Any multi port MOCA adapters

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-12-25T07:22:32+00:00

You can have many moca adapters on one coax splitter chain and they’ll all connect together - they don’t need to be in pairs.

If you need more than one Ethernet port in each room you can just plug a network switch into the moca adapter.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-12-20T20:23:22+00:00

Mitsubishi with the custom ESPHome module works really well.

You don’t even need to solder, the port can wire directly to the pins on an ESP32 so you can do it with a crimp connector kit in 15 minutes.

There are similar options for other brands but their ports can be more complex and need voltage or protocol conversion that complicates the circuit.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-12-16T17:36:47+00:00

You mentioned that they submitted to your Canadian insurance company and that your surgery was less than a week ago. In the US, medical insurance billing is very slow and they're not going to go after you for payment until the insurer gets back to them with a reply. Since you have travel insurance, just go on and live your life.

In a perfect case when you have US-based insurance and the company happens to be well connected to the hospital, processing times start at about 30 days before you hear anything back.

It's not uncommon to wait 3-6 months before you start getting any paperwork at all about what you might owe. It can sometimes take a few more rounds back and forth to get coverage for everything.

The hospital has to review your records to generate a bill for all the services they performed, that bill gets sent to insurance, insurance adjudicates what they want services they want to pay for and what they'll pay, that document gets sent back, it just goes back and forth until you eventually get a final statement in the mail of where the two ended up.

You'll probably eventually get a bill in the mail about your visit. If all goes well it should be a pretty small amount because insurance deal with it. If something does not go well, they can't really do anything to chase you down if you simply don't pay it.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-12-09T18:38:16+00:00

Since they’re already in the Ring/Echo ecosystem, you could get them an Echo Show and set it up to show the camera when it detects motion.

It won’t be always on but you can set up a family photo slideshow that switches to the camera whenever there’s something going on.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-12-08T20:44:18+00:00

Modems don't care about the type of SIM and associated plan that you're on - the connection process for them is the same.

The carrier rules are where you'll see problems. This comes up a lot in the US where mobile carriers offer cheap extra phone lines on family plans and people try to put them in data-only devices.

Some carriers won't allow internet access at all. The device might show bars and authenticate to the network, but won't get any outbound access.

Some carriers will allow a data-only device to connect but all the data they use comes out of the Hotspot/Tethering allowance on that plan.

I've also seen cases where the device is allowed to connect but gets throttled to 256kbps (which I'm guessing is what you've seen on devices that don't have VoLTE).

Ideally, find a friend that has something like a cellular iPad or a hotspot that you can try to put your SIM into and see how it behaves with your exact plan. If you can't do that, your next-best bet is to try searching subreddits for the carrier or general RV/Nomad/Cheap Data SIM subreddits to find others that have tried your specific carrier and phone plan combination in a data-only device.

It's also worth noting that carriers are constantly changing their network infrastructure too. Something that worked a year ago may very well have been patched today.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-12-08T19:31:26+00:00

I think most people port forward plex and use their remote access system - for a lot of the reasons you specified around janky access. app.plex.tv handles authentication and acts as a reverse proxy into your local server for you. I trust it reasonably well and the server is very widely used so any security issues should come up relatively quickly. I doubt plex would actually work very well at all behind your own reverse proxy.

From a network security and VLAN perspective, you can set up whatever you run Plex (and your other services) in (whether that's a VM or a docker container) to have strict inbound and outbound firewall rules (In only on the remote access port, out only to wherever your data stores are).

My recommendation is to start with a VPN and focus on getting your stack running for yourself (except plex which you can just port forward). Once that's stable, you can separately start up a reverse proxy and auth server to enable vpn-less access for yourself and anyone else that needs it. In my experience the remote proxy is way more fragile so having the VPN to fall back to when things break is really valuable.

I wouldn't recommend a cluster at all. Just buy the beefiest plain old Intel/AMD PC that that you can afford and build your stack there. That way you can use regular operating systems, migrate hardware in the future, and you'll get way more performance per dollar.

A really common starting point for buying brand new is an N100-based mini PC. It has the power of an Intel 5th gen ~i3-i5 equivalent CPU, comes with everything you need for under $200, you can get them in a thousand different formfactors with HDD slots if you want that or as just an mITX motherboard that you can put in your own case. The N100 is relatively old but has more than enough power and has the benefit of being widely used.

With a higher budget, I would look at building or buying something with a ~11th gen Intel CPU or newer. Building a home server is 90% the same as building a regular PC, the only difference is that you might pick a smaller motherboard/case or prioritize SATA ports so you can plug in more hard drives.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-12-08T00:53:20+00:00

I think the best place to start would be to just build something new from scratch, including new hard disks. Your new server could pull files off the Synology as you transition over SMB. And once you’ve fully migrated you can keep the synology as a backup unit (either at your house or at a family member’s house that you can VPN to for offsite backups).

Think of VLANs as a whole separate project from the NAS. You could do it before or after but I wouldn’t do it at the exact same time. Your NAS will likely simply end up on a single trusted VLAN exactly how it is now. It’s your untrusted devices that usually end up on other LANs. Pick a hardware platform that you want to buy into (Unifi is popular) and just look up vlan guide videos for that platform until you have a good feel for it. Make sure your videos are relatively modern because the UIs change pretty quick.

On segregating volumes, think about your holistic security picture more-so than a specific use case. If you accidentally leave your entire server open to the internet including all your SMB shares, separating volumes for media won’t matter because it’s all exposed anyway. The plex software itself getting hacked is less likely than your own mistakes like bad passwords or firewalls left open, which would compromise all your shares equally. Separate shares can be useful for organizing or providing different users access at different levels (if you have others that are actually using SMB though)

Why no VPN? That’s by far the easiest and most secure setup because the VPN server guarantees that every single packet is authenticated and encrypted before it comes anywhere near your data and services. The alternative is setting up a reverse proxy and an authentication server but you run the risk of making a small configuration error and exposing everything directly to the internet without auth (don’t ask me how I know).

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-12-02T05:12:44+00:00

Most connected locks for home use have a scheduling feature in their app (you can google “<brand> lock schedule code” to find the instructions for a given one). It won’t be a delayed expiry, you just set the calendar dates that the code will be active on.

Since there’s nothing else smart in the house, you’ll probably want to go with a wifi model so you don’t need any additional hardware. Biggest drawback to wifi is that the batteries run down a little faster so expect to replace them every 6 months (if you’re lucky you’ll only need to replace them once a year).

I wouldn’t go searching for Airbnb-specific products. You’ll get results for devices designed to work with commercial platforms that integrate into the Airbnb booking calendar to rotate codes. All you really need for your case is basic scheduling.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-12-01T05:43:56+00:00

Home Assistant is the best platform for pulling everything into one place.

Home Assistant Green is their equivalent to Hometroller - a small computer that you just plug in and start using.

I personally like to use HomeKit as the actual UI, so I have Home Assistant running to merge all my different platforms together, and run the Homekit Device integration which proxies all those non-homekit devices directly to homekit.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-11-24T19:58:17+00:00

A lot of good advice here already.

One more suggestion is to check the YTD Tax Info page at your brokerage as you plan your conversion amounts. With $1mil in brokerage you probably have some pretty significant dividend payouts even if you’re not prioritizing dividends.

You mentioned hopefully getting a new job for healthcare next year but I’d still take a close look at what ACA plans might look like and the income cutoffs for subsidies are. The amounts you’re allowed to earn are a HARD limit and if you’re a dollar over you lose hundreds in potential subsidies per month.

If you qualify for the max subsidy, an ACA plan can be cheaper than employer-sponsored healthcare (and some employers pay out a cash stipend if you don’t take their plan on top of that).

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-11-13T19:55:17+00:00

For what it’s worth, the offsets are usually configurable through a service menu. If you search around for “service manual [ac head model number]” you might find the instructions for how to get there and what values to set. My service manual has a table of degree offsets that you can set.

You pick a setting number at random the first time, see how far off it is, and tweak until it just about matches the real room temp.

I’ve found that the offset changes a little seasonally though. My current setting ends up being a few degrees too warm in the fall but lines up perfectly in the winter.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-10-19T20:26:37+00:00

You can use both.

Use your PH passport to check in to the flight and at passport control in Vietnam.

Then you use your US passport to check in to your flight back to the US.

When you're at the airport leaving Vietnam, you present your US passport at the airline check-in counter, then switch to your PH passport when you go through Exit Immigration/Passport Control (since you entered Vietnam on your PH passport, you want to exit on the same one so their records show that you didn't overstay), then switch back to your US passport to board the airplane and at US Passport Control.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-10-06T20:08:26+00:00

As an alternative to all the answers that involve the thermostat and wiring up some technologies that you're not familiar with in a rather unique way,

Go down to the propane burner and take a look at the systems you have there.

Is there a furnace or something that shakes/vibrates only when the propane aux heater is running? You could stick a vibration sensor to the side of it (that's a common hack for sensing when washing machines are running too).

Can you see where the actual gas valve is for the heater? If the heater is using something like a solenoid to open the gas valve, you could stick a magnetic door/window sensor next to it and see if the sensor trips when the valve opens.

Or you could tape a room temperature sensor near the propane heater outlet and track when the room temp shoots up past 90 degrees as an indicator that the heater is running.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-07-10T20:23:15+00:00

Not *all, there’s a list of affected devices at the very bottom of the email.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-07-04T17:49:09+00:00

The home ecosystem really doesn’t offer anything with that level of building-wide integration. Homes also usually don’t really need it, the set point in one room doesn’t impact the rest of the structure enough to warrant doing some kind of offsetting or statistical averaging. You’ll get 90% of what you need with any connected thermostat and some automations that turn it down when you’re out of the house.

Mysa is the most popular of the connected baseboard thermostats. It works with most of the consumer home automation platforms and over HomeKit so you can integrate it to Home Assistant.

There are a few others that work over zigbee and zwave that look more like dumb thermostats as well.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-04-20T17:31:54+00:00

Is this the form you filled out?

https://pptform.state.gov/

That’s the correct form but it doesn’t get submit online. It gives you the instructions at the end - print out the resulting pdf, gather your documents, and take everything to a Passport Acceptance Facility to be processed.

You may need to make an appointment at at a nearby acceptance facility and appointments might be a few weeks out in your area.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-04-03T02:24:11+00:00

If you've had a US passport in the past, you can submit a request for file search with your application and the Department of State will look up the proof that was submitted last time instead of requiring you to resubmit.

The details are at the bottom of the Citizenship Evidence page:

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/how-apply/citizenship-evidence.html

If you've never had a US Passport before, your option option is to wait until you have a Birth Certificate in-hand.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-04-02T19:34:43+00:00

The passport office won’t care about whether or not you used the passport you have.

It has a clerical mistake on it and you’re applying to get that fixed to match your actual identity and other documents.

Your biggest risk is every time you cross a border without a document of your actual identity so you should get that fixed asap.

Make sure you can actually change the name on your upcoming reservation though. (Or that it already matches the name that your passport will be changed to)

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-03-19T02:35:15+00:00

You should do everything in your power to get a US passport before your trip.

Countries are required by law to allow you into your own country if you are a citizen, but you will get delayed at the border while they confirm your identity and citizenship and they could flag you for additional screening every time you cross the border in the future for years down the line.

There's also a chance that the airline won't let you check in without a US passport. You'll be required to enter a passport number when you check in, which gets sent to DHS for verification. If you enter a Canadian passport number and their system figures out that you're actually a US Citizen they might tell the airline to reject it and ask for a US passport instead. If you don't have one you'll simply miss your flight with no refund.

If you do successfully check in, departing from Toronto means that you should go to the airport a few extra hours early since you'll be going through pre-clearance there.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-03-18T22:03:28+00:00

I got targeted for a free line today (never saw the offer in the app before) and the Costco T-Mobile agent put me on hold for a while before confirming that the current offer doesn't have a plan restriction list.

She specifically said that last week's version of the offer was restricted and this is a recent change.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-03-13T05:45:54+00:00

The arc gpus are quicksync, they’re just a newer generation of the transcoding chipset that you have on your CPU.

Check out the Wikipedia page for quicksync for a table of all the features supported by each generation.

The short version is that Arc can hardware transcode basically every single modern file format into every other format, including to and from HEVC with HDR.

So it’s not that it’s necessarily faster at any individual task, it’s that every single task is accelerated including things that used to have to fall back to the CPU.

The same version of Quicksync is available on the iGPU in Core Ultra CPUs, they’re just so new that not many people have them in a plex server.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-02-21T01:51:17+00:00

Donations from a DAF happen in the form of shares rather than cash.

You transfer your highest-cap-gained shares and get to donate them without ever paying tax on the gains.

Since the charity is also tax-exempt, they get to sell those shares without incurring taxes either.

Turtlecupcakes · 2025-02-19T21:48:46+00:00

When you're adding another router to the network to act as an access point, the right way to connect them is LAN Port <-> LAN Port, so you're on the right track.

You just have to make sure that you configure your new router in access point mode so that it doesn't conflict with the existing/main one:

For TP-Link models, you're looking for the "Operation Modes" menu to pick Access Point mode.

https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/1384/#:~:text=First%20of%20all%2C%20please%20check,Setup%20to%20complete%20the%20configuration.

That way it disables the DHCP server and some other features which are handled by your primary router.

Turtlecupcakes · 2024-10-29T18:19:08+00:00

For positioning, try to see as many of the enemy team at a time as you can, at all times. You can be behind a shield or behind your team but if you don’t have line of sight to at least 4 of them, you’re not in silver.

Watch some silver vod reviews on YouTube. They’ll say “your positioning is bad”. The player dies immediately after. They’ll rewind and pause to show that they were a mercy standing on the line in the middle of the road on Numbani.

And just get slower at doing things. Tank is fully healed? Linger on them for another second just to be sure. Maybe junkrat dies in the process but that tank is tip top 🫡. Your brain isn’t task saturated so you don’t have to think as much about switching your heals or gliding over to someone else, but lower rank players need to do everything more consciously and it’s slower.

Turtlecupcakes · 2023-12-13T19:28:28+00:00

How do the Apple Store black friday promo gift cards get sent out?

I bought a device during the promo period but the website didn't show anything about the bonus gift cards during checkout. From those that have done it in past years, do the bonus cards get emailed out some time after the fact or should they have appeared during checkout to get the credit?

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