1 00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:12,895 Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome Never Post, a 2 00:00:12,895 --> 00:00:15,055 podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike 3 00:00:15,055 --> 00:00:19,455 Rugnetta. This intro was written on Tuesday, 12/02/2025 at 4 00:00:19,455 --> 00:00:24,415 08:29AM eastern, and we have an enterprising show for you this 5 00:00:24,415 --> 00:00:29,350 week. Audrey talks with software engineer, blogger, and hopeful 6 00:00:29,510 --> 00:00:33,510 Internet owner Drew Leighton about his realization that he's 7 00:00:33,510 --> 00:00:37,945 a digital serf in a feudalistic power imbalance. They discuss 8 00:00:37,945 --> 00:00:42,025 his efforts to gain some autonomy by building his own 9 00:00:42,025 --> 00:00:46,025 cloud server and also pew pew lake. 10 00:00:46,105 --> 00:00:48,345 But right now, we're gonna take a quick break. You're gonna 11 00:00:48,345 --> 00:00:51,310 listen to some ads unless you're on the member feed. And when we 12 00:00:51,310 --> 00:00:53,550 return, we're gonna talk about a few of the things that have 13 00:00:53,550 --> 00:00:58,270 happened since the last time you heard from us. Yeah. I'm not big 14 00:00:58,270 --> 00:00:59,790 on social graces. 15 00:00:59,790 --> 00:01:04,915 I think I'll slip on down to the oasis. Oh, I've got five stories 16 00:01:04,915 --> 00:01:10,355 for you this week. The radios could get a big block of I p v 17 00:01:10,355 --> 00:01:14,995 six addresses. An IETF or Internet Engineering Task Force 18 00:01:14,995 --> 00:01:19,730 draft proposal calls for a block of IP addresses to be given to 19 00:01:19,730 --> 00:01:24,370 ham radio operators for experimentation following in the 20 00:01:24,370 --> 00:01:28,290 tradition set forth by their being granted the 44 slash eight 21 00:01:28,290 --> 00:01:34,205 block of IPv four addresses. Individual operators and amateur 22 00:01:34,205 --> 00:01:37,805 organizers, the proposal reads, currently depend on commercial 23 00:01:37,805 --> 00:01:42,365 Internet providers or regional Internet registries for IPv6 24 00:01:42,365 --> 00:01:45,830 connectivity, processes that are often misaligned with the 25 00:01:45,830 --> 00:01:49,990 amateur services non commercial and volunteer nature. 26 00:01:50,150 --> 00:01:54,070 Provider assigned prefixes are transient, non portable, and 27 00:01:54,070 --> 00:01:57,350 frequently filtered making them unsuitable for long term 28 00:01:57,350 --> 00:02:01,535 experimental networks. The news website, The Register, calls the 29 00:02:01,535 --> 00:02:05,535 request unusual, but says it may be worth considering, quote, 30 00:02:05,535 --> 00:02:08,815 because the amateur radio community has a long history of 31 00:02:08,815 --> 00:02:12,335 doing interesting things that later become useful in other 32 00:02:12,335 --> 00:02:24,250 contexts. Guaranteed human, says iHeartRadio. The name of its new 33 00:02:24,250 --> 00:02:27,450 pledge summarizes the audio platform's stance on AI 34 00:02:27,450 --> 00:02:31,145 generated music and personalities. Billboard reports 35 00:02:31,145 --> 00:02:33,785 that iHeart chief programming officer and president Tom 36 00:02:33,785 --> 00:02:37,625 Pullman said in a letter to staff that the company won't use 37 00:02:37,625 --> 00:02:42,105 AI generated personalities or play AI music that features 38 00:02:42,105 --> 00:02:45,270 synthetic vocalists pretending to be human. 39 00:02:45,350 --> 00:02:49,190 Pullman describes this as a promise and shares unattributed 40 00:02:49,190 --> 00:02:53,910 research claiming, quote, 70% of consumers say they use AI as a 41 00:02:53,910 --> 00:03:13,470 tool, yet 90% want their media to be from real humans. Solomon 42 00:03:13,470 --> 00:03:18,510 Ray doesn't exist. The top artist on the iTunes top 100 43 00:03:18,510 --> 00:03:21,790 Christian and gospel albums chart this week according to 44 00:03:21,790 --> 00:03:26,805 christianitytoday.com is made with AI. His appearance, lyrics, 45 00:03:26,805 --> 00:03:30,965 music, the whole package generated. Ray is associated 46 00:03:30,965 --> 00:03:36,405 with tracks titled soul to the world and jingle bell soul, and 47 00:03:36,405 --> 00:03:41,460 yet, quote, at minimum, AI does not have the holy spirit inside 48 00:03:41,460 --> 00:03:44,580 of it, Christian music singer songwriter Forrest Frank said on 49 00:03:44,580 --> 00:03:45,380 Instagram. 50 00:03:45,460 --> 00:03:49,140 So I think it's really weird to be opening up your spirit to 51 00:03:49,140 --> 00:03:58,425 something that has no spirit. Poems can fool AI into making 52 00:03:58,425 --> 00:04:02,505 you a bomb, reports Wired. Generally, chatbots have inbuilt 53 00:04:02,505 --> 00:04:06,025 guardrails to prevent them from discoursing on the worst or most 54 00:04:06,025 --> 00:04:09,730 dangerous subject matter, but researchers in Rome found that, 55 00:04:09,730 --> 00:04:13,650 quote, poetic framing achieved an average jailbreak success 56 00:04:13,650 --> 00:04:18,290 rate of sixty two percent for handcrafted poems, end quote. 57 00:04:18,450 --> 00:04:22,370 Wired requested copies of the poetry used to jailbreak the 58 00:04:22,370 --> 00:04:25,695 models, getting them to hold forth on building munitions and 59 00:04:25,695 --> 00:04:30,175 malware amongst other things. But the researchers refused, 60 00:04:30,255 --> 00:04:34,735 saying the poems are too dangerous to be released to the 61 00:04:34,735 --> 00:04:35,455 public. 62 00:04:35,695 --> 00:04:42,300 Forbidden poetry. How exciting. And finally, FOMO defines the 63 00:04:42,300 --> 00:04:46,780 experience of dating or dating apps. New research out of a 64 00:04:46,780 --> 00:04:51,340 combined team from Austria and Stanford published in New Media 65 00:04:51,340 --> 00:04:54,555 and Society finds that algorithmic feeds drive 66 00:04:54,555 --> 00:04:57,915 engagement in dating app use, keeping people swiping for 67 00:04:57,915 --> 00:05:02,635 longer periods of time. But the more someone swipes, the more 68 00:05:02,635 --> 00:05:05,355 they apparently trust the algorithm will bring them the 69 00:05:05,355 --> 00:05:10,620 partner they're looking for, and those swipers also experience 70 00:05:10,620 --> 00:05:13,420 strong decision fatigue. 71 00:05:13,420 --> 00:05:17,180 Not swiping means they may miss the perfect mate, but swiping is 72 00:05:17,180 --> 00:05:22,300 exhausting and paralyzing. Swiped if you do, swiped if you 73 00:05:22,300 --> 00:05:27,575 don't. In show news this week, do you wish you could support 74 00:05:27,575 --> 00:05:32,135 Neverpost, but $48 a year is just too much? Well, great news 75 00:05:32,135 --> 00:05:35,920 because the Radiotopia fundraiser continues. This is 76 00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:40,400 your opportunity to support not just Neverpost, but every, every 77 00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:44,160 Radiotopia show all at once, ear hustle, hyperfixed articles of 78 00:05:44,160 --> 00:05:46,960 interest, proxy, the memory palace, the whole kit and 79 00:05:46,960 --> 00:05:53,485 caboodle with a single one time tax deductible donation or a 80 00:05:53,485 --> 00:05:54,205 recurring one. 81 00:05:54,205 --> 00:05:57,165 Those are also tax deductible. Isn't that exciting? Head to 82 00:05:57,165 --> 00:06:03,005 radiotopia.fm/donate to give a one time tax deductible donation 83 00:06:03,005 --> 00:06:07,550 or a recurring tax deductible donation. Help us do the thing 84 00:06:07,550 --> 00:06:12,510 we do. Do you wish you could support NeverPo's directly, but 85 00:06:12,510 --> 00:06:13,870 you go to neverpo.st. 86 00:06:13,870 --> 00:06:17,845 You look at all three tiers, and you think this is too confusing. 87 00:06:18,085 --> 00:06:21,685 Too many choices. Which tier is right for me? Well, good news, 88 00:06:21,685 --> 00:06:25,605 folks. We have a year end sale on for the month of December. 89 00:06:25,605 --> 00:06:31,460 You can get our $7 and $12 tiers for the price of our lowest 90 00:06:31,460 --> 00:06:39,060 tier, $4. That's $4 each. Now to be clear, those $7 and $12 tiers 91 00:06:39,220 --> 00:06:43,940 do and will always get you exactly the same thing as the $4 92 00:06:43,940 --> 00:06:47,775 tier, but on sale is what they are nonetheless. You may be 93 00:06:47,775 --> 00:06:52,815 wondering, Mike, this sounds like it makes no sense. You 94 00:06:52,815 --> 00:06:53,615 would be correct. 95 00:06:53,615 --> 00:06:57,775 You cannot get these deals direct from the homepage, so 96 00:06:57,775 --> 00:07:02,940 check the links in the show notes to see our $4, $7 tier and 97 00:07:02,940 --> 00:07:08,780 our $4, $12 tier. Get in on these holiday savings. Okay. 98 00:07:08,780 --> 00:07:10,860 That's the news I have for you this week. In this episode, 99 00:07:10,860 --> 00:07:14,060 Audrey talks with digital DIYer Drew Lighten. 100 00:07:14,060 --> 00:07:19,565 But first, once a year, for just a few hours, the lake in front 101 00:07:19,565 --> 00:07:26,445 of Hans' dad's house makes this secret sound, and it happened 102 00:07:26,445 --> 00:07:31,245 again just this week. So in our interstitials in this episode, 103 00:07:32,490 --> 00:07:34,090 lake laser gun. 104 00:07:36,090 --> 00:07:38,650 Hans Buetow: How cold do you think it is right now? Seven 105 00:07:38,650 --> 00:07:42,570 degrees. Is that for real? It was seven earlier. It's probably 106 00:07:42,570 --> 00:07:43,530 warmer now. 107 00:07:44,330 --> 00:07:45,450 Amy: It's probably eight. 108 00:07:48,625 --> 00:07:53,585 Hans Buetow: So what happened last night? The wind went down, 109 00:07:53,585 --> 00:07:55,745 and it got down to seven degrees, and it froze. Although, 110 00:07:55,745 --> 00:07:58,705 there you can see can see here, there's still a few open places. 111 00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:02,400 So you can see through the ice. You can't step on it. 112 00:08:02,400 --> 00:08:03,520 You can't walk on it. 113 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:05,920 So we actually if we tap. 114 00:08:10,560 --> 00:08:15,565 So it's still thin, fresh, and it's one day window of making 115 00:08:15,565 --> 00:08:21,485 noises should be open. It should sound good. Okay. Okay. Here we 116 00:08:21,485 --> 00:08:21,645 go. 117 00:08:21,645 --> 00:08:46,725 Let me just get the get the volume up. So I throw the rocks 118 00:08:46,725 --> 00:08:49,685 sort of level with, like, as if I were skipping a rock, and the 119 00:08:49,685 --> 00:08:52,245 rock obviously doesn't go through the ice. It just skips 120 00:08:52,245 --> 00:08:55,850 across the top. And as it gets further and further out, it 121 00:08:55,850 --> 00:08:59,610 makes more of a resonant sound, which only happens one day of 122 00:08:59,610 --> 00:09:13,585 the year when it freezes. How big of a rock do you you can get 123 00:09:13,585 --> 00:09:14,705 get out there? 124 00:09:15,185 --> 00:09:18,145 Oh, they're about half inch. This these are three quarter. 125 00:09:18,145 --> 00:09:21,950 These two are three quarter of an inch, and they're pretty easy 126 00:09:21,950 --> 00:09:24,510 to toss. They don't need to be flat like a skipping stone. They 127 00:09:24,510 --> 00:09:25,630 can be round as better. 128 00:09:53,510 --> 00:09:56,470 Audrey Evans: Hello, friends. This is producer Audrey, Never 129 00:09:56,470 --> 00:09:59,830 Post resident librarian and researcher. You don't often hear 130 00:09:59,830 --> 00:10:02,565 my voice on the podcast, but I'm one of the people behind the 131 00:10:02,565 --> 00:10:06,245 scenes helping to frame and shape the segments. In our 132 00:10:06,245 --> 00:10:09,685 behind the scenes editorial conversations, we think a lot 133 00:10:09,685 --> 00:10:14,040 about how to trace where power resides in our relationship to 134 00:10:14,040 --> 00:10:17,560 technology and how technology shifts our relationships to 135 00:10:17,560 --> 00:10:20,280 ourselves and each other, how the physical infrastructure 136 00:10:20,280 --> 00:10:24,360 influences and obscures some of these dynamics. And we think 137 00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:28,360 about how we, in turn, unveil, shape, and interrogate these 138 00:10:28,360 --> 00:10:31,245 systems, both individually and collectively. 139 00:10:31,485 --> 00:10:34,365 I am really interested in stories about people who are 140 00:10:34,365 --> 00:10:39,005 engaging with these questions directly. So I was really lucky 141 00:10:39,005 --> 00:10:42,285 recently to have a conversation with Drew Leighton. He's a 142 00:10:42,285 --> 00:10:46,140 software engineer, blogger, and all around really fun guy to 143 00:10:46,140 --> 00:10:50,540 chat with. We found Drew through a blog post with the subtitle, 144 00:10:50,940 --> 00:10:53,500 in a world where corporations have detached buying from 145 00:10:53,500 --> 00:10:57,775 owning, one man attempts to do something radical, build his own 146 00:10:57,775 --> 00:11:02,655 cloud. I was really excited to hear the story of Drew because 147 00:11:02,655 --> 00:11:06,095 he's engaging really directly with this question in his own 148 00:11:06,095 --> 00:11:09,695 home, in his own life, and I wanted to hear what he's 149 00:11:09,695 --> 00:11:10,255 learned. 150 00:11:10,255 --> 00:11:13,940 Spoiler, He did end up here. 151 00:11:14,020 --> 00:11:18,020 Drew Lyton: I think that this is not something I would recommend 152 00:11:18,020 --> 00:11:23,540 to most people nor is a future that I think I personally am 153 00:11:23,540 --> 00:11:24,340 going to fight for. 154 00:11:24,615 --> 00:11:40,290 Audrey Evans: But this is where we started. Hi, Drew. 155 00:11:40,290 --> 00:11:41,170 Drew Lyton: How's it going? 156 00:11:41,170 --> 00:11:45,410 Audrey Evans: Going great. I want you to, if you could, tell 157 00:11:45,410 --> 00:11:47,570 us your name and who you are. 158 00:11:48,130 --> 00:11:52,610 Drew Lyton: Cool. So my name is Drew Lighten. I'm a software 159 00:11:52,610 --> 00:11:57,275 engineer and a blogger. I write code, and I write a blog about 160 00:11:57,275 --> 00:11:57,915 code. 161 00:11:58,315 --> 00:12:02,715 Audrey Evans: Perfect. So I'm gonna drop us in here in a in a 162 00:12:02,715 --> 00:12:08,020 big picture question first. What is the cloud? 163 00:12:16,180 --> 00:12:20,485 Drew Lyton: Totally. I think that to understand what we mean 164 00:12:20,485 --> 00:12:24,485 when we say the cloud, it's important to know, like, what 165 00:12:24,485 --> 00:12:28,405 physically the cloud is. What the cloud is is actually just a 166 00:12:28,405 --> 00:12:32,405 series of computers that are usually racked in big data 167 00:12:32,405 --> 00:12:36,560 centers all across the world that all can communicate to each 168 00:12:36,560 --> 00:12:41,440 other extremely fast to be able to do, like, distributed 169 00:12:41,440 --> 00:12:47,280 processing of, like, computer stuff that allows you and me to 170 00:12:47,280 --> 00:12:52,465 access the data that exists on all of those computers in a 171 00:12:52,465 --> 00:12:54,785 fast, reliable, and efficient way. 172 00:12:55,025 --> 00:12:58,945 Audrey Evans: Thank you so much. That's very helpful. The cloud 173 00:12:58,945 --> 00:13:03,000 sounds so soft and fluffy and innocent, but it's really all 174 00:13:03,000 --> 00:13:05,080 metal wires and fans. 175 00:13:05,320 --> 00:13:10,040 Drew Lyton: Yes. Metals metal wires, fans, loud electricity 176 00:13:10,440 --> 00:13:15,000 with very few people really, like, touching the actual 177 00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:20,725 computer part. And then a lot a lot of code and, like, 178 00:13:20,725 --> 00:13:24,485 infrastructure tooling that allows developers like me to 179 00:13:24,485 --> 00:13:27,685 kind of be completely abstracted away from the physical part of 180 00:13:27,685 --> 00:13:33,430 the Internet. The fluffiness is that. It's that I, as a person 181 00:13:33,430 --> 00:13:37,270 that makes stuff on the Internet, don't have to think at 182 00:13:37,270 --> 00:13:40,950 all about the hardware, and I just get to think about the 183 00:13:40,950 --> 00:13:41,990 thing that I'm making. 184 00:13:41,990 --> 00:13:46,455 And same with people on the other side, like you and me, 185 00:13:46,455 --> 00:13:49,895 people that also consume applications, it feels fluffy 186 00:13:49,895 --> 00:13:51,895 and nice because we don't have to deal with any of the 187 00:13:51,895 --> 00:13:52,535 management. 188 00:13:53,095 --> 00:13:56,135 Audrey Evans: I want you to take me back to early autumn of last 189 00:13:56,135 --> 00:14:02,330 year. And what was sort of the ecology of your cloud services 190 00:14:02,330 --> 00:14:06,410 storage apps? What was your life like in relationship to the 191 00:14:06,410 --> 00:14:07,850 cloud last year? 192 00:14:07,850 --> 00:14:12,170 Drew Lyton: Yeah. So last year, I was kind of taking stock of 193 00:14:12,170 --> 00:14:18,165 my, like, digital tools and found myself kinda like most 194 00:14:18,165 --> 00:14:21,285 people just thinking about all of the subscription services 195 00:14:21,285 --> 00:14:24,645 that I had gained over the years. I've got Audible for 196 00:14:24,645 --> 00:14:29,300 audiobooks. I've got my Kindle books hosted with Amazon. We're 197 00:14:29,300 --> 00:14:31,140 paying for Netflix and HBO. 198 00:14:31,300 --> 00:14:34,500 All of these, like, media services that we are paying a 199 00:14:34,500 --> 00:14:39,140 flat fee for, like, a few shows that we really like. And I just 200 00:14:39,140 --> 00:14:45,695 realized for the first time that I was living in a world where I 201 00:14:46,335 --> 00:14:50,815 essentially owned nothing and was paying for the privilege of 202 00:14:50,815 --> 00:14:55,420 being able to access stuff that in some cases, I had even 203 00:14:55,420 --> 00:14:55,980 bought. 204 00:14:56,140 --> 00:14:58,380 Audrey Evans: And they can take it away at any time. 205 00:14:58,380 --> 00:15:01,260 Drew Lyton: Not only can they take it away at any time, they 206 00:15:01,260 --> 00:15:06,460 can also completely change the terms of that rental agreement. 207 00:15:06,895 --> 00:15:10,495 Whereas like, in most states, there's like renters rights for 208 00:15:10,495 --> 00:15:13,855 your house. There aren't really renters rights for the stuff 209 00:15:13,855 --> 00:15:16,815 that you access on the Internet. That's true. 210 00:15:16,815 --> 00:15:19,135 Audrey Evans: How did this make you feel? What was your dominant 211 00:15:19,135 --> 00:15:21,775 emotion? Or there could be a palette of emotions here. 212 00:15:22,620 --> 00:15:27,740 Drew Lyton: Obviously, felt icky. But really what it felt 213 00:15:27,740 --> 00:15:32,620 like is that I was in this power dynamic between me and the 214 00:15:32,620 --> 00:15:39,395 company where the company is providing me space that I rent 215 00:15:39,395 --> 00:15:44,355 from them. And then on top of it all, thinking of about how all 216 00:15:44,355 --> 00:15:46,755 of these companies are also, like, sucking up our data and 217 00:15:46,755 --> 00:15:51,475 then selling it back to, like, advertisers and stuff. Not only 218 00:15:51,475 --> 00:15:55,140 am I renting the ability to access things that I'm supposed 219 00:15:55,140 --> 00:15:59,380 to own while accessing the thing I'm supposed to own, they're 220 00:15:59,380 --> 00:16:05,140 taxing me even more for it. It felt like I was in some sort of 221 00:16:05,375 --> 00:16:10,735 feudalistic techno dystopia where these corporations are 222 00:16:10,735 --> 00:16:15,535 landlords and I'm a serf with no power and no freedom. 223 00:16:16,095 --> 00:16:18,735 Yeah. So I was taking stock of this relationship I have where 224 00:16:18,735 --> 00:16:22,420 essentially everything I own is rented space from companies like 225 00:16:22,420 --> 00:16:28,980 HBO, Netflix, Amazon, like Audible. And then I received an 226 00:16:28,980 --> 00:16:34,020 email like many other Kindle customers from Amazon saying 227 00:16:34,020 --> 00:16:38,625 that the Kindle platform would no longer be supporting this 228 00:16:38,625 --> 00:16:43,025 feature that allowed you to download and back up copies of 229 00:16:43,025 --> 00:16:47,910 your books. So receiving this announcement from Amazon saying 230 00:16:47,910 --> 00:16:51,030 that they were deprecating that feature and that the only way 231 00:16:51,190 --> 00:16:54,630 that I and millions of Kindle customers would be able to 232 00:16:54,630 --> 00:16:58,710 access their books would now be through the Kindle app or the 233 00:16:59,030 --> 00:17:05,195 Kindle device did not sit super well with me. So I wrote a 234 00:17:05,195 --> 00:17:12,955 script actually to scrape the Amazon library, like, page where 235 00:17:12,955 --> 00:17:16,155 you get to view and download your books because they don't 236 00:17:15,930 --> 00:17:17,610 they didn't give you a bulk download. 237 00:17:17,610 --> 00:17:21,530 You had to do this individually. So after downloading all my 238 00:17:21,530 --> 00:17:25,770 books, I decided to try to explore alternatives. 239 00:17:25,850 --> 00:17:29,290 Audrey Evans: So you are a highly technical person. 240 00:17:29,450 --> 00:17:29,850 Drew Lyton: Mhmm. 241 00:17:29,850 --> 00:17:30,570 Audrey Evans: What did you do? 242 00:17:31,165 --> 00:17:36,445 Drew Lyton: I know that there are a lot of people in what's 243 00:17:36,445 --> 00:17:41,565 called, like, the self hosted community where they use open 244 00:17:41,565 --> 00:17:47,400 source alternatives to popular cloud platforms and and run it 245 00:17:47,400 --> 00:17:50,920 themselves on their own own server at home. So when we were 246 00:17:50,920 --> 00:17:56,840 talking before about what is the cloud, they basically decide to, 247 00:17:56,840 --> 00:18:00,935 with a fleet of tools and a lot of technical work, build their 248 00:18:00,935 --> 00:18:07,255 own cloud in their house. And because I'm a person that was 249 00:18:07,255 --> 00:18:11,655 dealing kind of with this, like, feeling of a lack of control and 250 00:18:11,655 --> 00:18:15,240 also someone with the technical skills to believe that I could 251 00:18:15,240 --> 00:18:18,920 gain back that control, I dove straight into this community, 252 00:18:18,920 --> 00:18:22,440 tried to learn as much as possible, and ended up actually 253 00:18:22,440 --> 00:18:27,185 building something that my wife and I can use to self host and 254 00:18:27,185 --> 00:18:29,265 replace a lot of cloud services. 255 00:18:29,345 --> 00:18:33,185 Audrey Evans: I love this. And I love I'm Is this a collaborative 256 00:18:33,185 --> 00:18:35,505 project between you and your wife? 257 00:18:35,665 --> 00:18:37,105 Drew Lyton: This is so interesting. 258 00:18:37,105 --> 00:18:39,580 Audrey Evans: How does that relationship work? Because it's 259 00:18:39,580 --> 00:18:41,020 a very specific kind of 260 00:18:41,180 --> 00:18:41,580 Drew Lyton: Mhmm. 261 00:18:41,580 --> 00:18:43,580 Audrey Evans: Technical choice you've made as a couple. 262 00:18:43,740 --> 00:18:48,060 Drew Lyton: Yes. I think that I had really maybe naively 263 00:18:48,060 --> 00:18:53,665 optimistic hopes that this would be rather easy to do. Like, I 264 00:18:53,665 --> 00:18:57,105 have a lot of technical skills about how to deploy software 265 00:18:57,265 --> 00:19:01,985 that I figured would match pretty well one to one. What I 266 00:19:02,305 --> 00:19:06,145 didn't expect is the amount of complexity that can come when 267 00:19:06,145 --> 00:19:12,450 you try to build a home server that is accessible via the 268 00:19:12,450 --> 00:19:17,250 normal Internet that isn't public. Like, I didn't want all 269 00:19:17,250 --> 00:19:21,730 of my, like, cloud hosted services, my, like, personal 270 00:19:21,730 --> 00:19:27,485 Google Photos, our personal ebook library to be accessible 271 00:19:27,485 --> 00:19:30,365 to anyone who knew any sort of login credential. 272 00:19:30,525 --> 00:19:34,445 I wanted to make sure that it was as firewalled as possible 273 00:19:34,845 --> 00:19:39,245 for both the security of our stuff and also our home Internet 274 00:19:39,620 --> 00:19:43,780 and still have the convenience of being able to be on a, like, 275 00:19:43,780 --> 00:19:48,500 five g network and be able to back up a video I just took of 276 00:19:48,500 --> 00:19:53,735 our new baby. I think that was the kind of requirements 277 00:19:53,735 --> 00:19:58,935 analysis that ended up being more difficult than making a 278 00:19:58,935 --> 00:20:02,855 really clean UI experience, which a lot of these tools kinda 279 00:20:02,855 --> 00:20:08,880 give to you out of the box just by nature of how invested a lot 280 00:20:08,880 --> 00:20:12,240 of these open source communities are around making these tools as 281 00:20:12,240 --> 00:20:13,200 good as possible. 282 00:20:13,600 --> 00:20:16,240 Audrey Evans: I think we're ready for the technical. 283 00:20:16,240 --> 00:20:16,800 Drew Lyton: Sure. 284 00:20:16,800 --> 00:20:20,320 Audrey Evans: I think I'm ready to let it wash over me and enjoy 285 00:20:20,320 --> 00:20:20,560 it. 286 00:20:21,745 --> 00:20:22,625 Drew Lyton: Okay. Okay. Okay. 287 00:20:22,625 --> 00:20:25,425 Audrey Evans: So once you've made the decision, what's the 288 00:20:25,425 --> 00:20:28,225 first thing you did? Where did you start? And then talk us 289 00:20:28,225 --> 00:20:31,265 through what bits and pieces you bought and assembled. How did 290 00:20:31,265 --> 00:20:32,065 you do this? 291 00:20:32,385 --> 00:20:37,520 Drew Lyton: Cool. I bought a Lenovo p five twenty, which is a 292 00:20:37,520 --> 00:20:41,280 decommissioned server grade computer that has a 3.7 293 00:20:41,280 --> 00:20:45,520 gigahertz Intel Xeon processor with a 128 gigabytes of RAM, 294 00:20:45,760 --> 00:20:49,615 which I then installed a GTX sixteen sixty Ti graphics card 295 00:20:49,615 --> 00:20:53,775 with six gigabytes of VRAM into so that I could do quick audio 296 00:20:53,775 --> 00:20:58,815 and video encoding. I flashed a 500 gigabyte SSD with Proxmox, 297 00:20:58,815 --> 00:21:02,620 which is a hypervisor sort of software package, and set up 298 00:21:02,620 --> 00:21:06,940 four eight terabyte hard drives in a merger FS pool with 299 00:21:06,940 --> 00:21:10,460 SnapRaid, which allowed me to have drive parity in case one of 300 00:21:10,460 --> 00:21:14,060 them failed. And then I added a two terabyte NVMe SSD to use as 301 00:21:14,060 --> 00:21:17,145 a storage cache. That's the hardware. 302 00:21:17,145 --> 00:21:20,825 After that, I installed the Tailscale, which is a really 303 00:21:20,825 --> 00:21:27,625 great VPN, client, and created an Ubuntu LXC container, which 304 00:21:27,625 --> 00:21:31,160 is like a virtual environment running Linux, which I installed 305 00:21:31,160 --> 00:21:34,680 the Tailscale and Docker onto that virtual machine, pulled 306 00:21:34,680 --> 00:21:37,960 down a GitHub repo that I had made that set up a bunch of 307 00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:41,400 Docker Compose files, which is another way of doing virtual 308 00:21:42,440 --> 00:21:45,705 virtualization for running apps. And then I hacked into the 309 00:21:45,705 --> 00:21:50,425 mainframe and ran Docker Compose up d, and finally, all of my 310 00:21:50,425 --> 00:21:53,065 stuff was done. Yes. 311 00:21:55,145 --> 00:21:58,650 Audrey Evans: I feel I feel that I knew, like, half of the things 312 00:21:58,650 --> 00:22:05,210 you said. So what did you have at the end of all of this 313 00:22:05,210 --> 00:22:05,930 tinkering? 314 00:22:05,930 --> 00:22:08,490 Drew Lyton: So at the end of it all, I had four open source 315 00:22:08,490 --> 00:22:12,010 alternatives to popular cloud hosted apps that my wife and I 316 00:22:12,010 --> 00:22:14,735 had been using. One of them is called Image, which is a 317 00:22:14,735 --> 00:22:19,135 complete clone of Google Photos that has a mobile app, great 318 00:22:19,135 --> 00:22:22,655 organization, and backup features. It has local machine 319 00:22:22,655 --> 00:22:26,815 learning for, like, photo based search similar to what you'd get 320 00:22:26,815 --> 00:22:31,590 through iCloud or Google Photos. I had an ebook library 321 00:22:31,590 --> 00:22:36,710 management tool called Calibre or Calibre Web that allows you 322 00:22:36,710 --> 00:22:41,030 to organize backup EPUB files and with some, like, clever 323 00:22:41,030 --> 00:22:46,395 hacking, actually have them appear wirelessly on your Kobo 324 00:22:46,395 --> 00:22:51,435 or Kindle device. I had an audiobook library tool called 325 00:22:51,435 --> 00:22:55,755 Audio Bookshelf, which is another just open source version 326 00:22:55,755 --> 00:22:57,280 of Audible. 327 00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:01,840 And it also has this fun feature that lets you treat audiobooks 328 00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:07,040 like podcasts. So you can have, like, RSS feeds of audiobooks 329 00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:11,025 that make them all the chapters appear as different files as if 330 00:23:11,025 --> 00:23:13,985 they're, like, in a podcast, which is very cool. And the last 331 00:23:13,985 --> 00:23:18,705 one is an open source alternative to, like, Netflix or 332 00:23:18,705 --> 00:23:22,545 Disney plus called Jellyfin, which is just a streaming 333 00:23:22,545 --> 00:23:25,505 service to watch home home videos or legally acquired 334 00:23:25,505 --> 00:23:32,120 movies and TV. And the entire computer, I also use as, like, a 335 00:23:32,120 --> 00:23:36,680 NAS, a network attached storage device so that my wife and I can 336 00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:40,600 back up our computers and that I can access all of my, like, 337 00:23:40,805 --> 00:23:45,445 swathes of video files and not have to pay Google a gazillion 338 00:23:45,445 --> 00:23:47,365 dollars to back up all that stuff for me. 339 00:23:47,365 --> 00:23:50,245 Audrey Evans: Beautiful. I'm so proud of you. I just met you, 340 00:23:50,245 --> 00:23:51,525 but I'm proud. I'm proud of 341 00:23:51,525 --> 00:23:52,405 Drew Lyton: you. Thanks. 342 00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:59,400 Audrey Evans: Do you remember the first time you turned it on 343 00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:00,440 and it worked? 344 00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:04,440 Drew Lyton: I remember so the first time that I booted 345 00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:08,040 everything up after installing all the hardware is always like 346 00:24:08,040 --> 00:24:13,855 a scary time. Because when you're sitting in a room with 347 00:24:13,935 --> 00:24:18,655 the side panel off of a decommissioned server that's ten 348 00:24:18,655 --> 00:24:22,335 or twelve years old, and you bought it on eBay and you have 349 00:24:22,335 --> 00:24:25,720 no idea how well someone took care of this thing. And then 350 00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:30,280 you've sat there with all of your random woodworking tools to 351 00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:34,760 try to precisely install a bunch of hard drives that cost you a 352 00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:39,335 lot of money. And and also, like, that's that's scary. And 353 00:24:39,335 --> 00:24:42,935 when the thing boots up and does some horrible beep because 354 00:24:43,095 --> 00:24:45,655 computer manufacturers don't care how you feel when you turn 355 00:24:45,655 --> 00:24:49,095 on a computer, and you don't know whether that beep was good 356 00:24:49,095 --> 00:24:49,415 or bad. 357 00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:53,200 Right. But it turns out to be good and it just shows up on 358 00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:57,040 your display and you can start installing software, that's that 359 00:24:57,040 --> 00:25:01,040 is a magic moment. Because at least for me, someone that sits 360 00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:05,435 on the software side of technical stuff, the being done 361 00:25:05,435 --> 00:25:08,555 with the hardware aspect is always a really nice feeling. 362 00:25:09,115 --> 00:25:14,315 The first time that I actually booted up the applications, 363 00:25:14,315 --> 00:25:15,675 which I did in stages. Right? 364 00:25:15,675 --> 00:25:19,520 Like, I started with Calibre, installing this application that 365 00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:24,880 I had never run before. And also with the added complexity of, 366 00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:28,800 like, it's sitting on a computer that doesn't have a monitor 367 00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:33,105 because it's a server. That was cool to see it appear in my 368 00:25:33,105 --> 00:25:36,145 browser and, like, be able to log in and start setting this 369 00:25:36,145 --> 00:25:42,625 up. Exciting moment. The second exciting moment was when I did 370 00:25:42,625 --> 00:25:47,880 the giant library dump from Google where I downloaded our 371 00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:51,160 entire Google Photos library, which was over three terabytes 372 00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:57,400 of photos and videos, and ran this crazy amazing tool that 373 00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,675 someone in the open source community had made that takes 374 00:26:00,755 --> 00:26:05,635 your Google archive, which are these massive, like, 50 gigabyte 375 00:26:05,635 --> 00:26:11,235 zip files and pulls out all of the media, pulls all out all the 376 00:26:11,235 --> 00:26:15,510 metadata, converts it to something that Image can read 377 00:26:15,510 --> 00:26:18,310 and use, and uploads it all to its database. 378 00:26:18,710 --> 00:26:24,710 And that took, I think, around six hours. And then all of my 379 00:26:24,710 --> 00:26:31,875 stuff appeared on my phone in a way that I had not really 380 00:26:31,875 --> 00:26:38,595 experienced before because it's like when you move house and 381 00:26:38,675 --> 00:26:43,400 you're seeing things that you knew you had but have not looked 382 00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:46,760 at in a while, that was this experience moving everything to 383 00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:50,600 a self hosted server, a digital move in a literal and a 384 00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:54,200 figurative sense. And so you're unpacking boxes and you're 385 00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:56,600 trying to make sure that everything survived the move. 386 00:26:56,805 --> 00:27:00,165 And in that way, you're re experiencing a lot of your your 387 00:27:00,165 --> 00:27:01,205 digital archive. 388 00:27:01,205 --> 00:27:04,085 Audrey Evans: Beautiful. You'd be a great librarian. 389 00:27:07,685 --> 00:27:09,445 Drew Lyton: I think I'm too disorganized. But 390 00:27:09,925 --> 00:27:13,285 Audrey Evans: I don't think so. Not based on what I've heard so 391 00:27:12,780 --> 00:27:13,260 far. 392 00:27:13,900 --> 00:27:16,220 Drew Lyton: Yeah. You're seeing the most pristine part of my 393 00:27:16,220 --> 00:27:16,860 office. So 394 00:27:19,740 --> 00:27:22,860 Audrey Evans: Well, also the the values and the and the care that 395 00:27:22,860 --> 00:27:27,900 you have in your relationship to intentionality with technology 396 00:27:27,900 --> 00:27:30,525 is is very librarian coded. 397 00:27:30,765 --> 00:27:34,525 Drew Lyton: This moment of bringing everything from 398 00:27:34,525 --> 00:27:39,085 Google's cloud down to my own server, what reminded me of 399 00:27:39,085 --> 00:27:45,460 that, like, ah, this is me really doing the work to curate, 400 00:27:45,540 --> 00:27:53,700 maintain, and keep a durable backup personal archive of my 401 00:27:53,700 --> 00:27:57,765 stuff and, like, who I am and who my wife and I are at this 402 00:27:57,765 --> 00:28:02,885 moment in time and in our past. Yeah. It it was like a powerful 403 00:28:02,885 --> 00:28:08,740 moment of reflection and, like, wow factor. Like, woah. Wouldn't 404 00:28:08,740 --> 00:28:13,300 it be so crazy if everyone had access to do something like 405 00:28:13,300 --> 00:28:13,860 this? 406 00:28:14,180 --> 00:28:18,580 And almost an immediate acknowledgment that, like, this 407 00:28:18,580 --> 00:28:19,300 is not the way. 408 00:28:47,655 --> 00:28:51,255 Audrey Evans: Do you feel comfortable sharing what room 409 00:28:51,255 --> 00:28:53,015 you self host in? 410 00:28:53,255 --> 00:29:01,440 Drew Lyton: Yeah. So we live in not a super large townhouse. So 411 00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:06,080 our computer, our self hosted server is actually right next to 412 00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:07,760 our couch in our living room. 413 00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:10,480 Audrey Evans: Can you hear it? 414 00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:13,280 Drew Lyton: Fortunately, you cannot hear it, really. There's, 415 00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:16,595 like, a little bit of humming and, like, beeps and boops, you 416 00:29:16,595 --> 00:29:19,715 know, like, of a normal old computer that's kind of running 417 00:29:19,715 --> 00:29:23,795 in your house, but not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, 418 00:29:24,115 --> 00:29:26,995 which was also part of the requirement for me and my wife 419 00:29:26,995 --> 00:29:31,390 is that we want this. We want our home to not feel like a data 420 00:29:31,390 --> 00:29:33,230 center. Yeah. Yeah. 421 00:29:33,230 --> 00:29:38,110 Big part of it. Exactly. In terms of location, it made the 422 00:29:38,110 --> 00:29:40,430 most sense to put it in our living room mostly because 423 00:29:40,430 --> 00:29:42,785 that's where our Wi Fi router router is. So 424 00:29:43,105 --> 00:29:46,545 Audrey Evans: I love knowing painting the picture of of what 425 00:29:46,545 --> 00:29:49,905 does this actually look and feel like to do something like this 426 00:29:49,905 --> 00:29:53,345 in your actual home. And that you you see it, you interact 427 00:29:53,345 --> 00:29:56,570 with it as an object constantly. 428 00:29:56,970 --> 00:30:00,490 Drew Lyton: And not yeah. And to color that even more. So the 429 00:30:00,490 --> 00:30:03,770 computer that is running all of our services that is sitting in 430 00:30:03,770 --> 00:30:07,290 our living room, like, just chugging away twenty four seven 431 00:30:07,290 --> 00:30:12,945 is also a thing that I use to, like, put my coffee on in the 432 00:30:12,945 --> 00:30:15,185 morning when I'm sitting on the couch. Like, this is a real 433 00:30:15,185 --> 00:30:19,345 piece of technology that exists almost as decor, as useful 434 00:30:19,345 --> 00:30:23,905 furniture in in the physical realm as much as in the digital. 435 00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:27,600 Audrey Evans: Is there, like, a particular day in the life of 436 00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:31,920 hosting your own server that you that is an interesting day? 437 00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:34,640 Drew Lyton: So in the day to day, I think that it's set up 438 00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:38,160 well enough that I don't think about it. Like, I have image on 439 00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:42,035 my phone and it looks I'm looking at it right now and it 440 00:30:42,035 --> 00:30:44,835 looks identical to Google Photos. It's currently backing 441 00:30:44,835 --> 00:30:48,995 up all the photos that I took, like, a few minutes ago. And so 442 00:30:48,995 --> 00:30:54,970 in general, I think it's pretty hands off where on the non 443 00:30:54,970 --> 00:30:59,690 normal days where I I do have to think about it, the day to day 444 00:30:59,690 --> 00:31:03,450 experience is me going into the terminal, SSH ing into my 445 00:31:03,450 --> 00:31:09,325 server, and reading logs of the, like, Docker files that are 446 00:31:09,325 --> 00:31:12,125 running and trying to figure out why something broke, what went 447 00:31:12,125 --> 00:31:16,205 wrong, looking at memory usage graphs, looking at CPU spikes, 448 00:31:16,765 --> 00:31:19,950 trying to understand why randomly my graphics card 449 00:31:19,950 --> 00:31:23,790 disconnected from the entire Linux container, you know. But 450 00:31:23,790 --> 00:31:26,670 that stuff is pretty few and far between now. 451 00:31:26,990 --> 00:31:31,550 It's both much more stable and much less stable than I think I 452 00:31:31,550 --> 00:31:33,950 thought at the beginning, like in different ways. 453 00:31:34,270 --> 00:31:40,405 Audrey Evans: Okay. Yeah. So how does this self hosted experience 454 00:31:40,405 --> 00:31:45,925 feel compared to your rented cloud experience? 455 00:31:46,085 --> 00:31:49,320 Drew Lyton: All in all, I think that these open source 456 00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:54,440 alternatives provide a pretty good one to one to cloud based 457 00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:59,000 options. A lot of them don't have as clean or as modern of a 458 00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:04,595 UI as you might want. But things like image and jellyfin, I'd say 459 00:32:04,595 --> 00:32:08,435 are as good, if not better, UI experiences. And a lot of that 460 00:32:08,435 --> 00:32:12,675 has to do with the great work of the open source maintainers who 461 00:32:12,675 --> 00:32:17,950 put in all of the effort to not only make these run well on a 462 00:32:17,950 --> 00:32:22,430 lot of different types of hardware, but also put in a lot 463 00:32:22,430 --> 00:32:25,950 of time and effort into making the experience a good one where 464 00:32:25,950 --> 00:32:30,955 you would wouldn't miss the niceties of having a team of 400 465 00:32:30,955 --> 00:32:34,075 people at Google who spend every waking moment trying to get you 466 00:32:34,075 --> 00:32:35,275 to use Google Photos. 467 00:32:35,835 --> 00:32:40,555 Audrey Evans: Right. Do you think this is a sustainable 468 00:32:40,555 --> 00:32:46,360 choice for you and your wife and and your imminently to be born 469 00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:47,240 new child. 470 00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:47,640 Drew Lyton: Yeah. 471 00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:49,560 Audrey Evans: Yeah. Have you learned anything about your 472 00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:53,720 relationship through collaborating and working Oh. In 473 00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:54,840 this way together? 474 00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:58,645 Drew Lyton: I think we've definitely learned that we're 475 00:32:58,645 --> 00:33:09,445 hoarders. Like, I I think the experience of having to have on 476 00:33:09,445 --> 00:33:14,590 a hard drive in your home all of your important files, documents, 477 00:33:14,670 --> 00:33:22,110 everything is both, like, exciting and also an 478 00:33:22,190 --> 00:33:26,935 acknowledgment of, like, there are only so many resources and 479 00:33:26,935 --> 00:33:32,295 do we really need this video that I shot when I was, like, 18 480 00:33:32,375 --> 00:33:36,535 of me running home from from, like, getting groceries or 481 00:33:36,535 --> 00:33:41,790 whatever. Like like, there is a lot of, I think, feelings of 482 00:33:42,110 --> 00:33:47,150 less separation in terms of our relationship to, like, digital 483 00:33:47,150 --> 00:33:51,550 files and goods being feeling more physical and having a cost, 484 00:33:51,630 --> 00:33:54,030 which is, I think, something we didn't really think of before. 485 00:33:54,485 --> 00:33:58,165 And also means we have to have conversations together about 486 00:33:58,485 --> 00:34:01,605 similar to how you have to have conversations with your partner 487 00:34:01,605 --> 00:34:05,045 about, like, we only have so much closet space, you know? 488 00:34:05,125 --> 00:34:05,525 Yeah. 489 00:34:05,525 --> 00:34:08,405 Yeah. Maybe it's time for us to declutter. Like, you have to 490 00:34:08,405 --> 00:34:12,150 have that now with your digital life Yeah. In a way that you 491 00:34:12,150 --> 00:34:17,030 kind of don't when the the solution is just to throw more 492 00:34:17,030 --> 00:34:18,070 money at the problem. 493 00:34:18,150 --> 00:34:19,270 Audrey Evans: Yeah. Exactly. Pay for 494 00:34:19,270 --> 00:34:19,910 Drew Lyton: more storage. 495 00:34:19,910 --> 00:34:22,790 Audrey Evans: Sometimes friction in relationship can surface 496 00:34:22,790 --> 00:34:24,470 values and opportunities. 497 00:34:24,470 --> 00:34:27,325 Drew Lyton: Yes. Yeah. Exactly. And there are very new 498 00:34:27,325 --> 00:34:32,685 conversations we're having about who is in charge of curating the 499 00:34:32,685 --> 00:34:38,045 digital closet. A new chore that didn't exist before we had a 500 00:34:39,570 --> 00:34:43,330 humming, you know, piece of furniture that stores all of our 501 00:34:43,330 --> 00:34:43,890 digital life. 502 00:34:43,890 --> 00:34:46,370 Audrey Evans: I love this. Well, maybe we'll have to do a part 503 00:34:46,370 --> 00:34:51,410 two with your wife at some point. And the new baby and see 504 00:34:51,570 --> 00:34:55,915 follow-up with you in six months and see how it's all going. 505 00:34:55,995 --> 00:34:58,315 Drew Lyton: Yeah. There is a conversation we've been having 506 00:34:58,475 --> 00:35:02,955 about how does this new, like, piece of furniture, this new 507 00:35:02,955 --> 00:35:07,640 appliance, this tool we have affect, if at all, our kids' 508 00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:10,840 relationship with a computer? And what does this new tool 509 00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:16,680 enable us to do in terms of kind of curating and guiding their 510 00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:20,120 experience through the early stages of learning about the 511 00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:25,465 Internet, where we now have our own little Internet that is, 512 00:35:25,465 --> 00:35:30,985 like, more safe. Right? And, like, private and controlled by 513 00:35:30,985 --> 00:35:31,465 us. 514 00:35:31,705 --> 00:35:36,040 And what does that enable us to do in terms of teaching and 515 00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:38,120 learning about how to use these tools? 516 00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:43,800 Audrey Evans: Did building your own cloud in your house, did it 517 00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:46,200 feel like a radical act? 518 00:35:47,855 --> 00:35:51,455 Drew Lyton: Building a home server and self hosting did feel 519 00:35:52,255 --> 00:35:56,335 like a radical thing to do, mostly because I don't know 520 00:35:56,335 --> 00:36:02,175 anyone else that's done it. And sometimes that makes you feel 521 00:36:02,750 --> 00:36:08,270 like a pioneer. In this case, it made me feel slightly, like, 522 00:36:08,270 --> 00:36:13,630 crazy. Like, there has to be a reason that I don't know anyone 523 00:36:13,630 --> 00:36:15,445 else that is doing this. Yeah. 524 00:36:15,445 --> 00:36:18,645 You know, not to spoil it too much, but there was something. I 525 00:36:18,645 --> 00:36:22,165 was like, this was this was not a trivial thing to do. Yeah. 526 00:36:22,565 --> 00:36:25,125 Audrey Evans: Why do you speculate you don't know anyone 527 00:36:25,125 --> 00:36:26,405 else doing this? 528 00:36:26,645 --> 00:36:29,610 Drew Lyton: I think there's a lot of reasons that people don't 529 00:36:29,610 --> 00:36:34,570 self host ubiquitously. One of them is, for most people, it's 530 00:36:34,570 --> 00:36:38,970 technically inaccessible. Convincing some people I know in 531 00:36:38,970 --> 00:36:43,535 my life to build a computer would be very hard. To convince 532 00:36:43,535 --> 00:36:49,455 them to build a computer that will run hypervisor software, to 533 00:36:49,855 --> 00:36:56,575 run Linux containers with Docker, and have a VPN setup 534 00:36:56,575 --> 00:37:00,370 with Tailscale, that seems impossible. 535 00:37:02,690 --> 00:37:06,450 Audrey Evans: Even as a person who is wants to do all of those 536 00:37:06,450 --> 00:37:09,970 things, the learning curve feels extreme. 537 00:37:10,770 --> 00:37:13,785 Drew Lyton: Yeah. I I think so that that's a big part of it. I 538 00:37:13,785 --> 00:37:17,305 think the technical inaccessibility is probably 80% 539 00:37:17,305 --> 00:37:21,385 of why we don't see more people doing this. I think the other 540 00:37:21,385 --> 00:37:25,705 20% is cost. 541 00:37:26,505 --> 00:37:27,625 Audrey Evans: Okay. Say more. 542 00:37:28,250 --> 00:37:33,370 Drew Lyton: It wasn't cheap to do this. And I did it on a 543 00:37:33,370 --> 00:37:37,050 pretty low budget in comparison to some people in this 544 00:37:37,050 --> 00:37:43,155 community. I bought a twelve year old decommissioned server 545 00:37:43,155 --> 00:37:51,395 off of eBay for around $330 that had, like, a ton of RAM and a 546 00:37:51,395 --> 00:38:00,310 relatively fine CPU. I spent close to, I think, $800 on hard 547 00:38:00,310 --> 00:38:05,350 drives. Now you don't have to do that, but I did that because I 548 00:38:05,350 --> 00:38:07,270 have a lot of video files that I wanted to store. 549 00:38:07,510 --> 00:38:12,235 I bought stuff that you probably wouldn't ever need, like a 550 00:38:12,235 --> 00:38:18,715 graphics card and an NVMe SSD, which is like a very fast hard 551 00:38:18,715 --> 00:38:21,995 drive that you have in, like, your laptop and stuff. All like, 552 00:38:21,995 --> 00:38:25,860 all in all, total cost. And obviously, like, I'm a tech 553 00:38:25,860 --> 00:38:29,380 person and so I had a lot of this stuff lying around from 554 00:38:29,380 --> 00:38:32,900 other projects. But even if you just take the base computer, 555 00:38:32,900 --> 00:38:38,415 like investing $400 in something is not an like a no brainer 556 00:38:38,415 --> 00:38:42,255 decision, especially when you're comparing it to the cost of a 557 00:38:42,255 --> 00:38:46,655 hosted cloud solution, which costs $12 a month. 558 00:38:46,895 --> 00:38:50,255 Audrey Evans: Yeah. Do you think that people should be doing 559 00:38:50,255 --> 00:38:56,190 this? Like, in general, as a general approach to is this the 560 00:38:56,190 --> 00:38:57,390 sort of way forward? 561 00:38:57,470 --> 00:39:03,710 Drew Lyton: Mhmm. I think a world in which everyone is able 562 00:39:03,710 --> 00:39:08,255 to self host all of their own versions of applications and 563 00:39:08,815 --> 00:39:12,095 have, like, complete backups of their digital lives, own their 564 00:39:12,095 --> 00:39:18,110 own data, all of these idealistic ways of using and 565 00:39:18,110 --> 00:39:21,070 experiencing the Internet and making it personal. I think that 566 00:39:21,070 --> 00:39:26,590 vision and that underlying emotion of, like, both freedom 567 00:39:26,590 --> 00:39:32,110 and control totally vibe with me. That's why I did this thing. 568 00:39:33,505 --> 00:39:39,025 And yet, I think that this is not something I would recommend 569 00:39:39,025 --> 00:39:44,545 to most people nor is a future that I think I personally am 570 00:39:44,545 --> 00:39:45,745 going to fight for. 571 00:39:46,225 --> 00:39:50,690 And the reason is that I think that it creates a kind of 572 00:39:50,690 --> 00:39:56,130 suburban Internet where alongside your lawnmower and 573 00:39:56,130 --> 00:40:00,050 your car, you have a server that you have to maintain and take 574 00:40:00,050 --> 00:40:03,765 care of. I think that that's a really inefficient use of 575 00:40:03,765 --> 00:40:09,685 resources, is technically inaccessible for most people, 576 00:40:10,645 --> 00:40:16,350 and gets rid of a lot of the great stuff about the cloud. 577 00:40:17,310 --> 00:40:17,790 Audrey Evans: Yes. 578 00:40:17,790 --> 00:40:22,750 Drew Lyton: The cloud is this, like, abstraction away from this 579 00:40:22,750 --> 00:40:29,470 very complicated thing of figuring out how do I connect 580 00:40:30,335 --> 00:40:37,535 myself to data and information and files that are backed up and 581 00:40:37,535 --> 00:40:41,775 distributed and cached and all these things that make it super 582 00:40:41,775 --> 00:40:47,940 fast and simple and easy to do. That infrastructure is really a 583 00:40:48,260 --> 00:40:52,660 feat of engineering and is something that we really benefit 584 00:40:52,660 --> 00:40:56,820 from and shouldn't be a requirement for everyone to try 585 00:40:56,820 --> 00:41:01,245 to recreate for themselves. Yeah. I think, like, one of the 586 00:41:01,325 --> 00:41:06,045 fundamental problems with this vision of a completely self 587 00:41:06,045 --> 00:41:11,965 hosted future is that it assumes that isolated independent 588 00:41:11,965 --> 00:41:18,760 systems are virtuous. But, really, isolated independent 589 00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:21,080 systems are really inconvenient. 590 00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:29,825 Like, self hosting is, yeah, like, personalized and private 591 00:41:29,825 --> 00:41:35,985 and individual. But how then are we supposed to be able to have, 592 00:41:36,785 --> 00:41:42,225 like, photo albums that are shared amongst you and me if 593 00:41:41,900 --> 00:41:45,660 both of ours, like, the the amount of technological 594 00:41:45,660 --> 00:41:49,660 infrastructure we would have to create and that I'm I know 595 00:41:49,660 --> 00:41:52,620 people in this community are working on with, like, peer to 596 00:41:52,620 --> 00:41:58,515 peer networking and distributed, like like, protocols, that all 597 00:41:58,515 --> 00:42:04,915 seems cool. And, also, I think the easier and maybe more long 598 00:42:04,915 --> 00:42:09,075 term beneficial approach is that rather than us all owning our 599 00:42:09,075 --> 00:42:12,035 own clouds, we should just own the cloud. 600 00:42:12,780 --> 00:42:17,260 Audrey Evans: Yeah. So that's my that's my exact question for you 601 00:42:17,260 --> 00:42:21,820 is if we don't want to pay a corporate entity to, you know, 602 00:42:21,820 --> 00:42:25,740 rent cloud storage and building our own personal cloud is maybe 603 00:42:25,740 --> 00:42:29,135 not an option or even a desirable future as you've 604 00:42:29,295 --> 00:42:34,175 listed out for us reasons why not. Could you talk us through 605 00:42:34,415 --> 00:42:38,335 another vision of maybe building a communal shared Internet 606 00:42:38,335 --> 00:42:42,430 infrastructure? What would a community hosted cloud look 607 00:42:42,430 --> 00:42:43,710 like? How would it work? 608 00:42:43,710 --> 00:42:46,590 What would need to happen for us to get there? 609 00:42:47,390 --> 00:42:52,590 Drew Lyton: Yeah. I would love to imagine a world where along 610 00:42:52,590 --> 00:42:56,795 with your library card like, when you register to get a 611 00:42:56,795 --> 00:43:01,835 library card in your town, you also get access to, like, a 100 612 00:43:01,835 --> 00:43:07,355 gigabytes of file storage and access to a, like, publicly 613 00:43:07,355 --> 00:43:11,210 hosted, like, photo sharing platform, Google Drive 614 00:43:11,210 --> 00:43:17,050 alternative, that that vision seems unattainable until you 615 00:43:17,050 --> 00:43:23,370 realize that many corporations, nonprofit organizations, 616 00:43:24,415 --> 00:43:30,495 schools, all already provide that to their constituents. This 617 00:43:30,495 --> 00:43:35,455 idea that having some sort of public infrastructure to be able 618 00:43:35,455 --> 00:43:38,660 to provide services on the Internet that are more web two 619 00:43:38,660 --> 00:43:41,300 point o than web one point o, the idea that that's 620 00:43:41,300 --> 00:43:46,980 inaccessible, I think is wrong. The same process that I went 621 00:43:46,980 --> 00:43:51,935 through to set up a server in my house to have my wife and I be 622 00:43:51,935 --> 00:43:56,015 able to back up our photos, access our media. This is the 623 00:43:56,015 --> 00:44:00,495 same system that could be used amongst a community of people to 624 00:44:00,495 --> 00:44:06,310 have one or multiple servers or even set up hosted solutions in 625 00:44:06,310 --> 00:44:09,430 current data center infrastructure to be able to 626 00:44:09,430 --> 00:44:13,430 provide that to thousands of people instead of two. 627 00:44:13,830 --> 00:44:15,350 I don't think that that's crazy. 628 00:44:15,750 --> 00:44:18,630 Audrey Evans: It's not. It's not crazy at all. And it might be 629 00:44:18,630 --> 00:44:21,585 something that we need one day. 630 00:44:21,985 --> 00:44:27,345 Drew Lyton: Yeah. And even so I wrote an article talking about 631 00:44:27,345 --> 00:44:32,385 this experience, and someone reached out to me saying, hey. I 632 00:44:32,385 --> 00:44:38,140 live in Arizona, and I'm doing this. I am building public 633 00:44:38,140 --> 00:44:43,180 infrastructure for my town in Arizona and trying to work with 634 00:44:43,180 --> 00:44:49,035 my local municipality and the library to make this not, like, 635 00:44:49,035 --> 00:44:53,755 only marketed, but actually well established and sustainable. And 636 00:44:54,315 --> 00:44:59,195 his experience was that the hard part is not the tech. 637 00:44:59,275 --> 00:45:06,050 The hard part is convincing communities that the tech bros 638 00:45:06,210 --> 00:45:11,010 could actually provide a good public service to them. There is 639 00:45:11,010 --> 00:45:18,695 so much distrust around people that provide technology to us 640 00:45:18,695 --> 00:45:25,175 right now that the notion that the tools that are currently 641 00:45:25,175 --> 00:45:30,740 used by the lords to lord over us, the serfs, could be 642 00:45:30,740 --> 00:45:35,940 accessible to them in a way that's co owned and cooperative 643 00:45:36,900 --> 00:45:40,980 seems outlandish and, like, that it's got to be a scam. 644 00:45:42,165 --> 00:45:45,205 Audrey Evans: And maybe that's the work that has to be done to 645 00:45:45,205 --> 00:45:47,925 bring those communities into the process. 646 00:45:48,165 --> 00:45:50,485 Drew Lyton: I think that that is totally the work to be done. It 647 00:45:50,485 --> 00:45:55,360 is not we have solved the technical problems. The open 648 00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:58,400 source community, the self hosted community, they've done 649 00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:05,440 it. And now I think it is the work of us as technologists and 650 00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:09,520 people that are passionate about providing this to our 651 00:46:09,520 --> 00:46:17,065 communities to do the social work, to repair trust, and to 652 00:46:17,065 --> 00:46:23,225 actually build connections and relationships that allow a more 653 00:46:23,705 --> 00:46:27,910 community hosted and communal Internet to something that makes 654 00:46:28,150 --> 00:46:32,150 you really feel empowered and connected to your community and 655 00:46:32,150 --> 00:46:33,830 that this is co owned and shared. 656 00:46:33,830 --> 00:46:35,590 Audrey Evans: I'm literally crying right now. 657 00:46:35,590 --> 00:46:38,070 Drew Lyton: No. And that's all stuff that the Internet was 658 00:46:38,070 --> 00:46:42,505 meant to be. Right? Like, this is the original vision of the 659 00:46:42,505 --> 00:46:43,385 Internet. Yeah. 660 00:46:43,385 --> 00:46:44,825 So there's just a lot of work to do. 661 00:46:44,825 --> 00:46:48,665 Audrey Evans: Yeah. Are you suggesting we feel hopeful about 662 00:46:48,665 --> 00:46:49,545 the Internet? 663 00:46:51,385 --> 00:46:55,010 Drew Lyton: I don't know. With all of the wackadoo stuff 664 00:46:55,010 --> 00:46:58,530 happening with AI and whether or not the Internet, you know, like 665 00:46:58,530 --> 00:47:02,530 dead Internet theory and all this stuff, I do feel like it's 666 00:47:02,530 --> 00:47:06,530 hard to have hope. But I really do believe in this, like, 667 00:47:06,530 --> 00:47:10,515 counter cultural idea of the alive Internet theory where 668 00:47:10,995 --> 00:47:14,915 these are places that we live and work. These are 669 00:47:15,555 --> 00:47:21,315 fundamentally public social spaces. And we, for thousands of 670 00:47:21,315 --> 00:47:27,090 years, have both struggled and figured out how to do public 671 00:47:27,090 --> 00:47:28,450 spaces pretty well. 672 00:47:29,410 --> 00:47:32,770 And it's just about leveraging all of that historical knowledge 673 00:47:32,850 --> 00:47:38,645 and tapping into the people that already have that information to 674 00:47:38,645 --> 00:47:42,805 make that happen, to make the Internet really feel alive and 675 00:47:42,805 --> 00:47:43,685 like ours again. 676 00:47:56,430 --> 00:47:59,870 Audrey Evans: Drew, thank you so much for joining us and sharing 677 00:47:59,870 --> 00:48:03,630 your This experience with was so much fun for me. I learned so 678 00:48:03,630 --> 00:48:09,285 much. If people wanna find you online, where can they find you? 679 00:48:09,845 --> 00:48:14,565 Drew Lyton: Yeah. So I can be found mostly only these days at 680 00:48:14,565 --> 00:48:20,690 drewlighton.com. That's drewlyton.com. I post a 681 00:48:20,690 --> 00:48:27,490 newsletter semi frequently with stories like this. So, yeah, if 682 00:48:27,490 --> 00:48:30,530 people enjoyed hearing me talk about this, maybe you'll enjoy 683 00:48:30,530 --> 00:48:31,970 reading words I've written about it. 684 00:49:09,805 --> 00:49:23,890 Hans Buetow: Five. I'll throw five this time. That that way 685 00:49:23,890 --> 00:49:25,330 you run out of rocks really quickly. 686 00:49:40,625 --> 00:49:43,985 Whoo. Starting to lose feeling in my fingers. 687 00:50:07,735 --> 00:50:12,850 That's awesome. And then if you're lucky, the ice, the sun 688 00:50:12,850 --> 00:50:15,650 will heat up the rocks. The rocks will melt through the ice, 689 00:50:15,650 --> 00:50:23,330 and you won't run into them when you're skating. Well, that was a 690 00:50:23,330 --> 00:50:29,585 lot of fun. That's the secret of the lake. 691 00:50:29,585 --> 00:50:33,745 Only one day of the year or only each time that it freezes, 692 00:50:33,745 --> 00:50:37,345 freshly frozen, the same day that it freezes, it makes that 693 00:50:37,345 --> 00:50:40,330 really resonant sound as you skip the rocks as they get 694 00:50:40,330 --> 00:50:41,290 further and further out. 695 00:50:54,415 --> 00:50:57,375 Amy: That sun is warm though. 696 00:50:57,455 --> 00:50:58,815 Hans Buetow: It helps. 697 00:51:08,780 --> 00:51:11,180 Mike Rugnetta: That is the show we have for you this week. We're 698 00:51:11,180 --> 00:51:13,740 gonna be back here in the main feed on Wednesday, December 10. 699 00:51:13,740 --> 00:51:19,020 Never post is made each and every two weeks by a team of six 700 00:51:19,020 --> 00:51:22,665 producers researching, writing, interviewing, editing, mixing, 701 00:51:22,665 --> 00:51:26,345 and scoring, and designing their hearts out. If you appreciate 702 00:51:26,345 --> 00:51:29,465 the work that we do and would like to help us continue to do 703 00:51:29,465 --> 00:51:37,040 it, please consider becoming a member for $4, $4, or $4 a month 704 00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:49,435 at neverpo.st today. Never Post's producers are Audrey 705 00:51:49,435 --> 00:51:52,715 Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the mysterious doctor first name, 706 00:51:52,715 --> 00:51:53,195 last name. 707 00:51:53,195 --> 00:51:56,475 Our senior producer is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is 708 00:51:56,475 --> 00:52:00,090 Jason Oberholzer, and the show's host, that's me, is Mike 709 00:52:00,090 --> 00:52:12,970 Rignetta. Trespasser, a high stone wall. I continue to 710 00:52:11,625 --> 00:52:16,505 obsessively study improving your hurdle technique online. The red 711 00:52:16,505 --> 00:52:19,785 curve of the track guiding from the right to the left of the 712 00:52:19,785 --> 00:52:24,345 image as drills, mini disciplines are suggested over 713 00:52:24,745 --> 00:52:25,385 and over. 714 00:52:26,030 --> 00:52:28,670 I was young when I heard recounted to me the terror and 715 00:52:28,670 --> 00:52:32,350 excitement of being chased off farmland, thinking there was a 716 00:52:32,350 --> 00:52:39,230 gun scaling over to escape with superhuman force. Even then, I 717 00:52:39,230 --> 00:52:47,165 wanted to be part of the chase. Excerpt of The Blank Jumped Over 718 00:52:47,165 --> 00:52:51,405 the Blank Along a Line a Leap a Landing by Rowan Powell. 719 00:52:54,880 --> 00:52:58,000 Neverpost is a production of Charts and Leisure and is 720 00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:00,080 distributed by Radiotopia.