If you just want to listen check out Broadcastify.

Popcorn with M&M’s.

A multi port charger with a replaceable cord. Went from multiple little power bricks to charge each device or play the swap everything game. Plus I can leave the short cord plugged in at home on the headboard and use another cord while traveling.

A nice fluffy robe with a hood. Get out of the shower when it’s chilly and stay nice and warm.

Buying two identical pairs of shoes at the same time. Got this trick from a roofer. You can wear one pair on one day and the other the next. If a shoe gets wet you just swap to the other pair. Eventually when they start to get worn you will often have one shoe be in worse condition first but still have a pair with a spare in case the other goes bad. Plus swapping the shoes out allows them to fully dry from sweat and keeps foot odor down.

A desk mat. Think mouse pad but large enough for the keyboard too. Never run out of room while gaming and it stays put unlike the tiny little pads.

Life is what happens when you are planning. Pick a direction and start moving forward.

Find something you are passionate about and find a way to trully make a difference. I am investing funds I don’t really have into building a YouTube channel with the goal of using it to fund a non-profit that will support teens and young adults who have survived childhood abuse.

I’ve seen tons of people make a fortune on YouTube and do nothing more than blow the cash on extravagance so I figure why not use it to help a group who truly need it. Connecting people to nature has been proven to be helpful and there are some really good people in the diving community. It can also put them down a path where they can give back to nature and others while also helping themselves. It could easily end up putting them in a career path they never expected or even knew existed.

Learning to dive for me was a huge thing. I was at a point in my life where I was ready to give up. I was mentally, physically, and sexually abused by my family and bullied by my peers. As an adult I have struggled to do much more than exist. In 2019 after my wife passed away I ended up wandering into a dive shop. I broke down while filling out paperwork because of a simple question, married or single.

I still struggle at times but being underwater is when I truly feel at peace. To bring that to someone else and give them something to enjoy at a low time in their life is something I hope will make a lasting impact on their lives and the lives they touch even after I am gone.

Got kicked out of a Catholic preschool because another boy said I couldn’t hurt him and to hit him.

Ended up at another school and was much happier, loved playing with the water table and building things. Was later told I was beyond that level and was sent home.

One of the things I’m planning to setup on an old pixel 3a is a hotspot with a web page basically containing some YouTube channel videos. I travel and figure someone will be bored when there is no internet access and can watch some SCUBA diving videos maybe I will get some subscribers when they are connected again.

I also use old phones and tablets as wall mounted HomeAssistant controllers.

Install something like Fotoo with Syncthing and you have a picture frame that you can have display your favorite memories. Or if you are traveling you can have new pictures upload when charging via Syncthing and someone at home can see the sights while you travel. If you setup a mount and install it on a window with an app that takes pictures on a schedule you can build a time-lapse camera and let it run forever.

Give it to a younger child as a learning tool with different learning apps. Donate it to a school somewhere with less access to technology. I donated an old laptop to a dive shop in Belize with Linux and Kiwix installed along with a copy of Wikipedia and a bunch of other learning information as well as a Python environment and the manual pages and a Rust environment with is manual pages.

Install a camera app that basically turns it into an IP camera and integrate it into your security system (great for apartments) or to monitor a pet or loved one. Or steam the video of your view from your home or work window. Add a battery bank, solar panel and waterproof everything and you have a remote camera you can put anywhere wifi works.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/exmage-wp-image-links/ might fit the bill

Personally you need to decided what features are important to you. From my understanding anything connected to Meta requires logging into Facebook to use. For me that is a big no not to mention that I’m a linux user.

https://vr-compare.com/ is a decent place to start looking around and get an idea on what you need to look for.

I’ve seen a few things that are interesting but so far nothing has ticked all the boxes to make the purchase happen.

It’s truly different for everyone. For me it’s never really stopped but the frequency is much less often. My son was born 3 months premature and was gone after nine days, it’s been twenty years since. Losing my wife in 2019 didn’t help. There are a lot of other reasons behind still having the nightmares but it’s just something I’ve learned to live with.

When you are running chown what is the exact command you are running and from what directory? Where are you getting your instructions? What error are you getting exactly? Did you verify that the directory has the correct owner before continuing? What are the directory permissions? What are the directory permissions supposed to be?

It’s impossible to troubleshoot without the information.

Thank you. I know exactly the toll that is paid by the survivors and how at peace I feel when diving so I figure sharing it with others can’t be a bad thing. I just hope things pick up steam soon.

Yeah. It’s my favorite place. Love being under water. It’s going to be my biggest trip to date with at least 15 days of diving and 3 weeks of total time in Cozumel.

I wandered into a shop a few months after my wife passed away and was certified a couple weeks later. I went on my first ocean dive a few months after that in Cozumel and then George Town Cayman Islands. A couple months after that I completed an Advanced Open Water Certification in Jamaica where my wife was from. My Rescue Certification was completed about a year after I got started and I want to become an instructor focusing on training teens and young adults who have survived childhood abuse.

My goal is to use my Youtube channel as a funding source so I can provide the training and basic gear for free after I cover my training to become an instructor and acquire everything I need. I’m also planning to donate my time to organizations that help other people who would also benefit from learning to dive.

Editing the video is mind numbing and monotonous but I have yet to find someone else who wants to do it. It’s a lot more fun getting the footage but it had to be done to make things happen.

More than I probably should and a lot less than I will in April. After that it’s going to be even more time in front of a screen editing 30 plus hours of underwater video.

Well if you want uncensored stuff Lemmy is a good place. If it’s not suiting your needs a search for “documenting reality” may fill them. You will know it when you find it and let me just say that you can’t put the rabbit back into the hat once it’s out and running around.

I was working for a guy setting to 2.4Ghz WiFi links up to 10 miles from a tower. I was mainly running the office and doing network tech support with the odd pc repair job. He was working for a conglomerate about 5 hours away. He had an installer who would come through every couple weeks so I would have the equipment configured and ready to go for him, he would also grab stuff that was no longer in service and bring it back to the office.

Anyway the installer quit and I had to drive 2 hours each way to go get the truck. No big deal but now no installer. Had a friend who was smart enough to do the job and learn so started going with him and teaching him what to do and how to set stuff up. We did a couple jobs no problem, our longest connection being 7.5 miles on a mast about 20 feet tall. Get to a site to set things up and could literally see the tower but no connection, owner was no help but he had plotted it all out in software showing we software have a great signal. Ask he could say was just to get more height and get it done. Signal went from barely there to non existent. He had told the woman for months that it wouldn’t be an issue and we would get her setup when her landlord agreed to the equipment install.

Figured out that the issue was that the sector antenna were installed with a 5 degree downward cant. We were slightly above the tower even though it was in line of site we would have needed to be lower down the hillside on another person’s piece of property to get a stable signal then have a couple repeaters to make it work. So here I am with a pissed off woman who was told over and over it would work and I can’t provide what was promised, give him a call and he stopped answering.

I apologized to the woman and told her someone would be back, gave her his cell number, and packed up the truck. Went to the office, locked up the truck, and dropped the keys in the office mall slot.

True loosemeat sandwich. Most people think of Manwhich or something like that. These are not that at all. https://www.langdalefamily.com/tastee.html Just lose the cheese (never got that as a kid since it cost extra) and you will be surprised.

Not my culture by my late wife’s which has a bunch of stuff that is really good. If you ever end up in Jamaica look for a pattie shop, get a beef or chicken pattie (the jerk ones are hot be warned) with a D&G Ginger Beer or Champagne Kola (it’s nothing like coke) they will think you’ve been there before. The Jamaican Easter Buns are nice too, it will look like a fruit cake but the flavor isn’t even close. And the Jamaican Chicken soup is amazing, The whole scotch bonnet pepper (similar to habanero but slightly sweet) with all the vegetables is just amazing. https://jamaicanfoodsandrecipes.com/jamaican-chicken-soup-recipe/

My father would have to admit he didn’t really care and make up for all the bs that happened because of it.

My mother can rot in hell.

I may end up running windows in a VM so I can back up my NAS to BackBlaze for cheap.

I dumped windows on my desktop about 18 months ago because there was no way I was going to use windows 11. My stepson has been using ChimeraOS for about 2 years without issue. And my server was switched to FreeNAS (now TrueNAS) in 2015.

Honestly, I suggest going onto ebay and buying an old server hardware. My TrueNAS and OpnSense boxes as well as my 10G switch and my 48 port 1G switch were purchased used on ebay. My TrueNAS came from UnixSurplus https://www.ebay.com/str/unixsurpluscom and I have purchased hardware for others from them. They list their TrueNAS ready systems under FreeNAS but it doesn’t matter, the HBA’s are flashed to IT mode already so all you need to do is add drives and install an OS.

Yes 10G can be useful if you have a lot of users or transfer large files. I edit video and I store it all on my server.

Yes 8GB of RAM will be limiting, ZFS needs a minimum of 16GB to function correctly.

The switches and AP’s shouldn’t care what the router OS is. I use OpnSense, my 10G switch is a Quanta LB6M, my 1G switch is a Dell Power Connect 5548, I have 2 TP-Link EAP650 AP’s with a TP-Link Omada OC200 controller and will be adding another AP when my upstairs is finished.

For POE I just use an injector with my Power Connect. My AP’s, the OC200, and multiple cameras are all POE.

I’ve found that if the equipment powers up and works for a week it will continue to do so for a long time, I’ve used the Quanta LB6M since 2016 or so.