Do you live with non-technical people or have visitors to your house? I have a kid and a wife who isn’t as nerdy as I am. Plex just works. I can show a babysitter or a grandparent how to use it in about a minute. Can’t say the same for a Linux box, as much as I’d love for that to be the solution.
What sort of finish do you recommend for a desk? I used some sort of polyurethane for my current desk and it’s gotten gummy and gross from my hands and wrists (I’m assuming).
Danish oil is great for this. It is half polyurethane and half oil. You can get it in clear or tinted. Takes about 72 hours before you can use it. Until it soaks in, the piece is tacky.
If you aren’t looking for something do heavy duty, plain mineral oil from the laxative aisle at Walmart is $2 a bottle. If you want to make that more heavy duty, mix it 50/50 with beeswax and heat until wax dissolves. Then let cool and you’ll have what looks like candle paraffin. Work that into the wood and you’ll have it sealed. You will need to reapply it every so often (probably once a year but depends on use). Not a permanent seal but no harsh chemicals used and you get to keep caring for your special piece of furniture which some people find satisfying.
I like polyurethane most, since I dislike the repeat maintenance of other options, and like the resilience of polyurethane, but I find it's a pain to get it right - I usually have an algorithm of try, wait, sand it down to bare wood, try again, wait more, sand more, repeat a couple times until I'm satisfied.
If you're okay with periodically re-applying, and don't need the durability of poly, something like tung oil is a great choice - wipes on super easy and looks fabulous. Sibling comment has great recommendations in this domain.
On gumminess - it sounds like it didn't cure correctly? Could be environmental factors, (temp/humidity) could be uneven application, etc. I also find I have to leave polyurethane alone for a looooong time for it to cure properly - I try not to touch the final coat for a week or more. I try to do very thin coats, sanding between each coat, for 2-3 coats, then for the final coat I use a spray polyurethane which seems to lie flat a bit better.
I made a quick and dirty desk when I started working from home during COVID. Plywood with some quick finish on some legs I got from Amazon. I didn’t spend too much time on it because I wasn’t sure how long I’d be working from home. Some things I added:
* Integrated cable management: I attached the power strip and the LAN switch under the desk. I’ve got cats that get curious.
* usb hub on the side
* Boom arm for my microphone.
I’m working on building a new desk right now. Some things I want to add:
* Better cable management. I’d love a little cabinet under the desk that all the cables go through and stay hidden.
* Some sort of bag or box on the side so I can sweep my desk clean
* built in wireless charging.
* integrated KVM switch. Preferably a button under the desk I can press to switch between computers.
* built in hardware mute switch/press to talk for my microphone.
* some sort of rail mounting system for monitors, camera boom, and microphone.
In reading the article, it’s not the teachers who seem to have a problem with him, it’s the school board and the school administrators. Those are are VASTLY different groups.
I taught in Virginia for 10 years(working for VDSS, another group that gets smeared in this article), and have friends working in Loudoun county right now. They all pretty unanimously think the school board is pretty shitty.
Finally, the New York Post is a notoriously biased conservative tabloid, and Loudoun is one of the most conservative counties in the state. NYP is taking this man’s fight against the school board and it’s Republican policies and using it as a hit piece against teachers and teacher unions (which in Virginia are basically powerless).
