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Joined 8 months ago
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Cake day: January 25th, 2024

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  • If you’ve got a VPS at your disposal, many of the homepage softwares I’ve tried over the years have some amount of caching to make them quite fast or even operate offline(“Homer” for one required me to deeply purge my cache as it would still appear when my site was offline…despite having replaced it long ago! 😂). Or, if you wanted to roll your own static HTML page, you can absolutely add a Service Worker for your own offline caching.

    That’s where I’m at now. I use a custom ServiceWorker static HTML for my homepage and tab page on all my devices. This page is a bouncer, checks if I’m at home or not(or if my local dashboard is offline) and either redirects me to the local homepage which has all my HomeLab services on it, or if it fails just tells me I might be abroad or offline and lists a few public websites.

    And yes, this works offline or over a shitty connection. Essentially the service worker quickly provides the cached page from the browser storage, then tries to take the time to check the live version. If it gets one, it updates the cache, if not, enjoy the offline version.



  • Now would be a good time to look for a .com you like, or one of the more common TLDs. And register it at Namecheap, Porkbun, or Cloudflare. (Cloudflare is cheapest but all-eggs-in-one-basket is a concern for some.)

    Sadly, all the cheap or fun TLDs have a habit of being blocked wholesale, either because the cheap ones are overused by bad actors or because corporate IT just blacklists “abnormal” TLDs (or only whitelists the old ones?) because it’s “easy security”.

    Notably, XYZ also does that 1.111B initiative, selling numbered domains for 99¢, further feeding the affordability for bad actors and justifying a flat out sinkhole of the entire TLD.

    I got a three character XYZ to use as a personal link shortener. Half the people I used it with said it was blocked at school or work. My longer COM poses no issue.


  • Is there a list anywhere of this and other settings and features that could/should certainly be changed to better Firefox privacy?

    Other than that I’m not sure I’m really going to jump ship. I think I’m getting too old for the “clunkiness” that comes with trying to use third party/self hosted alternatives to replace features that ultimately break the privacy angle, or to add them to barebones privacy focused browsers. Containers and profile/bookmark syncing, for example. But if there’s a list of switches I can flip to turn off the most egregious things, that would be good for today.


  • Plug it into a monitor or TV and keep an eye on the console.

    I have an older NUC that will not cooperate with certain brands of NVMe drive under PVE…the issue sounds like yours where it would work for an arbitrary amount of time before crashing the file system, attempting to remount read-only and rendering the system inert and unable to handle changes like plugging a monitor in later, yet it would still be “on”.


  • Genuine curiosity…what are some proposed solutions we think Valve can implement to solve this crisis?

    I ask because the line about VAC being a joke gave me a thought…VAC is such a joke because it is so simple and un-invasive. Do we really want VAC “upgraded” to the level of more effective Anti-cheats, where it cuts down the bots but is now a monitoring kernel service? Just a few weeks ago people were in an uproar about the new Vanguard anti-cheat…do we want that for Valve? Or do we think they can do it a better way?

    As an aside, honestly in my mind community servers with a cooperative ban list plugin might be the most effective solution of all…it would still be a game of whack a mole since they can always churn out new accounts, but that’s what gives me pause about other solutions because the only real solutions to slow cheaters start to sound like charging for the game(to make account creation costly) or implementing a bulletproof system of hardware bans, which means invasive solutions that can be certain they aren’t virtual machines or such.



  • That’s right. Had Steam Deck run Windows, or even for those that install Windows and join the survey, they would be lumped in with the Windows metric and nobody would care as it would be a drop in the ocean.

    Linux is the underdog, always has been, maybe always will be. So any uptick in metrics is far more significant than a twitch in the Windows numbers and gets a more exciting response. I think the problem is many don’t see it as true adoption when Steam Deck has such a console-like experience for a lot of users…for the naysayers it is like including PlayStations in the survey and saying FreeBSD users are everywhere. Technically yes, but also no, right?

    That doesn’t make a great example because you don’t even have the option to exit PlayStation and use BSD, but I hope it gets the idea across.





  • Absolutely. You can even throw the telephone in there. At the start it was a great way to reach Grandma across the country or the doctor across town. Now most of the traffic on it is robots and extortionists trying to fool Grammy into giving her money for some lie or another.

    I don’t even answer my phone for numbers anymore…be on a short named contact list, leave a voicemail reminding me you are someone I should put on that list, or nothing doing. Sucks for anyone putting me down as an emergency contact though…

    And I feel TV being 25% ads is being pretty conservative…oh, but streaming! Swap the ads and channels you don’t want for a higher per-channel price and no ads…oh, wait, now you get a higher price and the ads!


  • There’s a whole lot going towards ending the web as we know it.

    Censorship, consolidation, AI, greed, to name a few.

    Why, I couldn’t even get into the article before it faded into a paywall.

    I get people want to be paid but splashing cash on every page is not the internet as I knew it.

    Getting to this article from a social site(Lemmy) was also not how I knew it, that’s the consolidation part. After MySpace, in the era of Facebook pages it started. Less personal websites, less websites in general, just get everything from Facebook and Reddit.

    And sure, AI is also going to water down content, with prompts written by cheap corporate lackeys that we will still have to pay subs for after a social site sends us there.

    And then there’s also the censorship and laws coming out to restrict what’s available. First to protect the children while they are young, then more to “protect” them as they get older, and eventually they will know nothing but state approved media.

    To quote the article,

    It’s the End of the Web as We Know It.

    And I’m old and bitter about it. It had good promise, but enshittification took hold as was inevitable.


  • I wonder if it can be detected by the streaming apps. Some of them are really anal about ensuring you can’t record or whatever, and don’t work if it doesn’t get all the HDMI security stuff just right. I’ve had issues with bad cables and my portable projector(Anker) has to side load an alt version of Netflix because they couldn’t/wouldn’t get the device to pass Netflix “certification”.

    I’m guessing this means new partnerships and money changing hands, or nobody on a Roku can watch Netflix anymore, or they put these ads at a higher level that bypasses whatever security/DRM Netflix uses. Probably the last one, but if Netflix thinks they will lost money to this they’ll probably just pull their certification anyway.





  • As someone with video glasses like those included here, it might be a step forward but it has a lot of room for improvement before it will survive mass market.

    For starters, unlike a screen, these glasses must be tailored to your eyesight. If you wear prescription, you will need to fit double glasses or have some ability for the video ones to be prescription. And a huge problem in the market right now is pupil distance, or eye spacing/head size. Mass market wants one-size-fits all, but that means those outside the designed size will have difficulty using them if they can at all.

    These are problems currently experienced with the current market like Rokid, XReal, and Viture.

    And then of course there’s power, if we keep to 1080p we’ll need more computing power and battery than a Steam Deck screen, which some handhelds might be able to accommodate, maybe more so depending on the weight and shape trades of the new style. But so far it might be disappointing, especially if it has the appearance of a huge screen and still needs to low-res upscale/FSR to meet performance.

    Just my thoughts. Still cool, but no confidence in it as a winner yet.


  • To be honest, I stopped being a “qualified player” a few years ago. Nowadays I load up a nice long Survival round, usually against Infested to chew on, with whatever Frame I’ve forgotten how to play, to enjoy the loop without stress. So I’m not in it to farm all the stuff either. Or, I’ll play the story quest if a new one is out, since they are pretty well scaled for solo play and/or give you what you need.

    Other than that I just can’t compete. I tripped some time ago and didn’t keep up with the latest meta builds, so now I struggle to have the things “required” to effectively participate in public sessions or the latest missions. And don’t even get me started on Rivens, Shards, Liches or whatever.

    If I join a Zariman round I’ll probably die. Not as much now that I have Titania, but I’m also not clearing rooms in a single volley like everyone else.

    I’m a filthy casual and I still find a way to have fun, so there’s something there worth keeping.