Can’t you just not use their cloud services? It makes you create an account for setup, but once setup was done I never touched it.

I do not know what you mean by third-party integrations. I do not use any cloud stuff, Ubiquiti’s or otherwise.

I used to use OpenWRT on various devices, but two years ago I got a UDM-Pro, a USW-16-POE, and a few Unifi APs and cameras. I run pi-hole on the UDM-Pro. I have no complaints. It is more expensive than piecing it all together using OpenWRT and some Raspberry PIs, but way easier.

You could use multiple USB microphones and do the mixing in software. I prefer using an audio interface (e.g. UMC204HD) because it is simpler to set up and adjust levels, and because it lets you use any widely available microphone, or plug in an instrument (e.g.: electric guitar, electric piano). You can plug your headphones into the audio interface and adjust the relative level of your own sound and what is coming from the computer (e.g.: your teacher). sweetwater.com has the UMC204HD and the UMC404HD on sale right now.

I do not have any experience with pick-up mics.

I tried Jitsi, but was unable to match Zoom’s audio quality.

The difference between Jitsi and Zoom was noticeable, but less important than the difference between the mic built in to the webcam and good mics. I use an SM58 for voice and an SM137 pointed at the cello just below the bridge, through a UMC204HD.

I feel for the hundreds of engineers at Microsoft who have been yelling about these security issues since day one, but cannot say “I told you so” because they’d get fired.

Get an A/V receiver, a computer monitor or dumb TV, and speakers. Then you can get a Roku streaming player and it cannot show you anything when you do not have its input selected on the receiver.

Even an inexpensive pair of bookshelf speakers placed on either side of the TV will sound better than built-in TV speakers. Add a center speaker and a subwoofer drastically improved sound.

Non-4k AV receivers are dirt cheap used.

1. CEO wastes a ton of money on generative AI
2. CEO fires a bunch of people to hit quarterly profit targets

generative AI resulted in job cuts.

Men will literally let an AI kill thousands of drivers a year instead of going to therapy building high-speed rail.

If the artist has a way to buy and download from their website, I do that. Otherwise I buy CDs or vinyl and rip them.

Sometimes I poke around Wikipedia and see what other artists collaborated with, influenced, or were influenced by artists I like, and buy their albums.

Sometimes I download highly-rated shows from random artists on Internet Archive’s Live Music Archive

Sometimes friends recommend stuff.

mpd + ncmpc

I am but a simple man. All my music is FLAC. It is arranged neatly in folders. I just want to select an album to play. I do not need album covers, playlists, search, streaming, tags, lyrics, analyzers, or scrobbling.

The P in HIPAA is for Portability, not Privacy, and the S is for security.

Non-profits, just like for-profits, need to keep revenue at or above expenditures. Just like for-profits they end up run by executives who prioritize bringing money in to sustain the bureaucracy over doing good.

used steam deck + bluetooth keyboard

–my-next-video-card-wont-be-nvidia

I started running OBS with a virtual camera to do screen sharing. It is so much nicer to manage sharing with OBS than with Slack/Google Meet/Discord.

Because not one of those laptops have a TrackPoint style mouse.

“This thing that does not exist and nobody has any idea how to make it” will totally be safer than human driving.

You know what is safer than human driving and we know how to make? Trains.

Get an audio interface. Then you can use any microphone.

I use a Shure SM58 for voice and a Shure SM137 for instruments with a Behringer UMC204HD.