I’m not having any issues with my current setup

I’m lazy. I just want things to work. So in your shoes, I wouldn’t go trying to create work if things work fine.

I run Debian on my home server and my VPS, but I chose it for familiarity and stability. I wouldn’t say Debian is inherently barebones; you can add/build whatever you want. It is a longstanding, capable distro that is the base of many other distros. It’s a solid choice that favors stability. And if things are working with Mint, why break them?

By contrast, I run CachyOS on my laptop because it’s a newer laptop and the rolling release model of CachyOS (and Arch, which it’s built on) gets the updates and hardware support I need to make my laptop work. It’s simpler, better, and less work, and significantly more functional than it’s be with Debian, because the rolling release distro moves fast. My home server is 10 year old hardware, so the more stable Debian is fine.

I tried Zulip for a small org. Used their hosted version since it’s quite generous for nonprofits. I personally liked it, but I was very much in the minority. Most of our people didn’t like it. I don’t think anyone articulated very well why they didn’t like it so it’s hard for me to characterize it other than people bitched about the UI a lot. I personally think it works fine, just be ready for some pushback.

We also tried Mattermost, and the uptake seemed a little easier. If you’re used to slack, discord, etc., most of them are pretty easy to transition to, but if you’re dealing with people that never used a real time chat platform, all of them (even slack) are like pushing a rock uphill because people can be impressively resistant to sensible change.

Yeah, that was kinda my point… I’m so used to being mistreated that when I saw the headline, I thought I wouldn’t be given the choice to participate. But giving me the choice builds trust in the people. It’s a move that supports their community in a time where such policies are rare. I love it.

I was all set to be pissed off at this, then I read that it was opt in. Home Assistant is f’n awesome!

I remember reading a thread like this a while back and saw Home Assistant. I thought I don’t need that.

It’s probably the most used self hosted app we have.

Gradually, the migration to new platforms will take place

I’m not sure that will (or should) happen. Mainstream social media has an awful lot of shit that wouldn’t exist (or wouldn’t exist in the same way) on federated social media. For things that are purely commercial (which is a lot) the effort is higher and the payoff is smaller in a federated system. There’s a lot of social media that thrives only because it’s fundamentally commercial. That segment would never embrace federated social media willingly.

Then of course there’s the trigger-reward cycle you talk about. People might know it’s unhealthy, but they still do it. Not having that as part of the user experience a big adjustment coming to federated social media.

Surround sound receiver that works via optical or HDMI. That’s what I would recommend

Those are both digital outputs, not analog. Maybe you’re confusing digital with internet connected?

I’m not advocating internet-connected audio gear, but plenty of people like the utility of networked audio for automation, in-home streaming, and multi-room setups. But again, those can be isolated from the internet.

Encrypted apps like Signal encrypt messages in a way that only you and the recipient can decrypt and read. Not even Signal can decrypt them. However it has always been the case that another person could look over your shoulder and read the messages you send, who you’re sending them to, and so on. Pretty obvious, right?

What the author and Signal are calling out here is that all major commercial OSes are now building in features that “look over your shoulder.” But it’s worse than that because they also record every other device sensor’s data.

Windows Recall is the easiest to understand. It is a tool build into windows (and enabled by default) that takes a screenshot a few times per second. This effectively capture a stream of everything you do while using windows; what you browse, who you chat with, the pron you watch, the games you play, where you travel, and who you travel with or near. If you use “private” message tools like Signal, they’ll be able to see who you are messaging and read the conversations, just as if they were looking over your shoulder, permanently.

They claim that for an AI agent to serve you well, it needs to know everything it can about you. They also make dubious claims that they’ll never use any of this against you, but they also acknowledge that they comply with court orders and government requests (to varying degrees). So… if you trust all of these companies and every government in the world, there’s nothing to worry about.

If OP wants surround, Atmos, etc., this isn’t gonna work. Analog outputs can’t handle ambisonics, and TVs don’t have discrete 6 channel outputs. If you want 2.1, 5.1, Atmos, MPEG-H or whatever, you’ll need a digital output to your sink device (AVR/soundbar, etc.). Digital doesn’t mean internet connected. And there’s no real benefit to forcing an analog output from your TV. It’s DAC probably isn’t better than the DAC in an AVR or soundbar.

Test it. Seriously.

There are likely roadblocks you haven’t seen. For example, it is increasingly true that login & password aren’t good enough to access most commercial systems. So many businesses rely on active session cookies to determine identity, and if that’s missing, they’ll fallback to email or SMS based one-time passwords. And if they don’t have access to your laptop or phone, it might be impossible for them to gain access.

I do, and it’s probably the main reason I started self hosting.

Managing parents estate made me want to get my shit in order for my own kids in the event I die. There’s a good chance that if I die, my cell phone is gonna die with me. And commercial services from Apple, Google, banks, and other institutions are increasingly tied to a single cell phone as “identity.” If you try to login on a device with no session cookies, they treat it as hostile, and do all sorts of oddball stuff that almost always requires the cellphone to access. And if you don’t have that phone, it’s incredibly hard.

By self hosting, I can choose to make access to that most of that data much easier for my family if I die and my cellphone dies with me. I don’t expect them to continue self-hosting, but I do want them to have easy access to files so they can move them to some system they are comfortable with.

couldn’t get my small group of gamer friends to switch

The hardest part of any change right there.

I’ve had pangolin running for a while, doing tunneling to some self hosted resources, and I’m confused by this announcement and update. It seems like they’re suggesting to use an Android/iOS client to connect to Pangolin protected resources, which seems like a shitload more work and overhead than just using wireguard to do the same thing. Am i missing something here?

I’ve got a few domains. I use Porkbun as registrar. They’re awesome, and the domains were pretty cheap. Under $10 a year each.

Gonna need you to open the YouTube app on the iPad you left at your mom’s house a few weeks ago and tap “Yes, its me.”

We track it’s location, so we know it’s at your mom’s place a few states away, and yeah, we could send the notification to the phone that’s sitting right next to you (we track its location too) but that would be a little too easy on you. And lets face it, if we wanted this to be easy, we’d just let you use the Google Authenticator 2FA we had you set up a few years ago and skip all this nonsense. But that’s not how we roll.

Hugs n kisses, Google

I don’t… think I’m a bot?

Your comment reminded me of the Black Mirror episode - Hang the DJ. (if you haven’t seen it, it’s brilliant). Also, I don’t think I’m a bot pushing a Netflix agenda, but who can tell these days.