I have a simple gravity fed cat food dispenser that is great but it needs a little help. No matter what gravity feed dispenser I use it never keeps up. My cat has food out 24/7 and he regulates his food on his own.

I 3d printed a new dispenser in hopes it would solve the food falling out constantly all day, but it's not working as I expected.

So what I'm hoping to do is make a simple vibrating device that will help the food fall out constantly all day long. Maybe a raspberry pi that has a cell phone vibration fob thing that will run a routine? I don't know. I'm having a really hard time finding examples of this. Does anyone have something to reference?

Also open to ideas on non-mechanical feeders that work well, or very simple battery operated options.

Thanks!

I've been self-hosting for a few years. However, now I have a single server hosting all of my things whereas, before, I had multiple old machines physically isolating services. I'm getting ready to host a game server or few (at least one for Tilde) on this machine.

While I'm not a neophyte to Linux, I'm not a guru and definitely not an infosec expert.

Given that, what steps do you take to secure a Linux server, LXCs, and docker containers that are receiving port-forwarded internet traffic?

FWIW, I expect I'll have an LXC running docker containers. I can instead run a VM doing same.

Advice welcome!

As the year draws to a close, let's take a moment to chat about the tools we've been using in our various crafts.

• What have been your go-to art/craft supplies this year?
• What have you tried for the very first time?
• Have you returned to using something you haven't touched in a long while?
• Have you been pleasantly surprised by something?
• Has something disappointed you?
• Was there something you dreamed about making art with, but couldn't get for some reason?

Last year's thread: 2023 art supplies highlights

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

Today is Isaac Asimov's official day of birth, according to Wikipedia. Apparently it has been made National Science Fiction Day in the US.

So what are some of your favorite films you return to from time to time and what are some films that made a strong impact on you as an adult or when you were growing up? I wasn't sure about starting another thread just for TV shows, we could include sci-fi TV shows here as well.

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby celebrates its 100th anniversary this month.

It got me thinking: what are the books from our time that you think might be widely read/taught a century from now? What do you think will give them that kind of staying power?

No hard limits on what counts as “contemporary” by the way. An easy cutoff would be anything released in 2000 and on, but if there are books from before then that you have strong feelings about, by all means share them!

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.