You fate… Is to feed us… Right now.

Ha [Internet high five], there is a thing about EvE online players and being opinionated nerds about VOIP solutions.

Sounds perfect, my TS3 instance was running on a 10+ year old Dell Optiplex until a while ago when I moved it to a VM.

You seem to have everything covered, VOIP services are not that heavy, and its great having a residence on the internet where your nerds can drop in and out of. The main issue is getting people off Discord or understanding that old programs are just as if not more functional. (Plus, the whole “If TeH PrOdUcT is Fr33, UR da PrOduCt” thing, but im preaching to the choir here)

Some expirence on some self-hosted VOIP solutions from my EvE online days and I self-host a Teamspeak instance (my nerds like it, get off my lawn).

Mumble in terms of its UI and user expirence, the worst of the major VOIP projects (looks very 2008), however it is by far the best in terms of server stability, plugin compatibility and security. To quote my old EvE admin “Mumble will take the team two weeks to set up correctly, and drive them mad, but once thats done they will not need to touch the config again”. Plus it not requiring a license allows large orgs to use it freely. Ever have a need 2.5k+ VOIP users all trying to talk over eachother? Mumble is the only free application that will handle that without issue.

Teamspeak3 is what I run, and for small communities its perfect. TS5 exists, and the devs keep trying to make “We have Discord at home” and its just a UI fork, they all run the same server backend. As for features, TS3 has the best of ease of set up and granular permissions with API tools to allow for remote or automated managment. For user counts, anything beyond that of a small guild in any game will require a license, they are cheap (I just renewed my 30$ a year license and didnt have to reboot). Its drawbacks are that it struggles after several hundred users (its heavier on server hardware than mumble is) and user accounts with permissions can break the server. Fortunatly settings are managed by a local database so backups of server state and files are easy.

I remember Ventrilo existing, thats about it.

Hardware wise, a new pi should be fine, older models might have issues based on expected user load. Network load is not significant for normal hobbiest user counts, security is not any different than normal homelab internet services.

Let me know if there is anything I can help with.

VLAN setting are probably your best bet to prevent communication with your normal devices and lock the IOT devices off in their own section of the network where they cant snoop around. Same goes for Wi-Fi, make a new SSID for just IOT stuff and let them only see themselves and the default gateway.

Its perfect for Warmachine, most rolls need 2d6 anyway.

Seconding this, im on a FP4 and in the US so… Some real product reviews would be appreciated.

Oh they are all petty twits.

Regan pitched a fit and removed the solar panels Carter left on the roof when he left office. This is just more proof the regressive party has no taste.

Wern’t there a few AI maze projects in the works? I wonder if running one of those for a bit will cause you to be added to an ignore list, clearly they dont respect your robots file.

I fear you are vastly underestimating the horror of the collective hive mind of the internet and what people are capable of… Nothing is sacred. Rule 34 exists for a reason, its a warning to not dig too deep. (DO NOT GOOGLE THAT, It states that if something exists there is porn of it, and there are sites with its namesake that endevor to catalog it…)

I was disapponted at that, I spooled up one of those instances a few months back and its federated and is magical. If only I could convince my family to move away from that old group text grumbles in person who cosplays as a sysadmin

Without getting into the technical side of things.

Normal Windows home edition is to what ever firmware your ISP (Internet service provider) puts on your router to make it play nice with their network.

Open WRT is to cracks knuckles fuck it, ill configure it myself (think Arch linux, or any program/platform where the user is given a bundle of sticks and a phone book of a manual and told “try not to hurt yourself”)

Its a community updated router firmware/software project that gives the user a bit too much control. This allowes people who know what they are doing to make some very secure, free, and complex networks, but also gives you the tools to piss off your ISP or break something.

Some old floppy disks like the OG version would be a nice novelty, even if noone used them. EvE online did a thing like that for its 20th birthday box. They included a floppy disk with some old game data on it (I think it was part of an ARG, but I just had fun trying to read the data)

Dito, still have RIF installed on my phone so every time I click a reddit link im reminded of what they did with a 403: forbidden error. I like it better over here anyway, nicer people who give a shit and fewer bots (or atleast fewer obvious ones).

Think of it like one of those 3-inch swiss army knives, but for IR tech and radio. If you mean to do work. Use the correct tool for the job, but there is no reason you cant acomplish what your trying to do. They are great for learning, if I was teaching a kids about cyber security, a flipper zero would be on the required tool kit.

Yes, you can do harm with them, per the previous analogy its still a knife. However, devices not hardened against simple replication attacks or brute force acomplished by something barely more powerful than a TI-84, those manufactures and customers needs to take the security of their products more seriously.

Open registration is a flag in your config file. Its normally not there by default. Plus half the mobile apps do not support account creation pages of you have the flag turned on.

Room settings are what controls view/join roles from federated instances.

Im pretty new to this space, so if your up for talking shop.

We believe in you, there are other write-ups and guides on how to get it working. Its was great learning expirence for VMs and Proxmox (thats what I did and it did make it harder, but I feel more confident when im cosplaying as a sys-admin)

Guide

This one is pretty close to whats needed, but go into it expecting each step to open a new tool/application that needs to be researched before you press enter. Also look up how to set it to a PSQL db before you start inviting users, it defaults to SQLite and that will cause problems eventually.

Hell yah, TS3 crew all the way. (Or TS5 for the zoomers…)

My nerds herd recently also set up a cluster of Matrix Synapse servers so we got our little “We have Telegram at home” set up. Getting non-tech people to accept that this is how to find me has been tricky without sounding like a digital prepper.

Ive donated about a dozen times, mostly when its convienent like when they call our local donation bus out to where ever im working.

For the feeling, almost no effect. I mostly spend my time there cracking jokes about how this is a good way to lose weight, or how im only really there because I want a juice box and a cookie. Its more of an excuse to not have to be 100% mentally there for the rest of the work day.

As for the why, Ill sign up and donate when I can, but I dont seek it out. I know its important, but it is a donation, which because of the US insurance and medical industries will be sold to the person who needs it most. (Someone who knows more about this please correct me on it if that assumption is wrong).

What?! [slams desk] ITS ALWAYS WIZARD TIME! [insert unnessessary party here].