So, I have been getting into some Blades in the dark stuff recently. I am loving it due to the fact that I really don't need to spend much time between sessions doing any prep. Sure, I can spend as much time brainstorming cool stuff to happen but really it all happens at the table.

So, what other cool TTRPGs are out there that support this kind of play?

I'm always looking recommendations for my next read. I haven't read many "pure" horror books this year, but I would like to recommend The Raw Shark Texts and The Library at Mt. Char. The former especially leads to some great discussions between readers.

I’m always looking for a good new book or, on lesser occasions, a good documentary. I love reading about “how stuff works”, astrophysics (space and its sheer size are insane to me), and oddly, random fantasy stuff like wizarding worlds, etc.
Judgements aside I like reading Harry Potter and some of the books by Neil Degrasse Tyson as well as watching Cosmos (Carl and Neil both).

What hidden gems do you have?

Hi, im looking for some reccomendations of short campaigns, like 3-4 months sort of thing- I'm planning to run in 5e, but im pretty open to any other systems people can recomend- what are peoples faves, what are they playing through at the minute?

To be clear, Matrix as in the communication protocol. Curious if anyone has any recommendations for communities there. Personally I am mostly in the NixOS space, since that is the official chat for issues and questions.

I'm heading to Japan for about 10 days next month for the first week of July and then some, and I was wondering if there's anything I've missed in my trip planning process. I'm gonna be in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka.

So far I have a nice list of stores to visit for fashion, specifically streetwear and techwear, (Mountain Research, Arcteryx, PARCO building, etc), and a good list of foods I'm looking forwards to, (sushi, ramen, onigiri, etc). I'm planning on going to Tsujiki Fish Market, Akihabra, and Shibuya, and I have a tattoo appointment for one of the days. I also have a reservation for the Pokemon Cafe!

My family is originally from an Asian country, so I'm already familiar with the beauty and quality of Asian 7-11's/FamilyMarts. (If you haven't tried them yet, definitely do!) Not a huge fan of anime in general, and I prefer cities for sure. Probably gonna see Osaka Castle and the one in Tokyo as well!

As somebody who loves live music and audience recordings thereof more than almost anything, I've always been quite a fan of listening to ROIOs—recordings of independent origin. I spend time every day finding new recordings, as well as making, mastering, and distributing my own.

Of course, the community of people that do this is very large indeed! And yet, I rarely see people discussing how they listen thereto in this digital era. It's hard to avoid being advertised one of the uncountable software solutions for listening to one's favourite albums, but no software seems to specifically cater to fans of live music to my knowledge, with the only options being either to bodge some metadata for every single live recording one has and treat each like an album, which drowns out actual albums (do I really want hundreds of live recordings of Godspeed You! Black Emperor or black midi amid their respective small number of released work?), takes a lot of work, and feels a bit silly, or one can navigate through a file manager and open a directory of a live performance in, say, VLC Media Player, which is functional if awkward and unglamorous.

I've always wondered how others approach this issue: how do you?

I'm getting on a 5 hour flight later today. I've got my Android phone (S22 Ultra) and cheap Android tablet (Lenovo P11 G2) with me. What are some of your favourite games you'd recommend to pass the time?

Because I'll be on a plane they'll have to playable without an internet connection. I also don't have any controllers with me, so would prefer games with decent touch controls. I'm open to any genre, but I particularly like RPGs. Thank you in advance!

Hi everyone!

I've been using Vox for about a year now to listen to music and while there are some good qualities to it, I'm honestly fed up with the lack of volume normalisation and having to constantly adjust my volume manually (There's heaps years old of threads on their forums requesting or complaining about this). So here I am looking for a replacement and was wondering if anyone has a setup that I could copy. Here are the requirements that I have:

• I can stream my own music library of high quality music (FLAC format).
• It provides volume normalisation.
• I can set my whole library to shuffle.
• Native macOS client.

I've been doing some looking around and so far the most likely solution will be for me to set up a Gonic server at home and use Strawberry Music Player on my laptop. A close second contender was Youtube music but they don't provide a native client and I currently use a combination of keyboard shortcuts and applescripts to manage playback (I found media keys insufficient but that's a topic for another post).

I am currently paying a subscription fee for Vox so I don't mind if I have to pay for the new player, I'd prefer a service like that for ease of use rather than rolling out my own.

Update
For posterity I'm posting what I ended up doing. I tried Roon and while it looked and felt amazing, the ability for streaming out of home is very limited, it's intended to stream within a local network. It appears you can only do remote streaming to a mobile device and requires a custom port to be forwarded, I wanted to put this behind a reverse proxy but was not able to do that (Seems it's not supported).
I did not try Plexamp, after all the work I did to get Gonic set up properly it felt like I was doing too much work myself to pay for a solution. Ideally I wanted something that would "just work" even if it wasn't free but no solution did that. If I had access to a free trial I would have probably tested it as well.
I already had Gonic working within my home network going into this but setup of it is still trivial. The bulk of the work came in setting a dynamic DNS set up, and a reverse proxy (NPM) inside my network to provide HTTPS support with Letsencrypt certificates for Gonic (It's only HTTP). I spend too much time trying to have a secure setup (Crowdsec + Cloudflare) but after ditching that, I'm still happy with it and looking at logs it does not appear there's any significant risk to my network (I'm also using a geoip block to outright block requests from some countries).
As far as clients go, I settled with Strawberry. Tried the following:

• Sonixd: It had limited hotkey functionality and doesn't seem to be actively developed anymore.
• Submariner: Did not work.
• Clementine: Current version crashes on launch, rc version complaints about wrong credentials when connecting to the server.

I have some disabilities that mean that I am limited to deliberative games where you proceed at your own pace. I am looking for games you enjoy or have enjoyed. Could be strategy or building or story based or other, but nothing relying on physical reflexes or reaction times. Thank in advance.

So I've been wanting to host some gameplay sessions on Discord for a while now, and I figured the best option would be visual novels or adventure games and similar types of games that are more story-driven. You don't have to worry about the video lagging as much, and you can pretty easily pause playing to talk to people without worrying about getting distracted.

What I particularly want are games that have choices that matter so people can give input. Someone once mentioned playing "Your Turn To Die" with friends where they could vote on the choices, and it's been stuck in my head ever since. If you haven't played that game, there are multiple points where you have to choose between two characters dying, which definitely shapes later chapters. Obviously I know what goes on in that game though, and I'd prefer to be just as blind as everyone else.

So please give me suggestions! Funny games, mystery games, horror games, psychological thrillers, I'm open to anything! (Except most dating sims. Those can be long and tedious if they don't have some twist to them.)

Minor edit: It doesn't have to be just visual novels or adventure games. I'm open to basically any game that doesn't depend on real-time reaction speeds (e.g. most platformers), so that we don't have to worry about getting killed while talking, or the video lagging and/or quality dropping for some people. (That's the main reason I've eliminated movies as an option, video lag and connection quality issues can really hamper the experience.)

A bit inspired by the similarly worded but opposite question someone asked earlier. Any visual novel recommendations that are focused on just reading without having to worry about making choices? Some examples of what I have already read, I'm looking for more like this: Planetarian and Harmonia.

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Hey everyone!

I love a good horror/thriller type movie and tend to binge on them every few months. I am however behind on releases over the last year or so :<

I'd love to get some recommendations from the wider community to add to my list of must sees!

Thank you in advance!!

I'm looking for the simplest possible marinade recipe. Something with very few ingredients that will work on any cut of meat.

My plan is to use that as a base and learn to modify it based on the meat, dish, and flavor profile I'm going for.

I’d really appreciate suggestions for any action-packed anime series you might be able to share.

I “play” Zwift indoors for exercise when I don’t have time to ride my bicycle outside. While Zwift is a huge improvement over nothing, I still find myself watching the clock more than the screen. To help keep my mind busy and pass the time, I’ve been watching anime while riding indoors for the last several years. The more intense the anime, the better!

I think the early Attack on Titan seasons are the most emblematic of what I’m looking for, though I’ve been enraptured by other less likely shows, such as Psycho-Pass and Dr. Stone.

Chainsaw Man, Blue Lock, Shield Hero, Sword Art Online, Parasyte , the first season of Vinland Saga, Shokugeki, and many others have helped me get through countless hours of riding in the past, and I could really use a few new series going forward.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: cleaned up some phrasing

Edit 2: It's really hard to come up with an exhaustive list, but as folks jog my memory (or when my own addled brain decides to be useful) I'll add other series I've seen so far as well.

• Yowamushi Pedal
  • Because: of course
• Lastman
  • A rare French anime, and I really enjoyed it
• Fireforce
• Neon Genesis Evangelion
• One Punch Man
• Kill La Kill
• Gurren Lagann
• Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
  • Watched a few episodes but struggled to get into it
• Eighty-Six
• My Hero Academia
• Demon Slayer
  • Watched through the train movie and discontinued when they turned said movie into the next season
• Mob Psycho 100
  • Watched a few episodes but struggled to get into it
• Hunter X Hunter
• Cowboy Bebop
• RWBY
  • Struggling with the current season
• Tokyo Ghoul
  • Struggling with season 3
• Sabikoi Bisco
  • Made it to episode 10 and fell out of it, can't remember why
• Ranking of Kings
  • Made it to episode 8 but never got into it
• Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun
  • Made it to episode 11 before dropping it
• To Your Eternity
  • Made it a handful of episodes in but never got into it
• Berserk
  • Watched the first season, need to get back to the second
• Black Clover
  • Amusing enough, managed to watch 143 episodes lol
• MEGALOBOX
• FLCL
• Naruto
• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
• Tower of God
• Aoashi
• Black Summoner
• DNA2
• Death Parade
• Erased
  • This one hit me in the feels
• Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works
• Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
• The Greatest Demon Lord is reborn as a Typical Nobody
• Gundam Build Divers
• Kaiji
• Noblesse
• Over Drive
• Overlord
• The Promised Neverland
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica
• Shinobi no Ittoki
• So I'm a Spider, So What?
• The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat
• takt op.Destiny
• RE:Zero

I recently decided to start using RSS to curate interesting news as I feel I am being overloaded with Clickbait from all directions when I am looking for the latest news or updates on Google. I'm looking for some good sources for Tech or Programming Articles or news that aren’t just clickbait and have good informative content.

I currently have BBC News, Krebs On Security and Ars Technica, does anyone have any other website suggestions which are worth subscribing to?

Ars Technica Information Technology - https://feeds.arstechnica.com/arstechnica/technology-lab
Ars Technica - Gaming & Entertainment - https://feeds.arstechnica.com/arstechnica/gaming
BBC Tech - http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml
Krebs On Security - https://krebsonsecurity.com/feed/

In a few weeks, I'll be making a short trip (3 days) to Palo Alto, working in the Stanford Medical Center area.

I'm hoping for some local or experienced insight into "don't miss" destinations for food, culture, history, and sight-seeing. It's likely I'll only have Sunday afternoon and weekday evenings free, so the personal tour may have to be more focused than local guides might otherwise suggest.

My home area has great food, but I'm really starving for Eastern cuisines. I'm willing to go beyond what a corporate travel budget permits if there's truly extraordinary, "can't get anywhere else" dining available.

Your insights are greatly appreciated!

I'm big on audiobooks and trying to move away from the Audible monopoly starting with the book "Chokepoint Capitalism" (which is about monopolies like that).

Unfortunately, the smaller library is hampered even more by the dodgy search (I just finished two books in a trilogy, why are you showing me the spanish translations of the author's other books?) and I'm struggling to fill my wishlist which has never been a problem on Audible.

So far I'm really liking Chokepoint Capitalism but looking for any suggestions once that's done. I've read a decent amount of mainstream fantasy (Stormlight archive, Wheel of Time, Robin Hobb, Tolkien), some popular scifi (Aasimov, w40k stuff, recently enjoyed "Armor" by Steakly), a lot of light nonfiction about finance, history and pop psychology ("The Big Short" or anything by Michael Lewis, "Debt: The first 5000 years", "Girt", "The man who mistook his wife for a hat") and have recently been on a big Ken Follett kick (historical fantasy?)

Any good listens that I should give a go?

PS. sorry for sounding like a shill post for audiobooks.com. I swear I'm not trying to drive clicks that's just the name of the company and recent Brandon Sanderson drama has made me aware of how much power Amazon has over the only way I consume literature nowadays

Hey all! Most clothing and fashion brands that you can find in your local shops or online are fast-fashion: cheap to produce in mass quantities, using cheap materials and don’t last very long. For example, I currently buy my t-shirts from Banana Republic Factory for around $10-$15 and they last maybe 8-12 months before they shrink in the wash or discolor.

I’m looking for some alternatives! I’m okay paying a little bit more for stuff that’s going to last a long time. Open to any suggestions for a more sustainable, long-lasting wardrobe!

Was looking for the best club house sandwich in Vancouver, BC. Found “Green’s and Beans Deli” across from Royal Colombian Hospital in New West.

Not only were their sandwiches priced as if it was still 20 years ago, but the owner new everyone’s preferences and their urgency to go back to work (“Sorry, let me take her order first - she’s only got 15 minutes.”). When it came time to pay (credit card tap), there was NOT TIP SCREEN. If you’re from the area you’ll know what I mean and probably fall out of your chair.

Oh, and the sandwiches were obviously amazing. Highly recommend.

Any places you recently found worth raving about?

I like to play games. So I guess I'm a "gamer"? But: I'm not into arena shooters, MMORPMRPORG grinders, anything with endless cutscenes of exposition and absolutely nothing that needs a "pass" to play... so where's my games? I feel like there's nothing for casual-but-not-candy-crush-or-clash-of-clans players like me out there.

I want something that takes me back to the days of Roller Coaster Tycoon, Sim City 2000 or more recently, Stardew that's not going to make my blood boil or nickel-and-dime me to progress. That doesn't mean it needs to be cute or easy, but more... meditative? Or goofy?

Given the crowd here I figured you lot would probably have some good recommendations. So: fire away!

I'm a US citizen living in Berlin, and I'm currently back in the US (Northeast Ohio specifically) for a family wedding. We've got a lot of extra room in our suitcases, so I want to bring stuff back that's hard(er) to get ahold of in Germany. I figured this is a good place to ask for any recommendations from others who live in Europe or have experience traveling!

As an example, here are some of the common recs I've seen in threads on r/germany:

• bulk OTC meds like aspirin and tylenol (not hard to find in Germany but cheaper in the US)
• brown sugar
• double-acting baking powder
• Frank's red hot sauce (maybe other hot sauce as well, Germans are not a spicy people)
• Ranch dressing (I've heard the powdered kind is better bc it's easier to pack?)
• Adobo seasoning (probably other Latin American ingredients too but this one specifically is a must-buy even for my white ass)
• specific brands of candies & junk food not available in Germany (though ime this category is the easiest to find at US-themed international stores, albeit at high prices)
• Levi's jeans for some reason (I don't really get this one tbh but I always see Germans saying it in threads)

I know for sure I'll get home and immediately regret not having purchased something. Anyone with experience traveling between these two continents, please let me know if you think of something missing from this list!

Ok, so the "Going on a trip and have zero idea what to do as a non-tourist..." isn't entirely true like it was in my post about NYC last year, but everyone was extremely helpful and threw out suggestions I wouldn't have even thought about looking for. So here I am again to bug you wonderful people for Tildes Travel Guide 2: Electric Denver Boogaloo

Same as before, staying for a week, I do have a rental car this time (trying to decide between the comfort of a Lexus or sportiness of an Alfa Romeo, damn car guy indecisiveness) so transport is less of an issue, anything that you'd suggest to see/do?

I currently don't know anything about programming so am considering picking this up on the side in case I loose my current job and need a backup plan. Anyone knows any good books or online courses or anything else for self-learning?

My friends said programming is too broad a subject and what you need to learn depends heavily on what fields you want to go in, which I'm ashamed to admit also know nothing about. So I guess I need some career advice too if possible.

I'm running Windows 10 now, and I understand I can still use Emacs, but I'm seizing the opportunity to give it a shot to other tools. In part because I'm not sure how "native" my Emacs setup would feel on Windows, but also because I reached a point of "tinkering fatigue" and I want things that require less maintenance.

I used Org Mode a lot and was thinking if there is something with a similar feel that is more plug-and-play. Programs like Notion, Obsidian, and Roam Research are like that, I think.

These are some of my requisites:

• FOSS
• markdown or org markup
• I don't wanna pay for anything, ever
• plug and play
• text-based
• easy export and backup
• keyboard-centric or keyboard-friendly
• can be used offline
• local database can be synced using Dropbox
• Emacs-like and/or Vim-like keybindings

I am in Scotland for a little vacation with a friend, and am looking for recs! We are mainly in Edinburgh, but have a car and are open to just about anything! I don't really mess with touristy stuff, but am willing to try if you think its worthwhile! Also will be here for the rest of the week! We are planning on going to the gardens for sure, but other than that don't really have a whole lot planned. I would like to go to Galloway at night and see the milky way though. I love the scenery so I don't mind a short drive. Thanks :)

I'm in the market for an external monitor for my Macbook M1 and wanted some advice on what I should get. I pretty much only code, read pdfs and webpages, and watch videos (not movies really) on my laptop, so these would be the use cases. I'm trying not to break the bank here so I was looking at some budget options. The Macbook has USB-C so I would be looking for a monitor with that, but my main question is regarding resolution. Do I really need a 4K monitor for my use cases? I'd be interested in hearing people's experiences with 4K versus without — I've never had one but I'm wondering if now is the time to splurge and get it? Will the difference be very noticeable if I'm primarily looking at text?

My first place option right now is this one from Asus, so I'm curious if the brand is reliable as well. I don't think I've ever had an Asus product. If I were to splurge and get a 4K monitor I would probably get this Dell, but at $400 its a bit more than I was hoping to spend. But I also don't want to get a monitor that I immediately want to upgrade. Curious what other people's thoughts and experiences have been.

EDIT: See my comment for some updates. I've backed away from the 1080p options!

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So I browse Tildes, Hacker News, and Reddit, but I'm wondering if there are online communities or hubs out there where entrepreneurial folks discuss actionable business problems and projects, instead of news or memes.

I notice that people will spend endless time online discussing the minutiae of their personal lives, celebrity lives, politics, and son, which are fine. But I want to read about how people are working out the kinks of drone delivery, improving access to and availability of mental healthcare, making municipal permitting more streamlined, and other processes.

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So I've been watching a lot of Youtubers the past year or so, and I'm about to run out of content! So I'm curious what you all are enjoying? I'll start of course - some channels I really like:

Contrapoints - rarely uploads nowadays but makes great videos about social issues, especially trans and queer issues as she is herself lesbian and transgender.

Perun - weekly 1-hour videos consisting of analysis of military economics, primarily about the Ukraine conflict. He also branches out though, and has done great videos on China's military's modernisation, and the German military's procurement processes, to give some examples.

World War Two - you may remember him from The Great War, this is Indy Neidell and co. who goes through the Second World War in chronological order. It is very in depth as they do it week by week, so this is the most thorough documentary on the war available.

Skip Intro - analysis of TV shows, particularly his Copaganda series is very interesting, in which he goes on deep dives of different TV shows' portrayal of police and how, most of the time, this portrayal is very dishonest.

Climate Town - very informative and funny content about the climate crisis. Lots of things impacting the climate that you wouldn't have ever thought of before.

Jenny Nicholson - makes videos about her own interests, fandoms, nerd culture etc. Very funny but rarely uploads.

Edit: Thanks everyone for the recommendations and discussion! Lots of stuff to sift through now, thank you!

Over the past 2 weeks I watched Arcane, mainly because a friend of mine insisted it was a masterpiece when it first came out and has been waiting to hear my opinion since. While I think it's very good from a technical standpoint, I found it very tropey and ultimately I was underwhelmed. Part of that was the expectation going in that it was supposedly perfection, but part of that was simply my own lack of investment throughout. I realized I wouldn't bother to watch season 2 whenever it's released, because I simply don't care enough about the story or characters to keep going.

However, my friend thinks it's the best Western animated show since Batman: The Animated Series, and I've been trying to think if there's any other legit contenders. Any suggestions? My taste favors stuff like Robot Chicken and Archer, but I think comedies are kinda at a disadvantage in serious comparisons.

I'm spending time at a new city and Google Maps is shit for walking. It's hard to say exactly what's wrong with it, everything feels wrong. Car centric logic just doesn't work for walking I guess (yes I'm using the walking mode). It feels bad, unreliable, and I'm lost all the time. Yesterday I ended up 2 hours away from my destination and had to call an Uber (big humiliation!). Walking is my preferable way of urban exploration and I hate talking to strangers.

What I want is a simple compass that tells me "go to that general direction and you'll get there". No map, no street names. Just an arrow and a linear distance (like, in a straight line). Like a videogame. Without foreknowledge, street names are just confusing and unnecessary. I can handle the route myself.

Does such an app exists?

I recently asked about commissioning custom artwork, which is shaping up wonderfully.

I now need to start looking at custom print services so that I can actually hang the artwork in my home. It will likely be a rather large piece (possibly 60"x40").

Anyone have any experiences with different services and have recommendations or avoids?

Also, anyone have any recommendations for what I actually get it printed on? I'm leaning towards canvas, but I'm open to suggestions. I'm wanting this to last a long time.

I'm in the US, so the service would need to ship to there.

Playing World of Warcraft Classic WOLTK, I realize that dungeon instances are the best part of the game for me. I love the holy trinity, and how everyone has a specific role to play and contribute to the group. But the thing is, WoW is just not that hard. As a level 30 healer, I'm going through the motions and being complimented on my heals, but I could do it with very-low effort and only partially awake. And according to other players, that won't change until I get to raiding, and maybe not even then. PvP is a possibility, but I'd like to explore games that focus on the matches without all else that comes with an MMO.

The problem is, when I think of the kind of equivalent outside the MMORPG sphere, MOBAs are what first come to mind. But LoL, Dota, etc, are not easy games for an older gentleman to pick up. I don't wanna play anything that relies on quick reflexes because I simply have none. And a game like Starcraft, on the competitive level, also relies on high APM as far as I know.

So maybe this game doesn't exist, but I'd love to play something that allows me to be in a group with a defined role that requires some degree of coordination (and a social aspect) but is neither an FPS nor a stressful high-octane game for people in their 20s with a lot of brain energy to burn.

I've been enjoying Legends of Runeterra for the last couple of years. It's a collectible card game with really nice art and voice work. I'm not a very competitive person, but I put up with the deckbuilding and competitive bits because I enjoyed the gameplay.

About a year ago Riot added a new PvE mode where instead of playing against humans, you play against increasingly difficult AI decks. Every few wins you get your choice of 3 random passive abilities, some of which can dramatically increase the power of your deck for the rest of the run--kind of a roguelike twist on the CCG formula. This has completely spoiled me--I enjoy it far more than LoR's base gameplay. Unfortunately, despite the popularity of the new mode, Riot made the inexplicable decision to give it only token support, focusing instead on PvP.

I've mostly run out of content for the new game mode, and I'm wondering if another game has something that will scratch the same itch. I'm looking for PvE games with deep gameplay and good production values that aren't too fast-paced or actiony. Bonus points if the game gets new content occasionally. Extra bonus points if it has a good story. Any of y'all have a favorite?

I’m going to be in Washington, D.C. for the next week (give or take a day). I’ll be staying in Arlington, VA and plan on utilizing public transportation while I’m there.

Any unconventional recommendations or things I should know?

I have a gift idea for my husband that involves commissioning some specific custom artwork (Pokémon-themed, in case that matters!). I did some cursory searches and turned up results on Etsy and Fiverr, but some of these look like they’re automated and are suspiciously inexpensive. Other offers on those sites look more promising, but I’m not even sure if Etsy/Fiverr are where I should even look in the first place.

I’m happy to pay an artist for their work and want this to be something of quality. I’m also fine with waiting on it — some of the stuff I’ve found so far looks tailored for speed.

What’s the best place I should look with quality artists who I can pay fairly for their work?

So I'm on a movie kick after realising I haven't paid attention to movies for a number of years now. I may have seen less than 10 movies last year.

One thing I miss from when I was growing up is when a trip to the cinema always started with a short followed by the main film.

So here's my pr(e/o)mise:

Recommend me your favourite short movies (from any director / year / genre) and I will do my best to track down and watch it (by fair means or foul!)

Also let me know the best way to follow up - add a comment in this thread, make a new post or just shut up (I won't be offended).

I thought it might be interesting to compare notes and ideas.

I will shortly have need for a small, low power (power as in watts, not compute power) system for always-on Home Assistant use. However, Raspberry Pis are out of stock everywhere and while they can be had for extortionate prices on various auction/marketplace sites, I'm not sure I want to spend a load of money on something which might not even be what it claims to be.

Home Assistant suggest Odroid which I'd probably go for the C4 edition but it's relatively expensive (I need to add an MMC and a psu and various other things to the listed main board price)

Any suggestions? The Asus Tinkerboard looks overkill and is very expensive. It needs to be capable of running a standard Linux distro, ideally Home Assistant's own OS. Low power consumption is a definite, 2-3W at idle is probably the maximum I'd be happy with. Wifi is a bonus although not required right now - but the ability to add it if needed is essential. Some amount of expansion capability would be good if I want to add hardware sensors or bluetooth or a Zigbee transceiver or whatever. It needs some reasonably amount of compute grunt I assume but I don't think HA is all that hungry for number crunching power. The machine will more than likely be headless at first but a little bit of GPU and graphical IO would be handy if I want to stick a display on it in the future, which I might want to.

Any ideas? Oh, and also must be easily available in/to the UK.

I've always been enticed by 8 bit computer projects like this but I've never bought any because I can't think of anything I'd do with them given their self-contained nature. Even a really primitive ethernet controller would explode the project possibilities. Does anything like that exist?

Hey everyone!

Sorry if this is a long post, but I've done my research and I would like to make a few questions.

I've decided that I would like to buy a NAS mainly to storage all of my documents, photos and videos, so that, I can access them from multiple devices and also use it to upload important documents to Backblaze B2. Then, I've actually discovered that I can install a few Docker containers and I could use it as a media server (Jellyfin) and serve the content to my Apple TV (neat!).

I considered a QNAP (better hardware for the price) but everyone recommends Synology instead (because of the stronger security and better overall software), but to be honest, I'm not sure what should I get.

My budget would be to buy a NAS (without counting the disks) below €1000. Ideally, €500-600 but I don't mind stretching to the €700 mark, if it is really worth it.

Spoiler alert: I think, it should be the DS920+ (4-bay) or the DS1520+ (5-bay). I think a NAS above 4-bay is better for future-proofing.

Looking here in Germany at price comparators, I could buy the DS920+ for €663 and the DS1520+ for €750. But these prices seem to be at an all-time high :(

Questions & Assumptions:

0. I'm not sure if the price difference of about €100 is worth the premium to get the 5-bay model. There are only two differences between these two models: The 5-bay has one extra slot, and it has 4x 1 Gbe LAN ports instead of 2x 1 Gbe. All the rest is the same. What is your opinion?

1. I've read that if you run a few containers (~10) it consumes quite a bit of RAM (~3 Gb), so it should be ideal to have at least 8 Gb. This is the reason I've said that I think I can only choose the DS920+ or DS1520+. Looking at official Synology resellers, these models, seem to come already with 8 Gb, and they are within my budget. Is my research wrong?

2. These two models, have an encryption engine. I think this is necessary to encrypt my files before sending them to Backblaze, or?

3. A lot of people seem to say to simply pick Synology's hybrid RAID setup called SHR-1 or SHR-2. I would go the easy way here and pick one of those two. Would you think that is a bad idea, and it is better to pick a specific (standard) RAID? I've read about the long long long RAID rebuild that could happen in some situations, and picking the "right" RAID could decrease the rebuild in days (or weeks!!!!).

4. In case, I choose a NAS model with Nvme cache slots, most people say it is not worth it to use if you are not running Virtual Machines and the SSD’s "burn" really fast. I have no interest on VMs.

5. Most people say to pick an Enterprise (Server) HDD instead of a NAS HDD mainly because price is similar in some cases and Enterprise has longer life and warranty. I should also pick a CMR HDD which is helium filled. 5400 rpm would be preferable to 7200 rpm because of the noise. Sadly, all Enterprise HDD's and most of NAS HDD's are 7200 rpm. Is the noise difference that big? The NAS will be in our living room.

6. Is 8 TB still the best cost per Terabyte?

7. I was extremely sad to hear that the Hitachi hard drive division was bought by WD. I've had lots of misfortune with WD drives (and let's not forget the debacle with the SMR and CMR drives) and I would prefer not to give money to them, but, nevertheless, I'm still tempted to buy the Ultrastar drives that belonged to Hitachi. Does anyone know if WD kept the components, manufacturing processes, staff, etc., that made these brilliant disks?

8. Following the HDD topic, what is your experience with Seagate or Toshiba drives?

9. These two NAS models have the same Intel Celeron CPU, which supports hardware transcoding. To be honest, I don't know in which cases would that happen. It seems if I use Infuse on the Apple TV it would never transcode (and instead direct play) because Infuse would do the transcoding in software. Should I take in account that hardware transcoding is a must-have or a nice-to-have?

10. Would you recommend having a CCTV system connected to the NAS? Should I dedicate one entire HDD just for the NVR system? Would a standalone NVR device be better?

11. My last question is: Should I just wait for the new model of the DS920+ or DS1520+? The 20 means it was launched in 2020 (in Summer specifically) and it seems Synology refreshes the model every two years., that means, a new model would be available in Summer this year. Most people say it is not worth the wait because Synology is very conservative in its model updates/refreshes. People are saying that a better CPU will be of course available (do I even need that for my use cases?) and probably upgrade the 1 Gbe LAN ports to 2.5 Gbe or 10 Gbe (10 Gbe I really doubt it). I've read that a 4K stream does not fill a 1 Gbe bandwidth, and you could theoretically have three 4K streams in a single 1 Gbe connection. If all else fails, I could just do a link aggregation of the two ports to be 2 Gbe, or?

12. Anything I'm forgetting? Should I be careful with something in particular?

I know I should buy a UPS too, but I think I'll create a separate post regarding this topic because I would also want a recommendation regarding a UPS for my other devices.

I know that I could actually build my own NAS and use Unraid for the OS. Furthermore, I'm just at a time in my life with too much on my plate (baby and small child) and having something that just works is preferable. When they are older and more independent, I'll have more time to investigate this option :)

Again, sorry for the long post. Thank you everyone!

It's six months and I haven't spent it yet.

What do I need that I don't realize I need?

I already have multiple monitors, keyboards, etc. Separate headphones (that I don't use because I don't need to shut the door often), microphone (doesn't make a difference), and other obvious tech toys. I bought a new UPS right before I started the job.

It's a nice problem to have: "I don't need anything." But surely I should spend money on SOMEthing?

I happen to host my blog https://prahladyeri.github.io/blog statically, built using Pelican and served on Github Pages. Plebs like us can't afford a backend server infrastructure, so we must rely on external services like Disqus for comment hosting.

So far, Disqus was the only fellow in town who allowed us to host comments on a free plan. Though there were some issues (bloat, adware, etc.), people seemed to be generally happy with it so far.

But now, a new fellow named giscus commenting system has entered the town, it's basically powered by github. Since I already host my blog on github pages, this should be a natural choice for me, right? Many bloggers seem to be migrating to this new system and I might too soon. The downsides however are as follows:

1. It won't allow me to export existing comments from the old disqus system. Understandable to an extent as those exact author usernames may not be on the Github platform?
2. Disqus interface seems to have improved all of a sudden in last few days! There no longer seem to be any ad and even the comment interface seems to be less heavy or cluttered now. It might sound a bit conspiratorial in nature but could this be the result of rising competition in the form of Giscus!

I'm a lazy status-quoist by nature and might well end up retaining disqus if they don't deviate too much from where they are now. But I'll keep an eye out on Giscus too and its progress. What do you guys suggest?

I'm a solo freelance programmer who codes on small to medium sized projects, and I realize that I can upskill myself a lot by keeping up with the industry trends, by listening to what the best in this field have to say. The problem is that there is just so much information overload everywhere, just so many youtube videos and articles that it seems overwhelming to differentiate the wheat from the chaff!

Since reading is my preferred medium of instruction, I want to know what are the blogs, journals, etc. on this topic with some street cred? And preferably individual experts and blogs, not companies. Company or corporate sites and blogs seem to be more hype than substance these days.

Which ones do you refer for keeping up to date?