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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 25th, 2023

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  • For me at least, it’s not that you’re asking questions. I answered, so obviously I’m sympathetic to confusion in this area. I’m just trying to encourage you to seek your answers in the documentation and manuals FIRST. The way your question was worded led me to believe that you had not read the manuals at all and were simply copying snippets of code and commands from some random question and answer style forum that did not teach you anything about the fundamentals of what those commands and code actually did. That’s fine too, lots of people started off that way, myself included. Reading the manuals gives you the context to step back and understand how those commands work and what they’re really doing. If you do, you’ll be much better able to troubleshoot your own problems, you’ll be able to ask better questions in forums like this, and you’ll get better and more useful responses.


  • With all due respect, RTFM. Mount and umount are two sides of the same operational coin. You mount the drive to use it and unmount it when you’re done. fstab is just a file system table used to remember and consistently apply the options used whether you’re mounting the drives manually or telling the system to do it at boot.

    Deleting a line from fstab is not the same as unmounting, it is just a shortcut to tell the system how you want that drive mounted when you or the system run the mount command. Mount directories (usually the folders in /media/ or /mnt/ ) also do not get automatically deleted just because you “yanked the drive”. Again, those directories are just where your system is expecting to mount the drive. When the drive is mounted they will be the root path to its contents, when the drive is unmounted they will be empty but they still exist. If your planning on mounting the drive again leave them there. If you’re not planning on mounting them again, delete them.

    If you’re not planning on regularly mounting a particular drive, it probably shouldn’t be listed in fstab and you should just run the mount command with the appropriate options (again fstab is just a table for remembering those options for the mount command).

    Many desktop Linux distros are also capable of automatically mounting new removable drives in such a way that the user can access them and doesn’t have to worry about touching fstab or the mount directories.


  • Any breakfast at home is almost always better than breakfast out, if you’ve got the time and ingredients. I can, with the right ingredients and tools and while half asleep, hungover, or still drunk, make a full breakfast for a family of four better than 90% of the breakfasts I’ve ever had out. Sure it took some practice, but breakfast isn’t rocket science or usually particularly complex recipe wise.

    The only thing I haven’t been able to do better at home breakfast wise so far is making my own fresh bagels or donuts. I don’t like making poached eggs either, and hollandaise sauce is a pain in the ass, but I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve gotten an eggs Benedict out at a restaurant that didn’t make me immediately regret my choice. Same with biscuits and gravy (why do restaurants think that gravy comes out of a box and should be bright white?) , bacon (just bacon flavored bacon please), eggs (sunny side up does not mean I want the whites to be clear and runny too), etc. All things I really like, but can’t tolerate having someone else fuck up and charge me for it.


  • No, I don’t use the podcast feature on the Plex. But I do use Plex for listening to audiobooks. Just be aware that MP4/m4b cannot be in the same library as mp3s.

    The other podcast thing is a solution totally outside of Plex. It is running on the same machine though and accessing the same files. dir2cast + webserver like Nginx or apache reads a directory of mp3 files and builds an RSS feed out of them. In some ways it works better than Plex because it’s simpler on the user side to listen offline as long as you sync the feed at home. I tend to do a separate feed for each series or author. It’s a bit fiddly to get setup and adding a new feed requires a bash one liner and editing some HTML after the files are sorted and named perfectly because podcast apps have some funny limitations when it comes to actually grouping, sorting, and displaying metadata.


  • I use podcast addict in much the same way. I can control it using my WearOS watch or even just via the Bluetooth controls of my headphones. I use podcast addict mostly for podcasts (obviously), but I also have (a very manual and kludgey) RSS server at home to feed me and the rest of the home audiobooks via podcast addict. I’ve started to move that listening more to Plex via PlexAmp on my phone, which is also controllable from my watch. The Plex audiobook experience isn’t perfect, but it is a lot easier to manage.

    I haven’t found a need or advantage to an external player yet. But, I have found some codecs that the Plex app has struggled with, which might benefit from an external app. I haven’t had the issue in a while though and didn’t think of using the external player then, so no guarantees.



  • Did you ever hear the tragedy of MythTV? I thought not. It’s not a story the Youtubes would tell you. It’s a Pirate legend. MythTV was a Dark Lord of the Pitates, so powerful and so wise he could use the PCs to influence the airwaves to create watchable TV… He had such a knowledge of the PCs that he could even keep the shows he cared about from dying. The dark side of the PC is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful… the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice XBMC everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic. He could save others from death, but not himself.




  • I’m not a nice person. I’m not a kind person. I’m not even a good person. I try to be all of those things and sometimes it feels like a struggle. I don’t think I’m evil or a total asshole or a sociopath or something. I just think it a metric we have to constantly check-in on and adjust. I don’t really trust people that think of themselves as nice, kind, or good. I don’t think I really agree with those people about what it really means to be nice, kind, or good. For example, I do believe the song got it right, sometimes you do need to be cruel to be kind in the right measure.


  • In my experience, 2 devices will ultimately save you effort and frustration. Anything you choose as a good NAS/seedbox will be unlikely to have a good from the couch interface or handle Netflix reliable and easily. A small Android TV box may have a much better interface, simple app setup, and support all the streaming services, but probably won’t be very powerful or convenient to use as a NAS. The NAS is always on, plugged directly into the Internet access point, and tucked away out of sight and sound. The Android TV or Apple TV box is silent, small, and can be mounted directly to the Beamer/Projector.

    Yes, Kodi exists and it’s add-ons can bridge this gap. But I still think that a SBC NAS running Jellyfin or plex + an Nvidia shield with jellyfin, Plex, Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, amaon, etc. will be so much easier to setup, manage, find support for, and upgrade.

    I have a similar setup even though my server has a direct HDMI link to my TV. I’m not a fan of viewing using the server it from the couch. Setting up IR remotes sucks always. And it’s confusing for anyone but me to use. But if my Nvidia Shield dies or I’m having network trouble, VLC a pretty good backup.








  • If you can remove the alcohol from any “cocktail” and still have more than just flavored ice or a dirty glass, you were drinking slightly alcoholic mocktails the whole time.

    Old Fashioned mocktail is a cherry on top of a large ice cube that you’ve used to bludgeon some sugar and an orange.

    A Sazerac mocktail is akin to an empty glass someone just drink a sweet lemony drink from. You don’t get the lemony drink, just the dirty glass.

    A margarita mocktail is salty lime flavored ice. This is basically a daquiri mocktail too, adding a strawberry seems popular.

    A Manhattan mocktail is a sweetened cherry in an otherwise empty glass.

    A mojito mocktail is a bit more substantial, minty sugar water with a hint of lime.

    A mint julep mocktail, again just minty sugar water.

    A white Russian mocktail is just a glass of cream over ice.

    A mimosa mocktail is just a nearly empty glass of orange juice.

    The non-alcoholic parts of a cocktail are rarely more than a quarter of the volume if they’re made properly. Most cocktails are a half oz of sugar water and a citrus flavor. The other 2/3 of the volume (not counting the ice) is alcohol. Just order a soda, soda water (with or without a garnish), tea, or my favorite a Topo Chico and lime.