Check this out: https://hackaday.com/2026/07/20/old-ssds-find-new-life-as-game-cartridges/

Just saw it on Hack a Day and remembered this post. It’s using old SSDs instead of SD cards but is basically what you’re describing.

And they’re using auto launch scripts like I mentioned in my first comment and a whitelist to address security.

I looked but there doesn’t seem to be a straightforward way to do that in Linux. I was thinking a udev rule but it would be clunky since the low level details for media like SD cards aren’t available. At best, maybe a generic rule that mounts it and looks for an autorun.sh or something, but that’s basically reinventing Autoplay on Windows and would have the same security implications.

I read Hack-a-Day frequently, and I’ve come across several projects that use NFC readers so you can tap a card to play specific songs or start playlists. Maybe something like that but launch a specific game instead?

e.g. https://hackaday.com/2025/03/31/a-music-box-commanded-by-nfc-tags/

Mine was just a board in an anti-static bag. As bare bone as you can get.

Yeah, I like it after figuring out how to get it in the right modes. Bought it for playing emulators but works great with Steam.

eBay (US) like a week ago. I got it for $125 but they were going for under $100 before I heard about them.

I don’t think you can buy them new anymore. All the stock I’m aware of are from decommissioned crypto-mining rigs and being sold secondhand.

I included an eBay search link in the Resources (https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=bc-250) and just checked it. Looks like they jumped in price again and are $180+ now.

Assuming you’re in US or Canada, here’s the listing for the one I bought (same seller). It’s the least expensive at $165 with $16 shipping. Some listings include the SSD, so that may be why some cost more. Basically I think the cat is just out of the bag and now that people have found an easy way to repurpose these, demand and price is up.

Oh, nice! Yeah, I had yet to come across that project but will probably give it a try later.

Ooh, that might fit this. When I have time, I’m gonna look for a different case that’ll let me add more active cooling and incorporate something like that.

https://elektricm.github.io/amd-bc250-docs/system/40cu-unlock/#performance

I haven’t done it yet, but it seems to require a patched amdgpu kernel module and setting two values at build time. I’m content with it as-is but may explore that later. I’m also waiting until I have some more cooling before doing anything that will generate more heat. That’ll require a different case, and I just don’t feel like that right now (I’ve got games to play and all lol).

About one roll for $17-20. It used close to a full 1kg roll (half a roll of black, half a roll of red). So if you did it all in one color, you’d just need at most one roll (assuming no failed prints).

I didn’t factor that in since I already have a bunch I bought last year on sale and that money was already spent and waiting for a use.

Yep. You’ll need 25.1 (or higher) and a fairly recent kernel to have all of the drivers in mainline though it’s possible to build them for older distros if you really want to. Basically the guidance is to avoid LTS distros and use something more bleeding edge.

Bazzite has most/all you need already baked in. The only special consideration I had to make with Bazzite was installing the GPU governor. It’ll work fine without the governor, but it’s running full tilt the whole time even when it doesn’t need to.

Yep, it’s not the most energy efficient build but definitely affordable since it’s upcycling what would otherwise be e-waste. It’s not something I’m going to leave running 24/7 so I can deal with it eating some power (I’m pretty big on efficient computing since I’m installing a PV system).

A single 120mm fan is sufficient for gaming if you don’t unlock the extra CUs or overclock it, and you need to either use a shroud to direct the airflow through the heatsink fins or, like I did, 3D print a spreader tool and break the fins apart so more air can make contact with it.

If you’re gonna use it for LLM workloads or heavy sustained loads, you’re gonna need at least two fans and some airflow over the back where the VRAM is. I’ve seem some liquid cooled builds which look awesome but I can’t justify that expense haha.

She’s got an attorney and they’re trying to stop it based on that, but it just seems like everyone involved (edit: besides her) just doesn’t give a fuck.

It’s a lot like another commenter mentioned about eminent domain. It can be used for good (roads, fiber deployments, district heating, etc) but also for things not so good (data centers, etc).

I went out of my way to find a house that didn’t even have a vestigial HOA deed restriction, so I get that. But when a private citizen donates something to the local municipality, it’s pretty egregious to not honor those restrictions, especially for things that may take a while to develop.

I’d donate my share of my family’s farmland to build a park, but I wouldn’t sell it for all the money in the world to build a datacenter or landfill or anything else, really.

Even if they didn’t do her dirty, she wouldn’t. She donated it to the city and relinquished ownership of it. The expectation, even written into the deed, was that the land was to be used as a park, but they turned around and sold it multiple times. Despite the stipulation in the original deed to the parks and recreation department, the data center is still going forward.

The story is just such a tragedy all around.

https://ebooks.com/

They have a lot of DRM-free options and let you download a clean epub, but like with other stores, it’s up to the publishers whether (and/or when) they can sell them without DRM BS.

I like being able to download the epubs directly so I can put them on my Calibre-web instance and pull them to my Kobo or my phone or whatever I want to read on.

I just use the webapp UI and don’t bother with the clients/extensions. Easy enough to just log in, copy/paste from there.

But yeah, the official client (and probably browser extension as well) would probably be forked if/when needed.

I use Vaultwarden

Yeah, that’s what I’ve got, and I really like it.

I’m in the same boat. Got all the equipment in for my whole house solar installation and will be re-routing circuits to the new panel as soon as I have time so will have to turn all the power off for the duration of that.

I’ve got an Anker power station that should run my stack for about 4-4.5 hours by itself and can run it indefinitely while the sun is out while hooked into the PV panels. Those are (currently) independent from the new installation I’m about to start.

My UPS’s are also LiFePO4 models and can add an additional ~45 minutes of uptime. So hopefully 5 hours is enough to avoid having to shut anything down.