After taking almost 4 months off (since first coming to Arrow River Forest Hermitage), my self-hosted chat server (that I use for Live-Streamed Dhamma Talks) is back online.

Those with existing user accounts can log in as usual, here. It’s been freshly upgraded to the latest current version as well. An invite link can be granted if you ask me for a new user account, and I know who you are.

You may wonder: why don’t I just use a free chat service like Discord (and not bother to run my own self-hosted chat server)? In the spirit of not being obstinate, I gave Discord an honest try (as some other monks I know had signed up for user accounts there, albeit there was little actual chat activity observed). The deal-breaker with Discord for me was that I caught it rifling through my computer when it thought I wasn’t looking. When the Discord client was left running in the “tray” of my laptop, then I shut the lid to put it to Sleep, after a while the laptop’s fan was creepily running fast and hot, even though the laptop should have been sleeping (and the fan should never run in Sleep mode). Then when I opened the lid, fully quit the Discord client (such that was no longer in the “tray”), then when the laptop was put back to Sleep, then there was no such fan activity, as is proper. So Discord has betrayed my trust, and I’m unwilling to use it, as that hand-in-the-cookie-jar behaviour is totally unacceptable to me.