• 1 Post
  • 390 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
cake
Cake day: July 9th, 2023

help-circle
  • My experience with a Pi4B has been rock solid and plenty fast for what I’ve tried so far, at low power consumption.

    While I had problems in the beginning, it was all from the micro-SD card. People here will recommend staying away but I’ve had no problems since buying an “extreme” card. Well, starting to hit the size limit now - I can no longer kick off multiple concurrent updates because limited free space available on, I think, 16G card. Get bigger


  • If you’re starting with ha, don’t feel confined to only one.

    IMPORTANT: a local area mesh is not just a low powered way of connecting devices but is inherently local-only. Highly recommended

    The more common local area meshes include

    • Zigbee - open standard, lots of inexpensive sensors
    • Z-Wave - devices need to pay for certification but are more standard. I found more smart switches using this in my area
    • Thread - the new standard. Same frequency as Zigbee but IPv6 based. Slowly rolling out.

    The new Matter/Thread standard has support of the major players (Apple, Google, Amazon) so seems like the way to go for the future, but products are slow to roll out so you can’t count on it yet

    Personally I found the strengths of each compelling so quickly added all three of the above to my ha setup. Ha is fine with it so why limit yourself

    I follow the principle that devices must work “as expected” for my users, automation adds capabilities but does not replace them. This comes together with a focus on smart switches

    • can be used interactively just like any switch
    • continue to work as expected even if ha is down
    • typically act as routers to strengthen your local area mesh. I have switches acting as routers for Zigbee, zwave, and Thread, so all my local area meshes are solid everywhere
    • then I can automate

  • Yes and no. The problem pattern of ammunition production follows defense contracts: buy enough for stock, then don’t buy anymore. The industry is not configured for steady production.

    Now we’re using a steady number but don’t have steady production to replenish stocks, but it seems like more of a production or industry configuration issue than a usage issue.

    It’s also part of the reason weapons are so expensive: there’s no steady market to support steady production



  • People think the current us administration is doing a lot of awful things to a lot of people buts it’s worse that they hold themselves above the law to do it, above the limits of their power, above the checks and balances that usually prevent authoritarianism

    Among the many bad stereotypes of royalty is the blatant nepotism, self-enrichment, and total disregard for their constituents. Somehow they have no shame in accepting bribes, do not even try to hide it, and no shame using their authority to establish business “deals@ for family and friends











  • Same in DC. I was going through the roundabout, a bit fast, secure in the knowledge I have right of way …… and suddenly there’s a red light.

    Sort of like in California … accelerating up the on-ramp to a highway, wondering why one lane of the ramp is empty, curving around to merge …. Red light?




  • It seems like I saw a couple bottom end underpowered microwaves that are still mechanical, but most here are electronic. Certainly any with useful power (1100-1200w@120v) are electronic. Anything larger that on a single plate are electronic. I don’t know idpf that means I’m looking at premium products, but almost all here are.

    So I have all these buttons I almost never use, all these useless programs. I have to admit the “auto-defrost” program on my current one works really well, but aside from that, I mostly use “+30s”