• 5 Posts
  • 126 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • To be fair the Synology lineup is confusing, but if you get the right model - one with a Ryzen processor and support for 32GB memory (officially; they can take more) - then you’ve got yourself a proper little workhorse with low power consumption, a stable, reliable OS, and super easy expansion thanks to the hot-swap drive bays and their Hybrid RAID option. My 8 bay model is running a couple of full-blown VMs and what must be two dozen or so docker containers while barely breaking a sweat. The DS723+ is the equivalent 2 bay model.

    For things that need some acceleration like Plex and Immich I’ve added a little N100 box (a Beelink S12 Pro) with Ubuntu Server and another Docker instance, and mounted the NAS storage via SMB. This also sips power even when transcoding 4x Plex streams at once.

    All of which is to say you don’t need to do a complex, potentially power hungry and difficult to expand self build to do what you want.








  • According to the Crown Prosecution Service, making indecent images can have a wide definition in the law and can include receiving them via social media.

    Edwards’s barrister Philip Evans KC told the court: “There’s no suggestion in this case that Mr Edwards has… in the traditional sense of the word, created any image of any sort.”

    I suppose the facts that he a) retained some of the images, b) didn’t report having received them and c) continued talking to the man has some bearing on his charges.



  • It’s the same in the UK but “legal tender” doesn’t mean what most people think it means.

    When you buy something from a shop you’re technically offering to enter a contractual relationship for the purchase of said goods. If the shop agrees to your terms, including how you’d like to pay, then the contract is ratified. If they don’t accept your preferred method of payment then there is no contract of sale and there is no debt to be paid.

    This is also why shops don’t have to honour pricing errors; when you bring the item to the checkout you’re technically just offering to buy it for the listed price and they can choose to reject your offer.



  • Yeah that’s undoubtedly part of it, but it’s fueled (excuse the pun) by the vast Summer to Winter disparity in energy usage. My own energy bills are currently very low thanks to rooftop solar, but my house is very poorly insulated so I’m expecting my Winter bills to be 10 to 15 times higher than they are now once the temperature drops into the mid teens and my gas heating goes on.

    Most housing stock in the UK is unfortunately just as badly insulated so people like to know they’re not going to get massive unpayable bills in the Winter by paying more than necessary in the Summer.


  • “Most people” don’t budget very well and would prefer to pay a known, fixed amount every month rather than get lulled into a false sense of security by cheap Summer bills when the heating is off and daylight abundant (we don’t generally have air conditioning), only to then get hit for massive bills that they can’t afford when the heating goes on in the Winter.

    To make this work they try to find the sweet spot so that your balance fluctuates between building credit in the Summer and going into debt in the Winter, but ultimately balancing out to zero-ish throughout the year. If your balance goes too far negative they’ll ask you to increase your payment and if you build too much credit you can reduce your payments and/or get (some of) the credit back.

    All that said though, if you’d rather just pay each month’s bill in full then Octopus will let you do that. You might need to contact them to make the change.