Unfortunately most of the PCB fab companies only print off PCBs in at least batches of 5. I bought enough parts to make two cart readers and split the costs with a friend to help drive the price down into the low hundreds.

I don’t know which number you were looking at when you saw the Sanni was “so expensive”. You can get an assembled Sanni v3 for about $150 online. https://savethehero.builders If you join their Discord, there’s also folks selling Sanni v5 DIY part kits for $110-130 depending on what add-ons you go for. https://store.starshade.dev/product/oscr-hw5-complete-kit-diy It’s still a pretty penny, but significantly less than some of the $250 pre-assembled stores online.

I wasn’t able to find anything definitive online, but its specs and functionality sound pretty close to BennVenn’s Joey N64 cart reader/writer. https://bennvenn.myshopify.com/products/joeyn64-cart-flasher

I can’t help much on the power draw side of this question, but one thing to look out for with a UPS is some sort of communication option. (Usually NUT over ethernet, but there are some USB options too.) Most modern UPS brands will have a plugin you can install on your Raspberry Pi and Mini PC that allows your UPS to signal, “Hey, I’ve got 3% of battery life, you actually need to gracefully shut down now.” It’s mostly useful for NAS applications with spinning drives, but it could help save your Pi’s SD card potentially.

It’s a pretty standard feature these days, but the cheapest of the cheap will omit it.

It’s still surreal to see OpenAI’s need for training data be so vast that they casually developed and open sourced a generational leap in transcription technology just so that they could scrape online videos better.

Long Switch can’t hurt you. Long Switch isn’t real.

Thirty minutes. So mostly misspelled words. Most implementations of this type of feature also have a small “Edited” flag.

Keep Calm and Disregard the 1202 Alarm.

https://www.serverbuilds.net/ is a popular website online for folks building NASes at home. They’re fans of Unraid as well. They’ve got a Discord if you’re looking for something more interactive. Worth checking out. 👍

If you’re looking for a new Jet Set Radio style game, make sure to check out the recently released indie project Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. They did a great job of capturing the JSR spirit while modernizing the controls and gameplay. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1353230/Bomb_Rush_Cyberfunk/

It helps if you can find a half-dozen people involved in something you like to follow at the start. Other than that, try joining a mid-sized (~1,000-3,000 users) Mastodon server based around a hobby, interest, or social group you’re a part of. Most Mastodon clients allow you to keep a column open for the people you follow as well as the people on the “Local Timeline” who are a part of your server.

It’s a new social network. If you see someone pop up who’s made a pithy post or two, give 'em a follow. If they’re not working out a week later, un-follow them. Don’t feel afraid to follow a ton of people when you first get started to liven up your feed until you find a good circle of folks.