The US spent a lot of money on soft power, essentially bribing countries to go along with their agenda. Much of that money did actually improve people’s lives, whether it was food aid, vaccinations, or AIDS care. Sure, it was to further their own objectives. Sure, it’s mostly because it’s cheaper to buy compliance than to bomb people into compliance. Humanitarian aid with strings attached is still humanitarian aid, though, or the collapse of USAID wouldn’t be such a problem.

That exact table is in my dining room right now.

Basically the same reason the US hasn’t switched to metric.

Luigi.

Must be a new thing. My 20-year-old BR drive has never complained.

makemkv on linux for DVDs. abcde for CDs. dd of=game.iso for games.

I used to have pretty good luck with mplayer -dumpstream for DVDs, but its success rate started dropping a few years ago and I switched to makemkv.

No magic firmware required.