It's been a while since we did a deep dive on our home networking and server infrastructure (what some might call a "homelab"), so it's time for the 2026 check-in to run down what we're working with these days. By request, we spend a big chunk of the episode on Brad's plain Linux NAS/server, detailing components like Samba, Docker (or Podman), and Sanoid that you'd need to set up yourself to replicate the functionality of something like TrueNAS or Unraid. We also survey Will's more granular approach, once again pine longingly after Wildcat Lake, and more.

Show notes with all the hardware and software we mentioned: https://tinyurl.com/techpod-325-homelab-update

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After two months of accumulated Qs, we felt we still had plenty of As to dispense, so we're wheeling back around to a supplemental questions episode this week, touching on such topics as generating negative mileage in an EV, what the iOS low battery mode actually does, tiny network racks for your desk, a shocking amount of discussion about shells like zsh, fish, PowerShell and Nushell, the whereabouts of Intel's successor to the Alder Lake-N... and, for that matter, why (nearly) everything at Intel is a Lake.

The Voyager documentary It's Quieter in the Twilight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIP1p5gAoak

Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

The questions piled up over the holidays and now it's time to answer them in this, the first Q&A of 2026. This month we touch on topics like the splendor Gateway 2000's cow boxes, the mystery of the ENIAC, whether a shed qualifies as off-site backup, what the heck volt-amps are (and how calculus is involved), the glory days of multi-user computing, what tech today's kids will be nostalgic for in 20 years, using LLMs for troubleshooting and command line assistance, and more.

Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod