I use SimpleLogin with my own domain and have no problems 99% of the time. Every once in a while I’ll find a site that doesn’t like my .net domain, but those typically won’t take anything that isn’t a major provider. I use that as a sign I probably don’t need to use that service.

There are two things in my house I don’t “play” with: internet connectivity and core home functions (lights, locks, garage doors, etc). That doesn’t mean I don’t self host anything or then, but I always start from a mindset of “must work”.

I run HA on a Yellow (functionally an RPi 5 with radios and storage interface built in). My lights are either Hue running as plain Zigbee devices, or Zigbee switches. I don’t necessarily want more customization with home automation, I want stable, extensible, and easy to use day today. HA checks all those boxes easily. I’ve not done much looking into OpenHAB, but I would caution against going with something for home automation just because it’s more customizable. Sure, it’s great to have an automation routine that turns on your lights when you get home, it’s less great to have an integration that misbehaves and now you cannot turn off a light, or lock your door, or turn down the volume on your music, etc. Be sure to know what you want to accomplish before you buy devices, build automations, and always build things with a manual backup operation option.

There is, I think, a few things that contribute here.

1. The US has a very stupid “bigger is better” mentality. So if you go out you expect a large portion because that translates to better (and more value). This is of course not true, but culturally it’s very embedded.
2. almost everyone I know takes home some portion of their meal from a restaurant. So that single portion is really two, or maybe three.
3. IME people don’t usually have giant portions at home, they sometimes do of course, but things tend to be more sane for home cooked meals for your family. They also tend to be a lot more balanced, with more veg and grain.
4. what you see on TV is often sensationalized, and not fully indicative of normal here.

It’s 100% this, it’s the folks that bounce their kegs and fidget in their chairs but don’t feel the urge to actually get up and move. The ones that read 3 books a week in high school because our brains just need something to stimulate them and doing the same math exercises for the third week in a row isn’t cutting it. We are the ones that work in IT now, jumping from fire to fire but never being able to fix the underlying issues (but that’s okay since there isn’t money, time, or people to fix them anyways). We learned to hide the struggle because otherwise we were just called lazy, told to focus more, or work harder. Often we are pretty smart since instead of running in circles at lunch we read yet another book on some esoteric subject (and now have access to Wikipedia whenever we want which is not a blessing). In older parlance we have ADD, not ADHD, in modern terms we are often inattentive type, or combined. If we did well in school and weren’t the TV trope ADHD kid, no one bothered to check us.

Maybe my experience is out of the norm, but I did some searching online for recommendations of psychologists that do ADHD evaluations. I called the most recommended and was told they had no open appointments but recommended three others that often have availability. I checked those out, chose one, and made an appointment online. They specifically have adult ADHD evaluation as a service they provide with a defined set of appointments and processes. I did an online appointment first, followed by a ton of surveys and questionnaires (it was I think 5 different forms with 30-50 questions each). My wife also did one. I had an in person appointment with some testing over the course of an hour or so, then a follow up to discuss my diagnosis. Of note, it was a few hundred dollars, paid out of our HSA and covered by insurance as mental health services. I didn’t need to “game” anything. I was on time for appointments, honest, and upfront about everything. I discussed why I was looking into this at 30+ years old (I was noticing it interfering with my work and home life more, and through talking to friends and seeing videos online I started to suspect ADHD was a likely explanation for struggles and experiences I’ve had my whole life). Medication never came up during the evaluation, and afterward it only came up in terms of an option for treatment but advised as part of a larger regime of therapy. Psychologists can’t prescribe anything anyways. I do take medication now though it isn’t a stimulant (what OP refers to as pharma speed which is a gross mischaracterization of stimulant medications for ADHD, but it seems they are aware of that and don’t care about continuing to stigmatize ADHD treatments) and both my wife and I have seen a huge difference in my ability to generally function in ways that are healthy, productive, and much more pleasant. I still need to find a therapist though, been meaning to get on that for the last year or so…

For those in the US looking into this, check out psychologists, they are fully equipped and qualified to evaluate and diagnose various types of neurodivergence in people and are easier to get appointments with than most psychiatrists (if you are diagnosed and want to try medication as a treatment option you’ll still need to find a psychiatrist, but that can be easier with a diagnosis in hand). They are generally cheaper since they aren’t medical doctors, and many insurance plans still cover their services. Don’t skip or miss appointments, especially on purpose. It isn’t going to help in a diagnosis and is likely to just make it harder to get help you need and are trying to get. Lock in on that hyper focus and be that person that’s there 20 minutes early (because with an appointment in the afternoon can you really do anything else that day anyways?). Call around, or email, most offices want to help and seem willing to point you to other providers if they can’t help you. Be prepared for a wait though, it’s common to get an appointment 3-6 months out in many areas (more reason not to miss appointments on purpose!).

I would hazard to guess they are investigating how the use of AI was missed in their editorial process, how they missed the incorrect quotes, and who violated their journalistic standards by using an AI to directly write article text since it’s a coauthored piece.

In typical Ars fashion, the editorial team appears to be looking into what happened and are being fairly open about at things: https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/journalistic-standards.1511650/

I will be very disappointed if this was BenJ or Dan [edit: I had messed this up, it wasn’t Dan but Kyle Orland that coauthored it] Kyle using AI to write their article since both have had really good pieces in the past, but it doesn’t sound like this is some Ars wide shift at this point. Like all things, it makes sense that it will take time for them to investigate this, Aurich (the Ars community lead and graphic designer) was clear that with this happening on a Friday afternoon and a US holiday on Monday, it’s likely to be into next week before they have anything they can share.

I use them because I still have access through the last renewal I had, but won’t be renewing anything other than SimpleLogin once it runs out (and even that I may try and self host, not sure yet).

Eh, it can be a lot of work but doesn’t have to be. I’ve automated backups, and if you follow current best practice guidance from industry, you should use long pass phrases and not worry about regularly rotating them. For things like SSH keys, you can rotate them if you think you’ve had a breach but in normal usage there isn’t a huge benefit security-wise since they functionally can’t be guessed and would need to be stolen. If an adversary steals your SSH keys then you’re already pretty hosed as the next step is for them to establish another backdoor to access your server without needing your key.

Yes, hail is from thunderstorms and is generally larger, ice pellets are winter precipitation and almost always smaller. Hail usually lasts only a few minutes, ice pellets can last many hours.

Honestly it’s not a ton of time. A few minutes to run patches every few weeks, and the initial investment to plan, install, and configure your services (but then that’s the fun part no?). Self hosting IMO isn’t a great way to save time and money, or even to get out of the pocket of big tech. If those are your goals you’re better off looking at hosted solutions that are Open, and likely paying for it since running IT stacks isn’t free. Self hosting is a hobby, something you do to learn and because you enjoy it. It is hard sometimes, takes time, and comes with risks, but so do most other hobbies.

It doesn’t usually matter what the service is, the basic concepts are the same. If you want to access a service you host on your internal network from another external network you either need to use a VPN to securely connect into your network, or expose the service directly. If you are exposing it directly you should put it (or a proxy like NPM) in your DMZ. The specifics of how to do this though will vary from service to service and with your specific network config.

You can run a port scan against your public IP from another network to see what is open. But if you haven’t specifically set something up for external access through port forwarding you are probably fine.

Hail is formed through a completely different process and is a spring/summer precip type associated with thunderstorms. It forms as water gets lifted high into the atmosphere from updrafts in the thunderstorm then fall before getting lifted again. Hail often shows layers (like a jawbreaker) and can grow very large.

In the US, sleet/graupel is essentially just a frozen raindrop and is a winter precip type. Wintry mix is what the US National Weather Service uses for any mix of rain, snow, sleet, graupel, and freezing rain. The WMO and Europe use Ice Pellets for frozen raindrops and Sleet for mixed rain and snow. So both are official terms depending on where you are.

Only expose services internally then use a secure VPN to access your services, this makes your network no more vulnerable in practice than not self hosting. If you need/want to expose something to the internet, make sure you setup your network right. Use a DMZ to separate that service and leverage something like CrowdSec along with good passwords, antivirus, and keep things patched.

I migrated away from proton for mail and calendar about 4 months ago. The services are fine, they do what they say, but the trade offs for “e2ee” email are large with a dubious benefit when it works and no benefit in 99% of cases because the vast majority of people don’t use Proton so your Mail is not encrypted anyways. I still use Pass, VPN, and SimpleLogin. They, IMO, are the best services Proton offers (though I may move passwords back to bitwarden, still deciding).

Overall it’s worth considering what secure email means to you, what your individual threat landscape looks like, and then comparing what Proton offers to your needs. Personally I migrated to Fastmail and have been pleased so far. It won’t be right for everyone, and for some the security offered by Proton may be valuable, but know there are a ton of asterisks to that security.

Im not an expert by any means, but you can get setup with a rooftop node pretty cheaply. You’ll want a NRF-based device for power efficiency so like a RAK WisBlock 4631, then a decent antenna, Rokland has some good options for higher gain fiberglass but your local mesh or HAM club can probably help here since there is a lot of garbage antennas out there. You will probably want an MPPT charge controller as well since the on board one is pretty crap, our local mesh often recommends an option from Aliexpress that’s less than $5. You can build your own node for less than $200 though for sure. If you want a ready to go option, I’ve heard good things about the SeeedStudio SenseCAP P1 and it’s less than $100.

All that said, be sure to coordinate the role with your local mesh. A poorly placed router can cause a ton of problems. Almost all rooftop nodes should be client or client_base.

I’ll post here what I’ve posted elsewhere with addition comments sprinkled in.

This is what bothers me the most about folks, usually from an EU country, telling Americans we should just oust our shithead president through national strikes or violence and complain that we aren’t doing anything. The US is huge, what works in smaller European countries is vastly more difficult and expensive to organize and execute in the US. Those tactics do work here, but mostly at the local and state level which is akin to how they work in most EU countries when you adjust for population and size. At this level there is just not much an individual or relatively small group can do. Even if my entire city and the surrounding area rose up together (which it wouldn’t since it’s politically mixed) it would have little to no impact. A million or two people just isn’t that much in a nation as large and diverse as the US. The entirety of California or Texas couldn’t appreciably move the needle in all reality and they are massive, wealthy states.

The US General Strike movement estimates that we would need just 3.5% of the US adult population to strike to see any results, that is over 10.5 million people, and they have less than half a million signed up. To put that in perspective, that’s more than the entire population of Greece, Austria, or Sweden needed to make an impact, and even well resourced and organized they are barely moving the needle due mostly to the sheer size of the country. None of those countries can get their entire population to agree on something though, so it’s not really surprising the US hasn’t been able to get that many people to agree either.

In addition, the risks are enormous to everyday people when there isn’t an organization to back their movement. I still need to eat, put a roof over mine and my families head, and generally exist in this world. I applaud those that have the means, drive, or mindset to just take direct action but the vast majority do not. Going out half cocked, guns blazing though also doesn’t accomplish anything and just gives more media ammo to the current regime to oppress rights further. Until we can find our MLK to lead a movement against this oppression though, it’s unlikely that resistance will accomplish much visibly.

I think it would be a fantastic idea for Europeans, and the rest of the world, to start actually considering what a violent, imperialist US means to their normal day-to-day and how they can best prepare to defend against it. I, and all those I choose to surround myself with, hate what our government is doing. We voted against it, give money and time to causes against it and to try to reduce harm where we can and help those impacted by it. Many of us would leave if we had the means to, but the reality is that leaving has its own risks, is surprisingly difficult and expensive, doesn’t guarantee where we end up will ultimately be better, and removes our ability to do anything here. Like most of life, reality is complex and messy, I just wish everyone could keep that in mind when condemning all Americans for the actions our government is taking.

That all said, Americans are doing something, not enough, and not quickly, but protests are nearly constant in various parts of the country. Congress is rebuking nearly all of the big budget cuts Trump wanted, and more right leaning lawmakers are starting to stand up against the regime. Again, it’s not enough, but it isn’t silence like is often asserted here and elsewhere.

In short, I am not my country, and while I fully accept that the world hates the US right now (and they should), personally hating every individual American and blaming us as specifically responsible is ignorant and inflammatory. It doesn’t help and just serves to depress and discourage action by those of us who do not support the actions of our government and are trying to help in the ways that we can.

This was posted here yesterday by the dev. Overall the reaction seems positive.

A quick look through the repo it looks pretty legit, it’s a lot of effort to create something that works, with all the documentation (including a lot of planning docs) just to collect data on you. Traffic to various IPs, foreign or otherwise, wouldn’t really be odd for an app like this either. You could try and run it through something like virustotal though to look for malicious code (there are more than a few docker scanning tools on GitHub that use virustotal).

This seems a little different though no? Like it appears to be a fully contained system that should work as long as you have a smart brick and tags. It doesn’t need to physically interact with the various tech enabled elements so at worst you end up with some plates and minifigs with what appear to be passive electronics inside that still work as normal pieces.

I think what I’m most leery of is that the smart brick itself looks like it has a fully seal battery that isn’t user serviceable which means in a few years these just become e-waste. I hope LEGO has considered that and has a way to replace them.

These look fundamentally different to Powered Functions or Mind Storms for instance which were focused on expanding the capabilities of LEGO to be interactive. The Smart Brick though looks very specifically aimed at enhancing the play pillar of LEGO and not at what most AFL want (in the creativity or building/engineering pillars). This isn’t really for the 16+ audience is my big takeaway, it’s for kids in the same way the Mario interactive figures are for kids mainly.