Boss makes a billi

I’ll die a renter

Drive company vans

Through his data center

What are your other hobbies/interests? What are some things you’re completely uninterested in but it’s annoying shit you would really like a better way of handling? Got some answers? Now check the awesome self hosted page to see if there are any existing solutions that look promising. If so, now you know at least some things to host.

How to go about it? When I started I was an idiot kid, on Windows ninety-something (or maybe ME), running Apache, MySQL and phpBB. Copy-pasting snippets in Notepad and not comprehending everything. I found desktop Linux later, learned about init systems, watched that go out the window with systemd, etc. I was installing Ubuntu on every beige clunker I could get my hands on back when the Beryl (Compiz) cube desktop video went semi-viral. Eventually moved on to Arch, learned more about CLI tools, editing configs, etc. If you have something that can host VMs, and you want to play with mock bare-metal setups where you create the users, directories, set permissions, blah blah blah - VMs aren’t a bad way to go. It’s good stuff to learn and know. Gives you an excuse to play with tmux’s synchronized input feature, maybe learn some Ansible, and whatever else. If you just have one dust collector sitting around, start trying distros on it. Mess with stuff til it breaks, boot into install/recovery media and try to unbreak it, repeat. As long as it’s fun (or tolerably annoying enough to reach some end goal).

I’ve personally gotten lazy and I’m nearly all-in on containers. A few things are manual but I’ve come to like Docker. I do still manage mine with compose files, even on my TrueNAS system with their “apps,” because compose files are easy to read, keep track of, and modify. My non-TrueNAS machines, I use Docker + Portainer. I should maybe look into podman and quadlets but haven’t bothered yet.

My recent hardware went from RPi4B to Thinkcentre mini PC to building out a 2U TrueNAS system. A PoE switch powers a Home Assistant Yellow and a few cameras. The RPi was repurposed to only host Homepage, NUT (server, watches my UPS and tells more power hungry machines to shut down during outages) and might eventually host Grafana if I ever get into learning it. Another 4B is my Pi-Hole. The Thinkcentre has an 8TB external plugged in and scheduled rsync tasks, on the TrueNAS machine, push back ups of my more important files to it. It also has a couple users set up strictly for running game servers (ioquake and teeworlds at the moment). Those aren’t containerized and things like rcon, config management, map rotation, mods, etc are all handled manually.

TrueNAS hosts everything else. If you need ideas based on what others are hosting, here’s some of what is on it:

• Jellyfin, for TA (see below) and my legally obtained DVD backups.
• TubeArchivist, (TA) for backing up YouTube videos, descriptions, comments. Has a Jellyfin plugin so your backup library is watchable in JF
• Homebox, for home inventory management. I use it to keep track of my tools mostly. You can have locations, sub locations, items… if I pull a rail of sockets, stick them in my toolbag, then carry it out to the shed - so long as I bothered to update their locations in Homebox I won’t waste time digging in the back of my truck, tool chest or other bags because I can’t remember where I last used my 1/2" drive 14mm deep impact. It’s a mildly inconvenient extra step to essentially “check in/out” my own tools, as if I’m working in an aircraft hangar or I’m doing IT asset management, but I find it worth it.
• LubeLogger, for keeping track of vehicle service. Early this year I put a lot of money into fixing my truck. A lot of tools, fluids, and parts to handle a broken water pump and do some preventative maintenance. Still a quarter of what a shop might’ve charged. Since I’m becoming my own mechanic, I wanted something to properly record what I do and how much I spend on it. LubeLogger fits the bill.
• Factorio, for the factory must grow.
• Dawarich, self hosted GPS logs. Seems decent but I might shop around still. I just wanted an alternative to Google Maps for tracking my travel history.
• Audiobookshelf, for some audiobooks but mainly for archiving a small handful of podcasts.
• Romm, because I’m compelled to hoard old games and occasionally even play them.
• Immich, because I’m not paying Google to store my photos.
• FreshRSS, because there’s still a dwindling number of sites that don’t force you to visit them to read an article in its entirety. Mainly for Hack A Day, a couple devlogs from game makers, the latest CVEs, some global news sites, NASA’s “Astronomy Picture of the Day” (APOD), etc.
• Samba, for some SMB shares that family can dump files into
• ClamAV, because family is dumping files into their SMB shares

I’m looking at hosting lemon-manuals (successor to charm.li). It’s basically a massive collection of service procedures, bulletins, fluid/torque/etc specs, and so on for decades worth of automobiles. Stuff the industry would like to force you into paying AllData, Identifix, or whoever for. I just haven’t had a chance to review their provided “server.” It’s also over 1TB. It’s overkill when I’m only working on three vehicles (mine and my folks’) but I’d like to have it all in case an auto industry lawyer tries to shut them down or i inevitably get a new set of wheels.

I’ve also got intentions of implementing some sort of documentation system but I haven’t settled on one yet. It’s not really for me. I can read my configs and go off plain text. Mainly it needs to be simple enough for my family to work with. My homelab has a bus factor of Me. Whoever has to deal with it when I’m gone needs to know enough to retrieve my encrypted password database so they can get into my emails/bank account to cancel/pay for things or whatever, back up any media of mine they want to keep, back up their own stuff, probably some instructions on how to burn their shows/movies/music back to discs, and shut everything down. Because one day things will break, servers they don’t understand will have failures, they’ll sell the hardware or give it away to designated friends/family members who can hopefully use it… all that unhappy stuff most of us don’t think about until it happens. In fact some sort of contingency plan should probably have been the first thing I recommended, but with some luck you’ve read this far and will put your own into place.

Anyway, hopefully something in the above rambling helps you on your way.

Fail secure sounds good but now you also need to consider how quickly the brakes engage. Don’t want some random electrical hiccup locking up your brakes mid curve while you’re three-wide doing 70 on an interstate. Slowly draining capacitors or whatever to gradually engage them might be an option. Then you also, preferably, need some means of physically disengaging them. Otherwise you’re gonna get disabled vehicles in the middle of roadways that have to be dragged up onto flatbeds or the side of the road because the wheels won’t roll without restoring brake power first.

The actual article title is only slightly more decipherable. Meta hired a company, which employs a number of people in Kenya, to review videos recorded by Meta’s AI/Smart glasses. The employees were to provide manual annotations to the videos in order to train Meta’s AI. Meta terminated the arrangement stating expectations weren’t met. The employees of the firm claim they had to review obscene or intimate content. Examples mentioned include a man leaving his glasses on, on a nightstand, where his wife later came in an undressed, instances of glasses wearers engaged in intercourse, etc.

So 1100 people are out of work. Meta says they axed them for poor performance/redundancy. The company says “that’s bull” and it’s because employees raised awareness about what was being recorded.

Sucks for the folks out of work. With regard to the users, I personally can’t feel bad for anyone who willingly brings a Meta device into their home or who uses their apps. As for third parties, who don’t want to find themselves part of a porno they didn’t agree to star in, I guess people need to add “glasses go in the drawer” to their pre-coitus checklist. Maybe just file all Facebook and Insta users under “unfuckable” and call it a day.

Facial recognition is just one way to begin or build upon a profile, but there are others. Cameras would also be looking for things like specific brands of clothing being worn. Raggedy, no-name work shirt? You get a pass. $80 Carhartt jacket? Maybe we add a buck fifty onto that tub of Folgers you rely on to get through the day. Wearing the latest $300 T-shirt drop from the Foofoo X MTBLZ brokemaxxing collab? Hell, I’d personally wanna charge you extra on principle.

Even without cameras and their “AI” trying to gauge your wealth, past purchases can just as easily be associated with the credit/debit cards used to pay for them in order to build a profile. If they know what you regularly buy they can start nickel and dime’ing those things to test the limits of what you’re willing to spend. I feel like I also heard about some stores using Bluetooth or NFC triangulation. So your phone, smart watch, fitness tracker, etc could essentially serve as their means to watch you movements. They know the moment you entered, how long you lingered in a specific spot in any given aisle, and what register you checked out at. Now there’s a profile for those devices. Paid with debit/credit again? Then those devices and the purchasing method are connected and the overall profile has grown.

I’m kind of curious how much longer places are going to accept cash. It’s anecdotal but, from grocers to department stores, there never seems to be more than a single staffed checkout lane around here anymore. Then, of course, the self checkouts don’t accept cash (or the few that do seem to always be out of service). Probably equal parts “we don’t want to pay more employees” and “we want your data” motivating that shift.

We’re decades into dystopian already.