Instead of one super chunky battery, how about a laptop with replaceable batteries, in combination with a UPS?

UPS is so you can actually replace the laptop battery with a spare one , even during a power outage. Just run the laptop on AC from the UPS while changing batteries. Or see if you can find a UPS with a long lasting battery. Entry level ones only have like 15-30 minutes of battery life though, since they’re more intended for safe shutdowns or brownouts.

This sounds like a FOSS utopian future :)

There’s a few projects that have started towards this path with single-click deployable apps, you could even say HomeAssistant OS does this to some extent my managing the services for you.

I believe one of the biggest hurdle for a “self hosting appliance” is resilience to hardware failure. Noone wants to loose decades of family photos or legal documents due to a SSD going bad , or the cat spilling water on their “hosting box”. So automated reliable off-site backups and recovery procedures for both data and configs is key.

Databox from BBC / Nottingham University is also a very interesting concept worth looking in to:

A platform for managing secure access to data and enabling authorised third parties to provide the owner authenticated control and accountability.

I’m in this picture and I don’t like it

Dogs really are the best people

I third Proxmix

I run most stuff as Docker images inside a VM, but also a few services as LXC containers and some non-docker stuff in other VMs

Suddenly I feel very happy (and a little bit smug) about my 2 year old Sony Xperia which both a notification LED, headphone jack and micro SD card slot.

But a replacable battery is sorely lacking…

I think I’ll go with the latest Fairphone when my current needs replacement, but I’m a bit worried about it’s lack of water resistance

Maybe it’s a different culture, or matter of car and people density, but in my country (Norway) most people cycle on the sidewalk. Including kids of course, from the age of 10 they can cycle to school instead of having to walk.

Many footpaths here are also officially designated “cycling and walking paths”. Generally the only cyclists you see in the road are sports cyclists in racing bicycles and tight skin suits.

The thinking here is that cyclists and pedestrians are both “soft traffic participants” so they share a space, while “hard traffic participants” like cars, trucks and motorcycles are kept separate.

Pedestrians do have right of way over cyclists. As the heavier faster party, cyclists have the responsibility to avoid conflict, by giving right of way, and slowing down and/or chiming their bell to signal their presence before passing pedestrians.

Personally, if I was told that tomorrow I’m only allowed to cycle on the road, I would get rid of my bike. If I’m gonna be on the road full of lorries busses and SUVs going 60kph, I’d rather just be in my car. It’s just not worth the risk and constant peril. This is in a more suburban and industrial/commercial setting, where the sidewalks have gaps to buildings, and pedestrians are far apart.

I can however see how in a dense, crowded downtown area where the cars mostly drive slow and the sidewalks are dense with people, that cycling in the road makes more sense.

Thinking about it the only roads with 30kph limit and a sidewalk are in the very center of the city. All other places with 30kph are basically neighbourhoods etc where there are no sidewalks and everybody shares the road. Roads here with a dedicated sidewalk also have higher speed limits that what a casual cyclist can achieve

People often rode them on sidewalks posing a danger to people walking.

I’ve seen this sentiment around, but where else are you supposed to ride eScoooters and bicycles? Of course ideally they belong in the bike lane, but most places don’t have bike lines, so the alternatives are sidewalks or in the road with cars.

If we’re gonna get people out of cars, we need to recognize that walking+transit doesn’t work for everyone a lot of people and that a bicycle/ eScooter is the solution (look at Amsterdam/ Copenhagen how well bicycles work) , but bike lanes don’t get built overnight, especially when few people cycle, if their banished from the safe sidewalk and only allowed to cycle in the dangerous road.

(I’ve lumped bikes and eScooters together since they both solve the same problem of rapid personal transport, both having speeds of 20-30 kph which is significantly more than pedestrians but less than cars)

Where are all the sedans and station wagons? Enough SUVs and crossovers already. Well there’s a handful sedans in existence at least.

And in Europe there’s somewhat decent selection of hatchbacks

Sounds like the FDA should be involved here somehow…

+2 for KDE Connect, the integration is amazing. I’ve used it on KDE and Gnome (gsconnect), all works very well

Like taiyang said, SteamOS is based on Arch which is super not newbie friendly, but the desktop modes “desktop environment” is KDE which available on pretty much any Linux distro, including beginner friendly ones like (K)Ubuntu and Fedora (although I’m not sure how beginner friendly Fedora is, regarding proprietary drivers and codecs)

Another good option on Windows is PDF XChange Editor, though I’m using an old version so I can’t vouch for how much or little enshitification has happened in newer versions

I did this too :D I used to have 20 pairs of non-identical black socks, which made matching hard and it felt wrong to wear socks of slightly different type or size. Much easier now

I keep getting socks for Christmas though, which I never wear cause they’d mess up the simplicity

2nd for Kobo! It’s a good device, supports more standards, and doesn’t fund any of the Too Big Tech Giants