I think they want it automated so it would need to be integrated to Sonar/Radarr etc rather than the machine you watch the media on.

This. I looked at a bunch of options and these are the best for OpenWrt and are very reasonably priced. Mine did torrenting, VPN, and a few other small services before I got my proper served up and running and now it is less loaded and more relaxed without that workload. Absolutely awesome, very high quality for low price, and it comes with a very slightly modified OpenWrt firmware which is unlocked by default.

Another option is to download then open with VLC and use the loop function to select what needs to repeat.

Yeah, lots of people from my background are sensitive about it but honestly, nobody around me understood money and therefore couldn’t have taught me. I knew very little about money until later in my adulthood and at that point I didn’t have more than I needed. Now I have a little bit of excess and managing that has been a great learning experience.

Yeah, I have dyspraxia which is basically medically diagnosed lack of coordination. I drop my phone at least a few times a day, I bang into walls and benches all the time, and I’ve fallen over so many times I don’t even get hurt any more. Along with the coordination I have lost or broken so many things in just this way, not to mention I am massive and most things are not built for giants. So yeah, a good number of items have been broken or outright destroyed shortly after purchase. No budget can handle that other than to just have more money on hand and to be as careful as possible. Screen protectors, rugged cases, and no open top drink vessels.

I come from a poor background, so having any large pot of cash was always risky due to “emergencies” requiring those funds. I got out of that living situation and now finally have more money than my living expenses for the first time. None of my family were actually good with money, so that is the background for this post. So yes, correct.

Absolutely. I had some TWS headphones that were really good and I actually ended up replacing the battery in the case when it couldn’t hold a day of charge because it was worth it. I would much rather repair something than replace it and buy quality that will last as well, both of which are benefited by having the cash on hand. If you can’t afford $200 headphones but you can get $20 ones today maybe buy the $20 ones and use them while saving for the better ones. It will take time but you may be able to make the crappy ones last long enough, even if you have to get two sets to make it through.

For some items yes, but, and perhaps this is privilege from living in Australia, surely if it fails immediately you can return it and get a replacement or refund? Here we have a 12 month warranty on most things but also a reasonae expectation standard, so if it is a larger thing like a fridge or dishwasher we can get more of a reasonable warranty period.

So I guess a better way of phrasing it would include at what point it requires more money from you if it fails? So for a basic electronic thing 12 months would be the minimum that would be covered by the manufacturer and you are only on the hook for it after that time? I know that is not suitable for some other places like the USA where you are often on your own once you leave the store.

Yes, and items seem to be manufactured to exceed their warranty period by only a short time. I assume that an item will last for a year in most cases, or the warranty period if that is longer. For white goods like a fridge or a washing machine I look for statistics and use longevity as part of my purchasing process, so I aim to buy appliances which will last a fairly long time and then save based on that not being the most likely outcome. My fridge can be expected to last 5-7 years, so by year 3 I will have enough saved or room made in lines of credit to afford a replacement. Obviously it is best to have nothing accruing interest so I will tend to pay credit down first but some if the credit cards where I am actually have good terms such as a 36 month interest free period. The utility of money during that time is available for other things and I can reduce my costs in other ways.

I just bought a few bulbs from Aliexpress which came preloaded with ESPHome and got set up in about 2 minutes per device. They cost about $15-20 per bulb (AUD) and I am very happy with them.

Nice. I would recommend measuring the usage not from what the device reports but from actually measuring at the wall socket. The conversion is likely meaningfully under the 95% efficiency of some tools and that waste is felt as heat. If you convert to 24V from 120V you will have a significant amount of heat as waste which is unreported in home assistant. If you have the option to use a relay it can actually turn the thing all the way off, allowing almost zero usage when not on, but it can be a little slower to respond.

Very nice, I love the overall effect. Once you have motion sensing are you planning on local reaction or more of a persistence approach? Like a motion sensor and then a timer for turning off or once someone enters the room keeping them on until they leave the room?

Yep, so good to be able to recover. I love btrfs for this exact reason. Immediately before updates a new snapshot is taken and if I lose power or similar it doesn’t matter, I can just boot to the state before the update. Linux is awesome, the full ecosystem around it is amazing, made by such passionate nerds, we are very lucky.

Honestly, more than a year ago nVidia drivers were absolutely nightmarish. It used to be such a frequent issue that I stopped updates for nVidia drivers until I could take a full system backup. Btrfs has been a game changer, allowing backups to automatically happen on updates and allowing you to boot into a previous state. And given the level of Linux growth through Steam/Valve pushing it nVidia seems to have been trying harder. Only one update issue this year so far and it was a simple roll back, make a change, apply updates again.

For your next hop consider EndeavourOS. It is Arch based and so has pacman and the AUR but it also has sane defaults and good configuration tools. Also, the default is quite pretty. Much less work to get a system going but all the flexibility of a pure Arch install.

I had tonnes of problems when I used Mint which went away when I switched to Arch. I switched from Arch to EndeavourOS and didn’t get the problems coming back. I think EndeavourOS is about on par with Mint in terms of difficulty and set up time, but seems more stable and capable. I use KDE and the associated Bluetooth management stack and it works well.

That said, in the rare case I do have an issue I just restart Bluetooth through systemctl and it starts working again. The most recent time I had this was when I had my left earbud working on my phone and my right on my computer. It worked fine until I stepped away for a second, it dropped from my phone but not my computer, but then the left earbud tried to join up with the right connecting to the PC and everything broke. A quick restart of Bluetooth and boom, all good.

Just a quick point on the cost of nuclear. A large part of the cost of nuclear is due to the very intense safety systems which have been added on a little at a time. Each small safety thing has increased the cost but nobody has taken all of the intentions of those changes and integrated them into a stable and safe system without the need for all the little safety features.

The best example I can give is cars. Adding air bags, lane change detection, car in front detection, ABS, and so on each makes cars safer, but never questions the underlying adduction that cars are good. Why not trains?

In rectors we can have passive safety systems where the moderator is a liquid which is blocked in by a solid plug. The solid plug is frozen moderator and sits at the bottom of the system. If the power is cut or fails the plug stops being cooled and melts, draining the moderator. Without the moderator the neutrons are going too fast to trigger the chain reactions and everything stops. No sensors or control systems are needed, it just passively stops and cools naturally, while also being way cheaper.

That is essentially what gluetun does. It is a little simpler to set up given that it is all preinstalled and you just select your provider and details and it is done. And again, you just specify the network for other containers to use the gluetun service and it is done. Very simple, easy for using many services through one VPN connection, and available on things like CasaOS with simple setup.

A quick point to add. Adding fat to your meal makes it more filling and for longer. The worst fats are trans fats, second worse are polyunsaturated fats, and mono seem to be fairly good along with most saturated fats. In terms of cost some of the vegetable fats are much cheaper but they often have trans fats which are essentially toxic and they also go rancid very easily.

Saturated fats are generally solid at room temperature and don’t absolutely need to be refrigerated on cool to moderate weather days. If you would sweat the butter would too, so put it in the fridge.

If you add a small amount of mince to your beans it will stretch really far and add tonnes of flavour and protein without breaking the bank. Cheaper mince comes with more fat but if you are making beans you want that, so get the cheaper mince, lean is not helpful.

Beans on rice freezes well for weeks. Beans without rice is good for months frozen. Beans with rice and any cheese or sour cream is not OK frozen. Beans with cheese microwaves well, but add sour cream after heating.

To make it more satisfying you can add a little bit of some chilli sauce. Hotter sauces go further, but the best is fermented sauces. The cheapest chilli sauces are full of sugar and water, so they just sweeten and dilute rather than flavour your dish.

If your beans tastes sour add a small amount of sugar, stir for a minute, and test again. Sugar fixes the sourness quite well.

For extra flavour a stock cube can be added. I would recommend beef stock for beans, but it will work with chicken or fish too. Most stocks are now vegan because they re synthetic, but they add a lot of flavour and are perfectly fine to eat.

The best option if you can manage it is to learn how to make a beef broth from bones. You boil the bones for hours, around 8 or so should do, and the bones will start to soften and become translucent. At this point all the nutritional goodness of the bones is in the broth. You can then use this as a base for making stew, beans, soup, etc, or you can reduce it by open top heating it and letting the steam leave. This will make a strong stock you can use to add flavour and nutrition to other meals for the cost of some energy and cheap bones.

A slow cooker can make cooking all of this much easier and safer. Electric slow cookers are able to be set up in the morning and have dinner most of the way ready by dinner time. The slow steady heat is great for bones and for softening meat and the easy of use is just fantastic.

Spangle banging