Faceman2K23

well anything based on android TV can be easily modified with sideloaded APKs for excellent compatibility and upgradeability, there are also some package sideloading techniques for LG and Samsung but they are less open and there is less to do when you do jailbreak them. the issue with this, even on the top of the line TVs is that the hardware eventually gets out of date, and format/codec support is locked to that hardware so an external device is always a better option.

Buy the TV with the image quality you need and want in your price bracket (don't look past TCL and Hisense these days), then plug in any of the top external streaming device and just leave the TV offline other than to check for firmware updates occasionally.

The Nvidia Shield pro 2019 is getting old but it is still the king for home media servers using plex or jellyfin, only weakness is no youtube HDR but thats not a big loss. great support for dedicated theatre setups with Dolby Vision, Atmos, DTSX etc...

Chromecast google tv is actually pretty good for most people for "normal" use with the standard streaming services and is pretty good at plex or jellyfin if you get an ethernet adaptor for it. DV and Atmos support is there but isnt perfect.

Current gen AppleTV is pretty good for all general playback, but is less hackable, so app support is limited to whatever is in the store, jailbreaks might be possible in the future as usual with apple devices, but I havent researched them.

the cheaper android boxes like the xiaomis and the microbrands on amazon all vary in quality and some are downright dangerous, but if you know android you can probably clean them up by stripping out crap with ADB commands.

I currently have an unlocked NSPanel Pro running Fully Kiosk browser for a HA dashboard in one room, but it's not perfect and its a bit overpriced for what it is, also it;'s wifi only which is a bit of a let down for a permanent control device.

I did see on aliexpress today some new 7-8" android tablets with integrated wall mounts, POE power and data, a basic camera for presence detection etc but minimal sensors otherwise, for somewhat reasonable money, but they're 3x to 4x what a basic equivalent tablet costs.

I've also dabbled with E-Ink displays but they are expensive and most of the hobbyist grade displays you can control with an ESP or PI don't have any lighting so they cant be used in the dark. and they would require a lot more DIYing than an android tablet running a kiosk browser. I've not seen any off the shelf android e-paper devices designed for home control, look at the pricing of devices like the Onyx Boox tablets (I have an Onyx Boox note3 and love it, but it cost me more than an ipad at the time), you will see it's a pricy tech to the begin with and low volume niche products also drive up prices a lot. the cheaper e-reader devices are less hackable for DIY.

Was great, but it got a little weird towards the end like it wanted to do more with its world and new characters but didn't.

Mathematics like calculus can be mechanised with analogue (continuous output) mechanisms, but programmability is limited. being a continuous analogue output you can say that they are able to instantaneously (ignoring gear backlash and other mechanical tolerances) solve complex equations. The inputs can be changed freely and continuously and multiple machines could be interconnected to form complex analogue logic, but it is difficult to imagine a reasonable way that it could perform general programmable computing tasks rather than being purpose built for a specific equation or family of equations. See the analogue clockwork logic used in early autopilots and space flight computers, bombing calculators, early maritime navigation computers etc..

A general purpose mechanical computer is of course possible, but doesn't scale well to what we would consider a modern computer equivalent, as another commenter mentioned babbages analytical engine roughly scaled and parallelised to a modern computer would weigh as much as a decently sized asteroid. even if the consecutive generations of smaller scale machines allowed for micro engineering of mechanical logic gates via micro scale CNC it would still be limited to a certain physical minimum size much larger than our current transistors and could only function at a limited speed and with a limited lifetime.

Other methods that could be used are chemical logic, which can be scaled pretty small, but requires constant fuelling and would be prone to "noise" from contamination. Optical logic is another option, but requires advanced optics, filters and polarisers which would require advanced manufacturing in the first place.

The most likely, if still far fetched option for pre-industrial NON-MECHANICAL computing to me is biological, through selective breeding and intense training of humans or animals to perform computing tasks, even subconsciously. We know this is possible as we see the occasional human computer arise naturally, sometimes with extreme and unbelievable capabilities, but we don't know how to control it to "manufacture" a biological computer in this way.

gotta get behind him, one good kick to the abdomen and your intestines will be hanging out where they don't belong.

those fuckers are strong and their claws can be deadly.

I loved Clannad, but I do tend to enjoy slower shows quite a lot, I see clannad as a sort of protoype of Bunny Girl Senpai, they're extremely similar if you think about it.

Afterstory is a totally different beast and more or less comes out of nowhere to hurt you, but only if you actually connected with the characters in S1.

I have no port, and i must stream?

I definitely see what you are saying, however the Mentalics have existed in Asimovs universe since before the Empire or the Foundation. They are being represented with some new powers, but the mental influence is a very important ability that ties the whole story together in the end.

I think their only major misstep was revealing demerzel as both a robot (s1), and as the orchestrator (s2) too early. They haven't however shown just how far their influence has gone in guiding history just yet, nor how that ties into the creation and application of psychohistory.

They are smooshing the timeline around and boiling all of the books down into one slightly weird slurry, but apart from the obvious changes to make the long timeline more TV friendly (genetic dynasty and characters like Gaal acting to connect different eras across time jumps with familiar faces) everything that is happening is taken from some part of the asimoverse but often exaggerated a little bit for spectacle.

I think S1 ended up as a 6/10 for me and S2 as a 7/10

It is a Baz Luhrmann film, he definitely has a style and it isn't for everyone.

Look at Moulin Rouge and Elvis, they are hyper stylized, over the top and thus they get mixed reviews.

I recently replaced a pi4 with an intel n95 based mini-pc and it's been an absolute joy. I moved a few of my services and VMs over from the main server. It runs my Homeassistant via HAOS in a VM significantly faster than the pi4, another VM with access to the IGPU runs a 4k dashboard feed into my video distribution matrix, a few containers for simple things like MQTT and Adguard Home (like pihole) and it has room to do more.

The whole computer with 16gb of ram and 256gb SSD cost about the same as a pi4 8gb did when the shortage was at its worst.

The other option of course, is a cheap older optiplex, for under $200 you can get quad core sky lake or kaby lake generation processors, 16gb of ram and room for a couple of SSDs, a bulk storage HDD and a couple of low profile PCIE cards.

I started with a bunch of cloud connected expensive wifi devices that would have all sorts of issues on the consumer crap wifi router I had at the time.

The amount of money I spent on those devices would have been much, much better spent on something non IP based like zigbee or zwave devices with a hardwired hub.

These days I finally have a more pro grade network setup that handles all the Wi-Fi IOT devices I have just fine, but it could have been so, so much simpler.

Surely Plex can come up with a way to accurately identify those that are actually running dodgy paid servers against the TOS and leave the smaller guys alone.

I know the whole idea of the shared library is already pushing laws to the limit but those that are running large scale paid servers will eventaully ruin it for everyone.