Most people use either Matrix or XMPP. Both work.

There is a nice overview of chat protocols here: https://www.messenger-matrix.de/

I mostly use matrix as of today. I think it’s alright. It’s a bit difficult to explain encryption and device verification to other people… I think that could be designed better. But apart from that it works very well. So does XMPP which I’ve used before that. Have a look at the messenger matrix and all the options before deciding on an ecosystem. I’d take one of the friends and do some evaluation before dragging the whole group in. You can do that with some pre-existing servers before learning how to host the server part.

And btw: With most of them you can just use some public servers. You should do that unless you’re willing to put in the effort to maintain an own server. That’d give you complete control over the infrastructure… But it’s also a liability to maintain a server, do the updates etc for a group of friends and maybe years to come… End to end encryption will keep the content of your messages private, anyways. (If you use it.)

Good point. I think it’s super important to make this decision early on. Whether you want to invest time and do self hosting, or not and you’ll want to use managed services or regular non-free platforms. Doing things by yourself certainly teaches a lot. I do it. And I gain knowledge, independence and I think it’s important to understand the tools I use on a regular basis and not let Apple/Google take care of my life. And since I do a lot of things with computers, I can make good use of the gained knowledge. However I can also feel how someone wouldn’t want to do that. They might have other hobbies, a stressful job or a family and it’s quite some time that I spend digging through configuration files, reading documentation and maintaining stuff. It has to be worth it in some way, or it becomes a liability. And I think that’s not super obvious when starting the journey. I’m glad we have managed services which give independence without spending too much time. But I also prefer going all the way and learning lots of stuff.

Sure. I usually do the same thing. The laptop on which I’m typing right now is a refurbished Dell one and I really prefer a bit older enterprise hardware to new consumer hardware. Nice build quality, no nonsense and Linux runs great on that device. And it cost me a fraction of a new machine. However… with the intended use-case of a media center I’m not sure. Intel always adds hardware acceleration in their iGPUs and the modern codecs are quite demanding. I wouldn’t buy an older generation that doesn’t really support AV1. I’m not sure if hardware from 2 years ago can do that. And if someone buys a new TV set which supports HDR or something and then the recently bought, refurbished media center is out of date again… that also doesn’t help. Maybe I’d buy a new one in this case and just use it for the next 10 years. That’s also sustainable. But yeah, you have to pay attention to the details if you’re buying off-brand. But that also applies to most computer hardware, regardless. It’s a bit more of a lottery with cheap and off-brand devices.

Add some googly eyes if it “lives” in the living room. They fit right above the switch which would then become the nose.

Yeah back when I needed storage (quite some years ago) the mini pcs were less capable and more pricey, so I ended up building a NAS myself. It’s a regular, yet very power efficient PC. But due to size, it doesn’t fit next to the TV. If I’d do the same thing today, I’d certainly consider a machine like this. And $200 doesn’t sound much for a 2-bay NAS.

Uuhh, that’s a cute little trash can. Now fit that with the maximum of RAM it supports and two 12TB harddrives… And it’ll do more media center and NAS than the average person needs.

Someone linked a list of Mini-PCs here: https://lemmy.world/post/19837516

I think the N100 sounds good. But I can’t comment on buying a cheap chinesium one versus a refurbished Fujitsu/Lenovo or an Intel NUC.

Aside from Lemmy and getting random news via social media… I have a set of news sites and computer magazines I like. I think we have several good ones. I visit them manually when I’m in the mood.

It comes with a load of different perspectives and emotions. I agree with the person pointing out it has a lot to do with victimhood and blaming other people, if used as a self-description. I wouldn’t use it that way. And using it on another person I think it’s derogatory. So I also wouldn’t use it unless I wanted to hurt someone.

Sure. I’d say the price is alright if they manage everything for you. There is some labor involved in designing such a platform, packaging the applications, maintaining the infrastructure, preparing updates etc and offering support of an application level. If they do that, it’s probably worth the additional bucks. I maintain some services myself and get away way cheaper. But there is a substancial investment in time to learn webhosting and maintaining stuff.

Not sure. The website looks alright. I always have a look at the contact details and see if it’s a proper company. It says K&T is a brand name of “Operation Enterprise” which doesn’t give any results when googling it. So I’d be wary. But check for yourself.

You can just pay for a month and see what happens? But I’d add: $11.25 USD isn’t very cheap for a VPS with that specifications. For that price you could also pick lots of other hosting providers. You’d just have to set up Lemmy yourself.

I don’t have any personal experience. But finding other people who you can talk to is a good idea. Maybe the internet can connect you. A quick google yielded the following result: https://www.lupus.org/resources/find-support-near-you
And maybe a local support group can offer something of value. And it seems to be one of the diseases with symptoms that vary widely in how severe they are.

Maybe some early pranks. Most of what they do seems legit, fighting oppression and calling out bigots and disgusting people.

Does anyone happen to know if there is a N100 model that supports HDMI-CEC so I can make my old TV set smart with a recent Kodi and maybe some retro-games? But I’d rather not let it consume 9W or whatever such a machine needs all day long. So it’d need to start and shut down on its own. Preferably without manual additional steps involved, hence the CEC…

It’s the internet. Lots of people write silly stuff and blast their uninformed opinion around. That also happens on the Fediverse. They do it for various reasons. And it’s easier to do it pseudonomysly than in real life. Also you’d expect some left-wing people to pop up on Mastodon, since they’ve left Twitter and Mastodon is the number one alternative.

Coffee

For AI training? Or why would someone specifically pay attention to watermarks? I believe there are curated datasets out there. And watermark detectors to weed out watermarked pictures from a pile of data. I don’t think the general public sorts by presence of watermarks…
And I’m not sure about games and webcomics. They all have some logo somewhere, because they’ve been made by someone. If you don’t want that, you’re looking for white-label products. I think in the realm of privacy, and those product types, that’s a small to non-existent niche.

Do you install the CA certificate or the client certificate? Because both aren’t the same. The app needs to authenticate with a client certificate file. The server has a server certificate that is checked against the CA certificate. So you’d install that (CA) in the android system certificate store and additionally give a client certificate file to the app.

It’s derogative and ultimatively looking down at people. So not acceptable.

And I mean in what context would you call someone a “retard” and not mean it as a slur? I don’t see any situation. Either you say that to insult someone. Or you say it to a person who it applies to… But it doesn’t really help in most situations. They probably already know. And they can’t change it anyways. And you could phrase it differently. So in most cases I’d say it’s insulting and not constructive.

I have a NFS and Samba share to my NAS. And Jellyfin exports things via DLNA / UPnP so there is always a local route to the storage. Also I’ve set the IP address of the server in the /etc/hosts file of my router. So even when internet is down, the DNS can resolve it.

I’d argue caring just for national workers isn’t baked into social democracy. Maybe on the contrary. In a globalized world we have to unite. And the exporting and importing goods, needing qualified and unqualified workers means an economy has to pay attention to foreign people, too. Yeah but exploitaition of the south and importing cheap goods from developing countries is part of history. And still what happens as of today. I don’t see it specifically connected to this form of economy. In theory i don’t think it’s well aligned.
But I didn’t watch the video, yet. Maybe I can muster up the time later. It’s 90minutes long. And doesn’t seem I can watch it while doing other things 😉