• 3 Posts
  • 62 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • In the EU and UK, heavy regulation, especially of Visa and MasterCard, means the fees are actually lower than the costs of handling cash. Lots of businesses want only card transactions because it works out better for them and most people don’t carry any cash so that need to offer card payments, and so it makes even less sense to offer both methods. The only industries who like cash are likely trying some form of tax evasion.

    Cleverly, they banned businesses from charging any payment fees and suddenly, businesses negotiated and found suppliers offering low payment fees. We don’t have anything like these convenience fees for paying with cards over cheque that I hear about.

    Amex still charges higher fees so many places still don’t take those cards. The value of benefits (air miles, cashback) have gone down significantly but in reality, it was essentially transferring wealth from the poor (who could never get these cards) to the rich, through these fees, so works out better overall.

    The banks here advertise that they help everyone get bank accounts and social benefits are paid into bank accounts so I assume everyone is able to get an account. However, I do wonder if some people, especially the homeless, slip through the cracks.



  • My experience has taught me not to ‘apt autoremove’ unless im really sure what they are!

    Take it one software at a time. See it’s running fine then move on to another. You’ll often realise something down the line will be helpful so will go back to make changes.

    Keep a running list of software and the ports used.

    With docker, do not automatically do :latest on important software (nginx proxy manager, SSO software, password database, anything you use regularly, etc). I did that and was burned a few times.

    Also that at some point you’ll either mess up or realise it would just be easier and start again with a fresh OS install. Keep copying data (docker compose files and persistent storage) on working software before starting a new one, or before installing anything directly onto the OS, or before major updates.




  • I like the Mii TV 4k sticks. They run android tv and have the usual apps, or you can install your own launcher, apps (look into stremio!) and everything through downloader or adb. Then you can disable the bloatware through adb, theres a few lists online if you search. With a launcher manager app, mine loads straight to productivity launcher (I also like flauncher).

    Do not try a firestick, theyre heavily locked down now.

    I then just deleted the network on my smart tv so it can’t send anything. Along with my pihole, hopefully theres no telemetry getting out, although not checked it. Its impossible to find good TVs that aren’t smart anymore unfortunately, the data selling either subsidises the costs pricing out dumb TV’s, or more likely they make so much from the data selling that they only sell those.


  • When NIMBYism clashes with the fact that the UK abuses the world’s climate to power it’s first world lifestyle, I don’t even know what the answer could be.

    On one hand, we have destroyed the biodiversity of our own island so should try to save the little that is left and try to regain what we have lost. On the other hand, we are happy to buy and power, air conditioners, fancier larger cars and LLM tech, where the ecological costs are born in other countries.

    The solution from a societal point of view is for the UK to consume less and truly factor in the true climate cost onto all products. From an individual human point of view though, how do you sign up to a worse and more expensive lifestyle by choice with the “cost of living crises” and child poverty on the up.

    Sorry if waffling, this post is highlighting my own sense of doom and frustration here…



  • I would recommend it as it is fairly easy to understand and most Foss services give you an example to use. You can also convert docker run examples to compose (search docker composeriser) although it doesn’t always work.

    I found composer files easier when learning it, to digest what is going on (ports, networks, depends_on etc) and can compare with other services to see what is missing (container name, restart schedule etc). I can then easily backup the compose files, env files and data directories to be able to very quickly get a service up again (although DBs are trickier but found a docker image that I can stick on the compose files which backups the DB dumps regularly)



  • I am born and raised in England to Indian parents so always had some internal tension. Sometimes, I don’t understand my patents culture and sometimes I don’t understand English culture. However, I’ve realised I am who I am, and can take the best bits from both. There are some bits I don’t like so I’m the better for being / having that mix. I married an Irish person who moved over several years ago. Irish used to be the “other” and were screwed over, but now are sometimes considered “white”, so just shows the target moves.

    There has always been racism in British society and unfortunately I have felt it pick up since the Brexit vote and Trump’s election (I think it empowered them). However, it is from a small minority of people. In some areas it comes from ignorance, which I can kind of forgive. Others will always see us as outsiders with our foreign names (and my brown skin) no matter what we do. I just think, screw them. I mean, can they trace themselves back before the Normans, the Romans or the Vikings etc? Where do you draw the line exactly?!? England has always been a mix of people and culture so they’re the ones missing out. I’m happy driving my Korean car to a German store to buy ingredients for a Thai green curry. Oh, I’ll grab a French pastry for breakfast, Chilean wine for the weekend and well, you get the idea! Let’s make the most of this multicultural place and ideas, and who cares about bigots who you can guarantee, like a cheeky korma and Belgian beer…





  • Surely, they are not mutually exclusive and some form of this scheme has been in place for some countries (albeit mainly white commonwealth countries) for many years, even when the UK was in the EU.

    Holy shit though, I just looked up the UK’s scheme and you have to pay almost a grand in fees (mostly NHS surcharge) and have over £2,500 in savings. I don’t want rich a-holes coming over for an extended holiday instead of normal people from more different cultures. Let’s vote for better and fairer immigration polices