Yep, that’s why I haven’t messed with Kubernetes either; way overkill for a homelab and especially so since I downsized due to soaring electricity costs here.

The only reason I gave up on Docker Swarm was that it seemed pretty dead-end as far as being useful outside the homelab. At the time, it was still competing with Kubernetes, but Kube seems to have won out. I’m not even sure Docker CE even still has Swarm. It’s been a good while since I messed with it. It might be a “pro” feature nowadays.

Edit: Docker 28.5.2 still has Swarm.

Still, it was nice and a lot easier to use than Kubernetes once you wrapped your head around swarm networking.

I had 15 of the 2013-era 5010 thin clients. Most of them have had their SSDs and RAM upgraded.

They’ve worn many hats since I’ve had them, but some of their uses and proposed uses were:

1. I did a 15 node Docker Swarm setup and used that to both run some of my applications as well as learn how to do horizontal scaling.
2. After I tore down the Docker Swarm cluster, I set them up as diskless workstations to both learn how to do that and used them at a local event as web kiosks (basically just to have a bunch of stations people could use to fill out web based forms).
3. One of them was my router for a good while. Only replaced it in that role when I got symmetric gigabit fiber. Before that, I used VLANs to to run LAN and WAN over its single ethernet port since I had asymmetric 500 Mbps and never saturated the port.
4. Run small/lightweight applications in highly-available pairs/clusters
5. Use them to practice clustered services (Multi-master Galera/MariaDB, multi-master LDAP, CouchDB, etc)
6. Use them as Snapcast clients in each room
7. Add wireless cards, install OpenWRT, and make powerful access points for each room (can combine with the above and also be a Snapcast client)
8. Set them up as VPN tunnel endpoints, give them out to friends, and have a private network

Of the 15, I think I’m only actively using 4 nowadays. One is my MPD+Snapcast server, one is running HomeAssistant, ,the third is my backup LDAP server, and one runs my email server (really). The rest I just spin up as needed for various projects; I downsized my homelab and don’t have a lot of spare capacity for dev/test VMs these days, so these work great in place of that.

“Does it piss you off when Google/whatever does [blank]? Yeah, me too. So I run my own versions to not have to deal with that crap. Would you like me to set you up an account on my stuff?”

A database can be used to plug into any number of applications that run on top of it as well as be easily shared by multiple people and centrally backed up. Auditing, logging, and row and table level access controls, and other measures can be easily added.

Excel files (or even MS Access files) as “databases” are often just people emailing around a file or accessing it from a shared drive. You end up with a split-brain situation at best and at worst you’re dealing with constant file corruption from multiple people thinking they can access it from a shared drive at the same time.

Then you get vendor lock in and are forced to keep MS Office professional licenses because Shawn created some stupid Access “app” 10 years ago which is “THE DATABASE” and no one understands how it works.

I think the point of 11h is to achieve that kind of range without directional antennas. Basically as a higher-bandwidth version of LoRa.

They do, and I tried it, but it keeps crashing after completing a request (even a simple GET). Could just be that it doesn’t like the Orange Pi it’s running on, but other extensions work fine. I’ll try it in VSCodium later.

Literally me for decades. My astigmatism wasn’t diagnosed until 2-3 years ago despite yearly (or semi-yearly) visits to the optometrist. Thought that was just how lights looked in the dark lol.

Ooh, I haven’t tried RTL-SDR on it yet, but I think I’m nearing capacity on what it can do at once lol.

Here’s the block diagram for it (in spoiler below). Everything’s up and running except the Bluetooth Receiver -> Snapcast (it works on the bench but I don’t have the scripting/automation done yet). I’m also adding an SMA connector for an external antenna, but the new base part is still printing. Photo shows it “as is” of this writing.

SSL for the web apps was a PITA since I wanted real certs. Had to make a wildcard domain under my main hobby domain, so all my apps are like “https://{APP_NAME}.mobile.mydomain.xyz/”

As soon as I can get the Bluetooth + Pulseaudio scripting done, I’m gonna try to do a write up and maybe a show/tell post.

I would love to have a small Wikipedia browser that can survive the apocalypse.

I’ve got the full 120 GB Wikipedia dump running in Kiwix on a Raspberry Pi Zero. Works great (surprisingly)

E-ink display, mini keyboard

Have been using a Minimal Phone for a few months now which has both of those. Can connect to the Pi easily.

multiple ways/ports to transfer info,

Add a USB-C hub (or add a hub to the Pi) and you’re set

All wrapped up in a heavy duty equipment case that’s able to survive a building collapses and burns in an earthquake, that’s shielded from EMP.

And that’s where I’m limited - My 3D printer can only do so much lol. 😆

I’ve been working on a side project this week with a Orange Pi Zero 2W (Pi Zero “clone” but with better specs). It’s got the Kiwix+Wikipedia like my older Pi (described above) plus a bunch of other neat stuff. It’s kind of a combination travel router, portable web app server, party box, and extremely over-engineered bluetooth speaker all-in-one. Hoping to put together a show-and-tell post about it when I get the last of it squared away.

What kind of mad person shuffles their whole collection?

Me! lol

The musical whiplash is strong. It’ll go Pantera, Slipknot, Lady Gaga, Children of Bodom, the theme from Three’s Company, Spice Girls, Waylon Jennings, N’Sync, Foo Fighters, STP, Britney Spears, etc. You never know what’s next.

The sad thing is I have a fully functional MPD + Snapcast setup I could use (including a TUI MPD client), but this is just what I’ve always done. Old habits and such lol.

Bryan Cranston kind-of? He had some minor movie roles before television and then larger movie roles after.

Will Ferrell, technically. Plus most of the other SNL actors who started there and did films later (though many of those were based on SNL skits). Tina Fey, though, plays it straight. She started as a writer, joined the cast of SNL, and did TV and movies later. Granted, I wouldn’t call any of them “movie stars”.

GoTG: Vol 2

“Poor”

Oh, I’m sorry to hear that!

“No, I mean pour.”

I think that’s what I’m going to try.

Yeah, I’ve decided I’m just gonna splurge the ~$30 and buy a 4 GB model and see how it goes.

Sounds like at least a minor improvement. Can those me moved and still work? Like, if I move the project folder, do I have to reinitialize it and download all the packages again?

For me, it’s the rigid and wonky virtual environments. I get why they’re useful and necessary, but they’re awkward to use. Like, Node just works from the working directory with no fuss and python has to be all source {venv}/bin/activate and lord help you if you need to move it.

Plus, I have never liked that the spacing is load-bearing.

You’re empathizing with the troll, too? 👀

FYI: What the troll is describing is not required all. I don’t know what they’re on about, but I’ve used ldap-js in many projects without having to do any of that.