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zwilliamson

147 karma · joined March 11, 2010

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zwilliamson··on AirPods 5
I wish they would expand their live translation support more rapidly for other languages. Waiting patiently for Thai support
zwilliamson··on Poll HN: What operating system do you primarily develop on?
Omarchy has been a blast to use
zwilliamson··on My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before
Agree. That is why when it comes to movies I still rent discs at a local video store. The owner, Colin, is the ultimate movie recommendation master. The algorithm just can’t compete. If you live in San Francisco, the store is called Video Wave.
zwilliamson··on Why Self-Host?
I think one major improvement in technology that allows self hosting in the year 2025 is mesh VPN’s like Tailscale.

Sure, you could run your own firewall and what not but the mesh VPN with it’s simple set up. Makes it a whole lot easier to access your home services.

zwilliamson··on macOS Tahoe
I’ve been using Omarchy (Arch+Hyprland) as my daily driver for over a month. It is faster, prettier and more efficient than macOS in my opinion. I have a Framework 16” on order. I can’t wait to get it.
zwilliamson··on Survey: a third of senior developers say over half their code is AI-generated
Of course. We are the most well equipped to run with it. Others will quickly create a sloppy mess while wise developers can keep the beast tame.
zwilliamson··on Claude Code Checkpoints
I dumped MacOS. Would be cool to see this as an app package available on Omarchy.
zwilliamson··on Upgrading an M4 Pro Mac mini's storage for half the price
Or just go with a Beelink SER8 and toss Arch Linux + Wayland on it. you’ll save thousands of dollars and have a better user interface that’s way more customizable and efficient.
zwilliamson··on Private Equity Is Coming for America's $12T in Retirement Savings
Invest in our S&P 500. It’s a win win for our country and citizens who retire. A great motivation to contribute as well.
zwilliamson··on "Amazonian dark earth" was the work of ancient humans
Graham Hitchcock writes some amazing books that offer insightful possibilities to our past. He typically bucks main stream archeology theories
zwilliamson··on LinkedIn is laying off nearly 700 employees
What is the next best platform to move to?
zwilliamson··on Electric bike, stupid love of my life
I have owned a Riese and Muller Load 60 (bucket cargo bike) for over 3 years now. It is the love of my life. My dog rides with me everywhere. Living the good life. So simple but so satisfying.

I have the same exact feeling every time I ride my cargo bike as I did the first day I rode it. An exciting open to the world feeling. It has never wore off. It allowed me to really experience the cities I’ve lived in.

zwilliamson··on Even Apple employees hate Siri and are skeptical of its future, new report says
Do you have to say Johan Sebastian Bach. Siri will work with that
zwilliamson··on I built an iMessage bot using Beeper
Yes. Self-host using this Ansible playbook has been a joy.

https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy

A top notch well managed Ansible setup!

It hasn’t integrated in a good iMessage bridge yet last I checked. Hopefully soon!

zwilliamson··on Stripe faces $3.5B tax bill as employees' shares expire
So are companies incentivizing to not let RSUs expire for employees? Otherwise they face a large tax bill?
zwilliamson··on The words you choose within an app are an essential part of its user experience
maybe they should try to improve user experience with their own applications before telling others what to do?

Finder on MacOS: probably should be renamed to Hider. Just a horrible file explorer interface. I couldn’t imagine something worst. I ended up training my family on how to use the Terminal and mdfind command instead.

Apple Photos and the shared album interface is such a pain to work with as a user. I hope it’s not just me!

I could go on but I’ll stop here.

zwilliamson··on Self-Host All the Things?
Checkout Tailscale for an easy to rollout WireGuard based solution that has a fair free tier
zwilliamson··on Self-Host All the Things?
I love self hosting. Here’s my home setup.

Hardware (you don’t need much!)

Mini atx tower, 8TB usable storage, Debian, AMD processor, 8GB memory

Pfsense Firewall (Tailscale exit node)

Plume Wi-Fi (would like to replace, owned by comcast now)

Solution stack:

Portainer + Docker Compose to manage everything

Nextcloud

Photo Prism

Tailscale (remote WireGuard based access from all my devices. Integrates well with Pfsense)

Home Assistant (amazing platform for home automation and more). I love the new voice control features and mission!

Used to self host Email with Helm hardware company (not k8s Helm) but they went out of business. Self hosting email is annoying thanks to the big email providers and their control over the spam filtering world.

Matrix chat server bridging all the chat interfaces I use. This is managed by an awesome open source Ansible playbook https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy

Pihole

zwilliamson··on Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone
If they launch a smaller form factor it should gain traction quick! No one covers this demand space
zwilliamson··on My daughter's school took over my personal Microsoft account
Let’s see if Bing Search AI can fix this for Jeff?
zwilliamson··on Bing: “I will not harm you unless you harm me first”
This is probably a technology that must be open source. I would support a law enforcing this. I want all programmed intentions and bias completely open and transparent.
zwilliamson··on Linode rebranded as Akamai’s cloud computing services
Linode was my bread and butter for a while. They had cheap prices and decent support. And just enough bootstrap automation to get the job done (system online and ready for my Ansible or Puppet to mold it).
zwilliamson··on The Battle over Bike Lanes Needs a Mindset Shift
I’ll never forget going to a community meeting about the design of a fully protected bike lane on Valencia St in San Francisco and one of the major opponents was there…Who you might ask? The owner of Valencia Cyclery! He was so convinced he would lose business that we was willing to alienate cyclists in SF where he is selling and servicing.
zwilliamson··on The Battle Over Bike Lanes Needs a Mindset Shift
I’ll never forget going to a community meeting about the design of a fully protected bike lane on Valencia St in San Francisco and one of the major opponents was there…Who you might ask? The owner of Valencia Cyclery! Blew my mind.
zwilliamson··on Some gut bacteria appear to communicate with the brain
Good book! Ed Yong is a great author. It really made me question our modern medicine approach to use antibiotics which is essentially scorched earth tactics on our gut biome. I hope some cool medical science comes out of it. Like having medicines tailored to your gut biome makeup and balance.

The section in the book about fecal matter transplants (FMTs) and how they work blew my mind.

(Edit typo)

zwilliamson··on iPhones and iPads Now Require a Passcode on Every Backup/Sync
I like how bugs are spun as features with Apple software now. It seems there is no accountability at Apple. I struggle with iCloud, message syncing, and Siri daily. If I was CEO I would be upset with the quality of software running on customer devices and would be holding product and engineering accountable.

I’m in the process of moving to better purpose built products. System76 for general compute, and Garmin for health and activity tracking. I’m hoping for the Fairphone to land in USA soon so I can transition to it.

Also, spending time on a solid home server setup and leaning on Home Assistant community to provide an ideal smart home. HomeKit is just another walled garden that will harm IoT advancement.

zwilliamson··on San Francisco Falls into the Abyss
In Detroit, the memory of abandonment is kept alive with the constant visual reminder of abandoned manufacturing infrastructure and homes from 70+ years ago. You can't escape it. I used to drive in from Lansing with my friends to see concerts back in late 90s. Miles and miles of abandoned factories, warehouses, and neighborhoods right next to the highway. Take the wrong exit and you felt like you entered a post apocalyptic world. We would brave the concert, then drive back to a factory town that somehow didn't receive the same treatment.
zwilliamson··on Is Apple checking images we view in the Finder?
Does anyone have a list of Apple urls that we can block via something like pi hole?

On a side note, I'm actively evaluating options to replace my aging MacBook. Anyone have a System76 laptop?

zwilliamson··on CarSized: A way to visualise car dimensions
Cars are cool tech no doubt. I just think when you step back and look at our cities the car infrastructure is overwhelming. No one should die because they were walking in a city. San Francisco had a Vision Zero goal; to have no pedestrian or biking deaths in the city. They made good progress but are far from reaching the goal
zwilliamson··on CarSized: A way to visualise car dimensions
People usually don’t look at the maintenance costs of owning a car. Gas, insurance, registration, tune ups, repairs. Then compare how much you’ll put into your R&M over the years. It doesn’t even come close to a cars yearly costs :)
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