cujo

Yeah, it's a little confusing to look at but their pricing page does have "Starter only" next to the $55/100Gb on bandwidth for their "Free & Starter" tier overview.

Great call out! Thanks a bunch.

EDIT: Just a heads up, since that fiasco in Feb 2024 (where the user got a surprise $104k bill) Netlify has updated to offer a Free Plan in addition to the Starter Plan. The difference being, the Free Site plan shuts off traffic after 100GB, and the Starter Site plan will begin billing at a rate of $55/100gb after the first 100Gb. So the site should be safe from unexpected bills, but could be shut down by a malicious attack...

Thank you, I appreciate that!

And while you may just be "some stranger on the Internet," the whole point of sharing the tool is to make it better -- I'll be keeping your loud, opinionated thoughts in mind as I look at the roadmap for what's next for this tool. 😁

That's always the hang up, isn't it? 😂

I'm glad the tool seems useful, and the idea sounds fun! I'm always looking to improve it, so if you come across anything or need any help, just let me know!

Bingo! It's a big hit with some of the folks I play with at my LGS. It's a game all about ordinary kids up against extraordinary odds. Mystery, adventure, a splash of horror -- you get the picture, lol.

Sure!

The app is built in SvelteKit with TailwindCSS/DaisyUI. The database and authentication are handled by a Pocketbase instance hosted at Pockethost.io, and the app itself is deployed to Netlify.

A very valid point! An account is needed so that character data can be tied to you; your characters aren't stored in a cookie or a file somewhere local, they're stored in a hosted database, that way you can access them from your phone, a laptop, a library computer -- anywhere, really.

Allowing use without an account would be possible, but would require either: storing character data locally (so, if you used the app on your phone, you wouldn't be able to pull up that character on, say, a laptop) or forcing users to bookmark their characters and storing them without an associated account. Both are potential options I will explore.

In the mean time, though, I will gladly add some screenshots!

I can say with absolute confidence the data kept here is minimal: a username, email address, and password which are never used for anything more than authentication, and then your characters. There is an option to totally delete your account after creation, which wipes clean any and all data associated with your account from the database. No stored email, all your characters disappear, everything.

Thank you! I'll post there, as well.

As much as people whine about it as a trend, "/s" goes a long way. 😂

There's no winning... I get you, though. And you're right, they do think they know best... Which is why I won't use GNOME. I left Windows for the same reason. And I'll catch a lot of hate for it, but IMO GNOME is far too opinionated about how the end-user "should" interact with their PC for my tastes.

We've explored that route pretty thoroughly, unfortunately... Neither of us are eligible.

I can't offer much but to say I'm quite jealous, lol. My wife and I have researched just about every possible opportunity to do the same, just to find everything either doesn't apply to us or is just out of reach at this time (and for the foreseeable future). Asking for help around this topic typically leads to an insane amount of backlash online, so I've found...

Honest answer: I've never had need of cutting edge repositories in Linux Mint, so I've never looked or tried. I would doubt that adding cutting edge repositories to Mint would be a good idea for system stability -- there's a reason "bleeding edge" distributions have a reputation for being a tinkerer's playground. Look at the stability reputation of, say, ArchLinux as an example.

I love Arch, and have used it extensively over the last decade or so, but I would not recommend it or nearly any other rolling release to a newcomer to the space; if you aren't comfortable getting your hands dirty in the terminal, it's only a matter of time before you end up with an unstable system that may or may not boot without the confidence to fix it.

My one exception to the rule above, if you aren't afraid of configuring some repositories for non-free software: OpenSUSE Tumbleweed was a wicked stable rolling release last time I tried it due to the way the organization behind it runs it. It tends to be a little heavier than what you're asking for, but as far as graphical options for system configuration you can't really beat OpenSUSE, IMO. YaST (their system configuration platform) has a tool to configure... Well, damn near everything, honestly. Even if the UI/UX feels a bit "dated", everything you need is there.

Depending on how mission-critical your PC setup is, I might recommend doing a little "distro-hopping." Back up your data, wipe your drive, install a distro and trial it for about a week or so. If one feels like it "fits," just stay there.