I used unRAID a while back for nearly two years. It's delightfully convenient for managing Docker containers, multiple disks w/ data parity, network file sharing, and even VMs with passthroughs. The last feature, especially, is absolutely killer with how easy it is to accomplish in unRAID.
Whilst a lot of unRAID's functionality can be achieved with a bit of tinkering and reading, its UI does save a lot of time and keeps things very simple. For example, I have yet to figure out a way of achieving GPU passthrough on an Optimus laptop without my hair going grey -- a part of me feels like unRAID might simplify it, despite it being an OS for servers rather than laptops.
One thing I'd absolutely wish for is ZFS support. I haven't looked into how ZFS's licence might interfere with its integration, but if integration is possible, it would be magnificent.
Nevertheless, unRAID is splendid at what it strives to do and buying a pro licence for it was absolutely worth it!
ZFS would kill the main reason alot of people use unRAID. which is the ability to use different sized disks with out sacrificing space, and the ability to adhoc add new disks
ZFS would require the use of all the same size disk, or your udev would be limited to the size of your smallest disk, and make adding new disks much harder
When possible, I first visit the place without a camera and strive to immerse completely. I then visit it again and take pictures. Not using the camera the first time - and having to think about how I'll take the pictures when revisiting - provides a lot of opportunity to appreciate and reflect on the sight in question. With places I can only visit once, I try to take as little pictures as possible, and instead embrace living in the moment to let my mind and heart preserve the memories.
I've learnt this one from my other half: she rarely takes pictures because focusing on pictures detracts from actually living in the place. She takes pictures as a sort of "index" for where we've been: a quick of us together with the location in the background, maybe one or two snaps of beautiful sights, and so on. It's pretty rudimentary, because ultimately, the vivid memories are preserved within us rather than the photographs.
Though I won't deny that the fear of not capturing everything can get to me at times, thus I end up taking one too many snaps. I think that's a fear many people deal with when they take an inexplicable amount of photographs of the same thing!
Absolutely, it's sadly a compromise. Although there's one thing that's much harder to forget and won't be prone to distortion: how we felt!
If we immerse and let our feelings of wonder and awe prevail, it will be difficult to forget such feelings even if the visual memories change over time.
Love KeePassXC - it's a beautiful and speedy program which simply just works without ever causing any problems. The original KeePass always struck me as a tad heavy due to its somewhat archaic aesthetic and dependency on Mono, whereas KeePassXC looks modern and requires minimal resources and dependencies.
I combine it with KeePassium on iOS and Resilio Sync for synchronising across my main and mobile devices. (Syncthing doesn't offer an iOS client, sadly, hence the choice of using Resilio)
Literate programming has been particularly useful for my "dotfile" configurations, such as .emacs, .vimrc, .zshrc and even the .gitconfig file.
I use one .org file to declare all of my configurations, and tangle them together into the aforementioned files. This keeps things pretty portable, and makes up for the unintuitive readability of many dotfiles.
It can also work for rudimentary shell scripts and other single-file goodies; however, scaling it to proper multi-file programs proves to be difficult, especially when multiple developers are involved.
This is a cool idea. Also so if you switch tools like WMs you know what you used to have even if it takes some work to reconstruct what that was. But have such a tangle of glued together and custom written tiling WM rice that I can never switch to anything every again.
You are absolutely right! We expect all information to be given to us, instead of us seeking the specific information we need.
The solution is to - like your maxim implies - reverse the paradigm, by treating technology like it was initially designed: a tool for us to use with intent.
Even the apps and websites which have been optimised for engagement can be valuable. The value is what we make of it, just like how the websites make value out of us.
Advocating for quitting technology unfortunately becomes more and more of an impractical advice, as technology is further ingrained into our lifestyle.
What matters the most is being mindful and honest with ourselves. The moment we lose sight of how we use something, it starts using us.
It seems like your book focuses on a similar mindset. I've stumbled upon it before, but now I'll definitely be giving it a read! :)
> The solution is to - like your maxim implies - reverse the paradigm, by treating technology like it was initially designed: a tool for us to use with intent.
I agree strongly on logical, emotional, & spiritual levels with this assessment. Ursala Franklin's lectures on Holistic enabling technologies versus Prescriptive directing technologies[1], or her Work versus Control technologies distinctions, is a good perspective to assess by, to view tech by. They define this struggle for what lets us work with intent, versus what molds it's intent upon us very strongly, very sharply, & very smartly, & are essential readings for socio-technology today in my view.
It is all very complicated right now. Technologies like Instagram or Tiktok are both highly creative & enabling, presenting a rich ability to craft, but extremely limiting & process/control oriented in terms of distribution/viewing/engagement, as fixed as can be. Understanding how walled & limited we are on some fronts while enabled on other fronts presents a serious challenge of understanding, and this challenge is far heightened by the severely limited alternatives and options we have in the world today. Even if someone can set up or gain access to a good PeerTube instance, they'll have less creative tools available & face a myriad of other distribution/engagement challenges. The tech may be less limiting, especially if they run their own instance, but at other great costs.
Genuinely trying to create a technology which can be engaged in & learned of requires not just good teaching intent, but a software ecosystem which is learnable & explorable. We need technology which is capable of being engaged in. The web, here, is remarkably strong & powerful, with userscripts being a powerful demonstration of how some small tidbits of common knowledge can give us wideranging power over most every corporate/institutional property on the planet. There's nothing like it! It's purely incidental though- few web sites are specifically implemented to enhance understanding of how the site itself functions. There's a big-ball-of-mud/complexity under the covers, in a variety of different programming languages/libraries as we travel about, & almost none of it is designed for external use. I like to imagine a web where components could more clearly state their intent, be poked & prodded & understood by outsiders using common devtools. To me, this is one of the latent & most inspiring hopes of could-be web platform systems like WebComponents, that they could help make the web more broadly understandable & explorable for everyone, that it could make the hypermedium itself rich not just in what it expresses, but internally as well. This idea of making the technology open & exposed & engageable is a precondition for a society capable of growing a healthy, non-poisonous, non-treacherous, resillient relationship with technology.
> They define this struggle for what lets us work with intent, versus
what molds it's intent upon us very strongly
I often couch this struggle as the relation between IA (intelligence
amplification) and AI (artificial intelligence). I am not the first to
draw the lines that way, and I don't literally mean AI (machine
learning) in the sense that most of us techies would understand. But
I think it's a good demarcation to show the way computing is
splitting/polarising along socio-political lines. For BigTech, it's a
means of control, not discovery.
> Ursala Franklin's lectures
Thanks for this. I've heard of her I think, but obviously have some
more reading to do.
> Work versus Control technologies distinctions, is a good perspective
In Digital Vegan I talk some about the transformation of digital
technologies from enabling tools to instruments of enforcement.
> The web, here, is remarkably strong powerful, with userscripts being
a powerful demonstration of how some small tidbits of common
knowledge can give us wideranging power over most every
corporate/institutional property on the planet. There's nothing like
it! It's purely incidental though- few web sites are specifically
implemented to enhance understanding of how the site itself
functions.
Ted Nelson (and some of the other WWW pioneers) had similar visions of
a "lisp machine-like" queryable distributed structure.
> imagine a web where components could more clearly state their
intent, be poked & prodded & understood by outsiders using common
devtools. To me, this is one of the latent & most inspiring hopes of
could-be web platform systems like WebComponents, that they could
help make the web more broadly understandable & explorable for
everyone, that it could make the hypermedium itself rich not just in
what it expresses, but internally as well.
Web1.0 carried that hope but failed. Web2.0 tried (at least brought
interactive participation) but was usurped by commerce. Is Web3.0
trying again? Is the arc of web history on the side of your vision? I
hope so.
Most derivatives generally just add packages and customisation to make a more convenient and specialised derivative.
At the top of the "family tree" of distributions, you've got "root" distributions such as Slackware and Debian. They branch out into specialised distributions such as Ubuntu Server for servers, Kali Linux for pentesting, and so on.
With this in mind, it's probably easiest to start with choosing a "root" distribution, and optionally choosing a derivative as necessary if a root distribution isn't specialised or convenient enough for your needs.
For example, if one wants stability and hardware compatibility, one can go straight with Debian. If they want a layer of user-friendliness and official support from many applications, then they could pick Ubuntu instead of plain Debian. (This is a subjective example!)
Considering there's hundreds of distributions, having some criteria such as high popularity and thorough documentation might be necessary to narrow down the list of choices.
DistroWatch is good enough for giving you an idea of each distribution's purpose without opening dozens of search tabs.
Of course, one could also choose the option to perpetually hop from distro to distro every other day, if feeling adventurous (or anxious to make a choice) :P
One of the very few things I miss about social media is seeing HONY posts appear in the newsfeed. They were always a delightful and authentic highlight amidst a sea of forgettable posts filled with superficial drama, misery and cynicism.
Brandon's passion and dedication deserves all the respect and appreciation - it's wonderful to see the endeavour reaching such new heights!
Absolutely agreed! It's just in my personal case, I've shifted towards actively seeking content rather than having it passively delivered by subscribing/following. But you're definitely right regarding simple accounts and self-filtering. :)
Unfortunately you'll still get recommended and get thrown into the rabbit hole. Some things are better abstained from. It takes energy and discipline and mental bandwidth to consciously choose not to click on clickbait suggestions numerous times while attempting to focus on the one channel.
If I use a Twitter list, I don't get ads or recommended tweets/accounts (so far anyway). I believe there's a similar feature for Facebook, but I mostly use that for Messenger these days, not looking at a feed.
Complexity of storage/presentation formats can indeed compromise accessibility and longevity. However, trying to enforce plain text on everything can be detrimental to the quality and fidelity of information.
Of course, it very much depends on the context - technical documents may not need images as much as a travelling blog would. That's why it's important to use plain text as necessary, rather than always. The same applies to any format, including images and even videos. It's about balancing the usage of different formats, plain text included.
With this in mind, it's certainly recommended to start with plain text, but if plain text doesn't cut it, it's much more practical (and beneficial for the information) to just add an image. Ideally, one should always diversify how they store and present a piece of information, if they can afford to do so.
There is a tragic irony in sacrificing the potential fidelity of information in hopes of making it universally accessible.
I agree. I prefer html or md formatted "plain text" files. There is a reason books have different looking text and picture back hundreds and thousands of years. Plain text might be sufficient in a lot of cases but it's certainly not preferable in a lot of case. I do prefer html/md to any sort of binary format or proprietary one though for portability and universality.
Absolutely beautiful little OS - I love that it manages to balance well between being light, secure and rather versatile for server environments. I run it as a WireGuard & Docker server on a low-end VPS, and it just works without any problems at all thus far.
Its wiki does a fine job at being a pretty good resource for documentation, too, and both ArchWiki & Gentoo Wiki work well as fallbacks.
Whilst a lot of unRAID's functionality can be achieved with a bit of tinkering and reading, its UI does save a lot of time and keeps things very simple. For example, I have yet to figure out a way of achieving GPU passthrough on an Optimus laptop without my hair going grey -- a part of me feels like unRAID might simplify it, despite it being an OS for servers rather than laptops.
One thing I'd absolutely wish for is ZFS support. I haven't looked into how ZFS's licence might interfere with its integration, but if integration is possible, it would be magnificent.
Nevertheless, unRAID is splendid at what it strives to do and buying a pro licence for it was absolutely worth it!