Not OP, but when I was looking for an alternative it was the music analysis and Auto-Playlist/DJ features that set Plexamp apart.

Nothing wrong with having to pay for software if the prices are reasonable. It’s a product like any other, with real people working on it.

The simple answer is: Yes! If you want to be completely sure no one is accessing your data - now or in the future - then you have to host it yourself. There are companies and countries that are more trustworthy/safe than others, but you never know how politics will change.

I’ve been using a Synology NAS for ages, and I can wholeheartedly recommend it! Especially if you don’t have that much experience with Linux and servers, but also if you want something that’s more Plug-n-Play and stable, or you want access to some of their proprietary services or really good customer support. Just make sure you get one that supports Docker, because that’s how you’ll install most if not all of the 3rd party services.

That being said, building one yourself can also be great fun, and you do have that one additional level of control if everything is open-source and installed by you.

if I can get it working

It’s really as simple as starting one container per chat service, with a config like this:

services:
    beeper-<service>:
        image: ghcr.io/beeper/bridge-manager
        restart: unless-stopped
        environment:
            - MATRIX_ACCESS_TOKEN=<your beeper matrix token>
            - BRIDGE_NAME=sh-<service>
        volumes:
            - ./beeper-<service>:/data

then messaging the @sh-<service>bot:beeper.local bot user, and logging in to your chat account.

I’m using the Beeper Matrix server, but self-host their bridges. That way the de- and reencryption is done on my server, and Beeper only sees encrypted Matrix messages. It’s extremely easy to set up if you’ve used docker before, much less work than running a full Matrix server yourself.

I opened specific ports where needed, and also limit most frontends to local requests only.

I’m using the DS920+, as it’s still the best 4-bay Synology NAS for media streaming/encoding tasks afaik. Caches are read-write, and do use the NVMe slots.

The RAM upgrade and added caches definitely made a huge difference. The system is averaging around 70% RAM usage, and goes beyond that for certain tasks, so the current workload wouldn’t really be feasible without the extra RAM. And the caches really make most IO operation noticably faster, especially random drive access e.g. from multiple simultaneous processes.

I have some Arr containers on there, as well as Plex, Audiobookshelf, AppFlowy, some Beeper Matrix bridges, FileFlows for media conversion, my own Piped instance, SearXNG, Vaultwarden, FirefoxSync, and a few smaller ones.

No, it really doesn’t. That’s like creating a bot that buys and sells company shares automatically, and saying the stock exchange has a vulnerability because your bot makes bad decisions.

What’s absurd is this crypto maximalist take.

You can’t just make up your own permission and punishment system, and then expect the legal system to just step aside and let it handle all disputes, especially when it comes to fraud. That’s like founding your own city in an existing country, and declaring all existing law obsolete. I know some people think this is a real possibility, but the real world doesn’t work like that.

IANAL and all, but bad/unfavorable contracts and literal deception/fraud are two different things, at least in the legal system. Not everything that’s technically possible is also allowed, obviously.

Compare it to using a security flaw to hack into a system. Technically you’re only using the official API, maybe in unusual ways, but still. But you’re doing it in bad faith and causing harm, maybe pretending to be someone you’re not or injecting fake data into the system, and that can make a difference.

It’s not. They tricked some MEV-Boost bots into doing bad trades.

Here is a more detailed explanation of the exploit.

The Pepaire-Bueno brothers exploited a bug in MEV-boost’s code that allowed them to preview the content of blocks before they were officially delivered to validators, according to the indictment.

The brothers created 16 Ethereum validators and targeted three specific traders who operated MEV bots, the indictment said. They used bait transactions to figure out how those bots traded, lured the bots to one of their validators which was validating a new block and basically tricked these bots into proposing certain transactions. […]

So hardly an attack on any core system of cryptocurrencies.

I hope at that point we have enough capable alternatives. Like, hopefully around the time they add ads is also the time when open-source models and apps have caught up again.

It’s a group therapy called [email protected], we always have free seats!

This is pretty impressive and hella creepy!

If you’re curious, here are the numbers added up for all Lemmy instances with 10+ users:

blocked/fedipact

• ​​users: 251442 (~60%)
• active: 24106 (~55%) ​​​

federated

• ​​users: 167166 (~40%)
• ​​active: 19558 (~45%)

Yes and yes. It runs the bridge and en/decrypts messages locally on your device, so full e2ee is preserved. The bridge still has to login to your messenger accounts, so nothing changes there.

There’s almost no difference to a good Matrix client if you already selfhost the server and bridges. Most of the Beeper client’s value is making it very easy to manage the bridges they host for you.

They don’t have to make extra apps, just remove restrictions that make some functionality exclusive to iPhones or Apple Watches. So iPhones get the same access to Apple Watches as other phones, and Apple Watches get the same access to iPhones as other watches.

I have yet to try it myself, but in principle I think it’s a bit of a solution in search of a problem.

The tech is impressive, but I can’t shake the feeling that they focussed too hard on the wrong things. It’s not as good for VR gaming as other headsets, and imo an AR/MR device needs to be extremely lightweight, so you can wear it comfortably for at least a few hours. That leaves maybe movies I guess, but even for those some cheaper headsets are usually more than good enough.

So what exactly is the selling point for this thing? Who and what is it for?! Seems to me like it’s more of a research device than anything else, to get the ball rolling for more in the future.