I mean, ‘cheap’ is subjective. The Neo seems like a decent buy right now, and as the other reply said, there’s always used. These things truck along nicely for many a year.

People in these parts will throw shade at macOS, and I get it. But whatever you think of Apple, they’ve traditionally done a pretty good job of making their OS such that you don’t really need a manual unless you start doing more complex stuff. Someone who’s not particularly computer literate can buy a cheap Mac and have it up and running in no time, without ever really needing to seek help.

And those binaries are to fix the black box shit that is subject to alteration at any time, rendering them useless.

I see no evidence of lazy bones activity.

To be honest, they’re not really problems as such, more a case of resetting expectations back a few years.

While I had gotten very used to being able to pay for everything with Apple Pay on the 13 mini I had previously, all I’ve had to do with my Pixel 9 is buy a magsafe wallet (and magsafe case for the magsafe-less phone). And for everything else, there’s a web site. It’s kind of annoying having to use an SMS 2FA code EVERY TIME I log into my bank’s site, but not particularly inconvenient.

I will caveat my comments by noting that I do have Play services installed, so there are some Google features on my phone. Mostly that was to help soften the transition between having everything available to me through Apple’s services to having nothing available in Graphene. But my understanding is that Google’s footprint in Graphene is significantly less intrusive, and mostly limited by guardrails that I can set.

Pixel 9 running GOS. My bank’s app (Lloyds) won’t work, and never has for me. Additionally, I have a store card, and credit card app, both of which are offered by NewDay, neither of which work on my phone. The official UK government ID app won’t work with it either.

But honestly, I’ll take that inconvenience over letting Google have free reign over my phone.

Just dudes being bros.

Being unaware of pinchflat, I kinda ended up making my own.

Started off with a little app, the entirety of which was a button that, when pressed, took the link om my clipboard and downloaded the video into my Jellyfin folder. Then I got tired of having to keep it all updated across several different computers I use, so I turned it into something that runs in a docker container on my home server, that I can access through anything in my tailnet. Works beautifully.

With all that skipping those videos must be unwatchable.

I like to watch Veronica Explains for videos about FOSS and Linux and such. However, I’ve no idea where she currently posts because, for various reasons, she keeps moving from one server to another.

DOLE BLAGGING FREELOADING SCUM

I will never understand why people take the guards off their grinders. When those discs go pop they’re gonna fuck you up.

And do you really wanna get fucked up in service of fucking over a Flock camera random aluminium tube on a job site?

Bilresa buttons from IKEA are a blessing. Cheap, (currently) work with ZigBee and ridiculously simple to set up. I can talk to Home Assistant, but never do.

Peggy: Bobby, honey, um… What do you know about sexual relations?

Bobby: I don’t know, nothing much, I’m a little worried about being a slut.

Yeah, I tried pure Arch first, fucked up by not installing the right drivers for my old Nvidia card, and was never able to really get it running properly. So I gave up and tried CachyOS instead, on the basis that it’d probably get the drivers right for me. And it did.

Debian for everything I need to not fall over, CachyOS for computers I want to fiddle with.

You’ve posted this right as I’m about to begin setting up an OpenWrt router. Thanks!

This is the result of dmidecode

root@OpenWrt:~# dmidecode -t slot
# dmidecode 3.5
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 3.1.1 present.

Handle 0x0026, DMI type 9, 17 bytes
System Slot Information
       Designation: SLOT1_M.2
       Type: x4 M.2 Socket 3
       Current Usage: Available
       Length: Long
       Characteristics:
               3.3 V is provided
               PME signal is supported
       Bus Address: 0000:ff:1f.7

Handle 0x0027, DMI type 9, 17 bytes
System Slot Information
       Designation: SLOT2_M.2
       Type: x1 M.2 Socket 1-SD
       Current Usage: In Use
       Length: Short
       Characteristics:
               3.3 V is provided
               PME signal is supported
       Bus Address: 0000:ff:00.0

As far as I can tell, the top one is the M.2 in question, so it’s a 4 channel PCIe slot. Running -t connector doesn’t show that slot at all, presumably because it’s not got anything connected to it currently.

I’ve order a cheap(ish) adapter that should arrive today, so I’ll bung it in and report back.

Truly these are glorious days.

He’s the guy who taught me all the things it’s illegal to say on US TV.