When Technology Overwhelms

[macg]

I've been using a Raspberry Pi as a DNS blocker at home for over two years. It works like Adblock in your browser but covers the whole network. For example, phones and my Android projector don't show ads. I also blocked porn and some websites I find useless.

Curious how you set this up... I have a Pi, currently just used as my Plex server connected to an external drive. I've been thinking about using it as a dns blocker, but wasn't sure whether I could just add-on to the existing or if I should get a whole other Pi dedicated...

[loutfard]

https://pi-hole.net/ is the most popular one.

[delay]

wasn't sure whether I could just add-on to the existing or if I should get a whole other Pi dedicated...

It takes almost no resources, it will easily run next to whatever else is on your Pi.

Playing with DNS does take time, for example, you've got to configure your router to advertise your Pi as DNS server. If your router does not allow its wi-fi clients to talk to its wired clients, you've got another challenge

[muu]

It takes almost no resources, it will easily run next to whatever else is on your Pi.

Playing with DNS does take time, for example, you've got to configure your router to advertise your Pi as DNS server. If your router does not allow its wi-fi clients to talk to its wired clients, you've got another challenge

I've been adding domains to my /etc/hosts file to block them: https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts. This method sadly doesn't cover the entire network at once, only the machine you configure it on, but it also doesn't require tinkering with any additional hardware. It's been useful for me, given that I move apartments much more frequently than I change machines.

It’s interesting that people who work with technology seem most likely to limit it in their personal lives.

Once I saw how the sausage was made... ‘Never get high on your own supply’ – why social media bosses don’t use social media

[Scott 2]

I'm working through this currently. Running devices include Android, lineage OS, Ubuntu, Windows 10, and chrome OS.

I tried to re-use the old stuff. I found a couple more arguments in favor of consolidating. Windows and Lineage OS are out. Chrome OS is under threat.


1. Keeping a 2nd biking phone active (lineage OS) costs a bit. One year of minimal data and calling. $6 a month with Tello. Instead - I can save that as "insurance" for damage to my good phone, or invest in a special phone bag for the bike. Even ignoring the time cost to keep phone #2 updated and running, it's still not worth it. Wiped and ready for the recycler.


2. With the better part of the day, I bypassed Microsoft's restrictions and got the old Windows 10 box upgraded to 11. Not even a clean install - I preserved my precious Office 2016 pro license. I also setup dual boot with a Linux Mint distro. Arch sounds cool, but in practice, no thanks.

Then the CPU fan started screaming at 100%. Right, this is why we rushed to replace the PC. I traced it to a thermal sensor reading in the mid 70's C. The room was warm. New considerations:

2.1 Fix the cooling issue. If I'm lucky, a $6 can of air. If not, $40-60 to replace the CPU fan. Never done it, let's assume nothing breaks.

2.2 That heat is money. What's the power consumption of the desktop vs. my Chromebook? ChatGPT estimates $6/month vs. $0.50 for an efficient laptop. So let's say $60 over a year. The nail in the old tech coffin.

2.3 But what if the Chromebook sucks? That's not good Linux. There's no Windows apps. The answer is replace. Microcenter offers a more powerful (refurbished) laptop for $250-300, including a windows license. That's a reasonable payback period AND the faster computer is portable.

2.4 I also learned windows licenses are tied to motherboards. So even though I wiped it from our primary Ubuntu desktop, there's a recovery path. Rather than maintain an ongoing Windows install, I can take solace in having a last resort.

I'm still coming to terms with wiping this one. But the justification to keep isn't there.


3. The chromebook survived. I'm using it now. It's a good test of the original questions. "Do I need a laptop?" "Should there be an upstairs computer"? Used as designed, looking past Google's prying into every keystroke, it works well. I even tried Github code spaces using the Web IDE. Maybe not a long term solution, but a great test. Prove the need, then drop a couple hundred on that refurbished laptop.


So LInux + Android is still the long term destination. There's a stop over with Chrome OS. But hey - it's converging with Android anyways:

https://www.androidauthority.com/chrome ... d-3500661/

[thai_tong]

When it comes to social media we are at the point now where most people use it more than they would like to.

For me it gets me in an demotivating spiral and takes me away from enjoying my free time.

For what it's worth I turn off my phone and leave it at the front door.
I find it way easier to doomscroll on a phone so I prefer to use a laptop for learning and looking things up.

"Look for engagement not entertainment" is my motto. Doomscrolling is entertainment, but what my brain really needs is something to engage it, something to care about.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

My kids go to public school. At the beginning of the school year, I get an entire sheet full of QR codes for apps for the kids, some required for participation in school, some not. They have iPads they use starting in Kindergarten, the librarian was fired and the library is now a “media center,” and just last week their dad asked me to create accounts for them on such-and-such national organization’s website so they could participate in the school’s annual fundraiser. I refused, and he countered with “it’s better than selling chocolate, right?” No, it isn’t. Gimme the chocolate. In my own life, it’s easy to limit technology’s encroachment. I feel like I’m plugging holes in a crumbling dam when it comes to my kids’ exposure, though. It’s one me against all of society’s adtech, and it comes at them from everywhere, and public school is the worst offender. I don’t know that I can really *do* anything, short of running off into the woods with them and homeschooling. For better or worse, this is the world they’re inheriting, and they’ll need to learn how to manage it all. It certainly doesn’t help that 99% of the adults in their lives all think ‘the more technology the better.’ They think it’s weird I don’t have a TV or an Alexa. My son knows the names of more Transformers than he does trees.

[7Wannabe5]

@Biscuits and Gravy:

The sheet of QR codes kids have to utilize these days can definitely be an example of how technology/bureaucracy have us running in place like hamsters at the margin. When I tutor older kids in math, it can sometimes take them an appreciable chunk of our session just to make their way through the layers of log-ins between them and their homework assignment. A good part of the problem is all the security that must be put in place. Last summer, my co-teacher and I wanted to find a video to show our students how a snake eats its prey and we were blocked until we managed to phrase our request in language the censor considered non-violent enough. The extra layer of ridiculous being that this was in a setting where some of the kids were so unsupervised at home, highly likely they were up at 11 PM watching "Chainsaw Zombie Murders 4" the previous evening. One of the very few rules I strictly enforced with my own kids was that they were in their beds at 8, and their two choices for activity were sleep or read. In retrospect, I'm glad that their elementary school years were the ones in which I engaged in my brief full-time work-for-others phase, because I didn't like the conventional demands of that phase of parenting. Much preferred the chaos of toddler and teen years. Although, it does seem to be the case that this conventionalizing "rules and gold stars" phase has lately been expanded into both earlier and later years.

[zbigi]

2. With the better part of the day, I bypassed Microsoft's restrictions and got the old Windows 10 box upgraded to 11. Not even a clean install - I preserved my precious Office 2016 pro license. I also setup dual boot with a Linux Mint distro. Arch sounds cool, but in practice, no thanks.

Can you share some tips or links to pages with tips? I still have that task in front of me (that or migrating my laptop to OSX or Linux).

BTW I recently wrote about this scam to The Guardian and New York Times (after writing about it to the Gates foundation). No reply from them yet. I guess they see "environmentalism" as buying Teslas and heat pumps [1], not as reducing waste. That, and why piss off Microsoft who was bazillions of dollars and such a nice ex-CEO.

[1] There was a recent poll in The Guardian where they encouraged readers to share their environmental tips - but specifically tips regarding latest "green" gadgets (e.g. how to use your electric car as a battery for the house).

[Scott 2]

There were two keys:

1. Download the iso from Microsoft and make a boot installer USB via Rufus. It will offer options to automatically set registry flags overriding the hardware check.

https://pureinfotech.com/rufus-create-b ... ws-11-usb/

2. Once you create the USB, you open it from within Windows. Then run setup. If you boot from the USB, it will only ever allow a clean install. In my case, this path preserved all data and software. Office 2016 specifically was hard to find. The links to the apps were not preserved. But it was still a managed software install.

Having looked at the power consumption of my old desktop, I'm less confident in the cumulative negative environmental impact. The hardware I've been pushed to costumes substantially less energy. Had I gone phone and tablet only, I already had it.

I think the argument for running any non-mobile OS, especially Windows, is rapidly dwindling. Managed cloud offerings are typically the better answer.

[zbigi]

Fantastic, I'll give it a try once a have a few days available to (potentially) wreck my machines. Thanks!

For me, the arguments for non-mobile OS are:
1. Gaming.
2. Native programming (C++ and the like, with Visual Studio and on Windows APIs). I ocasionally feel inspired to play with this stuff.

[Scott 2]

That 2nd one is a hard lock in. I don't know many who want to use C++ anymore. That was the "advanced" language of choice in my undergrad, though we ran xemacs and with gdb as the debugger. My last employer was a .NET shop. JetBrains was emerging as the preferred IDE provider. Devs with Visual Studio Enterprise licenses were opting for Rider anyways. They were big fans of Resharper.


I've no idea the state of Android gaming. Probably the biggest platform by user count. I see cloud gaming like gamepass is available. I personally commit to a console and centralize all my gaming there. For the last few years it's been a Nintendo Switch. I'm sure my phone is more powerful.

From what I understand, the steam deck is based on Arch Linux and is running most games pretty well, using a Proton layer they've developed. I just don't want to screw with it. I'll spend more time optimizing the platform instead of enjoying the game. Growing up in the 90's, I already spent far too much time tweaking autoexec settings.


The biggest problem I'm finding with centralizing on the phone, is I can't keep my fingers off the web browser. My go to solution has been uninstalling the browser, doing my key stuff via dedicated apps. The barrier of needing to re-install is enough to make me think, before I've scrolled away 2 hours on reddit.

However - there's a trend away from offering apps. My therapist's telehealth provider is web only. The VSCode web IDE is probably the best option on Android. The app options aren't expecting a desktop scale interface.

The other limitation I've found, relates to keeping spreadsheet data private. Google sheets and office 365 are both very clear - they're using your data. The options that don't, Collabora for instance, absolutely suck. Open office as well. The native app interfaces are unbearable for any significant work.

[delay]

The biggest problem I'm finding with centralizing on the phone, is I can't keep my fingers off the web browser.

Right, that alone makes an e-reader worth it. The long battery life and soft light are extras, but an e-reader's main advantage is the lack of an internet connection.

[Slevin]

From what I understand, the steam deck is based on Arch Linux and is running most games pretty well, using a Proton layer they've developed. I just don't want to screw with it. I'll spend more time optimizing the platform instead of enjoying the game. Growing up in the 90's, I already spent far too much time tweaking autoexec settings.

I have a steam deck, and I don’t screw with the settings basically at all. I got it because I wanted to game, but I didn’t want to spend too much money, I didn’t want a large power consumption, and I hate windows. With the steam deck I can play something like bg3 but only using 15 watts, which is insane to me. I think I’ve technically touched the Linux distribution a tiny bit one time (just installing a nonstandard app for emulation), but 99% of the games you play on there just work and there is no messing with Linux settings. It’s somehow the most streamlined and user friendly Linux box I’ve seen offered to consumers. It also works as a computer (with mouse and keyboard), and as a gaming console (with external controller, or as a handheld). It’s also drastically more ergonomic than the switch (but still a bit heavy).

[zbigi]

With the steam deck I can play something like bg3 but only using 15 watts

On "low" graphics settings though? Otherwise, the 15 watts energy budget would be beyond mindblowing.

[Scott 2]

@Slevin - don't get me wrong. The steam deck is extremely appealing. I prefer a portable form factor. My library is entirely digital. When the switch 2 is announced (later this week???) that's what I'll compare against. For me, picking the switch is kind of like @delay choosing the Kindle. Make the system open to tinkering, and I can't help myself. I'll want to try all the things. It distracts from the experience of gaming.