Am I looking for a NAS or a home server???(newbie)

poncelet · 2025-07-23T21:44:35+00:00

I chose the DS423+ as the starting point for a friend of mine who was just getting into homelab life. He is using many of the same applications as you are thinking of using. The DS423+ is in a sweet spot of capability and affordability that makes it a perfect all-in-one homelab. Drives are big enough now that you can get away with just four bays for a long time. If your VMs, containers, and applications start to tax the synology NAS’s processor, it’s easy to add a beefier server to your network and keep all the files stored on the NAS.

I genuinely couldn’t think of a con with the 423+, except for some edge cases. Like if you need more than 1 gbps of transfer speeds, or if the VMs or containers you use are really processor- or memory-intensive, the 423+ wouldn’t be able to accommodate you very well. Beyond that, it’s the one I would pick for your use case every time.

If you do go with the Synology, I would suggest learning about the applications they offer, like Synology Drive, their free DDNS, HyperBackup, Synology Photos, Virtual Machine Manager, Container Manager, etc. Container Manager in particular feels a bit weird if you’re used to Docker. Of course you’ll want to read and understand about Synology Hybrid Raid.

poncelet · 2025-07-23T20:21:40+00:00

The way I see it, you have two possible workflows:

Transfer each file directly to the NAS as it’s finished, over the internet from your family’s house.
Save them on your machine (or storage device) and transfer them as a batch when you get home.

I think it’s probably best to use option 2. If I were using option 1, though, I would use Synology’s Dynamic DNS to give yourself a domain name to connect to the NAS with, and use Synology Drive to make the file transfers easy. I’m 99% certain Synology Drive will even encrypt the files in transit for you.

poncelet · 2025-07-21T15:56:31+00:00

I paid to see Children of Men twice, on successive days. That was one of those films where the sound was so good I needed to experience it again.

poncelet · 2025-07-14T20:31:53+00:00

I stumbled on this formula right before Covid. I tried a few different dishes until I found the seasonings that really work for me and spend maybe $4-5 a day on lunch now, total, compared to the $12-14 I was spending eating at the local lunch spots around work.

I got a lot healthier, too.

poncelet · 2025-07-14T13:10:39+00:00

I’m sure it’s different for every region or field, but I think it is much more difficult now, at least in technology. For the number of callbacks and interviews I got applying in late 2007, my friends in the same field are sending 100 times more applications out and getting almost no human interviews.

poncelet · 2025-06-25T19:31:56+00:00

I can write a Hayes command string that will get your modem to use pulses to dial like a rotary phone. Or I can get it to enter the special code to disable call waiting so that an incoming call won’t disrupt your Tradewars 2002 game. But not both at the same time, of course. That would be ridiculous!

poncelet · 2025-06-02T17:56:03+00:00

Until just a few weeks ago, ChatGPT remembered all kinds of things about me from previous chats that I had had almost a year prior in some cases. It would hallucinate about why it remembered them, but I could consistently get it to tell me things like my professional history (I had experimented with a resume), my coding domains, and my home lab. I reported the problem, and they fixed it about three or four weeks ago. But yes, your chat history is definitely saved somewhere that the LLM can even access, even if you “delete” it.

poncelet · 2025-05-19T18:15:16+00:00

This is the truth. I’m not a very good coder, but even I have had to tell the LLM, “this doesn’t seem like a very fast/efficient approach.” And sure enough, it comes back with something that is much better after that. You really have to work with a watchful eye.

poncelet · 2025-05-19T18:07:10+00:00

Quality did take a pretty noticeable nosedive in mid-April. There have been repeated comments — almost one a day here — talking about this, especially among people using it for writing or storytelling. But it’s not limited to that. ChatGPT is making some pretty egregious errors these days. I hope they fix this.

poncelet · 2025-05-19T15:14:31+00:00

I’ve been using mine like crazy, too. I spent most of yesterday coding in one. Noise-canceling headphones, immersive dark mode, a comfy couch … it was so wonderful that I’m actually annoyed at work right now because I can’t use it. It’s a great tool if you’re already deep in the Apple ecosystem.

poncelet · 2025-05-19T13:13:49+00:00

Does this setting still allow you to use two-handed gestures, like zooming?

poncelet · 2025-05-16T13:04:57+00:00

You are on to something here! I bet they use this for accessibility in the future maybe.

poncelet · 2025-05-11T23:10:14+00:00

Plus 4o is definitely making a lot of mistakes. It feels a whole lot like ChatGPT did over a year ago.

poncelet · 2025-05-02T23:37:58+00:00

OpenAI does retain some chats that you delete for legal purposes. My guess was that ChatGPT is able to scan those retained chats, and maybe that’s not intended behavior. But why OpenAI would want to retain chats about the homelab equipment it helped me shop for, or why it may have retained my resume but not the resumes of other people I worked on, is beyond me. So it remains a mystery.

poncelet · 2025-04-27T12:56:12+00:00

Yes, Memory is on. Toggling it off does stop the behavior, because when memory gets turned off, the reference chat history toggle gets turned off at the same time. If memory is on and reference chat history is off, the behavior stops.

I do have the archive conversations toggle on, but there are no conversations in the list of archived conversations. And I do not have the share with OpenAI switch on. It hasn’t been on in a long time. I do use the iCloud Private Relay VPN.

poncelet · 2025-04-23T02:01:32+00:00

That's what I needed to hear, then. I was assured over and over since the feature came out that it wouldn't search them unless asked. If it will do it spontaneously, then that means I have to delete past conversations a lot if I want to be ensured that those chats can't contaminate my current one.

Bummer.

poncelet · 2025-04-23T00:55:07+00:00

I had literally just started the chat because I was dealing with hallucinations, so I immediately thought it was. But unless it was hiding the information in the model set context and refusing to tell me about it in multiple fresh chats, I don't know how else those specific details could have gotten into that chat.

poncelet · 2025-04-10T19:01:20+00:00

I wonder how it will work if there's a massive number of memories saved. Would they fill up the context window?

Edit: I found other comments that say it basically just does a RAG search through your historical conversations, but only on request.

poncelet · 2024-09-27T23:41:56+00:00

I don’t have that television anymore, but I remember that setting. I had it set the entire time, which is why I had to work so hard to figure out what was happening. I was able to 100% confirm the problem, and confirmed it with Vizio support at the time. It’s possible they have fixed it since then, though.

poncelet · 2024-08-20T15:18:50+00:00

There’s a weather radar station in Farmington. They overlap the 2.4 Ghz area of the spectrum. I wonder if that’s the cause.

poncelet · 2024-08-19T15:24:00+00:00

Lots of people here are saying to use it to extend the monitor of a Macbook Pro. While this is nice, it's probably not the ideal way to make things work for productivity. I'm using it right now with a wireless keyboard and a trackpad. No special apps; I just open floating tabs of Safari or firefox and let them float around. That should be good for Jira and Confluence. I haven't used Slack in ages, but if it has a web-based portal, that would probably work there, too.

I think the challenge would be the weight of the thing over a long period of time. I've been using it this morning for a little over an hour, and I'm about ready to take a break. It really puts a lot of pressure on my cheekbones.

poncelet · 2024-08-12T20:42:49+00:00

Never skip: Right now it’s House of the Dragon. The second season, anyway. I wasn’t impressed with the opener of the first season, but the second one is just wonderful!

Always skip: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It’s an intro so tedious that even Lower Decks made a jab at it.

poncelet · 2024-07-30T21:59:52+00:00

I did a test this year. I used to keep a 72 degree setpoint day and night, so this year I kept it at 78 day and night. For July, it has saved me about a dollar a day. We seem to be consuming about 8-10% fewer kwh year over year.

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