WxFisch

It wasn’t standard previously, and if you have TV service I think it’s still inconsistent but the past ~5 years it seems to be more common that they are setup that way from the start. If you have internet only service, and a newer ONT (like less than 10 years old) it is the standard configuration and is how the self install guide tell you to hook up the “quantum gateway” router from Verizon.

You can always call and ask to have your ONT converted to Ethernet output if it isn’t already and as long as it supports it I haven’t heard reports of much trouble there. The very early ONTs though don’t support it though IIRC but those should be being replaced at this point anyways.

I mean you can, an ONT is not a router, it’s essentially a media converter. I use my own router (and have for many years) and had no issues. The FiOS tech even ran a long Ethernet run in my basement to connect the ONT and my router in my rack when they installed service.

It depends, and without knowing your ISP I’m not sure there is a way to tell you for sure. I know for example Comcast gigabit Pro has been known to directly connect to an ISP SPF module in your firewall/router, but Verizon FiOS (and most FTTP that I know of) provide an ONT that converts the fiber to Ethernet which you would then connect directly to your hardware.

I would verify if the ISP router you refer to is not really an ONT in which case you are directly connected to the ISP functionally and there isn’t really an advantage to getting an SPF and getting the fiber directly connected if you even can.

One of the risks around monetizing hobbies is that while you may enjoy that hobby now, doing it to make more adds level of stress and responsibility that can quickly make it into another job that you no longer love. Places like Etsy are competitive and reward consistency in listing and sales, so to have any real success you can’t really list just one or two items and wait for them to sell. You’ll drop far down in search rankings and suddenly your store dies because Etsy stops sending people to it.

This isn’t to say don’t try, but be aware it isn’t as easy as “hobby but get paid for it”.

A gift link to the article: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/well/live/guidelines-iud-insertion-pain-management.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IU8.YRQV.JNBVow3EqQvA

I’m curious how everyone documents their core/critical configs to allow the non-technical in our homes work with it if needed. For instance if I’m on work travel and the Pi-hole goes down for whatever reason my wife wouldn’t be able to use pretty much anything online. I can remote in and fix it but that could be hours/a day or two later. Same then for the proxmox stack that everything runs on.

Along the same lines, how are folks documenting for EOL? It may not be a happy thought but we are all going to go someday, so what is your plan and how have you ensured loved ones can access/save important data?

I am not, that appears to be @deebster@programming.dev

As has been pointed out though on non-web clients it’s much more disruptive to link to the webpage instead of how the bot works now. I’m not sure what the split is between web and mobile users but I’d hazard a guess there’s appreciably more mobile client users.

I’m also not sure why it would require more loads on web, if you open a post (as you have to do regardless) does it not show the image with text below it anyways?

The bot adds the alt text to the post, so no need to head to the site to see the entire comic.

Agree 100%. Most of the former Plex users turned Jellyfin users I have come across did so better Plex was broken in some way for them. For me it was the general lack of care in creating/maintaining a good Apple TV app. Over the past few years it’s just gotten buggier and buggier with a lot of complaints on the Plex forums where devs would essentially stop by to say they weren’t working on any fixes.

Jellyfin doesn’t fix 100% of the issues, but at least there is active development on Swiftfin that showed a desire to fully support all devices.

Honestly, the majority of key points to talk about can be found online from respectable sources (for example, this article from Johns Hopkins, though there are many others). There is a better than even chance he has shady looked up the “Is this normal” stuff himself if he has normal internet access.

From a social standpoint it’s going to be different for everyone, teenage years are hard and kids are often cruel. I’d advise to just be there for him on this front, but don’t be pushy. He is going to be moody, lash out sometimes, and act differently. That is all normal. He is going to want to push boundaries and get in trouble (rather do things that will get him in trouble, most folks don’t actually want to get in trouble). Give him safe room to explore who he is and to try new things without letting him fall down too hard.

Lastly, you say there are no trusted male figures in your life, but that doesn’t have to be family. Good friends can also fill that space. I have to imagine there is some guy in your life that could have heart to heart, even just with you to then talk to your son. It’s worth trying to broaden your expectation of what a trusted male figure is perhaps.

I do exactly this. My bank will try to use ACH or a one time debit card automatically, but inevitably ends up sending a check each month. What’s better is if I use the bill the water company sends and mail it back with a check there is a fee, but they don’t charge it when my bank sends a check.

So paperless works as a service that ties into your storage. I point mine at an NFS share on my Synology and just backup that share. The documents are all stored as PDFs still so worst case I still have “dumb” copies without all the tagging available if my paperless instance goes offline for some reason.

I think this is a huge part of it but there is certainly a lot of nuance here. We have a phenomenally funded, equipped, and trained military, but in the last 20 years it’s been shown to be only moderately effective at addressing the threats in the world that have a small fraction of the resources our military does with few exceptions (naval might is probably the largest of those exceptions). So even problems we think we should be able to solve we barely can.

There is also large and growing wealth disparity which drives the tribalism deeper and makes many folks dig their heels in to positions that just aren’t based in reality (see anti-vaccine and lockdown sentiment around COVID as but one example). Couple this with the majority of Americans being truly terminally online and being stuck in echo chambers that just further ingrain the basis they hold and it causes a lot of vocal Americans online to lash out irrationally.

I would like to offer OP a view that we aren’t all like this though. For many of us our incoming government, the corrupt people they are tagging to lead our various institutions, the incomprehensibly rich heads of various companies, and the brainwashed cults that worship them all are sources of deep shame. I can only speak for myself, but my friends, close coworkers, and even a few of my family all feel this way. Please don’t write off all Americans because of the loud, obnoxious jerks you have to see in many places, some of us are pretty decent people that really want to make the world a better place and help everyone we can.

I use Backblaze B2 through my Synology NAS to offsite my important data. Most things though I just backup locally and accept the risk of needing to rebuild certain things (like most of my movie/TV media files since I can just re-rip my physical media, and the storage costs are not worth the couple of days of time in that unlikely case).

I really think this is key when thinking about your backup strategy that is specific to self hosting compared to enterprise operations. The costs come out of our pockets with no revenue to back it up. Managing backups for self hosting IMO is just as much about understanding your risk appetite and then choosing a strategy to match that. For example I keep just single copy in B2, since the failure mode I’m looking to protect against is catastrophic failure of my NAS which holds my main backups and media. I then use Proton Drive and OneDrive to backup secrets for my 2FA setups and encryption for my B2 bucket. This isn’t how I would do it at work (we have a fair more robust, but much more expensive setup). But my costs for B2 are around $15/mo which I am fine with. When I tried keeping multiple copies it had grown to over $50/mo before I cared enough to really rethink things (the cost of the hobby I told myself).

I misunderstood what you were saying, I wasn’t sure if protect required a UniFi hardware console or could be self hosted like the network application can be. It looks like it does require at least a Cloudkey gen 2 (or the plus which is what they currently sell) or one of their integrated consoles like a UDM.

It’s supported natively in the UI to configure: https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/26301104828439-Third-Party-Cameras-in-UniFi-Protect

It was added in EA in mid September and should be GA now as far as I know.

I use UniFi Protect and record to my UDM, though you should be able to install it all on your own hardware if you’d prefer. Their cameras are pretty decent but a bit pricy in a lot of cases. Though they do support 3rd party cameras now.

I’ve also heard a lot of good things about frigate, but I’ve not really looked into it since I already have UniFi gear.

Perhaps for you, but for millions of Americans it no longer did. I mean I don’t disagree with you, but the reality is the increased presence and technology of airport screening is mainly an economic force to keep folks flying. The average American doesn’t really understand it frankly care that TSA doesn’t increase security in relation to the costs and hassle (and I’m not talking about the folks that ask questions like OP, or give TSA agents a hard time in line, or even uncle crazy that we all ignore at Thanksgiving as he rants about how mmWave machines give us all cancer, I’m talking about the folks that just grumble a little about how long it takes the once or twice a year they fly, then forget about it again, the 80% fliers).

So many have noted how the TSA is security theater, and even explained why it’s so bad, but I want to offer some reasoning as to why it’s still worth it. In a nutshell, it makes passengers feel safer. We all know that TSA is mostly useless at actually stopping a motivated threat. It’s really only good for stopping poorly planned or spontaneous threats which are generally uncommon in air transit. But for the general masses, that intrusive security screening feels thorough and so people assume their flights are safe and continue to fly all over the country. This keeps airlines in business, taxes going to localities and states from their airports, and creates a ton of jobs from gate agents to coffee shop clerks to rental car agents and beyond. The minute people stop thinking air travel is generally safe and secure is when all of that collapses. So we pour money into theater to make things look and feel secure (though most of the effort to actually secure things is behind the scenes, DHS/FBI/CBP/etc. using threat intel to stop planned attacks long before TSA would ever need to interact with anyone).

To your second question, we don’t really know if it scares away threat actors, but it likely does to some extent. It preps passengers to be somewhat more alert that they are in a secured area past the checkpoints, and complicates planning attacks at a minimum. No security system is 100% effective, especially one that needs to work at scales like TSA does, but the theater isn’t really an accident and for sure TSA heads know that’s all it really is, and they are fine with that.

Lastly, it’s not just the US with screenings like this, flying through Heathrow in the UK was just as bad in every way.