various Microsoft tools - such as the setup programs for SQL Server Management Studio - like to lock out the Explorer window

I've not observed that behavior in a long time...and as it happens, Winget is upgrading SSMS as I type this. Everything else continues to work as normal while it does its thing.

On what are you basing that statement?

The first meme of the two here explains it.

The ideal is a seedbox somewhere, where one can have all that stuff done offshore, then fetch your goodies via SFTP.

I was doing that for a bit, but then I mashed Transmission and a VPN client together in one container and started using that. Files land directly on my home server, while the VPN endpoint is in a country that takes a more relaxed view of "sailing the high seas." Keeping this URL in your BitTorrent client allows you to quickly verify that the VPN is doing its job.

And this is on Slashdot why?

Ditto. News for nerds? Stuff that matters? I'm not seeing it.

Ungoogled Chromium and SearXNG are your friends. They do what they say they do, without putting your privacy up for sale.

So, building out gas stations all over the country and regularly shipping fuel to each one of them was doable, but connecting chargers to the existing electrical grid is too difficult?

When the grid is barely adequate for the existing load? Yes, building out infrastructure for a fleet of battery-powered devices is pointless, unless you want to also build out a shit-ton of generating capacity to back it up.

You thought wrong. I have seen Vizio TVs at Costco, although not in a while.

My first LCD TV was a 30" Vizio, purchased at Costco the better part of 20 years ago. At the time, it was a relatively inexpensive HD TV from a company nobody had heard of, but it worked like a champ for me...until some asshole broke into my condo and stole it. :-P

...or SmartTube, which also supports SponsorBlock.

What I'd really like to see is an alternative YouTube client that supports Invidious, so you can move your subscriptions off of YouTube's servers. Invidious works pretty well in a browser window, but an app that runs on Android TV, talks to an Invidious instance (I run my own; it's pretty easy to do), and includes SponsorBlock support would be great. I might even be willing to cut a few bucks loose for such an app. :)

Is this real? Do you have a link to verify this?

They've been doing this for several years already, starting at Gen 8 with their "SmartCarrier" trays. This caught me out when I bought a server and some drives separately and set about bringing up the assembled server. See here for more information. I was eventually able to bring it up after putting the drives in a different knockoff SmartCarrier-compatible tray that I found someplace.

I just got my ET-3760 running again after it had clogged so badly it wouldn't print anything. (This cleaning kit works pretty well for fixing that problem, BTW.) I have had to replace the overflow tank (or "ink maintenance box," as the replacement was labeled), but I've not yet run across the page-counter issue you mentioned.

Between that and an HP LaserJet 1320 that's probably approaching 20 years old now (so it predates HP's enshittification by quite some time), my printing needs should be all set for the foreseeable future.

Do they want DRM, though, or do they just want their prolefeed and are apathetic and/or ignorant about the DRM applied to it?

People actually want reasonable and limited DRM

[citation needed]

The last time I looked at Jellyfin, it had very different media file naming requirements.

I made the switch earlier this year (though I still have Plex running for my parents until the next time I visit, at which time I can switch them over to Jellyfin). IIRC, Jellyfin didn't care much about how I named my files.

Around the same time, I migrated from Medusa to Sonarr and added Radarr to the mix. I don't recall having to do much to bring up Sonarr, but my movies had to be sorted into directories and the release year needed to be appended to titles to get Radarr to work properly and reliably pull the correct metadata.

I use its ~forked version, https://apps.nextcloud.com/app... and it works pretty nice for what I need.

Seconded...it works like a champ for my purposes.

I migrated off Evernote years ago. I don't recall what I used immediately afterward, but nowadays I'm self-hosting Nextcloud. There's an optional notes app accessible from the web interface and from Android devices (and possibly others, though those are all I care about).