Had a similar comment in mind. The cost for a coach seat on a train to the nearest destination city that there’s actually a route to costs about 3x as much as a round trip flight (budget airline) and takes over 24 hours. I would prefer rail were it practical, but it’s not.
No secret that our rail systems suck though. I have taken trains in Europe and Japan, and those experiences were great!
Almost any distro will work for pretty much all of that. Only potentially limiting thing I see there I don’t think that the Mullvad VPN client is generally available within distro repositories. Their site says it has clients available for Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora. So perhaps pick from one of those?
For the steam link question, I know if I have a game running on my desktop it presents me the option to stream to my laptop (both Linux machines). I assume this is the same functionality. I don’t use it so can’t speak to how well it works.
Edit: It occurs to me this comment lacks a recommendation. Within the three listed supported distros for Mullvad, I think I’d recommend Fedora for you. Been some years since I used it last but I remember the installer being fairly robust and intuitive while still easy to use, and a pretty rock solid system once it’s up and running.
Seconding cowfodder’s comment, if you can manage to tolerate the Rose family at the beginning of Schitt’s Creek, seeing the character growth is so very worth it, in my opinion. YMMV of course, but I’d encourage giving it another shot.
Ted Lasso also has some great character redemption arcs. Though in this case the main character (Ted) is immediately likeable, which I think makes for an easier start in comparison. And in case “immediately likeable” infers thoughts of him being a simple or shallow charter, he is not.
OpenBSD on an old office PC I picked up from University surplus.
You don’t need an NVR. The camera supports a microSD card to store footage. It also supports FTP upload.
HomeAssistant isn’t required. It is supported and I do have it configured.
I have next to no recollection of how UniFi works so I can’t speak to that. Mine is connected to a 2.4GHz WiFi network. IIRC that’s all it supports. Might be different with newer models.
It also supports HTTP(S)/RTMP/RTSP/ONVIF streaming. Though I tend to just use the app (and I’m particular about installing apps) as I find it quite usable.
I bought a Ubiquity router once because a friend was raving about it. It crapped out on me after maybe 6 months? Will never buy their hardware again.
I’m using a Reolink doorbell camera and am happy with it so far. Had it for about two years.
I’m accustomed to the imperial system. But agree that metric is better.
Some metric stuff I have no trouble with. I have a good spatial sense of the distance of a mm, m, and km. And can do a rough miles to km (and vice versa) conversion in my head. I have a good sense of how much a kg is and similarly can do a rough conversion to and from lbs in my head. But while I understand that a gram is 1/1000 of a kg, if handed a small object and asked to guess how many grams it is, I’d fail miserably.
Celsius I can’t ever remember the conversion, but I’ve had enough exposure to it that I understand if it means cold/cool/warm/hot weather.
Long time and still current hater of all things Apple here.
I have to use a locked down enterprise managed Windows 11 laptop for work. If given the choice of that or a locked down enterprise managed Mac, I’d switch in a heartbeat.
I have a PC that I use as a router. It’s power setup is inverter > lifepo4 battery > battery charger. Relevance here is that it’s a “dumb” setup insofar as the PC can’t manage the battery.
What I did to help with battery health is figured out how long the battery should run the PC and have a scheduled disconnect of the mains power for about half that time once a day. Not as good a solution as something that can maintain a ~80% charge, but better than leaving it at 100%
It’d work for an old laptop too, and can be accomplished with a cheap aquarium light timer.
I got a chuckle out of “swap boil”
I know some folks in the SCA. Which I had no idea stood for “Society of Creative Anachronism” until just now. It’s a bit too much for me, but I’m glad they exist.
There’s one in my neck of the woods too. And I’ve gone before. Been a while though, didn’t even occur to me as an option. Thanks for reminding me!
Are there any you’ve gone to in the Midwest that you thought were particularly exceptional?
Thanks for all the recommends!
California Extreme looks cool! I live not too far from a retro barcade and it scratches this itch a little. I bet I’d enjoy this. I’ll keep an eye on it.
I do like board games and tabletop RPG’s. Not sure if I do enough to travel out to one of those but it made me think there are probably some in my neck of the woods I could check out, and indeed there are. So, still helpful!
I think I would love DEF CON. But the price of admission is pretty steep. But that helped me remember a friend telling me about SAINTCON. Also a Cybersecurity convention, in Provo Utah. Not cheap, but about half the cost of DEF CON. Provo is most certainly not Vegas. But I don’t need it to be. I can go to Vegas pretty much anytime. Was just there this past weekend, in fact.
That does appeal to my interests! And I love Portland and have some friends that live there too. I’ll try to make that happen.
This looks awesome! Thanks for the recommend.
In fairness, before I speak to it. I haven’t been to any type of gaming con/expo, big or small. But I’ve seen pictures and some video of PAX and it gives me the same kind of vibes as comic con, which made me iffy on those types of events.
Your description piqued my interest so I checked them out. I want to go! A month is a bit too soon (just got back from a trip) but I set myself a calendar reminder to check it out next year.
Edit to add: The con is April 17 – 19 @ Crowne Plaza for any curious passersby.
Not that some of the “they’re simply*” options are entirely incorrect for me, But nerd and/or geek is definitely a more apt descriptor.