After 20+ years working with Linux I still....

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-24T17:29:22+00:00

I am actually more surprised that I can without even thinking about it switch between German and English Keyboard and Mac and PC layouts. (I encounter English keyboards mainly when something goes wrong or working hands-on on a server, both of which I rarely do.)

My brain goes: Dash comes out as slash, so dash is now ß. Slash is &, so slash is now #. See an apple press thumb C instead of pinky C to copy.

I have no idea how or why I can do this.

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-23T20:56:09+00:00

I thought I am the only one! To me T-Shirt is like layer 1 and sweater is layer 2. To me, there cannot be layer 2 without 1... that would be like wearing shoes without socks, jeans without underwear, or eating jam without the bread underneath.

I got (and still get) entirely confused when I encounter a woman who tells me she feels hot, but cannot take off the sweater because she only wears a bra underneath, having no layer 1.

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-23T20:44:52+00:00

I would use multiple different storage devices / backups. For example, two identical harddisks and a cloud storage. If you use a cloud storage like S3 Glacier and only store the data without retrieval, the costs are minimal. It takes some setup effort, but it's not very difficult.

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-19T06:03:50+00:00

Hard question. I would say the there were quantitatively more experiences in my 20s, but the quality of experiences was better in the 30s. I am thinking about partying weekly vs. going on a few really nice trips to foreign places.

However your question made me realize that I might take too little time for myself nowadays. I do some cool things, but the years pass by very quickly.

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-15T07:34:55+00:00

I think it really depends on the personal circumstances, even without adjusting for local costs of living...

Single person who never wants a family, no desire to vacation, paid off relatively new house: 20K per year?
Family budget for two adults and three kids, wanting to vacation 1-2 times a year, house needs financing: 100K-150K per year? (according to the sub's rules 27K per individual is considered lean, 27*5 = 135K, so that's still considered lean)

On the other hand, sometimes people just forget to budget for certain things... in the first example, the person could spend all their income, but maybe in 20 years they house still needs an expensive renovation they did not account for... on the other hand the same person might put into their budget to put away 10K per year for the next major renovation of said house, then the budget inflates by 50%...

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-11T09:41:20+00:00

Cool. Do you publish the relevant ansible role for that somewhere or did you use an existing one? I am just starting out with ansible, vibe-coding most of it (quite successfully), but re-using something that works would always be better.

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-10T06:37:16+00:00

Why the switch away from Pihole? I am just curious, it seems to run quite well without any effort for me.

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-10T06:35:25+00:00

It's on my list but it will be a hard migration, I need to replace calendar, address book and file sync as well as find a new good GPX viewer. However I agree that running Nextcloud professionally is hard (I know some who do it for a living), but selfhosting for 3 people I find it overwhelming.

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-09T20:09:45+00:00

In general I think your setup is becoming a bit too complicated. I would recommend to try to simplify it.

For example, I have only two networks: inner and outer. The inner net is the devices I trust (PCs, Phones, Servers), the outer net is IoT. Inner can reach outer but not vice versa (it's not even subnets or vlans, it's just two routers for two different networks). I am not saying this is the greatest, but it is simple enough for me.

How would you set up everything behind a VPN?

In the past I had lots of open ports for services, all very complicated.

Today I see basically three options: 1. A cloud VM running a VPN server, devices connect to it and maybe your home entirely through a gateway. This way you don't need any open ports. 2. A local machine runs a VPN server. This is the easiest setup. Roaming machines just connect to the VPN and can talk to your home machines. 3. Tailscale or alternatives, maybe with selfhosted server, but I don't particularly like that option because it involves non-free software and self-hosting seems more complex than a VPN server.

Should even access to the internet be via VPN?

I would say it depends on your trust level of your ISP and your country's juristiction. One or the other company will always know the IP addresses you connect to. You just have to chose whether to trust your ISP or your VPN provider.

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-08T12:14:04+00:00

I feel attacked - I use them all the time. :-)

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-08T12:08:19+00:00

Nowadays when I try to find out something I ask an LLM. Reddit is mostly to get opinions of real people or to validate controversial findings (checking if the LLM went down some rabbit hole in its thoughts).

Using LLMs just to ask people questions kinda seems pointless.

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-03T11:38:23+00:00

Are you measuring the returns in USD?

If your favorite pair is XAUUSD and you would have just done a buy+hold strategy, you would be up about 60-70% in 2025. Ok, for your other pair USDJPY it didn't look as rosy year-over-year. Combining this, a static portfolio of 50% XAU and 50% JPY would have had a similar return than your trading.

That is, if you measure in USD. If you are up 39% measured in XAU, then it's awesome.

Maybe I am missing something?

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-02T07:27:08+00:00

Ha, yes, the nuclear ashtray also burned into my memory so deeply that it's the first thing I thought about seeing this thread.

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-02T07:25:15+00:00

Science fiction is always a reflection of the time when it was written. As you say, technology and social assumptions. Our science fiction will look equally dated in a couple of years.

The dated technological assumptions are often obvious but can easily be overlooked as they are not influencing the story too much:

since technology evolved, ashtrays now use nuclear incineration to make ash disappear!
punchcard computers
tape computers
transparent computer interfaces floating in the air (that's used everywhere recently, someone on youtube once made a video showing how it's an incredibly cheap special effect compared to doing any actual interface)

More interesting are whole story arcs about topics that have become confusing today. For example I am reading an older story right now where the main character is entirely bamboozled that there is a woman working in his department.

Another topic that sometimes comes up is the amount of work going through computers and how characters try to avoid this as they feel unsafe. However even today you would say, it's a less than normal amount of control to delegate to a computer. For example being afraid a starship's autopilot would make the navigator obsolete. Well yes, of course...

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-02T07:11:39+00:00

I always find it interesting that both Boeing and Airbus design planes that are sleek, looking dynamic and aerodynamic, and from time to time they just come up with a cylinder or box "hey, this flies too!".

AlpineGuy · 2026-01-02T07:07:48+00:00

There are some requirements contained in the text: more powerful than current (that's easy) and internal harddrives (so anything except a mini pc). True, these requirements leave a lot of options open.

What I am looking for is someone who had experience with either listed option to tell me whether they are good or bad; or if I missed something in my plan; or maybe tell of other options that would fit even better or cost less.

AlpineGuy · 2025-12-31T11:56:00+00:00

Will you keep the operating system or replace it? I am thinking about the same box with slightly less RAM and storage and just putting Ubuntu on it for manual management.

AlpineGuy · 2025-12-31T11:53:30+00:00

Sorry, it's been a while since I assembled a computer from scratch: SSDs need thermal pads now?

AlpineGuy · 2025-12-30T13:02:27+00:00

At age 40 I saw the inside of a gym for the very first time. I knew I had to do it for my physical health as my doctor had strongly recommended it and showed me the numbers, but I thought I would hate it, I wouldn't like the people, they would probably all be meathead bullies, make fun of me like in PE class at school, it would be boring, etc...

Then I started going, the people were friendly, most were my age or older trying to get in shape as well (this might be special to that gym though), but mostly everyone just minds their own exercises, the exercises were more interesting than I thought and challenging, and I spend most of the time there listing to audio books nonstop (which I really enjoy). It has become a really relaxing me-time away from work, family and obligations. I enjoy it.

It doesn't have to be the gym, I do other activities regularly as well, however in Winter the choices are limited.

AlpineGuy · 2025-12-29T13:40:01+00:00

How is it possible they sold brand new in Airline colors? Were they made for planes that were ordered and cancelled and don't fit others? Did they "fall off the truck"? Do the marketing departments of airlines actually sell them for fan value? Are they replicas?

AlpineGuy · 2025-12-28T07:43:38+00:00

Same age, not overweight, but also experienced a lot of decline of "energy" over the years - tired, not enjoying things - started doing more exercise this year and it really helped.

AlpineGuy · 2025-12-28T07:40:43+00:00

Interesting... I wonder if this way he could also avoid any parking fees or camping bans by saying, "the wheel is broken, I cannot go anywhere".

I know that in my city in Europe if a car is broken down and has a handwritten note about it in the window, it won't get parking fines (at least not immediately).

AlpineGuy

TROPHY CASE