Backups are definitely a task I have been sleeping on. I will set that up.

Thank you! I have been looking at Fedora Silverblue and ran it for a couple weeks. My only issue is that sometimes I need programs that only got .deb files, and they are meant to run on Ubuntu not debian.

I have found happiness on Pop!_OS.

Thank you for the advice. I know the data is my responsibility… so I need a better system.

Thank you for the reply! Nextcloud seems like the way to go, and it has a client for everything which is nice.

I need to learn how to host things. The pricing is reasonable though, but I am not a business, but I will see.

I like OneDrive, but I no doubt there is a FOSS solution. I just need to look into a hosting provider I guess.

Somehow I trust Opera and Microsoft over Brave as this point.

What a world.

Proxmox is awesome. Sort of the answer to most of my server wants.

For sure that is a limitation of an LLM. I was hoping the capabilities of Google or Bing would overcome that with extended formatting.

I am ignorant of the ownership of Opera, so I will reserve judgement. I will say that the browser is great, despite its problem foundation.

That is an awesome usecase. ChatGPT lets you get niche and weird, which isnwhere it is most productive.

ChatGPT has the issue that it has no date beyond September 2021, which is not typically an issue.

I get that too drom Bard sometimes, but it is for specific queries. I think the key is working on the prompt until it gets it. Sometimes you need to start over with a new chat.

Bing does not work like ChatGPT despite having the same base, even in creative mode. No idea why. However I like creative mode when I don’t just dont want to see links embedded. I also love taking advantage of free Dall-E.

Bard is great for anything that can be put into a list or chart, like comparisons. Literally put in a chart.

I am dissapointed in that I have not been able to get a single mathematic equation produced (like famous ones), but I know they can?

If you get the chance and willing to download a full ass browser, Opera has Aria, which is like the cleanest version of ChatGPT I have seen. Just the formatted answers with hyperlinks are worth it. It is good. It is hard to explain, but Aria mostly just works. It is closer to Bard in responses, and does what you want out of Bing without messing with convo styles.

Whatever prompts that Bing put for the convo style may be messing with the results.

All things said, I switch between them often, depending on my needs. It takes some time but I have built my intuition of which one will give the best response for the prompt, but I often just search the prompt in all of them.

Anyways, I hope you find more success using them!

I had the same experience when choosing between the Intel or AMD versions of a prebuilt. Went with Intel due to having comparatably better specs at the price. Theading is better on AMD (as a rule?) but I can only have so much fun running multiple VMs.

It sucks. I hope you got the best part.

I have been using AI chat exclusively for searching for at least the past 3 days.

It is so much better in every possible way for simple factual questions, especially ChatGPT and Google Bard. Great for shopping. Microsoft Bing is okay, but you have to choose the right personality.

Sidenote: I KNOW using Google, and the other companies I will mention, is the antithesis of freedom and privacy. Yet, they are incredibly powerful tools that are getting implemented everywhere, so my curiousity has led me down an honestly fun rabbit hole.

The other AI that really surpised me is Opera Aria. Like Bing, it is using ChatGPT-4 and integrating real-time information. It just feels smarter, or perhaps more professional?

The caveat with all these except maybe Bard which, uses its own system, are very good at shutting down questions it does not want to answer. It feels weird and wrong when it happens, like it just saved you from asking something immoral, or at least too many questions about the tech.

Strange experience overall.

TL;DR AI chatbots are great at parsing the internet to get you answers with reasonable accuracy and relevancy when old-fashioned search can be tedious or fruitless.

I was about to ask if Kagi is worth paying for, but their website does a tremendous job of selling it. I am going to have to give up a subscription to afford it, but I think it will be worth it. Actually… maybe not. I pay for everything annually when I can. Too bad they don’t have that option, but it makes sense when their are hard limits to searches and features between tiers.

Hell yes! Love my laser printer. I have paper to last a lifetime, and I have no qualms about printing stuff out because I can alwasy recycle the paper (make more paper, art projectsz scrap/scratch).

Honestly people, if you don’t have one, go to your local Staples or Office Depot (or lets be honest, Amazon) and get yourself one.

I know so many people who do not even own a printer, which is insane. Driving out to Kinkos or FedEx to print out a few pages is dumb. They can be found in thrift stores, and ink or toner can be had for a fraction of the price if you go third-party.

I will definitely look into those things if I run into troubles!

Thank you for the encouragement! I am inching my way towards building a server, and I am thankful for all the tips and suggestions I got.

I am starting to think that if email is the hardest to self-host, then perhaps more people should try it. It is worthy to take regain indepedence and autonomy of technology, even if it seen as a lost cause.

Yeah, I hope to get something running soon, just so I can say I did it.

That is the thing, I am willing to pay for email, because then the incentives are real to the provider to follow best practices for privacy and quality of life, but the pricing blows up too quickly due to to features I will never use. I need something more granular.

I am also looking at Disroot and Posteo, which I like because the have hardened ethical principles driving their services, and that is worth supporting.

Hell yes, I love the enthusiasm! I just got a domain, which is giving me 3 months of email, so that is great. I feel like Tutanota is the most honest email service when it comes to advertising privacy, and they do some stuff that Proton definitely does not, like make recovery impossible without a key, and use no other method.

My next step is to get a VPS, and Hetzner is the name I have seen pop up the most. I will use that.

Thank you!

This is so encouraging! For sure it takes a level of technical proficiency and experience, but any technology that has been around for decades has been simplified and automated in one way or another. In retrospect, it is ridiculous to think that all these email providers could exist if they could not overcome the stranglehold of Google and Microsoft, so it must be possible for individuals to do it too,

A lot of people on here are way more technically minded than I will ever be, so if they are having trouble, I AM IN TROUBLE! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!

I think I will be fine. I am keeping the emails I already set up. If I get fluent and comfortable running my own email server, I may migrate, but I am not shooting myself in the foot anytime soon.

Yeah, I don’t necessarily want to give up because I think it is cool. Plus, there are use case where receiving is all that matters, like weekly mailing list with fun articles and recommendations, and I hate blowing up an email address just for that. Confirmation is still a problem, but I am willing to experiment with that.

Okay, I will just by the domain name. I have been wanting one for awhile but never took the plunge, and I can’t think of anything special… well, I just came up with something better. This is good.

I get that, I will definitely need to choose a service that helps to not get sending blocked. Still, I was amused that templates were such a big selling point.