• 5 Posts
  • 170 Comments
Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: September 11th, 2025

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  • IDK about a true voice call but you could definitely set something to play a message through a second satellite. You could even make it recurring until snoozed e.g.:

    Grandma: “Computer, I need help”

    HASS - Trigger automation say (through separate speaker) “Grandma called, she needs help”, delay 30, repeat until button is pressed.

    The tricky part is teaching it enough permutations of “I need help” that Grandma doesn’t have to get the phrasing exactly right in an emergency








  • Coming here from another star system in a reasonable time would require more energy than they’d get by turning every planet in the solar system to energy with perfect efficiency.

    … I’m not sure that’s right. If you’re in the convert matter to energy game, you can go a long way with just a little bit. That c^2 bit of e=mc^2 is obscenely massive, and most importantly, since your kinetic energy is 1/2mv^2, efficiency and relativistic limitations aside, to get something going close to the speed of light you need to convert roughly the same amount of mass to energy for propulsion.

    There’s some nuance there, but even 100:1 means you could get a ship the size of Manhattan traveling at near light speed for a good sized asteroid of mass. No need to fuck with planets.


  • “President Trump’s fundraising on behalf of the Center is exemplified by the tens of millions of dollars already raised,” Floca wrote. “Further, the President has committed to raise $150 billion on its behalf from private donors over the next two years.”

    Let’s try to be generous here and assume “tens of millions of dollars” is 1) roughly $100M, and 2) all new income that wouldn’t have happened without his name on the wall, on top of any income offsetting losses. Both very generous assumptions for a statement from a member of this administration.

    If that’s true, he is expecting to raise in the next 24 months 1500x as much money as has come in the last 6 months.

    Like are these people really this dumb or do they really just not care?


  • Hosting for two:

    • Domain - $300/yr (it’s a great domain, don’t judge me.)
    • Proton Duo - $180/yr
    • Kagi Duo - $168/yr
    • Nabu Casa (Home Assistant) - $65/yr
    • Donations to FOSS projects & initiatives - $250/yr
    • Lingering security camera subscription (next to go) - $120/yr
    • ISP Unlimited Data - $600/yr gofuckyourselfISP
    • Typical added network load ~50W - $131/yr
    • ~10yr Hardware Upgrades - $200/yr

    I just upgraded my home storage setup, so offsite backup is now running at my parents house, saving me ~$250/yr (but probably costing them ~$50/yr in added utility costs)


  • I had a similar experience as a kid and decided to pick up the latest incarnation on the switch. I didn’t get as far as I would have liked, but it’s alright.

    They leaned into the modern Pokémon mechanic of monsters bopping around the world on screen, which to me ironically makes the world feel more empty because the void between encounters feels enhanced as you dance around the monsters. Had to force myself into encounters with monsters I didn’t want because there’s so much less RNG.

    Like Pokemon Arceus, the graphics are sparse and uninspiring, dont expect BotW-level art design. And don’t get me started on the writing. Overall it’s a meh tier game with a fun catch-em-all breed-em-all mechanic - if I had more time in the day I could probably get into it.





  • Better is always subjective based on your priorities, search style, and the info you’re after.

    For free search, I find the results on Brave (who has their own index) to be roughly on par with Google (and Startpage which primarily sources Google’s index), but extra features like page ranking, disabling AI, etc. make Brave better for the user.

    DDG, Ecosia, etc., primarily rely on Bing’s index, which tends to fail me the most frequently.

    The only downside of Brave is the cryptobro owners who seem intent on speed running enshittification in everything they do. It works fine for now but I have very little trust in it not tanking long term.

    Personally I use Kagi and recommend it if paying for search works with your lifestyle. I tend to find what I’m looking for there fastest and rarely if ever do I have to ! bang my way over to another search engine. It has the most customization and features prioritizing human content over AI slop.

    It’s all personal preference though, so what works for one person may be unacceptable for another, and honestly having options/competition is a good thing.