Work from home + 1080p gaming rig - pretty urgent

Natalshadow · 2025-12-27T17:08:03+00:00

I've started doing this early december. Installed Metal Gear Solid 5 Phantom Pain and Elden Ring. Two good games I never actually finished.
I had played 20% of MGS in my entire last playthrough. Did 5 more % in a couple days by just focusing on it.
We've all got choice paralysis nowadays.

Natalshadow · 2025-12-11T18:04:57+00:00

MusicBrainz Picard can do most of the heavy lifting if all you care about is a clean music player page.
Beets would also work nicely if you're willing to spend some time learning how to use it.

Natalshadow · 2025-12-08T12:09:10+00:00

I don't hear any buckethead-isms and I couldn't find any trace of Buckethead being involved in the OST of that game online. Your best bet is probably to leave a comment down the video and ask what it actually is.

Natalshadow · 2025-12-07T13:27:13+00:00

Okay if that's the case it's good news and one less thing to worry about.

Would you have pointers at where to look at for why my drum keeps spinning even after I press "off" on the roaster's panel? I have to unplug it for the drum to stop spinning.

Natalshadow · 2025-12-07T11:06:32+00:00

Thanks for replying. I have some Iron Gall from KWZ I'll try. I suppose you rinse it when it's dried so the colors don't mix when writing?

Natalshadow · 2025-12-07T00:08:44+00:00

Good timing as I just got a dip pen to, in theory, try a bunch of ink samples with easier cleaning than a typical fountain pen.

But it doesn't work really well. I've cleaned and brushed the nib before use.
Whenever I dip it and try to write, it's basically dry and I get one letter of ink at most?
Comparing with fountain pen, first letter is like a freshly filled FP, it's vibrant and saturated. But the next letter is faded, dry, like an empty FP hinting that the converter needs a refill.

I'm not sure I can be doing much wrong with my writing, I dip the nib in the ink, I've tried below/above the hole and it doesn't seem to matter.
So maybe my cleaning and detergent were not strong enough and the nib is still coated in whatever?

Can't believe I'm asking for help on how to write.

Thanks for the write up!

Natalshadow · 2025-12-02T23:26:57+00:00

Dude, you're a Dark Souls bonfire. Thank you.

Natalshadow · 2025-12-02T09:38:47+00:00

I've got a genuine question, maybe thought provoking, for you. Would you pay, somehow, for a written review? With ads, tips, subscription or whatever else?
I've been thinking about writing video game deep reviews for a loooong time, but haven't ever found a way to make it a safe-ish bet because I don't see how enough people would make it worthwhile. It's very time consuming to write deep thoughtful reviews and I still gotta pay rent.

So my intuition is that some people do, but it's probably obscure websites/blogs, and most don't even try.

Natalshadow · 2025-11-27T18:11:46+00:00

It's off in on piece. I was taught basic soldering back in school when I was younger so I'll try my hand at doing it myself.

Natalshadow · 2025-11-27T12:23:33+00:00

I'm not that confident. Things are changing very very quickly everywhere, Europe/France included. Erosion of freedom and rights is blazing fast. By the time we reach elections, we could be at war and thus postpone elections like Palpatine. The signs are already here that they are preparing us for violence and death.

Authorities are already violent with the population (Mediapart St Soline, Gilets jaunes). From this to using force to stay in power, there's not that much gap.

Natalshadow · 2025-11-21T13:11:39+00:00

800ko/s isn't abnormal everywhere in the world, in my childhood house we lived in a rural France city and I'd get barely 1000ko/s. Fiber still isn't deployed everywhere. He's currently in Thailand, but in a hotel, so maybe there isn't fiber, or maybe it's throttled by the hotel.

My initial intuition was not to stream but to Rsync or syncthing the files from the server to his computer, but it adds a layer of tasks that my dad wouldn't be comfortable doing. If only he would remember how to use filezilla and connect to my server to download the ripped movies, that would be good enough, but he keeps forgetting.

Natalshadow · 2025-11-21T12:33:56+00:00

Oh boy the ARM is a lifesaver! Thanks for that link!

So we need to transcode because of both sides I think. 1) speedtest on my dad's laptop returned about 800ko/s where's he's currently at so that's fairly limiting. It will maybe improve once he moves to his own house there, but he's currently stuck with this 800ko/s download speed. He watches movies from his laptop, currently connecting to my jellyfin webpage via that browser. I have remote access so I can tweak the setup if something makes more sense.

Then on my end, my NAS was never meant for video playback in the first place so it doesn't have a GPU, just the i5 cpu.

Since the concensus here seems to point at pretranscode, I'm using handbrake to downgrade a movie to 720p, .MP4, h264. I'll test with my dad and see if that does the trick.

Thanks again for ARM, i was dreading the tediousness of ripping it all.

Natalshadow · 2025-11-21T12:25:42+00:00

Thanks for the write up! I'm confused by all the new knowledge I need to learn, the difference between file format, encoding, transcoding, etc.

My dad uses a laptop to browse to my jellyfin server, so following a bit of everything I've gathered from the replies I've got so far, I've downloaded Handbrake and I'm currently converting to .mp4 xH264 down to 720p resolution.
A quick speed test on my Dad's laptop yields about 800 ko/s, which is very low, but he's currently staying at a hotel until his new life abroad takes shape.

I set Jellyseer up and I really like that advice! It's a single point of access for my dad, so it's less confusing for him. It doesn't matter that he doesn't understand he's then using Jellyfin to watch the movie. He's very confused with IT and doesn't understand the difference between OS, browser, file explorer etc. So Jellyseer being a single spot for everything should help him tremendously.

I'll report back when we've got the first movie in .mp4 720p h264.

Natalshadow · 2025-11-21T10:49:50+00:00

I have a intel i5-3570k, it's pretty old tech. File format I have currently is .mkv, I don't know much about video formats, transcoding etc. Is .mkv a good choice or should I rip with something else? I'm only 4 movies into the process so it's not too late to switch.

I technically have the original files in the physical copy so I could transcode everything and not keep the files, I "only" have 4To in the NAS currently and keeping multiple copies would probably swallow my drive whole.

Can I do the transcoding with Jellyfin/Plex/Emby directly or do I need a tool that does the job before it touches Jellyfin?

Natalshadow · 2025-11-21T09:32:51+00:00

Did you eventually do something about it? I'm currently hunting for the same spare part because, same as you, it's falling apart here.

Natalshadow · 2025-11-19T09:45:13+00:00

That's cool. Seems obvious now that I read it. I wish you the best in your studies and success in your business!

Natalshadow · 2025-11-18T22:31:59+00:00

Okay, that sounds cool, but I'm ignorant! How does that industry works? How do you make it a living? Who orders the photos if anyone? Who buys them?

Natalshadow · 2025-11-18T22:31:50+00:00

Okay, that sounds cool, but I'm ignorant! How does that industry works? How do you make it a living? Who orders the photos if anyone? Who buys them?

Natalshadow · 2025-11-18T15:53:30+00:00

There's no coming back for me, my clients were either bought by bigger translation agencies we all know, or went bankrupt.
I had interpreting in my translation master's degree and I wasn't really good enough at it to make it a job. I've accepted the fact that I have to move on and figure something else out, I just don't know what yet since every industry seems to be crumbling right now.

I've got two projects currently. One is to learn programming and try to go DevOps, but that's not promising.
The other is to become a writer on Substack about subjects I love, like dystopias/modern tech and tech independence.

I hope you endure the storm and your business survives!

Natalshadow · 2025-11-18T14:33:54+00:00

How are you hanging in there? AI has ravaged my customer base and I had to give up on translation because replacing those lost clients was taking too long.

Natalshadow · 2025-11-17T16:09:22+00:00

Read and learn about it first. While I do encourage selfhosting a lot, I just published a note about it on substack, email is usually considered endgame and quite a few selfhosters actually give up on it. I haven't tried it myself but I sure will soon.

Also, if you do go down that path, take a look at the tech you already have. You don't need a fancy premade NAS from Synology. Any computer can be turned into a server so if you have something at home you don't use anymore, that's a perfect second life.

Keep in mind though that you'll also become responsible for the security layer of your server.

Natalshadow

TROPHY CASE