The ARR tools are basically a search engine website you host. The interact with a few other tools you have to have access to/pay for. Namely an indexing service and a (for some) a download service. They can use torrents, so you dont HAVE to pay for downloading, but using something like newsgroups is really nice and add reliability and security.

THe “ARR’s” basically then are just a fancy UI and scheduler and just search the indexing service, download the files you want, re-assemble them and copy them to the location you want (often a file share that your media player like Plex or Jellyfin will use).

You can set them to continually look for something too. So for Sonarr, it will auto-download new episodes as soon as they appear in the index. Or if you see a commercial for something upcoming, you can add it and monitor it and as soon as it starts showing up in the indexes it will download.

All the aarrrs. Saturates my isp bandwidth, have no issues with finding stuff, no takedown or piracy warnings…

Ah. That makes sense.

Interestingly the game is downloading for me. I have had it in my library for some time now.

Is it saying its been pulled for new sales only?

I do similar. For laptops and docks, especially if they change setups it can be a pita (though you just need to copy files around).

Also the DE monitor config (ie that you use to login) is logically different to a users x config. So you gotta copy that over to make sure the primary monitor etc is right.

There are quality docks that work on displaylink. The dell D6000 is one example and we issue them out freely at work.

Most third party off brand docks will have higher failure rates. We see that with some anker docks that were usb-c+pd we use/had to source during the great supply chain snafu during covid. They worked in a pinch but aren’t reliable like a Lenovo or Dell dock. That’s less a displaylink thing and more a cheap dock thing.

DisplayLink compresses everything over usb. If you plan to do anything color sensitive (ie photo editing) or latency sensitivite (ie: games) it’s a bad idea sine it’s all cpu compression.

That said. They are great for multi monitor general usage (ie soreadhseets and shit) or for systems with graphic card limitations on multi display output (ie low end macs on m1/m2)

Honestly the only thing I can think of is the competition recently to hack a satellite, maybe has drawn the ire of some script kids, or rather interest. [1][2][3] I LOT of educational and research stuff is quite open, and often very resistant to change as they value access/transmissibility over security in many cases where theres no real grounds (ie: its not national secrets etc). Some of these datasets are quite large.

Even still basic things like firewalls, key based access etc should be setupo. Heck if its a multi-million dollar instrument airgapping is probably worth its time. But i dunno. Just conjecture on my part.

The competition definately brought some attention [4]

• [1] https://www.newsweek.com/eight-teams-hackers-will-compete-breach-us-satellite-space-1808270
• [2] https://www.afrl.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3341747/hack-a-sat-competition-highlights-on-orbit-hacking/
• [3] https://www.space.com/satellite-hacking-hack-a-sat-competition-winners
• [4] https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2023/08/national-intelligence-office-issues-cyber-warning-government-and-commercial-satellites/389671/

FWIW he says this in the beginning of the video.

MS goes out of their way to make shit harder than it needs to be.

For example. The store, they have a store for business where you can simply whitelist known apps buts it’s a PITA to setup AND they have been threatening to decom it for ages

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-store/microsoft-store-for-business-overview

Want to add safety/security features like secuirty keys. Well if you do it on a non domain joined machine you can just sign into a m365 account to enable a passkey or yuibijey as a second factor.

Want to do that in a business environment. Congrats now you have to deploy a windows CA and issue user certificates to tie to this. Even if you are signing the machine into m365 with ADAL.

They go out of their way to add complexity and failure points.

Tthe problem is now if you have the store disabled basic shit, like the ability to open .heic files is broken or use stuff people want like sticky notes is broken.

We turn off most of what we can’t but having the store enabled causes all sorts of stuff.

Also windows 11 has ads baked in even with the store disabled. Plug in a Logitech mouse, get a pop up for their software. Open the picture viewer and get an ad to install some video editor that isn’t clear whether it’s a Ms product or not.

No to mention basic things like copy paste and edit are now weird icons because I guess they think most users are illiterate.

Most of the 11 UI changes are not for the better. Having to beta test it for work is frustrating and I run an IT shop.

Not as uncommon as you would think. What normally do then is use the 6 month releases until the next LTS

I have been using this hub. Works fine in Linux and windows.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0871ZHCKK?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

I also use this usb dongle for my Xbox controller. It works fine in Linux. I really should try playing a few games on Linux.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0785SFKYF?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

Yeah im similar. I still use 1080 monitors and just 2 at a regular workspace. Its about the perfect DPI for reading text. Things like 4k just make it harder or you have to bump up the fractional scaling, in which case why the more pixels?

Im fine to keep it to a laptop monitor when im mobile, and 2+laptop monitor for email when at a desk.

Beeper does want you to proxy your iCloud account through a Mac on their network for iMessage. You are logging into your iCloud account through their site. They are in effect using Mac minis in a farm to provide the service based on what I looked into (including self hosting it, but then you can’t use a beeper app, you need your own)

https://help.beeper.com/chat-networks/imessage?from_search=125277302

Are you hosting it on personal hardware?

Not currently, though I am considering it. Right now I host mine on a VPS in linode. Though i need to downgrade it, I built it with the expectationg of allowing joins, but recently decided just to keep it private.

Can you just choose any free name for the domain if it’s on your own hardware or do you need to rent one regardless?

This wouldnt work. You not only need to have a routable/real domain name, but the server likely needs access to the internet to allow fro federation, specifically ingress traffic, to work.

Do you keep it active all the time or turn it off for the night/other periods of time where you know you won’t use it?

Mine runs 24/7. Even if i hosted it at home it would be 24/7. Only issue is

1. I already use port 80/443 at home. So i would need to reconfigure NGINX to use a proxy, which could also break federation. I could do that, in fact I am pretty sure the ansible config uses NGINX proxy commands, just that I would have to customize it and Im lazy. I already have stuff on VPS systems in linode (blog, teamspeak etc) so its no biggy to have another one.

2. My internet at home can be flaky. For example I currently dont have power at home and while I normally run on UPS for a time, and can cut to generator when I am home, my network just went into auto-shutdown.

Excatly why I never opened my instance. With it just being me, i can control what is on it and what is synced. There was too much risk with CP/CSAM type stuff. Heck I didnt even want to risk my linode account (aka they shut my other VPS systems down) due to TOS from shenanigans.

That said, I can still contribute just fine with my own instance and dont have to be involved in these drama defederation actions.

I would encourage anyone that is willing to criticize an instance maintainer for their decisions on risk to just roll out the lemmy-ansible setup and go your own way. If you troll or act in bad faith, you will get defederated. If you act like a reasonable person, no one will even notice. And that way you are in control of uptime, patch cadence, backups etc.

Any company that I have to give my username and password for a third party service (and especially one as important as icloud/imessage) ill take a hard pass.

I have a guy that does this. He puts so much effort in weird mobility solutions (ie: Dual monitors on a rolling table so he can work outside sometimes) or having a setup like this with TV’s, monitors etc all cobbled together.

Would you be surprised to hear hes not the most organized or efficient.

Yep. They just pull things you monitor as they show up in your feeds (in my case Usenet newsgroup indexes)

For example. My wife like Billions, new episode/season came out and it jus popped up in my plex server the other day