Not taking a picture, but here’s what I have:

• Ryzen 1700 in a giant case sitting on my desk (desktop PC is on top of that in a mini-ITX case); 2x 8TB HDDs, connected to network over Wi-Fi; hope to cut the size significantly once one of our ITX boxes need an upgrade (both Ryzen 5600s)
• Mikrotik router (5 port) and Ubiquiti AP sitting next to my bed; Mikrotik handles my local static DNS for my public services

Running:

• Jellyfin, as well as Samba and some other NAS stuff
• HomeAssistant (nothing monitored though, but I plan to add my Sensi thermostat soon)
• Actual Budget
• Nextcloud
• Vaultwarden (currently unused, plan to switch soon)

I also have a VPS to get around CGNAT, and I have a Wireguard VPN configured so communication is encrypted.

Plans:

• upgrade NAS to either a mini-ITX motherboard or a mini-PC w/ external USB-C enclosure
• actually run Ethernet - have been putting off for years
• configure my Sensi thermostat in HA and maybe get some other smart home crap
• use Nextcloud more - want to get SO using the notes app so I can finally kill Google Notes for shared shopping lists
• port my PF spreadsheet to LibreOffice and actually learn to use LO Calc (currently using Google Sheets); I use GoogleFinance func for stock quotes, so I need to replace that with some other workflow (mostly rebalancing investments)
• replace our TV or at least have an alternative for Jellyfin - the config disappears whenever our TV WiFi screws up, which is like 2-3x/month; screw you LG…

So yeah, somewhat simple. My family likes Jellyfin, but I haven’t really gotten them on board with anything else.

Yup, a live image works in a pinch. IMO, just use BTRFS on root and install something like snapper to handle snapshots and you shouldn’t need the live USB (unless you bork your bootloader somehow).

Here’s how I think about it. If my NAS goes down and I need a specific file from backup, how would I get that? With OCIS, everything is stored with a hash, whereas with Nextcloud it’s stored by filename. So to me, Nextcloud seems easier to deal with.

Nope, I live in Utah, US, which is mostly coal, natural gas, and solar, in that order, and we’ve been scaling coal back significantly and replacing it with gas and solar (and a little wind). We’re about average for the US:

The average cost per kWh in the U.S. as of January 2024 is 15.45 cents

That said, I heard that our local electricity company wants to hike rates, and that seems to be about $0.03/kWh. So my range would go up to $0.15-0.18/kWh, which still isn’t that crazy.

Really? I’m far too lazy to list things like that. If I was, I’d be buying a lot more than 10 and make a little business out of it.

Here’s my current bill:

• usage - 420 kWh
• total - $58.86 (mix of winter and summer usage)
• stated rate - $0.09-0.10/kWh for “block 1”, 0.10-0.12 for “block 2” (they charge more the more you use)
• calculated average rate (inclusive of all fees and credits) - $0.14/kWh

And here’s my previous bill (all summer usage w/ AC and whatnot):

• usage - 522 kWh
• total - $80.17
• stated rate - $0.09/kWh for “block 1,” $0.117/kWh for “block 2”
• calculated average rate - $0.154/kWh

That’s why I gave the $0.12-0.15/kWh range, because it depends on time of year, total usage, etc. It’ll probably be closer to $0.12/kWh next month since we’d use hardly any electricity (we use natural gas for heat).

That really depends. If you’ll eventually get a NAS, I recommend a NAS HDD because they do better with 24/7 operation. They also use a bit less power than desktop HDDs (which you shouldn’t get anyway, just get an SSD for your desktop/laptop), if you care about that.

I use two WD Red HDDs in my NAS (just an old desktop PC), and I’ve had Hitachi in the past. I use SSDs exclusively for my gaming desktop and laptop though, because performance is a lot more important than cost.

Power costs would have to be bonkers for it to matter.

8TB NAS HDDs are <$200, so even if it uses 15W vs 3W, that’s 12W difference, or 8-9kWh/month. If you pay a ridiculous $0.40/kWh, that’s $40/year. That means the SSDs would pay for themselves after ~15 years, and I’m guessing you’d replace/upgrade them long before then.

But NAS drives use a lot less than 15W, usually around 4-6W idle. So the payoff period is probably closer to 30 years… My electricity is more like 0.12-15/kWh, so it’s never going to pay back for itself.

I started and ended up bailing. The deciding factor for me was the way data is stored with OCIS (basically hashes), so backup/restore would be a much larger pain. So I’m sticking with Nextcloud as much as I hate PHP and dislike the performance issues.

The fridge is the important factor here because cold makes it separate slower. But then it’s hard to spread, especially for almond butter.

We end up taking it out of the fridge a bit before needing it, which helps, but it’s still a nuisance, and if I forget to put it back for whatever reason, I have to go re-mix it, which takes a few minutes.

Depends on how well you grind it.

Yup, we like it, but you either need to store it in the refrigerator or stir it every time, which really sucks, especially if you only eat it occasionally.

When I lived closer to a WinCo (across the street), I would just go get fresh made peanut butter every so often when we ran out, and it wasn’t an issue. Now we get bigger portions, and it’s a pain having to stir it since we only eat it a couple times/month.

I’m honestly happy about this because I think car manufacturers are inflating prices and pocketing the difference. I feel like subsidies in general are pretty inefficient uses of taxpayer dollars.

I think we should pair this with a carbon tax so gas cars are less desirable, as well as reducing tariffs on EVs to keep the market competitive. However, we all know that’s not happening.

But on net, I think pre-credit EV prices will come down a bit to stay competitive with gas cars. It won’t be quite as attractive as with the credit, but estimates show a 7% difference by 2030 (35% w/ credit vs 28% w/o credit), so the difference isn’t huge. I think we’ve already crossed the tipping point where adoption will be pretty quick, so this just puts a small damper on that adoption.

Does this really need to be weekly? Surely a monthly or even quarterly update would make far more sense.

I highly recommend BTRFS as your root filesystem, and then configure snapshots. This way if an update goes sideways (pretty rare), you can roll back and wait for fixes.

I haven’t used Arch for a few years, but my openSUSE Tumbleweed install came with it by default, and it has saved me a few times in the 7 or so years I’ve used it. Maybe the new instructions include that, idk, but you’ll be glad you have it.

Installing Arch is a lot easier than fixing a bad Manjaro update. I get that it’s intimidating, but it’s really quite easy if you can follow instructions, but budget a couple hours your first time because you’ll probably second-guess everything. The second time should be more like 30 min.

And it’s a one-time thing, then you just pacman - Syu into the sunset. Consider setting up btrfs with snapshots, which is a life saver when an update goes bad. I use snapper on openSUSE Tumbleweed and it has saved me from bad NVIDIA updates a couple of times, which is the main reason I switched from Arch a few years ago.

Yeah, I don’t understand why people use it, it’s just more buggy Arch. If you really don’t want to deal with the installer, use an installer like Endeavor OS.

Or if you think Arch is unstable, use a different distro, because Manjaro is worse. I like openSUSE Tumbleweed (also rolling, but much more reliable), and there are tons of other great distros (Fedora/Garuda, Debian/Mint, etc). Use pretty much anything but Manjaro…

We dropped a few months ago, mostly because we were mostly just watching Bluey, so I just picked up Bluey DVDs and cut the service.

I think you’re also missing a huge part of it. People don’t care about Gaza nearly as much as people here think, nor do people care about her race or gender much.

You can see a massive shift in betting odds and polls around the time she had an interview where she said she wouldn’t have done anything different than Biden. My general perception is that she didn’t really have a plan, and I think that’s true for the public. I also think the public didn’t like the comparison of Trump with Hitler. Trump, on the other hand, claimed to have a plan for fixing the economy, and I think that resonated with people, especially since the economy was good under Trump. They see the inflation during COVID as Biden’s problem (I personally blame supply chain disruption mostly, and also Trump’s spending), and Harris refused to throw Biden under the bus.

I personally blame Harris’s loss on three things:

• late entry - Biden should’ve dropped out sooner so they could have a real primary
• lack of real difference vs Biden
• running mate choice - should’ve picked Shapiro from Pennsylvania, not Walz

I don’t think her being female hurt her, and it probably helped her appeal to female voters vs Trump, and Obama winning implies race doesn’t matter much either. To me, it comes down to policy and lack of a primary. People wanted change, while she offered more of the same. If you don’t believe me, watch some interviews with people in swing states and listen to what they’re most interested in.