I have been a major sinner on the backup front, but I’m now in the process of setting up automated restic encrypted backups that first copies to a different hard drive, that is then is rscynced to my Hetzner storage box (you can also swap this around - rsync to another hard drive, then use restic to dump it on the Hetzner server, but I want the backups with multiple snapshots locally as well). Primarily for Docker container configs and data for now, but I will set up similar automation for dumping stuff from my laptop on my local server and then similarly push encrypted restic repos to Hetzner. Not set up RAID or a NAS or anything like that, but I will eventually build a NAS. I am forcing myself to write the scripts in bash as well to get some more experience with it - I usually default to Python for any scripting, but in this case I would almost only use subprocess.run anyway :)

ETA: The 1TB storage box is 4 EUR a month or something like this.

Personal: Choose FOSS first, and contribute some of your time and money towards projects that align with solarpunk ideals. Get into self-hosting and eventually perhaps community-hosting for local organizations or neighborhoods or someting like that. Find your local makerspace and meet up with tinkerers there and find common community projects to work on.

Work: At my work, my small team of devs are currently trying to break out of an otherwise heavily Microsoft-based ecosystem. So far we’ve gone from a general hostility towards FOSS to being allowed to run things on bare metal Linix servers instead of Azure, and I my request for a Linux laptop is approved (though still waiting on them to learn how to install Linux or something?). As part of a research project we are trying out FOSS alternatives to Microsoft products in hopes of creating interest and success stories. We are also in that project going to open source some of our internal development. I’ve also challenged my bosses on the heavy use of products from a single major tech company.

I love RSS! I have tried to move all first-hand consumption of news (so excluding for instance Lemmy) to RSS, but I still haven’t found an effective way of dealing with the sheer volume of articles that is generated by the news outlets, so I am either getting exhaustes trying tosift through or missing the articles I actually want to read and archive. I am toying with the idea of feeding it through a local LLM to make daily or even weekly digests, so I can focus my RSS energy on the blogs I follow instead. But it’s at a very conceptual stage and I don’t yet have the hardware I would run that on. Anyone have experience with that?

This looks pretty cool - I will want to look into this later.

Anyone familiar with this CERN license for open source hardware?

So not just sales, but the actual use of them? I’ve only ever been to Hanoi once many years ago, but there was an enormous amount of gasoline-powered motorcycles there then that would need replacement. I guess their domestic Vinfast brand will see a surge in sales in anticipation of this legislation, but the transition might even be well on its way?

So these self-watering concepts are just wrong then? Loads of videos on them on e.g. YouTube, so I would assume they worked well enough.

How would I change my system into an ebb and flow system? The reason I want a self-watering system is mainly because they are placed in a way that makes it akward to water them and because I want a way to avoid killing the plants when I am away from home which happens often enough.

Thanks for a thorough answer. I was not aware LECA would be able to act as a wick to any required degree, but that could be a good solution. I’m having some difficulties picturing exactly what you are suggesting with the LECA drainage layer - do you mean in the soil compartment? And then LECA in the wicking baskets with some polyester cloth going from the soil and into the baskets?

I have seen many videos doing it exactly like I do incl soil in the wicking baskets (which is why I went with it), but you are saying that is a fundamentally wrong way to go about it?

There’s a mismatch between the link and the title. Nothing about Paxster in the article.

Did you opt for branded, more expensive grow lights or buy from e.g. Aliexpress or similar?

I very much agree, but having these “substitutes” was something that facilitated cutting out meat for me, as all cooking I used to know revolved around meat as the main ingredient. In that sense these product serve a usefulness in reducing the threshold to move away from meat in the first place.

Wow, this is impressive! Good job! I’ve just got started planting on my balcony this year, but will not get near your level of vegetation.

No need to get so agitated. It was not criticism, it was merely a suggestion.

Never did I say you are required to add any additional comments, but I suggested it as something that would be helpful for others to decide whether or not they should spend time reading it.

Never did I say that you have to explain why it should be read, simply that it would be helpful (and interesting) to hear your thoughts on why it is a good read.

It is a long text - you spend a non-negligble part of your free time reading it through. I read quite a lot, and I have quite a lot of unread texts I also want to read. I enjoy Lemmy because I get exposed to many texts I wouldn’t otherwise find, and I am open to having new texts skip the queue if they seem interesting. But I do not have unlimited time to read everything that is posted. It would have helped me to decide whether to read it if there was some more information about the piece. Hemce the suggestion.

But adding a new language will just make it even more inefficent.

The idea being that eventually (though that would need to be far in the future) you would not need to translate as it is a common language among all member states.

Why not just use English which is already well established and even widley known amongst most European citizens.

Because it is a difficult language to master and it puts many non-native speakers at a disadvantage. As pointed out above, there are only two countries who do speak English natively now, but depending on your native language, some citizens still have an substantial easier time learning English.

Hehe, I get that. However, if adopted properly, it would be a practical language skill, as it would be a language officially in use. Besides, if those studies described above are to be trusted (not sure if they are), it would facilitate additional language learning. But that argument is what you are getting at with your comment on Latin?

That is what sounds so inefficient to me. It probably works fine at the bigger assemblies, but within smaller agencies located around Europe? I don’t know, but my guess is that they adopt a small subset of official languages as the working language (do you know?) which I think becomes a barrier to participation for citizens of member states who do not speak those languages natively.

Languages are tied to people and is a very important part of culture which is why fabricated languages would never even make it, but even if one made it, someone would have advantage in learning it and it’s a powerful tool.

I kinda think this kind of usage is the only way a fabricated language would make it beyond a small niche language, but it would have to be actively implemented (which is really my question in the opening post: is that a good idea?). And it could be constructed in such a way that it becomes close to equally learnable for everyone that is intended to use it. I think Esperanto, while having some slavic influences as well, lies a bit too close to the romance languages that it might well lead to the situation you describe, but I am far from a linguistic expert and couldn’t say for certain.

Since the UK left (and Ireland and Malta being the only ones left speaking English natively I think) this problem got less problematic. If it is a foreign language almost for all, the differences are not that big.

Good point, but I am not so sure the UK (or even England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland separately at some point) won’t rejoin in the future.

Artificial languages have the problem that they will end up being spoken only by an elite, which would be highly problematic for the EU, which is already seen as an elite project by all too many people in the EU.

Yes, that is definitely a danger, but of course - the easier it is to learn, the more likely anyone could pick it up. However, I do think it would have to be learned in schools across the entire Union for it to work. Learning Esperanto first allegedly increases a student’s ability to learn other foreign languages, so it would not necessarily come at the expense of other foreign languages. I suspect that has to do with getting used to learning a language, and if that is true, than any sufficiently easy language could serve the same purpose. And something that could strengthen multilingualism in Europe in general (more language-savvy people = more people picking up additional European languages and to a higher proficiency).

I’m curious, what language would you consider being easy to learn

A language with no grammatical irregularities for starters. And one where the phonetics are consistent. Constructed languages can offer this. Whether any existing ones are sufficiently easy, I’m not sure.

And then some mechanisms that facilitates vocabulary building. For instance, I like the affixes in Esperanto, as understanding the root word and then the affixes allows you to pick up all kinds of words you never explicitly learned. And example is -ejo, which indicates a place, could be combined with a root word such as the verb forĝas (to forge, root: forĝ-), yielding forĝejo = place where one forges. Or monero (money, root: moner-) + -ejo yields monerejo = place where one stores money (= monero).

I’m sure with modern linguistic knowledge a much easier language than Esperanto could be constructed.

However, it’s not that you can dictate a language

The question was whether an auxillary language would be a good idea. It would necessarily be dictated. Every citizen would learn it in school. The proposed benefit having a a common language easily learned and spoken equally well by all member state citizens, that could be used to cross language barriers (like English is today), and that could be used within EU (i.e. all institutions) as an official language.

For the record, I am intrigued by the idea, but I am very open to this being a bad idea, which is why I made the thread to hear people’s opinions.

Are there live translators between all pairs of languages?

Interesting point that I did not consider, and not sure I fully understand. How would it lead to discrimination do you think?