Benefits of streaming, but with the piece of mind that my favorite music, movies or tv shows won’t go away.

There is no option. There is too much variation in the various phone chips for the hardware hacking community to reverse engineer more than a bare handful. And as soon as the hardware has been reverse engineered, it will never be used again by a manufacturer making the exercise largely pointless.

Add to that, the fact that Qualcomm actively discourages long term support of their chips….

That’s a site I haven’t heard of in a while.

That argument was in fact made when VCRs first came out. I don’t remember how exactly it played out but in the end the courts here in the US said that VCRs were fine.

So the author is surprised that companies that makes a large chunk of their revenue from advertising is using the stuff it sold as billboards. Color me shocked.

Which have their own issues. Namely, to my knowledge, upfront cost and lack of flexibility. I’m sure there are others.

Here in the US, you are unlikely to find enough people willing to think far enough ahead for that to happen. Too many emotions guiding actions.

As a truck driver, I would like to ask, how would you acquire all the “stuff” you have bought over the years? I am reasonably sure most of it was not produced locally to you. And the raw materials almost certainly aren’t locally sourced. Trucking and logistics generally has its issues, and you only have glimpsed a fraction of them, but it is absolutely necessary for modern society. Unless you’re proposing we kill off 2/3rds of humanity and go back to hunter-gatherer. Not a fan of that idea.

I’ll be honest, didn’t realize this was news to anyone online in general. What is posted online stays online, particularly if you wish it didn’t. Most especially if you make a stink about it.

$0.50/share/quarter according to this article. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/01/meta-is-paying-first-ever-dividend-authorizes-50-billion-buyback.html

If my math is right, At Meta’s current stock price of $472 that makes an annual yield of 0.004%. It’s great news for old investors, but that will be a hard pass from me.

For obtaining music, I check Bandcamp, then Amazon (they have drm free mp3s of most music and cds for everything else), then the artist site if available, then finally I look in the seas.

As for the best way to store and play the music back, I’ve put everything on my Jellyfin instance and then stream the media to my devices. On iOS, FinAmp is a decent music player for this setup.

I don’t know much about them to be honest, and what little I have heard sounded like it was paid for. My knee jerk reaction is to avoid them. Maybe they’re decent, maybe not. Couldn’t say.

Keepass is probably the most secure, but was a pain for multi device / multi OS users last time I used it.

Currently I use Bitwarden. You can either use their backend or you can self host. Cross platform, multi device support, 2FA support.

According to the article, it outputs 100 micro watts at 3 volts. Apparently for 50 years.

There are a couple of options. What I currently do is an.encrypted borg backup of my important files which is then synced to Dropbox and Google Drive. Currently looking for an inexpensive tape drive though to back up everything locally. Those things are flipping expensive!

For my needs, the music creation side has been fine, at least on Linux. Playback side… Yea, I miss WinAmp. Haven’t found anything even remotely close in Linux or Windows. Wasn’t quite the answer you were looking for though.

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Like I said, whether it’s good deal or not depends on how your cost/benefit comparison comes out.

For me, it went against renting a printer (I print maybe 5 pages a year nowadays), and for renting a Roomba as my family often seems to think they were born in a barn. 😂 Renting that Roomba has, for me, turned out much cheaper than owning it.

I mean, idk what the Instant Ink plans are like.

I’ve used them. Basically it just turns your printer purchase into a printer rental.

It’s not a bad deal, necessarily, but if your card declines for any reason, HP bricks your printer (including non-printer functionality) until you pay up. And printing more than your chosen plan allows can get pricey real quick. As little as I print, though, a laser printer was a more reliable option and much cheaper long term.

iRobot does something similar with their Select program. Like HP’s Instant Ink, it’s a great deal for some folks, not so much for others.

Ah, what are they smoking at Redmond and does it show on a DOT drug screen?