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Religion is true to the fool, false to the wise man, and useful to the politician.

There are a LOT of good churches out there, run by good people. Not all churches are good though, and the ones that are bad… tend to be really bad.

What’s sad is his parents made his middle name James, like they had hope for him to be a beacon for humanity… as opposed to oppression.

Him not removing/changing the James part of his name means he either didn’t care or was trying to be ironic. Or completely missed the point of Star Trek. Or likely had never watched an episode of the original Star Trek. Jim Kirk is known for being a badass, like Sisko, but Kirk is easily as thoughtful as Picard. But that isn’t what he’s known for.

I meant a desktop, obviously. I use an iPhone and I’m fully aware it runs macOS with a different desktop environment. All Apple devices run macOS, but the interface will be adapted to fit the hardware. It’s all macOS underneath though, which is UNIX.

It’s easier to explain Android, especially to anyone who knows Linux. So Linux isn’t an OS, it’s a kernel. The OS (or distribution, or “distro”) is a collection of software bundled with the kernel that operates a computer. Android is a Linux distro for phones. Plug one into a TV and see what happens (ideally a Samsung). Apple could do this too, have your iPhone or iPad go full macOS if you put it on a big screen, especially if you also connect a keyboard and mouse. It’s just a matter of including that desktop environment… and maybe a couple other things. But Android already does it. And it’s awesome. So yes, they’re computers.

I host with Plex. It doesn’t pay attention to my carefully crafted tags, it uses its own. I still do the work with Mp3Tag. But I do m4a. Better quality than mp3 and better licensing. My files are a little bigger than 320k mp3 and sound almost lossless.

And yet, you posted two comments to me, on two different communities, on two different instances, completely hostile in both of them.

You should get help. I can only imagine what you’re like in real life. Either you’re very meek when you’re not behind a keyboard, people walk all over you so you bully people online, or you’re exactly the same in real life and you hurt people around you. Maybe that’s not the kind of person you want to be, either way. If I’m wrong and it is, nothing I say will convince you otherwise. But on the off chance there’s any decency in you, take your own advice and talk to somebody.

Can’t you get a terminal on Android? I did once upon a time. It’s a rather clunky way of doing things, but it’s essentially Linux so this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

I’m a Mac/iPhone guy, but it’s the same shit. I use jdownloader2 (a Java downloader that uses yt-dl and others, it’s basically the Swiss Army knife of downloaders) to pull the video down on the computer, then send it over the air to my phone. It would work exactly the same way if the computer was running Windows, and/or if the phone was running Android. I can also get files wirelessly between Android and iOS going both ways. Both the top video players (Outplayer on iOS and VLC on Android) can be turned into web servers, so I just put both phones on the same network, open a web server on one and connect to it with the other, send stuff right across. Android is, of course, a bit better with its file picker, but iOS is better at the server stuff, being basically UNIX, I guess. Either way, it’s not a challenge to move stuff between them. But the actual downloading? I do that on a computer. And as you might guess from the name, Jdownloader2 uses Java, so it’s the same app on both Mac and Windows and presumably Linux as well.

I’ll just refer you to what I said to the other guy. So if you see this, you should be able to click through to the thread, see what I said to the other guy, and read my reasoning there. No need to split the argument/debate into two threads.

That’s a good point. But the issue is, it’s always going to be a moving target. Every year I could reassess the streaming services and quit the one I’m on and go with the one that best meets my needs each year. And each year it could be a different one. Ethically, that would be the superior option. But, I’m not perfect, I’m barely ideal, and I use a family plan to help justify my cost. Sure, I pay more, but I also get my wife and a couple other family members the gift of perpetual music as well.

So if every year, or every, however often, I were to reassess, and drop one service, and start another one and ask them to dump the app and get a new app and let me add them on that, all of us are losing our entire library every time we switch across. It’s a lot of work. Sure, there are tools to convert your stuff over, but it’s still a bit of work.

At this point it’s not about who’s the actual absolute best at the things that matter the most, at this point it’s just which one’s good enough for our needs. Also Apple is one of the few streaming services that doesn’t give a hoot if your family all lives with you. We had Spotify before and at that point — this was years ago — you had to retype the address every month, and if, say, my niece mistyped it, she’d lose access to her premium benefits for a month. At one point I just sent her an email with the exact text to copy and it was fine, but like if she accidentally left a space at the end or something, if the text didn’t match 100%, it was this whole thing — and of course I wasn’t compensated for a family member being denied their benefit for the month. Apple does not care. You add the person and they get the benefit without ever having to physically be at that address. I just hope that doesn’t change.

(Also, I think Napster pays artists the most now, ironically?)

Okay, so aside from the fact that you’re stalking me across communities for whatever reason — if I write a loophole in your employer’s code, like a patch, that keeps them from having to pay you, and they like not having to pay you, I haven’t done anything egregious or unethical? Or it’s only egregious or unethical because it’s happening to a company you don’t like?

If the law doesn’t apply without prejudice blindly and equally for all, what good is it? And who decides who is deserving? Some pathetic Internet stalker? So given your lack of ethics, would you then agree it would be fair to take your wages as well? Or do you draw the line between companies and people, or how much someone makes? Because we might find some common ground there. But on the surface, it appears you are the one throwing dog shit from that which is covering you.

Yeah, they write smaller checks than Spotify. Spotify has more subscribers. But Apple pays more per stream.

Spotify sponsors Joe Rogan, and Apple’s CEO sucks up to Trump. There are no winners here with regards to politics.

Some say you can’t separate music from politicians, and I suppose that’s fair. I still pay for music, and if my same ten bucks a month or whatever it is now is gonna go in some small part to some bad fuckers, if more goes to the artists with one than the other, I can consider that the lesser of two evils.

Though you’re not gonna hurt Apple and their Trump boot licking by not paying for their music streaming. Nah, you do that by only buying the phone you need, when you need it, not a new one every year like some people like to do. You can only hurt Spotify by not buying Spotify Premium. I like my iPhone okay, but it wasn’t as big of an upgrade as the last one, and my next smartphone probably won’t be an iPhone at all. Though I won’t need to make that decision for another five or six years.

I wouldn’t expect Spotify to just let people use premium services for free. Fuck Spotify, right there with y’all on that, but this isn’t egregious or unethical behavior for them.

Use Spotify since it has a free tier, for music discovery if you like, but get FLACs and self host. I like Plex for that and it works with what I use.

Music is actually one thing I will always pay for. I use Apple Music because they pay artists more and they offer better quality. And they don’t care, if you’re on a family plan, if not all your family lives with you. I also self host because backups are nice and I can’t access Apple Music at work. I can, however, access Plex. (It’s not that Apple is blocked. It’s that Apple requires 2FA and I can’t bring my iPhone into work.) But, point is either way, self host and stream everywhere. Sucks that Plex went up; I got Lifetime for $80 years ago. (Now it’s $250.)

So my question is, do we want ISPs to be liable? If they are, they will be more likely to cut alleged pirates off. If they aren’t, then a legal door is open for the rights holders to go after individuals directly.

“Agrees” and “forced under duress” are not the same thing. An agreement before both, I think.

They were sued. Nintendo won. The people don’t have a chance against corporations.

Point taken — and yet, motion sickness is a real thing.

Have you tried gaming on a plane before? I can’t do it. It’s more bearable than gaming in the car, but gaming in any moving vehicle messes with my head. So I’d go with an audiobook.

That said… old school RPG but plenty of people have suggested them.

IIRC Crunchyroll used to be a pirate site so that may be where you heard that? But they’ve been legit for years.

I would say just look for x265 (HEVC) webrips of your favorite content and throw it on a Plex (or Jellyfin if you don’t have any Apple stuff) server. On the flip, if you have all Apple tech, Infuse is a good option, but IIRC it doesn’t stream outside your network like the other two do.

I wouldn’t. I like the idea of repurposing old electronics, but the issue is, it’s meant to be a low powered device meant to run off a battery.

You can run Plex off a RPi and those are like $20. A bit more if you want the case and heatsinks and such. They are also (similar to the Android) low powered ARM64 computers, but the hardware and software is more open.

I also have an old 128GB Android phone. I use it as a cosplay prop and I treat it like an iPod Touch. I’m primarily an iPhone guy, so of course it has Apple Music on it, but I also know Android and know where Android excels, so it also has Firefox with uBlock Origin, and Nova Launcher Prime. It’s way better to type on because the iOS keyboard has always been dogshit.

Also, you’re in the Piracy community. Not to be pedantic, but this is where you’d go to ask how to get the files to populate your music streaming server with. That’s my weakness there — I mostly self-host stuff I’ve bought and ripped myself. There are good tools and you’ll find good advice here, but something something old dogs, something something new tricks (me being the old dog, not you, unless you are, in which case, good on you for trying to break the mould). Right. So, what you want is the Self-Hosted community. Don’t ask them about where to get the music (that’s this community), but they can help on hardware and software. Me, I just use Plex, and I host it off a Mac mini. My desktop computer. You don’t need to spend nearly that much on a server. My Mac is a couple generations out now, but it’s still overkill for a music server.

The only time I use either of my phones as servers in any capacity is to like send a few files or something — and yes, I can do it just as capably with either. Honestly though both of them can easily host a file server another phone (either platform) can connect to and download from.

Honestly wish you’d written this comment without the profane hyperbole. Because it’s correct. You didn’t need to be offensive — the truth stands on its own; hell, you didn’t even need the links — but here we are.

Friendly reminder that when they redact information, it’s because they fear that the information they’re keeping from you is worse than you think it is.

In this case, believe them.