It wasn’t just the one offhand comment. His entire attitude was “always online and a mandatory camera attached to your device are just how it is, loaning games is gone forever, and you’re stupid for even questioning any of it.” His decisions singlehandedly tanked the popularity of the Xbox brand so hard they’re still feeling the effects one whole console generation later.

Though not a CEO, I’d say Don Mattrick made even dumber decisions than Ballmer. When asked flat out saying that if active duty military can’t use the new always online console they can use the last gen console or get fucked was… a choice.

Just wanted to follow up since I took a poke at this. Your best bet is still DVD Decrypter, which you can run through Wine. For some reason drive detection fails unless you set the operating environment to Windows NT 4.0, so use Winetricks to make an application-specific override for that. Once you do that you should be able to use it.

Try installing libdvdcss or libdvdcss2. That may make Handbrake work correctly.

Past that, VLC also supports pulling content from DVDs, though it again uses libdvdcss. MakeMKV is probably the easiest option to use, though it will only extract the video/audio content and won’t preserve menus and the like.

Quite honestly though this is one of the things where the bulk of the best tools are Windows-based. The original DVD Decrypter is still rock solid for most DVDs, and anything it can’t handle you can usually get with DVDFab HD Decrypter or AnyDVD. All of those have pretty bare bones minimum system requirements, so your laptop should be able to run 'em. Whether you can do it via Wine/etc. or need to use a Windows VM I can’t tell you, but that’d be where I’d go.

EDIT: You can in fact run DVD Decrypter on Linux through Wine, you just need to use Winetricks to make an application-specific override to set the operating environment to Windows NT 4.0 so it doesn’t error out trying to access the disc drive. Program works great once you do that.

Mind you I tested this on a machine running Linux Mint, but it should work on Debian 11 as well.

TBH I’m fine with XFCE. It looks reasonably modern but is lightweight and uncomplicated. Takes recolors well, too. Never had any problems with it.

Don’t say that on XDA. Half the people there will say you don’t actually need root to do what you want and the other half will demand you justify why you specifically need root before they even entertain the idea that having full privileges on your own fucking hardware is a valid desire.

Alright. Gore is the inside squishy bits of the body you shouldn’t see: muscles, torn flesh, whatnot. You see someone’s brains or a stump where an appendage was just separated, that’s gore.

Blood is… well… blood. In context it’s alarming, but ultimately it’s just a bunch of opaque red liquid.

I mean, the phrase “blood and gore” sort of lays out the distinction.

For anyone wondering: it’s not gory as such, but it is significant in that way that tells our lizard brains something undeniably bad just happened.

There are plenty of pieces of legislation which allow small businesses to exist which do not involve literally outlawing the competition. Outlawing competition is the sort of regulatory capture that simply should not exist, no matter who benefits from it. Rather, the consumer never benefits from it.

small businesses

car dealerships

Bruh, wat?

Yeah, famously “small business”, those car dealerships. Right up there with payday loan places, and equally ethical. I can’t even.

Because the laws had to exist for dealerships to exist…

If a business cannot exist without its competition being made illegal then it should not exist. Anti-competitive laws cut both ways.

All of the things you’ve listed there are reasons why dealerships should be allowed to exist. They do not address why manufacturers should not be allowed to sell cars directly to consumers at their own stores. Why would that interfere with the numerous benefits you’ve suggested that dealerships bring about? Consumers would still be able to choose to purchase their car from a dealership, so why wouldn’t they? What could motivate them to go direct to the manufacturer?

Price. It’s the price. Manufacturers can offer cars to the consumer at a better price, period. Not only that, they offer it without you having to sit through 2 hours of high-pressure sales and having to double-check every goddamn form you sign to make sure some rate or term duration hasn’t “accidentally” been changed to a much higher value.

If dealerships were actually competitive they wouldn’t need this law on the books to keep their industry alive.

Turn it around: how does the enforced dealership model benefit consumers? What value is added by forcing people who want to buy a car to go through another entire group of salespeople adding their own overhead and cost to the equation rather than buying directly from the car manufacturer?

Musk’s motivations are anything but pure here, but this is one of those “a stopped clock is right twice a day” moments.

Unfortunately, Sony seems to be really hostile towards allowing most any video player apps on the PS5. They specifically went out of their way to remove DLNA support, and they only just allowed a DLNA-enabled video player on the store 7 months ago… and it’s subscription based.

Yep. Underwood Ranches. You can buy it from their site directly or on Amazon. It’s good stuff.

Most of them have gone to BlueSky. A few are on Mastodon but rarely as their primary (sadly). A lot of artists have gone to places like FurAffinity, Pixiv, and to a lesser extent DeviantArt.

Unfortunately a lot of them have just resorted to being on Patreon, which is unfortunate.

Even the porn creators and erotic artists have left.

When you’ve lost the porn it’s game over man.

Oh no doubt, but they thought they could appease him somehow. Now they’re realizing that once you’re on his list there’s no getting back in his good graces. Peace was never an option.