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  • I've replaced everything Google can do with self-hosted services. No more YouTube, Docs, Nest, TV, Photos, etc.

    • This is quite an accomplishment. Kudos.

      For my family, the biggest hurdles by far is a mail/calendar combo that works as well and supports sharing etc, and how the hell to migrate out of Gmail when so many of my emails have several labels which won't translate cleanly into IMAP folders. I wonder how you tackled those, or how you compromised.

      • I've found proton's mail/calendar to be pretty good so far. Sharing works great if everyone has proton. If they don't they can share an invite and you can add it to your calendar but you won't get their updates unfortunately.

      • Thanks! I switched over to private email provided by my domain host. It was a cheap and easy alternative. I haven't done this for my family, though, since I feel that's their call whether to stay plugged in. As far as labels go, I don't really use them, so there wasn't much need for compromise.

  • Back when I was in a band, we played a show at the same venue I've seen some of my favorite bands play (on a Monday, we had basically no audience, but it was still cool). That show more than most is gonna stick with me, it was awesome.

  • I built a water temp monitoring system together with my dad.

    It monitors the water temperature at a local swimming hole and publishes it on a website so you can check it before heading down.

    I did all of the coding, and had never done anything like that before, but breaking it down into five parts made it decently simple.

    We use a raspberry pi zero, a DS18B20 temperature probe, and a webhotel with php and MySQL.

    Breaking it down into five parts, the code had to accomplish the following.

    1. Get the raw data from the sensor.
    2. Format and clean the data to be useful.
    3. Error check and possible retry if needed.
    4. Send the data to the website.
    5. Display the data on the website.

    1. Was fairly easy, there are plenty of guides on the internet.
    2. This was interesting, the data is sent back from the probe in a variable length, depending on how close to zero C it is, if it reads a negative temp it also shifts where the data is read, I remember it being super annoying to consistently format the data close to zero C so after several attempts I just made the script pretend that the temp was 0c when it got too close to bother with it.
    3. Here I remember building an install script that would prepare a database for the system, then I wrote a test submission page for manual testing and proper submission page for the real thing, these were written in PHP. The data was sent from the Raspberry Pi with curl.
    4. This took the longest, we went through several versions before settling on the current version.

    The script on the Raspberry Pi is written in bash, as we are powering the RPi with a battery through a timer, I configured a systemd service to run on start, run the script, and wait 30 sec then shutdown.

    This is to give me time to stop the script if I need to perform maintenance, normally it runs the script, shuts down, and the timer cuts power shortly thereafter.

    I didn't want to consistently cut the power as that might corrupt the file system over time, so we made sure that the Pi shuts down gracefully.

    To save power we only run it every 30 min, the power source is a motorcycle battery which lasts about six months.

    The internet connection is provided by a kind neighbor who has allowed this probe to connect through their WiFi.

    1. Was strong enough to overcome the harsh realities of dealing with heartbreak and depression. It took a lot of nights crying myself to sleep, days fighting with my suicidal thoughts, and my "inner demons" bashing negative comments to myself to finally have a calmer mind.
    2. Got my driver's license after after having a panic attack. I passed on the 3rd try, but I had a panic attack on my 1st in public at the DMV and had a total meltdown in front of strangers on the 2nd try because I failed. I was learning how to drive while being heartbroken after being dumped by my ex. So, I was extremely disappointed in myself that I failed the behind the wheel test because I really did give it my all, my best effort to learn while being depressed as shit, but received a failing grade in the end.
    3. Learned from my failures. And is now a much wiser person than I was 3 years ago. I grew up because of my break-up and failures. Aka, growing pains. I learned a lot about myself, learned how to heal, how to deal with pain, suffering, and mental health + gained different perspective about life/relationships, gained new friends and is (slightly) happier than I was 2-3 years ago.
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