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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 4th, 2023

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  • Ed is getting good at lobbing these darts at hype bubbles.

    The thing that this writeup ignores is that the object isn’t to show short-term revenue, but to put all competitors out of business, be the last one standing, and create a monopoly. Either that or get bought out so the investors can move on to the next thing. But at $150B valuation, only MSFT or Nvidia can afford to buy them outright.

    Google, Meta, and Amazon burned through cash for years, but they eventually outran all competition and then monetized the users who had nowhere else to go.





  • fubarx@lemmy.mltoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldStay frosty
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    1 month ago

    Was in a ‘modern’ hotel recently. Hardwood floors, fresh paint, and warm embedded light fixtures.

    Went to look for a thermostat. Nope. One of these AC/heater units. It was all analog, twisty knobs, faded labels, easily from the 1970s. Two options: regular, and high.

    It was fine, but pretty obvious the remo budget had run out.





  • fubarx@lemmy.mltoMemes@lemmy.mlAI bros
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    2 months ago

    I actually like it when these code helpers guess from one line what the rest should be and suggest it. It’s even more fun when it keeps guessing and the suggestions get progressively more whacky. Then they just start making completely unrelated shit up.

    Once you say no, it goes back to the beginning and meekly repeats the very first suggestion, like a scolded puppy.



  • fubarx@lemmy.mltoNonCredibleDefense@sh.itjust.worksBallin' on a budget
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    2 months ago

    Translation (as near as I could figure out):

    “Inexpensive PASGT (Personnel Armour System for Ground Troops) helmet with dyed, surplus camouflage cover and a used Yukon Gen1 Night Vision Goggle held on with GoPro parts (likely the curved attachment and maybe even the overhead clips), and an extra mount.”

    Definitely a case of: “if you have to ask, you don’t want it.”

    Also, the Yukon Gen 1 seems to be discontinued (most of the reviews are 12+ years old) but new units run $2-5K.




  • I have a closet full of old routers (including Linksys), extenders, and switches to be able to handle dead spots. They all sucked. Then I heard about mesh routers when they first came out. Tried two, saw that they worked well, and got a third one. A few months later, a new ISP showed up in our neighborhood with unmetered Gig fiber and I happily drop-kicked Comcast to the curb. It was gratifying that the fiber connection came with a single mesh device of the same brand I already had. Since then, I’ve upgraded to the next-gen routers, and gotten a few smaller ‘wall-wart’ units for extending the range outdoors.

    I don’t really have to fuss with configurations like I had to before. It’s amazing how much of a time drain it was to go screw around with settings when a new device came in that didn’t work, or to replace a router when one died. I haven’t had to do anything in years. Every once in a while, I go set up a DHCP reservation but that’s it. The firmware updates auto-install while everyone’s asleep and I get pretty decent bandwidth in places I had constant dropoffs. When I switched out the actual routers to the new gen, the whole thing took 10m and the whole network was down for maybe 2m while the new ones booted up. No end devices had to be modified or restarted.

    Where the fiber comes in, there’s a single router node, with two Ethernet ports. One goes to the fiber ONT, the other to a 10-port gig switch where it feeds the rest of wired setups. Elsewhere, the farthest mesh unit has no incoming physical connection, but a small wired switch connected to other wired devices near there. I didn’t have to make any router configuration settings to make this work. Just plugged it all in. Common devices go on the main network, and janky IOT devices (and visitors) go on the guest network.

    For external access for self-hosting, you can take a domain name and set up a free Cloudflare tunnel to access your in-home services remotely. Pay Cloudflare a fee and you get extra rules-based access control. The router also has a premium service where it comes with a family bundle of security software. One other thing I like is that the mobile app sends a notification whenever a new device joins the network, so if I see one I don’t recognize, I can block them. Hasn’t happened yet, but if it does, I’ll know to go rotate the wifi passwords.

    Anyway, highly recommend mesh routers. I happened to get Eeros (before they were acquired) but there are a few other brands around. Some people don’t like that Amazon bought eero, but they appear to be left to run as an independent outfit. It has been pretty solid so far.

    P.S. A friend with a more complicated setup than mine got Ubiquitis. It’s anecdotal, but he recently asked about switching away and I told him pretty much what I’ve written here. YMMV.

    Edit: checked back with friend. He said he was very happy with his Ubiquiti gear. I mixed up his review from years ago with another friend’s networking setup.