blueshiftlabs's recent activity

  1. Comment on Help me ditch Chrome's password manager! in ~tech

    blueshiftlabs
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    +1 to Bitwarden! You can easily self-host your own Bitwarden server using Vaultwarden, if you want to keep things even more under your control.

    +1 to Bitwarden! You can easily self-host your own Bitwarden server using Vaultwarden, if you want to keep things even more under your control.

  2. Comment on Water isn't normal in ~science

    blueshiftlabs
    Link Parent
    Hardly surprising - this is written by Derek Lowe, who's most well known for his Things I Won't Work With series. He definitely knows how to make chemistry content accessible!

    Hardly surprising - this is written by Derek Lowe, who's most well known for his Things I Won't Work With series. He definitely knows how to make chemistry content accessible!

    10 votes

  3. Comment on Want to automate my home with a privacy focus (but I'm a bit slow and need help) in ~life.home_improvement

    blueshiftlabs
    Link Parent
    IIRC most of the single-board computers like the Pi are set to auto start when power is applied, so they should come up automatically. Zigbee is definitely a good place to start. Don't forget you...

    IIRC most of the single-board computers like the Pi are set to auto start when power is applied, so they should come up automatically.

    Zigbee is definitely a good place to start. Don't forget you can mix and match multiple types of smart devices! I personally use a mix of Z-Wave, Zigbee, and Wi-Fi devices.

    As for routers - if you want something you can control locally and hack on if you need to, get something capable of running OpenWRT. I personally use an old Sophos XG105 running OpenWRT as my firewall/router, and two Dynalink DL-WRX36 devices as Wi-Fi access points.

    1 vote

  4. Comment on Reddit has a new AI training deal to sell user content in ~tech

    blueshiftlabs
    Link Parent
    The most useful dataset for Reddit to sell would be pre-ChatGPT posts and comments, so I imagine they archived stuff off ages ago.

    The most useful dataset for Reddit to sell would be pre-ChatGPT posts and comments, so I imagine they archived stuff off ages ago.

    6 votes

  5. Comment on Want to automate my home with a privacy focus (but I'm a bit slow and need help) in ~life.home_improvement

    blueshiftlabs
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    Doing a privacy-preserving smart home is absolutely possible! It takes a bit more work than an "out of the box" solution, but you'll know your data will be yours, and as a side effect, you won't...

    Doing a privacy-preserving smart home is absolutely possible! It takes a bit more work than an "out of the box" solution, but you'll know your data will be yours, and as a side effect, you won't be left with expensive bricks if a company goes under.

    The absolute heart of your setup will be Home Assistant. You'll need something to run it on - a Raspberry Pi, an old computer, a Docker container on a server somewhere, something like that. If you've got an old Pi lying around, this is a great time to use it. You can even reuse your Pihole device for it - Pihole will happily run as a Home Assistant addon. If not, pick one up with a good microSD card, or get any of the other supported hardware and go ham. I personally use a Raspberry Pi 4 (4GB RAM), and it works fine. Home Assistant doesn't need much compute power.

    Once you have HA set up, you can start adding devices to your home. If you're allowed to make changes to your home's electrical setup, smart switches are an easy starting place, and a great improvement with a built-in fallback option (you can always just go flip the switch manually!) Don't go too wild to begin with - over time, you'll find ways to put everything into HA, but start small.

    When you're looking for devices, if you're interested in privacy, this should be your order of preference:

    • Devices using an open, non-WiFi, communication standard. Zigbee and Z-Wave are the big players here, although Thread is supposed to be the big up-and-coming thing. The advantage of these open standards is that you can connect devices by any manufacturer to devices by any other manufacturer, and they'll work seamlessly. More on those later.
    • Wi-Fi devices that use open-source firmware, or can be flashed to the same. A significant amount of home automation gear (smart plugs, sensors, etc) uses the common ESP8266 microcontroller, and there are several open firmwares that can be flashed to those controllers, including Tasmota and ESPHome. If you look for devices that run (or can run) one of those firmwares, you'll know it can be locally controlled and isn't going to snitch on you to anywhere.
    • Wi-Fi devices with closed-source firmware that provides local control. This is the minimum bar to be acceptable, and requires putting the device on a separate network or blocking the device from the Internet at the router level. Devices with Apple HomeKit support fall into this category.
    • Cloud-dependent Wi-Fi devices: just say "no".

    Your absolute best bet will be Zigbee or Z-Wave devices. Matter/Thread is getting there, but isn't ready for prime time yet. Some notes on each of those:

    • Z-Wave stuff needs a Z-Wave modem. Aeotec and Zooz make decent ones. Get one with a 700 or 800 series chipset - there are some old models with 500-series chipsets that might not support newer features.
      • Z-Wave stuff is region locked, because it uses different frequency bands in different countries. Make sure what you get is compatible with where you live!
    • Zigbee stuff needs a Zigbee coordinator. I'd recommend Sonoff's ZBDongle-E, or Home Assistant's own SkyConnect. These both run a chipset that can also do Thread, once that becomes popular.
      • Unlike Z-Wave, Zigbee stuff uses the same frequency band worldwide, so you can get cheap AliExpress Zigbee devices and know they'll work.
      • Unfortunately, that frequency band is 2.4GHz, which tends to be super crowded with Wi-Fi, and also gets interfered with by USB 3.0 devices. Get a USB extension cable and put your Zigbee modem far away from any Wi-Fi routers you might have.
      • You should also plan out which Zigbee channel you're going to use, since you can't change it after your network is formed. Channel 26 has the least overlap with Wi-Fi, but some devices don't support it. 25 will also work well, assuming you can keep Wi-Fi channel 11 relatively clear. Most devices default to 15, which gets clobbered by Wi-Fi channels 1 and 6, so it's worth changing.

    And, lastly, some brand recommendations:

    • Zooz makes quality Z-Wave devices at reasonable prices. Their smart switches are quite good - I use a few on my own network.
    • Inovelli also makes very good smart switches, in both Z-Wave and Zigbee formats.
    • Ikea's Tradfri/Dirigera line is all standards-compliant Zigbee. Skip their hub, since you won't need it, but they're the first place I check for smart light bulbs and remotes.
    • Xiaomi's Aqara brand of home automation gear includes some decent-quality, dirt cheap sensors. They do buttons, leak sensors, motion sensors, door sensors, vibration sensors, and more. I've had occasional difficulty with some of their stuff, but for the price, it's hard to beat them. Available on Amazon if you need it quick, or AliExpress for cheaper if you don't mind waiting.
    • For open-source-compatible Wi-Fi gear, look at Shelly and some, but not all, of Sonoff's product line. There's also this very comprehensive list of Tasmota-capable devices.
    1 vote

  6. Comment on Spotify has signed a new multiyear agreement with Joe Rogan, the host of one of the most popular and polarizing podcasts in the US in ~tech

    blueshiftlabs
    Link Parent
    According to their most recent earnings report (PDF), Google made $86.3 billion in revenue last quarter, of which $65.5 billion (76.8%) was from advertising. They're still, at their heart, an...

    According to their most recent earnings report (PDF), Google made $86.3 billion in revenue last quarter, of which $65.5 billion (76.8%) was from advertising.

    They're still, at their heart, an advertising company with a couple of side businesses.

    8 votes

  7. Comment on Jet Lag | Season 8 trailer in ~hobbies

    blueshiftlabs
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    Episode 6 (series finale): On Nebula The Layover aftershow podcast On YouTube: releases Jan 24 Episode spoilers Congratulations, Sam and Michelle! A well-played season all around, with a...

    Episode 6 (series finale):

    Episode spoilers

    Congratulations, Sam and Michelle! A well-played season all around, with a high-risk, high-reward strategy.

    We finally got to see a sleeper train! In hindsight, though, having to start their day in a small town like Coopersville probably cost Ben and Adam more time than they gained by being further west, especially because they would have had their choice of flights out of Chicago. I appreciate the game's attempt to make America's train network part of the game, but even with the massive handicap of being able to take trains through rest periods, I still don't think that they were ever the right play this game. And, as Ben and Adam found out, Amtrak also has an alarming tendency to be late, so relying on it in time-critical situations is risky.

    Atlanta to Key West with the neighboring state card was huge! Even if Ben and Adam had managed to literally high-roll their variable distance flight, I don't think they could have beaten Sam and Michelle. At best, they could have booked on the exact same flight, which would have turned the trip to Southernmost Point into a foot race (which I now kinda want to see at some point!)

    And, last of all, the announcement of Season 9 - Switzerland looks like it's going to be an amazing place for a game, and it'll be interesting to see how hide and seek works as a format. We'll see in a few months!

    3 votes

  8. Comment on Jet Lag | Season 8 trailer in ~hobbies

    blueshiftlabs
    (edited )
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    Episode 5: On Nebula The Layover aftershow podcast On YouTube: releases Jan 17 Episode spoilers I can't believe Sam and Michelle pulled off the trip into Montrose! That was a super risky play, not...

    Episode 5:

    Episode spoilers I can't believe Sam and Michelle pulled off the trip into Montrose! That was a super risky play, not just because of steals, but because they had basically zero chance of competing for any good cards. Somehow, though, it worked out for them.

    As much as the direct flight to Milwaukee was a good long haul in distance for Adam and Ben, I feel like it wasn't the right move. Having to go so far north added a ton of extra distance to their trip, so I'm not sure how much it gained them. Chicago is a good transit hub, though, so hopefully it works out for them.

    And once again, we end on a cliffhanger!

    4 votes

  9. Comment on Jet Lag | Season 8 trailer in ~hobbies

  10. Comment on The “everything home server” for under $300: fanless, 8 cores, 4x 10Gbe SFP+, JBOD support in ~tech

    blueshiftlabs
    Link Parent
    I personally went with ASRock's J5040 board, and it's served me well. If I were building a system today, though, I'd hold out for an ASRock N100M, or something else with an N100. It has more PCIe...

    I personally went with ASRock's J5040 board, and it's served me well. If I were building a system today, though, I'd hold out for an ASRock N100M, or something else with an N100. It has more PCIe lanes, faster USB-C, and QuickSync support for AV1 decoding.

    Case-wise, the more 3.5" bays you can get away with, the better. I built mine too an old Fractal Define R4 I had kicking around from an old build. You'll also need RAM, a PSU, an SSD for booting, and whatever spinning rust you have kicking around for storage.

    Software-wise, I'm running OpenMediaVault with a btrfs raid1 array. I liked btrfs for the media server build because its raid1 support will handle anything you throw at it, with no need to match up drive sizes. If you want to grow later, you can add or replace as little as a single drive at a time. So long as no single drive makes up more than 50% of the array storage space, you'll be insulated against any single drive failure. ZFS is much choosier about its hardware, in comparison, which makes it great for planned servers, but less good for the "box of scraps" approach I took to my build.

  11. Comment on The “everything home server” for under $300: fanless, 8 cores, 4x 10Gbe SFP+, JBOD support in ~tech

    blueshiftlabs
    Link Parent
    I'd also suggest looking into mini-ITX boards with QuickSync-capable CPUs on board. They tend to be a bit more expandable than the mini-PCs - for instance, I wanted to put an absurd number of hard...

    I'd also suggest looking into mini-ITX boards with QuickSync-capable CPUs on board. They tend to be a bit more expandable than the mini-PCs - for instance, I wanted to put an absurd number of hard drives in mine, so I slapped an 8-port SATA controller in the PCIe slot, and built it into a mid-tower Fractal R4 I had lying around from an old build that had 8 3.5" bays.

    The build ended up turning into a combined NAS, Jellyfin server, and Docker host, and it's been great to me so far. Depending on your budget and your desire for expandability, it's a good way to go.

    2 votes

  12. Comment on Legislators in Kentucky and other fossil states charge EV drivers more than double in taxes than ICE drivers in ~transport

    blueshiftlabs
    Link Parent
    I also wasn't a big fan of the article comparing the taxes on EVs and ICEs as a percentage figure, for the same reason. Sure, the charging tax might amount to 22% compared to 11% for an ICE, and...

    I also wasn't a big fan of the article comparing the taxes on EVs and ICEs as a percentage figure, for the same reason. Sure, the charging tax might amount to 22% compared to 11% for an ICE, and that's twice as high in relation to the underlying per-mile consumable cost, but if you're getting 4x the miles out of $5 of electrons compared to $5 in gasoline, it's a disingenuous comparison, since now the EV is only paying half the tax per mile driven.

    There's a side argument to be made that using gasoline/electricity consumption as a proxy for miles driven is always going to be subject to distortions based on each vehicle's energy efficiency, and we should just pull odometer readings and tax based on miles instead. It would be politically difficult to accomplish, if done as a lump sum with annual registrations, since it's so much more salient to voters. But it would eliminate the differences between EVs and ICEs, and the variances between cars.

    6 votes

  13. Comment on Jet Lag | Season 8 trailer in ~hobbies

    blueshiftlabs
    (edited )
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    Episode 4: On Nebula The Layover aftershow podcast On YouTube Episode spoilers I called it - Adam did the drunk mile in the airport! He mentioned on the podcast that an airport turned out to be an...

    Episode 4:

    Episode spoilers

    I called it - Adam did the drunk mile in the airport! He mentioned on the podcast that an airport turned out to be an unexpectedly good place for that challenge - there's a lot of long, straight segments, running to a gate isn't unusual or even particularly remarkable, and alcohol vendors are plentiful.

    When I saw that Adam and Ben were flying Frontier, I had a feeling they might end up with issues. Sure enough, they got massively delayed.

    I also think Sam using his steal so early was a massive misplay, even without the flight being sold out - it would have made a bunch more sense to wait for the next day, where it would have guaranteed that they could claim the best ticket for the day, even if they lost the challenge.

    4 votes

  14. Comment on Amazon Prime Video will start showing ads on January 29th in ~tech

    blueshiftlabs
    Link Parent
    Jellyfin will also happily do hardware transcoding on just about any platform, without needing to pay for the privilege, and you don't get Plex trying to shove its streaming service in your face.

    Jellyfin will also happily do hardware transcoding on just about any platform, without needing to pay for the privilege, and you don't get Plex trying to shove its streaming service in your face.

    5 votes

  15. Comment on Jet Lag | Season 8 trailer in ~hobbies

    blueshiftlabs
    Link Parent
    Nebula is very much worth it, in my opinion. It fills the same niche in relation to YouTube that Tildes fills to Reddit - a smaller community, founded by veterans of a larger one, with a heavy...

    Nebula is very much worth it, in my opinion. It fills the same niche in relation to YouTube that Tildes fills to Reddit - a smaller community, founded by veterans of a larger one, with a heavy emphasis on long-form content, educational discussions, and deliberately not taking VC money to avoid chasing the sort of low-effort engagement and enshittification that plagues YouTube/Reddit. If you're on here, you'd probably find Nebula to be worth a few bucks a month.

    7 votes

  16. Comment on Jet Lag | Season 8 trailer in ~hobbies

    blueshiftlabs
    (edited )
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    Episode 3: On Nebula The Layover aftershow podcast On YouTube (thanks /u/cfabbro!) Episode spoilers As a Seattleite, it was neat to see my home town getting nearly a whole Jet Lag episode in the...

    Episode 3:

    Episode spoilers

    As a Seattleite, it was neat to see my home town getting nearly a whole Jet Lag episode in the spotlight!

    Archie McPhee is a place I've walked past many times, but never visited. I'll definitely be fixing that next time I'm in Wallingford!

    I was amused to see Ben and Adam hit the Goodwill Outlet - it's infamous around here, for exactly the reasons Adam discovered. Everything there is priced by weight, so there are good deals to be had, and the people who specialize in reselling thrift store items know that too. If you ever wanted the Black Friday experience year-round, the Goodwill Outlet is the place to get it! Mary's Place was also the perfect choice for a charity to receive the sweaters and ties once Ben and Adam were done with them.

    I can't wait to see if Ben and Adam attempt the drunk mile inside SeaTac next episode - it's certainly big enough for it, and there's no shortage of places that sell alcohol there. It wouldn't even be in the top ten weirdest things I've seen in that airport, either!

    4 votes

  17. Comment on Jet Lag | Season 8 trailer in ~hobbies

  18. Comment on Jet Lag | Season 8 trailer in ~hobbies

    blueshiftlabs
    (edited )
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    Episode 1: On Nebula The Layover aftershow podcast On YouTube Episode spoilers It's rare you see so much tension around actually making a flight once the challenge is completed. Glad Sam and...

    Episode 1:

    Episode spoilers It's rare you see so much tension around actually making a flight once the challenge is completed. Glad Sam and Michelle were able to make it on board!
    4 votes

  19. Comment on Short stories compilations in ~books

    blueshiftlabs
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    As far as the niche magazines go, most of them release electronic versions these days, alongside (or in place of) their print versions. I had a subscription to Uncanny Magazine, which I'd...

    As far as the niche magazines go, most of them release electronic versions these days, alongside (or in place of) their print versions.

    I had a subscription to Uncanny Magazine, which I'd recommend looking into if you're a sci-fi/fantasy fan. Uncanny has published numerous short stories that went on to win the Hugo in their categories, as well as winning a couple of Hugos themselves for best zine. They distribute ebooks, and you can put your "Send to Kindle" email into their book-delivery service and they'll send new issues straight to your Kindle library. From what I've seen, that's a fairly common way for independent booksellers to handle Kindle compatibility, and it seems to work well.

    1 vote

  20. Comment on A matter of millimeters: the story of Qantas flight 32 in ~engineering

    blueshiftlabs
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    One side note (please label off-topic): Could this please be moved to ~transport? This article fits equally well there or in ~engineering, but ~transport has been the home for all of the previous...

    One side note (please label off-topic):

    Could this please be moved to ~transport? This article fits equally well there or in ~engineering, but ~transport has been the home for all of the previous Admiral Cloudberg articles posted to Tildes.