I sometimes view my home lab like a Factorio playthrough. It must grow, but in a way that's easier to manage with each iteration and change. Just like a combinator, some belts, and a few splitters can transform a line in Factorio, using shell scripting or even Nix flakes can completely change the way you approach and manage the home lab. This is precisely what happened to mine as I started to transition to more deploy-friendly solutions. The thing is, you can take Nix flakes as far as running your entire home lab from a single config file.

Last month, a couple of my Tuya-powered smart plugs stopped being responsive over Wi-Fi. When I checked their Home Assistant activity logs, I discovered that Tuya’s servers caused the hiccups. That felt quite familiar, since every time an expensive smart device from a store troubled me.

Personally, I believe the most damaging event to happen to Microsoft's Copilot+ line was the discovery that its automatic screenshotting tool, Recall, saved data in an SQL database with zero encryption. It caused a huge amount of discourse about AI and how much of our data we should be giving it.

If you're running a Plex server that's absolutely brimming with content, but the TV show or movie you're playing sometimes suffers from intermittent buffering or poor image quality, you might be encountering transcoding issues.

Discord's rather unpopular decision to enforce age verification globally has put many users, including myself, on the hunt for an alternative medium to converse with friends, trade memes, and use VoIP for gaming-related communications. Unfortunately, the sad reality is, there isn't really anything out there with feature parity that can be self-hosted. I attempted to migrate to Stoat, formerly Revolt, but the self-hosted fork of the project is still heavily under construction.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a press conference on US military action in Iran, at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on March 2, 2026. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images View LinkAfter weeks of failed negotiations, public ultimatums, and lawsuit threats, the Defense Department has formally labeled Anthropic a "supply-chain risk", escalating its fight with the AI company over their acceptable use policies and potentially bringing their fight to court.The decision, first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, citing one source familiar, will bar defense contractors from working with the government if they use Claude, Anthropic's AI program, in their products. Though the designation is typically applied to foreign companies with ties to adversarial governments, this is the first time that an America …Read the full story at The Verge.

I used to be all-in on watercooling my gaming PCs, with hardline tubing, sleeved cables designed (and hand-built) for each build, case mods, and cohesive themed colors. It was a lot of fun, and made me friends across the world that I'm (mostly) still in touch with today. But I'll be the first to tell you that there is only so much thermal performance you can get out of watercooling your PC, without going to exotic methods like sub-ambient chillers.

If you're looking for a large gaming monitor that isn't going to hurt your wallet that badly, then this one from Acer might be a good fit. You get a massive 49-inch screen with a 1000R curvature that brings games and movies to life thanks to an immersive experience.

Jellyfin, a popular open source alternative to Plex, just released a notable update to its Roku app that includes new HDR modes, anamorphic video support, and bug fixes (via How-to Geek).

A package of child safety bills is headed to the House floor following an hours-long session that left Democrats and Republicans divided. On Thursday, lawmakers on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce voted to advance the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act; Sammy's Law; and the App Store Accountability Act, which would require app stores to introduce age-gating.The KIDS Act, which is sponsored by Congressman Brett Guthrie (R-KY), encompasses several child safety laws. That includes a version of the latest House Republican update to the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) without the "duty of care" provision central to the Senate's …Read the full story at The Verge.

When Mozilla first announced that it would be bringing AI features to Firefox, many fans of the browser protested. While AI browsers have proved popular, they also pose real privacy concerns. In fact, when Google announced more ways that it was integrating Gemini into Chrome, I was glad that I had already switched to a different option.

NotebookLM completely shook the industry when it introduced Audio Overviews, letting you turn the sources in your notebook into full-fledged podcasts. If you've used NotebookLM before, chances are you've spent a lot of time with the feature. For many people, it was the moment the tool finally clicked.