I like that idea, although I think we need some simpler guides as to what exactly one might he getting into if they’re setting up an instance that’s not just a domain name. (Costs, potential usage blowing up, legal issues with content, etc…)

Also, I really think there needs to be a smoother way to navigate between instances. I guess, so you’re still aware of “jumping nodes”, but also don’t feel locked in there. (Although maybe I’m just a newb still haha)

Truuue!

I probably engage here a little much too, but I’m glad there’s not a ton of “You also might like based on where your mouse hovered 0.4 seconds longer” panels on every single page!

I’ve actually considered starting a Friendica or other instance exclusively for friends and family to share pictures and communicate, invite only…

… But even if I managed the insane technical aspects and convinced people to try it, I only fear the mainstream social media giants have already trained them to be their worst selves at this point. I can see the bickering drama threads now, eating up my gigabytes…

I just hate how fragmented and walled the most connected Internet ever is…I felt more connection when I had everyone between Yahoo and MSN Messengers, or took the time to check out friends’ MySpace pages.

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Fair. Can also cite all the Islamic iconography and sound removed from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

As for Star Wars, Han absolutely shot first. (High five)

Weren’t a lot of those wacky edits by Lucas’ own whims though? I’d say there’s a distinction between a creator editing his own work and say, Disney going “We lost the rights to John Williams, so we removed the score from the entire franchise.” Lol

Sheesh!

Ace Combat games are also on a countdown as soon as they release, because the likenesses of the planes from the defense companies expire, so they get de-listed.

You couldn’t do that with physical media. =\

They’re editing entertainment history to begin with. Deletion is bad enough, but possibly even more nefarious is the blatant, unapologetically sneaky editing of existing media mentioned in this thread. Jussst a little bit at a time.

Unlike many videogames, TV shows, music, movies, don’t get “version / revision numbers.” Can you trust your archives to be original?

Adjust for today’s-sensibilities here, remove a now-naughty-word there…“oh, we don’t wanna pay for that song that released in 5 years before this 36 year old television program…better it never existed!”

Their goal seems to be relegating the Internet to simply being a flow of “What’s trending and making money NOW” and nothing else. Every byte electron has a dollar value.

They want generations growing up in a world where the corporate narrative is all that ever was and will be.

Today it’s talk shows and cartoons.

Tomorrow it’s biographies and documentaries. Family histories? Newspapers?

We need to stop this NOW.

Media conglomerates can’t even be relied on to be stewards of their own legacy. They’re coming for ours.

So, who’s up for another reread/watch of Farenheit 451 or Equalibrium?

“Alright kids settle down…you wanted to know about the 90’s right?”

• A 24k screen pops to life, accesses the file server, a super fuzzy image comes to life. A funky beat fills the room. -

"Now this is the story all about how,

My life got flipped-turned upside down,

And I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there,

I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air."

Laptops though, for real…

I got an old gaming laptop with an Nvidia 960M in it, and it happened to have an M.2 slot.

I stuck a 1TB from Western Digital in there, AND it had a 1TB HDD already…man, I dunno what to do with this much space on a laptop 😂.

Made an old machine feel like brand new, seriously.

(Especially since I wiped Windows and it’s only running EndeavourOS now.)

You could attach an external drive to a slim laptop or low-power PC like a Pi, only accessible by yourself, and technically you’ve got a media server!

You can host things from a virtual machine on your main computer, with a chunky external drive attached, if you wanted. :) That’s the fun part, you can start from basically craigslist or hand-me-down hardware, and expand as your knowledge and space allow!

You could also run services from a paid hosting server, but I don’t think the returns would be great for packing tons of data on there. :p

I’ve used ebay before many times, just be diligent. The problem with these bazaar style marketplaces is much less accountability and LOTS of fakes.

Not the best prices, but it seems like Best Buy, B&H Photo, Costco, stuff like that, might be the better “straight from the source” retailers.

I don’t trust Newegg anymore. Used to like them but they’ve been chasing the wannabe-Amazon rabbit and have been caught doing shady crap to customers.

my own plex server (or something else if there’s a better alternative idk)

– complexity level 1:

First off a heads up, Jellyfin will serve you much better. Plex is commercial software, and they’ve treated their users quite poorly numerous times to appease copyright pressures. Commercial software always has an incentive to screw you.

Lots and lots of well-made guides and stuff on YouTube and such for getting Jellyfin setup, but if you want a little more in depth, I’ve detailed a bit below 👇

— complexity level 2:

Even better than a Pi for media hosting, if you can swing it is those “1 liter PCs” that IT departments throw out en masse anymore. (At least I hope they still do? They might just burn them now since reusing them has caught on /s)

Basically, something you can stuff a bunch of hard drives in. You can turn any old PC and hard drives into a decent little server. The only other important thing is offsite backups for what REALLY matters to you. I use a cloud service called “iDrive” that’s decent enough. That way my family pictures and artwork aren’t obliterated if my office burns or floods or something.

Self-hosting IS a project, but you learn a lot and it can be really fun! I want to preface that I’m not an IT professional by any stretch.

–complexity level 3:

I currently use an OS called “Proxmox” to host virtual machines. It’s really powerful and gets easier as you get the hang of it.

It hosts a little virtual server that only runs PiHole, which blocks ads and tracking across my entire WiFi network. It’s amazing. (Not YouTube ads tho. Long story. Other tools for that.)

But it mainly hosts OpenMediaVault, which is great for just hosting a file server, and it’s well integrated with Docker for setting up “containers.” Lighter than virtual machines, consistent, and easily managed. (Imagine getting to wipe Windows but leave your D:\ drive untouched every time, and everything comes back configured like you want it.)

Right now, I’d say experiment with stuff within virtual machines, try it out. Figure out how you want to set yourself up. The best part is, you don’t need to open up anything on your home network.

– Complexity level 4:

There’s a neat service called Tailscale for accessing your network securely from out of the house, but don’t worry about that yet.

There’s a service for everything. I’ve replaced all of Gsuite with a self hostable called NextCloud, for instance!

Facebook clone for just your family? Minecraft / Terraria / whatever server? (Private MMO server?), the sky’s the limit really!

TL;DR: Just take it one step at a time. Take notes. Learn to take good backups. Ask questions. Lots of questions. We’re all in this together. :)

Dude, Halo: Master Chief Collection removed a LOT of perfectly timed tracks from key moments of Halo 2, because they were Breaking Benjamin songs.

I remember when a pair of Hunters is just about to bust open these massive gates in New Mombasa…here comes the sick instrumental from “Blow Me Away”…!

…No, just some vaguely Halo-esque drumbeat on loop.

The music licensing industry has pretty much always been Satan, but the sheer arrogance to think they have the right to claw audio out of existing works because they’re not getting infinite revenue out of it is a new friggin low.

Wait what? What joke? :O That’s ridiculous!

Yeah I honestly agree. Memories is a vast improvement, so much so that it should just be the default at this point. I went so far as to get a menu customizer addon to just remove Nextcloud Photos as an option. I feel like it puts off new users more then helps anything.

I’m glad there’s other options like the OP link, but I seriously enjoy Memories / Nextcloud for hosting it on my own hardware. Very little maintenance, has an app. Uploads from my phone whenever I plug it in to charge. Basically more than enough feature parity with Google photos that I could finally dump that mess. :)

Hang on there. Yes, NextCloud photos is kinda a dump, not gonna lie. Do not like.

But Nextcloud Memories is a labor of love, and it’s been freaking AWESOME. A little bit of Docker knowhow and the NextCloud AiO image is a great combo.

No kidding. Or how we just got used to Morrowind’s erm…“unique” hit system and weapons actually collided in Oblivion, with real physics!

And I still remember that trailer shot of walking down the hallway with the traps and casting a fireball while still holding a sword. It was such a crazy feature update!

“Close shut the jaws…OF OBLIVION”

And…yeah…today’s game industry is more “How can we make Ai enhanced 24k textures so the game is a 1.5 TB install, but streamline it so entire armor sets are a single item and we remove half the skills from previous titles.”

I really liked Skyrim, but definitely disagreed with how “opinionated” the games got about how you were supposed to play them…

Hey there, a little late to the party maybe but I think you might wanna consider Nextcloud Memories!

https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/memories

I’m not AS big on the rest of Nextcloud (but NC is really cool), but Memories alone makes it worth it. I haven’t messed with making albums a whole lot yet, but basically it works a lot like Immich, except I’m pretty sure it respects folders and uses the directory. It’s got object/face tagging and reverse-geocoding.

Also sorts everything by EXIF so you don’t end up with that awkward “All my memories happened yesterday” scenario.

Also has an app to auto-upload. I use Tailscale to connect my phone safely to my network, and it uploads when I plug it in to charge.