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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • Data hoarding is a truly unique experience. Just my two cents

    • raid is not a backup. Don’t use raid5 unless you’re using a filesystem like zfs that checksums your data. Raid5 is vulnerable to scenarios with a “write hole” that leads to bit rot.

    • split up your dataset into smaller more manageable datasets so you can more easily back it up in different ways like external drives, cloud storage, etc. You can then limit the dataset size to never exceed the same of your backup target.

    • snapshots, use them. Snapshots in your filesystem can make your backups more manageable by only sending the differential data as opposed to something like Rsync which may need to rsync an entire file.

    I use ZFS and have found that compression with ZSTD works pretty well for getting extra use out of your disks but unless you have a lot of RAM and some special metadata NVME disks, don’t use reduplication as it will be a serious performance impact.

    Now if you aren’t using a FOSS system like truenas and instead you’re using a system like a qnap off the shelf, the qnap hybrid backup and sync manager has a really elegant solution for doing policy based differential backups to back blaze b2 storage. Not only does this give you a copy of your data, you also get immutable points in time archives of your data.

    Good luck in your data hoarding endeavors!


  • Im pretty sure this method utilizes RDP. I’m thinking about getting an Intel ARC380 GPU for PCI-E pass through to a windows VM and doing the same thing. I’ve tested this with an Nvidia Tesla k80 (though it’s not a very practical card to have on a desktop). You should be able to get enhanced performance out of the VM if you enforce video encoding on GPU via group policy.

    The only downsides are :

    1. passing certain peripherals through RDP fails on Linux from my experience (for example, USB DAC, Xbox 360 USB controller). Your mileage may vary.
    2. absolute mouse position doesn’t work over RDP so don’t try this with any games that need a mouse for camera control (fps) it simply won’t work. If you want to game, lookingglass would probably be better for that but I haven’t tested that yet.










  • I don’t think it’s about EVs. My understanding is that it’s about protecting American auto manufacturers from “unfair” overseas competitors. There is a history here.

    :: incoming semi-coherent rant::

    Volkswagen was one of the first auto manufacturers to come to the US back in the 1950s. The us government set up a framework that allowed foreign manufacturers to establish themselves in the states. This was supposed to help the economy by making sure the cars sold here were manufactured here and abused by a set of standards the governing bodies set up.

    Well eventually the Japanese got into the game and when brands like Toyota established themselves as cheaper and better than anything you could buy in America, the American car companies lobbied against it and won. This put a soft limit on how many cars could be imported from Japan (which in turn hurt Japan’s economy). At the time there was a lot of sentiment going around that the Japanese were taking people’s jobs so it actually was a very popular decision at the time (which seems weird because everyone was driving their cars).

    Furthermore in the 1980s, people started importing and selling used cars from Europe. This hurt the auto manufacturers deeply as they could not compete with used luxury cars like Mercedes imported from Europe at those low used price points. This is why the auto manufacturers lobbied for a 25 year ban on the import and sale of cars (though they claim it was for safety, it was really to kill the grey market for imports).

    The Truth is that a lot of other countries also followed the US in these Bans. Canada has the 20 year import ban and Europe has their own set of regulations.

    Chinese cars and EVs will come to the West Eventually but first they’ll come under the names of brands that are already here like Volvo. You won’t see a Geely branded vehicle for a while unless they open up a Geely of America branch and begin shipping their parts here for assembly. This however will prevent them from having as much as a competitive edge in the US because labor is more expensive in the states than China and South East Asia.

    Do they want you to transition to EVs? Yes. Do they want it to be cheap? No.


  • Rem4 has the energy of a movie that was made because James Cameron walked into Capcom main offices, met with the presidents, stood in front of a whiteboard and wrote “Resident Evil$” making sure the s was notably a big red dollar sign $. Everyone applauded and then they made whatever the hell they wanted.

    and I love that about it.

    (Note: this is basically how we got the move Aliens 1986)





  • I agree. A digital file is written to disk yet has no second hand value because of the nature of replication. Your books have value after you’ve read them because it’s not easily replicated and has more value beyond its basic consumption. It can be collected, displayed, traded, burned… It has all sorts of intrinsic value beyond the words on the page.

    It’s as if the printing of the media to a physical device in the end provides you a solid copy but not the rights to the work contained inside of it. You’re not allowed to modify and distribute those works as that violates copyright.

    I feel like the individual ownership of physical media actually protected copyright and now in the digital era, the lack of ownership is subverting its own purpose. We as a people never understood or acknowledged the implicit agreement that came with the acquisition of our books and DVDs. We ignore all the legal messaging and even made fun of it. We laughed when we realized “How could they ever enforce this?!” And so we didn’t care.

    Now here we are, learning in real time how it will be enforced.



  • I think about this a lot and it really does depend on your needs.

    Home lab vs home server. I like to keep them separate just because I consider my lab unstable and my home server stable. You don’t have to do it this way it’s just the way I like it.

    https://a.co/d/6k6QpOD If you want to build a low power NAS I suggest investing in an Intel n100 based itx Nas motherboard. You can then use a case like this from Jonsbo https://a.co/d/1ayqwJV. This could be a nice cool and quiet solution. If you want to do video transcoding, the n100 has quicksync on board and with something like Truenas it’s pretty easy to set up via the app catalog (check out truecharts).

    If you want something even more simple (good for home users or like a backup target you keep elsewhere) I’ve been meaning to grab one of these “Topton 2-Bay NAS R1 PRO 12th Gen Intel N100 Network Attached Storage Media Server” from AliExpress for just this case.

    As for a Lab, I suggest finding a W680 chipset based motherboard like an ASRock IMB-X1314 LGA 1700 Intel W680. You can get a cpu like a 12400 or 12500T (lower power and less heat) used cheap and you have the option to upgrade and use ecc memory without a XEON. You also have a lot more pci express connectivity.

    What ever you do choose, anything pre 12th gen Intel is basically ewaste (those 11th gen mobile erying I9 engineering samples are very good but less reliable than desired). Do not invest in any old x99 based gear (unless you get it for free). I have an old dual XEON system that is still running and it uses power like a small fridge.