I’ve personally found it better to pay for a seedbox and connect to it via encrypted FTP than to worry about VPNs and downloading torrents locally. I share the cost between a couple of friends and we all access the seedbox and download/stream what we need from it. I don’t have to worry about keeping my computer running either.
I wish we had a way to simulate a universe in which the GOP gets every single one of its policies implemented. Then let it run like a Sim City level. Just to see what a dumpster fire it would be.
It’s what Jesus would want.
The realpolitik answer is that they’re the only country in the region with highly functioning western-style market economy. That is valuable to other functioning western style market economies. Its a system trying to help itself propagate.
I’ll be honest I’m not trying to preserve knowledge I just want high quality stuff for free. Private trackers weed out the low quality files and keep the system healthy by also weeding out people who just leech files without seeding anything back.
It’s rare to get a high quality pirate copy until the movie is released on disc or streaming services. Once that happens, you’ll get perfect copies. Until then, it’s probably a “CAM” version which means somebody filming it in the cinema. The betting/casino ads are common with those these days.
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…
Unless it’s bad for my political campaign!
This is one area where Apple have actually done a decent job.
Even the article reluctantly admits the AppleTV is the best media box now. Because it’s the only one that doesn’t throw ads on the home screen.
HomeKit also enforces local network control so you don’t need the manufacturer app or third party cloud services.
But the industry as a whole really needs better standards and accountability. And people need to stop buying products from an ad company (Google).
What made me lose interest was bad writing. “Andor” is a great Star Wars TV series, and I’m looking forward to its second season, because it has…let’s see…good fucking writing!
I pirate my stuff anyway, so it’s safely stored in my NAS. But it’ll be a shame to see high quality Bluray media go away.
We need a “premium” streaming provider that can offer the same audio/video quality as 4K Blu-ray Discs. And then I’ll download those rips!
The worst part is that even buying SG1 on Bluray gives a bad experience, because they fucked up the 5.1 audio.
So what did the pirates do? Combined the Bluray video with the better DVD 5.1 audio! Best of both worlds.
Apple lay out some details here: https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/
They control the cloud hardware. Information used for cloud requests is deleted as soon as the request is done. Everything end-to-end encrypted. Server builds are publicly available to inspect. And all of this is only used unless the on-device processing can’t handle a request.
If somebody wanted to actually create a private AI system, this is probably how they’d do it.
You can disagree with this or claim somehow that they are actually accessing and selling people’s data, but Apple are going out of their way to show (and cryptographically prove) how they’re not. It would also be incredible fraudulent and illegal for them to make these claims and not follow through.
Get an Nvidia Shield or AppleTV. They are best-in-class devices and anything else is going to lead to some sort of compromise. They’ll last for years and are worth the money spent.
Then set up an app like Jellyfin, Plex, or Infuse (AppleTV only) to stream the files over your local network. You’ll be able to play back everything from those small 200mb rips to the 80gb+ 4K Bluray Dolby Vision remuxes with 7.1 lossless audio.
While almost 80 percent of Americans supported adding the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution in a 2020 Pew Research Center poll, there is little chance that the effort will draw the 60 votes necessary to overcome a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
Sums up the current GOP pretty well. 80% of the country want something? Too bad, they’ll block it.
Call it a “tax cut for students” let the conservatives go nuts trying to justify stopping it.
I felt similar. Then I had a kid and seeing the world through their eyes brings much of it back. Nothing quite like the rush of emotions (and sleep deprivation) of being a parent to a young child.
I signed up using an anonymous email address and paid with bitcoin. I get an email from the seedbox provider when an “abuse notification” is receiving which recommends I stop the torrent. They claim no personal information is given out.
One consideration for me is: how grainy is the source material, and how much do I care about retaining that? Because film grain is the first thing to go when you apply too much compression. Dark scenes, too.
For kids movies or something I’ll watch casually: 15gb x265 rips are fine.
For new releases that I want to watch and maybe will a few more times: I’ll grab the 20-30gb web-dl and enjoy that.
For a movie I consider a masterpiece and want the best possible? Give me the 50-80gb remux.
Well I guess it depends how much free time you have each day. Books, meditation, exercise (or even just going for a walk), cooking your own meals, getting more sleep…those things fill a lot of time in the evenings if you’re working full time. If you have more time than that, consider volunteering at local organisations that need help. Or find new hobbies that don’t involve looking at a screen and involve spending time with other people.
Nvidia Shield or AppleTV4K.
I use an AppleTV4K with the Infuse app to connect to my NAS. Works flawlessly.
Infuse also has support for Plex. I haven’t tried using it with Real Debrid but it does work apparently by adding it as a WebDAV source.
Looking forward to this. Didn’t see it at the cinemas. So going to enjoy it tonight with some popcorn, a 4K tv and 5.1 sound setup. The next best thing!
Furniture.
Not the products themselves, but the amount of packaging to throw away every time I buy a new chair or shelving unit that comes wrapped in layers of foam and plastic. Makes me guilty how much waste there is. But buying second hand isn’t always an option.
They’re addicted to attention. And will do anything to get it.
Mazda. They’ve brought back physical buttons and have support for CarPlay if you want it.
Singapore’s public transport system is fantastic. I lived there for 2 years and never felt like I needed a car. You only get one as a status symbol.
For TMDB to end their stupid policy of setting broadcast episode order as the default. Any app that uses them for metadata to match files names ends up with wrong episodes because obviously nobody wants broadcast order.
Christopher Nolan is known for his love of film over digital.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/dark-knight-rises-chris-nolan-digital-335514/
The problem with (almost) all social media platforms is they need a LOT of users. Because each individual users brings in such a small amount of revenue.
So these companies (running on investor money) go through a deliberate early “growth” stage, where their singular goal is to get as many users as possible. They usually do this by…actually making something people want to use. Plus some addictive tricks thrown in to keep people “engaged”.
Once they have their 100 million users, or whatever number they’re targeting, then the processor of turning it to shit begins. Because now they have the users they need to extract revenue from them. The problem is that growth stage often kills off competitors as well. So now you have a near monopoly tightening the screws on users, who have to just accept it because the cost of moving to an alternative is too high.
But eventually it hits a breaking point. Users jump to something new, and the cycle repeats. The users who stick around with a shit product are the ones who ultimately pay the debts that early users got to enjoy.
I’ve been in similar situations while renting. I ran ethernet cables along skirting boards and around doorframes and hid them inside adhesive cable raceways.
AppleTV with the Infuse app.
Blows everything else away. It will connect to Plex and Jellyfin servers. Or a standard SMB folder share if you prefer. No ads. It never lags. Has reliable frame rate matching. And you’re likely to get 5+ years of software update support.
The only thing it won’t do is Atmos from Bluray rips (it will do lossless 7.1 but not the atmos layer). If you need that, then get an Nvidia Shield Pro.
The fun way to watch movies is to have a NAS with a Plex/Jellyfin server and browse them on your TV with a nice UI in the comfort of your living room.
Want to watch this movie in 4K Dolby Vision with atmos? Just browse or search for it and click on the poster art. Want to stop that half way through and watch a tv series instead? Go for it. It’ll take all of 5 seconds to navigate to it and have it playing.
After going through the effort to set that up, I can’t go back to anything else.
If a drive fails or other issue occurs with my NAS, it will send me an email and then shut itself down. Replace a dead drive and off I go again. No data loss due to RAID. (insert obligatory comment that RAID is not a backup solution and that you should have a separate backup for important files)
Can we apply this logic to the flag as well? I thought the rainbow of the pride flag was meant to represent diversity and cover all orientations…like how a rainbow spectrum of light literally covers all colours. Now specific groups are being added and people are finding ways to add another line to represent something. The flag is a mess.
The film uses an intentionally wide aspect ratio. It also has a lot of added film grain, also intentional. But the grain messes with low bitrate rips. Grab the 20gb+ 4K Web-DL rip to get it in the best possible quality.
For movies and TV shows, I store everything on my NAS. Just organised into folders. Then play it back using the Infuse app on my AppleTV4K, by pointing the app to my network folder and letting it build a library.
No server software needed and it supports everything including 4K UHD remuxes with 7.1 lossless audio. Hopefully tvOS adds supports for Dolby TrueHD atmos in the future.
Not having ambassadors sounds serious. There must be a very good reason for the process being blocked…
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has put a hold on all State Department nominees, demanding that the agency turn over further information related the origins of Covid-19
[Senator] Vance has put a hold on multiple State Department nominees, including the nominee to serve as the Representative to the African Union, citing concerns that she has pushed a “woke” ideology instead of pushing ahead America’s national interests.
Nope, just usual GOP bullshit.
Me and a few friends pitch in together and pay for a seedbox. Much more convenient since I don’t need to keep my computer running to download/seed. And you connect to it via encrypted FTP.
Nice collection! What turntable and audio setup are you using?
I love my HA dashboard but it took seemingly far too much effort to get it sensible. I had to know how to ssh in and edit a locked YAML file and create new template sensors just so I could have some temperature sensors show as “50” instead of “50.0028472” or some shit.
I think they fixed that in an update though. But there’s always something that requires multiple extra layers of digging around.
Should’ve chosen Four Seasons Bail Bonds.