Here’s what I did: I bought a $50 Dell Optiplex desktop with a 4th generation Intel CPU on ebay. I stuffed in 3 HDDs from ServerPartDeals and a boot SSD I had laying around. This machine draws 50 to 60 watts continuously.

I got caddies for the HDDs from my local used computer parts store. I got 5.25 in to 3.5 in adapters from Amazon.

I added a 10 gig SFP+ card (which isn’t fully utilized since my network is mostly 2.5 Gig). Realistically, the onboard gigabit port is adequate.

I got a SATA PCIe card so I can add a 4th drive if needed.

I also bought a Nvidia Quadro P400 graphics card (similar to a GTX 1050, but half the price) for $30 on eBay for Jellyfin transcoding. I couldn’t get the onboard Intel GPU to play nice with Jellyfin.

Excluding the cost of the drives, this setup cost me about $130.

Tailscale works pretty well, but I usually use Wireguard to connect to my router remotely. I’ve had issues getting Tailscale to work well with my reverse proxy, but I suspect that’s a me problem rather than a Tailscale problem. I have OPNsense and Adguard running on an ancient Mac Mini that serves as my router. (If you follow this route, make sure you get a Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter, not a USB one.)

It’s worth noting that the current outbreak that’s occurring north of Panama started prior to DOGE doing its bullshit. Apparently it began in 2022.

At least in my case, my DOC IS 3.0 modem was having connectivity issues. My neighbor in another apartment had similar issues: dropped connections, slower than expected speeds, etc. Switching to DOCSIS 3.0 modems solved the problem. I guess Comcast upgraded their hardware and it wasn’t compatible with my modem anymore

The media is labelling it an assassination. CNN had it in a headline without quotes. So does NYT. So do most other articles that come up when I look up the shooting. Good grief, get off your “media sucks” bandwagon and look around.

Certainly!

I’ve never used this one, but it could also work for you.

There’s PairDrop. It might have what you need. It’s for transferring files rather than uploading and then downloading later. You could get creative with authentication. Maybe put files in an encrypted archive file.

Having a three day weekend every week is so nice. I don’t think I could ever go back to 5/8 schedule. That’s despite the fact that I still work 40 hour weeks. It kinda sucks to work 10 hours per day (and I’d much rather do 8), but it’s worth it to have an entire extra day.

Shit, you’re right

Bold of you to assume they’d even teach STEM.

Why would you want coins instead of paper bills?

The WHO only recommends vaccines for older people, immunocompromised people, pregnant people, and those in healthcare. This lines up with their flu vaccine recommendations.

The US is usually more aggressive with pushing vaccines: flu, COVID were recommended to everyone. The chickenpox vaccine is also recommended for kids, but that’s not the case in lots of Europe (apparently).

Sure, but he was the very first person to ever fly in space so that definitely counts for something. Additionally, he could control the spacecraft if there was an emergency.

He doesn’t understand anything. Here’s what he said about income taxes and tariffs today.

They established the income tax so that citizens, rather than foreign countries, would start paying the money necessary to run our government

I mean, I was harassed to enlist despite actively going to college (officers usually get a commission after college), despite repeatedly telling them I was not interested and never taking the test.

No, it’s half the tariff those countries place on American goods. Or so he claims. I have no idea where those numbers come from.

It’s a 3 hour aptitude test. Are you good at math? Are you good at electronics? Etc. I would imagine it’s a minor speed bump to joining the military.

According to this article, project 2025 doesn’t do that. It proposes requiring students to take the military ASVAB test. Which honestly isn’t the worst idea. In my high school they recommended people who didn’t know what they wanted to do for a career to take it even if they weren’t going into the military.

I’ve found Linux Mint to be easier to install and use than Windows. (I don’t have to enter the console and allow myself to setup an offline account because no network drivers were working in Linux. Windows 11 did that).

I’ve never had issues with graphics drivers, despite using Nvidia cards. The only issues with Linux have been because I broke something when I was messing around.

Get a USB drive, burn a Linux ISO to it, and try it out without installing it.

I tried one of those alternatives once. It was like chewing on gristle. The flavor went away within seconds. I’d rather eat glue. Hopefully they’ll improve, but I’m not optimistic.

When I build my NAS/server last year, I bought a used Dell Optiplex from 2013 on eBay for $50. I tossed in an old SSD I had laying around, and squeezed in 42 TB worth of HDD drives. I added a PCIE SATA expansion card, and a 10 gig network card for 60 bucks to improve performance.

The only real downsides of doing it this way are

• No realistic way of upgrading hardware
• Limited space for internal drives
• No hardware transcoding abilities out of the box
• More power consumption than buying something newer