Gotta ask for a source for "only 8.3 filenames" - nothing in the specs I've read states this, and I've never seen any DLNA software with such a limitation in the last decade.

And yes, there is a defined lower end for media support, but nothing keeps anyone from supporting additional formats. I've played 1080p h.264 video with surround-sound DTS in an MKV container using DLNA software, just as I've played .ogg files and various others ....

Anyways, why DLNA? Because it is nice and simple and does what people want? Well, perhaps not what YOU want, but you also seem to think it only supports 8.3 filenames for some quite-strange reason.

Interesting ....
I've used DLNA and UPnP for years, from a Nokia phone 10 years ago, a couple of radios over the years, to currently having it on an iPad, Android tablet, Jolla phone, XBox360, PS3, Samsung DVD player ...
Only the XBox360 has had protocol issues (They clearly prefer people using something windows).
Only the Android apps are having playback issues (ignoring poor video quality on the XBox360), which seems related to them insisting on punting the playback over to the built-in player.
Media format issues (like supporting flac) is outside the scope of DLNA, since it is the responsibility of the Media Render to support playback of formats. DLNA itself is perfectly capable of handling any audio/video/picture format, but if you chose to use a shite application, that's on you, not the DLNA specs.

Generally I've been pleased with it, it works well for me.

Note: I don't have SAMBA sharing enabled on anything at home, since I don't have anything running Windows. Guess I belong to a superset of "Everyone".

Xbox + Playstation in a ventilated cupboard in the hallway, HDBaseT used to connect to the TV - perfectly silent.
(Except in the hallway - when everything is one, hallway is pretty noisy)

Crossing US borders, you don't want any extra attention - it is the one place you can be sure it'll be properly uncomfortable.

Like that 1 time we ended up having to hear 1 border-guard's story of how he married his wife in Germany (no idea why), and then later divorced her - very uncomfortable.

Doesn't matter - just start out all phonecalls stating that "This phonecall may be recorded for quality and/or training purposes", and you're covered .. also, you're likely to get a very different treatment from the service-reps you're calling.

I heard they wanted to do a reboot of Star Trek, which I guess could be interesting ... I mean, it's been 12 years since a Star Trek movie was last released.

Not going to look for sources, but I've seen resellers say that their panels have 80% performance after 25 years. No idea if they go downhill rapidly after this.

DVB-S/S2 is satellite-based
DVB-T/T2 is "air" (UHF antenna)
DVB-C is cable-based (not seen C2 - might exist)

-S and -T are MPEG2 based (usually)
-S2 and -T2 are MPEG4 based (usually)

Encryption can be applied to all of them, and in many countries is almost standard (very few free channels, usually tax-paid ones or pr0n related). The UK seems to have an above-average number of free channels.
"Freesat" is specifically a UK term for DVB-S/S2 channels without encryption.

No, that would be in-the-air cable - In Europe, Over-The-Air cabling is done at 700km altitude.

Former employer's largest customer had issues with their other vendors all outsourcing support to India, causing constant issues, and a steady stream of complaints internally.
Eventually, that employer lost that customer, with the customer complaining that they were too expensive; a new support-contract was signed, which promised to set up a support-center in India to lower the cost.

Moral of the story: Large companies cannot learn, cannot judge quality and only care about cost.

Note: I'm sure there are lots of people who are perfectly capable in India and other low-cost countries (I know there are - I've worked with some!), but when you outsource to save 75% on labor, you're not getting the most skilled people.

Having used a "Linksys by CISCO", or tried to anyway, I won't touch another Linksys product, unless paid VERY well to do so.
(incidentally, I now also consider CISCO to be shite, since they considered the aformentioned heap-o-feces to be good enough to put their name on it)

No only Lockheed Martin.

Other companies, in other countries, have won contracts for bits and pieces, usually requiring the home-country of such companies to promise to purchase aircraft or other material. This way, it has become a government subsidy programme for many companies.

Privacy Intrusion?

I do not know the Terms of Service (ToS) in question here (I don't use MS OneDrive or live.com email), but if the user has agreed to let MS scan emails using automated tools, and later review flagged results using actual humans, then there is no intrusion!

Yes, the person (...) who got flagged and arrested probably didn't read the ToS, or perhaps didn't understand the implications of it, but that doesn't make MS' actions questionable, or cause them to become "intrusions" - if you've surrendered that part of your privacy to a company (willfully, even if unknowingly), you cannot come back later and say it was intruded upon.

Bitcoins must, as far as I can tell, have something that identifies them; at the very least, you need to be sure that only 1 person mined a given coin (solved a given mathematical challenge), to avoid endless, easily mined coins.

Am starting to think one should investigate the possibility of making a blacklist of coins known to be acquired via illegal methods.

Very much :)

Actually a few countries in EU have rules against perusing people's emails, where the privacy of communications cannot be signed away easily.