Panq

Not my cup of tea, so I mostly just kept to the booth. Would have been pretty decent for any Lord of the Rings fans though.

Seeing all the cosplayers and other folks dressing up was rad, but we’ve more or less just sat in our booth and didn’t check out much event-wise.

Only a few hours left at Armageddon. It’s been pretty fun.

I did the same except I did the lazy way for idiots: added a cheap USB network adapter to Home Assistant and connected that to a separate network switch. Reolink cameras have been rock solid and haven’t complained about being air gapped from the internet.

Not my cup of tea, but a few rellies swear by banana and Pic’s crunchy on toast.

Node Red by far gave me the best automation for numerous lights. X minutes after sunrise, it iterates every light that is on and calls turn off with a fairly long (2 min?) transition time, so the lights all gradually fade off.

It’s been running for years without me needing to touch anything, it doesn’t care if you replace/rename any lights, and the slow fade when it’s still getting brighter outside makes the change invisible.

I’ll bet you could do the same thing without Node Red, but nowhere near as easily.

That isn’t even a terrible idea - with that many conductors, you should be able to carry tens of amps. Use two for “Data” (detecting charger) and you’ve got… 21 positive and 21 negative. I’d not be surprised to see that hit 100W without catching fire.

I use a dumb 433MHz wireless doorbell (apparently this one on Ali Express, but the exact one doesn’t matter) with a Sonoff RF Bridge running Tasmota. It’s far faster and more reliable than anything with the smarts built into the button, and the battery lasts at least a few years.

I’ve got it set up to take a snapshot on the front door and driveway cameras, send a push notification with the front door camera, announce on the speakers that someone’s at the door, and turn on the outdoor lights at night.

The doorbell was $8 shipped, the RF Bridge was somewhere in the mid $20s but I already had it for some door sensors, and if you don’t already have a camera, a decent Reolink is under $150 shipped directly (or under $250 from a physical shop in NZ like PB Tech).

I’ve had a Chromecast and not apple tv and its quite decent.

The main thing that bugs me about my Chromecast is the gradual loss of functionality over time, presumably as a part of planned obsolescence or deliberately crippling features to make you pay for premium options.

Next time I need to replace/upgrade something, I think I’m just going to skip streaming at all and just hide a full desktop somewhere and pirate everything.

I’m thinking I might go without PoE and just meet my current need, then add a PoE switch to support cameras if or when I get them.

That’s more or less what I did when the dirt cheap AliExpress cameras died - just got a PoE switch from PB Tech and a small pile of Reolink cameras (RLC810A). Definitely the best value-for-money, and works well with Home Assistant. Way better than those stupid splitters or having a pile of individual POE injectors.

The kind without pedals? “Balance bike” for the modern version kids use, or “Hobby horse” (I think) for the historical version that pre-dates pedal bikes.

Does the insurance cover a rental while waiting on repairs?

Having some word or phrase marking the end of a request makes the voice recognition a little more reliable. It doesn’t have to be polite, but being polite when it’s totally unnecessary is a good habit to build.

“Do X please” makes it unambiguously clear (to a machine) where the end of the request is, whereas “Please do X” is mostly pointless.

Pipe dream, but I really wish we would make it illegal to use the terms “Buy” or “Own” for digital goods that can at some point not exist outside of your control.

I give you a dollar and get a DRM-free video file? That is buying.

I give you a dollar and can watch a video file an unlimited number of times in your app? That is not buying, and it should be fraud to claim that it is.

Are they offering complimentary doctors visits if you register as being too warm?

Nah, the other kind of infrared sensor (i.e. just using movement to detect if you’re there).

They could be part of a totally innocent turn-the-lights-off-when-nobody-is-working system that doesn’t track individual users or log data. They could also be part of a log-how-much-time-you-spend-on-the-toilet system.

Anyone with some experience with something like this?

I had a leak in January that perfectly lined up with an actual reading. The estimated bill afterward was so high that the next actual reading was a few hundred dollars into the negative. I’d paid it because I wasn’t sure if their leak allowance would cover it, but it did so we haven’t had to pay again since, which is nice I guess.

Pretty sure we’ll be back up to zero dollars this month.

It’s even sillier than that - 5x as much is 400% more. 399x as much is 39800% more.

It’s not quite that bad (yet…) - it has reasonably clearly labelled subscription and non-subscription cartridges. So when you cancel the subscription, you just throw the non-subscription cartridge back in.

If you’re printing quite a lot, but not enough to justify a laser printer, then they can work out okay. The vast majority of people would indeed be wasting money though.