I’ve been following @imaqtpie and your posts in this thread (haven’t looked through your history) and I think you are both making reasonable but unpopular statements. Much of the problem seems to be different goals and investments in conversation from different parties.

You guys are raising what you think are rational nuanced views on controversial topics, assuming others will respond with their own take, pushing back on your ideas in some cases and validating you in others. This is the “healthy debate” ideal, where there are no high stakes, just banter among friends or like minded individuals who enjoy fleshing out ideas and learning.

The issue is you’re not sitting in a living room with people you know, or at dinner table with a mix of acquaintances and strangers where you can read the room. You mentioned this in your original post, how the text format of social media can be more challenging than face to face. I posit it’s not only the fact that you can’t read body language or have to give your whole argument in mini essay form instead of conversational chunks, but the fact that the “dinner table” is actually composed of a flow of people with different motivations, dispositions and attention spans.

Social media is often likened to a town square for this reason. You have huge reach to get your “message” out, but the kinds of conversations you’re having are not ones that you would likely print off as manifestos and shout/distribute while atop a soapbox in real life. Yet, that’s what can happen in a place like this. You start a conversation in a small sub thinking it’s a dinner table, then all of a sudden everyone and their dog is there and has an opinion.

If you imagine yourself on a streetcorner engaging random passerbys then it starts to make sense. Sure, some regulars stop for a friendly chat each morning and engage in constructive banter over a coffee before going to work, but others are just waiting for the bus, or walking their dog, and they hear fragments of your conversation and are upset by it. They didn’t agree to your terms of debate, hell they don’t even want a debate. They just heard you say something slanderous and are pissed! They call you a name, flip you the bird, and walk on in disbelief that someone like you could be so ignorant and spew your backwards views on innocent bystanders. Why, you must be some kind of radical. You have the panflets and are saying discriminating things, what’s your motive? It can’t be good.

You on the other hand are shocked by this engagement and are crafting a rebuttal. What are they talking about? Which part of the conversation upset them? Did they misunderstand your point or miss some context? You prepare a whole speech but they’re gone. Your reply never reaches them because they weren’t in a debate to begin with, they were just walking by.

As I write this now, twice I’ve thought about stopping and deleting it. Not because I don’t stand by what I’m saying, but because I’m lying in bed typing on my phone, and what would have been a 5 minute conversation has now taken me over 20 minutes to type with my thumbs and I’m going to be late for work. I’m replying to a the bottom of a comment thread so many layers deep will anyone see it? I know you will, maybe @imaqtpie, but that’s probably it. Was it worth it? What do I get for all this effort? It’s easier to not engage and just leave you two hangning.

In your case you probably get a lot of downvotes for your effort and negative reactions, which have to be discouraging. But again, I think that’s all you can expect when you realize that the vast majority of people aren’t like you, aren’t your friends, and aren’t at the same table. If it’s possible to enjoy debating for the few people who do come by and enrich you, while sluffing off all the low effort jabs and thumbs down, then the soapbox might be for you. Otherwise yeah, it doesn’t seem worth it.

Anyway this has turned into quite the ramble. Cheers from a guy who enjoys talking on his way to work.

iPadOS has really a really good music production ecosystem. I bought Loopy Pro and 3D printed a mount for my MIDI keyboard. It’s now a dedicated MIDI controller / looping interface.

The built in GPU of any sem-modern Intel CPU can do that for you no problem. Probably even the older ones in those corporate computers. Just check for QuickSync support. If you want something seriously low wattage that can still do one or two 4K streams, get one of those mini PCs with an Intel N100 for cheap.

Ah, got it, it’s for VM migrations. That makes a lot more sense.

Can you quickly run me through how USB over IP is helping you out? I get it for devices that are physically distant, but how is the abstraction helping you for reboots? Isn’t it just the server you’re rebooting that talks to the USB device anyway?

That sounds like way too much, unless you have a really congested network or interference in the area. Should be able to get it at least 10x faster, unless you’re taking the web server page load time into account in your latency numbers and not just the network.

Well, I mean it kind of is a solution. It’s a cloud backup solution. OneDrive doesn’t just keep a single version of your file, there’s versioning, retention policies, etc.

Cloud makes a lot of sense for businesses with small IT staff and a lot of users because while it’s not fully in your control, it comes with all the things being discussed here “out of the box” and scales infinitely.

For self hosters there’s some fun and power in doing everything yourself, but even then adding cloud as part of your backup (if done securely) is usually a pretty good idea.

That’s basically what I do right now except I do have a domain and my ISP doesn’t restrict inbound ports like 443 so it works fine.

Just trying to sort out if I want the headache of a VPS if I don’t need it (costs, maintenance, point of failure, etc).

What added security do you get by using a VPS besides obscuring your home IP? I can definitely see benifits to not leaking your home address, but otherwise the reverse proxy and wireguard tunnels don’t actually add any increased security for the extra steps. You could just host a reverse proxy at home, and any flaws Jellyfin could have in their app would still be exposed.

I’m not knocking your solution, I’m just in a similar place and considering if I want to go through the extra hurdle for a VPS if I don’t need one.

I think P2P is still the way to go. Sure it’s not perfect, but it’s simpler and by it’s very nature doesn’t require the infrastructure we know will be a problem.

Plus, don’t forget screen sharing in discord isn’t very good as is (720p30) if you’re not a paid user.

Thunder also allows user tags. Highly recommend it.

Current platforms like Lemmy are NOT ready for massive amounts of users. They have very poor moderation controls, no effective strategy to combat bots, and no money to pay people for it.

The only reason Lemmy is usable right now is because it has nerdy people using it in good faith. If it were to gain critical mass it would collapse under the deluge of trolls and bots.

It’s a quaint little place, and I like it for being that.

I haven’t tried, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It was years ago that I set it up, but I belive it wanted an app. I would stick with one designed for local only.

I have an EcoBee thermostat which is typically web managed, however it also supports HomeKit. Using the homekit plugin for HomeAssistant I now get best of both worlds.

If I were to do it again I might consider a Z-Wave or ZigBee thermostat, but living in a cold climate I really appreciate knowing that if for some reason my home auto fails there is a backup service to alert me, or vice versa.

The Thunder client is a godsend for Lemmy, I’m so happy with the work that developer has done. I feel like I’m still back on Reddit using Relay in the compact view.

For any of these alternatives to succeed mobile apps have to exist, and I doubt all the devs that popped up to make Lemmy apps want to retool yet again for a different platform.

That’s crazy, I don’t know how you do it. When my SO and I got back together after I had gone vegan she tried it for me and has stuck with it ever since. I can’t imagine having to fight against my SO or watch them eat meat every day.

Sorry, I know you’re not commenting for relationship advice. I’m sure there is a world where two people could have different beliefs on this and still coexist, but yours sounds… hostile. I’d really ask yourself if they’re worth it.

Absolutely. It sounds ideal for something like that.

The issue is they sit in this odd place from a price perspective. I can get an N4000 based stick PC with 4GB RAM and eMMC storage for $140 CAD, or a vastly better performing N95 based mini PC with 8GB RAM, real SSD, and additional outputs for $50 more.

The stick PC really only makes sense if you need that form factor, or if you’re on a really tight budget. The improvements for $50 are just too much to ignore.

Your wishlist sounds almost identical to mine. As frustrating as the limitations of streamers are, they are easy to use. HDMI CEC makes single remote setups possible, easy volume changes, input switching, etc. Apps are vetted so they “just work”.

As for casting, most platforms support running Miracast or AirPlay receivers. Google is the stickler here that won’t let you run a Google Cast receiver (or at least I haven’t found one) and also doesn’t implement Miracast on Pixel devices. It’s such a shame because I vastly prefer casting the URL to the TV and letting it source the content than mirroring my phone all the time.

Yeah, those were on my radar as well. I haven’t yet had a chance to look into what the Linux compatibility is like, but that sounds promising that you were able to do it.

The big downside I see is that while the power consumption is low, they’re running a really old SoC, usually based on Intel N4000 (launched late 2017). Looking around it seems to have h.265 decode which is the most important one to look out for. It doesn’t support AV1, but that’s mostly streaming services and not that common (I think?). There may be other disadvantages I’m not thinking of at the moment.

What was the performance like for you?