Actually, I’m gonna add another really simple option: Lyrion (Formerly Logitech Media Server). My wife swears by this one, supports local library, integrates with LastFM, and if you use Tidal, Qobuz, Deezer, or Spotify, you can integrate your streaming service with your local library for radio mixes.

Can install it right on a laptop or PC and connect to wherever your music is (local on the machine, on a NAS, etc.). After you install it, you can access it directly via a web browser or webapp, which will make it accessible from desktop or phone.

Not necessarily overkill, you can run Plex on almost anything. I used to run it on an old NUC6 I had laying around, then upgraded to a NUC8, and more recently I setup it up as a VM on Proxmox on a Ryzen 5700u mini-PC and just reimported the DB.

Virtualizing it has been good for my purposes since now it’s running alongside AssetUPnP, AudioBookshelf, and a dockerized squeezelite setup, and I’ve another VM on the host running Home Assistant with still plenty of resources to spare. Crazy we can do that now with a “server” that literally fits in my palm.

But virtualizing it makes hardware acceleration for video transcode be I more complicated, just a heads up. I play everything native so don’t use it, but YMMV.

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Edit - Plexamp is an awesome radio/DJ player, though I generally send to a Wiim Mini, as AirPlay quality with Plexamp can be kind of ass compared to direct DLNA.

There are lots of solutions, but as others have noted, Plex with Plexamp is great.

I’d recommend getting a NAS for storage and running mirrored disks. This way you’ve got some redundancy in the event of a disk failure.

Been married for 18 years and my wife and I adore each other.

Were there shitty times and issues? Hell yes, plenty. But there’s also been plenty of good times. She’s my mate and companion for life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Seeing her smile completes the universe.

I wanna wake up to her everyday until we’re a couple of wrinkled old prunes.

Not a specific song, but a band: Hail the Sun

You can use ntfsfix on the drive to do a check and remove dirty bit. This isn’t a full check though, and could mask or hide actual issues with the drive if it’s failing.

There’s also chkntfs which is more robust but I’m not sure if that’s open source and I’m not familiar with it.

Using ntfsfix is a good quick fix in my experience, but at the end of the day, NTFS is a Microsoft exclusive format and shared disks should be mounted in a format that both OSes can use, like exFAT, or Btrfs with the WinBtrfs driver (the latter I’m not familiar with, I’ve always used exFAT for shared disks, but I don’t use Windows anymore).

I’ve ditched all of them except the Disney/Hulu bundle, and that’s only because Amex gives me back $7 a month of the cost.

Amazon Prime used to be okay as a Prime customer, but now you can’t watch a 24 minute show without seeing like five ads. I tried to watch an episode of Invincible and there were two ads before the show even started, two in the middle of the show, and one at the end. It’s freaking insane.

I barely even watch video these days, I get way more mileage out of a good music service like Qobuz or Tidal.

It depends. I’m not saying I never pirate books. I’m not going to just support a publisher milking a book that should belong to the commons.

Also, some publishers have taken to raising ebook prices to as high or higher than hardback costs. For those I might buy one book by an author and pirate another. I won’t justify it other than to say I only ever bought paperbacks anyway and still remember those being like $3.99 to $6.99, so I’m not paying $18+ for an ebook novel because of publisher greed.

But if it’s an author I like, I buy their books, and support them in other ways (like with Sanderson’s Kickstarter for example).

Nah, no need to be a shitheel. I’m cool with paying for books, authors gotta eat. I wouldn’t refund a book I’ve read.

MOBI has been deprecated for a long time. Standard formats now are AZW3 (KF8) and KFX. They’re a bit more advanced than MOBI, and thank goodness, since it was a terrible format. AZW3 is essentially a MOBI/EPUB container, and I believe KFX is equivalent to EPUB2, possibly with some EPUB3 features.

Takes a small effort to set up (install Calibre, install NoDRM plugin, apply Kindle serial to plugin), but once it’s done, the rest is literally drag and drop, it removes DRM from your books automagically.

Like hell I don’t. Calibre plus NoDRM says otherwise.

It’s a monument to human achievement that they work as well as they do at all.

FTFY.

I’m in my forties and what you’re describing doesn’t sound normal at all. I beat myself up good in my younger years with sports and still do somewhat regular cardio and weightlifting. I have a bum knee and hip problem, shoulder issues from weightlifting injuries, and my back gets stiff and sore on a good day.

None of that stops me from functionally living, and none of its anything the occasional ibuprofen or toke won’t fix in the short term. I can still exercise, do physical labor, open all the jars, and be generally active, and without pain the majority of the time.

What you’re describing sounds more like an inflammatory disease or auto-immune disorder. 110% get a second opinion from a different doc, or a third if needed.

Generally speaking, idle unpaid accounts like this are either sold by the creditors to a third party debt collector, resetting the clock, or they will sue you for the non-payment to get a judgment or lien, resetting the clock.

The only sure bet is bankruptcy, which will drop off your report after a period of time that varies from state to state in the U.S. (generally from 7 to 10 years). Not sure is this applies outside the U.S.

Regarding the heating/cooling, if you’re home is decently insulated look into supercooling in the summer months. At higher temperatures your heat pump has to work harder to cool down the home. By running cooling overnight when temperatures are lower, it uses less power to the same result.

I cool my home to 68f from 2 am until 8 am on a schedule, and then the heat pump stays off until the indoor temps reach 74f. It’s provided a good amount of energy savings and helped me exceed the quoted power offset on my solar setup.

Use credit cards as cash, and pay off the balance weekly. This protects your bank account from fraud, as chargebacks and fraud are more easily dealt with on credit, and they tend to have better account monitoring and security than banks and credit unions. Even better if you have a cash-back/points card, that’s basically free money.

This also makes it easy to track spending if you have specific purpose credit cards. E.g, one card for groceries and gas, another for recurring bills or service payments, another for frivolous stuff, etc.

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Even if you have no other investments, open a high yield savings account and keep the bulk of your funds there, other than what you need for a general emergency fund and monthly bills. Current yields are over 4%, generally better than inflation, without any risk.

It’s not a picnic, and doesn’t have to be. Without the bad we wouldn’t always appreciate the good things in life. I’ve been fortunate, I’m living well these days, happily married, and haven’t suffered from depression in probably over a decade now (though anxiety is an ever present low buzz in the background. I’m used to it).

But that phrase is irksome. What doesn’t kill you doesn’t always make you stronger. Sometimes it fucks up your life. Sometimes it’s a roadblock, other times it’s life altering in unforeseen ways, and occasionally the consequences of what doesn’t kill is a tragic fate worse than death.

Tripping and falling might not kill me, might just lead to embarrassment. Or it could lead to CTE or irreversible brain damage from head trauma. Certainly not stronger for that sort of thing.

I’m a fan of “what doesn’t kill you only serves to postpone the inevitable.” But maybe that’s a bit fatalistic.

Performance improvement plan. Sometimes a legitimate way to help an employee who is slow or failing at tasks to improve and perform better.

More often it’s a management ploy to start a paper trail to legitimize terminating said employee or deny pay raises without repercussions, regardless of actual performance metrics.