• 3 Posts
  • 19 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 13th, 2023

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  • Currently, and I could be wrong, the alternative to a Pi 4 from Pine64 now would be a Pine64's Quartz64 Model B. A Star64 might be interesting, but that's RISC-V so who knows what OS you could boot on it currently and if it would even be stable.

    Plus with the Quartz64 Model B, who knows if you'll able to get a good case for it. There's the $28 “Model B” ALUMINUM WATERPROOF ENCLOSURE, but, eh, no thanks. There's the open enclosure, but that's also a no for me. I want a case I can hide the device itself, the cables, put a heatsink and fan on, be able to use an SSD with USB connect and connect a power supply all stuffed in a case. Which you can find plenty of for Raspberry Pi's.

    Not to mention the Pi 5 isn't even out yet, and it's entirely possible it'll be better than the Quartz64 Model B, on top of having a ton of accessories. Plus, I can Pi up practically any Pi at the Microcenter or similar store near me as opposed to having to pay for good shipping.

    I'm totally for having alternatives to the Pi, heck I might pick up a Quartz64 Model B if I can find a case, but a lot of alternatives don't have the same support and accessories the Pis do.



  • Outside of the (theoretical) technical specs of the OPi5 being better, I've heard/read mixed things about OPis. Some say they're a good alternative, some say they're cheap Chinese-made crap. I've had no experience myself, so take it with a grain of salt.

    I'm interested to see more data on the RPi5 when it's out, as to figure out if it's worth getting over trying an OPi5 for a home media system with Jellyfin.



  • Hmm, I guess my question would be how does this all work? I mean, is it not possible to configure STUN/DERP services yourself? Or add control lists yourself?

    I’m curious as to how all of this is done, not just to see if it’s possible (even if it’d be a headache) but for confirmation. Granted, networking is my worse subject when it comes to any related to computers. For ACLs, I guess Apparmor and/or SELinux profiles would be configured? The removing a key I can understand why it’s be a nightmare yourself, but how does Tailscale do it where it’s just so simple?

    EDIT: Another question I have is how does Tailscale work when I have a VPN for securing network traffic when browsing the internet etc.? Or is that just seamless?



  • Could one prong on this assault be to increase the IRS’ operating budget, so that they’re able to track down and stop more of these tax haven shenanigans?

    Well you could simply start by plugging up a few questionable tax loopholes.

    Whether or not the reason the IRS can’t collect the tax revenue to be able to provide certain services is because of them not having enough money, I don’t know.

    But if you’re issue is with certain laws on taxation, it would makes more sense to deal with those first.

    EDIT: To mention something else that’s important to all of this, there’s something called the Laffer Curve. The simple explanation is that there’s a happy medium between the percentage of income tax and the amount of tax revenue gained. Too much or too little income taxation and you end up with less tax revenue. You can see this in a few times during US history where the income tax wasn’t as high, but the tax revenue was great. So to further determine where we should go with income tax you could look at the past few years of projected and actual tax revenue, as well as spending to service government debt among other government spending.

    I’m not an economist nor an accountant, but this is likely what you’d have to do to figure out the balance between taxation and government spending in order to have money for certain social services. However, no one wants to do that and another big problem is the government doesn’t like being told it needs to manage it’s spending better.