Some systems already have that. Replaced a switch yesterday and re-arranged some things on my network board and got a HomeKit notification that some things were offline and when it came back. Knowing when something goes offline isn’t as useful as keeping things up though. With something like a hardwired camera/NVR, even if your ISP service is interrupted the cameras can still record, and you can put a UPS there to keep things going, even if the rest of the network is down.

I heard there was a process for requesting additional data, but you have to actually pay for the 5 users and they’ll bump it a few TB every couple months on request. That’s from people reporting their experience with support, so it might not be totally consistent.

I kind of get it though, people hear “unlimited storage” and then don’t even make an effort to be efficient with that space, and just want to keep everything forever. There’s a real cost to that storage, and it’s higher than many think since it’s not just a single HDD like many would have sitting on their desk but a series of arrays/pools and all the related systems to ensure reliability and uptime. They probably did some calculation where 99% of users would be profitable even with their “unlimited storage” and eating it on the other 1% was a reasonable advertising cost. Over time that calculation changed and they had to update the service.

Presumably it was GSuite/Google Workspace. While they advertised unlimited storage if you paid for 5 accounts, it wasn’t really enforced so you could pay something like $20/month and get unlimited storage on G-drive. There was a daily cap on how much data can be moved, but that’s fine for hosting incremental backups like many that took advantage.

What about Credit Unions? They’re cooperatives owned by the members. Despite not having a handful of shareholders collecting profits, they’re usually not that much different than dealing with a bank. Services and rates are usually pretty comparable.

This is true in central Canada too. Heat pumps get pushed saying they put out 3 times as much heat as the energy they use, but electricity is 7x the cost of natural gas.

This is entirely regional though. The further you are from the equator, the more seasonal variation there is in sunlight levels, and heating/cooling loads. Around here our solar production is minimized during the season when our energy needs are maximized. We also don’t have variable rate billing, though we only get partial credit for excess generation, so battery storage will never pay for itself until something changes.

My utility gives a 50% credit on excess generation. Thing there is the utility is still the one taking responsibility for having the capacity and scalability to respond to variation in demand and production. When I was getting quotes, adding storage would have doubled the cost of the system for a day or two worth of storage. Probably would cost double again to have a system that would keep up through the winter.

Something kind of unique about UnRaid is the JBOD plus parity array. With this you can keep most disks spun down while only the actively read/written disks need to be spun up. Combine with an SSD cache for your dockers/databases/recent data and UnRaid will put a lot less hours(heat, vibration) on your disks than any raid equivalent system that requires the whole array to be spun up for any disk activity. Performance won’t be as high as comparably sized RAID type arrays, but as bulk network storage for backups, media libraries, etc. it’s still plenty fast enough.

Some of both. I remember a time where it felt like every time I got a new computer it had some different ports because they kept evolving. Modem/Ethernet, firewire 400/800, keyboard/mouse/USB, VGA/DVI/Displsyport(and mini versions of some). Sure, my old computer might have had a lot of different ports, but I might never have used some of them. For something like a laptop, I think 2x USB-C on each side is good for most, plus add hubbing to larger peripherals like HDD enclosures and displays and docks wouldn’t have to be so popular.

I feel like we’re just in the middle of a good transition period. Few years from now almost everything that can will be USB-C, we’re really just waiting out the replacement of all the existing devices and their incompatible ports.

The way I see it, the bigger the whole Lemmy community is, the more people can make smaller communities around niche topics. Steady, continuous growth is a good thing. What can be troublesome is rapid/inconsistent growth.

True, but a slow, steady growth is going to result in a better platform than having a flood of old redditors that take over. And that’s coming from a Reddit refugee, which I’d guess is a pretty significant portion of the user base these days. I saw a thread about Beehive considering leaving the fediverse altogether because they can’t keep up with all the fedderated content coming in that doesn’t meet their standards. I also think there needs to be further development of the software, things like users being able to block while instances(I’m fine with porn instances existing, but I don’t want them showing in my main feed and I don’t necessarily want to block everything labeled NSFW), as well as something comparable to the multi-Reddit system that lets me make groups of communities to browse together rather than just subscribed/home/all. The second would go a long way to getting that niche content communities up and running. The few niche communities that I have found seem to get buried under the more popular ones(which was an issue on Reddit for a long time too), so some method to bring that niche content to the surface on par with the bigger communities would go a long way too.

My understanding is essentially Apple has enough money on hand and foresight of product demands that they can do things like tell a supplier that they’re going to buy everything well in advance and secure those deals before other manufacturers are willing to commit. Presumably, there’s nothing to stop Samsung from going to TSMC and saying they want to buy all the capacity for 2024, except that Samsung doesn’t feel confident about matching Apple’s sales volume on those upcoming products.

I’ve also heard Apple will also fund expansion of their suppliers when needed. If someone makes a thing that Apple wants but doesn’t have the capacity to meet Apple’s volume, Apple will provide what they need to increase capacity, along with providing commitments to purchase enough product that the manufacturer is taking on minimal risks from the expansion.

I think US cards tend to have better rewards than Canadian ones, but echo on the fees thing. If a person is spending $1000/month on their card(which isn’t much once you put all your utilities/gas/grocery/etc. purchases together), and youre getting a 1% cash back/reward, that’s $120/year worth of rewards. So depending on your yearly spending, it can be worth paying that annual fee to get a card with better rewards.

Costco card here, but pretty much the same argument. Aside from the points/miles/cash back rewards, most also include some minor insurance/extended warranty/travel/etc. benefits. It’s kind of shitty because transaction fees just drive up costs for merchants, but from the user’s point of view the financially beneficial option is to use a credit card for ad many purchases as possible.

True, though Apple does contribute some things, like MagSafe for iPhones is becoming part of Qi 2. I think Apple get a bad rep just because they’re a large target sometimes, but I don’t recall other big platforms releasing a bunch of their work as FLOSS either.

I’m also on the fence about the repairability thing. It’s nice to be able to open up an old computer to add more RAM/Storage/etc., but I also get that making everything integrated and soldered improves durability and reliability. I do think they take that a little too far sometimes. While RAM/SSDs should typically last a long time, the battery life often becomes the limiting factor for usability so making that repair simpler would go a long way. Pricing can be hard to bite too, while I don’t mind the idea of soldered RAM, I don’t like that upgrades are pretty heavily marked up compared to most manufacturers.

Then again, I’m still in the ecosystem, so unless there’s some government oversight setting standards for Apple to follow they’ll continue doing what’s profitable and their sales keep steadily growing despite the occasional bad press.

Also distribution. It’s relatively cheap to transport energy in the form of hydrocarbon type fuels because most of your fuel(oxygen in the atmosphere), is in abundant supply pretty much everywhere. Solar has huge variation in seasonal production at higher latitudes, geothermal, hydro, and wind power tend to be most economical in places where the geology/topology is favourable.