Lettuce eat lettuce

Always eat your greens!

  • 13 Posts
  • 796 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 12th, 2023

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  • If you’re very comfortable with containerization, networking, and security practices, plus you are a pretty decent full stack web dev, sure.

    It’s pretty trivial to set up a separate business internet line from your local ISP. Depending on the volume of traffic, a basic load manager and reverse proxy, combined with strong firewalls and container safety would be sufficient for most SMB needs.

    You don’t need much power to host a basic website. Setting up a local box with a low-impact distro, Docker, and some solid control-plane MGMT software should be plenty to host several dozen SMB websites.

    There are a lot of technical and even legal considerations though. Do these small businesses need a web app on their site? Do they need a storefront? What about member-only content locked securely behind an authentication layer? Does your local ISP have rate limitations? Does your city/state/country have restrictions on offering business services like that? What is your liability if your setup gets hacked and your client’s data is stolen/exposed?

    Ultimately, you have to answer the question: Why shouldn’t those businesses just go with an easy pre-made hosting solution like Squarespace, Wix, etc? Not saying there aren’t good answers to that, but from a business perspective, the businesses will want to know that.

    As with anything in business, ask yourself, what are you able to offer that they can’t get easily somewhere else? I used to work for a tiny MSP that offered in-house data backups. Our clients paid a good chunk of money to have us backup their data to our own servers. I didn’t say anything at the time, but our clients could have gotten much more secure and faster backup services for cheaper using something like Backblaze or Synology’s S2 cloud backups.

    Don’t find yourself unable to clearly and concisely explain to your clients what you can give them that they cannot easily get somewhere else. If it’s purely the principle of the thing, that’s totally valid, but make sure that’s what you’re selling to them, and also what they are looking for.




  • IMO, there are three “levels” of economic hardship:

    1. Severe recession: Where the economy shrinks, many small/medium businesses go bankrupt, unemployment hits around 7-10%
    2. Legit depression: Numerous core institutions in most or all sectors of the economy go bankrupt. Even highly skilled people cannot find work and are reduced to charity, begging, or stealing. Unemployment hits 15-25%
    3. Total economic collapse: All major institutions in all sectors fail, or cease having any legitimacy. The country’s currency becomes worthless due to either hyperinflation or governmental collapse. All people except the super wealthy elite, become destitute.

    The last time the US experienced the second level was the Great Depression, where during the depths of the dust bowl and the depression, unemployment hit about 25%

    If you genuinely think we are in for anything worse than level 2, you should flee the country now, or buy a gun and stockpile ammunition, food, and medicine.

    Realistically, level 3 isn’t going to happen. Level 1 very likely will, level 2 I would give a 5% chance personally, but that is based only on vibes.

    Have some savings in cash, a few hundred bucks mostly in small denominations should be alright. Don’t do more than that.

    Buy cheap bulk foods. Beans, chickpeas, lentils, raw oats, rice, four, potatoes. Buy several of those big 24 packs of bottled water. Most large retailers have them for 4-6 bucks a pack. You need A least 5-6 bottles a day to stay minimally hydrated. That’s roughly 4 days of water per 24-pack. You should have at least a week of water per person.

    Other folks here have good advice. Connect with a local community. If not your direct neighbors, then a group that meets nearby. You need other people for support. If you’re in a really bad place, they will be the last line of dependable aid.

    Quit your vices. Cigs, alcohol, excessive caffeine, and junk food all cost a lot of money, aren’t healthy, and will make you much more vulnerable to economic upsets. It also allows others to take easier advantage of you, because of your desperation to get a fix.





  • Magic Earth. Organic Maps as a backup. I’ve found that Magic Earth is the happy middle ground of map apps.

    Closed source client, but uses OSM for its map data. European company, so better on the data front.

    I tried using Organic Maps as my main navigation app, but there were slightly too many times where it couldn’t find the address, or the navigation got stuck, etc.

    My IT job requires me to get to places quickly if they need on-site support. I have to be able to depend on my map app to get me there reliably. Magic Earth does that, Organic Maps is very good, and I keep it around to use in case I have issues with Magic Earth, but at least in my region of the country, it just isn’t quite up to snuff.





  • As an IT person, I’m consistently amazed at what people will do on their work computers if allowed.

    People log into all their social media accounts, save credit card info for online shopping, save personal passwords, make doctors appointments, etc.

    As for weirdest? I was working on a woman’s work PC years ago and her desktop was filled with a bunch of boomer-style pro Trump memes. She was logged into her Facebook account on the PC and was downloading them onto her desktop and then presumably posting them to FB. It was stuff like, “I’m a proud Trump girl!” With a picture of a Minion in front of an American flag. Classic cringey boomer stuff.

    Another weird one: In college, I once saw a girl using one of the library color printers to print an entire recipe book. Like with full color pictures and everything. The whole thing looked like it was several hundred pages thick, absolutely huge. The library had a sign right above the printers that requested students not print more than 20 pages in full color, so RIP to their toner on that one lol.