Nothing furthermore to be ignored.

https://snowflake.torproject.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake_(software)
https://novarata.net/snowflake/

Nothing furthermore to be ignored

Nothing furthermore to be ignored

- why it exists

Nothing furthermore to be ignored.

Nothing furthermore to be ignored.

He was struck down by a "virulent form of cancer" according to his wife.

WHO? Mr. Gerard starred at Buck Rogers in NBC's 1979 telefilm & two-season TV series.

Gil Gerard passes @ 82

While I enjoy (good) Star Wars content, I do not intend on having a different thread for every new property to come down the road about it.

In today's news, we are told that Star Wars: Starfighter (the movie starring Ryan Gosling) has wrapped production. Since this movie is scheduled to release on May 28, 2027, I'd think they've got plenty of time for post production. Nice to see a Star Wars film actually being filmed rather than just perpetually planned.

The 'Star Wars: Shadow of Maul' Comic Series Establishes the World of the Upcoming Animated Show

One would think this announcement would provide the fandom some clues on when the new show will premiere, but it just adds confusion to the issue.

Some variables:
- The comic book announcement states the Maul prequels will ship on March 5, 2026. If the 4 comics in the series are released every month, that'd bring us to July. If a bi-monthly schedule, the comic series will end in April.
- Mandalorian & Grogu will premier in theaters on May 21, 2026
- Star Wars: Tales of the <whatever> is also expected in May.

The fandom has been guesstimating a February (maybe March) release for Maul: Shadow Lord.

I guess we will see.

Bittorrent is a tool; an inanimate pile of code. Bittorrent does not "do" anything; any actions (for better or worse) are chosen by the user. In short, I am not responsible for what you do with any knowledge obtained from this post.

IMHO, the best bittorrent client today is qBittorrent. It is full-featured (probably has more features then most realize) and well supported by the community.

A few of the features (as I recall):
- it offers remote service (run the program on the Chromebook home media server in the back room & control qBittorrent from any other machine on your home network)
- self-updating trackers (a bittorrent tracker is the traffic cop guiding the way to the different clouds offering the various media). Current (up to date) trackers make torrenting go much faster than older (out of date) trackers)
- built-in search engine (this is disabled by default, but a little searching of the community support documents will show you how to set up qBittorrent so you never have to visit an actual torrent site to find content)
- Automatic downloading via RSS (really simple syndication). This feature is also disabled from initial setup, but the aforementioned community docs will show you how to set qBittorrent up to automatically download regularly scheduled media.
- ability to hand off downloaded content to third party programs / scripts

https://www.qbittorrent.org/ | https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/

Honorable mention:
rtorrent is a command line BitTorrent client that has existed for more than a decade and is also well supported by the community. As it's command line proggy, it can be used anywhere one has remote access + permission to run torrent clients.

Also, as it's a command line program, you will need to be a nerd or have a nerd friend or be able to read & follow technical instructions to get it running. Being such a respected program, it has a point-n-click webGUI (accessed via a web browser) but I've never had the best of luck with that.

https://github.com/rakshasa/rtorrent

Remember boys & girls - follow the laws of your country and you won't have any bittorrent-related issues.

The only third party snooper here that I'm aware of is Youtube (and it's here because it's Youtube)

You can stop Youtube from sucking every bit of information it can from you while you're watching a video by using LibRedirect & having any youtube requests be served by the Invidious network.

https://libredirect.github.io/

LibRedirect is a privacy-first redirection service. It can reroute requests for nasty sneaky privacy-invading apps to open source privacy-respecting analogs - helping you maintain your privacy in today's digital world.

One reason is that in the primordial times prior to the internet, this is how discussion took place on BBS'(bulletin board systems), so the layout carried over for early internet forums.

It's easy to use, just click "new topic" at the top to make a new thread, or click "post reply" on any existing threads you wish to add to.

No waiting for a staff member to approve your account here, activation is instant!

Don't be a stranger, ya hear?

. . and when I say "sophisticated", this sumbitch will allow you to set very intricate schedules with which to be reminded.

It can run in the background (daemon mode) and send you emails or rings the system bell [*BEEP*] when an event is upcoming in order to warn you in advance.

The program reads a single file (or folder full of ".rem" files) where the reminders are kept by the operator

It can remind you of single events:

REM Jan 30 2020 AT 14:30 MSG Doctor's appointment

It can remind you of important dates, with as distinctive input as you like. For example, the following entries in a .reminder file would all remind of the various Mondays:

REM Mon 1 MSG First Monday of the month  ## every upcoming Monday the first
REM Mon 1 Jan MSG First Monday in January      ## every upcoming Monday the first in every January to come
REM Mon 1 Jan 2020 MSG First Monday in January, 2020 ## _Only_ Monday, January the first in 2020

Got a kid's tee-ball schedule that begins in April? One line will remind you weekly UNTIL the season is done.

REM Wed UNTIL 07 MAY 2020 MSG Little Johnny's t-ball practice%

On Ms. Skoll's page, there are links to other software projects which magnify the functionality of remind; for instance, I have enabled a "calendar view" web page which I bookmarked in my browser (this makes it easier to see what's coming up). Some of these devs have offered facilities to import CalDav & .ics files (used by Google & iCal calendars) if you're looking to toss the yoke of the all seeing Google/Apple calamity.

This thing does way more than I've detailed (way more options than I'm ever gonna use) and is able to

. . . and if you've not figured it out by now, the program is written for the command line (but can be extended, as explained)

A few other "remind" resources (there are many others):
https://www.43folders.com/2005/02/24/guest-mike-harris-looks-at-remind
https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/15igvry/application_for_recurren
https://blog.thechases.com/posts/remind

In a nutshell, the only new feature that stands out is the "speed wedge".

https://youtu.be/KlijDXeKnts
Watch in privacy: https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=KlijDXeKnts

WHOOOOOOOO! Speed wedge!!!! That'll have'em flyin' off the shelves, won't it?

DLNA is an open protocol, and there are many implementations of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=DLNA&useskin=vector

Basically, you take a computer with media (those TV shows & movies you've backed up from DVDs you own, right?) on it. You'd then start your DLNA server on that machine, where the server is configured to see your media.

At that point, you can go into the living room (with the DLNA-aware widescreen TV) or out on the back patio (with your DLNA-aware tablet) and watch whatever media is in the collection on those devices. You may also read "DLNA-aware" as "Universal Plug and Play" (UPnP)

There are many implementations of DLNA software (it's found in all the well known media serving software (like Kodi).

I prefer this implementation, as it's stupid simple, and very, very lightweight (it's not a bloated cumbersome everything-but-the-kitchen-sink blumberboat like Kodi).

https://nmaier.github.io/simpleDLNA/

SimpleDLNA requires the Microshaft .Net framework (instructions on download page, if necessary) and *BONUS* it runs on linux with the Mono library.

I have this running on several local machines and it works a treat. It doesn't eat up memory over a long usage period or have any other obnoxious behavior, even on windoze.

Chromebooks are commodity computing devices aimed at students & those who don't really need a "real" computer (for surfing the web / checking webmail / watching cat videos on Youtube, a Chromebook works just fine)

However, you can pick up a Chromebook for (at the time of this writing) around $50 shipped that will run linux directly on its hardware. This allows you to run a variety of open source software on the device without worrying if the "brand name" set top box is spying on you or not (and "yes" quite a few of the catchily-named set-top boxes that promise you the world are riddled with all sorts of spy- and malware)

What can you do with a Chromebook running linux?

★ Home media server - this is open source software that does everything the "Firestick/Roku/Chromecast/etc" TV boxes/sticks do, but without the spyware & nagging advertisements.

★ Home assistant - do you like the concept of what "Siri/Alexa/"hey Google!" can do, but don't want the surveillance devices in your home? They make open source versions that work similarly (but with less surveillance) than the "big boy" brands.

★ Home security system - (think "Ring" et al). Run it yourself so nobody at Security Company HQ can watch you in your sleep, right?

★ Open source home controls ("home automation") - the main computer that can control all your "smart" air conditioning systems, lighting systems, laundry systems, dishwashers, refrigerators and all that shit. Why pay a third party to surveil you?

To get started, I recommend this site: https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/docs/getting-started.html which goes over what you need to know about choosing the Chromebook that will work for this project.
I also recommend this page: https://docs.chrultrabook.com/docs/firmware/supported-devices.html#supported-platforms which is about as up to date as one can get on which Chromebooks are usable as linux machines. For instance, Chromebooks running cell phone CPUs won't run linux.

If you go Googling, you will be assured that linux runs on any Chromebook, and wonder why I'm making such a big deal out of this.

Google will happily allow you to run linux software on top of ChromeOS. It'll work just fine, too.
Except that Google will know everything you do on the device and can change how the OS works whenever it wants.
For your own privacy and security, running linux directly on the "bare metal" of the Chromebook hardware is the recommended method here.

I prefer surplus Chromebooks because they're an "all in one" unit (they come with display & interface device [touchpad]) so you don't need to buy an extra keyboard, monitor and mouse (but if you've got those things laying about, there are surplus Chromeboxes out there).
Ubuntu comes with a software package called "gnome-tweaks" which has a setting that allows the screen only to sleep when the display is closed (allowing the rest of the machine to stay running so it can be accessed 24/7).
The linux running on the Chromebook can also be accessed over the network (no need to drag it out from behind the TV to fiddle with it [most of the time])

Chromebooks come in a variety of configurations, and it's up to you (and your pocketbook) as to what you obtain.
Do you want one with an upgradeable hard drive & ram? Older Chromebooks come this way, but the more modern Chromebooks all seem to come with integral RAM & storage (so when one of those parts takes a shit, the whole Chromebook has to be shitcanned) so when looking at these more modern options, consider how much "disposability" is worth to you.