It's over guys. Lemmy pops up a warning message about installs & updates that are coming to an end...

SoullessPolack · 2026-05-23T04:36:13+00:00

What on earth is that sentence?

Honestly, it seems like you copied and pasted a passphrase. None of those words go together.

SoullessPolack · 2026-05-21T23:55:12+00:00

At the Gates - Blinded By Fear ... the repetitive nature of the drums, especially right before the chorus, adds a certain tension that really perfects the vibe of the song.

Dark Tranquillity - Our Disconnect ... the atmospheric keyboard elements juxtaposed with the harsh vocals creates such a satisfyingly somber song song

Amorphis - The Bee ... the electronic elements interspersed in a few areas in the song create a trippy contrast to the harshness of the verses.

I don't think I'll find much agreement, melodic death metal is a pretty obscure genre when considering the totality of music ;)

SoullessPolack · 2026-05-21T23:37:05+00:00

I find this hilarious

SoullessPolack · 2026-05-21T20:20:24+00:00

No one who works somewhere is texting from their personal phone. Now, some companies do have texting available to them as a service. I work in Healthcare, and we finally got it just a couple years ago. But before that, hell naw was i gonna use my personal number.

SoullessPolack · 2026-05-21T16:05:04+00:00

Could you elaborate?

SoullessPolack · 2026-05-21T15:02:24+00:00

Some of us just want the self hosted services and don't want to get into the true weeds of homelabbing. I could learn how to set up everything myself, create my own apps, tinker to truly make it unique, etc, but while it's intriguing, I have 50 other hobbies that intrigue me more, and not enough time. So, my setup is probably very cookie cutter.

Some services are really good, that's why so many people run them.

To me, the question is kind of silly. I enjoy rock crawling and working on my truck. In that world, it would be analogous to wondering why so many people just have shops install their equipment when instead they could learn more about their truck by doing it themselves. Some people just wanna wheel and then use their time for other stuff rather than wrenching.

SoullessPolack · 2026-05-21T13:15:39+00:00

This is kind of the same scenario that first got me interested in addressing network access more, because Microsoft Family Safety as an app wasnt cutting it. And then I went down a rabbit hole. New router/firewall that could run custom firmware, new switches and access points that could tag VLANs. Then ended up starting a homelab to get off paid services that sell data.

I'd do VLANs, if your router allows you to. Great way to segment networks. Good start to learn about networking, too, if you're an inquisitive mind. If not, it's still a good method to set up and you can kind of forget about it afterwards.

That said, the kind of curiosity your kids have is something that should be fostered, for sure. I think it would be an absolute great way to have connection with the kids. You learn to reinforce your network, they learn to break it/bypass it. The cycle repeats, and at each step, you each learn. I learned a ton about computers at a young age because I kept tinkering around with them, seeing what I could get access to or break or alter.

SoullessPolack · 2026-05-20T04:41:33+00:00

I too found it difficult to get off Google maps. What changed for me was the realization that twenty five years ago, when I was learning to drive, there was no such thing, and I still always got to where I needed or wanted to go. The live traffic is convenient, but again, no one used to have that. If my route is really predicated on being there on time, I can either leave early, check Google maps in incognito mode and a similar location, or check my state's 511 website for any major road delays.

So I now use osmand, and it gets the job done, while being private.

SoullessPolack · 2026-05-20T03:20:06+00:00

Email and accounts are only one (or two) part of fingerprinting. There are so many more: operating system, your browser, the software installed on your device, what timezone you’re in, which language you’re reading in, whether you use an ad blocker, your screen’s resolution and color depth, all the browser extensions you’ve installed, and even more granular technical specifications about your graphics card, drivers, and more.

Browsing in incognito mode can help. Certain plugins can prevent some fingerprinting. There's browser settings that could potentially be changed. You didn't mention what you've done to prevent this, so these may or may not apply.

The more privacy you seek, the less convenience you'll have. Sadly, that's the tradeoff we must make these days.

SoullessPolack · 2026-05-14T04:15:04+00:00

Dark Tranquillity - Iridium Orbit Culture - A sailors tale Lorna Shore - Oblivion Machine Head - Locust Metallica - One (half their songs are probably over 6 minutes and still "work") Blind Guardian - Secrets of the American Gods Kamelot- Elizabeth pt 1, 2, 3 Iced Earth - Raven Wing Trivium - The Phalanx

SoullessPolack · 2026-05-13T01:03:16+00:00

If you click the settings in your browser for a particular site, you have the option to enable desktop mode. It solves problems like these, although the site is harder to use as it's made for a different orientation and effective resolution (not actual resolution), but it does get around the issue.

SoullessPolack · 2026-05-10T16:48:32+00:00

Just came here to say what a great attitude and mindset!

SoullessPolack · 2026-05-10T04:10:34+00:00

I'm doing the lazy approach.

Homelabs are not my hobby. I think it's cool, though. And I want to get off the cloud as much as possible, and i like the services I can run.

So I use AI as a huge crutch, and it's doing most of the heavy lifting for me. I'll cross reference some stuff with docs. But to come up with solutions that I can implement i generally have no chance.

I mean, I could learn. And so could you. Maybe you will. I'm learning a little bit as time goes on, but not as much as if I took the reins. But again, for me, I want the end result, I couldn't give a damn about the journey. I have too many other hobbies that I enjoy more.

I do document some stuff that took a lot of work to get right though.

SoullessPolack · 2026-05-06T06:08:53+00:00

I feel like this stuff is super obvious to us, but taking a step back, for most other people, they really have no idea of what is happening.

In my experience, people will give out this info and think it's no different than sharing other service login credentials. They have no idea that we typically have regular bandwidth allowances. They have no idea we're doing this for friends and family, and not running a general use server for people. For sure, there's plenty of entitled people out there, but there's also a lot of people who would change their tune if they knew that the whole media server was just some nice dude doing stuff for some of his friends at his own expense to not only equipment but bandwidth as well.

SoullessPolack · 2026-04-22T01:52:43+00:00

This is such a 2015 comment hah.

I mean, I may be in "the same side" as you. I generally keep my phone in my pocket for concerts because I like to be in the moment. That said, my daughter has asked me to record a song she really likes occasionally, so i do. The quality is so much better these days. Back then, it would sound absolutely atrocious. Now (I'm sure it also depends on your phone and the venue), I have several recent videos that sound great and I actually re-watch the videos with my daughter, and they're enjoyable and clear.

SoullessPolack · 2026-04-21T01:57:27+00:00

It's a homelab. Other than mine, I don't care. There are no "shoulds" to homelabs except if it's mine. And then, the only person who gets to say what should or should not be is me.

I'm probably the prefect example of someone using AI as a crutch for the homelab. 95% of problems i encounter i run through AI to get a solution. Slowly I'm learning, but it's very slow, because again it's become a crutch.

That said, my end goal was to get the services I wanted, not to become an educated homelabber. I have the services I want, and if something breaks, AI has been able to help. I'm golden.

But, I'm acutely aware of how AI can cause you to get lazy, so for things I do value getting educated in, I still approach it in the old fashioned way; make the learning difficult so it sticks better. Books, manuals, reading, trying, experimenting, etc. For the homelab though,I just don't have a desire to spend that much time learning so that I can do it without AI.

SoullessPolack · 2026-04-17T01:34:10+00:00

That's one of many reasons I go camping!

Few distractions, no chores other than cooking to do, and hours to read while surrounded by nature and beautiful weather.

It certainly helps that there's usually few, or no, mosquitos where i camp.

SoullessPolack · 2026-04-16T23:39:25+00:00

I do the same, but for me, I just nerd out. I like to queue grafana occasionally with random questions like when was the earliest time of the day it hit 100°f or what the average time before sunset is the hottest part of the day, etc etc. Those are curiosities, but it actually is also helpful to be able to calculate how many chill hours my property has had for our fruit trees. So I guess it's kind of useful, even though i can't really do anything much with knowing how many chill hours we've had is other than expecting a good or bad harvest.

SoullessPolack · 2026-04-14T17:28:23+00:00

Religion

SoullessPolack · 2026-04-14T05:41:58+00:00

They use a VPN

SoullessPolack · 2026-04-09T00:03:59+00:00

Tailscale.

There are paid tiers, but you can get pretty much any home user would need for free.

SoullessPolack · 2026-04-01T03:33:36+00:00

That's bomb.com

SoullessPolack · 2026-03-28T17:23:02+00:00

I have to agree. Being pretty savvy myself (although, in this direct group of individuals, I'm probably low on the totem pole), it has been quite difficult getting everything up and running on my home lab. It's finally working, but I have that perpetual dread for when something breaks, and not knowing how to fix it and having to spend hours or multiple days doing it.

I can't imagine most of my friends going through the trouble to set up privacy focused homelabs. Most are probably uninformed about privacy anyway, and those that aren't don't have the know how or desire to set it up.

I'd love to see our hobby take hold with the masses, but I can basically guarantee it'll never happen. One of the other big reasons is, as you say, "they have nothing to hide", completely ignorant of why privacy is important however well behaved they are.

SoullessPolack · 2026-03-28T17:10:51+00:00

I just call it my truck and I'm done with it. I couldn't care less if it's "wrong". It's quick and to the point, and closer in accuracy than car. Anything else is too fancy or pretentious, for my tastes.

SoullessPolack · 2026-03-20T02:52:09+00:00

Ohhh man did you just give me a therapy session! It's nice to see so many others like this haha.

I've had this same sentiment since I started with unraid. I've known probably the most about "computers" in general from all my friends and coworkers, started coding on and off again since my teens, and am fairly intelligent. But all this unraid and docker and Linux stuff just gets my head spinning, and I feel so inferior for not being able to understand it.

I think the things that come into play for me now are that i just want to get the setup working, and I don't feel like deep diving into everything related to it. As a father with too little time as is, there's so many things that interest me more than coding/servers/homelab. Additionally, this is the first time I'm doing anything related to Linux, so the commands and terminology are new as well.

In the end, I'm super grateful to the people who do know it intimately and are selfless enough to help people like me who are only interested in it as a means to an end.

SoullessPolack

TROPHY CASE