I’ll say $2700 on the oil changes. Two accessory drive belts are like $30. $160 for a couple drain and fills, with pan gasket and filter, for my transmission. $240 for front pads and rotors, twice. For posterity I’ll add $300 for complete rebuild of the rear brakes (drums, shoes, springs, tensioners, cable, bell cranks, cylinders). I’m at almost 190k miles with no fuel issues so I question that fuel filter figure, but $105 for 7 filters. $110 for the pump I’ve yet to need. Could be cheaper but I go with Denso since they make most of the OE stuff. $125 for the alternator (also yet to need). $400 for two AISIN timing belt/water pump kits, because they should be done at the same interval. Napkin math, erring toward our current gas prices rather than the cheaper past, $33,250 on that 190k miles. I bought used for $10,000, so I’m not even on the hook for all 190k, but we’ll say I’m all in for $47,420, still running strong and owner serviceable. All maintenance being done myself. Substantially increase the figure if you’re paying a shop.

A used 2022 Leaf with 17k is gonna run me $15,000 (just lazily searching for “inexpensive reliable EVs” and seeing what pops up in my area). I’ll have four years or 83k of warranty left on the battery. Middle of the road - $1,500 to have a charger installed at home. I’m estimating $7,000 in electricity based on driving habits and local rates (and assuming those rates won’t increase). Add the low-ball figure of $7,500 for an out of warranty battery replacement, which I’m seeing will probably be needed (or at least wanted, due to degradation) by around 150k. $31,000 “all in.”

$47,420 vs $31,000 for the same 190k miles.

The Leaf will also need pads/rotors and it has some of its own fluids that require changing. Mine needs plugs and coils, the occasional sensor, etc. Both need brake fluid flushes but no sense factoring that in for one and not the other. The difference isn’t small, $16.4k is nothing to scoff at, but I’m also comparing operating and servicing my 22 year old Tundra against a 4 year old electric car. I bet the gap closes even more if I had something like an old Corolla with better mpg going toe to toe. Hell, that’d probably cut my gas expenditure nearly in half, nevermind potentially cheaper parts for a car vs a truck.

Not sure what my point is but that list compelled me to actually math it out. I’m keen for corrections or other insights. Maybe a Leaf was a poor choice, but I’m poor too and not buying new so I glanced at “affordable” used listings nearby and it’s what I found. Even if I could buy new, given current offerings I can’t say I’d want to, neither EV nor ICE. Micro transactions, rolling data mines, the erosion of ownership… Until things get better (wishful thinking), fuck the whole lot. I’m mid life and inching towards my cranky old man arc; the next generation can own nothing and be happy if they don’t start resisting it.

HDDs are another regret of mine, along with trying to save a bunch by opting against a chassis with hot swap. I went with four 10TB Red Plus drives. That ended up being about 26TB actual in a RAIDZ1. I failed to consider just how quickly I would start filling it between archiving some YouTube videos and taking DVDs and BluRays out on loan from the local library.

If prices ever improve I’m tempted to get at least a 12 bay, switch to RAIDZ2, and up the number of drives to start with. After migration I’ll probably repurpose the old chassis to be a dedicated NVR. Something lower power that hopefully won’t have to shut off right away if there’s a power outage. As it stands when the lights go out so does TrueNAS and 98% of what I host.

That’s the dream, anyway. Time will tell if it pans out.

I took a break from my X-Files binge to watch Mr. Inbetween. I thought it was phenomenal, if not a bit short. The YouTube algo kept pushing it on me so, when I finally caved, I was surprised to find out the episodes were only about 23m (half hour with commercials). The vibe I got, from the clips, was that episodes would certainly be hour-block to contain and meaningfully convey everything they had to. In reality the story is just very fat-free and told well. It parallels Ray’s spartan demeanor. I wish it was longer, and it easily could have been, but it wrapped up properly before it had any chance of going downhill.

I paid $158.99 in November of 2024, building my TrueNAS server. Wish I’d doubled up back then.

I just installed Chip’s Challenge after realizing it was free. It’s alright in game mode (there’s an existing community control scheme that works well) but better on desktop since you can access the dropdown menus that way. Switched to the Win theme and got a solid dose of nostalgia.

As with another reply, I’m also “cheating.” I started up a save file for GTA: London 1969, emulating the PSX version. Apparently, apart from second-hand and sailing the seas, the original GTA (and its expansions) and GTA2 are unobtanium for PC these days. Kind of sad to see.

Not sure why they chose that name for it. It’s really just a game plus x-pack bundle if I remember right. Just a better deal than buying the two separately. I might’ve even plucked it from a bargain bin (would’ve likely been the local Babbage’s, before GameStop took over) but it was so long ago for me to say with any certainty.

Quick edit: FuncoLand was another possibility, for anyone that remembers those. GameStop also gobbled up Electronics Boutique / EB Games but our mall never had one that I can recall.

KEEP LONDON TIDY

Photo taken from eBay but somewhere packed up is my own copy of GTA Director’s Cut for the PSX. Rockstar hammed up the cockney slang/accent in the London 1969 cutscenes, and I remember enjoying the radio stations way more than the base game. Pretty sure there were some themes paralleling old spy films but it has been a minute since I’ve played. This might be the sign for me to finally revisit the classics.

First played it on my Sega Dreamcast. Probably the only way I could still play now since I don’t have a CRT anymore for light guns.

Because this reminded of it: For a similar reason, and if you own an older vehicle, you don’t want to replace the warning lights (battery, oil, engine/MIL) with LED bulbs. Or you’ll need “error free” bulbs with built-in parallel resistors. LED gauge lights are usually fine but, on a lot of vehicles, an incandescent bulb is expected on the warning light circuits. If you replace, for example, the battery bulb with an LED - the alternator might not engage as it should, because there won’t be sufficient current for it to do so, and your battery could drain despite a running engine.

(I’m far from an electrician, nevermind an automotive one, but I did a lot of research before upgrading/replacing my burnt out dash lights and that’s a mistake I would’ve otherwise made)

I’d need another lifetime or three to go through the catalog of classic games it can run. Not everyone is chasing the dragon. If you’re not pixel peeping or prone to crashing out every time the FPS dips below 60, you’ll survive just fine. Turn the graphics slider down a notch and just enjoy the game. And as a portable PC I could probably get another decade out of the thing so long as the battery holds up or replacements remain available. It’s not like anything revolutionary is coming that’s gonna require me to have a better GPU just to fire off some SQL queries, fuss around in office software, compile some TeX, or whatever else.

In spite of countless articles at the time littering my feed about the Deck’s age, “better” alternatives, and so forth - I bought mine about two years after the initial release. Not one regret. Universal remote for anything I self-host, emulation monster, Cracktorio pipe… It’s still easily one of the coolest pieces of kit I own. Glad I got it before now.

I’m not 100% sold on running actual ads although, if I recreated Nickelodeon, it might be fun to throw in commercials for stuff like Gak or the old Stick Stickley bits (provided I could find those). Maybe roll my own Snick and Nick-at-Nite blocks. For the latter it’d be neat to have some more period-correct stuff - even if it’s just Fred Flintstone hocking cigarettes or whatever.

I’d probably need to significantly expand my storage and media collection to make more than a couple channels doable. Definitely a bunch of bumps, “coming up next,” etc if I want to keep a strict 15/30/60 type schedule. And a 24/7 weather channel with the old WeatherStar 4000 style.

If you find the channel, let us know. I’d probably be keen to pull at least a handful of old adverts for padding.

It’s absolutely like work but it’s the sort of work I enjoy. For the same reasons I messed with Project Euler years ago, occasionally try to leaderboard during the Advent of Code, or play a CTF from time to time - I find Factorio really fun. It’s neat to see how quickly I can whip together a solution, however ugly, then refine and improve upon it. Once the circuit logic comes into play it becomes a lot more like actual programming or scripting.

For what it’s worth, IT isn’t my day job in any capacity. When I write Bash or Python scripts, Ansible playbooks, scrape webpages or whatever else - it’s usually only ever for myself or because I’m keenly invested in solving a problem someone else has presented and that I find interesting. Maybe I’d enjoy automation games less if I had to do the equivalent for work all day, and without any personal interest or intrigue being invested into it. Fortunately, as it stands, games like Factorio exist as extensions of a hobby.

This is probably my favorite non-Factorio-player videos about the game in that he gives it such a really fair shake in spite of it not being a genre he enjoys. There’s also videos that cover the general beauty of the game. Growing up on isometric RTS classics, the graphics tickle my nostalgia and the buildings are genuinely mesmerizing. Even the belt splitter animations, which remind me a bit of typewriters, old word processors with automatic return, or dot matrix printers, just look amazing to me.

It’s definitely not for everyone but it’s one of few “not-for-everyone” games that seems to command a lot of respect even from those who aren’t into it. The only others that immediately come to mind would be Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld. Colony management isn’t everyone’s thing but plenty of people will readily watch 30+ minutes of somebody’s custom scenario because the games generate riveting stories. My two cents, anyway.

I can’t find the video anymore but I remember someone recreating retro cable TV using dizquetv and an RPi (maybe just for the “receiver”). Searching now, I mostly find that ErsatzTV and FieldStation42 seem to be the goto options. I keep bouncing the idea around of setting up actual “channels” for Jellyfin, complete with silly self-recorded ads/bumps/promos/etc, but haven’t decided on a solution.

If you’re already doing so, do you have any insights? At a glance, ErsatzTV Next appears the most dynamic but also most barebones in that focus is mainly on the streaming. Library management and station programming looks to be external, which would mean having to roll my own scripts or whatever.

I’ve revisited his channel off and on over the years. Most vids are, as the channel name implies, reviews of regular cars. I think it’s the first long form video of his I’ve seen tackling a brand and what has become of its image. The humor and dry delivery is up my alley, and I figured it was worth sharing here.

I’ve also got family in rural PA and his basement bar could be any one of theirs. Those small towns and their old houses are frozen in time.

How did Jeep lose the plot? It became a rolling fortress for tin soldiers.

• Regular Cars

“Just Empty Every Pocket,” or “Just Expect Every Problem.”

Eh, Windows still needs PowerToys (mainly FancyZones) for a better experience. I like around a 30/70 split between Windows Terminal (for PowerShell and WSL) on the left and some primary application like a browser on the right. It does have keybinds for shuffling through a stack of windows but only on the side that has focus. It still really needs a way to swap focus between zones that isn’t Alt-Tab’ing until you’re on the desired one or grabbing a mouse to click a program in another stack.

What are your other hobbies/interests? What are some things you’re completely uninterested in but it’s annoying shit you would really like a better way of handling? Got some answers? Now check the awesome self hosted page to see if there are any existing solutions that look promising. If so, now you know at least some things to host.

How to go about it? When I started I was an idiot kid, on Windows ninety-something (or maybe ME), running Apache, MySQL and phpBB. Copy-pasting snippets in Notepad and not comprehending everything. I found desktop Linux later, learned about init systems, watched that go out the window with systemd, etc. I was installing Ubuntu on every beige clunker I could get my hands on back when the Beryl (Compiz) cube desktop video went semi-viral. Eventually moved on to Arch, learned more about CLI tools, editing configs, etc. If you have something that can host VMs, and you want to play with mock bare-metal setups where you create the users, directories, set permissions, blah blah blah - VMs aren’t a bad way to go. It’s good stuff to learn and know. Gives you an excuse to play with tmux’s synchronized input feature, maybe learn some Ansible, and whatever else. If you just have one dust collector sitting around, start trying distros on it. Mess with stuff til it breaks, boot into install/recovery media and try to unbreak it, repeat. As long as it’s fun (or tolerably annoying enough to reach some end goal).

I’ve personally gotten lazy and I’m nearly all-in on containers. A few things are manual but I’ve come to like Docker. I do still manage mine with compose files, even on my TrueNAS system with their “apps,” because compose files are easy to read, keep track of, and modify. My non-TrueNAS machines, I use Docker + Portainer. I should maybe look into podman and quadlets but haven’t bothered yet.

My recent hardware went from RPi4B to Thinkcentre mini PC to building out a 2U TrueNAS system. A PoE switch powers a Home Assistant Yellow and a few cameras. The RPi was repurposed to only host Homepage, NUT (server, watches my UPS and tells more power hungry machines to shut down during outages) and might eventually host Grafana if I ever get into learning it. Another 4B is my Pi-Hole. The Thinkcentre has an 8TB external plugged in and scheduled rsync tasks, on the TrueNAS machine, push back ups of my more important files to it. It also has a couple users set up strictly for running game servers (ioquake and teeworlds at the moment). Those aren’t containerized and things like rcon, config management, map rotation, mods, etc are all handled manually.

TrueNAS hosts everything else. If you need ideas based on what others are hosting, here’s some of what is on it:

• Jellyfin, for TA (see below) and my legally obtained DVD backups.
• TubeArchivist, (TA) for backing up YouTube videos, descriptions, comments. Has a Jellyfin plugin so your backup library is watchable in JF
• Homebox, for home inventory management. I use it to keep track of my tools mostly. You can have locations, sub locations, items… if I pull a rail of sockets, stick them in my toolbag, then carry it out to the shed - so long as I bothered to update their locations in Homebox I won’t waste time digging in the back of my truck, tool chest or other bags because I can’t remember where I last used my 1/2" drive 14mm deep impact. It’s a mildly inconvenient extra step to essentially “check in/out” my own tools, as if I’m working in an aircraft hangar or I’m doing IT asset management, but I find it worth it.
• LubeLogger, for keeping track of vehicle service. Early this year I put a lot of money into fixing my truck. A lot of tools, fluids, and parts to handle a broken water pump and do some preventative maintenance. Still a quarter of what a shop might’ve charged. Since I’m becoming my own mechanic, I wanted something to properly record what I do and how much I spend on it. LubeLogger fits the bill.
• Factorio, for the factory must grow.
• Dawarich, self hosted GPS logs. Seems decent but I might shop around still. I just wanted an alternative to Google Maps for tracking my travel history.
• Audiobookshelf, for some audiobooks but mainly for archiving a small handful of podcasts.
• Romm, because I’m compelled to hoard old games and occasionally even play them.
• Immich, because I’m not paying Google to store my photos.
• FreshRSS, because there’s still a dwindling number of sites that don’t force you to visit them to read an article in its entirety. Mainly for Hack A Day, a couple devlogs from game makers, the latest CVEs, some global news sites, NASA’s “Astronomy Picture of the Day” (APOD), etc.
• Samba, for some SMB shares that family can dump files into
• ClamAV, because family is dumping files into their SMB shares

I’m looking at hosting lemon-manuals (successor to charm.li). It’s basically a massive collection of service procedures, bulletins, fluid/torque/etc specs, and so on for decades worth of automobiles. Stuff the industry would like to force you into paying AllData, Identifix, or whoever for. I just haven’t had a chance to review their provided “server.” It’s also over 1TB. It’s overkill when I’m only working on three vehicles (mine and my folks’) but I’d like to have it all in case an auto industry lawyer tries to shut them down or i inevitably get a new set of wheels.

I’ve also got intentions of implementing some sort of documentation system but I haven’t settled on one yet. It’s not really for me. I can read my configs and go off plain text. Mainly it needs to be simple enough for my family to work with. My homelab has a bus factor of Me. Whoever has to deal with it when I’m gone needs to know enough to retrieve my encrypted password database so they can get into my emails/bank account to cancel/pay for things or whatever, back up any media of mine they want to keep, back up their own stuff, probably some instructions on how to burn their shows/movies/music back to discs, and shut everything down. Because one day things will break, servers they don’t understand will have failures, they’ll sell the hardware or give it away to designated friends/family members who can hopefully use it… all that unhappy stuff most of us don’t think about until it happens. In fact some sort of contingency plan should probably have been the first thing I recommended, but with some luck you’ve read this far and will put your own into place.

Anyway, hopefully something in the above rambling helps you on your way.

Fail secure sounds good but now you also need to consider how quickly the brakes engage. Don’t want some random electrical hiccup locking up your brakes mid curve while you’re three-wide doing 70 on an interstate. Slowly draining capacitors or whatever to gradually engage them might be an option. Then you also, preferably, need some means of physically disengaging them. Otherwise you’re gonna get disabled vehicles in the middle of roadways that have to be dragged up onto flatbeds or the side of the road because the wheels won’t roll without restoring brake power first.