You could always package them with everything they need to watch, like VLC (which should be able to read most formats anyway). Not clear if they are all on Windows, but perhaps you could include the portable VLC version that doesn’t require an install and make an obvious-named VLC playlist file for them to open.

My feeling is, it’s worse if we are one step closer to effective state-controlled media, but yes, all valid points

As bad as this reality is, my first thought is at least it isn’t going to Larry Ellison and Paramount. Coming from Zaslov, this seems like about the same level of terrible.

I’d vote for Newsom if he’s the nominee, but I really hope he’s not the nominee (assuming, obviously, the relative utopian future where we get to vote in 2028).

I’m glad when his media exposure goals overlap with doing actual good things, but - and I may be putting too fine a point on it - he’s basically Hillary if Hillary had a penis and was super jazzed about it, and I am fairly confident I know the smug look he makes when he smells his own farts.

Since we’ve all enjoyed SaaS allowing us to pay monthly fees until death for everything from our word processor to our sleep tracker, get ready for Compute as a Service to take over everything else once none of us can afford home computing.

This is the internet, you can’t swear here.

Ok, that is much closer to half (or, let’s just say effectively half) than I thought. I’ll go eat some crow.

That is so technically accurate, I love it.

Not downplaying that this is real dumb, but “half the US” is meant to be misleadingly attention-grabbing. The states that are doing this are not the most populous states. No law like this exists in NY or CA, for example.

I don’t know the amount of the population living under these laws, but it is not nearly half, even if half the states have passed such laws.

Did Larry Ellison get controlling stake in US Tiktok? I thought he was trying, but did I miss that happening?

The other 51% are either intentionally lying to themselves, are so financially secure that they didn’t notice the changes, or are immense idiots.

That’s a great summary of the Trump coalition, generally.

SWF vector animations are incredibly resilient, actually. I can still pull my saved SWF memes, and run them through Ruffle at modern resolution, or Swivel to get 60 fps 4K lossless MP4 versions, or bigger. Kind of cool.

TSA says the fee will cover the administrative and IT costs associated with the ID verification program and ensure the expense is covered by the travelers and not the taxpayers.

Ah, that makes sense. It costs $45 per person to do exactly what they were doing without additional cost up until now.

America isn’t a monolith. There are a lot of Americans who fit that stereotype. And there are a lot of Americans who never have and never will fit that stereotype.

Do you reverse proxy, Tailscale, etc to authenticate or circumvent the need for a secure connection? Every time I come close to planning a switch, that part paralyzes me, it feels so unintuitive.

Do you remote stream (off your server network)? If so, how’s the experience?

It’s apparently Paramount as well, please please don’t let them off the hook. Larry Ellison is a Trump lackey.

It’s honestly shocking how these posts above successfully distract you from the great taste of Ovaltine.

Their version of career skills progression is: “I’ve been faking it and making it. Based on what I’ve learned, I’m going to fake it even harder, to increase my making it.”

I wanted to check, so I did a quick time-travel hop to the future. Here is an excerpt from the opinion by Justice Alito:

“While the prosecution may have had irregularities and formalities of the law may not have been followed to the letter, it is the duty of this court not to impede the application of laws except where the effect of the law exerts a substantive injustice. For this solemn reason, it would unduly constrain the executive to prevent prosection because we all already know they’re guilty. I mean, what are we, strict constitutionalists who need text and precedent? Did you think a democrat became president again? On our watch? Didn’t think so. Then see the precedent of deez nuts, so ordered.”