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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: February 1st, 2024

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  • Exactly — this is ~10GB every 6 hours (which is probably a reasonable amount of time to run a backup while not interfering with active Internet use).

    Basically the only backup-worthy content I generate is casual photos and videos, and these are nowhere near that size (Immich database backups also take up a bit but I could certainly be smarter about how I handle these backups).





  • For very simple tasks you can usually blindly log in and run commands. I’ve done this with very simple tasks, e.g., rebooting or bringing up a network interface. It’s maybe not the smartest, but basically, just type root, the root password, and dhclient eth0 or whatever magic you need. No display required, unless you make a typo…

    In your specific case, you could have a shell script that stops VMs and disables passthrough, so you just log in and invoke that script. Bonus points if you create a dedicated user with that script set as their shell (or just put in the appropriate dot rc file).










  • My headcanon for The Matrix’s “humans are batteries” is that it’s the machines’ perverse interpretation of this — killing the humans is off the table, and for whatever reason letting them live with no purpose to serve the machines is also disallowed. But giving their lives “meaning” in the form of a shitty (and thermodynamically dubious) “battery” somehow satisfies the rules.

    It’s a very big stretch, I’ll admit…



  • You can also take a fairly selfish view and come to the same conclusion. Like, I don’t want to see homeless encampments, or really sick and untreated people, or panhandlers, or (…) while I’m walking around in my city. I can solve this problem by 1) moving to a nice suburb, or 2) having my tax dollars go to fix a problem that affects me. 1) is off the table because I want to live in the city, and 2) — while it helps the greater good — also helps me directly. (2 can also be addressed in a draconian fashion, which is not what I’m advocating at all.)

    I think one problem is looking at things as zero sum. It’s not. If you are healthy and housed and fed then you’re not — to be very crass — an eyesore, you’re adding to the fabric of the city. I want street musicians who are playing for fun, not because they’re trying to make enough to afford dinner.




  • It can be daunting to get into the hobby, there are a ton of niches.

    To start: where are you? I’m in the USA, so that’s where my experience is.

    License: required to transmit on the ham bands; you can listen without a license.

    Range: are you looking to talk to people in your city/region? If so, a cheap “walkie-talkie” style (called “HT” in the biz — best avoid “walkie-talkie”) is a good place to start. These VHF/UHF (very/ultra high frequency) radios are affordable — something from Baofeng(~$30) or similar will work just fine, though they are often looked down on (I have one — for the price, it’s great). You will have the most luck if there is an active ham scene in your area, in large part because they may have a repeater, which can greatly extend your range. Many regions will have scheduled “nets” where you just go around and chat.

    If you’re looking for the ability to chat with folks on the other side of the world, you’ll want to look into HF (high frequency). This is much lower frequency, thus longer wavelength, than the handheld VHF/UHF HTs. So…the antennas take up a lot of space. Mine is 52 feet long, in the attic. And the radios are much more expensive (more like $1k new). ICOM 7300, Yaesu FT710 are popular entry level units (but you also need power supply, cables, and antenna).

    That said: if you just want to listen to HF, the antenna doesn’t matter as much at all, and you can use an SDR (RTL-SDR probably works?) for listening. You can probably also find a used shortwave radio that covers some of the HF ham bands.