solrize

This looks interesting. I had been wondering what if anything the PL experts were saying about the lack of exceptions in Rust.

No it doesn't work that way. Nobody should be expected to follow clickbait.

There's no reason to expect anyone to click on any type of link, without giving them an up-front reason to do so. Expecting otherwise would be a spammer's dream. You have to spell out in the post what the link is for.

I see roughly the same thing:

Your post says there is a podcast at [url] and that you are working on a guide as a companion to it, but it doesn't say anything about where the guide is or whether any of it is online yet at all. Ok, I see now that the link url is discuss.james.network which is a different domain than the podcast, but that is still not much help. If that's where the guide is, you should say so. I'd expect to see a discussion forum on a domain like that, not a podcast transcript.

Really, though you should just include the guide in the post. Otherwise you're just promoting your podcast and discussion site.

You should explain that in the post body, not expect someone to click a link that says "podcast" in hope of getting a non-podcast.

The link is to podcast.james.network. Why would I expect it to be something other than a podcast?

I see, you are trying to make a home theater PC (HTPC). That would be a clearer term to use.

What does this question even mean (no I don't want to listen to a podcast to find out)?

Sometimes I think people have been using the term "self-hosted" to mean what we used to call a home PC. I have always thought of a hosted computer (whether self-hosted or hosted by a company) as meaning a server which normally would live in a data center, and sometimes even means a rented box or VPS on which you self-host by installing and managing the software yourself (as opposed to using managed hosting or cloud services). Of course if you have good enough internet, you can self-host a server at home, but the considerations are otherwise about the same. I.e. it would usually not also be your workstation or gaming box.

So what is it that your friends are going to do with the machine? That would be pretty important in figuring out how to prepare it.

$11/m is a lot. If you just want a small site on shared hosting, try namecrane.com. For storage use Hetzner Storage Box.

I used proxmox and have played a little with nix and guix, but simplest is just use debian, put /home on a separate logical partition from the system partition so you can reinstall the system without clobbering user files, and as people keep saying, backup early and often.

I've worked in security for decades and nobody has ever asked me about certifications. I know a guy with CISSP and he said it has been useful sometimes, but basically I wouldn't worry too much. Getting more involved with the security stuff where you work will give real experience which is likely more valuable.

Simplest is use /etc/hosts to set up names, if there are just a few.