1. Dead torrent
2. Your Internet blocks torrent/DHT traffic.

I once saw an advertisement that is negative towards house building company, links to a news article.

Important things about dual booting:

1. Configure your Windows to use UTC time https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System_time#UTC_in_Microsoft_Windows

2. Disable "Fast startup" in Windows (can possibly cause hardware issues if not disabled and it really doesn't improve things in computers with SSD)

What do you recommend I do about disk partitions?

I recommend separate EFI partitions while dual booting, I haven't seem issues with my separate EFI partition setup yet.

If Mint provides Btrfs filesystem I personally recommend looking into timeshift (snapshot software that can be setup to automatically snapshot your computer).

Is disk encryption straightforward?

According to Linux Mint forum, you need to choose an option in "Advanced features" while going through installer, that seems straight forward

Is cloud storage sync straightforward?

Don't have experience with this but I can tell you: While rclone supports bi-directional sync, you need some setup for make it run periodically.

Should I just use apt to install software?

In the end you have to give trust to someone, I think it's fair to say if you already choose Mint you probably trust whatever options comes with Mint more than 3rd party options (but is it theoretically possible that backdoored program exists in Mint repository? of course yes).

If your command doesn't change (doesn't require dynamic input), sudoers file can make specific command+argument run without password required.

https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-running-sudo-command-without-a-password/ (ctrl+f search "A better solution")

(You can also use wildcards in sudoers file but with nftables I imagine it's a big security risk)

In NetworkManager you can setup network sharing using Ethernet port on the laptop, then connect cable to your server.

Downside of that is you need to setup port forwarding in your laptop if you want to open port.

If both Ethernet NIC is over 1gbps, you are fine with using normal cable.

I had no luck with mesa's implementation as well, BOINC only recognize ROCM's opencl library.

There is a game that is based on the same thinking (Universal Paperclips), you play the rule of "the AI".

Also recommend https://lowendspirit.com/

AFAIK LET do shenanigans like requiring service providers to pay to create post there now.

When I started playing Horizon zero dawn, for first dozen hours I was in the state that fears the machines and sneaks everywhere.

Aloy's voice still terrifies me, I wish there was an option to turn off her random monologues.

https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/End_portal#Generation

Each individual end portal frame block has a 10% chance of containing an eye of ender, as determined by the world seed. This means there is a one in 1 trillion chance for all 12 end portal frames to contain an eye of ender,