BigDev

I had to refresh a pc with Windows 11 recently (unfortunately) and I can confirm it works, but I found it only works on a completely clean install, and you have to run the command IMMEDIATELY when starting setup. I had to re-install twice, because the first time I connected to Wi-Fi, and even running the command and disabling wifi, it still demanded an account. I had to wipe the drive an install a second time, then run the command right at the start of the setup process, before doing anything. THEN it let me skip connecting to internet and logging into an account.

Except, one viewpoint is objectively not reality. That’s the whole point of this post, one of the two main political opinions hold the beliefs that:

• ALL trans women and gay men at pedophiles
• ALL trans men and gay women are just confused and haven’t found the right husband yet
• Being trans and transitioning turns you into a sad, pathetic mockery of the other gender who is destined to kill themselves from the shame of it all
• ALL Queer-adjacent children (under 18) are also confused innocents who have been lead astray by evil forces trying to corrupt the new generation

None of which are true, in case it wasn’t clear. So no, it should absolutely not be left up to the parents to teach, because when that happens, a solid 30% of (American) childeren are “educated” about a complete un-reality that only exists in the minds of hate-filled bigots, and terrifies all us queers back into the closet.

Honestly mostly just age related stuff. It spent most of its life leaning against a barn wall, so even though it had low miles when I got it, everything was feeling the age and a lot of maintenance items came due very suddenly all at once. The muffler basically desintigrated one day as I was driving it, had to patch a hole on one side and replace the other entirely. Then it was seals, just about everywhere except the pistons (thankfully), so I’ve had just about everything except the actual engine block out at some point or another.

Shockingly the fuel system is rock solid after replacing all the rubber bits in the carbeurators. Sometimes I have to use the kick starter in colder weather, but usually I can pop the choke out and the electric start gets it going in 2 cranks.

Not sure how loose you define tech, but mine would be my motorcyle, a 1981 Yamaha XS400 that my grandfather gifted me. It’s certainly feeling it’s age, so it requires a lot more effort on my end to keep running than most bikes made this century. It’s not made for modern highway speeds, it’s not happy when I try, so I keep it off the interstate, 50 and under. That said, when the weather’s good, I’ve never had a carbeurated engine start so easily, and it’s a joy to ride!

Can ISP’s really flash firmware to a 3rd party router? That’s wild. I’m not sure that’s happened to me before, and I’ve been forced to use Comcast/xfinity my whole adult life. I’ve had multiple Arris modems, and whenever I check their status page, it was always Arris branded, and stayed the same before and after hooking it up and registering it with the ISP.

I always assumed the rigamarole of registering a personal modem was simply a white listing process (give MAC address, receive internet). I’ll have to look more into it, I didn’t know there was anything else going on.

I like the way you’ve explained the concept! I never could find the right word for it, I always thought of it as “meta” media, though that never seemed 100% right. “Reconstruction” is much better, it implies a more thorough understanding (and appreciation!) of the source material than mere meta-jokes. My concept of meta would lump Shaun of the Dead in with shit like Disaster Movie, which are obviously leagues apart.

Both are good ideas! A newer Gen cpu is never a bad thing in this hobby. Either method will do you good, so if you’d rather have the extra cpu horsepower of a newer cpu, you should go for it!

I have no opinion or knowledge of which Intel cpu is best for you besides “bigger number = more better” so hopefully the other responses with advice are accurate. Good luck!

If money is tight, then the cheapest solution would probably then be an nvidia GPU with NVENC support, since you wouldn’t have to upgrade anything to make it work (assuming it fits in your case of course) . I believe I managed to grab my 1050TI for about $100USD, and it supports many, many streams, especially with the NVENC unlock driver patch, and my cpu sits pretty at maybe 10% usage tops.

If you’re mainly using this server for plex, then a 13 series Intel with quicksync will be the way to go, from what I read the newest generation of quicksync is really good for transcodes. That and more RAM, can never have enough ram!

Is plex transcoding what’s making your server struggle? Even with older gens, I would think using hardware transcodes would keep the cpu load light. At least that’s what I noticed when I dropped an nvidia card into my server (no integrated graphics in my cpu)

VT native here, every time I visit another state I’m painfully reminded of how good I have it here.

I am lucky enough to have a second physical location to store a second computer, with effectively free internet access (as long as the data volume is low, under about 1TB/month.)

I use the ZFS file system for my storage pool, so backups are as easy as a few commands in a script triggered every few hours, that takes a ZFS snapshot and tosses it to my second computer via SSH.