Physical media is the only media you really own.

Hard disagree. You can own any file encoded with an open standard. And it's easier to index, search, manipulate, back up, etc. It feels more like owning than having the data on a micrometer-thick metal layer sandwiched in a fragile plastic disc that can easily scratch or discrot. There is a reason people have been ripping CDs since PC CD drivers became a thing.

Nah, that shit will probably outlive all of us. As the last humans are struggling to survive in the hot hell they used to call earth, someone somewhere will be making a device with USB A <-> Micro B cable included in the box.

Honestly I don't think that's tru. There were very few kids who truly tinkered with their computers in the old days too - first because not many kids had computers in the first place, and then because computers started being useful without any tinkering. There are still a lot of youths (12-16) today who are flashing LineageOS on their phone or installing Linux on their Chromebook, or whatever. I know because they keep flooding the NixOS Telegram chat that I'm managing - and I try to welcome them with open arms!

The most effective policies are often not fancy ones. For example, if you want to fix worker exploitation, you do not establish socialism in a couple countries, but you try to improve labor laws in a few most exploited places.

Communism will not happen. But if you want to reduce the amount of exploitation the most, then you want to try to get capitalists to exploit workers a bit less. Not a few people to join a socialist party.

This is not the way to fix anything. It's a temporary band-aid on a problem (industrialized mass murder on a scale which makes all other human atrocities combined seem insignificant), that will only get worse with time if not kept in check.

I agree with you that individual veganism is not the (full) solution. And I even agree with you that reducing meat consumption is a good (albeit small) stepping stone towards the solution (kinda like getting someone left-of-center elected, or divesting from Israel financially). However, the full solution is banning animal agriculture entirely.

Why would I use this over Helix? (this is not a rethorical question, I really am interested in the benefits)

My point is that way more humans can survive a couple weeks without AC than a couple weeks without water or food.

The human species has lived through an era when the average temperature on Earth was about the same as it is now. It's true that (very) soon it won't be the case (it looks like the climate is truly fucked and we'll get the hottest year since humans evolved in a decade or so, and then shoot right past that and into real hell on earth territory).

People settled there because A/C became available

Yeah, but like, don't. Or at least cover your house with solar. If you need a literal life support system and are dependent on a centralized power grid for that with no backup, you will die.

You can’t just shut off the A/C and cackle while the elderly and infirm die of heat stroke.

I agree that in places like that AC should be among the critical systems which are the last to shut down, but it's also important to note that the vast majority of inhabited places on earth are not like that (yet).

Yeah, I also wanted to mention that AC in critical workplaces, schools and kindergartens should also be given priority over residential AC, but the comment was already too long.

The very last electric appliances to be turned off should be residential AC units

I don't think a mostly for-comfort utility should be the last to shut down. There is a lot of significantly more important shit, like hospitals, water treatment plants and pumping stations, coolers and freezers which are storing food, public transit, etc.

After all, our species has survived without AC for hundreds of thousands of years, but surviving without running water or safe food is much more difficult.

Even some datacenters can be more important, e.g. those predicting the weather or handling communications.

And if AC is necessary for survival in a place, then maybe we shouldn't fuckin' settle there (or at least shouldn't cover the entire place with asphalt and concrete). What happens during a real blackout? Does everyone just die?

And with no real reason

The real reason is planned obsolescence. Your old GPU working is bad for NVidia because it means you're not buying a new one from them.

If the problem with the device is only those clearly damaged components, I think you can give it a shot. If there's something else wrong (which caused that resistor to slightly explode in the first place), it would at least be beyond my paygrade, I wouldn't recommend spending time trying to fix it if you're a complete novice. If my guess is correct, the problem is indeed the overheated resistor and the blown thermal fuse and it should be possible to fix-ish.

Yellow box is definitely a capacitor (a radial film 0.1 μF 275VAC X2 class capacitor to be specific - typically used for EMI suppression). It's possible that the board will work without it (as seems it's only used for filtering/interference suppression) but I would replace it. If you do replace it, definitely spring for an X2 class as well, don't cheap out or you can end up with a spicy explosion. You will need the same capacitance (0.1 μF / microfarad) and the same or greater voltage (at least 275 VAC / Volts on Alternating Current). Maybe even get the same one - https://www.ebay.com/itm/405324404548 although $10 for just two capacitors is insanely expensive. Here are some more which should work: https://eu.mouser.com/c/passive-components/capacitors/safety-capacitors/?capacitance=0.1+uF&safety+rating=X2&voltage+rating+ac=275+VAC (just make sure to get the Lead Spacing right - I'd guess yours is 10 mm, but better to measure out).

The device below that blown resistor is likely a thermal fuse, designed to prevent exactly the situation that happened (that means two things - this exact event has probably happened during manufacturer testing, and your thermal fuse is not up to spec). I would try replacing it with a thermal fuse that's at least 240VAC rated voltage, something like 10 A rated current, and something like 150°C trip temperature.

It's a bit hard to identify the exact value of the resistor because it has discolored so much. It's especially annoying since the third band kinda has the biggest effect on the value (it's the exponent) and that's gone completely. I would try desoldering it, measuring it with a multimeter (on Ω/Ohm setting) and see what value comes out, then get a 2W or 3W resistor of a larger value and see what happens. This is the most risky part of the whole ordeal, if you get it too high the thing will probably not work, if you get it too low it might explode again. Probably would stay away when plugging it in for the first time :)