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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: August 16th, 2024

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  • He can only pardon federal crimes. In most states, governor’s can pardon state crimes … some states have different processes and some don’t allow it at all.

    Pardoning is typically also an admission of guilt…ie you’re guilty of the crime, but your sentence is completed, so you still have it on your record.

    With that said, I have absolutely zero clue how all that works with these blanket pardons where they’re just given out to thousands of people at once.





  • @[email protected] already took care of what SMART means and is good for, so, I’ll address what the spirit of your message instead.

    For me, _almost _nothing in my house phones back anywhere with telemetry. Sure, anything that uses WiFi needs the network to run, but almost nothing has access to the actual internet because it’s on a VLAN that specifically blocks internet access.

    If you plan out the equipment you buy, you can ensure it’s safe (the absolute easiest way to do that would be to only buy z-wave or zigbee equipment since by design that’s a completely offline ecosystem, unless you buy a controller for it that requires the internet). With WiFi, I basically only buy stuff that can be flashed to ESPHOME, which removes its online requirements and puts a completely different firmware on the devices … this is more work than most people would want to do though, but you can always buy devices that were already flashed by someone else. IIRC, there are even some devices that come that way from the factory and use ESPHOME as an option. Or, they’re devices where I bought the sensors and microcontrollers and wired them up myself and put ESPHOME on the microcontroller.

    For me, I love walking into a room and the lights turning on. If it’s night, the lights are red to not jolt me awake. Later in the night, they’re dim and a bit more orangey rather than bright white. These are QOL improvements that I would not want to go back to not having.

    My garage doesn’t have any of the standard RF “clickers”/4-digit-code-panels connected because they’re garbage, but I have a relay sitting on it that I can remotely trigger and open the garage. I have motion sensors so that if no one has been in the garage for the last 5 minutes and the door is open, it’ll close the garage door (this was because people kept forgetting it was open.) I have sensors to let me know when the windows are open at the same time as the heating/air conditioning to try and prevent burning money. None of this is internet enabled, but it is controllable over my network and my network is accessible over my VPN.

    If the humidity is high in the bathrooms, it assumes someone is taking a shower and turns on the exhaust fans if they’re not already on. This can help prevent mold from growing. There are some real benefits to things being smart and I do 100% agree with you that apps that send data to companies on when we’re home/away and all that are BAD, but, if you plan ahead you can have your cake and eat it too, but the number of choices for equipment you’ll have will be lower, but at least your stuff will keep working regardless of internet access and regardless of whether the company that made the equipment is still around or not.


  • I have my bathroom fan turn on if the lid has been open more than 45 seconds … some things you just don’t (yet) know you need to be smart :-D

    For me, all of our lights are smart (some bulbs with smart switches that talk to the smart bulbs and some just smart switches), but, everything needs to be able to function like it’s dumb … nothing needs an app to function. The wall switches will function as expected … home assistant adds additional functionality, voice commands add extra functionality, but, it all works as you’d reasonably expect it to if you just go and hit the wall switch.





  • Thank You! They intentionally served the coffee hotter than their cups were even rated for all to minimize people getting refills and it was well documented by their own employees that people were getting hurt as a result.

    The person filing the lawsuit only wanted their medical bills covered. The JURY decided to go punitive and instead gave like 2 days of coffee profits instead (NOTE: The judge then said ‘fuck that’ and reduced the punitive amount down to ~25% of the amount the jury decided on … or 3x what they medical bills came out to because actually _punishing _ a company isn’t allowed).

    McDonalds’ smear campaign against this poor woman has been so disgustingly successful.








  • haha, I love that I could help!

    I’m typically listening to podcasts all day, myself to keep my sanity. I might add audiobooks to the rotation now though.

    For the Bobiverse, I didn’t know it was originally a trilogy and book 4 was already out when I started, so I went in with a completely different lens. Overall I liked the 4th. For me though, once I get invested in a series, I’m generally happy to keep getting more unless it goes off the rails (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter being an example of one I really liked that went sideways). Overall though, I liked book 4 myself, it felt like a decent continuation of the story and felt like a bridge that was needed to continue the universe into the future.

    Starter Villain wasn’t my favorite Scalzi, but I definitely liked it and it felt like a fresh concept and like most Scalzi, it’s enjoyable from start to finish. IIRC I read it in no more than 2 settings.

    If you haven’t Read Kaiju Preservation Society, I would wholeheartedly recommend it. It’s not amazing literature, but, god damn was it a fun ride! It felt a bit like Redshirts, if you liked that one.


  • I’m currently listening to For We Are Many, the 2nd book in the Bobiverse series by Dennis E Taylor. I’d previously read them all, but the newest is currently only an audible exclusive, so I downloaded a copy and listened to it and loved it and am now listening to the rest of the series. Basic plot: a modern guy gets a service to freeze his brain upon death. He then does and is awoken and turned into a self replicating space probe and Earth goes into nuclear war and the probe tries to help where it can and explores. It’s a really good and fun read.

    I’m also re-working my way through the Anne Rice Vampire series. Haven’t read them in a couple decades and wanted to get re-acquainted. currently on book 4. it’s crazy what you retain and what gets dropped after many years.

    I’ve found some of the random $1 for a 9 e-book set books that Amazon offers haven’t been bad.

    You mentioned Animorphs and thats one that I’ve got to give a re-read at some point. I get partway through another read through every couple of years. I’d love it if Katherine Applegate could re-work the series as an adult series. It’s so good.

    Starter Villain by John Scalzi was also a great read earlier this year. Absolutely love Scalzi. Basic Plot: Poor guy inherits his Uncles evil villain organization and tries to navigate his way through the shenanigans that ensue.