Shrinkflation implies a customer base that would either go elsewhere or without. I’m sure you’ve seen the efforts to eliminate all competition (establishing trusts, i.e. mega mergers) and weaseling into contracts like government that can’t be avoided.

When your audience has no choice, you have no limits.

That is Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing-impaired (SDH). It is not the standard for subtitles in the US and Canada.

Even worse, it suggests that whatever the AI used as training data also shows retaliation. Since it’s internal, there’s a good chance they just showed that they illegally retaliate.

I wouldn’t worry about the battery. Any potential harm comes in before it gets to the battery, and there’s likely a DC-DC converter before that anyway.

The first thing to validate is the listed specs. If your laptop expects 12v (usually listed on a sticker on the device), don’t connect a 19v brick. Same for center-positive/center-negative. USB-C bypasses all of that, since it negotiates a matching spec before charging.

The second thing is how well it adheres to the specs it lists. This isn’t something that you can really test yourself. It would require a lot of specialized equipment and skills, since the answer can change in different circumstances. It might work fine for a while, but eventually deliver rich, chunky volts. This will (likely) fry the motherboard, and maybe more than that. USB-C does NOT bypass this. Some of the worst chargers on the market are USB-C.

The only realistic way to avoid the second is to get a quality charger from a trustworthy source. Many will only recommend OEM, but you also have to be careful about counterfeits on eBay or scAmazon. You can use aftermarket, but only if it’s a trustworthy brand like Anker.

I’m pretty sure they’d just as happily sell you a pizza with veggies on it instead.

Something that stood out to me from Legal Eagle pt1 was that everyone involved - everyone - should’ve talked to a lawyer sooner than they did (if they even did). This is especially true for Reckless Ben, and what he did in Utah (covered by Legal Eagle pt2). He really, really needs to find a lawyer, and listen to their advice. I get that he’s trying to create content, but this isn’t the way.

This is highly dependent on what your needs are and how you plan to solve it. SATA-3 maxes at 6gbit, which SAS-2 had in 2009. Most cards are x8, and have at least 4 full speed SAS lanes (of whatever generation). That means 24 Gbit. PCIe x8 2.0 (from 2007) had 4 GB (32 Gbit). So if that meets your needs, you can run it on an ancient board.

However, if you need something more advanced, such as SAS-3, a SAS expander, or a card with more native lanes, then you would need to plan accordingly.

I’ve been running on an LSI 9211-4i4e, which is only a PCIe 2.0 card, for many years. I did notice my speeds dropped when I expanded the 4e to a 15-bay DAS (plus the 4 internal SATA drives), but it’s still enough to meet my needs.

It’s not really about 24/7, but it is about quality of components. Enterprise gear is made using slightly better parts and tighter tolerances. Things like more expensive capacitors rated for more hours/cycles, better power filters, things like that.

The end result (and this is easily verified) is the failure rate is much, much lower than comparable consumer-grade equipment.

There is sometimes a blurry line between what counts as enterprise vs pro-sumer vs consumer gear, though.

If you can use SAS (you’ll need a SAS PCIe card, roughly $50 used), get SAS drives. They are enterprise-grade exclusively, there is a massive supply of used drives as servers get refreshed, and a very limited secondhand market because most people can’t use SAS drives.

You won’t get the latest or largest drives, but you’ll get something that works perfectly fine for home use.

I recommend against Go Hard Drives. They get drives that previously failed but currently test ok, then wipe the SMART data. I had a whopping 133% failure rate (all 3 original, plus 1 replacement) before I returned the whole thing.

If you insist on using them, do the most extensive burn-in testing you possibly can. I would use at least a full week, to make sure it’s actually (semi-) reliable.

Presented without comment, SanDisk’s MSRP for that drive is $579.99 CAD.

https://shop.sandisk.com/en-ca/products/ssd/internal-ssd/wd-blue-sn5100-nvme-ssd.html?sku=WDS200T5B0E-00CPE0

I’ve seen it, too. No idea what’s behind it, but it tries to download a .ts file.

There is a ratio, which may be a new experience if you’ve only used public trackers. It’s not really a big deal if you have some patience, though.

TL (as do most ratio trackers) gives you bonus points for your time seeding, even if you have done nothing more than make it available. You don’t have to upload even a single byte unless someone wants it, and you’ll still get points. These points can be used to buy upload credit.

If you simply keep seeding everything you download, and buy credits as needed, you’ll quickly have more ratio than you could ever hope to burn. No need to spend money or anything.

As for limited content, it’s a general tracker. You probably have niche interests, so you would be better suited on a more specific tracker. I’ve almost never had issues finding anything mainstream, although quality can be a crapshoot. That’s the main reason I usually use other trackers.

Opentrackers.org posts open signups. TorrentLeech is at least as good as the public ones, and it has open signups a few times per year.

Otherwise, you can apply/interview for RED and a few others, work your way up through the ranks, and use the invite forums. This is how you get to the really big and really good trackers. But it’s also a lot of time and effort, which most people don’t want to do.

You might get lucky on the open signups. Every top-tier tracker was once a tiny site with no users. If you join and contribute, they could be the next big thing, and you joined with minimal effort.

Not just owned by, but used by and for the organization. The fact that his wife has one too makes that very suspicious.

During US prohibition, there were “grape bricks” with warnings not to dissolve in water and place in a cupboard for 20 days, because then it would turn into wine.

A simple negation probably won’t cut it legally (the bricks had a significant legal purpose), but you could probably word it in a similar way. For instance, “While VPNs are effective at anonymizing yourself during piracy, they can also protect your privacy from data mining ad companies”.

At some point, you’ll have to conspicuously avoid the topic and let people infer. Remember when high-speed connections were advertised as being great to “download movie trailers”?

Yes, but that’s only an issue if you are interested in those other communities. In this case, the instance is dedicated to anime, so it’s only an issue if you want to browse those other anime communities.

Just FYI, those are almost all on the same instance, and you can block that instance as a whole. It’s dedicated to anime, so there’s not a ton of collateral damage.

That’s where the “cheap bastard” part kicks in. The desire to spend less money outweighs things like social acceptance.

I have a problem with their methodology, although I concede that better metrics would be hard to find.

I’ve known a number of right-wing people that own and love their Prius. They are the “cheap bastard” type, and it’s hard to argue with the value (albeit not the styling nor associations) of a Prius.