Super small, super cheap computer designed to run Linux. The board itself is about the size of a pack of cards, and cost about $80 although earlier models a few years ago before prices of everything skyrocketed was about $35. It’s a fully fledged computer and with a microssd card loaded with a Linux distribution, a keyboard, monitor and mouse (last two optional) you can have either a command line only or fully fledged gui OS up and running in minutes.

Not super powerful but it’s low energy requirements and form factor make it great for tinkerers and specific tasks/functions. Home automation, video game emulation, pi hole (network wide dns ad blocking), and home based VPN services are a few that pop into mind.

Awesome! I appreciate the suggestion. That’s actually pretty close to our Airbnb and on the way to a couple of other things we want to see so I will for sure put that on the list. Domo!

I’m currently in Tokyo and will be going out to Kyoto and Osaka in a few days. Got to visit Mount Fuji and the giant gundam on odaiba.

And it’s free!

Them and stamets. They both basically got me and my wife watching TNG for the first time with all the memes (only seen voyager before that) and we are loving every minute of it

Personally I don’t really mind as I have met some pretty cool other ghosts to hang and talk with here.

Like three

Every once in a while I help a family member or friend out with their machine and am stunned when I see the web without an adblocker. It honestly reminds me of the malicious early 2000s porn and “free downloads” sites… but it’s everywhere now, like cnn and eBay and shit. First thing I do is install Firefox and ublock origin, and mostly for their security.

Youtube has also been running basically porn ads on “for kids” youtube channels as well and my kindergarten aged niece and nephew have been exposed to that shit. Adblock is 100% cyber security AND for kids safety.

This is how I got so good at computer IT stuff as a kid. Had to constantly clear our family computer of viruses and reinstall windows multiple times a year because my brothers would always download shit like “The fast and the furious-no-virus.mpg.exe”