Just an FYI for the RSS thing: if a Bluesky account is set to be viewable to logged-in users only, its RSS feed will not work. It only works if the profile is viewable publicly without logging in.

In general, yeah. Private torrent trackers tend to focus on specific types of content. Some might focus on cartoons. Some might focus on anime. Some focus on books. Some focus on video games. Public trackers, on the other hand, generally focus on everything, which, of course, means they won’t have a lot of the older or more niche stuff, and they might be lacking in one or more categories (music, anime, books, TV, etc.).

It’s also much less likely that a torrent on a private tracker will die because most private trackers enforce certain rules about seeding and because the people there are generally much more into seeding than most people on a public tracker. (Probably most people on public trackers simply download what they need and stop before seeding anything back.)

Private trackers are also typically the first (and sometimes only) places to get scene releases. Scene releases, which are done by private groups, are usually higher quality than stuff on public trackers. Sometimes, they leak onto a public tracker, but not usually.

Eh, Aniwave was a pretty big one for the anime community. From what I understand, it’s the one most people fled to after KissAnime was taken down. Aside from that, I’ve never heard of any of the other sites they mentioned.

Me waiting for the next “mothership” to pop up so I can use it:

Aniwave (formerly known as 9anime) was, from what I understand, the site most people fled to after KissAnime bit the dust.

You: “Have you tried restarting it?”

Them: “No way, that’d never work!”

You: “Humor me.”

Them: “…”

You: “Well…?”

The other person hangs up.

FYI, SmartTubeNext has been renamed to just SmartTube.

I’ll also plug SmartTube, an Android TV app that has many of the more widely-used functions ReVanced has (blocks ads, supports SponsorBlock, etc.) among other things.

What’s the number of Threads users compared to Lemmy? If the number of Threads users greatly outweigh the number of Lemmy users, then we’d simply be drowned out by all the Threads posts. That’s part one of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

Extend adds functionality to Threads that Lemmy either can’t support or won’t support for a while due to development time. People migrate to Threads because Lemmy is “missing” functionality. Plus, though I’m not clear on the exact legal specifications, proprietary code can be added to open-source code, and the proprietary code would be copyrighted. In other words, Lemmy devs would have to figure out a way to interact with and mimic Threads’ proprietary code using open-source code.

Extinguish is when Threads’ support of Lemmy is eventually dropped. The users left on Lemmy have suddenly lost a huge amount of content, and they’re left with fewer users than before Threads enabled federation.

Ironically, Microsoft would later remove Cortana itself in an update.

Asking stuff like that is always a good idea, IMO. It could be the difference between a successful Linux install and a very expensive paperweight.

… Don’t ask me how to install it, though. I’ve only tried Ubuntu as a dual-boot, and that was several years ago.

Yeah, what happened with GitHub?

A private tracker I use actually bases their ratios off the time you seed something for rather than the amount you seed. I use a seedbox, which means people are able to leech from me pretty much 100% of the time. Most of the stuff I’ve seeded so far is freeleech. Those three factors combined have given me about +10.0 on my ratio over the course of maybe a week. (I just recently joined it.)

Any Usenet providers and indexers you’d recommend? I tried it a few months ago but couldn’t quite wrap my head around how to use it. (I’m technically literate, but Usenet was completely foreign to me until a few months ago.)

Sorry for the long comment incoming . I went into detail with a lot of things.

The one I use costs a little bit of money and may be a little time-consuming to setup depending on the device, but it costs less than most streaming services these days, and you only need to pay for one of it (versus multiple streaming services).

It’s called Kodi. The program itself is free, and it technically doesn’t support piracy or torrents, but it does support 3rd party add-ons and 3rd-party repositories.

Here’s how it works:

1. Install Kodi on your platform of choice. It supports Windows, Android (including phones, Fire TV, and Android TV), iOS, and Mac. The steps should be about the same regardless of the platform.

2. Sign up for a “debrid” service and subscribe. This will affect what torrents will be available for a show or movie, so choose wisely. (I personally use Real-Debrid..)

3. Sign up for a VPN* and subscribe. (I use ProtonVPN.) Depending on where you live, some Internet Service Providers (the company you pay for Internet service) may not like you using a debrid site since it allows for very high-speed downloads, and it’s generally a good idea to use a VPN anyway. Install the VPN onto the same device you installed Kodi on.

4. Use Google to find an add-on you want to install. Many add-ons cater to different wants. For example, some cater sports, others to anime, and some to live action shows. This site has a good list of available add-ons.

5. Start Kodi. Use this guide to install the add-on of your choice.

6. Once the add-on is installed, start it and go to its settings. Most of them should have a section called “Accounts” or “Your Accounts” somewhere in there. In there, you should find the option to add or authorize the debrid service you subscribed to. (If it’s not there, it’s not supported. This is another reason to choose a good one and another reason I recommend Real-Debrid.) Follow the onscreen instructions to connect the add-on to your debrid account.

7. Turn on your VPN. Find a show you want to watch, pick a cached torrent when/ if it asks, and enjoy. You may need to adjust your audio language and subtitle settings. If you want to choose a specific torrent, you can do so by right-clicking (on PC) or holding down the OK button (on TV) and selecting the option. It might say something about “rescraping providers”.

*Many debrid providers automotive or manually whitelist certain VPNs. Whatever VPN you sign up for should be compatible with the debrid service you chose. Some sites (like Real-Debrid), will list the VPNs they’re compatible with, while others (like AllDebrid, another debrid service) will simply have you submit your VPN’s IP address for manual approval.

I realize this might seem complicated, but I think the payoff is worth it. I pay under $15 (less than $5 for Real-Debrid and $9.99 for ProtonVPN per month) for access to a TON of TV shows and movies, including shows on several different streaming services. And it costs less than most streaming services do these days.

Some add-ons also support Real-Debrid’s cloud functionality. Basically, Real-Debrid has the ability to download torrents on its own, and it stores them so you can download them to a storage device later if you want to. For example, you can use this if you have a long car or train ride ahead, and you need to bring some entertainment. Some Kodi add-ons can take advantage of this. They’ll send the magnet link (torrent) to your Real-Debrid account, and it’ll be available for you to download later. If it’s a cached torrent, it’ll be available immediately. If it’s uncached, Real-Debrid will begin working on downloading it. I’d recommend using a VPN whenever downloading directly from a debrid service so your ISP doesn’t complain to you. Anyway, I’ve put that to pretty good use myself. I watched an episode of the new Percy Jackson TV show recently on a train ride by downloading it beforehand via Kodi and Real-Debrid. I also got most of the episodes of an old anime I used to watch that way, too.

Depends where you get your alternatively-sourced shows from. Downloaded a torrent yesterday that was so dark that I could barely see anything even with my screen’s brightness turned all the way up. Downloaded another torrent of the same episode, and it was much easier to see everything.

Adam Savage had the team that does CT Scans of various products

Link?

Apparently not if it’s compared to Walmart.

I have no idea why, but your comment just randomly reminded me of this song from my childhood.

Lemmy just launched it in v0.19 yesterday, so you’ll have to wait for the people running your instance (in your case, the Beehaw mods) to update it. Looks like Beehaw is still running v0.18.4.