Klipsch has been a consistently good brand for a long time. I checked on ebay and there's some great ones for $200 to $300. Only 2.0 setups for that price, though.
You will need an amp for those unless it's got a built-in amp (some models have that).
I use an audio interface with bookshelf speakers... mostly overkill for people who don't make music because they have xlr and line level inputs for using a professional mic.
Do you have room in your computer setup for two bookshelf speakers at ear height? Because otherwise, I'd recommend a sound bar type of deal.
Cycling kickstarters have an awful track record. Make sure it's make by an actual cycling company and even then it's better to do a late pledge after some fulfillment and reviews.
Everything search app is easily my most used on my Windows PC. Instant, as-you-type file search by name with detail sorting and wildcard support. I set a keyboard shortcut as well. It puts Explorer search to shame. As good as Spotlight, which I was missing from when I had a Mac in 2008.
LaunchyQT - modern fork of Launchy that actually gets development. App launcher, dead simple.
FanControl - Fan curve software with all the features I want including hybrid temp sources, sensible automatic settings, visual graphs with an intuitive interface.
AutoHotKey - Hotkey scripting language that I can use even as someone who barely codes.
Transcribe! - Not open-source but it's a reasonably priced audio and video slow down app for transcribing.
Yeah, it makes very little sense to "play the long game" on a private site to spread malware to a small user base when you could just go to any public tracker where it's the Wild West. Could someone do it? Sure, but it's really not realistic to expect that regularly.
Some of them have freeleech on some torrents. TorrentLeech has freeleech on every torrent over a certain size (I think 15 GB) + Box Sets of any size and then you just have to seed for 10 days total, then you can stop without penalty to your ratio. I have never paid money to TorrentLeech for access. I suppose this would change quickly if I was downloading individual episodes of a new show or 10 to 14.99 GB torrents, but that's not my usual usage pattern.
I will say that some of your criticism is correct. I will often avoid using the private tracker to avoid having to seed for 10 days. I can't get to a 1.0 ratio on private trackers, but I can on public ones, but freeleech seeding adds to my ratio with no penalty for downloading. The zero-sum vibe is both real and off-putting.
I currently have a ratio surplus of 34 GB, and it started me with 25 GB. The benefit is if I really want something, it's easy to access
Yes, instances are quaking in their boots that lemmy world might *checks notes* block two specific communities. Chilling to would-be pirates everywhere.
The lemmy code is free as in beer and free as in freedom, so you don't need to give any info to use it yourself.
Don't use regular Arch if you're struggling. There are some arch-based distros that are more user friendly, though. Like EndeavourOS or ArchMan. Manjaro can be good too but there are legitimate problems with how the project is run.
I was having graphics driver problems in Ubuntu-based distros until I tried Linux Mint.
If you get crashes right before or after login, it's often a (Nvidia) graphics issue. To get around this, you could use nomodeset in the Grub menu to get a successful first boot where you can then install the proprietary drivers.
Look at sections 4 and especially 5 on this page
Also, here is that info in a tutorial format
Also, you may want to set the Desktop Environment to Xorg or X11 (same thing) if Wayland is causing you problems. It's older, but in some cases more efficient and less experimental. Check out the section: Switching desktop environments using a graphical user interface. It should look similar to the pictures. And notice that the "gear" icon may not appear until you select a user or start typing your password.
If your problem is different than this, open a support ticket in the discord or forums of the distro you're using. Linux Mint has a great system for this on Discord.
I don't understand how anybody could see this market consolidation as a positive! Yes, in the short term ABK games will be added to Game Pass, but once Game Pass is the only "game" in town, the price gouging monopolistic behavior will follow.
Well yes, it has been discussed a lot. But also, copyleft and other open source licenses are political in that they prevent capitalist exploitation to a degree.