They have for a whole. Their whole business model was having a patent. When that ran out, the predictable happened.
I mean their quality was already going down hill in the lead-up to the patent end. Everyone else being allowed to compete on even ground just showed how bad their quality had actually become.
the form factor is easy to get around
Why did you just ignore everything I wrote, but you still replied to me? No, it isn’t easy to get around. You can use a server to game, but the server mainboards and CPUs expect and work with differently configured memory (registered DIMMs). All the AI infratructure uses that type. You can’t use that memory in a normal PC. Wikipedia reference if you’d like to read about it, but a relevant quote:
[…] the motherboard must match the memory type; as a result, registered memory will not work in a motherboard not designed for it, and vice versa.
You would have to un-solder all the chips and remanufacture new memory modules, and nobody is doing that, especially not at scale. It might be an actual buisness model to do that once the bubble pops, but it isn’t a problem that’s “easy to get around”.>
It no longer works as a shortcut, but the actual bypass still works. In practice the command line you have to enter just got a bit longer is all.
At least last time I needed it, to that still worked fine. It’s been a few months.
You can’t put the kind of memory used in servers (registered ECC dimm) into normal/personal computers. It’s not just that the ECC won’t work, they don’t work at all.
That’s different with unregistered ECC dimms, those will work (at normal spec speeds), but the ECC part will just be unused. These are in the minority though for servers, in practice they are more used in workstations.
First my context: I’m also running multiple Proxmox hosts (personal and professional), and havea paperless-ngx instance (personal/family). I tried Firefly, but the effort required to get it to a point where it would be if use to me was too high, so I dropped it. Haven’t used n8n.
For the setup I’d just use the Proxmox community scripts, if you haven’t heard of them. Makes updates trivial and lowers the bar to just trying something to basically zero.
Paperless-ngx I actually use, cause it means I can find something when i need it. It’s all automatically ocr’d and all you have to do is categorize them. With time, it’ll learn and do this for you. You can (manually) setup your scanner to just directly upload files to the “consume” folder and it just works. PC/server power is near irrelevant, it just means OCR takes slightly longer, otherwise it’s a web server. You can run this just fine on a raspberry pi.
I don’t have any real automation setup, so I can’t really comment on that. My advice is to just install it, see what it does and how it feels. Try to anticipate if and how much automation you need. Many aspects of all this are of the “setup once” variety, where once it’s working, you don’t have to touch it again. Try to gauge if the one time effort is worth it for you, then go from there. As I said, it was fine for paperless for me, but not for Firefly (but I might need to revisit this).
Tailscale is WireGuard under the hood, if you didn’t know. It’s an overlay network that uses WireGuard to make the actual connections, and has some very clever “stuff” to get the clients actually to connect, even if behind firewalls without needing port forwarding.
Using WireGuard directly basically just changes the app you use, which may or may not help with your issues. But the connecting technology is the exact same.
If you got that kind of money to spend on a laptop, sure. I really don’t.
Edit: to be clear, I know this is a stack of Mac’s in OPs picture, but the development that the entry models have basically no ports at all is a more recent development. Having to pick the pro just to be able to connect your stuff without dongles or hubs is a bit insane considering the price (and price difference).
Yes, in serious. I’m personally not much of a Lego collector and/or builder, but two close friends of mine are. They were big Lego fans and collectors for most of our lives (decades). I’d say 10-15 years ago they started to complain about declining QC and just generally lower quality. Molds were clearly used for much longer, parts having worse tolerance and either not fitting well or being lose. Then the creative side also got worse, with kits just not meeting previous standards either. Clearly just being cranked out for the sake of releasing something, often under license (Star wars, marvel or whatever).
Then when the patent ran out, some (select few) of the alternatives started to gain favor. Unfortunately I don’t remember who, but I can ask next time I see either of them. Not saying everything they make is great, but actually less problems with gas parts, and some kits are apparently just like old Lego.