When it comes to builds my mentality is “save shit from the landfill and spend as little as possible” haha

I feel like there is always a push for consumerism in (basically anything, but especially this) space. You’ll read forums and watch youtube videos that show dumb nerds with sponsorships doing a build with an $1800 budget and for what? Running a nas? Jellyfin? Caldav? This stuff doesn’t take a ton of overhead

If you’re running 5 concurrent users with 2-3 transcoding quicksync should handle that. Research this more but in my experience it works fine. For reference my library is all extremely high quality either 1080 remux or 4k remux with hdr/dv whenever possible (so tonemapping is required) and lossless audio (dts-hd, atmos, etc). If your library is like mine this bumps things up a bit and will use more cores - quicksync will handle the video fine but cores will be needed for the audio and the tonemapping of hdr/dv layer. Additionally if you’re like me and have a ton of anime (or just someone who likes subtitles) another core gets taken to burn those in. For my library with 2-3 users this is fine, could probably even handle 1-2 more (maybe, depends on what they watch).

This is where scalability comes in. Pick a case and psu where you have the option for a discrete gpu if it ever becomes necessary. You extend to 15 users or decide you want to run deepseek locally? Picking a motherboard with an extra PCIE x16 slot is helpful. since you’re offloading NAS to the synology you can just get a motherboard with a pcie slot, though getting one with multiple opens the option that down the line you could add an HBA and a second array should the synology run out of space. Again, depends on your long term plans

Look on marketplace, Craigslist, eBay, etc for older hardware. Full desktops use a lot of power, which sucks, but the advantage for you is that they are expensive to ship so they can get sold a bit cheaper sometimes. Sort by distance and filter by used

Read truenas, unraid, proxmox, serve the home forums for lots of info on example builds too. But don’t worry too much about getting it perfect. Remember it can always be a little better (or a lot better) but most of the time the extra power is just going to waste your money. Unless you specifically have a need for like multiple VMs at once, serious LLM stuff, etc something seriously demanding like that?

No way. Do you buy produce? At least around me the produce in supermarkets is absolutely garbage and it has been for quite some time. This predates trump. I’m not talking about “oh they put out the ugly onions jeez” I’m talking flavorless, mushy, literal moldy and rotting sometimes.

Alternatively you can go to the farmers market. It’s only open on Saturday from 9-1, convenient, and costs 30-40% more, but your food isn’t flavorless mush at least that rots within 3 days because they aren’t rotating stock anymore. But even the options here aren’t as good as they were

Global warming will continue to devastate supply chains and make food worse and worse until we finally have to just eat literal slop that has barely any nutrients and was imported from halfway across the world

This makes sense

No sense in getting rid of hardware that is working. I’m not familiar with ersatztv but for all the other stuff I am able to handily run it on a 10th gen intel build that is also handling nas duties fwiw. And some stuff is not ideal (cctv is handled via blue iris, which runs in windows VM, everything else is docker)

for the gpu it really depends on your needs. How many users is the big one. If you have at most 2-4 concurrent users and that is an uncommon scenario the gpu is a waste of power, money, and thermal management. Igpu will sip power and transcode (depending on library content, again av1/vp9 on a 10th gen isn’t happening) with that user load assuming you have a decent amount of ram (I have 32gb so you don’t need absurd amounts).

However if you have a lot of users hitting you, 5-6+ or more concurrent streams that all transcode, then you need to start evaluating a discrete gpu (and maybe a significant internet connection bc damn). Alternatively you can suggest your users get something like a ugoos am6b+ flashed with coreelec or a similar setup that can just direct play basically anything but that’s a bit challenging to setup

So then it may be as simple as buying some e waste pc to use a server and using the nas as its intended purpose. Frankly this is probably better, it’s worse power wise but having the storage separate from services has advantages

Define goals. What services can’t be handled?

If transcoding is a goal build around intel. Quicksync video is a no brainer, imo. GPU is unnecessary power draw (15-25w+ idle depending on card) and waste of a pcie slot unless you want to do LLM stuff. Imo 10th gen intel is the sweet spot for quicksync unless you desperately need av1/vp9. If so then you need much more expensive 13/14 gen, which use more power and have more considerations for thermal management

OS is an endless debate. Proxmox is fine and free, why not try it? Unraid is easier to get your bearings but it does cost money. Debian is also free but a bit more confusing because not purpose built. Truenas as well. All can do containers and VMs, but approach in different ways. None is “best” but some are more “free” which is nice

CPU specs are dependent on goals. For transcoding as said above quicksync is necessary and is so impressive. I can transcode a 4k remux to one device while transcoding a 1080 remux to another and direct playing a 4k remux and cpu sits under 25% load on Xeon equivalent of 10700. You don’t need a Xeon btw, I just got a great deal where this was $50 (see next point). Otherwise specs depend wildly on what you plan to do. I can run windows VMs pretty well with this though for the handful of times I need a windows machine

Prebuilt is a waste. Used hardware is cheap and gives more options and can plan more. What are you willing to buy now and what do you eventually want? My NAS started as a 36tb array with 16gb ram and no cache, now it’s 234tb and 4tb cache with 32gb ecc ram years later. Slowly building up was easier on wallet and used hardware, refurb drives, etc is 100% the build. Your goals will likely vary but figure out your roadmap and go from there

Also keep in mind that not every service benefits from running on a NAS. My homeassistant server is run on a raspberry pi for example. Easier to keep it segregated and don’t have to worry about getting zwave/zigbee/mqtt/etc all working with a docker plus dealing with any server downtime impacting home. Tbf literally everything else is run on the nas though haha

I’ve been happy with reolink cameras fwiw though not 100% so. They do have some nonsense though

I also prefer Lutron Caseta for lighting. It’s fairly bulletproof (I’ve literally never had any connectivity issues in like 6+ years) and they haven’t pulled any tos nonsense as far as I know. Downside is pricey and the install is more complex than typical iot stuff. And while they can control outlets they are only rated for 10A lighting so keep that in mind.

The only internet requirement for both of these (not always with reolink I think but at least with the cameras I have) is that you have to allow internet once during initial setup to pair devices. Once that is done you can remove internet access and delete the app

The common thread with these is wired too. The further along I go the more I realize that 2.4ghz WiFi iot shit is garbage. going from WiFi cameras that had privacy concerns and disconnected to local only poe cameras that just work was very nice. Learn from my mistake, don’t buy bullshit eufy cameras that you then have to sell at a loss.

And for your own sanity don’t try to get smart smoke detectors. Your options are either Google/nest that apparently does work well (never tried it, fuck Google), the new kidde that is built into amazons ring platform (never tried it, fuck amazon, plus the preceding model had awful reviews), or the new firstalert that is replacing the Google/nest (again, fuck Google, but I did try the preceeding first alert and it was atrociously bad).

I mention this because this brings up a key issue with regulatory compliance in the US (and probably EU, dunno). You can also try a number of off brand detectors as well that apparently work a lot better. If you search amazon for smart detectors you’ll see stuff like x sense and these apparently have somewhat solid reviews and work okay (though getting them to work in HA is mixed).

However, what amazon fails to mention is that these types of detectors have not been submitted for regulatory compliance in the US (unlike Kidde, firstalert, etc that you’d find at a home depot). They “meet UL requirements” but they have not been submitted for testing so they cannot print the UL logo on the box (legally) but they can write “meets UL requirements”, which is misleading. Fuck amazon and fuck the us government for giving them no culpability in selling obscenely dangerous bullshit

This means if you use these and your house burns down your insurance could technically nullify your policy for not having adequate protection. Or they could not work and you could die, of course

There are smart relays you can tie into an interconnected smoke detector circuit using normal smoke detectors that are appropriately rated if you do want alerts on your phone. There are also device that will listen for chirps but these get false positives

you’re right, my bad

This has been my approach and it has gone okay so far except for 2 issues that are quite a pain:

1: you have to thoroughly research what you buy. Does it work on an isolated vlan? Just because it works with home assistant does not guarantee this. Many home assistant users are comfortable with some degree of data collection and an integration does not mean that it will work local only (nor does it mean that all features will work). If it does work local only you may sacrifice some features. Cameras are a good example. Most cameras with object/person detection do this in hardware, but not all. If you circumvent the Internet connection and proprietary app you may sacrifice this, or more likely alerts

2: there is 0 regulation binding a vendor to the terms of service agreed to at the point of sale, including making significant and sweeping changes. Case in point: I got a chamberlain myQ garage door opener. It worked well and opened my garage door. Integrated with home assistant via the API. However, chamberlain serves a lot of ads for upsells and services via their shitty app. They decided that users circumventing the app and not seeing that you could give amazon drivers access to your garage to deliver packages (seriously) or buy shitty cameras was unacceptable so they updated the TOS and revoked API access for all users. The only way it works now is via their app. I sold mine and built a ratgdo

Another example is Philips hue: while they have been able to be used local only for over a decade Philips has decided they’re going to start a subscription security service with all the devices that entails based around the hue hub. At some point in the near future if your hub updates it will require you to sign in to a Philips account and be online. This one’s way worse as some people have thousands of dollars invested in hue. I have like $300 in the fancier white hue bulbs but some people on the HA forums and reddit literally have their house decked out with like 80-100 bulbs, many of which are the RGB. Kind of silly but they do work very well, flicker free, good color, and last ages. I still have some from like 2016 going strong. Luckily here if you have the bridge on an isolated vlan it won’t update and worst case the bulbs work with zwave zigbee but the principle of the thing is ridiculous. It should be illegal for a company to change the terms this far after the contract of sale

Other examples too. Many car manufacturers (Mazda, Chevrolet, ford) because api access limited data collection for them to sell, some companies are openly hostile to home assistant and when an integration is created they will go out of their way to break it (Ariston, bambu), etc. see https://github.com/unixorn/internet-of-trash

Personality, in short, is consistent patterns of behavior that exist across time and context. Someone “extroverted” will consistently explore new environments, while someone shy will avoid them

There have been studies that show insects display some aspects of personality

They sometimes do make good on their threats and the wealth concentrated in the northeast is absurd enough to make a significant difference at times

David Tepper (hedge fund manager, net worth 11.4 billion, extreme income of $700 million per year) left New Jersey in 2016 over tax rates for Florida.

His move cost the state $140 million in tax revenue. It wasn’t enough to destroy the state obviously, but it was a noticeable hit to revenues. It also gave media great PR against taxing the wealthy

https://www.schiffsovereign.com/tax/the-state-of-new-jersey-just-signed-its-own-death-warrant-23939/ headline is literally “New Jersey just signed its own death warrant”

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2016/04/06/billionaire-to-save-hundreds-of-millions-from-florida-move.html “billionaire to save hundreds of millions from Florida move”

Etc. of course in our propagandized society very few/no media outlets focus on him paying his fair share (or the ethics of his extreme wealth in the first place). They all fellate him for being such a savvy businessman and skipping out on his civic duty is an extension of that. Fuck public roads and schools, this guy needs a net worth of 11.48 billion instead of 11.42.

He eventually relocated back to NJ in 2020 fwiw. He claims the move wasn’t necessarily about taxes and tbf he never publicly said it was. It is potentially possible he just had a family issue or something and the media ran with to propagandize the situation. he remains a registered voter in Florida, whatever that means

Imo he came back bc he realized the northeast is great. It’s nice to visit the rest of the country but if you live in the rest of the country I’m sorry to say this but your pizza is terrible

This is the case for me. Code, serious research, writing music, long posting, blogs, making videos, working on any kind of maker stuff (pcbs, cad/3d print, etc), all pc/laptop

Browsing lemmy/youtube/blogs/reading/etc? Phone or ereader for the last one.

It helps me track mindless consumption, at least. I don’t have ad free youtube on my computers and I much prefer to browse sites like lemmy on mobile apps so I can see when I’ve gone a bit too hard on consuming over creating

I also think this is part of why the internet sucks now. The corporatization is the bigger reason by far but at least some part of it is a huge part of users (globally mobile users overtook desktop in 2016 and it continues to climb, ~ 64% of Internet users globally are mobile and that number is as high as 75% in some countries like Africa and 95% of users being on mobile devices at least some of the time). It leads to a much larger user base but a userbase that is passively consuming. Even commenting has been reduced to reactions and likes

I’m not claiming to know everything nor am I claiming the the “snark” (terrible word) against the fox lady was justified.

From what I saw of the accusations it was all hearsay, basically a bunch of out of context text screenshots from random people who I had no context for. Maybe they were meaningful, or maybe they had an agenda against her, I don’t know. What I do know is that a collection of easily faked evidence coming from a reddit hate sub that is not exactly damning evidence. Plus I don’t mean to sound callous but it frankly doesn’t really matter at this point. She is gone, even if it 100% true the issue is over.

From what I saw of the reddit guy (note, this is confusing if you read because many people will purposely misgender him) getting trashed he basically posted a list of said “evidence” to bring it to light because he is sympathetic to animals and maybe a bit too into internet drama. From what I’ve seen there is no evidence he did anything other than this, have a huge online footprint that made him extremely easy to be doxxed, and be trans.

So essentially you have a fox lady who may or may not have run an animal rescue very poorly and regardless of whether this was true probably got shit on a lot because she was popular online and did things like onlyfans. Then she committed suicide and some people are co-opting that tragedy because they found one target who is mildly associated with the backlash against the fox lady and happens to be trans which means they can potentially bully a trans person into suicide.

If you have the resilience to do so I recommend reading the soyjack thread. Those people are disgusting and their intentions are clear. They use hate speech constantly with the standard slurs you’d expect for transgender people, mockingly using neopronouns, talking about him “roping” and “41%ing”, etc. this is not hidden away on tor or conjecture. This is happening to a teenager on the clearnet right now. It is not good for your mental health but it is important to see how this unfolds to learn how they twist the narrative. They are posting as him on reddit and bluesky right now and laughing in the thread about how they are trolling him.

I don’t know how I feel about this

I was interested in this beyond the headline and read about it for 20 minutes or so. I have never heard of anyone involved in this

From what I read this person you cited claims to have compiled some (somewhat dubious but lengthy) information that the deceased was at least neglectful of the many animals they were raising and then posted it. They claimed that was all they did

Reddit had a snark subreddit but it’s impossible to see if said user was very active on the sub bc it’s obviously private now

That said soyjack.party is dogpiling on the user you’ve mentioned. They’ve doxed him, they are creating pseudo bluesky accounts under his real name to slander him and make people think he is goading people, contacting workplace and parents, etc. it seems motivated partially because some of their users loved the fox lady but a number of users also seem to think the fox lady was “a degenerate” and the reddit users claims were valid, but happily join in simply because the reddit user is trans

https://www.soyjak.st/raid/thread/194610.html#195569 (a great deal of hate speech here fyi)

This whole thing stinks and appears to be co-opted by very hateful people who intend to cause someone else to commit suicide, basically

The inherent problem with this is that charity should be something guided by community consensus and expert opinion, not at the whim of an oligarch (who is primarily funneling money into his own foundation). Imagine if that money went into fair worker pay and then was taxed appropriately, where it could then be used for outreach programs, grants, funding ngos, etc dictated by political means rather than having some pseudo king having to decide your cause is worthy. granted in our current climate the political means are rotten but if we had an equitable system that didn’t allow for bill gates to exist we would hopefully have a better framework for this part too.

Also will take the time to point out that for all of his “charity” his net worth has, for the most part, stayed the same or increased throughout the years. Something tells me his kids will have still have obscene generational wealth

Fair question, I should’ve expanded. To clarify I think it is helpful and good to divert something that was going to be trashed anyway and resell it for a fair price based on your labor to restore it. I actually think it is important. Most of what I do is stuff that people were literally going to trash and while I do earn a decent amount I sell the stuff for fair prices, usually at least 30-40% off of retail

I think it is scummy to merely act as a middle person that artificially buys up supply and then resells at artificially high values (eg consoles, Pokémon cards, sneakers, etc). Scalping, basically

Well then the skies your limit, you just have to get good enough at something.

I could never get good enough at the creative stuff to justify that. I love music and write my own stuff but I’m not nearly good enough for that. It takes me like 2 weeks to write one song. My friend that writes beats will bust one out in like 40 minutes and can basically do whatever. You want reggaeton? Sure

But I buy up broken shit and resell it. You spilled a drink on your macbook? You broke the hdmi/usbc on your console? Your graphics card died? I will swoop in and lowball you since I know you’re gonna throw it away if I don’t buy it. I take on a lot of risk because a lot of things either can’t be fixed or aren’t economically viable to fix but at the same time I also often pay like $1-200 for a ps5 and resell it for $400 refurbished with like 2 hours of work and $10 of parts so it balances out. Graphics cards are the worst ones tbh, the risk:reward is too high. I get a ton that are just fucked and are parts boards but every once in a while I get a repairable one and then it’s a $5-600 profit or more. I won’t pay more than 2-300 for a dead 4090 because they’re often totally fucked

This is tough without special training or scummy morals

Like you can resell stuff but that’s gross

Crafting is cool but that’s a special skill. I know people that sell crochet, needlepoint, etc

I refurbish electronics but that’s also a special skill, it’s not terribly difficult to learn though and can actually be quite lucrative. Good for the environment too. Buy a switch that someone is just going to throw away, fix it, resell it as refurbished, that kind of thing. This is getting much harder though. Ebay was the primary way to go and they’ve been shifting away from refurbished and used sales a lot over the past few years

I have a friend that does custom artwork for people but that’s a special skill. I have another friend that sells music for people that wants beats but again special skills. Fivver type stuff

Basically a lot of these will be “monetize your hobby”

There’s a huge degree of separation between “violent music/games has a spurious link to violent behavior” and shitty AIs that are good enough to fill the void of someone who is lonely but not good enough to manage risk

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/30/tech/teen-suicide-character-ai-lawsuit

“within months of starting to use the platform, Setzer became “noticeably withdrawn, spent more and more time alone in his bedroom, and began suffering from low self-esteem. He even quit the Junior Varsity basketball team at school,”

“In a later message, Setzer told the bot he “wouldn’t want to die a painful death.”

The bot responded: “Don’t talk that way. That’s not a good reason not to go through with it,” before going on to say, “You can’t do that!”

Garcia said she believes the exchange shows the technology’s shortcomings.

“There were no suicide pop-up boxes that said, ‘If you need help, please call the suicide crisis hotline.’ None of that,” she said. “I don’t understand how a product could allow that, where a bot is not only continuing a conversation about self-harm but also prompting it and kind of directing it.”

The lawsuit claims that “seconds” before Setzer’s death, he exchanged a final set of messages from the bot. “Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love,” the bot said, according to a screenshot included in the complaint.

“What if I told you I could come home right now?” Setzer responded.

“Please do, my sweet king,” the bot responded.

Garcia said police first discovered those messages on her son’s phone, which was lying on the floor of the bathroom where he died.”

So we have a bot that is marketed for chatting, a teenager desperate for socialization that forms a relationship that is inherently parasocial because the other side is an LLM that literally can’t have opinions, it just can appear to, and then we have a terrible mismanagement of suicidal ideation.

The AI discouraged ideation, which is good, but only when it was stated in very explicit terms. What’s appalling is that it gave no crisis resources or escalation to moderation (because like most big tech shit they probably refuse to pay for anywhere near appropriate moderation teams). Then what is inexcusable is that when ideation is discussed with slightly coded language “come home” the AI misconstrues it.

This results in a training opportunity for the language model to learn that in this context with previously exhibited ideation “go home” may mean more severe ideation and danger (if character.AI bothered to update that these conversations resulted in a death). The only drawback of getting that data of course is a few dead teenagers. Gotta break a few eggs to get an omelette

This barely begins to touch on the nature of AI chatbots inherently being parasocial relationships, which is bad for mental health. This is of course not limited to AI, being obsessed with a streamer or whatever is similar, but the AI can be much more intense because it will actually engage with you and is always available.

“Mattel’s first AI product won’t be for kids under 13, suggesting that Mattel is aware of the risks of putting chatbots into the hands of younger tots. … Last year, a 14-year-old boy died by suicide after falling in love with a companion on the Google-backed AI platform Character.AI”

Seems like a great idea

What I mean by this is that while the rhetoric of “this will save you/destroy the world, you are being watched, etc” does exist on the far left there doesn’t appear to be as much escalation to violence, to an extremely significant degree that is observable and measurable. This is not conjecture.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states - 1994-2020 57% of domestic terrorism is right wing, 25% left wing, ~15% religious (which sometimes coincides with right wing but in this dataset is mostly Islamic extremism)

https://extremismterms.adl.org/resources/report/murder-and-extremism-united-states-2020 - right wing accounted for 94% of extremist murders in 2020, and 75% of the extremist murders over the previous decade

https://www.congress.gov/committee-report/116th-congress/house-report/213/1 - 2009-2018 right wing extremists account for 73% of extremist killings, Islamic extremist at 23%, leftist at 2%

Statistics vary depending on source by quite a bit (and time period, violent leftist movements have declined significantly since the 1990s and those were mostly about ecoterrorism rather than communism) but the general consensus is that overwhelmingly right wing extremism escalates these people to extreme violence and murder. This is not conjecture.

Whether leftist movements have a similar number of people with this demeanor, whether those movements target people, etc? Less clear and much harder to quantify

there’s a deeper discussion to be had about schizophrenia and right wing rhetoric in America

This guy was maybe schizophrenic. Maybe a lot of the other right wing people that go to extreme violence to. Not all of course.

It is important to preface this by saying schizophrenia does not make you violent. It actually makes you more likely to be the victim of violence, statistically.

But delusional thinking processes, grandiosity, and religious or political hallucinations are schizophrenia symptoms. Again, these on their own don’t create violence. But delusional thinking processes can and often are shaped but cultural contexts and social narratives.

So dominant political themes - good vs evil, governmental control and surveillance, authoritarian power structures with strong hierarchy, become amplified. Qanon, racial purity, savior complex, etc.

Where this becomes extremely irresponsible is that it’s then very easy for someone who has this line of thought to then enter a place, many places even, where their delusional thought is not only challenged but encouraged. “You are correct, trump will save us, the democrats are going to kill everyone, you are being watched”.

It doesn’t help that government corruption lends credence to validate these delusions in some ways. While you’re not being watched 24/7 there likely is some kind of info on you in a database if you live in America. Whether it’s a social credit score or simply identification (facial recognition, demographics, etc), is unclear, but its increasingly clear this is the case (and more worrying the data is likely held by 3rd party contractors like palantir and amazon)

So then a mass shooting happens and people go thoughts and prayers (except not really anymore) or they say we need better mental health supports (except again not really anymore, we’ve kind of abandoned the song and dance). The improved mental health supports thing is true but that can’t counteract groups that actively seek out people like this. Lonely, isolated, angry, and unstable. They then amplify that persons bullshit by feeding them conspiracy bullshit and every once and a while they pop off

This could happen in a leftist space, the process is the same, but they appear to do a better job of policing themselves or supporting each other when someone is getting too far gone (at least based on the statistics of political violence in the USA).