this post was submitted on 04 May 2025
290 points (74.5% liked)

Selfhosted

46595 readers
1506 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Phegan@lemmy.world 16 points 25 minutes ago

Why is this on the self hosting community

[–] al_Kaholic@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 15 minutes ago

Elon musk going into the tree business I see.

[–] Capricorn_Geriatric@lemmy.world 21 points 3 hours ago (4 children)

Short answer: the bank won't give your shiny new tree-planting business a loan as easily as it will to a "liquid tank tree replacement" one.

Long answer:

  • Trees take time to grow
  • Trees need to be planted
  • Trees make shade
  • Animals like birds and insects like bees and mosquitos like to live next to them
  • Trees don't need electricity
  • Trees take in heat radiated from the pavement
  • Trees don't look cool

While algae are more efficient at turning CO2 into oxygen in theory, in practice algae don't have a good climate in such a tank (no oxygen without ventilation, i.e. constant electricity and they get cooked through the glass).

All in all, more of a gimmick than anything.

[–] urandom@lemmy.world 18 points 2 hours ago

Trees don’t look cool

You take that back!

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 47 minutes ago* (last edited 45 minutes ago)
  • Trees take time to grow

Sure, of course not removing literally all of them in the first place is preferable but hindsight is 20/20 I guess. And good things come to those who wait.

  • Trees need to be planted

True, planting a tree seems a bit easier than installing a weird tank though, despite time to grow.

  • Trees make shade

Good.

  • Animals like birds and insects like bees and mosquitos like to live next to them

Good.

  • Trees don't need electricity

Good.

  • Trees take in heat radiated from the pavement

Good.

  • Trees don't look cool

Bullshit.

[–] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 8 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Aren't like half of those bullet points positives? Also in addition to what you said once you got a tree you got a tree, those tanks need constant maintenence and cycling which I doubt anyone is going to bother with for more than a year after installing them.

[–] Rakonat@lemmy.world 8 points 2 hours ago

The comment you replying to was trying to not so subtly point out this is a business plot and little else. Nobody is going to pay a subscription fee to have a tree in front of their business, but they might cough up money for a third party to maintain a tank of algae out front if it was sold right

[–] danielquinn@lemmy.ca 46 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

I had the same reaction until I read this.

TL;DR: it's 10-50x more efficient at cleaning the air and actually generates both electricity and fertiliser.

Yes, it would be better to just get rid of all the cars generating the pollution in the first place and putting in some more trees, but there are clear advantages to this.

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 4 points 3 hours ago

I appreciate Rebecca Watson's opinion. Watched the 6min video, now convinced 👍

Also learned a new term: kneejerk cynicism

[–] FarceOfWill@infosec.pub 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

It provides fertilizer but needs "some food".

How much food and what is it?

Typically for aquariums you have to feed these things fertilizer so it seems odd

[–] goldteeth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 21 minutes ago

How much food and what is it?

...Did we mention it doubles as a convenient dumping ground for mob snitches?

[–] Elkot@lemmy.world 8 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

How's my dog supposed to piss on that

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 5 points 3 hours ago

I don't think your dog will see that as problematic.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 31 points 5 hours ago (1 children)
  1. Wrong community, maybe? Lol

  2. iirc, algae are better oxygen producers per units of mass and volume, so a tank full of algae might actually be better than a tree. One issue though is that trees can grow on open ground, while algae require a tank to be built, most likely negating the economic benefits. Also, trees are more aesthetically pleasing.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] termaxima@programming.dev 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I don’t think anything’s wrong with trees, but maybe we could also have some of these as well as trees ?

Replace the advertisements on bus stops with a really cool green liquid wall 😮 (but they’d have to make the glass super thick, these things tend to be vandalized from time to time)

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 3 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

I don’t think anything’s wrong with trees, but maybe we could also have some of these as well as trees ?

First of all nobody is proposing to replace existing trees with that, that would be silly! AFAIU the people who created this also don't want these to be used where trees could be planted. They are outspokenly designed for already densely packed cities that are already highly polluted and hostile to trees, to start turning things around. Rebecca Watson's 6min take

[–] ChuckTheMonkey@fedia.io 197 points 8 hours ago (7 children)

Why is this in self hosted?

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 4 points 3 hours ago

It has a USB port.

[–] goldteeth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 101 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

in case you want to self-host your own algae, I guess

[–] superkret@feddit.org 2 points 1 hour ago

Can I combine this with my water-cooling setup?

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 hours ago

The most dystopian thing I've seen... Fuck, idk, it's all pretty dystopian these days, I've lost count

[–] 21Cabbage@lemmynsfw.com 23 points 6 hours ago

Practical answer, fits in places trees may not. Pessimistic answer, fits in some guys cyberpunk ass vision for what he wants his office block to look like.

[–] bluewing@lemm.ee 2 points 3 hours ago

Yeah, those are going to last at -40F/-40C nights we often experience where I live. Nor do I see them being able to add any cool relief from their shade on a hot day.

That said, it is hard to grow healthy trees in the poisoned soils of a big city. They tend to struggle and be sickly when choked by concrete and asphalt.

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago

Very cyberpunk

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 69 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I like how everyone is acting like it is normal to have this in self hosted

[–] superkret@feddit.org 16 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

I love this about lemmy.
Like someone stumbling into the wrong house and still being welcomed.
It's a lot more informal and relaxed than on the piss page of the Internet.

[–] FreakinSteve@lemmy.world 9 points 5 hours ago (3 children)

Trees grow and rip up the pavement around them. I do love the canopy though

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] iceonfire1@lemmy.world 25 points 7 hours ago (2 children)
[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 11 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Their lifetime is also much shorter. Guess where all that CO2 goes, when they die ^^

[–] pikmeir@lemmy.world 17 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

I have a solution. More algae.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] neons@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 hours ago
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 4 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Have you ever seen how long it takes for a tree to grow?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 61 points 9 hours ago (18 children)

Because there's no serious answers being given even though there are at least 2:

  • trees have roots, roots ruin any nearby human infrastructure. You'll note this says "in urban environments" and that there are trees nearby, so this is probably the big reason
  • trees need maintenance, which costs money. this is a stupid reason imo, but it's one nonetheless
  • algae is cool, ok?
[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 44 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Algae is also more efficient per cubic meter, if I understand correctly.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 22 points 7 hours ago

Not just more efficient, vastly more efficient. Algae is 10-50 times faster at processing CO² than trees are. Some algae can be up to 400x as efficient.

It's just not as "nice" to look at, we usually associate algae with growth in unsafe bodies of water like bogs, etc. versus a nice clean pool or even a maintained pond.

load more comments (17 replies)
[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 55 points 9 hours ago (5 children)

How do I self host these? I tried docker run liquidtrees it didn't work

[–] 30p87@feddit.org 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/liquidtrees.git && cd liquidtrees && makepkg
or
add https://repo.30p87.de/private/archlinux as a repo, and sudo pacman -Sy liquidtrees. Then sudo systemctl enable --now liquidtrees

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›