My takeaway is that I’m gonna start calling “no-bake cookies” “no bakies”.

If I understand correctly:

“Ask” is for more open ended questions (The vague “what do you think about” posts like you mentioned). Posts that are asking for a simple / single answer are generally removed for not being open ended. The question is more for discussion.

Here you can ask things that are less open ended and/or are looking for a single or simple answer.

I usually do everything from CLI.

Are you wanting to re-encode it to a different codec or just change the container from mkv to mp4?

To remux the file (change the container format), you can simply do:

# The -f mp4 is technically optional as it can deduce it from the extension, but I like to be explicit
ffmpeg -i file.mkv -f mp4 file.mp4

That should go very fast as it’s just copying the streams as-is into a new container.

If you want to re-encode it to a different codec, then you’ll need to use a more complex ffmpeg command.

It’s…okay. Not as great as the original but still fun. It doesn’t really ruin the original, but it’s not close to the same level.

I gotta replay this game, it was a lot of fun. Long after the Wii was considered old, I bought one just for this, played Twilight Princess once, and haven’t touched my Wii since.

A few years ago I decided to try the lithium-ion UPSs. I’m on my 3rd year with them, and I will never go back to lead acid. I’ve got one “classic” UPS that is still in good shape as long as you don’t try to run more than 100w from it, but when it goes, it goes.

These use the LiFePO4 batteries, and I get close to twice the runtime as my old ones, and they don’t drop from 80% to 10% like lead acids do. The battery chemistry is also good for about 10 years of daily cycling, so assuming the electronics hold out, they seem like they’ll last.

The only hiccup with the model I got is it doesn’t have a serial monitor connection, but you can probably fine plenty that have it.

Nope.

We live in a society, and as far as I’m concerned, stealing the person behind you’s very limited leg room is selfish.

Signed,

A tall person who WILL kick your seat when my knees are in agony.

You can’t uninstall Play services once it’s installed (or if you’re on a stock ROM where it’s “baked in”), but you can disable it. Apps -> Set option to “show system” -> Google Play Services -> Disable

Will it crash as soon as I uninstall it?

No. However, you won’t be able to use most Google apps and RCS messaging and anything that relies on Google sign in or integrated Google Maps will not work.

You’ll also get hammered with “Google Play Services are unavailable” notifications from SO MANY APPS. Most of those, you can go into the app’s notifications and disable the alert for “Play Services Availability”. The only one I can’t disable on my phone is from Android Setup, but it only pops up once after a reboot.

Some apps depend on it more than others. Some will just complain that Play Services aren’t available but otherwise work just the same, but others will lose some functionality depending on how they use those services. For example, my bank app still works but complains Play Services isn’t enabled.

Most apps that depend on Play Services use it for notifications. So, with my bank app, I no longer receive transaction notifications. I can live without those, though, but some people may not be able to.

Can I have Android but not Play Services?

Yes. Most custom ROMs don’t include it by default or offer builds that exclude it.

Should I use MicroG? If yes, where do I download it?

You can only install MicroG or other Play Services features before booting into the phone for the first time (e.g. with custom ROMs), but you can’t just replace Play Services with MicroG.

I’ve only seen it in a you’re selling yourself short fashion.

Yeah, that’s usually how I see it, or maybe just how I’ve always interpreted it.

A question can be a thought, especially if it’s a rhetorical question.

Not to mention, the Philosophical Raptor meme format is pretty much just interrogative shower thoughts

https://ebooks.com/

They have a lot of DRM-free options and let you download a clean epub, but like with other stores, it’s up to the publishers whether (and/or when) they can sell them without DRM BS.

I like being able to download the epubs directly so I can put them on my Calibre-web instance and pull them to my Kobo or my phone or whatever I want to read on.

Lol, it really is. It’s how we got the terms “Debbie Downer” and “you’re bumming everyone out”.

What are you honestly tired of people bitching about by this point?

Literally everything.

Half the posts I scroll past are just someone bitching about something. Few people posting about cool stuff, most people posting about rage this or rage that. Or if there is a post about something good, there’s people bitching in the comments how it’s not good enough.

Ugh. It’s like this place wants to be miserable and doesn’t know any other way to exist.

Ugh, yeah. My “temporary” spinners that were an emergency upgrade became permanent when I went to buy the new ones and prices had skyrocketed. I’ve got one cold spare left, so hopefully there’s a price break in the near-ish future

I feel that.

Before I downsized, I was running 3x HP DL360 G6’s with dual Xenons and 96 GB RAM each. Way overkill for my needs but I got them cheap. Unfortunately, they and my air conditioner competed to see who could use the most electricity each month. 😆

The only thing I really lost in the scale down was the ability to spin up dev/test VMs for every little purpose. I’ve mostly just started using Docker containers for things like build environments.

Their Intel graphics work great for transcoding, but yeah, not much else. I’ve got Emby one one of them, and the QuickSync hardware acceleration works well even with multiple simultaneous streams.

Works pretty great as long as you keep your expectations realistic. Easy to upgrade and pretty reliable. Only annoying thing with any of those micro PCs is the cable management is a pain because of the power bricks. I got some USB-C PD adapters and Dell-style cables and that’s made a huge improvement.

About 220W on average with peaks around 280W. I’ve got 8 Optiplex micro PCs, 5 upcycled thin clients running smaller services, fiber ONT, another micro Optiplex as a router, a storage server, main switch, and a 5 port PoE switch for my 4 access points around the house.

Before I downsized everything to the USFF PCs, I was running 3 old enterprise rack servers that were about 220W each.

It’s currently running from solar from about 7am to 4pm with my small solar setup, but I’m in the process of installing a whole house PV system so hopefully will be 24/7 solar powered soon-ish.

Either (voluntarily) 50 years after Earth has been rendered uninhabitable by the upper class who has since moved to Mars or (involuntary) 50 years before that.

I’ve been told that government auctions canbe a good source for cheap used PCs

Can confirm government surplus auctions or sales are a great source for cheap PCs and that they do get snatched up quickly (guilty!) The only other catch is they never come with hard or solid state drives. I’m assuming those just get pulled and destroyed.