There are really two reasons ECC is a “must-have” for me.

• I’ve had some variant of a “homelab” for probably 15 years, maybe more. For a long time, I was plagued with crashes, random errors, etc. Once I stopped using consumer-grade parts and switched over to actual server hardware, these problems went away completely. I can actually use my homelab as the core of my home network instead of just something fun to play with. Some of this improvement is probably due to better power supplies, storage, server CPUs, etc, but ECC memory could very well play a part. This is just anecdotal, though.
• ECC memory has saved me before. One of the memory modules in my NAS went bad; ECC detected the error, corrected it, and TrueNAS sent me an alert. Since most of the RAM in my NAS is used for a ZFS cache, this likely would have caused data loss had I been using non-error-corrected memory. Because I had ECC, I was able to shut down the server, pull the bad module, and start it back up with maybe 10 minutes of downtime as the worst result of the failed module.

I don’t care about ECC in my desktop PCs, but for anything “mission-critical,” which is basically everything in my server rack, I don’t feel safe without it. Pfsense is probably the most critical service, so whatever machine is running it had better have ECC.

I switched from bare-metal to a VM for largely the same reason you did. I was running Pfsense on an old-ish Supermicro server, and it was pushing my UPS too close to its power limit. It’s crazy to me that yours only pulled 40 watts, though; I think I saved about 150-175W by switching it to a VM. My entire rack contains a NAS, a Proxmox server, a few switches, and a couple of other miscellaneous things. Total power draw is about 600-650W, and jumps over 700W under a heavy load (file transfers, video encoding, etc). I still don’t like the idea of having Pfsense on a VM, though; I’d really like to be able to make changes to my Proxmox server without dropping connectivity to the entire property. My UPS tops out at 800W, though, so if I do switch back to bare-metal, I only have realistically 50-75W to spare.

Social media companies, adult websites, whatever, can try to find ways to block children from accessing their content, but kids will always find a way around it.

It’s the parents’ responsibility to control their children. I’ve said 1000 times, children don’t need access to smartphones and tablets. A desktop PC or laptop with strict parental controls is adequate enough for school work, learning about technology, and some basic entertainment.

When a child is old enough to work and pay for a smartphone themselves, then they’re old enough to have a smartphone. A prepaid flip phone with basic voice and SMS is more than enough for a 15-year-old.

I have a few services running on Proxmox that I’d like to switch over to bare metal. Pfsense for one. No need for an entire 1U server, but running on a dedicated machine would be great.

Every mini PC I find is always lacking in some regard. ECC memory is non-negotiable, as is an SFP+ port or the ability to add a low-profile PCIe NIC, and I’m done buying off-brand Chinese crop on Amazon.

If someone with a good reputation makes a reasonably-priced mini PC with ECC memory and at least some way to accept a 10Gb DAC, I’ll probably buy two.

I really wouldn’t write off the Shield completely. It’s a few years old, but it works really well. My TVs are all disconnected from my network, and each has a Shield attached. The Shield can stream 4k HDR from Jellyfin, play ad-free YouTube with SmartTubeNext, and handles remote game streaming at 4k/60 with Sunshine/Moonlight. It’s really a versatile little box.

You act like this is a negative thing that they’re choosing to ignore. If anything, this will make them even more supportive of him; most of them would do the same if they could get away with it.

I appreciate the suggestion, but that looks like a Java library. Interpreted languages make me feel dirty. Java makes me feel even dirtier. If it’s not C, C++, or ASM, is it really worth using?

I’m okay with the “human-readability,” but I’ve never been happy with the “machine-readibility” of XML. Usually I just want to pull a few values from an API return, yet every XML library assumes I want the entire file in a data structure that I can iterate through. It’s a waste of resources and a pain in the ass.

Even though it’s not the “right” way, most of the time I just use regex to grab whatever exists between an opening and closing tag. If I’m saving/loading data from my own software, I just use a serialization library.

Leader of a terrorist organization endorses another terrorist organization. Can’t say I’m surprised.

That’s kind of the point I was trying to make. They feel so different, I can’t imagine one being a viable alternative to the other.

I couldn’t care less what happens to the wine industry, but are people really using weed as an alternative? They’re completely different experiences. I enjoy drinking, but cannabis is in no way pleasurable to me at all.

This is very situational. I’m not a contractor, but I spend a significant portion of my time doing hobbies that require power tools. I don’t need a drill that will last for an entire day at a jobsite. Ryobi works fine for me. On the other hand, I wish I had never spent $600 on a cheap planer; I knew I’d want a better one eventually, and sure enough, I found a need to upgrade after a few years. Now I’ve spent $3600 on planers. I could have just gone with the $3k one and saved myself $600.

If I’m going to use it once, I borrow it. If I’m going to use it every few months, I buy a cheap one. If I’m going to use it every week, then it’s worth it to me to buy something I can keep for at least a decade or two.

It really depends on how far back you want to look.

If the US was to suddenly stop projecting its interests internationally, then as others have mentioned, then likely the world work become somewhat more socialized. European countries would probably step up and try to keep China in check, but without the US contributing to these efforts, it would cause a significant strain on their military resources.

If the US was to take an isolationist policy 100 years ago, then there is a good chance that WW2 would have been won by the Axis. The Allied forces likely would have put up a good fight, but I’m not sure they would have emerged victorious against the combined Axis forces. The war in the Pacific would have raged on much longer, and without nuclear weapons, there would have been an extreme loss of life invading Japan. At the very least, WW2 would have lasted much much longer than it did. Depending on the outcome, plenty of countries might currently be speaking German and debating if they should tear down 80-year-old statues of Hitler.

A lot of boomers are really particular about well-manicured yards, pristine gardens, etc. Squirrels do not help with this.

I love seeing little divots where our squirrels bury nuts. If they eat some of our plants, then I put a cage around it or plant new ones. Seeing the little guys play and eat the food we put out for them far outweighs any minor landscaping problems they cause.

The problem isn’t that Harris is being held to a higher standard. The problem is that Americans think of elections the same way they think of a sporting match. It’s “my team is going to win!” not “I’m going to vote for the candidate that is best aligned with my beliefs.” A huge number of the people who are voting Republican are doing so because the Republican party is their “team,” and damn it, their team is going to win even if it kills them.

Many years ago, I was discussing politics with a coworker (always a bad idea, but whatever). It went something like this:

“So, you don’t think the less-fortunate should be able to afford medical care?” “No, of course not, everyone should be able to see a doctor.”

“You don’t think gay people should be allowed to marry?” “I’m not gay, but they can do whatever makes them happy.”

“You support the war in Iraq, then?” “I support our troops, but the war is kind of a waste.”

“We definitely should legalize weed, right?” “Um, I’d smoke it if I didn’t get drug tested.”

“So why are you voting Republican, then?” “My family is Republican; we always do.”

This is kind of a shit article. Most of these are just old hardware that eventually had modern improvements, not “trends.”

A “trend” is cold cathode black lights inside the case, not a silly naming scheme for CPU revisions.

I can’t speak to the AI voice generation part of this, but you might be interested in the Domesday Duplicator for digitizing your audio, especially if some or it is slightly degraded.

https://github.com/harrypm/DomesdayDuplicator

The project was originally designed for laserdisc, but it’s been expanded to support VHS and cassette tape. Traditionally, you would play your tape on a cassette player, then the built in analog circuitry would convert the magnetic signals into audio, amplify them, and feed them to a sound card on your PC, which then converts the analog signal to a digital audio stream.

With the Domesdsy Duplicator, you record the raw magnetic signal from the read head and directly digitize it into a bitstream that you can then process as needed. For DIY archiving from an analog source, it’s one of the best options for signal fidelity, and it will give you the truest representation of what’s actually on the tape.

Everybody who keeps saying “just go” seems to be assuming that OP works in an office job where you can just come back and finish your work after your appointment.

What if they’re an air traffic controller, they’re operating factory equipment, monitoring a nuclear reactor, etc. Some jobs require a person to be present and attentive. Now they have to talk to their manager, find someone to cover for them, etc. Mental health treatment should be easily available without having to jump through hoops. I understand their frustration.

I think you might be misunderstanding what I’m trying to say. I’m not discounting the value of human culture. I enjoy various types of art, and I am grateful for the people who produce it.

What doesn’t interest me in the slightest is urban “culture.” By that I mean going to restaurants, attending parties, seeing live music, walking to the corner pub, etc. I haven’t done any of these things in years, and I’m happy. If I discover a musician I like, I’m going to spend some money and buy their record, but I don’t need to be surrounded by a crowd of people listening to them live.

You mention the term “anti-social behavior,” but that doesn’t describe everyone who’d rather live in a rural area than a city. Some of us just like our peace and quiet. As far as subsidizing roads and shipping to rural areas, you like to eat, right? Where do you think the food came from? You live in a house or an apartment, right? Where did the wood, concrete, and raw materials come from? A huge amount of agriculture and production comes from rural areas, and it’s always going to be necessary to have roads and infrastructure to support this. The fact that I live in the same area that supplied your food doesn’t mean that your tax dollars are paying for roads solely so that I can drive on them.

I understand that people like you enjoy the busy life of a city and that you can legitimately take advantage of what a city offers. I’m not like that. Large gatherings of people don’t make me happy; they just make me want to leave. My original argument was that a lot of people live in cities because they have to for work. Some of them, like you, live in cities because it makes them happy. For the people that live in urban areas because they have to, I was speculating that many of them might move to more rural areas given the option. I’m not trying to shit on your lifestyle (although I do have strong negative opinions about bicycles on roadways), and I would hope that you extend the same courtesy. Life is short, and in a perfect world, everyone could live in a place that they enjoy.

I feel the same as you, but you really can’t deny the fact that the engineers at his various companies have managed to design some really great tech despite their CEO.

Not just spacecraft either. Starlink is really the first usable satellite broadband, and Tesla has mastered the art of putting advanced powertrain in terrible automobiles.

If you feel that way, then you probably should live in a city. Some people prefer city life; there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not for everyone. I have no desire to be around other people, and the “cultural” aspect of urban living holds no interest to me. I get enough human interaction through work. At home, I want to be un-bothered by other people and go about my business in solitude.