How is plex.tv, their simple redirection service, pushed down your throat? You don't need to use any of that.
I have both running, but unfortunately, the Emby server just burns resources like there was no tomorrow, and you can't really compare the UX at all, hence using Plex.
That's optional. Plex has local account management. The iOS app hides it a bit, but it's there. You of course lose the plex.tv features (plex pass, etc.).
"Chillers" are actually direct expansion cooling devices for liquid. They have a condenser and evaporator just like an air cooled air conditioning system. The evaporator will be on the chilled water supply side and the condenser can be cooled by water or air.
The big empty box with water is an evaporative cooling tower used to cool the condenser side water.
If you use an evaporator tower you do need to replenish that water. The tower is usually used to cool a closed loop of water (or glycol/water mix depending on the climate) that cools the refrigerant in a chiller.
The system in the article uses a pipe loop underground in place of an evaporator. This uses less water/energy but require a higher first cost and very specific location requirements which is why the cooling towers are still more popular.
Larger systems can use cooling towers which leverage evaporative cooling. Also, arid climates can use swamp coolers to cool a space. They work on the same principal. When water evaporates, it pulls energy from the surrounding medium, causing the temperature to drop.
I used one when I worked with a friend in LA on a car restoration project. They can generate a LOT of cooling very quickly as long as it is dry outside.
None, given that it essentially runs in a browser anyway (Electron). I suppose it's very useful if you have ~200MB of RAM and ~80MB disk space that you really want to get rid of.
WPF/UWP instead of WinForms and I agree. I don't even get why so many people like writing web apps, I feel a hell of a lot more comfortable working with a proper widget toolkit (my preference being GTK or WPF) without the constraints enforced on me by a browser and JavaScript.
It's because there are a lot of people here obsessed with reaching the largest possible audience they possibly can. And since every brother and their mother are on mobile, or, at least, a web browser...
The way I see it, mainstream masses are finally (FINALLY!) leaving the world of desktop computing behind, so now it can return to the nerds and people who just wanna do shit
I think that web app benefits vastly outweigh the constraints. Distribution is easy (give people the URL), the app is always up to date, and it's cross platform. Unless you absolutely need the features and/or speed of a device, you should seriously consider a web app vs. a not web app.
With the recent popularity of Electron, I wonder why less attention has been given to Qt Quick. The JSON-like syntax of QML as well as JavaScript should be very familiar to web developers and you get software that looks much more "native" than what is achievable in the DOM (well, without reasonable effort).
I guess at the very least it'd be recognized as a separate window/app by the OS window manager, which might be convenient if you like to keep it open all the time and alt-tab to/from it.
However, at least on OS X, you can just use something like Fluid if that's all you want (http://fluidapp.com/).
A browser is like a buggy mini-operating system that hogs resources, tries to replace native applications like PDF readers, word processors, and email clients, and uses JavaScript as its system language. Client applications circumvent the hell of modern web browsers. The benefit is not needing to use a web browser.
Wish there was some kind of a "Electron kitchen" where you could easily make your own app stating which website you want to use in this isolated way, without having to learn about Electron.
