This is just anecdotal, but I have never once experienced an issue with SFP+ vendor lock. I have mix-and-matched transceivers between Mikrotik, DLink, TPLink, Dell Enterprise, and Xyxel switches as well as both Mellanox and Intel NICs. The only issue i can recall is some auto-negotiatiin issues using 1GB modules in a Mellanox switch. Manually setting the link rate fixed it. I use a combination of 10Gb fiber, 10Gb copper, and 1Gb copper modules as well as DAC depending on the situation.

I know that vendor lock does exist, but it’s not as widespread with modern hardware.

“Isn’t well liked” is quite the understatement. “Despised” is more like it. I actually like the way the cybertruck looks, I think the technology is interesting, and if I really wanted to, I could probably afford one.

I wouldn’t drive one if it was given to me for free. I’d rather take a taxi every day than drive a public display of support for the treasonous fascist manchild that owns the company.

Tesla’s second biggest problem is their shit standards and quality control. Their first biggest problem is their shit corporate leadership.

I’m fairly certain the entire article was. Even if it didn’t sound exactly like a ChatGPT response, don’t tech reviews normally have the name of the author SOMEWHERE on the page?

Ebay might be owned by PayPal, but you are buying from real actual people. I’ve bought a lot of corporate surplus server equipment on Ebay. It’s not coming from a random supplier in China or a giant warehouse in the US. Most of my money (minus listing fees) is going to a small business that refurbishes old equipment.

I have bought equipment on Ebay and driven to a small recycling company one city over to pick it up in person.

Here’s an idea: Save your photos on your phone or computer. Back them up periodically. Send them over SMS or email to your friends and family if you think they’re worth sharing. Stop relying on social media to give the the dopamine rush that you could be getting by actually doing something useful.

This may be going off on a tangent, but it seems appropriate here. I am sick and tired of hearing about every little minutia of clickbait bullshit related to Trump. If Musk wants to buy and tank TikTok, great. I don’t give a fuck one way or another. Trump isn’t buying TikTok, and I truly don’t give a shit what his opinion is on it.

I want to stay aware of current events in my country. If the president signs an executive order, I want to hear about it. I don’t want to hear about what his friends are doing. I couldn’t care less who made his wife’s hat. I’d rather watch paint dry than a video of him and his wife dancing. I hate that I know he consumes McDonald’s slop and Diet Coke in the oval office.

People argue about how news outlets are biased right or left. The real problem is that news outlets are just entertainment outlets, and not legitimate journalism. I don’t care if you’re reading Fox News or CNN; you’re still going to wade through a river of worthless celebrity worship before you actually find something of substance. Scroll down far enough, and you won’t be reading about Trump any more. Instead, you’ll be reading about which actors are fucking each other and the latest and “this year’s hottest budget-friendly Temu styles that are now made of only slightly toxic synthetic fibers.” If you’re lucky, you might find an article about how some random nobody met another random nobody on vacation and got married. Good for them. I’m glad they’re happy. I still don’t give a shit.

Technology exists to keep all your personal data exceptionally secure. Modern encryption is incredibly difficult to break (impossible really).

Humans are fundamentally insecure. Any time you read about a data leak, it’s because somebody stupidly opened an attachment or fell for a scam. Any time someone gets “hacked,” they didn’t. They gave away their information. Human error and a lack of education are the problems.

I’m also in agreement with you there. I’d rather use Windows 11 than macOS, but that’s kinda like saying I’d rather have a lobotomy with a short icepick instead of a long one.

macOS

Private entities have the right to decide what is or is not acceptable content on their platforms. Consumers also have the right to choose which services they want to use.

I encourage everyone to stop using anything involved with Meta. I personally have a list of Meta domains blocked on my home network.

If enough people did this, the problem would resolve itself.

I definitely get that. The big thing for me is music, and I routinely buy physical and digital copies of albums to add to my collection. I don’t mind sending some money to help my favorite artists keep producing content that I enjoy. With video, though, it’s just so much harder. I’d be happy to pay $50 or more per month for what Netflix used to be, or even buy downloadable copies of a TV series that I like. That’s just not possible these days. I’d be subscribing to Netflix, Discovery, Paramount, Apple TV, probably a few more. It’s ridiculous. Forget buying and downloading TV shows; there’s no option for that at all. I’d rather just not watch TV or find an “alternate” means of getting the media I want.

I completely understand what you’re saying; in general, I tend to agree that if a firmware update is available, it’s best to install it. I keep the firmware up to date on all my networking equipment, and the first thing I do when I set up a new PC is install Windows updates (or apt-get update in Linux).

I have two TVs. One in the living room, and one in the bedroom. After the brief time I had my bedroom TV connected to my network, it immediately started serving me advertisements. I hate ads with a passion. When it comes to network security, privacy probably comes second to blocking ads in terms of priority. When it came time to replace my living room TV, I first tried to repair it, but after spending too much on a replacement mainboard that didn’t do shit, I just bought a new TV. There was no way in hell I was letting it connect to the internet and download advertisements.

I have an extensive Zigbee network for home automation, 10GB fiber links between my servers and my home office, etc. My home is very much “connected.” TVs are just one of those things that I will never, ever, under any circumstances, allow to connect to anything other than a video cable. If I’m paying $1000 or more for a device, I’ll be damned if it’s going to show me advertisements.

I use my TV as basically just a dumb display panel. If it can display 4k/60, then there is no bug that needs to be fixed. I don’t even use built-in audio.

I connected my other TV to my network once when my Nvidia Shield wasn’t working. That TV is still showing advertisements in the main menu for shows that were released 3 years ago.

I’m in this same situation and at least for me, no, not even once for a firmware update.

If the TV is displaying the image that’s coming from whatever input source I’m using, then the firmware is already just fine.

I canceled Netflix several years ago after having used it as my primary source of media almost since they first started their streaming service.

The problem I had is that the quality of their content decreased so dramatically that even though it worked fine from a technical perspective, there was nothing I wanted to watch. They used to have extensive back-catelogues of shows from all sorts of different national cable networks, tons of interesting foreign shows, documentaries, obscure indie films, etc.

Slowly but surely this all disappeared. Networks stopped licensing content to Netflix. As soon as they realized that streaming was the way of the future, they wanted to capitalize on it with their own streaming services. In a way, Netflix was a victim of their own success.

Now they’re essentially just a TV network of their own and not the aggregator of media that they used it me. The few decent originals that they have were just not justification enough for me to pay for a service I might use a few times a year.

I have absolutely zero interest in participating in any kind of social media that isn’t an “anonymous forum.” I have no interest in following particular individuals; I’m really only interested in having discussions with random internet users that share common interests. I used PhpBB instances, IRC, and before that BBS systems, and I’m really just looking for the same kind of experience.

So I will never use Mastodon; I think it’s a fantastic alternative to Xitter, but the format just doesn’t interest me in the slightest.

I love it, and for anyone else who does, I have a suggestion.

Get a SodaStream (or whatever your carbonator-of-choice is) and a cheap adapter to run it from a standard CO2 tank. Not only do you save money on CO2 refills, but you save money on buying cans of seltzer, too. The concentrated flavor additives are only a few dollars at the grocery store.

I think my SodaStream was something like $100. The adapter and hoses were $50-ish. The flavor syrup costs around $5 for enough to make gallons. Every few months or more, I might pay $50 or so to refill a 20lb CO2 tank. It’s already paid for itself, and it’s incredibly convenient.

Holy shit. I’m paying less than 10c per kwh even in the “high usage” tier.

I’m right around the same level, and it actually keeps my server room / workshop at comfortable temperature during the winter. I also have my gaming PC mounted in my server rack; when that’s running, there are times where my AC will still kick in even when it’s 40 degrees outside.

For two servers (one with a lot of spinning rust), two switches, and a few other miscellaneous network appliances. My server rack averages around 600-650W. During periods of high demand (nightly backups, for instance), that can peak at around 750W.