Yep, that’s why I haven’t messed with Kubernetes either; way overkill for a homelab and especially so since I downsized due to soaring electricity costs here.

The only reason I gave up on Docker Swarm was that it seemed pretty dead-end as far as being useful outside the homelab. At the time, it was still competing with Kubernetes, but Kube seems to have won out. I’m not even sure Docker CE even still has Swarm. It’s been a good while since I messed with it. It might be a “pro” feature nowadays.

Edit: Docker 28.5.2 still has Swarm.

Still, it was nice and a lot easier to use than Kubernetes once you wrapped your head around swarm networking.

I had 15 of the 2013-era 5010 thin clients. Most of them have had their SSDs and RAM upgraded.

They’ve worn many hats since I’ve had them, but some of their uses and proposed uses were:

1. I did a 15 node Docker Swarm setup and used that to both run some of my applications as well as learn how to do horizontal scaling.
2. After I tore down the Docker Swarm cluster, I set them up as diskless workstations to both learn how to do that and used them at a local event as web kiosks (basically just to have a bunch of stations people could use to fill out web based forms).
3. One of them was my router for a good while. Only replaced it in that role when I got symmetric gigabit fiber. Before that, I used VLANs to to run LAN and WAN over its single ethernet port since I had asymmetric 500 Mbps and never saturated the port.
4. Run small/lightweight applications in highly-available pairs/clusters
5. Use them to practice clustered services (Multi-master Galera/MariaDB, multi-master LDAP, CouchDB, etc)
6. Use them as Snapcast clients in each room
7. Add wireless cards, install OpenWRT, and make powerful access points for each room (can combine with the above and also be a Snapcast client)
8. Set them up as VPN tunnel endpoints, give them out to friends, and have a private network

Of the 15, I think I’m only actively using 4 nowadays. One is my MPD+Snapcast server, one is running HomeAssistant, ,the third is my backup LDAP server, and one runs my email server (really). The rest I just spin up as needed for various projects; I downsized my homelab and don’t have a lot of spare capacity for dev/test VMs these days, so these work great in place of that.

do GSI roms still contain google binaries (play store, play services, etc…) or is it similar to a AOSP rom where its just a bare android image

Yes. That’s to say they can be either depending on how the ROM was built. All of the GSI ROM builders I’ve worked with usually have multiple releases of the same build with different configurations: root, no root, with Google services (often MicroG), without Google services, combinations of both, etc.

To my understanding, GSI ROMs are basically just the “userland” portion of a full ROM. Basically they use the stock/existing kernel, drivers, etc but replace the rest of the system that runs on top of it. If memory serves, they’re possible due to Project Treble. Sadly, they still require an unlocked bootloader to install, so they’re not a total fix-all.

They’re also very generic generic images (hence the “G” in the term). They’re not optimized for any specific device and can be hit-or-miss feature wise depending on the device. If you’re already reading about a specific device on XDA forums, then you’ll probably be able to see what works and what doesn’t.

TL;DR: Running a GSI ROM is like upgrading to a newer Linux distro but without upgrading the kernel.

“Does it piss you off when Google/whatever does [blank]? Yeah, me too. So I run my own versions to not have to deal with that crap. Would you like me to set you up an account on my stuff?”

A database can be used to plug into any number of applications that run on top of it as well as be easily shared by multiple people and centrally backed up. Auditing, logging, and row and table level access controls, and other measures can be easily added.

Excel files (or even MS Access files) as “databases” are often just people emailing around a file or accessing it from a shared drive. You end up with a split-brain situation at best and at worst you’re dealing with constant file corruption from multiple people thinking they can access it from a shared drive at the same time.

Then you get vendor lock in and are forced to keep MS Office professional licenses because Shawn created some stupid Access “app” 10 years ago which is “THE DATABASE” and no one understands how it works.

My X1 Carbon does now. But it used to drain to empty after a day or two even if it was turned all the way off. Drove me crazy.

The problem ended up being the always-on USB setting in the BIOS. For some reason, even with nothing connected, that would drain the battery until it was completely flat. Once I turned that off, it’ll sleep for weeks like you said.

OP, maybe check the BIOS settings for “Always on USB” or similar and disable that?

Not that I’d own a smart fridge, but if I did and they started shoving ads on it, it’d look like this later that day:

Underappreciated top

That was my nickname in college.

I think the point of 11h is to achieve that kind of range without directional antennas. Basically as a higher-bandwidth version of LoRa.

Yeah, that one took me a minute. I think “drip” or “slow drip”? I know “drip” used to be a term but was never one I associated with “screwball” or “crackpot”. Usually I’d heard “drip” to mean something closer to “dull” or “boring”.

They do, and I tried it, but it keeps crashing after completing a request (even a simple GET). Could just be that it doesn’t like the Orange Pi it’s running on, but other extensions work fine. I’ll try it in VSCodium later.

Pretty decent unless there’s a lot of animation / video in them. Calling, texting, looking up something on the internet, bank app, auth app, etc all work great. Some of the stock Android components don’t work super great with it, though, like the quick action buttons (though, arguably, they don’t work great on any Android phone either lol).

Feels sluggish at times but that’s just the e-ink being what it is. I mostly treat it like a dumb phone that’s also an e-reader.

I’ve always joked that coding as a hobby is just digital knitting lol.

I’ve gradually weaned off of smartphones over the last 18 months. Currently daily-driving the Minimal Phone and loving its distraction-free (or at least distraction-lite) ways.

I may not be analog like the article is highlighting, but I have basically eliminated the doom scrolling and have reignited my passion for reading (the one “distraction” the Minimal Phone does well is being an e-reader since it’s got an e-ink screen).

Roughly 1,600 TikTok posts were tagged #AnalogLife during the first nine months of 2025

I’m just going to ignore the irony of that and appreciate it at face value 😆

What kind of mad person shuffles their whole collection?

Me! lol

The musical whiplash is strong. It’ll go Pantera, Slipknot, Lady Gaga, Children of Bodom, the theme from Three’s Company, Spice Girls, Waylon Jennings, N’Sync, Foo Fighters, STP, Britney Spears, etc. You never know what’s next.

The sad thing is I have a fully functional MPD + Snapcast setup I could use (including a TUI MPD client), but this is just what I’ve always done. Old habits and such lol.

This allows for seamless communication with biological cells

Smartphones in 2040:

Whatever. As long as I can run LineageOS or Debian on it.

Because if we don’t build and profit from the Torment Nexus, someone else will