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Joined 1Y ago
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Cake day: Jul 10, 2023

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This is my assumption too.

I consider myself a difficult person to target ads at because usually if I need something I’ll do a deep dive and research the fuck out of it before narrowing down my options. For example when I bought a cordless vacuum recently I checked wirecutter and project farm on YouTube before eventually settling on a brand I’ve never heard of based on the project farm video and the performance in that video.

Now, where this broke down for me and I started to question reality was a few years ago when I had a Yamaha street bike (FZ09) and I was coming up on my first oil change interval. I did what I usually do; deep research dive, checked forums, reviews, Reddit, etc.; what’s the best oil for this bike, do people usually use the 1st party “Yamalube” oil or do they go for something different?

It’s important to note that at the same time I had been watching the back catalog of motoGP races from the 2015-2019 era and enjoying a couple of those races each day.

Anyway, all of my research on the right oil for my bike’s next oil change led me to a couple of forum posts where I decided that “Motul 7100” oil was the best option for me, the climate I ride in, and my bike. I ordered it on Amazon and moved on with my week.

Later that week I realized that in the background of several of the race tracks where these motoGP races were taking place were massive trackside ads for… literally Motul 7100.

Now, sure it’s normal for motor oil companies to sponsor motor sports, but it freaked me out. It couldn’t just be coincidence! “I researched this thoroughly and made up my own mind!” I told myself.

Why didn’t I end up choosing Shell or Bel-Ray or Penzoil instead? Is it because I subconsciously conditioned myself to be willing to receive recommendations for that oil brand? Was it because of other people being advertised to who then recommended it?

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how it happened… but I bought the very same oil that was advertised to me even after trying to be as resistant to advertising and brand loyalty as I could be.

After that realization I’ve just come to the conclusion that advertising is bigger than any of us individuals. It’s almost not possible to resist it, because at some level, somewhere along the line, it’ll get you. Or it won’t 🤷🏻‍♂️


They can leverage these terms if they want to. For example you’re also only allowed to have one account per person.

Wasn’t it the Terraria dev who got his account locked and they used that as an excuse as to why he was locked out of his account? They said he had too many accounts or something?

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/terraria-developer-cancels-google-stadia-port-after-youtube-account-ban/

They can enforce arbitrary rules when they need to if they wanna fuck you over; just like cops.


Unless I’m mistaken, don’t HomeKit compatible devices need to be local-first too? I remember reading that if I switch my Ecobee thermostat to HomeKit (via HomeAssistant’s bridge), it will use local control instead. It’s on my todo list but I just haven’t done it yet.

I think this thread about Ecobee and HomeKit was where I started…


I’m not here to argue & you’ve got some good points. I am defending no one; this isn’t a situation where I’m in the “hail corporate” camp.

The minute Plex started taking money back in 2012, anyone who thought Plex was still creating this product+service out of the goodness of their hearts has been missing the point. The writing has been on the wall for 10+ years.


I understand what you’re saying here, but I want to let you know that it just sounds like “sour grapes”.

It sounds like this provider is allowing something that could put Plex in legal hot water; why would they allow this and potentially jeopardize everything for all Plex users?


My X950H does not give the option (although there is a hidden dev/“pro mode” that allows you to turn it into a dumb screen I think) but my newer A80J model does give the OOTB option to disable the smart features.

The Bravias with Google TV are at the absolute limit of what I will tolerate from a smart TV. Suggestions/tailored stuff on the Home Screen, but no invasive ads. Anything further and I’d turn them into dumb TVs and use an Apple TV or Google TV dongle instead.


Sony Bravia models now give you an option to make it a dumb TV as part of the out of the box experience. It’s the first question they ask you when you power it on.


Nothing too crazy. I use Proxmox on hardware that used to be a gaming rig (4th gen Intel) and I upped the RAM to 32GB.

  • Plex
  • Home Assistant
  • NextCloud
  • VM to host Duplicati + Samba which backs up some shared storage.
  • VM that contains the extremely specific build environment for one of my mechanical keyboards
  • VM that contains my ESP Home environment.
  • VM for Docker based web development because as good as WSL is, it still sucks sometimes.

Some of my “VMs” are actually LXCs but I can’t remember which are which at the moment.

Playing with ZFS was fun too, and it puts all that RAM to good use!

I’ve also been meaning to create a VM for Dokku, but I haven’t had a strong enough need yet.