Like you I try to support artists by purchasing physical media or releases on Bandcamp. Outside of that I get my music on Soulseek, through torrents, Usenet, and occasionally XDCC. I don’t need lossless files and even if I download FLACs I transcode them to 320kbps MP3 before they go on my iPod anyway. The harder it becomes to acquire music legally the less bad I feel about downloading with abandon.

Awesome! If you do I’d love to hear how it goes. I’m sure I’m not the only person trying this but I haven’t found much online from other users yet.

I absolutely don’t need (nor can I afford) another QAZ but this is just too good and I must have it 🤤

Streaming my own music was the reason I got into self-hosting in the first place and I’ve been satisfied with Navidrome for over a year now. My preference is to stream via an app on my phone but I’ve made accounts for a couple friends and they stream happily on multiple devices using the browser interface.

As stated, my reason is that I was paying Spotify more money for less music and I was unhappy with that. You pointed out yourself that musicians barely get by in the streaming era so I would rather support them on Bandcamp (I know it has it’s own issues) or buying physical media whenever possible rather than pirating. Streaming platforms may make music you want to listen to seemingly affordable and accessible but that’s not the case for everyone. This is my personal experience.

it’s easier to just sub to something like Apple Music… literally $110/yr for all the music that exists.

As others have stated, not all music exists on every streaming platform. That alone is enough of a reason for me. I recently canceled my longtime Spotify subscription because the price kept increasing while my library kept decreasing. I actually don’t pirate music when I can help it because I’d rather support artists on Bandcamp or purchasing physical media directly. If I can’t do that then I head to Soulseek!

GIMP is fine but who can find me replacements for After Effects and Premiere Pro? I need software for video editing/motion graphics and these are the two apps keeping me shackled to Adobe for now…

I’ve had good luck accessing Channel4 via the NordVPN browser extension in Firefox. Using my desktop VPN (OpenVPN) stopped working some months ago as it was detected by the site but it seems the browser extension flies under the radar.

I love this! Where do you find inspiration?

This is absolutely ridiculous and I LOVE it

This looks sick you did an amazing job!

I love this! The style reminds me a bit of Peter Draws and your freehand line quality is impressive!

I’m a MacBook user and I’ve been very happy with AlDente. It took some reading to understand all the features but I really believe it’s made a difference in the health of my battery.

I’ve been searching for music recommendation and playlist generator alternatives to Spotify and this looks great!

I love your work! I’m curious about your process: do you have a concept in mind when you create these? Are you sketching a thumbnail first or just drawing freehand? What kinds of markers are you using? It looks like at least some are paint-based.

Not a playlist per se but Datafruits.fm is a cooperative online radio station

Agreed!

A mask mandate was recently reinstated for New York City’s public hospitals due to an increase in flu/COVID/RSV infections.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently warned that respiratory illnesses are on the rise across the country. Just before Christmas, national COVID-19 hospitalizations jumped 17% in one week.

“I think that’s a major reason why we’re seeing this rise in not only cases, but also hospitalizations. Because we’ve just had Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, so a lot of people are gathering from all over the country,” Roy told NY1.

Oh how dare you get it stuck in my head 🤣

I’ve been doing this for a few years using AirVPN but it seems like that stopped working after January 1st. Videos would not play unless I used the NordVPN browser plugin, this seems to be a workaround for some VPN restrictions. I do enjoy the commercials!