An issue with the torrent scheme is efficiency. Networks of home computers will suck down considerably more power from (potentially) less than ideal energy sources than dedicated servers in well-planned locations (i.e. near reliable renewable energy sources, with backup generators). I don’t see a way to have this without involving large institutions, whether private or public.

Regarding media creation, there’s a middle ground between direct payment and government-sponsored: Universal Basic Income, or a related scheme of generic grants for art/education producers. Ensuring people don’t starve or become homeless as they start projects or grow large enough to be sustained by direct payments from an audience could foster this sort of growth.

I prefer the lack of downvotes, personally. As others have said, they usually just turned into a pile-on, and trolls/bigots are better dealt with by reports and moderation.

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. The narrator and main character is a psychotic teenager, and being inside their head just feels so gross. Fantastic book, but genuinely disturbing.

In close second is Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. The main character goes through some stuff as a child, and comes to believe that she isn’t human. Meets some others like herself and it gets weird. Great book, not for the faint of heart!

Losing songs from Spotify playlists is one of things that prompted me to start up my Plex server. The old CDs still come in handy!

Breakfast In America is a great album, one I keep coming back to over the years.

No, Wendover aren’t on Floatplane. I just summarized, trying to match the tone from the LTTtranslator posts and linking it to LTT. Glad it’s appropriate!

You’re completely right, clickbait is pointless in a space dedicated to the channel in question (and just sucks in general!). As far as LTT goes, the wood one wasn’t too bad so I didn’t think to change the suggested title.

They’re way better about titles on Floatplane (for, presumably, the same reason you outlined). “WATCH OUT Power Supply Makers! – LTT Labs Update” becomes “Labs Update - Power Supply Tester, Markbench, Metal 3D Printing”, for example.

I only sub occasionally because I block ads on YouTube, and like to throw something in the pot time and again. I get the aversion to plastic, shame they don’t take anything else.

Floatplane, it seems to me, pays a lot more attention to the media player itself. There are only a few lines in this half-hour video about working with Vimeo vs. another platform. The Nebula story is more about advertising than anything else.

Would the Floatplane version of the title be sufficient? Usually less clickbaity over there (It’s just “The All Wood Gaming Setup”, no caps/punctuation).

The Fratellis - The Last Songbird has been in my head on loop all day. Great band, I can always immediately recognize their sound when a song starts playing.

I like the idea of instances, but would like to see the development of more “themed” servers. So maybe one instance is a cluster of related topics (science, arts, LGBT, whatever), or one that caters to a specific country/local area, or particular users (IT professionals, students, mechanics, librarians, etc).

Currently everything seems a bit slapdash, with larger instances each having a bit of everything. It will be interesting to watch the cultures here develop.

The Wheel of Time is a great ride, I always love hearing new readers’ thoughts!

The Great Hunt is, maybe weirdly, one of my favorites in the series. Everything is still new and innocent, and the characters (and the reader!) are just discovering the wider world. Glad to hear you’re enjoying the series!

I want to be the person who reads attentively, underlining things and scrawling notes in the margins, then going back to reread years later, or share books with others who do the same. But I always get too caught up in the story, or just cant bring myself to do it when I do remember. It also slows down my pace of reading quite a lot, and I’m not that fast to begin with.

It doesn’t help that, as a librarian, the people who write in library books are the worst!

My recent favourite Bandcamp pickups are Acid Croft Vol 9 by Shooglenifty and Riding the Wave from Miles.

There’s such a great variety of musicians on Bandcamp, way too many to keep up with so I appreciate the suggestions!

I got 500 hours in Factorio before tying mods, and over 2000 since (1000+ in an SE run alone). It’s been a year or so, maybe time to start up another game…

Most of my collection is CDs ripped to FLAC. It can be slow going, but I enjoy hunting around charity shops/thrift stores for new albums. You can also check out the Discogs marketplace. I’ve bought some things digitally from active bands on Bandcamp, and some I knew I’d never find from sites like 7digital and HDTracks.