YouTube link.

Yeah, I’m not much for YT videos even using Invidious. Give me some reading material. I was hoping ‘Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.’ was some type of summary, but it’s just a YT promo.

I hear that TerraBox has 1TB accounts for free. /s

Prohibition has never been a deterrent to consumption.

I did the old Magic Mirror 2 with an iframe feed off the server. Hangs in the living room, gives general weather updates, displays calendar, randomly displays pictures, can pull up various security cam feeds, etc.

I cannot change the world, I am but one man. I can only try to influence and guide those around me. They influence and guide others around them. So you pick up a few new converts and that may seem pointless until you realize the global impact of your actions.

Commercials have been part of TV since the beginning.

Traditional advertising whether on a billboard, magazine page, radio, TV are benign afaic, annoying, but benign. Advertising on the internet is an insidious evil because of what is happening behind all those pretty little pictures. Not only are they attempting to sell you product, they are stealing your data to bolster the profits of said company, without giving you due compensation. If my data is so valuable to corporate America, then it’s worth a mint to me and until they cough up the $value$ I determine for my data created with my labor, I’m going to keep as much of my data out of their hands.

I’m partial to Privacy.Sexy. I like to be able to see the code and know what’s being done when I click the button. There is also WPD, which is good too. I also employ scripts from Black Viper’s work, reducing the number of unnecessary services that run in the background. These scripts are based on Black Viper’s scripts.. I also use a program called HostsMan which allows you to block various things like Windows telemetry in the host file itself. Some people have reported that Windows treats hostfile modifications as a virus, but I haven’t encountered that on W10 Pro.

At the blinding speed of technology development in today’s timeline, I rarely go back more than a couple years. It’s usually stale and outdated even just 2 years ago.

Not to be hypercritical, I’m not a published dev so take this in that light. I always find it sketch to happen upon a GitHub repo that has no description in the right column. The software may be tight, but in the back of my head I’m wondering, why didn’t they take 5 minutes and provide a description?

About

No description, website, or topics provided.

On the other hand, it’s always comforting that it is being actively maintained:

7b8fc3b · 42 minutes ago

Just random thoughts from the old head.

Windows telemetry (which honestly can be tamed for the most part)

Yea, with 59,741 host file entries. LOL But it does work. I took a butcher knife to my W10 Pro. Then I made an image of the total install so that if the wheels fall off, I can always drop back to the image without having to reinvent the wheel. I do use W10…I know Boooo! I also use Linux and Mac. Linux for the most part solves all my problems. If you are a gamer, that arena is exploding on Linux which is great to see. Windows allows me to run BlueBeam Revu, which I have never found a Linux alt that matches BlueBeam feature for feature. If anyone knows of one, please tell me. Mac lets me pretend I’m one of those hipster nerds. LOL j.k

Nice try Mr. Europol. /s

Well, fuck.

is it possible with a windows oem license that came with the laptop?

Well, since I’ve never had a W11 OEM, I am not 100% sure you can acomplish this, but doing a cursory search it seems that you can:

https://www.howtogeek.com/751145/how-to-downgrade-from-windows-11-to-windows-10/

fast forward a decade later and here i am typing this on a laptop that came with windows 11. lol

Why can’t you downgrade to W10?

Anyways, I’ve buttoned up this install of Windows, blocked all known telemetry points of access with an extensive block list in the .host file as well as others, and a litany of other modifications. I make images of my setup so that, if the wheels fall off, I can always spin up an image and be back in business without having to reinvent the wheel.

I do use Linux and Mac in my network as well. However, I have one piece of software I use for my private business, and I have never been able to find a exact opensource/Linux equivalent. In fact I don’t think there is anything out there that does what it does. So, W10 is it for me.

I’ve drawn the line at W10. They can have W11 nonsense.

I would have to deploy it and run it through it’s paces before I start promoting it.

If it’s a Ring Doorbell camera, I think they just unclip from the wall. If you don’t have the special tool, a flat bladed screwdriver will suffice. Gently press it into the slot on the bottom and gently pull up and viola! Then set it somewhere like in a closet under a pile of clothes and wait until the battery discharges.

I have a English pit I’ve had since she was a very little pup. Early on I noticed that there were times when she seemed distressed. She would come nose punch me in the leg and whine and paw. As time progressed, I discovered she was actually predicting my seizures. At first I thought it coincidental, but the accuracy was just too uncanny to dismiss. I have read that before a person has a seizure, they emit a certain chemical odor that the dogs can sense. My lady friend also says my demeanor changes before I have a seizure, and my pit may also be picking up on those cues. She’s never had any formal training, it’s just something she does and I am grateful.

I’ve read some about wastewater testing and such, more towards the pharmaceuticals that our body excretes, which can proliferate our drinking water supply, and thus affect the population. It was quite interesting. I’m not sure if we filter for those elements now, or even if we can at the present.

there’s often a response like: “If you can’t configure Docker, reverse proxies, and Yaml files, you shouldn’t be self-hosting.”

This is the part that I don’t like. Couple this with condescending labels like ‘normies’ et al, I can kind of understand why selfhosting is still something that only a small segment of the population engages in. I realize that people like to differentiate themselves from others. It doesn’t matter if you’re collecting stamps or you’re the tiddlywinks champion of the world, we like to draw a line between ‘us’ and ‘them’, which is a pretty poignant song by Pink Floyd btw.

As @CameronDev@programming.dev pointed out, there are very serious consequences to self hosting too. The first Linux server I stood up got taken over fairly quickly, and over night began attacking other servers. That’s serious shit and the owners of said servers don’t take it lightly, and rightfully so. The owners of the platform you may be hosting on don’t take it lightly either. So, yeah, there are some basics one needs to learn and implement before they can begin a successful, resilient, hardened, server, and it’s not a lot of point and click solutions. Again…shit’s complex. It’s why there are so many specialists in the field, but now you as the selfhoster have to wear all the admin hats.

The doors to selfhosting should swing wide for all, and I try to be as accommodating as I possibly can because I know how I struggle and have struggled with things from time to time.

Safebox looks pretty interesting. I’ve often thought, if I were a much younger man, I would’ve loved to produce a type of ‘server in a box’. But I am well past being a younger man, so I’ll leave that up to you young guns.