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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 3rd, 2023

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  • That sucks!

    I’m on Ubuntu, which I admit is not a popular option around here. But when my power goes out I use apcupsd and a network component to alert my attached or networked Ubuntu machines. When the power first goes out all of my non-essential machines automatically shut down gracefully. When the backup batteries get low enough (I have several separate APC units around the house) my essential machines also shut down automatically.

    When the power comes back up one of my machines automatically powers up and runs a few checks before turning most of my other stuff back on.

    I have very few power issues which last long enough for my batteries to run out, but when I do the only evidence is a few alerts and the fact that I have to log back into everything. All of my windows restore on my GUI machines, and no filesystem issues occur. It’s more seamless than when I ran Windows, granted that was 25 years ago.

    I’m similarly not a fan of systemd, but for backup battery and power management it seems to do the trick.


  • and I sharpen those every 30 minutes

    I’m sorry, what?

    If I sharpened my knives after every 30 minutes of use I wouldn’t have any steel left after a couple of months, tops. My knives are shaving sharp, I use them for several hours every day.

    If your knives hold an edge and are profiled correctly, sharpening every 30 minutes (even a quick touch up) is entirely unnecessary. Professional meat cutters and fishmongers annihilate cutting for 10 hours a day and require razor sharp tools, and they don’t spend even close to as much time as you’ve claimed touching up their edges.

    Don’t get me wrong, I love sharp knives, but either you’re exaggerating or doing it wrong.



  • I see a lot of references to Ubuntu being filled with ads or scaring people into buying their services, but I’ve been daily driving it for over 15 years on personal desktops and servers and never noticed that. What have I missed?

    I never saw the Amazon ad stuff, I hear it was a referral link?

    Last I checked Ubuntu Pro is free for personal use on up to 5 machines.

    I use apt to manage all my packages and upgrades, including dist-upgrade, maybe that’s why I’ve never noticed snap? Why does snap suck?




  • I’m pretty sure I didn’t mess with systemd, though that would probably be the right way to handle it.

    I was able to update a runtime config so if any storage wasn’t available it just halted the service. Then I created a short script I’d invoke manually which decrypted the luks drives and brought the dependent services up. I also added monitoring to alert me when the drives weren’t available for whatever reason.


  • I use separate disks for data storage and my OS. That way a headless system can boot and all the services like SSH can become available, and I can decrypt the data drives remotely.

    When there’s an unexpected reboot I can still get into my system and decrypt remotely which is nice. I can also move the data storage disks to another system without too much hassle.

    I did have to make sure some services were fault tolerant if an encrypted volume was unavailable when the OS booted. An example of this might be torrenting software, I needed to make sure the temporary storage was on an encrypted volume. The software had a sane fault mode when the final storage location was unavailable, but freaked out for some reason when the temp storage was missing.

    Once set up the whole thing is pretty easy to manage.




  • I know this is a privacy community, but I’m not sure I’m onboard with the outrage on this particular one. If you rent/lease or go on a payment plan for the device you’re using, then it isn’t yours, it belongs to the entity you borrowed it from.

    If I don’t make car payments, the bank can repossess my ride. If I dont pay my mortgage or rent, I can be evicted by my landlord or bank.

    If I don’t make my phone payment, the company should have recourse to prevent me from using their device.

    This could open up the ability for bad actors to disable my device, and I agree that’s a horrible prospect. But the idea of a legitimate creditor using this feature to reclaim their property is not something I find shocking.




  • I’m not sure what qualifying language you took offense at, and I wasn’t intending to be condescending.

    I admitted that my experience was indeed anecdotal, but I stand by my statements. If you’re good at what you do in tech, you have a few years of experience, and you’re willing to take take positions that differ from your comfort zone you should never be without well paying work.

    I’m always in the market as you put it, even though I’m not looking to leave my current position any time soon. I did 2 interviews in the last 7 days, and I turn down offers probably once a month.

    I know this isn’t how it works for everyone in tech, but once you get your career grooved it isn’t unrealistic.


  • This hasn’t been my (anecdotal) experience, or that of anyone in my network.

    The industry is unstable no doubt about that, but we’ve never had trouble finding better places to land.

    IMO if you’ve been in tech building your skills for a few years, you really shouldn’t have trouble finding work. '01 was weird but there was still plenty of work, especially in defense. '08 was scary but turned out to be a great time to join a startup. Sometimes it’s a lateral move instead of up, sometimes it requires relocating , but if you’ve been doing good work and building your professional network you should never have to go back to driving forklifts (unless you choose to).






  • Sure, but it doesn’t do that without someone pulling the trigger.

    What you’ve done is assume either the tool has agency of its own, or that humans can only use this tool for negative purposes.

    What I said was that those things are patently untrue, and provided examples of how >6 million pistols are legally carried by civilians in the US every day, and how those civilians are far less likely than regular public to commit gun crimes.

    This is kind of a tautology because the legal carry folks are both:

    • legally allowed to acquire a firearm (ruling out prohibited persons like people with prior criminal histories) and in many cases they’ve
    • gone through even more extensive background checks and rigorous training

    But I also acknowledge that some folks don’t think those facts are significant, I’m just sorry this resorted to name calling.