I’m also in agreement with you there. I’d rather use Windows 11 than macOS, but that’s kinda like saying I’d rather have a lobotomy with a short icepick instead of a long one.

macOS

I am virtually never out of town, but if I was, then no, I wouldn’t worry.

If there was a technical problem that left my servers inaccessible, then oh well. It’s the same scenario as if I had shut them off. I’d fix it when I get back. This has never happened, though. I’ve had VMs crash, but I have never had a situation where any of my servers were completely inaccessible.

The only situation I can think of where I’d need to immediately shut down a server would be a drive failure in my ZFS array, but the chances of this happening in conjunction with a loss of connectivity are exceedingly unlikely. If it was a major concern, I’d write a script to power down the server when a drive fails.

You didn’t mention it directly, but if you want to access any of your hosted services remotely, you will almost certainly want some kind of VPN solution. I host a few things over HTTPS, but there’s no way I’m exposing anything critical directly to the internet.

I suppose it depends on your use case, but I would disagree with points 1 and 2. Network connectivity has an effect on your entire network and is absolutely crucial. Pfsense/OPNSense, DNS, etc should always be on server-class hardware. I run these as VM, but I would argue that best practice is to have them on their own bare-metal server-class hardware. File storage is also incredibly important, and even with backups, I don’t want my NAS going down. It also runs on server class-hardware.

The two items you mentioned are the two items I would be least comfortable running on consumer-grade hardware.

My server rack gets shut off in only two cases: I lose power and am too slow in firing up the generator before the UPS shuts the servers down, or I need to do major maintenance (like replacing a PCIe card). So, virtually never for the most part.

Too many important sevices need to stay running, even when I’m not at home.

I definitely get that. The big thing for me is music, and I routinely buy physical and digital copies of albums to add to my collection. I don’t mind sending some money to help my favorite artists keep producing content that I enjoy. With video, though, it’s just so much harder. I’d be happy to pay $50 or more per month for what Netflix used to be, or even buy downloadable copies of a TV series that I like. That’s just not possible these days. I’d be subscribing to Netflix, Discovery, Paramount, Apple TV, probably a few more. It’s ridiculous. Forget buying and downloading TV shows; there’s no option for that at all. I’d rather just not watch TV or find an “alternate” means of getting the media I want.

I canceled Netflix several years ago after having used it as my primary source of media almost since they first started their streaming service.

The problem I had is that the quality of their content decreased so dramatically that even though it worked fine from a technical perspective, there was nothing I wanted to watch. They used to have extensive back-catelogues of shows from all sorts of different national cable networks, tons of interesting foreign shows, documentaries, obscure indie films, etc.

Slowly but surely this all disappeared. Networks stopped licensing content to Netflix. As soon as they realized that streaming was the way of the future, they wanted to capitalize on it with their own streaming services. In a way, Netflix was a victim of their own success.

Now they’re essentially just a TV network of their own and not the aggregator of media that they used it me. The few decent originals that they have were just not justification enough for me to pay for a service I might use a few times a year.

I love it, and for anyone else who does, I have a suggestion.

Get a SodaStream (or whatever your carbonator-of-choice is) and a cheap adapter to run it from a standard CO2 tank. Not only do you save money on CO2 refills, but you save money on buying cans of seltzer, too. The concentrated flavor additives are only a few dollars at the grocery store.

I think my SodaStream was something like $100. The adapter and hoses were $50-ish. The flavor syrup costs around $5 for enough to make gallons. Every few months or more, I might pay $50 or so to refill a 20lb CO2 tank. It’s already paid for itself, and it’s incredibly convenient.

Holy shit. I’m paying less than 10c per kwh even in the “high usage” tier.

I’m right around the same level, and it actually keeps my server room / workshop at comfortable temperature during the winter. I also have my gaming PC mounted in my server rack; when that’s running, there are times where my AC will still kick in even when it’s 40 degrees outside.

For two servers (one with a lot of spinning rust), two switches, and a few other miscellaneous network appliances. My server rack averages around 600-650W. During periods of high demand (nightly backups, for instance), that can peak at around 750W.

I generally buy almost everything online, but clothes are one exception to that. I generally have 1 or 2 brands of clothes I normally purchase, but even within those two brands, size can vary quite a bit, especially after they’ve been washed a few times.

I can buy two different size 36 pants from my favorite brand, and after washing, one fits comfortably, and the other only fits if I leave them unbuttoned. Being able to test them in-person at least gives me a general idea of if they’re still going to fit after they go through the dryer.

C++ compiler errors still won’t fit on either screen.

I’ll start: 39/M/US, so yeah, I fit the demographic.

I have never really considered Lemmy or Reddit to be “social media.” They’re entirely anonymous, and you’re not being exposed to posts where a apecific person is talking about themselves (at least for the most part). I think a modern equivalent to a PhpBB forum or (if you’re old) a BBS is more accurate.

It’s actually surprising how much just having a person in the room can alter the temperature and humidity levels. In my master bathroom, I have my bathroom fan set to activate when the dew point reaches a certain level (I’ve found that dew point produces better results than just humidity); the idea is that the bathroom will be ventilated when someone takes a shower and for however long it takes for the humidity to dissipate after they’re done. The funny thing is that every so often, I’ll take an excessively long poop (lets me honest, I’m scrolling on my phone), and the fan will kick on. Just being in the bathroom will alter the dew point enough that it triggers the fan.

I also have a room that contains all my server/networking equipment. It’s climate-controlled, and I’m constantly monitoring temperatures. The times that in the room working, I can see a noticeable spike in the temperature graph, even though the only variable that’s changed is that there’s a person in the room.

So my point is: OP might not have been having fun that night; it’s entirely possible someone just came in and went to bed.

I haven’t had cable/satellite TV in well over a decade, probably more. When I say I’m “watching TV,” rather than “watching videos” or “watching YouTube,” it means I’m watching something episodic, created by a major studio.

Why is kernel-level anti-cheat even a thing?

If I was trying to prevent cheating, I’d hash the relevant game files, encrypt the values, and hard-code them into the executable. Then when the game is launched, calculated the hash of the existing files and compare to the saved values.

What is gained by running anti-cheat in kernel mode? I only play single-player games, so I assume I’m missing something.

I use Jellyfin heavily, and it’s a fantastic project, but I really wish they would address the issues with transcoding, specifically the ability to force it on.

My library contains a decent amount of HDR (lots of DV) content. On my TVs (using Nvidia Shield), it will direct play the DV content, resulting in a green picture. If I turn on burned-in subtitles or drop the bitrate and FORCE it to transcode, it’s looks perfect. I’ve resorted to just setting a low bitrate on clients so it always transcodes.

I’m really hoping a future version gives us the ability to set more fine-grained transcoding settings per-client. Even the ability to disable direct-play completely would be fantastic.