i am a DIY tech enthusiast, interested in self hosting, decentralized networks / mesh networks, forms of self reliance, fringe science, digital resilience, file sharing đ´ââ ď¸, esoteric and spiritual topics, pentest / hacking, offline privacy friendly AI and rare books
I love proxmox and virtual machines everything about building local network resources and self hosting.
i am admin in the following Simplex Chat Groups
~ Homelab - White & grey hat hacking - fringe science & pseudoscience - intranet - psionics - unconventional medicine & wellness - alternative education &tutoring circles - lan party - rare books - pseudo-archaeology & ancient mysteries - phenomena and unexplained events - local folklore, myths & legends - file sharing & digital archival - Homegrown devices for 3D printers - Ghost Wifi Networks - Alternative energy tinkering ~
Privacy and freedom of speech. Zero censorship. Zero ai training on your data. Zero data collection, zero surveillance.
Simplex is NOT participating in Digital ID, ID verification, client side message scanning, message scanning in general or other surveillance methods currently being implemented in other popular services.
SimpleX Chat - a private and encrypted messenger without any user IDs (not even random ones)! Make a private connection via link / QR code t
Groups: Homelab - White & grey hat hacking - fringe science & pseudoscience - intranet - psionics - unconventional medicine & wellness - alternative education &tutoring circles - lan party - rare books - pseudo-archaeology & ancient mysteries - phenomena and unexplained events - local folklore, myths & legends - file sharing & digital archival - Homegrown devices for 3D printers - Ghost Wifi Networks - Alternative energy tinkering
Other great groups: PSA-2, Qubes OS & Spirituality
Just type a name or keyword into the directory bot and it will give you a list of matching groups.
HomeLab CheatSheet & AwesomeList. Contribute to AncientMystic/HomeLab development by creating an account on GitHub.
Created a Homelab resource, just a quick list of recommendations, info, links, etc to make the whole process easier and will be adding more to it later.
Can't believe we're here, but especially important for fandom accounts: DO NOT link your IRL, government ID to your fandom accounts! Not ever. Not for anything.
You will feel tempted by FOMO, you will feel bullied by Discord. You will be peer pressured to the ends of the earth. Do not do it. Do not allow them full access to you, and do not let them normalize this utter horseshit. We deserve anon spaces. We deserve the internet, it's ours.
Discord is announcing enhanced teen safety features rolling out globally that reinforce its long-standing commitment to creating a safer and
Like this shit is TERRIFYING.
Cancel Nitro and tell them this is why. Shit talk these assholes in public. Ridicule them. And do not budge an inch, do not let them have you.
actually encrypted / secure (discord is unencrypted there is NO privacy or security.)
NO user IDs of any kind. (Discord has user ID and tracks exactly who you talk to.)
NO user tracking
NO plan to EVER implement message scanning or ID requirements and according to the owner they have already established a legal basis against it. They will fight it to the bitter end. Zero compliance. ( Other companies are rushing to comply instead. Even if they technically didnât have to. )
There are no sign ups, no email/phone requirements, user profiles are on your device, your data is yours.
NO ai training on your data, servers cannot even see the content of your messages, they have no clue what youâre saying OR who you talk to. 𤡠(unlike discord that both monitors everything and trains ai)
Anyone can create groups and unless you register them on the public list of groups, they can only be joined with a link. đ
SimpleX Chat - a private and encrypted messenger without any user IDs (not even random ones)! Make a private connection via link / QR code t
HomeLab CheatSheet & AwesomeList. Contribute to AncientMystic/HomeLab development by creating an account on GitHub.
Created a Homelab resource, just a quick list of recommendations, info, links, etc to make the whole process easier and will be adding more to it later.
Quick bit of info for other creators who like to have Youtube open when you do creative stuff:
They are making background play a premium feature. This includes desktop too.
What that means is, if you have any video playing on your computer (doesn't matter if Windows, Mac, or Linux) and you switch from your open browser with the active Youtube video to your art program, it detects this and stops playing that video. It also doesn't matter what kind of video you want to watch, which is especially annoying if it's one of those 2 hours long ones that are specifically made to be background noise. Or if you turn off your screen, like you would do when you play rain sounds to help you fall asleep, for example.
They're apparently still in the testing phase, so not everyone has this - let's call it an update for now- but there are enough people online reporting the site going dark that it's noticeable. In turn, that means this new "feature" is coming for all of us sooner or later. So, please, if you are having trouble with Youtube lately it's very likely this and refreshing the page or blocking the page visibility API might help. It is not your internet being broken, no matter how hard Youtube is trying to gaslight you into thinking that.
For the Sims community in particular this means that you won't be able to watch speedbuilds or tutorials while you play the game anymore. At least not on the same device. Again, this is on Youtube (which is intentionally breaking itself right now) and not your computer or wifi.
normalize being dogshit amateur at your special interests and hyperfocuses. no more autistic savants. yes i am very into that topic no i am not good at it. we exist <3
It better be over an encrypted and private protocol with an RSA cipher so it isnât being shared with everyone, I donât want my signals trending on twitter. ;)
Protocol: Proprietary (AES-256 + HMAC-SHA-256)
E2EE: â Yes default + metadata
Forward Secrecy: â Yes (temporary keys per message)
Post-Quantum: â No (but ANSSI researching)
Audits: ANSSI CSPN certified 2x (2021, 2024) - no exploitable vulnerabilities
Verdict: A (French government certified, proven architecture)
Signal
Protocol: Signal Protocol (Double Ratchet, X3DH, Curve25519)
E2EE: â Default all messages
Forward Secrecy (PFS): â Yes (per-message key rotation)
Post-Quantum: â No (on roadmap)
Vulnerabilities: None critical (audits 2016-2024 validated protocol)
Verdict: A+ (industry standard)
Element/Matrix
Protocol: Olm/Megolm (Double Ratchet)
E2EE: â Optional per room (default enabled)
Forward Secrecy: â Yes (1:1 Olm, group Megolm with limitations)
Megolm weakness: Group history decryptable if session compromised (NCC audit 2016)
Post-Quantum: In development (MLS protocol)
Verdict: A- (good but group chat limitations identified)
intel vs amd, intel is better and more accurate, better with power saving, running cooler usually, better battery life on laptops, better with encoding/video editing tasks and anything you want precision and lack of artifacting, etc. but amd is definitely top tier for budget gaming rigs and many other things.
also with nvidia vs amd its pretty similar, nvidia is better quality, etc but amd is more raw power better for budget gaming.
also just a random tip, if you have a intel laptop, disable turbo boost.
you can add the registry tweak from here i believe this is it from geeks3d
Processor Performance Boost Mode Tweaker download
this adds an option into advanced power options found under
Control Panel > Power Options > Change Plan Settings > Change Advanced Power Settings:
it slightly reduces performance but for me it helped battery life slightly and stopped my cpu from hitting 70-95c under load in my laptop now it maxes out at about 60-65c typically, well worth what will surely be a greatly extended lifespan of the laptop to sacrifice a tiny basically unnoticeable bit of performance.
How to Disable Intel Turbo Boost Technology (on a notebook)
more info: its probably about a 1-3% performance loss most of the time, under heavy load turbo boost literally only adds 100mhz jumping up and down between original max clock speed and the 100mhz extra and for that tiny little boost it basically fries to cpu sometimes it would get so hot it shut down. (it is a hex core though so that doesnât help the heat) i personally would rather not fry my laptop for an off and on extra 100mhz 𤣠(plus it shutting down sometimes is more inconvenient than waiting an extra second đ)
I have seen people online recommending undervolting instead of disabling turbo boost saying its bad to disable (because of the tiny performance hit) which is essentially undervolting+overclocking
do NOT undervolt with turbo boost/overclocking enabled.
Its the worst advice ever. While disabling turbo has no negative effects on hardware and can actually be extremely positive for hardware and its lifespan, undervolting+overclocking can cause hardware damage, data loss and other problems, even undervolting by itself has that potential unless it is extremely minimal.
GPU undervolts can be more so safe as many modern gpus are actually overvolted for stability since different quality chips can handle different voltages and the higher the quality the lower the voltage it can run safely, so they tend to overvolt to ensure every gpu is stable even the lower quality chips.
Here are a few examples of intel 10-11th gen cpus.
stock TDP (PL1) VS Turbo (PL2)
As you can see the difference between the stock tdp vs turbo boost watt usage is extreme and so not only is disabling turbo better for your computer it is also better for your power bill and your wallet if you tend to use your computer a lot or leave it running often. (Or are just looking for more ways to save every penny on electricity with all the increases in costs)
intel vs amd, intel is better and more accurate, better with power saving, running cooler usually, better battery life on laptops, better with encoding/video editing tasks and anything you want precision and lack of artifacting, etc. but amd is definitely top tier for budget gaming rigs and many other things.
also with nvidia vs amd its pretty similar, nvidia is better quality, etc but amd is more raw power better for budget gaming.
also just a random tip, if you have a intel laptop, disable turbo boost.
you can add the registry tweak from here i believe this is it from geeks3d
Processor Performance Boost Mode Tweaker download
this adds an option into advanced power options found under
Control Panel > Power Options > Change Plan Settings > Change Advanced Power Settings:
it slightly reduces performance but for me it helped battery life slightly and stopped my cpu from hitting 70-95c under load in my laptop now it maxes out at about 60-65c typically, well worth what will surely be a greatly extended lifespan of the laptop to sacrifice a tiny basically unnoticeable bit of performance.
How to Disable Intel Turbo Boost Technology (on a notebook)
more info: its probably about a 1-3% performance loss most of the time, under heavy load turbo boost literally only adds 100mhz jumping up and down between original max clock speed and the 100mhz extra and for that tiny little boost it basically fries to cpu sometimes it would get so hot it shut down. (it is a hex core though so that doesnât help the heat) i personally would rather not fry my laptop for an off and on extra 100mhz 𤣠(plus it shutting down sometimes is more inconvenient than waiting an extra second đ)
there are all kinds of self hosted options to start building yourself home servers just for you or friends / local communities and you can use these in combination with wifi mesh networks / long distance wifi and other options to create networks for local communities without the internet.
here are some options and ideas to get you on your way into the world of self hosting.
A list of Free Software network services and web applications which can be hosted on your own servers - GitHub - awesome-selfhosted/awesome-
YunoHost ⢠index
libreserver
Your very own offline-first privacy-centric open-source data-center!
self hosted cloud options:
The most popular self-hosted collaboration solution for tens of millions of users at thousands of organizations across the globe
CryptPad: end-to-end encrypted collaboration suite
going to list the rest as i am out of links for the tumblr post
chat:
element secure messenger.
mattermost
rocket.chat
lets chat
github:
gitlabs
gogs
phabricator
cms
lsso
hashover
master comments system
social:
open source social network
elgg
oxwall
trident
humhub
exo
wiki
mediawiki
PmWiki
tiki
dokuwiki
mdwiki
imgur / flicker:
photoprism
zenphoto
piwigo
lychee
4images
coppermine
media:
jellyfin (totally free including free hardware acceleration feature)
emby
plex
netflix specifically (if you want the site to basically look just like it):
streama
homehost
documents:
recoll + recoll webui (full index document search engine that lets you search inside pdfs and others)
ubooquity (self hosted ebooks in directory much better and nicer than calibre)
calibre (ebook library manager but kinda hard to work with if you have a lot of ebooks and dont want to have them moved around and try to tag them all)
twitter:
mastodon is a self hostable twitter alternative.
blogging:
you can host your own wordpress blogging site there are many other alternatives aswell.
office:
onlyoffice is a self hosted online office suite which features great support for ms office files
youtube:
peertube
youphp
torrent: (can obviously be used to share files p2p people use it for a wide range of uses not just piracy)
webtorrent
qbittorent webui
self hosted alternative to pocket:
wallabag
self hosted web archive:
archivebox
AtoM
archivematica
archivespace
ckan
collective access
ganymode
wayback
and many more
there are also of course tools like httrack and wget that can allow you to save entire websites offline to browse without internet.
there are a vast number of solutions available for you and your community to host your own websites, services and resources.
even offline completely separate from the internet.
If you're interested in these kinds of topics you can join the groups i have created on simplex chat
Just download the simplex chat software from the app store, website or GitHub and add the directory bot (click the directory service link under "join user groups", then search the names. You can find many other groups there aswell.
SimpleX - the first messaging network operating without user identifiers of any kind - 100% private by design! iOS, Android and desktop apps
Simplex is the first of its kind chat software with zero user IDs, no user tracking, built from the ground up with privacy and security in mind. Itâs the perfect way to chat without restrictions or worry of being banned. Each group is like its own website and itâs up to the group owner what is in the group, akin to being a sovereign individual. Simplex offers what no other chat app currently does.
XFS and ext4 are two types of file systems that are common choices for partitioning. This article takes a closer look at them.
Beyond what they cover in the short article,
In general XFS is more reliable for data in my experience, i have lost files to long term storage on EXT4. So media files, etc, for long term storage, XFS.
When it comes to operating system disks, like for a laptop, etc. EXT4. But EXT4 also has a space reservation so you lose a chunk of your disk automatically (typically 5%) and the larger the disk the more space is in that 5% which you have automatically lost.
So XFS you can also fill with more files as it does not reserve space.
XFS does not seem to nest/stack as well, so using a Vm with an XFS virtual disk on top of an XFS drive is terrible, avoid stacking them like that. (Use ext4 on top of XFS if you stack them)
Now comes the secret third thing nobody talked about:
What is ZFS and why is it so popular among experienced users? Let's have a look at the history of ZFS and its features and advantages over o
ZFS the Zettabyte file system
Supports compression: lz4, gzip, zstd, etc
Supports deduplication. (Requires a ton of memory and raid to get the most out of it)
Hashes files and in raid is self healing
CoW (copy on write) Verification, files are verified before being written to disk and verified whenever they are read based on a wide variety of checksum options / hash algorithms
Scales incredibly well
Supports RAW filesystems, i.e. a VM disk can be written directly into the filesystem kind of like a container instead of a virtual disk file layered on top as file.
Can copy live virtual machines.
Superior performance potential
Complex options for advanced and highly specific configurations
ZFS is great all around and extremely reliable, it is best in a raid environment with minimum 2+ disks, but if speed is not a concern and you merely want to take advantage of all the wonderful features it will work fine on a single disk, just expect it to be slow at times and use a lot of ram and has a fairly steep learning curve. (There is a LOT to cover and it is not simple as a normal filesystem is as it is made for datacenters)
An alternative to ZFS for hash and ZSTD compression support is BTRFS
Most Linux distributions currently default to using the Ext4 file system, but the future for many of them lies with the B-tree file system,
BTRFS can be better in some use cases but should not be considered reliable like ZFS. (Although its much easier to get the hang of and use)
For example a large number of small file writes can crash the filesystem resulting in total loss of data. (Databases, torrents, VMs, etc) as it is also a copy on write system but is not as well made as ZFS.
But for some uses it works quite well, in testing for example i ran a ubuntu VM with the filesystem and compressed the roughly 5.5gb of OS files to 2.8GB with ZSTD level 9 specified in FSTAB ( configuration file to mount disks in linux located at /etc/fstab)
With ZSTD you want to use at least a 3 otherwise youâre just wasting resources to use it for nothing and at most 9-11 otherwise the additional compression time goes up exponentially for minimal benefits, 5-7 is usually a safe middle ground option. That balances performance and compression ratio
You can utilise all of these on proxmox if you are interested in a homelab virtualization server.
Proxmox develops powerful and efficient open-source server solutions like the Proxmox VE platform, Proxmox Backup Server, and Proxmox Mail G
(Note this is not for laptops or a main computer, this is a device you connect to the network and control from another device via ssh, webui and other services.)
If you have a nvidia GPU on proxmox you can also unlock it to support vGPU where you allow multiple VMs to use your GPU and you can even setup custom profiles to divide up vram in whatever way you wantđ
Tutorial for setting up vGPU Unlock on PVE 8.x
For a main device if you want virtualization try QUBES (completely security oriented, it is the top priority here):
Qubes is a security-oriented, free and open-source operating system for personal computers that allows you to securely compartmentalize your
Otherwise try PopOS by system76 a privacy based tech company (ubuntu based but better):
Imagine an OS for the software developer, maker and computer science professional who uses their computer as a tool to discover and create.
And of course there are also other popular distributions such as
MINT:
https://www.linuxmint.com/
EndeavourOS:
Start your Endeavour with a lightweight Arch-based system ready to personalise and a stellar community at your side Click on...
VOID: (light, no systemd, rolling release)
Welcome to the Void
And many more available online that may fit your needs if none of these do.
If youâre interested in these kinds of topics you can join the groups i have created on simplex chat
Just download the simplex chat software from the app store, website or GitHub and add the directory bot (click the directory service link under âjoin user groupsâ, then search the names. You can find many other groups there aswell.
SimpleX - the first messaging network operating without user identifiers of any kind - 100% private by design! iOS, Android and desktop apps
