On the Pi I already use an HDD for data and most of my programs, plus some megabytes (64 today, yesterday it was 32) of swap in addition to the 128 MB I have on my slow microSD, (which apart from that only holds the base system, really).
Considering that an SSD on the Pi3 is wasteful due to the USB 2.0 limit, that I don’t have any spare, and that the smallest SSD I can find (128 GB) is still at least twice the cost of my 320 GB HDD, guess what 2.5" external drive I’ll keep as main currently.

System and programs aren’t running slow right now, so, since I need more swap, I could try adding some more on the HDD, and only then actually try pendrives, just for 1 o 2 GB of swap at max. I can add them, since I have some spare and they are cheap to get anyways.

But yeah, if I had USB 3.0 on a SBC with 1 GB of RAM, I would get the SSD.

Flashdrives die sooner than good quality SSDs, but in general are at least a bit more resilient than microSD cards. Even I’m considering starting to use a small USB pen as extra swap space for my Raspberry Pi 3; for what they cost, even if they will eventually break, they are good value.

Why is it slow for you? Here are some things to consider:

• USB speeds: USB as a protocol is generally slower than SATA, even version 3. If your drive or your port are 2.0, then you will deal with a theoretical max bandwidth of 480 mbps (but the practical one is much lower!). If they are 3.x, check that the flashdrive makes proper contact in the port with not only the main big 4 pins, but also the small pins hidden deeper inside the connector (I have no idea how on Linux tho :/); most USB A 3.0 connectors and ports have issues connecting together for some reason, and it may happen that the SuperSpeed pins can’t get close and thus the connection will degrade to 2.0 speeds.

• Cheap chips (pun intended): Cheap USB pen drives nowadays use both low-quality controller chips and memory chips. From experience I can say that some inexpensive modern flashdrives that are sold as USB 3.0, and get connected as 3.0 to an host system, actually work at around 2.0 speeds. Why? Sometimes it’s because low-quality memory chips are used, that won’t work properly if accessed with high speeds, and thus the controller chips in the drives are programmed to limit read/write speeds… some other times, the controller chip is also crappy, and transfers slow down because it overheats. Also, bandwidth is not the only thing that suffers: on cheap flashdrives you can experience high latency.

Both limited bandwidth and high latency impact a lot when you use any storage medium for OS or program storage, or even swap memory. If you want some decent but easy to read statistics to test those values (with graphs too), install GNOME Disks and use its disk benchmark tool. You can verify how well your USB pen drive performs, and even compare it to your SSD.

As a side note, from most of my flashdrives (including one which connects via USB 3.0) I always get no more than 15 MB/s read + 5 MB/s write… that’s a practical speed of 160 mbps, a mere 1/3 of the theoretical for 2.0.

comments aren’t a thing with writefreely

What do you mean? You can look up any profile in the form of @blogname@writefreelyinstance.domain from apps like Mastodon, Friendica, etc…, see all posts, and comment regularly.
Is the fact that there’s no link or embed of the comment section at the bottom of the WriteFreely page that is bothering you, or am I not understanding?

On a side note: if you are really choosing how to build a blog (like it seems you are), and are not taking the first free managed hosting provider you come across…
I would think twice before using any server software instead of keeping your site static. Having a server software that’s more complex than simply serving static files will do more harm than good in the long run: more security flaws, you have to always keep the thing updated, higher resource usage, and hard to make your content survive the test of time (backing these things up is hard and when you do, you have a database file, not some plaintext ones)

Yes, see https://krita.org/en/about/kiki/

Is Kiki saving money to donate some to Krita developers??? 😳😳😍

Since this is all JavaScript there’s not really much to fork I think, you would need to write everything (not really a lot) from scratch

As I said though, the idea is nice, I could probably implement it as a new feature for my own static site generator, as a replacement to wiki-like footnotes (the concept I currently use to move additional information away from the content body)

The idea is nice, but it’s kind of sad that it requires JavaScript.
If it wasn’t designed for static sites with no pre-parser/compiler, this could be recreated with no JS, but just using the HTML5 <details> element and some CSS to draw boxes and realign stuff.

You gotta hate people that are different from you a lot, to be able to go as far as making a videogame mod like this, wtf

Miis actually look good compared to this, because their design is simple, kind of chibi, and doesn’t try at being too realistic or accurate

This is in the uncanny valley, Miis really aren’t

I’m glad a part of my devices still are micro USB-B…

I, on the other hand, can’t understand why, in a big part of the normie Internet sphere, the Metaverse has been hyped and appreciated so much - by the same people that don’t know Mozilla had basically already created the Metaverse, many years prior, with Mozilla Hubs.

I really like the UI, minimal but colourful!

The 20KB limit is just on your own server I hope, not an hard limit of the software, right?

Friendica has a follow thread feature and yes, it’s so convenient. Lemmy should have that as well imo.

I actually do know that… but it still has higher probability of convincing someone, compared to privacy

That’s actually sadly real, and I can’t emphasize “sadly” enough 😅

I have a friend that about 3 years ago introduced me to libre software. At that time, she used very few proprietary garbage. From about a year though she went back to using Instagram (why???) and other stuff (not only social networks, but things like messaging apps, which is a bit less bad), but luckily still prefers libre software when possible.

I still have to thank her for being so insistent at the time about “you have to remove google play services!!!” and other stuff. Even if she is now cringe, and not a based free software purist anymore, it’s partly thanks to her that I’m now a more aware computer user.

Well, Friendica is libre software and a federated social network. Not highly controlled.

As with plagued with uselessness… Actually, doesn’t differ from the real world. Depends on who/what you like to see (at least on fedi platforms, where you choose, not a heuristic algorithm).

Put it on ethics and mental health: say how proprietary platforms don’t give a damn about any of their users, and won’t think twice about abusing them (with vendor lock-in, ads, and, most importantly, causing addiction just to make you use them more so they can milk you for money)

Also, maybe explain how moderation on there is an absolute turd, with platforms often punishing users which break their ToS less, if those users make a lot of money to the platform (think influencers); unlike on decentralized platforms, where you can choose an instance where the rules satifsy you and you see the moderators working good.

Nah, let’s tell them about Friendica and they will be happy

I too am waiting for Invidious integration in NewPipe, not really because I don’t like the Invidious UI/UX but because I have a bug (only on mobile data, not WiFi, and only on Invidious, not on NewPipe or the YouTube webapp) where the video stops loading after a while and I have to refresh the page (and the playback doesn’t even resume at the point it stopped :c). So right now, Invidious on my smartphone is not really pleasant, it could be better.

That’s fine too. I do both :)

Me vibing with my Invidious instance that lets me have no ads, no tracking or proprietary scripts, and syncing of subscriptions, history, and playlist on all my devices 😌