idatum

I went a step further and unfollowed all individuals. I read Twitter about 1 or 2 times a week, in a browser. It starts to feel like what RSS was. It's reasonably useful to keep up on things this way. And I do "go play outside" enough.

I'm currently following 50 accounts. No journalists (i.e., no news accounts). I get enough new things to think about and gadgets to consider. Quick examples:

When there's an outage, Cloudflare Radar can be useful. When there's a traffic event, my US state's DOT can be useful. When there's a new release of OpenBSD: @OpenBSD.

My VW GTI with 6 gear manual is such a joy. And what I fail to convey to my GenZ kids is the simplicity of it.

Once I started the engine on a hill by engaging clutch. Kids were puzzled, but not so impressed. Oh well.

Regarding pets: I decided to give a cheaper Eufy RoboVac model a try a couple years ago to help keep things under control with a dog in the house. The maintenance on it to remove entangled dog hair was just too much in the end. Sure, manual vacuums have a similar problem but seem easier to maintain. The RoboVac had no computer vision (local or cloud) to help with obstacles, but that wasn't really as much as an issue as mechanical failures.

Also, my dog wanted to kill it.

> Turns out Python can tell you if you are big-endian or little-endian like this:

sys.byteorder

Cool. Handy way to do a quick check. I didn't realize Raspbian on Pi is little-endian.

Most I've used struct is with XBee ZigBee protocol, which uses big-endian.

I got my hands on an HP-41CV calculator in my youth and I think programming that made the transition to Forth easy. Fun times.

Most likely you wouldn't with CGNAT, unfortunately, at least I can't see how. They need to ping your IPv4 address to set up.

As an aside, they also want to ping your IPv6 daily (at least in my logs) to keep the tunnel alive; otherwise quite stable.

I'm fortunate to not have to deal with CGNAT. But still waiting for IPv6. A he.net tunnel works for now for what I need: stable IPv6 for SSH tunneling from my IPv6 mobile.

Related: I checked, again, the Android T-Mobile app and I'm still opted out in the Advertisements & analytics page.

You should check this. Just when they announced (about a year ago?) they would default this to opted in, they changed my already explicit intention to opt out. Wow.

Trust is hard to earn and...

Related to the Surface Pro 2, I have Ubuntu 22.04 LTS running on an 8 GiB version (i5-4300 CPU), 256 GB SSD.

It's been reasonable for what I use it for, mainly SDR applications, such as CubicSDR and GNU Radio X11 apps, and multiple CLI apps like rtl_433. Audio is good, screen is fine, and WiFi works. It's nice to have a laptop if I want to use an antenna outside.

Don't even bother using the tiny trackpad on that model's type cover. Bluetooth works so I use that for an external mouse.

Bonus: I never even thought to try the built-in video cam, and after reading the article, I installed VLC and to my surprise the camera worked!

Agree.

Comment was about undersea transmission, but I recently learned about DC transmission in the US West. Interesting advantages and trade-offs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie

I get that feeling sometimes too. I think though it's not going to be so clear a winner as with your examples. We'll be living with both probably forever.

Maybe an example for comparison is iPhone vs Android, or Windows vs Mac? We'll be living with both for a long time too.

> It's extremely difficult to bill things like fractional electricity and internet usage.

What I fear is the company wants to collect data on said usage as a solution to reimburse you accurately. Which means you send your employer usage data. Another world I don't want to live in.

> I do have some sympathy for the people who like to go to an office and interact with people face to face.

I think we're arriving at a compromise with hybrid work. Also, regarding gas commute costs, my employer still gives me a public transit card making bus and train usage free. I'm willing to make the trade for more home utility costs to avoid commute costs, even if I'm lucky enough to be able to use public transportation.

> BWXT's design consists of a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) with a power output between 1-5 MWe.

I couldn't understand from the article what runs a turbine (hot gas?). Can someone explain how electricity is generated?

Wait, is Amazon collecting videos from my doorbell without my knowledge?

I don't have any Ring plans, etc. I get a notification on the Ring app on my phone, that's all.

> "Does anyone have any recommendations on home automation software for people who write code for a living?"

I develop my own home automation components and use MQTT to interface with HA using its MQTT integration. This gives me the freedom to have fun developing sensors, presence detection, garage door openers, etc, all still with zero reliance on "cloud". And I still benefit from a single UX and integration point on HA, which to me is the biggest value.

I run HA on Docker and it's locked down as much as practical. For example, I use nginx reverse proxy and limit HA itself to 127.0.0.1:8123 -- I don't need/want anything automatically discovered on my network.

I also have no need for addons. That just seems like more headaches when upgrading HA.

Keeping things simple with HA has worked great.

:-)

To be clear I meant the drives backing up the NAS, not the actual NAS.

I think backing up online ultimately is the safest choice, and it takes getting comfortable doing that and being okay with paying a fee. This is for data that I can't lose, like family photos, etc.

I started looking into using rclone directly from my FreeBSD NAS device. rclone seems to support many providers.

I use 2 ZFS mirrored 4TB drives mounted on a USB C dual bay device (iDsonix brand) for backing up my ZFS pools. I have a simple script that imports the backup pool and sends snapshots from my main ZFS pools to the backup pool.

My question: How do you safely store your physical backup drives/devices?

I have a fireproof box, but I don't think it was made for safely storing electronics in the event of a fire.

"The incoming fusion neutrons sustain the temperature of the circulating liquid metal, whose heat would be extracted to drive a turbine."

I assume this means a steam turbine (heat engine). With the losses inherent in that process, I assume the idea is we'll have a "limitless" source of heat anyway?

Or is heat transfer inherently better with this fusion design?

And WSL/2 is a way better experience for me when using Terminal.

And tmux works.

Yes! I've been using Windows as long as I've been a developer, and the combination of WSL(2), Terminal, and VSCode (running as Windows process) has been solid for me. I don't use Windows without WSL anymore. PowerShell just never did it for me.

Early in my career I "ran Linux/BSD at home", so it was a natural transition to Windows + WSL.

And on Win11, WSLg gives you gvim as an easy option.

EDIT: But :) There are still plenty of Windows (specifically Win11) things that aggravate me still after so long.

I do recommend a GTI -- any recent generation. Sometimes I use it like a "truck" by folding the rear seats flat. It also serves well on longer distance drives with folks in the backseats.

I will not part with my MK6, manual 6 speed, 2L turbo! Notes: There are younger folks now that won't bother with manual. 3G telemetry just expired (yay). It's fun. And decent MPG.

Good article that gets into the details of leveraging Home Assistant (HA) to glue together various types of sensors and switches, etc.

I think categorizing HA users into 2 groups of either technical or non-technical is too coarse. You have to add another dimension that captures how much a user is willing to automate their home (making it "smart").

I'm technical, but my goal is to make things as seamless as possible. For example, my Z-Wave wall switches are the type that allow the original switch to override what the remote command sent. These in-wall Z-Wave switches are embedded in the switch box and the existing switch is then low voltage.

The same for my thermostat. Any household member can override locally. I detect the change and make sure I hold that new value over any automations that run that day.

In the end, my HA setup is pretty minimal with no HA add-ons and a few integrations, such as Z-WaveJS2MQTT and MQTT being the most used. This way I rarely hit any issues upgrading HA.

In 2020 when my provider still gave out a /64, I recall (via Ubiquity router stats) at least 60% of our household traffic was IPv6. Not "exclusively", but a majority. Most traffic overall was streaming services.

Now I have better service (reliable 1gb fiber) but no IPv6. Once providers are better motivated, I predict a jump.

Agree with issue on server cloud provider support though, sadly.

Their website is glorious in a retro kind of way. Installed lynx just to enjoy the text experience.

+1 on this. I expect some kind of flashing ad or pop up, where that expectation itself is a distraction. It's rare that it's not a website I'm reading on mobile.

The state of the internet. Sigh.

If you simply need to know when the dishwasher is on, and be alerted when then off (complete), there are simple and non-wifi solutions by monitoring the power usage on its circuit.

For example, I have CTs directly attached to my laundry circuits which I monitor to generate alerts. Helps keep the family moving along when we all have laundry queued up.

How far does YouTube Premium go as far as privacy? I never took a look at it carefully.

My fear is I would pay the fee for no ads, but Google would still collect data on what I view and monetize that by selling me ads somewhere else.

+1 on combination of WSL2 + Windows Terminal.

Use VSCode as Windows process (if you prefer) as your WSL2 editor; extensions can be installed on WSL2.

I also use Python + OpenCV4.5 + cudnn (CUDA) for computer vision work leveraging GPU compute.

Just an outstanding addition to Win10. WSLg on Win11 adds graphics and pulse audio.

Or worse, phone # for "security".

Has anyone else reached a point where online tracking (aka surveillance economy) has become debilitating, online, outside a forum such as HN?

Interacting online, searching, just clicking a link, has become....exhausting actually, because of the sense of being tracked. For an ad.

It is dehumanizing.