This article is about software tools, not those other things.

Forget printers. Windows screams about installing drivers when you plug in a mouse or USB drive half the time.

This isn’t realistic! The core is too small to go supercritical when scaled down to mousetrap size. Immersion broken.

Here’s what I did: I bought a $50 Dell Optiplex desktop with a 4th generation Intel CPU on ebay. I stuffed in 3 HDDs from ServerPartDeals and a boot SSD I had laying around. This machine draws 50 to 60 watts continuously.

I got caddies for the HDDs from my local used computer parts store. I got 5.25 in to 3.5 in adapters from Amazon.

I added a 10 gig SFP+ card (which isn’t fully utilized since my network is mostly 2.5 Gig). Realistically, the onboard gigabit port is adequate.

I got a SATA PCIe card so I can add a 4th drive if needed.

I also bought a Nvidia Quadro P400 graphics card (similar to a GTX 1050, but half the price) for $30 on eBay for Jellyfin transcoding. I couldn’t get the onboard Intel GPU to play nice with Jellyfin.

Excluding the cost of the drives, this setup cost me about $130.

Tailscale works pretty well, but I usually use Wireguard to connect to my router remotely. I’ve had issues getting Tailscale to work well with my reverse proxy, but I suspect that’s a me problem rather than a Tailscale problem. I have OPNsense and Adguard running on an ancient Mac Mini that serves as my router. (If you follow this route, make sure you get a Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter, not a USB one.)

At least in my case, my DOC IS 3.0 modem was having connectivity issues. My neighbor in another apartment had similar issues: dropped connections, slower than expected speeds, etc. Switching to DOCSIS 3.0 modems solved the problem. I guess Comcast upgraded their hardware and it wasn’t compatible with my modem anymore

Certainly!

I’ve never used this one, but it could also work for you.

There’s PairDrop. It might have what you need. It’s for transferring files rather than uploading and then downloading later. You could get creative with authentication. Maybe put files in an encrypted archive file.

Not necessarily. Some leftists demand conformity in beliefs. “If you don’t believe XYZ, you’re a shill/neoliberal/fascist etc.”

I feel like favoring free thought and opposing conformity leads to arguments, but demanding conformity leads to enemies (like this meme).

For anyone like me whose bullshit detector calibration is off from the past 10 years of crazy, this is indeed a real tweet from the official White House Twitter account.

I’ve found Linux Mint to be easier to install and use than Windows. (I don’t have to enter the console and allow myself to setup an offline account because no network drivers were working in Linux. Windows 11 did that).

I’ve never had issues with graphics drivers, despite using Nvidia cards. The only issues with Linux have been because I broke something when I was messing around.

Get a USB drive, burn a Linux ISO to it, and try it out without installing it.

When I build my NAS/server last year, I bought a used Dell Optiplex from 2013 on eBay for $50. I tossed in an old SSD I had laying around, and squeezed in 42 TB worth of HDD drives. I added a PCIE SATA expansion card, and a 10 gig network card for 60 bucks to improve performance.

The only real downsides of doing it this way are

• No realistic way of upgrading hardware
• Limited space for internal drives
• No hardware transcoding abilities out of the box
• More power consumption than buying something newer

I use Kopia to backup to Backblaze B2. I also use the Kopia UI since I can’t be bothered to figure out the cli for it. I have it running constantly in the background so it automatically takes care of everything.

For some reason “dildo” is way funnier than “you dildo”. Thanks for the laugh

There’s no way it’s intentional. If you’re not familiar with the phrase “white power” in a racist context, the product description is perfectly accurate and reasonable. It took me a few seconds to figure out the problem, so if someone is unfamiliar then there’s no way they’ll identify the problem.

How is improving the specs of a standard a scam? It’s not like a phone that entices people to buy them with new “features” of questionable utility. Cables are boring! Most people don’t buy HDMI cables for fun; they probably only buy them when they get a new device or when an existing cable dies. And even then, who is going to shell out for an expensive version of a cable that they won’t utilize its capabilities? Most people buy whatever is cheapest.

Tell the time, the date, and act as a stop watch according to the manufacturers website. My $250 watch does all that and it looks better.

I can totally understand buying a nice/expensive watch, they look nice, the feel nice, they’re accurate, they can do cool stuff. I don’t understand buying a watch that costs more than most cars cost, especially if it only does the most basic watch features.

Ah! Thank you for the explanation

If Tesla’s stock crashes, then the value the banks could get from selling it is much lower.

If Twitter and Tesla go bankrupt, the banks will have loaned out billions to own something worthless.

At least I would assume that’s how it works.

I thought it was the four speed that was the biggest problem, but I guess both were bad. I have one in a 2000 Accord V6. The damn transmission doesn’t have a fucking filter. No wonder they crap out.

You’re right about it being an otherwise great vehicle. The third row seats in the Honda are comfier than the middle row of a Ford Freestar van.

What’s real wheel drive, supercharged, and mid-engined?

This glorious machine!