My network is named “Hot Signals In Your Area”. It used to be “Routers of the Lost Ark”. My guest network is “Guesty McGuestface”

Unfortunately, no one else in my building has anything creative.

I’ve seen “Leader Desslock”, “NSA_Hotspot”, “Wicked Evil Jowls”. In college someone in my dorm named their’s “Business Isn’t a Real Major”

This article is about software tools, not those other things.

Here’s what I did: I bought a $50 Dell Optiplex desktop with a 4th generation Intel CPU on ebay. I stuffed in 3 HDDs from ServerPartDeals and a boot SSD I had laying around. This machine draws 50 to 60 watts continuously.

I got caddies for the HDDs from my local used computer parts store. I got 5.25 in to 3.5 in adapters from Amazon.

I added a 10 gig SFP+ card (which isn’t fully utilized since my network is mostly 2.5 Gig). Realistically, the onboard gigabit port is adequate.

I got a SATA PCIe card so I can add a 4th drive if needed.

I also bought a Nvidia Quadro P400 graphics card (similar to a GTX 1050, but half the price) for $30 on eBay for Jellyfin transcoding. I couldn’t get the onboard Intel GPU to play nice with Jellyfin.

Excluding the cost of the drives, this setup cost me about $130.

Tailscale works pretty well, but I usually use Wireguard to connect to my router remotely. I’ve had issues getting Tailscale to work well with my reverse proxy, but I suspect that’s a me problem rather than a Tailscale problem. I have OPNsense and Adguard running on an ancient Mac Mini that serves as my router. (If you follow this route, make sure you get a Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter, not a USB one.)

At least in my case, my DOC IS 3.0 modem was having connectivity issues. My neighbor in another apartment had similar issues: dropped connections, slower than expected speeds, etc. Switching to DOCSIS 3.0 modems solved the problem. I guess Comcast upgraded their hardware and it wasn’t compatible with my modem anymore

I had a phone with a back cover that popped off without screws. It was the stupidest fucking design.

Drop your phone? Phone explodes and battery falls out.

Put your phone in your tight pants pocket wrong? Back cover comes off.

Toolless designs are great for things you access frequently. The only time I had to open the back of that phone was to put a sim card in it. Phones should be more repairable, but I want them to be held together with screws so they don’t fall apart during the 99.9999% of the time they’re not being opened.

Fatigue is real and it sneaks up on you. Don’t be afraid to pull off the road and close your eyes for 20 minutes. You don’t even have to sleep, just resting for a few minutes is super helpful.

Similarly, use your car’s automatic features when possible if they reduce fatigue. In your case, that probably means using cruise control. I’ve found that if I don’t have to actively manage my speed, I get less tired.

Assuming you’re in a tight hand drive country: Keep right except to pass!

Certainly!

I’ve never used this one, but it could also work for you.

There’s PairDrop. It might have what you need. It’s for transferring files rather than uploading and then downloading later. You could get creative with authentication. Maybe put files in an encrypted archive file.

You and me both.

In my mind, as long as you’re not listening to a horrific song (like Kanye’s Heil Hitler), and as long as they’re not seeing a penny from you listening to them, then I don’t think it’s a huge issue. You’re getting something from them while screwing them out of some money.

There’s an easier solution. Just make New Year’s Day it’s own thing, not attached to any month. Then every 4 years, you’d have 2 New Year’s Days. Or something.

I would die on the opposite hill. No spaces, only tabs.

What’s your reasoning for liking spaces?

I had read that Francis appointed 80% of the Cardinals who pick the new Pope. So it’s possible that the new Pope will have similar views to Francis.

Well it kinda depends. If criticizing the government could get you disappeared, then yeah, it’s logical for your parents to discourage that so they don’t lose you. It’s possible that they lost someone in your old country because of that and they don’t want to have that happen again.

On the other hand, if your new country has freedom of speech enshrined in law (and that law seems to be followed) then yeah, it would be silly not to criticize if you have criticisms.

Your mom has a point, focusing on things you cannot control might not be the best use of your time. If you disagree, then that’s fine, that’s your decision. I know that personally, I can get fixated on politics which will make me depressed, anxious, and overall shitty feeling. I need to carefully balance awareness/protest and what I can reasonably hope to achieve with my general quality of life.

He doesn’t understand anything. Here’s what he said about income taxes and tariffs today.

They established the income tax so that citizens, rather than foreign countries, would start paying the money necessary to run our government

I mean, I was harassed to enlist despite actively going to college (officers usually get a commission after college), despite repeatedly telling them I was not interested and never taking the test.

No, it’s half the tariff those countries place on American goods. Or so he claims. I have no idea where those numbers come from.

It’s a 3 hour aptitude test. Are you good at math? Are you good at electronics? Etc. I would imagine it’s a minor speed bump to joining the military.

According to this article, project 2025 doesn’t do that. It proposes requiring students to take the military ASVAB test. Which honestly isn’t the worst idea. In my high school they recommended people who didn’t know what they wanted to do for a career to take it even if they weren’t going into the military.

I’ve found Linux Mint to be easier to install and use than Windows. (I don’t have to enter the console and allow myself to setup an offline account because no network drivers were working in Linux. Windows 11 did that).

I’ve never had issues with graphics drivers, despite using Nvidia cards. The only issues with Linux have been because I broke something when I was messing around.

Get a USB drive, burn a Linux ISO to it, and try it out without installing it.