I once owned a bunch of WiFi connected devices. One day I inspected my router logs and found out that they were all making calls to a bunch of services that weren’t the vendor - things like Google, and Facebook.

WiFi connected devices require connecting to a router; in most homes, this is going to be one that’s also connected to the internet - most people aren’t going to buy a second router just for their smart home, or set up a disconnected second LAN on their one router. And nearly all of these devices come with an app, which talks to the device through an external service (I’m looking at you, Honeywell, and you, Rainbird). This is a privacy shit-show. WiFi is a terrible option for smart home devices.

ZigBee, well, I haven’t had any luck with it - pairing problems which are certainly just a learning curve in my part and not an issue with the protocol. I chose ZWave myself because I read about the size and range limitations of ZigBee technology, versus ZWave, but honestly I could have gone either way. Back then, there was no appreciable price difference in devices. Most hubs support both, though, and I can’t see why I wouldn’t mix them (other than I need to figure out how to get ZigBee to work).

In any case, low-power BT, ZigBee, or Zwave are all options, whereas I will not allow more WiFi smart devices in my house. I’m stuck with Honeywell and Rainbird, for… reasons… but that’s it. I don’t need to be poking more holes in my LAN security.

They’re going to be leery of that because of Munich. Yes, it was ages ago, but it cost the state so much money, they’re going to be very cautious about any such endeavors.

My wife has an irrational fear of frogs. She’d agree with the frog part.

Yah, you may be right. I’m at the limit of my materials science knowledge, here.

Conductivity is more germane to heat loss through the material. Borosilicate glass’ specific heat is also roughly twice that of steel, at around 0.830 J/g C to 316 steel’s 0.468 J/g C. Glass will absorb and retain more heat for longer;steel will absorb energy and heat up more quickly, and dump it just as fast.

I mean, we’re taking about millimeters of material; the quality of the cozy will have far more impact than the container material.

Bullshit, “there’s nothing left.” Fucking idiots forget what a holocaust can really be.

There won’t be a Gaza, because it’ll be Israel. There won’t be Palestinians anymore. You think the destruction is bad now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. There will now never be a Palestine; any tiny chance was just extinguished.

Sad thing is, it’s the Palestinians in the Middle East who are going to pay for the dumb fuck voters in the US. The ones here will pay, too; only it’ll just be in more blatant bigotry and racism, not flat-out being murdered. And good luck getting their families and friends out; immigration was a huge talking point of the Trump team.

The extermination of the Palestine people is a high price to pay for the shocked Pikachu face that’s coming.

Well, looks like Elon is going to get away with it.

There goes the role of law. Welcome to the next stage of the collapse.

Blind. It’s always blind.

I don’t remember who it was, but some historian once said you could estimate how good and fair a time period is by imagining that you are going to be born at random into it. You don’t get to choose your parents, and statistics are the factor - this isn’t a monkey’s paw wish, it’s a random number generator.

In this case, if you pick “bear,” you’re going to get a random bear from all the bears in the world. If you’re a man, you get a random one of the 4 billion(ish) adult women on the planet. Of you’re a woman, you get a random man.

It could be a Giant Panda; it could be a Polar Bear. Statistically, probably some sort of black bear; but it’s random.

Odds are you’re going to get an Asian person: Indian, Chinese, whatever. But you could also get some big, aggressive person magically yanked out of solitary: random.

You get no more context. Black ops dudes have snatched you and are going to drop you into a situation; you get only the choice: bear, or woman.

Another wonderful write-up! I’ve been watching this one; thanks for such a detailed review.

Yeah, if Trump doesn’t win. And if Kamala wins, then if he can drag the case out until the next election, there’s a chance she’ll lose the next one and he’ll get a chance at a pardon. If Trump wins, I doubt the Justice department will prosecute.

If Smell-o-Vision was a thing, everyone would think Trump smelled like pine trees and ocean spray, because that’s what he’d pay them to broadcast, or else refuse to allow himself to be broadcast on their networks.

The guy slathers on so much fake tan, he looks like he’s wearing black-face. His only genuine characteristic is his inability to stop the senility from coming out of his mouth.

Good thing Joe isn’t running, huh?

Which made no functional difference, as elections are today and Musk didn’t stop doing the lottery during the case.

What.

Oh. He only ruled that it didn’t violate state gambling laws. Musk can still be tried for violating national election laws.

I’d rather see him in federal prison, anyway. Maybe he’ll do an Epstein there.

M

That’s composing quite an edifice of unprovable postulation to reverse engineer faith. “A” for effort!

Sold for $49,809 at the auction.

Curse you. You stole my outtake.

“In other news, Carlson fell asleep ten minutes in to Oppenheimer, and Barbie made him uncomfortable.”

Oof.

Factorio is an interesting game in that I’ve always winged it (reading about how to play games seems… pointless to me), but I once looked something up that I couldn’t figure out and had a “holy shit, that’s way easier than what I’ve been doing!” moment.

I still would rather figure things out than use other people’s templates… but I did once steal a template for a nuclear power plant because it was so much darned better than what I was coming up with.

This is something core to my preference of Factorio over all other resource management games I’ve tried: most others put you under stress, and it’s a hurry just to build enough to stay alive. Factorio gives me time to figure things out, and while I may not come up with the best patterns, it’s the process of design that I like.

Anyway, communities like this are nice because it feels less like stealing designs than borrowing ideas.