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Cake day: July 9th, 2023

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    1. DNS resolver, like pi-hole, unbound with adguard, diversion, etc.
    2. RMS server: a lot of Remote Desktop software has the option to install a listener on a low power device elsewhere on the network that can use wake-on-lan to access computers within the network without keeping everything on 24-7.
    3. Log aggregator: would be useful for anyone who troubleshoots stuff regularly, but historical info of any kind can come in handy.
      Simplest form might be a scribe server. Network gear often has an option to send logs to a particular URL, so if you added the scribe server IP/port to the field you’d have historical network logs.
    4. Additional loggers: could also be run on-device, such as a wifi connectivity checker, smart home or energy monitoring state data, decibel meter with USB microphone
    5. RADIUS server for managing enterprise WPA keys
    6. Mobile home: due to the size and power draw, when paired with a hotspot and battery the potato could be useful as a mobile service repeater, a VPN client that deploys your home services on the go (e.g. in a vehicle, hotel room, family/friends’ houses, etc) to arbitrary client devices. If you use the same SSID/PW and encryption type, personal devices would use it automatically during travel.
    7. Home theater box like kodi or jellyfin client

    At the level of individual apps, the list explodes. Many progressive web apps can be hosted essentially for free on the potato, so you could shunt your always-on services to this machine to allow low power states on a beefier machine. For example:

    1. Network management or security software like Fing
    2. Low throughput NAS or incremental backup management server like rdiff, TimeMachine, etc
    3. inventory management like partkeeper, storaji, etc
    4. Smart home bridges like homeassistant or homebridge
    5. Bookmark aggregator or landing page like heimdall, raindrop, pinalist, etc
    6. Retro game emulators or ROM libraries like retropie
    7. Photo libraries like photoprism
    8. Book libraries like calibre-web

    Edit: list subitem formatting messed up
    Edit: add common micro services, mobile deployment
    Edit: add home theater suggestion
    Edit: add always-on and PWA examples


  • That’s a good point. There is a type of delivery in the US that’s all-inclusive, where more than one delivery person show up and it’s assumed they bring it in and install it.

    Standard delivery though is often some form of freight where final delivery is handled by a local carrier/vendor. Usually they arrive with a commercial delivery truck rather than a van or pantechnicon.

    Unloading from the trailer to a loading dock is the easiest. Curb delivery is possible if the trailer is outfitted with a lift or a slide out ramp. But any further and the delivery can become a lot more involved, enough to throw off their delivery schedule.

    Drivers often still offer to do it unofficially as a side-hustle, but if I don’t have cash on hand I won’t ask them to do it just as a favor.







  • I enjoy putting arguments/realizations like these on the mantle as trophies for every time I’ve been wrong.

    Sometimes I’m asked about this embarrassment of riches. How come I have so many?

    They don’t know I have more upstairs. What they see down here are just my favs, the real whoppers.

    Anyway my go-to response of course is “why how many do most people have” then offer to freshen their drink.








  • Theoretically, I would say yes it’s possible, insofar as we could break down most subtasks of the development process into training parameters. But we are a long way from that currently.

    ETA: I suspect LLM’s best use-case in this hypothetical would not be in architecting or implementation, but rather limited to tasks with human interfaces (requirements gathering, project planning and logistics, test scaffolding, feedback collection/distribution, etc).

    If the unironic goal is to develop things without any engineering oversight (mistake) then there’s no point to using programming languages at all. The machine might as well just output assembly or bin code.

    What’s more likely in the short term are software LLMs generating partial solutions that human engineers then are asked to “finish” (fix) and maintain. The effort and hours required to do so will, at a guess, balloon terribly and will often be at best proportional to the resources saved by the use of the automatic spaghetti generator.

    I eagerly await these post mortems.