~ajroach42.com

I'm Andrew. I write about the past and future of tech, music, media, culture, art, and activism. This is my blog.

Joelanta Is Over, Now What?

Joelanta is an annual toyshow with a long history where folks who like vintage action figures and especially, but not only GI Joe, get together and celebrate or toys. The 2025 show just ended, and I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly from this Joelanta, reminisce about previous Joelantas, and consider the future of the show. It’s a little bit Inside Baseball, and a little bit me trying to organize my own thoughts about the show and it’s future.

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Be Your Own Netflix: a "Why To" on running a personal streaming server

This is a post about running your own streaming media server, and why you might want to do that. I will discuss some surface-level strategies for how you might go about it, and how you might source media to fill it with, but this is not a step-by-step guide. It’s a “why to”, rather than a “how to” So hop in, and let’s talk about streaming media in 2025, and what you can do to take back control.

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Unplugging the Beast: Leaving Disney+, Hulu, and the Rest of the Streaming Oligarchy

This post is a guide to using some independent streaming platforms. It’s part of a series I’m working on about leaving the control of massive corporations. I will follow it up in a few days with a post about running a personal Video on Demand platform, and a couple of ways you can set up personal IPTV stations, and why you might want to do that. Until then, this is an article about leaving HULU+DISNEY+HBO+MAX+DISCOVER+FLIX in the bin, and what you might find instead.

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