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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: July 25th, 2023

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  • 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.








  • Most papers are made in TEX or LaTEX. These formats separate display from data in such a way that they can be quickly formatted to a variety of page size, margins, text size, et al with minimal effort. It’s basically an open standard typesetting format. You can create and edit TEX in any text editor and run it through a program to prepare it for print or viewing. Nothing else can handle math formulas, tables, charts, etc with the same elegance. If you’ve ever struggled to write a math paper in Microsoft word, seriously question why your professor hasn’t already forced you to learn about LaTEX.


  • My company sends out these kids of phishing scam test emails too. They were actually pretty decently faked. But, they use the same identifying string in the header of each and every one, so I made an outlook rule to quarantine them In a particular folder so that I could correctly report all of them. Occasionally I report the weird legitimate email surveys we get from HR too and mass emails from IT with bad spelling, just so they don’t get suspicious of my perfect record.



  • From the article it does seem that the failure of ability isn’t strictly related to computers per SE, but to an over all inability to think about the word problems given in an abstract and mathematically coherent way. They seemed to ask participants to solve what are essentially database query, reading comprehension, critical thinking, and logic problems in the context of an email suite. Word problems can be hard for anyone that hasn’t studied and practiced how to decipher them. It’s just that using a computer kind of forces one to confront those gaps in what should be a fundamental part of highschool education. Math and science classes aren’t just solving problems by wrote memorization or memorizing the periodic table, they are about problem solving. Lots of people fall through the gaps and don’t get that one special teacher who understood this.




  • 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.