Dave Lane @lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz

@strypey @alcinnz and, don't forget - if you want to test an idea that requires more "grunt"... then get a bigger instance for the duration of your experiment... a week of a USD40/month instance is only USD10 :) - you just have to remember to snapshot your work and destroy the instance (yes, there's a small cost to maintaining the snapshot, but it gives you the option of reconstituting it whenever you want)...

@strypey @alcinnz in terms of educational investment - even a USD10/month instance is a pretty cheap educational tool... and I'll stick my neck out and assert that any (would-be) sysadmin without their own server... isn't up to it. Gotta have a place to experiment, break stuff, and learn. It's not anywhere near as hard as many might think.

@strypey @alcinnz what's even better, they're largely commodity - you could move from one provider to the next quickly (if you use containers to implement your services and eschew any proprietary provider services). You'll find that the bandwidth allowances are at least a TB/month, which should be fine for hosting video if you want.

@strypey @alcinnz to be fair, a very serviceable dedicated server instance from DigitalOcean/Vultr/Linode and many others is about USD5/month, or USD60/year... that's pretty affordable. I think everyone should have one.

@duncan_lithgow Plus I already know about quite a few of them... have even undergone hypnosis to reveal them, and it was quite an experience.

@duncan_lithgow mostly talking to "critical friends" who know me well enough to help reveal awkward truths...

So... turns out the Idiocracy is highly contagious.

@richdecibels The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. - the scientifically plausible case for "magic" and why it ended in 1871... and implications for the present. Superb.

I've decided to spend the coming year attempting to identify and then resolve the cognitive dissonances I've been harbouring for most of my life. I suspect we (and the world around us) would all be better off if we tried to do that...

Very cool... a ~$50 #FOSS water turbine that can be assembled from commonly available parts... https://invidio.us/watch?v=1KyL1-0A0Gw

Thanks for that @strypey interesting to see the comments, too (pulled from YouTube, I gather?)...

@vik @ITwrx that's one of me "over the holidays" jobs... it'll be tube.nzoss.nz I think :)

For folks not wanting to use Youtube to what this exposé on Microsoft and its colonising of the EU, thanks to @ITwrx for providing this alternative link: https://itwrx.org/ITwrx-news/microsoft-cyber-attack

@ITwrx @tindall @chimericalgirls superb!

@lightweight @stevefoerster and, of course, that should've been a "eulogy"...

@chimericalgirls @tindall fair enough :) - it's pretty amazing... and damning.

@tindall @chimericalgirls if you wonder how MSFT rolls in the rest of the world... this is most illuminating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duaYLW7LQvg (Need to find a version not on Youtube... :/ )