Narry's recent activity
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Comment on Starter comments on Tildes? in ~tildes
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Comment on Playing with words in ~creative
Narry Link ParentSure! Fnulare makes me think of Gnu Flair, which makes me think of Gnome window manager, which reminds me of Ubuntu, which used to use animal names for major releases, and I got started with...Sure! Fnulare makes me think of Gnu Flair, which makes me think of Gnome window manager, which reminds me of Ubuntu, which used to use animal names for major releases, and I got started with Breezy Badger, and now I’ve got that badger mushroom snake song stuck in my head so your name is Weebl.
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Comment on Playing with words in ~creative
Narry LinkI do what I call Six Degrees of Stupid Nicknames. I’ll take someone’s name and find a word or nickname from it, then run through a series of six or so associations (sometimes less, sometimes more)...I do what I call Six Degrees of Stupid Nicknames. I’ll take someone’s name and find a word or nickname from it, then run through a series of six or so associations (sometimes less, sometimes more) and end up with a stupid nickname for you.
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Comment on A new eye implant proves remarkably effective in restoring sight for people with age-related macular degeneration in ~health
Narry Link ParentThat’s good! Hopefully he dodges it entirely. I take AREDS2 twice a day on the advice of my optometrist just in case. They’re pricey, but it’s worth it to me.That’s good! Hopefully he dodges it entirely. I take AREDS2 twice a day on the advice of my optometrist just in case. They’re pricey, but it’s worth it to me.
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Comment on Scripts I wrote that I use all the time in ~comp
Narry Link ParentThere’s always something new and interesting to learn about POSIX. Very cool! Thanks!There’s always something new and interesting to learn about POSIX. Very cool! Thanks!
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Comment on Scripts I wrote that I use all the time in ~comp
Narry Link ParentNice! I’ll probably incorporate some of that into my zshrc tonight after work! Thank you.Nice! I’ll probably incorporate some of that into my zshrc tonight after work! Thank you.
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Comment on A new eye implant proves remarkably effective in restoring sight for people with age-related macular degeneration in ~health
Narry LinkThis is excellent. My mother has dry macular degeneration like her father did, and I'm likely to have the same as I age. I hope this technology continues to improve and comes down in price.This is excellent. My mother has dry macular degeneration like her father did, and I'm likely to have the same as I age. I hope this technology continues to improve and comes down in price.
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Comment on Scripts I wrote that I use all the time in ~comp
Narry Link ParentI knew there had to be something like that out there. Thanks!I knew there had to be something like that out there. Thanks!
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Comment on Scripts I wrote that I use all the time in ~comp
Narry LinkI tend to string commands together that I use all the time into aliases in zsh. Some of my favorites: # common ways I style ls commands alias lsc="ls --color" alias lsa="ls -lha --color" alias...I tend to string commands together that I use all the time into aliases in zsh. Some of my favorites:
# common ways I style ls commands alias lsc="ls --color" alias lsa="ls -lha --color" alias lsd="ls -d --color */" alias lsall="ls -latrh --color */" # I need cls like I need cd and ls alias cls="clear" # If you connect via SSH it'll ask for a fingerprint of your machine on each new client. # I got tired of looking up and copying this command alias fingerprint="ssh-keygen -E md5 -lf <(ssh-keyscan localhost 2>/dev/null)" # Technically only . ~/zshrc is doing anything useful. #The rest is # 1) an anonymous function that echos what I'm doing # 2) does what I said I'd do # 3) then confirms we're still in zsh. alias src="() { echo 'Reloading ZSH'; . ~/.zshrc; echo $0 }" # I honestly forgot that these aren't real commands I use them so dang much. alias home="cd ~/" alias whichenv="echo $VIRTUAL_ENV"What this does is it it updates homebrew, upgrades any packages that need upgrading, and then it clears the cached downloads. (Edited to take out the mkcd command as it... doesn't work.)
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Comment on The same-name club made up entirely of Shirleys is dying out in ~life
Narry LinkWhy does this remind me of The Kids in the Hall? Thirty Helens agree: it’s a shame about all of the Shirleys dying out.Why does this remind me of The Kids in the Hall? Thirty Helens agree: it’s a shame about all of the Shirleys dying out.
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Comment on Tips/guides to turn my home into a smart home? in ~tech
Narry Link ParentThanks! Good information, I appreciate the follow-up.Thanks! Good information, I appreciate the follow-up.
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Comment on Tips/guides to turn my home into a smart home? in ~tech
Narry Link ParentI'll second researching the lesser-known brands. The only major brand that I'm familiar with that has held up to their usual reputation has been TP-Link and especially their Tapo stuff. Their Kasa...I'll second researching the lesser-known brands. The only major brand that I'm familiar with that has held up to their usual reputation has been TP-Link and especially their Tapo stuff. Their Kasa stuff is okay, but the Tapo stuff has been excellent.
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Comment on Tips/guides to turn my home into a smart home? in ~tech
Narry Link ParentYou could probably answer a question for me, then: do you have to switch your phone's Wi-Fi over to the IoT router in order to control things from your devices that aren't on the shared network? I...You could probably answer a question for me, then: do you have to switch your phone's Wi-Fi over to the IoT router in order to control things from your devices that aren't on the shared network? I ended up putting all of mine on the 2.4 GHz router that my 5 GHz equipment also uses, but I had originally wanted to partition that off into another router connected directly to my modem so that they didn't overlap. Sometimes there's just too much traffic and requests get lost, because in addition to around 30 IoTs on my network, I've got about a dozen other things that need the network, all of which require huge amounts of bandwidth for things like streaming and VoIP.
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Comment on Tips/guides to turn my home into a smart home? in ~tech
Narry LinkEvery single smart-home has some kind of hub buy-in. This is because most of these smart homes are basically a mesh network of some kind. I use an Apple HomeKit setup because I'm already in the...Every single smart-home has some kind of hub buy-in. This is because most of these smart homes are basically a mesh network of some kind. I use an Apple HomeKit setup because I'm already in the Apple ecosystem, and it now gives me Matter (an open standard) compatibility, giving me a lot more options. Apple doesn't directly make most of the products that I use day to day, and for a long time having a HomeKit felt very limiting because most products preferred not to go through Apple's standards testing.
I use five different brands of products that are actually in my system: Meross, Nano, Tapo by TP-Link, Kasa by TP-Link, and Linkind. I've spent close to a thousand dollars on this network, but it's been over the course of about four years, and some of that has been replacing lights that have gone bad (about half of my Nano Leaf bulbs have been replaced by Linkind, and I've got close to a dozen standing by to replace the rest as they wear out.) Only the Linkind are completely controlled by and updated by the Home app. The rest have their own apps installed on my phone, and I periodically poll for firmware updates. When updates DO happen, the Meross and TP-Link stuff updates without hassle, but it took me 3 separate 45-minute sessions over 2 weeks to get the Nano Leafs to update last time, because they update strictly over Bluetooth, which means they're slow, they're likely to fail, and I have to have my phone nearby to them. But they also hardly ever update, which is fine.
Some things to note with the Apple ecosystem especially:
- You HAVE to have a border router. This means one of your various items in the home is basically going to wind up being the central brain of your network, and others are going to support it. In my home, the Apple TVs act as main routers, with the HomePod minis scattered throughout. You have to have an iPhone for customized scripting and some other deeper level stuff, but I think you can get away with not having one if you just have basic stuff like scene-based stuff and maybe time-based automations. But if you want to get fancy with things happening automatically when you leave/arrive and you want to control your automations away from from home, you need an iPhone. I don't think an iPad even with 5G mobile data will cut it.
- Your requests are local. For reasons I don't understand, everyone else seems to run the request out to an internet server, then runs them back to the house. If all of your stuff is on the same network in a HomeKit home, it just directly communicates on the local network via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth (if the item has Bluetooth; not a requirement).
- While your TVs can use 5GHz Wi-Fi, your HomePods and probably all of your other stuff uses 2.4GHz. It's best if you have a dedicated 2.4GHz antenna on your home's Wi-Fi router, as a blended network with automatic feature switching isn't great. What is nice is that the HomePods not long ago had internal sensors that were already built into them but not yet activated turned on by an Apple update. Now I can get the temperature and humidity in my rooms and have my automated systems react accordingly (like if my humidity gets up over a certain percentage, run my fans, etc.)
- There's a pecking order of how useful an Apple item is at controlling anything on the network. The iPhone is king, the Mac and iPads and the HomePod minis are tied for second, and the Apple TVs and my Apple Watch are honorable mentions (the Watch is basically worthless if the iPhone isn't in your pocket, and at least up through TVOS 18 the Siri functionality through the remote button was basically useless.)
I started with mostly difficult to access lights, like stand lamps I keep in the corner behind furniture, and bias lighting under my cabinets that has a switch that's blocked by an appliance. But as I got along and discovered "scenes" in my Home app, I got more and more ideas and replaced more and more lights and now I cannot think of a single light in my home that's not smart. Either I used existing fixtures and put smart bulbs in there, or in the case of a few of my desk lamps, bought lamps that were purpose-build.
Next came the smart switches, which in the hotter days I keep attached to fans that I can call out by name so that I can get air circulating through my home quickly. In the winter, some of them get swapped out for very low-wattage space heaters (400W) to heat extremely small areas like my desk, or the foot of my bed.
The last thing I have added into my network is a small camera that watches my porch so that I'm not surprised by Amazon sneak-dropping packages, or my groceries getting dropped and the app never alerting me so $200 worth of food rots in the hot midday sun while I'm sitting 20ft and 2 rooms away, blissfully unaware because nobody knocked and I never got a notification. The most annoying thing about it is that for anything other than looking at the current live view, I have to use TP-Link's app. That means if I want to reorient the camera with tilt/pan/rotate, if I want to view footage from previous events, if I want to talk through the camera to the other room, if I want to set up boundary crossing triggers, any of the camera's more advanced features, I'm required to swap over to the app.
If I were to start adding in other smart things, like other sensors, a lot of brands won't incorporate directly into HomeKit, but have routers of their own that can do it, which is kind of annoying but not a deal-breaker. IKEA has a whole line of smart stuff I've considered, but truthfully the only thing they have that truly makes me think their nearly $100 buy-in for the router alone is their automated window blinds.
The only two types of add-on I'm at all interested in currently are motion sensors for the bathrooms to have them turn the lights on automatically to about 1%, because right now every motion-activated dumb solution I've looked for has ended up being so bright that I might as well have turned the lights on. And the other thing is buttons that run scenes, which would allow me to run some of my scenes without having to speak This is useful for when it's late at night and I don't want to be talking back and forth with Siri while others in the house are trying to sleep.
I'm sure there's a lot I've skipped over, such as some of the cons and headaches of running this system. but if you have any questions feel free to ask!
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Comment on What's your video game comfort food? in ~games
Narry (edited )LinkEndless Sky. It’s a pretty faithful remake of the old Ambrosia Software game series called Escape Velocity. I’ve got probably five thousand hours plunged into the series and remake since about...Endless Sky. It’s a pretty faithful remake of the old Ambrosia Software game series called Escape Velocity. I’ve got probably five thousand hours plunged into the series and remake since about 1996. I’ll go sometimes years between plays and then play constantly for anywhere from a day to every night for weeks on end. There’s just something about it that makes my brain calm. The longest period I went without playing was about ten years, from when I last had a Mac that could play Escape Velocity Nova to when I found Endless Sky.
Other than that, it’s mostly solitaire card games, Simon Tatham’s Puzzles, and Minecraft. (Edit to fix Summon -> Simon)
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Comment on What's your video game comfort food? in ~games
Narry Link ParentFirst thing I make sure is installed on every phone and tablet.First thing I make sure is installed on every phone and tablet.
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Comment on Forgot Chrome's unusable, any recommendations? in ~tech
Narry LinkAt work I use exclusively Microsoft Edge. It's a decent browser, chromium-based, and you can still use uBlock even though Google doesn't like it. Opera is also a decent chromium browser, but I...At work I use exclusively Microsoft Edge. It's a decent browser, chromium-based, and you can still use uBlock even though Google doesn't like it. Opera is also a decent chromium browser, but I only use it for mobile, not desktop so I can't attest to its quality there.
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Comment on What ridiculous thing would you spend billions on? in ~talk
Narry Link ParentI thought that might be that case. 1:8 scale X-Wing is my backup suggestion.I thought that might be that case. 1:8 scale X-Wing is my backup suggestion.
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Comment on What ridiculous thing would you spend billions on? in ~talk
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Comment on What code editor / IDE do you use (2025)? in ~comp
Narry LinkMost of my time I'm in the terminal, just hacking together a little bit of code for like a bash script, or a bit of JavaScript, Go, or Python that's going to be run in the terminal. I checked a...Most of my time I'm in the terminal, just hacking together a little bit of code for like a bash script, or a bit of JavaScript, Go, or Python that's going to be run in the terminal. I checked a lot of terminal-based editors including neovim | Github and emacs | Github mirror and I found the editor got in the way of accomplishing what I set out to do. I looked around and found that Helix | Github and AMP | Github are getting good, but really overkill for what I'm doing.
So… like you I also almost exclusively use micro | Github with a few of its little plugins installed, and a decent color scheme I like (nord). It honestly does just exactly what I need to it do, no more, no less.
(I know that others have mentioned many of these previously and I probably don't need to link them, but I feel compelled to get folks as far from VSCode | Github as fast as possible. It now bills itself as "The open source AI code editor" and that just gives me the ick.)
I'd feel like I'm not starting an actual discussion if I don't at least provide my opinion, but I can also see the view of "just provide the content and let others form an opinion about the content, not form an opinion about your opinion." I think for me it would come down to checking if I want to discuss the thing I'm linking or if I want to discuss my thoughts on the thing I'm linking.
Also, can I lightly hijack to ask if anyone has any suggestions about tagging new threads? I've encountered stuff I'd like to see if there's discussion around, but I don't want to under or over tag. Or should I get over myself and tag what I think is reasonable and let others add tags as needed?