Any company that pays for ads closely tracks the efficacy of ads and can more or less prove that the ads are worth it. There’s no guess work.

Oh, nice! Thanks for explaining that. I didn’t realize there was a way to run a cluster without HA.

I’m not sure how well that works if the cluster is only designed to be temporary, since removing a productive node from a cluster is a bit risky

Good callout. Just did some reading on the concept of maintaining a quorum, which I didn’t know about. Definitely need to be careful if I go with that approach, but it does sound interesting! I’m not entirely opposed to leaving the old laptop as a node and then using it for experimental stuff or maybe running just one specific standalone service on it after moving the critical stuff to the new server.

Sounds pretty straightforward. Thanks for the info!

That’s a fair point, but I kind of want to tinker around on the laptop without worrying too much about breaking things and figure out what all I actually want to self-host. That will help me figure out what sort of hardware I need.

I was just complaining about these “science” headlines the other day. This one in particular actually startled me a bit because I thought “The Sun is having a moment” was a euphemism for some potentially catastrophic solar flare or something.

I wouldn’t call myself a frequent flyer, but I fly at least several times a year, and I’ve taken a lot of different airlines. To your point, I honestly haven’t seen much difference in terms of cancelation or delay between budget and regular airlines. There are 3 main differences in my mind.

First is that budget airlines nickel and dime you. Carry-on isn’t free, it’s an add-on. Your backpack size is thoroughly checked. And if you mess any of that up and they catch it, the upcharge is huge.

The second point is sort of a continuation of the first: on-flight service. Depending on the duration of the flight, non-budget airlines will give you some snacks and drinks for free. Budget airlines charge you for them. (I once had a budget airline try and charge me for water when I was fighting off a headache…) Some of the nicest airlines will even have entertainment consoles built in to the seats, even in economy.

Third is seat space and comfort. The seats on the nicer airlines have noticeably more leg room and more cushion. A lot of them have adjustable headrests and recline a bit. Sounds like a small thing, but I have pretty long legs and a bony ass, so it makes a huge difference to me.

For shorter flights/trips, I’ll still do budget airlines sometimes. For longer flights or if I have a lot of luggage, I usually have a strong preference for the nicer airlines. Of course, depending on how big the cost difference is, I’ll occasionally go against my preference.