SwizzleStick

I have settled on Mullvad, for their simplicity and payment methods.

I run a split environment. Main router is set up ‘normally’ with what other people in the house and visitors would expect.

Attached to that is a Pi running an OpenVPN client and a hostapd server that broadcasts a separate WiFi network. Iptables on the Pi are set to only ever allow Internet traffic through the VPN as a killswitch (except for OpenVPN, to prevent a chicken-egg situation), and any wifi clients connected via hostapd are routed through it.

A script occasionally changes the VPN endpoint to keep it interesting. This Pi also acts as a qbitorrent client that stores downloads to a local NAS.

It’s a best of both setup that has been stable for over 5 years now.

Popping the thing open to short the power switch when it was ‘locked’ was my introduction to PC internals, electronics in general, and disobedience :)

I’d have been about 8 at the time. Good years.

After that I think we had some nondescript P3 beige box and then went to a Haswell P4. Ran hot as lava.

P2 with MMX. Think we ended up getting a Voodoo 2 for it as well. Same SoundBlaster and some ridiculously small disk and RAM. Win95. It even had a turbo button and a locking power button.

It was an upgrade from our Amiga 1200.

Fond memories of shoulder surfing the BT guy when he came to our house - peeked a test number for dialup and got about half a year of internet for free.

Has gone suprisingly well.

Tesseract failed in some places, making some of the sub-headings come out in what looks like Klingon. HF have varied their paper stock dimensions as well, which caused a few things to be clipped.

Acceptable output for manual corrections.

Preview:

Expect a DM soon-ish.

Good news, they went through the ADF without too much trouble. Images just need a little contrast adjustment.

The copier used also OCR’d the whole lot, so they’ll be searchable.

Welcome.

Didn’t realise just how many I had - a whole box file full and overflow from that.

I’ve had a nice morning so far sorting, de-duping and remembering the time I coated half the kitchen in sesame seeds…

Been meaning to do it for ages so cheers for the incentive!

they do block Mullvad

Not well enough it seems. Still reachable for me on some exits, but not all.

Python, Tesseract, OpenAI and my 3 remaining brain cells have now combined to form a working script that will rename the scan file names to whatever it reads in a certain section of the card.

Doing them by hand would be a nightmare 😅

Now I am wondering the same.

And looking down the rabbithole of Tesseract OCR haha.

I’ve done less useful things with a Monday morning before. PDFs, and I will try to suss a way to set the file names programatically.

A handful may come with ‘pre-printed accidents’ but all will be legible :)

As long as the scanner can handle the slightly thicker paper stock they use, we should be golden.

If you don’t mind them auf Englisch, I’ve got a hoard of them and time with a duplex scanner.

I’ve had some decent results with this:

https://github.com/ngosang/trackerslist

I lean on Irfanview+plugins for this kind of processing - it’s the bedrock of some of my workflows.

Will definitely give this a try though, thank you for sharing :)

I just treat their letters as scrap paper or kindling. They are very carefully worded to give the illusion of power where there is practically none. Capita are masters in mismanagement, so I’m not surprised your declarations have been ignored in the past. Just don’t bother.

If you’re truly not doing anything required to have a licence, then they can’t prove you do. Licence dodgers are usually clever enough to not give it away too.

Don’t answer the door to them on the rare off chance they come prospectively calling. If you do, just close it on the scum without a word, and go about your day. No warrant = no entry.

Sounds like a good way for Mr Pirate Fire Stick Man to sell more of his £50/year IPTV packages.

It’s already easy enough for the average joe to do this. Having the BBC double-dip their Netflix sub may well be the push that has them cancel subs & go ‘elsewhere’.

If we want a public broadcaster, it should be recognised as a national service and funded directly through tax. Unfortunately, that would put a lot of Crapita licence fee collector dogs out of a job and we simply can’t have that(!).

Just look at the crap you get shoved through your door if you decide not to play their game: http://www.bbctvlicence.com/

Before anyone mentions that you can submit a ‘no licence needed’ declaration - they’ve got no business even knowing my name, let alone my media choices.

Visible on lemmy.zip

Well done :)