For $50 you can pick up a used mini PC with say, i5-6500T and 8GB ram, that'll be much faster than the Pi 5. And it'll be compatible with all Linux distros. Really the Pi 3 is good enough as an edge device where you want to hook up things to the GPIO pins.
I've got a i5-7500T box running as a Proxmox Backup Server, and it idles at 6-7W. It runs at near idle most of the time (it's just running PBS and a few network services), so I'm not expecting it to cause much difference to my power bills. Even under full load, it only draws ~30W, so it's not _that_ much power.
I have an N95 mini PC (32GB DDR4, 250GB SSD, 1TB NVMe), a 4 disk USB enclosure, an access point, and a 16 port switch plugged into a UPS.
The UPS says 35W for all of it, but I’ve always been too lazy to unplug devices to see how it breaks down. I’m also not sure how accurate the measurements are, especially under a load that low.
I’d be willing to believe the mini PC draws less than the other components at this point.
I recently got a junk M2 MacBook Air (16GB/512GB) with a broken screen for $250.
It idles at just 0.2W (!) when accessed via SSH. While it offers zero expandability, lacks wired LAN, and runs on a non-free OS, it's an interesting candidate for an ultra-low-power inference server.
From being in California often and reading social media, I get the feeling California and UK share a lot of similarities in planning bureaucracy. Residential areas are sacrosanct and the idea of anyone running even a small public facing service business from the home is onerous (though, curiously, it's very common for dental or GP surgeries to be in converted residential property here).
Debian stable with KDE Plasma. Plasma is similar in feel to Win 10, but far more customizable. It's the first Linux desktop I've used that feels professional and polished.
Short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ6bojRSIw0
100%. I run this combo on my 12 year old Chromebook and it's a very solid web browsing and thin client system. Audio works, Wi-Fi works, Bluetooth works, everything just works, and works well.
I think the sweet spot for ARM SBCs are smaller, less powerful and cheaper for headless IOT edge cases. I use a couple of them that way when I need LAN connectivity, either by ethernet or wifi, and things wired to GPIO pins. I don't need a powerful CPU or lots of RAM for that. The SBC makers are caught up in a horsepower race and I just shrug, it's not for me.
This is my experience as well. I have a couple PINE64 devices, a Rock64 (Rockchip RK3328) and a RockPro64 (RK3399). And an N150 device.
Both ARM64 devices run headless, make use of GPIO, and have more than enough CPU. In fact, these are stable enough that I run BSDs on them and don't bother with Linux.
The Rock64 runs FreeBSD for SDR applications (e.g. ADS-B receiver). FreeBSD has stable USB support for RTL-SDR devices.
The RockPro64 runs NetBSD with ZFS with a PCIe SSD. NetBSD can handle ARM big.LITTLE well. I run several home lab workloads on this. Fun device.
I also have an N150 device running the latest Debian 13 as my main home lab server for home automation, Docker, MQTT broker, etc.
In short: SBCs are cheap enough that you can choose more than one, each for the right task, including IoT.
CATO gets it wrong too. Social Security is an insurance program. Employer and employee payments function as insurance premiums. Like most insurance policies if you don't qualify for a disbursement you don't get your premiums back (e.g., you die before 62). Unlike normal insurance, Soc Sec has no coverage limit, so if you live to 105 you can collect far more than you paid in.
Since Soc Sec is income insurance, I am opposed to the flat benefit concept. Higher incomes pay higher premiums so they should get higher payouts. We already have some benefit flattening now because Soc Sec benefits are partially taxable above $25K single/$32k married.
Not every area is as messed up as the Colorado river watershed...
All users (states) were given an allotment which, when it was set, was more than what would ever be the yearly supply.
From the outset it was essentially a free for all. Everyone was happy, they kinda got what they asked. It's just that they were all living in a paper reality
I think the sweet spot for EVs are for small, compact crossovers, hatchbacks and sedans, not large trucks or SUVs. Batteries don't scale up well. I have a Chevy Bolt EUV and it's great, the most economical vehicle I've ever owned, it's cheap to charge at home and there's virtually no maintenance. The new 2026 Bolt and the 2026 Nissan Leaf will both be just under $30k and will make great commuter cars or grocery getters.
"Used electric vehicle (EV) prices are currently lower than those of internal combustion engine (ICE) cars, with used EVs averaging about 8.3% cheaper than used gas-powered cars."
Late model used EVs can be good bargains.
FUD about battery life and having to spend over $10k to replace one was a large factor in EV depreciation. Some people assumed car battery life was like that of a cell phone or a laptop, perhaps 3 years. There is increasing evidence that EV batteries with good battery management systems will last 15+ years (see https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/). Once the general population understands an EV will outlast a gas car and needs less maintenance, resale value should improve.
Up to very recently only Tesla had good battery management. Other manufacturers joked around with things like no active battery thermal management, Nissan Leaf finally got one this year lol.
Scratch that Nissan date. They only released press notes this year about 2026 model finally using active thermal management next year, and this is precisely how clownish Japanese carmakers are
I knew the car situation was bad in the US, but I didn’t know you only have a choice between Tesla, Nissan and Toyota for EVs. I’m sorry for your loss.
