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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • The key is getting out at the right time, and that is weighed massively against small investors. The big investors and institions control the market and can move quickly while small investors cannot.

    Tesla is not doing well - look at its falling sales. It’s a risky stock to hold. The AI companies are also highly risky stocks to hold.

    That doesn’t mean don’t hold them - all anyone is saying really is that these are high risk investments, and at some point they are going to probably crash because it’s a bubble.

    That doesn’t necessarily mean “don’t invest”. It does certainly mean be prepared to get out fast and also only use money you can afford to lose when investing with such high risk stocks.



  • The republicans have a clear path to win, the election is a toss up between the two parties at this point.

    If the Democrats just assume public anger will mean they are going to win the midterm then they’re doomed. Despite everything Republican support is holding in the polls. Things are so polarised that Republican voters will seemingly accept anything of their party rather than accept a Democrat.

    1/3 support dems, 1/3 support republicans. The key is the 1/3 of voters who are not engaged in politics or hate both parties. The only way the dems can win the midterms is getting off their arses and speaking to those voters. But rightly, those voters are fed up with the shit fest that is US politics.

    The midterms are going to be down to the wire, and sadly I wouldn’t be surprised if the republicans win.


  • So in terms of hardware, I use a Raspberry Pi 5 to host my server stack, including Jellyfin with 4k content. I have a nvme module with a 500gb stick and an external HDD with 4tb of space via USB. The pi5 is headless and accessed directly via SSH or RDC.

    The Raspberry Pi 5 has H.265 hardware decoding and if you’re serving 1 video at a time to any 1 client you shouldn’t have any issues, including up to 4k. It will of course use resources to transcode if the client can’t support that content directly but the experience should be smooth for 1 user.

    For more clients it will depend on how much heavy lifting the clients do. I my case I have a mini PC plugged into my TV, I stream content from my pi5 to the mini PC and the mini PC is doing the heavy lifting in terms of decoding. The hardware on the pi5 is not; it just transfer the video and the client does the hard work. If all your clients are capable then such a set up would work with the pi5.

    An issue would come if you wanted to stream your content to multiple devices at the same time and the clients don’t directly support H.265 content. In that case, the pi5 would have to transcode the content to another format bit by but as it streams it to the client. It’d cope with 1 user for sure but I don’t know how many simultanous clients it could support at 1440p.

    The other consideration is what other tools are being use on the sever at the same time. Again for me I live alone so I’m generally the only user of my pi5 servers services. Many services are low powered but I do find things like importing a stack of PDFs into Paperless NGX is surprisingly CPU intense and in that case the device could struggle if also expected to transcode content.

    I think from what you describe the pi5 could work but you may also want to look at higher powered mini PC as your budget would allow that.

    For reference I use dietpi as the distro on my server, and I use a mix of dietpi packages (which are very well made for easy install and configuration) and docker. I am using quite a few docker stacks now due to the convenience of deploying. Dietpi is debian based, and has a focus on providing pre configured packages to make set up easy, but it is still a full debian system and anything can be deployed on it.

    Obviously the other consideration in the pi5 is an ARM device and a mini PC would be X86_64. But so far I’ve not found any tools or software I’ve wanted that aren’t compiled and available for the Pi5 either via dietpi or docker; ARM devices are popular in this realm. I have come across a bug in docker on ARM devices which broke my VPN set up - that was very frustrating and I had to downgrade docker a few months ago while awaiting the fix. That may be worth noting given docker is very important in this realm and most servers globally are still x86.

    If I were in your position and I had $200 I’d buy the maximum CPU and GPU capability I could in 1 device, so I’d actually lean to a mini PC. If you want to save money then the Pi5 is reasonabkr value but you’d need to include a case and may want to consider a nvme or ssd companion board. Those costs add up and the value of the mini PC may compare better as an all in one device; particularly if you can get a good one second hand. There are also other SBC that may offer even better value or more power than a pi5.

    Also bear in mind for me I have a mini PC and pi5; they do different things with the pi5 is the server but the mini PC is a versatile device and I play games on it for example. If you will only have 1 server device and pre exisiting smart tvs etc you’ll be more reliant on the servers capabilities so again may want to opt for the most powerful device you can afford at your price point.



  • So RetroArch is the standard front end for the open source Libretro collection of emulation engines/cores. It’s a decent interface but not necessarily to everyone’s tastes. The Libretro cores are excellent and give a standardised way of managing and emulating a whole range of game systems.

    ES-DE is a frontend for numerous emulators, aimed at helping people organise their games collections and emulators in a visual way. It can act as a good front-end for RetroArch, as well as other emulators. It’s a more customisable and perhaps more user friendly experience, which also works well with controllers.

    Retroarch + ES-DE is a common combination, and for Linux users (including Steam Deck) RetroDECK is one great option. RetroDECK is a single preconfigured Flatpak with ES-DE, Retroarch and other emulators all packaged together and containerised. All you have to do is install the flatpak, then add the games and ROMs as wanted.

    EmuDeck is another option which again combines RetroArch + ES-DE amongst other tools. It’s available for Linux including SteamOS, but also Windows and Android. It’s an installation script that allows you to select the emulators and tools you want and it’ll install them all from available stores or from projects websites, and then configure them on your system. Then you add your games and ROMs as wanted.




  • I think they were just pointing out that this is the problem with subscription services. You own nothing and you’re screwed when the service goes down.

    It really doesn’t take “ludicrous amounts of time and money” to build a private library. It’s interesting how the subscription giants have managed to change people’s perceptions - when you buy content to keep, you keep some of the value, but when you subscribe you’re just getting a time pass to use someone else’s library and won’t see that money again.

    They sold the proposition on convenience when everything was in one place, but now it’s all fragmented it’s a waste of money.

    And of course plenty of people are building media libraries for free by sailing the seas.


  • What a bizarre take. The EU council is backing down - they do want chat control but each time they propose it they meet resistance and back down. Then they come back again and try again.

    To suggest the public reaction is overblown and media manipulation is bizarre. This is the 3rd or 4th time the EU has attempted to get this through. Just because they chickened out of a vote doesn’t mean the politicians don’t want this.

    In a democracy votes happen. In the EU they keep resurrecting this terrible idea hoping to get it through but then backing away if they don’t think they can win. They know if there was an actual vote it likely would put an end to his.

    Also the EU council is the antithesis of a democracy. It is not directly elected - instead it’s a club of the heads of states of all the countries in the EU. It just represents who happens to be in charge of each country, and gives equal weights to all those countries regardless of their population size. The EU has a Parliament but it’s a fig leaf of democracy as so much power is held in bodies like the Council and the Commission (which is 1 post per state and horse traded not elected).

    So please don’t make this out as a sign that EU democracy works. If EI democracy was working properly they would have listened the first time, and they’d have moved to a directly elected system for the executive Council and commission years ago.

    The EU gets too much of a free pass for “not being America” but it’s got huge problems that need fixing to make it an actual democracy.


  • I used to use Homeplug to get network from my router front downstairs of the house to the my office upstairs and back. It’s a small house, and I thought the homeplug was ok - I was getting about 150-200mbps of my 900mbps; not great but I thought it was a good as I could get. The electrics are about 10 years old but I could see there was a lot of noise and error correction when I looked at the software that came with the plugs. Simple direct wifi connection was atrocious as the walls are largely solid brick.

    Then a couple of years later I read about how good they Mesh systems could be so I decided to try a cheap one. I was skeptical as wifi hadn’t worked for me. I got a Google Wifi system (not a fan of google but it was a cheap system compared to other mesh networks); it has no backhaul connection, just 3 wifi points (one in front room, one in hallway and one in office), and my speed jumped to 500mbps and low latency. I also hadn’t realised how bad the latency had been on my homeplug set up - it was night and day.

    I have since upgraded to an ASUS XT8 system; 2 units only and I now get close to 800mbps on a good day, and 600-700mbps floor. My PC in my office is where I work (which involves high data transfers) and also game and chill, it’s been a huge boon.

    So yeah, Homeplug does the job but it’s not great in my experience. It was cheap compared to a mesh network, but you get what you pay for. You can get some of the cheaper and older mesh systems 2nd hand on ebay - but unfortunately a good system is pricey. In my experience it was totally worth it.



  • This version of the article misses important information from the original source Trend Force who issued a report on DDR4 prices which news sites have been quoting.

    In addition to the supply constraints mentioned, the original report also cited Trump’s tarrifs which alongside the manufacturing supply slump could cause panic buying in the US specifically. This is speculation but based on the possibility Trump could “issue new tariffs or restrictions related to production capacity against China. This, in turn, may trigger another round of panic buying,”

    The original report was posted to twitter with “Tarriff fears may trigger further panic buying”

    It’s odd to talk about panic buying and not explain where that has come from. Also odd not to mention Trump’s tariffs when that was a key part of the original report in June.


  • The absolute basics:

    1. Install qbittorrent
    2. Install a VPN and run it so that all your Internet traffic goes down it
    3. Open a Web browser and search for top torrent sites 2025. There are articles with lists of the big ones.
    4. Go to a torrent site and search for what you want.
    5. Download the .torrent file and open it in qbittorrent OR copy the magnet link and paste that into qbit torrent. Either will start your download.

    Always use the VPN when searching and downloading.

    There are lots of steps to make it more convenient - things like using a Virutal machine so the vpn and torrent do their thing while you do whatever else you want on your PC, or setting up a docker Servarr stack to make things more convenient, or setting up a Raspberry pi / other device as a servarr stack. But for the basics all you need is a torrent client, a VPN and a Web browser.

    All the extra advanced stuff is just quality of life, like being able to leave it downloading securely 24hours a day or organising your downloads better.



  • This is a combination of terrible legislation in the UK meets awful social media site.

    The Online Safety Act is an abomination, compromising the privacy and freedom of the vast majority of the UK in the name of “protecting children”.

    I’m of the view parents are responsible for protecting their children. I know it’s hard but the Online Safety Act is not a solution.

    All it will.do is compromise the privacy and security of law abiding adults while kids will still access porn and all the other really bad stuff on the Internet will actually be unaffected. The dark illegal shit on the Internet is not happening on Pornhub or Reddit.

    The UK is gradually sliding further and further into censorship, and authoritarianism and all the in the name of do gooders. It’s scary to watch.



  • That link is for Piefed.world; run by the same team that run Lemmy.world

    There are other piefed servers which may have different email requirements. But the most likely reason Piefed.world requires real emails is to prevent bots making fake accounts and also reduce the risk of bad actors making numerous accounts to avoid bans. As it’s hard to get multiple real emails it makes it hard to make multiple anonymous accounts which is unfortunately a tactic of trolls.

    You can of course create a dedicated “private” email account on an official service and use that to sign up if you’re worried about sharing your primary email account. A lot of people do this online to have a legitimate email but essentially in it’s own silo separate from other personal emails.