I have found synching to be very useful for making copies of files across devices. I have it setup to mirror photos from my phone, photos from my wife’s phone, and various other things (to-do lists for todo.txt, notes and shopping lists for obsidian… stuff like that) back to my desktop and my NAS. You can set it to do one-way sync (which is more like a backup) or two way sync (where changes anywhere are propagated to everywhere else).

As others have said, it’s not really a true backup solution, but handy to have immediately accessible copies of what’s on your phone in case of phone loss or damage.

For photo viewing and sharing, I am more or less pointing the photo sharing app on my NAS to the photos I sync from phone. They all get dropped into an “inbox” when first synced and then can be organized from there.

You may also want an actual backup solution. There are quite a few and that’s a different topic. The reason I bring it up, though, is that simply mirroring what’s currently on device is not considered a real backup by most people, and for good reason.

While I agree with your sentiment… millionaires and billionaires should not be lumped together. This conflation is actually a super useful tool for the billionaires (and mega millionaires) to use when convincing the middle and lower economic classes to vote in their favor.

Realistically, millionaire today basically just means homeowner. As ridiculous as it sounds, a million dollars is not an “enormous” sum of money in today’s world.

Billionaire is something different entirely.

Better to say “super wealthy” or something like that.

“Sorry, disc must be scratched”

Yes that’s a concern with all of them, Apple TV included.

That’s what I’m using now and I like it.

Not sure if it’s a factor for you but roku tries to phone home a lot more than anything else on my network (or perhaps my firewall just catches it more than other devices and apps). Otherwise roku is pretty good.

Nvidia shield tv is better though. It’s the best set top box. Made even better by replacing the default launcher/ home screen (android TV default launcher now has 2/3 or more of the screen taken up by ads or “recommended content” which is just ads).

Big.

Absolutely agree

Oisd.nl

Had to scroll pretty far to find this comment…

Depending on how in depth you want your firewall, packet inspection, etc to be and your internet access speed, you may want a commercial grade router. You can also probably use an old PC and add a dual gigabit NIC to it and load up opnsense or pfsense or some other router/firewall distribution. From there, add a stand alone switch and a standalone wifi AP (or router in AP mode). The reason I bring up using a commercial device or an older desktop is because packet inspection, filtering, etc at line speed on a gigabit connection won’t be possible with a lot of low powered devices.

I used to do this (was using an old Intel core i5 second gen with added RAM and a dual port gigabit NIC) but it was a lot to keep up with. I have since moved on to an Asus router (RT-AX86U) with the AsusWRT-Merlin software package. The only functionality I really lost was suricata for IDS. The AsusWRT distro comes with some proprietary stuff (that I think you can turn off) but it’s also very “open” in terms of just running Linux underneath. This means you can set up things like VLANS, use iptables, etc.

AsusWRT-Merlin adds some niceties (including a nice add on system that will expand into web based interfaces for certain things you might usually do from command line, better/expanded firewalling, and even adguardhome installer for DNS-based malware/spyware/ad blocking… kinda like pihole but lots of people like it better). The maintainer of that package corresponds frequently with Asus (to the point that some of his stuff is merged back into the official AsusWRT at some points).

I can confirm that the model I mentioned above is able to do all the firewalling, QoS, adguard DNS filtering, etc at gigabit speeds. It also has some sort of IDS and a few other protections, but they are part of the proprietary bits (Asus licensed via TrendMicro I believe).

I remember the inventor of the Behmor machine saying that the smoke suppression was required by regulation of some sort… ao yeah they are kinda necessary in a sense.

Like I said, do whatever you like, but I advise against roasting coffee indoors without an exhaust fan that dumps the exhaust outside, at minimum.

Yes it would, with regard to ventilation.

During coffee production of both flavored and unflavored coffee, production employees become exposed to dangerous VOCs resulting in irreversible lung damage (Ref. 1). The most hazardous VOCs released from flavorings and naturally from roasting coffee beans are diacetyl and 2,3-pentanedione. Exposure to even small amounts over time or large concentrations over a short period of time can have drastic health effects (Ref. 2).

https://www.sentryair.com/blog/industry-applications/chemical-solvents/diacetyl-hazards-coffee-roasting-industry/

(Yes I know they’re trying to sell you air filtration systems or whatever… but they reference several scientific studies in their literature)

Yes I used to roast at home several times a week on a Behmor machine. There’s a reason all the at-home machines (and commercial machines for that matter) have smoke suppression…

Edit to add that I started with a popcorn popper (which is the usual entry into the hobby) then built a roaster out of a heat gun and a flour sifter before I went on to get the Behmor. All of my roasting was done outside or in the garage with fume hood and exhaust fan.

Do whatever you like but there’s a reason there are things like occupational safety regulations and the like.

Not to be a downer, but you’re gonna get a lot of smoke roasting beans in your electric oven (gas would have an exhaust to the outside). That smoke really isn’t good for you to breathe in either. Prolonged exposure will lead to “popcorn lung”. It’s also going to make your stove very dirty in the inside in short fashion. Also, you’re gonna melt some plastic colanders if you drop coffee beans into them right out of a 400-500 degree oven. Not to mention that plastic + heat = not good (even without the melting)

If you want to try roasting coffee beans at home once or twice on the cheap, you’re better off “pan roasting” them outside on a camp stove or something similar if you don’t have an exhaust fan right above your stove that connects to outside.

Specialized at-home electric roasters exist and aren’t that expensive. Certainly cheaper than smoke mitigation.

Oh I missed that small detail thanks.

Is your oven electric or gas?

I hope this is AI generated.

Honestly think it was more social than religious or philosophical.

Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

…but yeah Brian’s books are…mediocre fanfic at best…