brewery @ brewery @lemmy.world

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Joined

2 yr. ago

To be honest, there are so many articles about Chrome over the last several months, I don't get why anybody is staying with them if they care about things like this. Am I being naive or unaware?

We have much tougher GDPR laws so I am more worried about American companies stealing my data than any based in the EU. I use different passmails for every account hoping to find a company breaching GDPR but (luckily?) unluckily, no hits so far.

Every company I have worked for, including a major bank, takes GDPR extremely seriously. So much so I often thought they went to far but understand their caution.

In the EU and UK, heavy regulation, especially of Visa and MasterCard, means the fees are actually lower than the costs of handling cash. Lots of businesses want only card transactions because it works out better for them and most people don't carry any cash so that need to offer card payments, and so it makes even less sense to offer both methods. The only industries who like cash are likely trying some form of tax evasion.

Cleverly, they banned businesses from charging any payment fees and suddenly, businesses negotiated and found suppliers offering low payment fees. We don't have anything like these convenience fees for paying with cards over cheque that I hear about.

Amex still charges higher fees so many places still don't take those cards. The value of benefits (air miles, cashback) have gone down significantly but in reality, it was essentially transferring wealth from the poor (who could never get these cards) to the rich, through these fees, so works out better overall.

The banks here advertise that they help everyone get bank accounts and social benefits are paid into bank accounts so I assume everyone is able to get an account. However, I do wonder if some people, especially the homeless, slip through the cracks.

They seriously won't issue one even though it's faulty? Surely it's their fault as suppliers of a defective product that is probably still owned by them in some legalise way!

My chip stopped working and after one quick phone call they sent a replacement one. Do all the banks you can access do this or worth changing over?

My experience has taught me not to 'apt autoremove' unless im really sure what they are!

Take it one software at a time. See it's running fine then move on to another. You'll often realise something down the line will be helpful so will go back to make changes.

Keep a running list of software and the ports used.

With docker, do not automatically do :latest on important software (nginx proxy manager, SSO software, password database, anything you use regularly, etc). I did that and was burned a few times.

Also that at some point you'll either mess up or realise it would just be easier and start again with a fresh OS install. Keep copying data (docker compose files and persistent storage) on working software before starting a new one, or before installing anything directly onto the OS, or before major updates.

I would highly discourage getting a fire stick, they've locked it down so much its just annoying. Yes, you can get there but found it much easier on android tv boxes, specifically the Xiaomi Mii TV ones. Which one you get probably depends on whether you need 4K and/or dolby

I like the Mii TV 4k sticks. They run android tv and have the usual apps, or you can install your own launcher, apps (look into stremio!) and everything through downloader or adb. Then you can disable the bloatware through adb, theres a few lists online if you search. With a launcher manager app, mine loads straight to productivity launcher (I also like flauncher).

Do not try a firestick, theyre heavily locked down now.

I then just deleted the network on my smart tv so it can't send anything. Along with my pihole, hopefully theres no telemetry getting out, although not checked it. Its impossible to find good TVs that aren't smart anymore unfortunately, the data selling either subsidises the costs pricing out dumb TV's, or more likely they make so much from the data selling that they only sell those.

I just started using some docker containers I found on Docker Hub designed for DB backups (e.g. prodrigestivill/postgres-backup-local) to automatically dump from the databases into a set folder, which is included in the restic backup. I know you could come up with scripts but this way, I could easily copy the compose code to other containers with different databases (and different passwords etc).

I would recommend it as it is fairly easy to understand and most Foss services give you an example to use. You can also convert docker run examples to compose (search docker composeriser) although it doesn't always work.

I found composer files easier when learning it, to digest what is going on (ports, networks, depends_on etc) and can compare with other services to see what is missing (container name, restart schedule etc). I can then easily backup the compose files, env files and data directories to be able to very quickly get a service up again (although DBs are trickier but found a docker image that I can stick on the compose files which backups the DB dumps regularly)

Just had to double check that Mick Lynch hadn't passed away or started moonlighting as an actor...

I am born and raised in England to Indian parents so always had some internal tension. Sometimes, I don't understand my patents culture and sometimes I don't understand English culture. However, I've realised I am who I am, and can take the best bits from both. There are some bits I don't like so I'm the better for being / having that mix. I married an Irish person who moved over several years ago. Irish used to be the "other" and were screwed over, but now are sometimes considered "white", so just shows the target moves.

There has always been racism in British society and unfortunately I have felt it pick up since the Brexit vote and Trump's election (I think it empowered them). However, it is from a small minority of people. In some areas it comes from ignorance, which I can kind of forgive. Others will always see us as outsiders with our foreign names (and my brown skin) no matter what we do. I just think, screw them. I mean, can they trace themselves back before the Normans, the Romans or the Vikings etc? Where do you draw the line exactly?!? England has always been a mix of people and culture so they're the ones missing out. I'm happy driving my Korean car to a German store to buy ingredients for a Thai green curry. Oh, I'll grab a French pastry for breakfast, Chilean wine for the weekend and well, you get the idea! Let's make the most of this multicultural place and ideas, and who cares about bigots who you can guarantee, like a cheeky korma and Belgian beer...

Been using Duckduckgo for a few years now and found it very good, although it's also on the downward SEO ruined path. Have tried Google occasionally and wow is it juat completely full of crap.

Is an Amazon account any better? Not sure if it's just the new devices but things are much more difficult now compared to a Mii TV S for example

I tried the readarr and other options. They work sometimes but not enough to rely on it. As others mention, there's no standard naming and also, lots of people use their library card for Libby access. I also think there's a bit more of a direct link to authors so I'd prefer to buy the book unless theyre super well off anyway. To be honest, I can't see the arr's working with LibGen having looked at the open issues on integrating it, it just doesn't allow for scraping in the same way.

For me, I self host openbooks (uses IRC) and select a download straight away, which to be fair, is about the same time as searching / finding a TV show if you are after one book. I have exposed it behind an SSO so can access it on my phone and download the book straight away when someone gives me a recommendation. Most of the time I just add to a running note on phone and go through it every few months when I need more books.

It's fairly quick for multiple books but not sonarr levels of ease. The downloads go into a calibre monitored folder which then does the automation (naming, conversion if needed etc). I bulk email the new books to my kindle with one click. Calibre-web is on read only for a nice browsing experience and to read on other devices if I need to (althogh no page sync). It's a bit of manual work but I find it is not too bad and in 10 minutes I can load up enough books for months.

Occasionally IRC does not have the book so try manually searching on prowlarr, and download on sab or transmission. The downloads are almost instant so I then just wait and copy them to my downloads folder (I could probably automate this step too with tags but it's so infrequent).

My parents had a Post Office which I effectively grew up in. I remember them having to report things on a desktop and loading these discs. I also remember when they got the Horizon system and how much trouble they were having trying to get it to work.

They moved to the city I was born and raised in just to buy the PO, and both worked full time in it. I feel so lucky they didn't get caught up in it all. I have asked if they paid anything they weren't sure about and they said there was nothing, although my mum paused before answering so think there might've been something.

It would have ruined our lives completely so all this scandal stuff really hits me hard. I couldn't even watch the Norman Bates show past 20 minutes as I just got so upset and angry. Fuck all the people involved (at every level) and hope they suffer for all time...

I have dynamic IP and there are several ways around it. I use Cloudflared (updates DNS records regularly) and a script I found to update duck DNS as a backup. Both very simple.

Accessing the services is not the problem, the problem is keeping them safe. I've tried lots of different ways (although not tailscale yet) and have a few services exposed directly to the internet behind authentik \ NPM \ Cloudflare \ fail2ban \ ufw. Others, I access through my router openvpn server, with keys for my laptop and phone as clients. There are so many guides online for all VPN types. Its just finding the right approach between ease of use vs safety

I'm hesitant about it too for the same reason but not sure if I'm being unreasonable given that I rely on so many other free services. However, this is one that would potentially have access to everything I do.

I'm watching headscale with interest until its safe enough for me to try breaking it!

Would you trust rsync.net to be around for a long time? They're doing a $540 lifetime 1TB offer which is interesting as I'm luckily in a position to do but would take 6 years plus to "pay off".

Interesting. Here, with automated cameras, the letter also goes to the registered keeper of the car. There used to be a way out where you could say I don't remember who was driving, but you'd both have to be on the insurance for it to work. Now I think your have to name the driver and can't not name them, or something along those lines. From memory, somebody took it to court saying you shouldn't be compelled to incriminate yourself but think they lost.

Most cameras now though are forward facing so take a photo of the driver too. You can't get out of that!

To be fair, the owner should know who's driving at that time and they need to be on the insurance. Maybe this is different here because every driver is named on the insurance for each car. Am I right in thinking it's different there? If you named someone who wasn't insured on your car, you're letting someone drive your car without insurance which is also an offence. You have to pay for each person so it's not like you're going to have multiple random drivers.

In the UK we have a points system and if you get enough points you lose your licence and have to reapply. This was introduced because the wealthy didn't really care about getting tickets if it was just a small (relative to their wealth) fine. You can get points for any automatic fines from speeding, running red lights, illegal U-turns, etc, plus any court issued fines.

In the first two years of getting your licence, you have a lower threshold.

Speed cameras are generally signposted or painted in yellow, although there are some speed traps or police patrols which might catch you too. Often, you are not sure if the cameras work but people will slow down just in case. There's also average speed cameras on some roads which completely stop speeding.

You could argue that some people will still drive without a licence but I there's not many who would do that.

I have noticed in my driving lifetime (20 years) that drivers have slowed down, especially in urban areas. Roads in urban areas have been designed to decrease speeds though which probably had more of an effect - more curves, tighter roads, prioritising buses/pedestrians/cyclists, etc. Plus we've always had more roundabouts which have been proven to lower speeds.

Of course, we have a centralised driving licence authority and not the state differences you guys have.