cmnybo @ cmnybo @discuss.tchncs.de

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2 yr. ago

Every single time the land line ISPs have gotten money for rural broadband, they use it for something else and don't build anything. Starlink actually built a network that works. Many places have gotten decent 5G home internet too.

I have been promised fiber for over a decade yet the only wired connection available is a DSL network that's been so poorly maintained that it barely even functions.

My dynamic IPv6 prefix hasn't changed in a couple of years. It only changed because I reset the router config and that changed my DUID. That's good enough for everything I host. I don't even bother with dynamic DNS anymore.

I wouldn't bother with trying to host an email server from a residential connection though. Even if you can get your ISP to open port 25 for you, many email servers won't accept mail from residential IP addresses.

If you need IPv6, you can get a free tunnel from Hurricane Electric. They will give you a /48 if you request it. I used it for years since my old ISP didn't have IPv6. I am close to one of their servers, so the latency was very low.

Double that and you could probably even run a GUI.

I prefer to use FOSS software. There is a risk of getting malware from pirated software. Even if there is no malware, commercial software usually has lots of tracking and telemetry anyways.

The problem with laser communication is that it doesn't take much rain, snow or fog to block the signal.

Battery usage depends a lot on what kind of websites you're browsing. Simple, static sites don't use much. Javascript heavy sites can drain the battery fast, especially if a script is misbehaving. Most sites these days have loads of javascript.

It looks like it's been using a lot of power in the background. You can try setting Android to restrict the background power usage for Firefox.

I unplug the switching power supplies when I'm not using them because I don't want to listen to the RFI that they produce.

Electrolytic capacitors wear out due to age whether they are used or not. Heat makes them wear out significantly faster. If the power supply is not under load, it shouldn't be producing any noticeable amount of heat.

I hate streaming anything unless it's coming from my server.

Bandwidth and storage is expensive, so free streams will usually be heavily compressed and look terrible.

They could have just used normal 8 pin connectors in that case.

Almost every scam email I get comes from a gmail address. If a business is not sending emails from their own domain, I automatically assume it's a scam.

Is your ISP using CGNAT? If so, your IP address is likely shared with dozens of other people. Each user gets a different set of ports and your ISP knows which ports each person is using so they can send the nasty letter to the correct person.

I got an old thermal receipt printer, plugged it into the parallel port and echoed some text to /dev/lp0 and it printed. I didn't have to set anything up. I did have to write a simple python script to make it print images though.

I've got an old Motorola AMPS phone around somewhere that has a charging cradle that will fit either the whole phone or the battery on its own. Most commercial two way radios still work like that, I wish they would still make phones like that too.

The dual laptop batteries are handy too. I've got a Thinkpad T480 and it can hot swap the external battery. The high capacity battery lasts so long that you rarely need to swap it, but if you use the slim batteries, you will need a couple to get through a whole day. Unfortunately, that's the last Thinkpad model that can hot swap batteries.

It is being pushed beyond its ratings, so there's no guarantees that it will work. There's no harm in trying Cat5e at higher speeds if it's already installed, but don't install it with the intention of using it at more than 2.5G.

It's impressive that they got the power consumption down to less than 2 watts. I think this is the first 10GBASE-T NIC I've seen that doesn't have a heatsink on it.

Heat makes lithium ion batteries fail much quicker. A non rechargeable lithium AA would last a long time and they don't leak like alkaline batteries.

Gas valves and igniters don't even need much power. They could put a battery in there so it could be used when the power is out. My propane fireplace runs for years on 4 AA batteries and that's powering the receiver for the remote too.

Why do they need an app instead of just using cell tower data? I guess you just take a flip phone then.