cobysev

As a former sys admin, this clicked immediately for me.

I used to exclusively browse Reddit via apps. I retired relatively young, and as such, no longer sit in front of a computer all day. Being able to browse Reddit from my phone or tablet was essential.

Then the whole API thing happened a couple years ago. Reddit started charging app developers for every use of their data, which would cost the larger apps millions of dollars for something that was previously free. It was Reddit’s attempt to squash all mobile apps, so they could push their ad-riddled garbage app. Or make tons of money off any third-party apps that were too stubborn to quit hosting Reddit content. Win/win for Reddit.

I’m extremely anti-advertisement and am not going to be forced to use an app that shoves ads in my face every few posts or comments. I immediately started looking for alternatives, and Lemmy was the most common suggestion for an alternative to Reddit.

I made an account here and spent some time poking around. It was like Reddit, but not as many people, so the content seemed more focused. I could actually comment here and not be drowned out by thousands of other comments. Even if I was late to a thread, I’d still get noticed and be able to share in a conversation, not just shout into the void.

People were generally nicer here too. On Reddit, there were always haters in every thread. Always contrarians who had to argue with everyone. I rarely see people being assholes here. Not to say they don’t exist, but they’re more rare.

I started subscribing to communities here (the Lemmy version of subreddits), but eventually decided to just keep browsing by “All,” since there wasn’t as much regular content. That means I still have a full news feed, but I also don’t get stuck doomscrolling forever.

It seems jumping to Lemmy was a good choice because soon after I left, subreddits started losing their mods if they spoke out against the CEO or fought against site-wide changes. They were replaced by Reddit admins or bots, who did a terrible job moderating. Lots of communities started crumbling, especially the popular subreddits whose mods were replaced by bots.

I’ve fully abandoned Reddit now. I wouldn’t be surprised if my account got auto banned from a bunch of subreddits at some point for some innocuous comment I made years ago. I still get emails every now and then stating that someone found an old comment and replied, but besides people asking for help or advice, I just ignore it. Reddit is dead to me.

It’s not FOSS, but Plex does that. I host my music from a server I built at home (you can literally just use your desktop PC) and then I have access to it from anywhere. I like to stream it to the Plexamp app on my phone, which I connect to my car via Bluetooth, then I have my own homemade “radio” on the go. No ads, just my own music that I can shuffle through.

I paid for the Lifetime Plex Pass, which gave me full access to all their features and apps. It’s expensive, but it’s a one-time payment, vs. their monthly subscription which can add up over time.

I actually got annoyed at Plex for remembering exactly where I was in every song. I’d return to an album I hadn’t heard in a while and it would skip right to where I left off in each song instead of playing from the beginning of the song

Sometimes while trying to find a particular song, I’d skip around in a track, then move to the next until I found it. Then when I returned to that album later, every song would start somewhere in the middle. I eventually needed to turn that feature off. It still remembers exactly where I left off the last time I played music, but it doesn’t save my place in each individual song anymore. Just the last one I played.

On the app, it keeps a list of all the playlists I’ve recently played, so I can pick up on my latest playlist or scroll back in the history and start up one I played a while ago. This is great because I like to just shuffle my entire library as a playlist while I’m mowing my lawn, but my wife likes to hear specific genres or bands while we’re riding in the car together. So I can just keep alternating back and forth between playlists depending on the situation and it remembers where I left off in each one.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR CURRENT PLEX PASS HOLDERS:
For users who have an active Plex Pass subscription, remote playback will continue to be available to you without interruption from any Plex Media Server, after these changes go into effect. When running your own Plex Media Server as a subscriber, other users to whom you have granted access can also stream from the server (whether local or remote), without ANY additional charge—not even a mobile activation fee. More on that later in this update.

I was worrying about this change because my Plex server provides free streaming for several of my friends and family and I didn’t want them to have to start paying for it. The whole point was to get them away from Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, etc.

But this sounds like, since I’m already a Plex Pass subscriber, my remote viewers will still be able to access my stuff for free. Do I have that right? Because if so, this change is just business as usual for me.

For some reason, this just sparked an ancient memory of the Geek Code, which was a sort of signature block you could append to your emails and online bios to show off how much of a geek you were in the geekiest fashion possible.

Goddamn I’m old.

“They Live!” A guy finds some strange sunglasses that lets him see the subliminal messages hidden in all our print and media and advertisements. He can also see aliens walking amongst the population, disguised as regular humans!

Turns out, Earth had been invaded by aliens long ago and they’ve been keeping us under their control with subliminal messages for decades.

I think it was paid… But it’s been years so I couldn’t tell you.

It’s currently $3.99 in the Play Store for me, with a crossed-out list price of $6.49. Not a bad deal.

I was referring to PlexAmp. It’s decent, works well, but I just liked the interface for Symfonium better. It seemed more functional than PlexAmp when I switched over to it.

I actually haven’t used PlexAmp in a few years, so maybe it’s gotten better lately. I guess I’ll have to compare apps.

I’ve been maintaining a self-hosted music library for so long (30+ years now), there used to not be any tools for editing metadata. I used to have to go into file properties and manually edit the data for each individual MP3 file. Nowadays, I use Mp3tag to manually edit entire albums at a time. I have ADHD though (the hyperfixation kind), so I’ve literally dedicated thousands of hours to manually fixing metadata.

I guess I never bothered to look for more advanced tools to auto-update metadata. I had to go in and manually fix stuff that updated automatically from the Internet in the past, so I guess I stopped trusting online databases. But they’ve really advanced since the last time I went searching for tools, and their databases are a lot more complete in this day and age. I’m gonna play around with some of these programs and see how well they work.

I host my music library through Plex, then use Symfonium on my phone if I want to stream my Plex music remotely, just because I like their interface a little better than Plex’s.

I like the changes, it’s working very well!

One thing that still bothers me is webm links. They show as gifs on posts, but when I click on them, they’ll give me a display saying something like, “Image was actually a webpage! Open in browser?” Is it possible to have them play in the app like gifs, or do I just need to open them separately in a browser every time? I don’t want to leave the app just to view a 5-second webm.

Thanks for all you’re doing!

I saw this post way back in September last year (which was quickly removed), and have been seeing this guy’s custom name popping up everywhere since. It’s very annoying. I’m all for blocking custom characters in display names.

I’ve heard communities on Lemmy, magazines on kbin, and a lot of expats from Reddit like to call them subs.