Saw the YT video for this a while back (~15 mins) and thought it mostly a nostalgic throwback to the stuff we saw or hoped for in the 80s and 90s. If “how can we charge rent for this?” hadn’t come along and destroyed innovation, anyway.

It seems more like a proof of concept, as it just fills soapy water up past the seal line, shows progress and wildlife scenes on screen (which will definitely be used to advertise at you eventually), sprays your face and other bits above the water line, drains, and then blow dries you. You’d still need to scrub, and wash your back, butt, etc.

I was kind of hoping for one of those sonic/pulsing water/jet-wash/scrubbing shower things you see in SF. This isn’t it.

But it is great that some companies are still innovating. It’s been a while.

You can still use tailscale and reverse proxy to allow remote streaming

I used to use Plex and when I discovered there was paid remote streaming function - that goes through their servers - my reactions were “Haha, no”* and checking whether my existing WireGuard setup would do it instead.

Whaddya know, remote streaming using Plex and PlexAmp at no cost.

*Not because I begrudge them recouping costs, but because it’s designed that way to justify charging for it, gives them whatever information they want from my viewing, and it’s not self-hosting if there’s any third party cloud/account component to it.

This. Don’t set up barriers for them based on your personal politics. (I’m not a huge fan of Canonical, but I respect what they’ve done for Linux adoption with newcomers).

You’re right in that any distro/flavour will run the suite being marketed as Studio, but it’s almost certain your friend will expand their horizon once they spend some time using it.

But using mandatory facial recognition for that? I think that is way too far.

I agree. As I’ve said from the beginning.

I don’t know if I would call mandatory facial recognition for children online “the right thing.”

I don’t think so either, which is why I didn’t say it. You skipped my final paragraph.

By “right thing”, I was referring to doing anything, which appears to be more than they’ve tried so far.

The parental responsibility argument was probably valid when there was 1-2 standard computers in a home and getting online was a Whole Thing in itself. Now we have supercomputers in our pockets that are permanently online. It’s a whole lot harder than a simple “parents should take responsibility” one-liner.

I’m not saying they bear no responsibility, but to hand wave that as the answer is not an answer.

Also: Thinking of myself at that age, though public internet didn’t exist until I was almost an adult, I know I’d have found ways around things. A digital equivalent to slipping out of your window to see friends or hiding your Brussels sprouts in a pocket.

The technical education required to correctly protect, monitor and configure the necessary hardware and software is unreasonable for the vast majority of people.

Though you could probably find a kid who’ll happily show you how to do it all…

This. Imagine being a company who suddenly has to do the right thing simply because they can’t afford the “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas” approach any more.

Litigation may be an awful substitute for regulation, but at least its having some positive effect here.

Shame about the way they’re doing it, though. It’s a wet dream for politicians and activists in favour of age verification, and for the hackers who’ll inevitability get their hands on all of it.

No leaning forward in the heat of the moment… 😄

Good lord, I had one of these. By SoundBlaster, IIRC (May still have it in a box somewhere).

For the confused younger folk: They were a neat idea on paper, but awful in practice. Being all rigid plastic without padding on the base, they excelled at transmitting every bump/vibration of the desk, keyboard taps and (roller ball) mouse movement. 😬

Before headsets with mics or decent noise cancellation were a thing, and before online gaming was much of a thing, so most gamers had powered speakers on their desks. Which the mic was also great at picking up…

Just realised that I automatically filter out obvious scams, as I genuinely didn’t register the contents of either of those spam boxes…

That arrangement has existed for over 30 years, and it’s now an unconscious scan. 😒

But I think the point remains in the middle of the page, that it will run through the standard bullshit FOMO timer, and then start downloading the expected binary.

And it’s not VLC doing any advertising. They’re just choosing to use a shit download site to host the binary for that OS and download method

First indication of fake I’ve seen so far, based on OP’s detail-light post. I’d assumed the FOMO timer would eventually download the genuine binary.

So, share with the class…

Gonna need a bit more info than you’ve provided.

What I will note, from the information that you’ve provided, is that you shared an internet exchange screenshot showing a couple of low key ads (with the usual opt out bullshit links), so any ads are not on the VLC site - it’s on their download partner site, a la 1995 - and they’re probably the most tame ads (repeat: not benefiting VLC) that I’ve seen in 30 years.

tl;dr: Late-stage PSTN/POTS dialup configuration of binaries hosted on a third party (pre-CDN) download site -who are free to inject whatever spam they like - (but have been astonishingly restrained here) along with the download link.

This is exactly what I came into the comments to say. 😄

I somehow remember the circle algorithm ahem years after learning and using it for anything I could…

I dunno? Although this was inevitable once Google borged Nest, I rejected the “you must now convert your Nest account to a shitborg account” prompts and my Nest gen2 is still quite happily talking to my Nest app?

No doubt it will eventually die, but for now it’s unaffected. Works fine.

Fuck Google. Sideways. With a wire brush. Despicable vultures.

This is the most accurate image possible for Frieren. Books > Mimic risk. nomnomnom…

10W? That’s incredibly low - under 100mA wherever in the world you live. About the same as an LED bulb, or a tenth of an average incandescent lightbulb.

For comparison: my NAS and NUC (mix of HDD and M.2 drives; both hosting services) draw 75W combined at idle, measured via Home Assistant and a smart plug, and that’s generally considered low-power self-hosting.

I’d be pleasantly amazed if you could get a laptop to use less, so I look forward to other replies.

I still use all 3, though I’m slowly moving CPU intensive containers to the NUC. The Pi is untouched so far, partly because having edge services there will make it easier of I decide to implement a DMZ.

The NUC+Proxmox is a great combination. Bit of a learning curve (eg. as with Docker, you need to pass devices in Proxmox and then to the container; same with CIFS shares), but there are lots of resources out there. I have no regrets going this route, and it had low power consumption.

On Windows thing, I was specifically referring to the server OS as the NUC came with Win11. Do whatever works for your desktop/gaming setup.

Though I also switched that to Linux (EndeavourOS, though there are other game-friendly options) a couple of years ago, and its worked out great. Guild Wars 2 was my most modded Windows game, and I can run all except one of the Windows-based addons I want for it. Setting it all up the first time is a ball ache (as it was with Windows, but that was done over time 🤷‍♂️). 😊

I was hosting most of my Docker stuff on my Synology DS920+, use Docker in a Pi 4B for AdGuard Home and WireGuard, and found myself wanting to use Home Assistant.

Can’t use Docker for HA if you want HACS (addons) and Synology decided to kill USB drivers some time back, so looked around for options. Considered a Nabu Casa Yellow with a CM5 compute module (for Voice PE) and its price was more than a GMKtek N150 NUC, which has far higher specs and enough headroom for other things. So I got the NUC.

First thing I did was nuke Windows and replaced it with Proxmox, then installed Home Assistant OS (HAOS) as a VM in it. Plenty of headroom left, so now it’s also got a Linux VM, a few LXCs, etc. (The Proxmox Helper Scripts site makes it very easy).

Could easily install AGH or PiHole and a bunch of other things on it. Think it’s the best bang for buck thing I’ve bought in years.

The Green brothers are interesting and thoughtful. They try to be an overall positive influence on the internet, even aside from their vlogbrothers thing.

FTA: The IDs leaked were from people appealing age verification.

That’s different from the age verification process, which goes through a third party provider.

In short, the leaked IDs were from a standard shitty support platform (Zendesk, Salesforce, etc), not the much-advertised “safe and private” age verification system.

This kind of malicious compliance is exactly what this dogshit Think Of The Children Act needs. Convenience is everything to the majority of population.

If other major sites and resources do this, then the pressure from the people impacted by it will force UK PLC to un-fuck this awful legislation.