fifthecho's recent activity

  1. Comment on Want to automate my home with a privacy focus (but I'm a bit slow and need help) in ~life.home_improvement

    fifthecho
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    So, I cannot speak for your existing wiring, but I'm willing to guarantee that the answer is "yes" you can do this. Home Assistant, OpenHAB, or some other OSS project will be your core. My $0.02...

    So, I cannot speak for your existing wiring, but I'm willing to guarantee that the answer is "yes" you can do this.

    Home Assistant, OpenHAB, or some other OSS project will be your core. My $0.02 is for Home Assistant, but there is choice out there if you have biases or preferences for the language that things run or are developed in.

    You will want to stick with Zigbee, Z-Wave, or Thread devices where possible. None of these are internet-routed communication protocols and all have a pretty rigorous authentication process for allowing devices to join their mesh networks. Won't say that it can't be hacked, but it would be pretty challenging to. Additionally, if you're running the devices from Home Assistant, any telemetry would be opt-in.

    In the places where there does not exist a Zigbee, Z-Wave, or Thread device that meets your needs or price-point, there do exist privacy conscious Tasmota or ESP-Home based WiFi options usually as well.

    If you're wanting to use Home Assistant's GeoFencing, you're going to need to expose your Home Assistant instance to the Internet. While pretty easily doable, it's not for the feint of heart and my recommendation would be to just pony up and pay for their subscription, help fund the project, and get hassle-free encrypted ingress through a tunnel through their systems so that your phone can ping your system when you leave.

    It's 100% doable, but for some things, you will need either some technical know-how or pay a premium for a more privacy conscious product.

    I have a 100 year old house in the NYC metro area with horrible wiring and have the majority of the house automated.

    1 vote
  2. Comment on Want to automate my home with a privacy focus (but I'm a bit slow and need help) in ~life.home_improvement

  3. Comment on Meta is releasing AudioCraft: Generative AI for audio made simple and available to all in ~tech

    fifthecho
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    I'm a pretty vocal critic of Apple and their lack of contributions to OSS, but they have been pretty good custodians of CUPS Even the worst OSS citizen can have a few bright lights. All of the...

    I'm a pretty vocal critic of Apple and their lack of contributions to OSS, but they have been pretty good custodians of CUPS

    Even the worst OSS citizen can have a few bright lights. All of the MANGA companies are bad...and a lot of other companies too.

    3 votes
  4. Comment on "Layered" music that builds throughout the song? in ~music

    fifthecho
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    One that comes to my mind when reading your description is Nectar by BT off his album ESCM.

    One that comes to my mind when reading your description is Nectar by BT off his album ESCM.

  5. Comment on Prevalence of AI generated text in Tildes in ~tildes

    fifthecho
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    42 years old. Was playing around with something the other day which necessitated me logging into my Last.FM account that needed a new password and as I was updating the password noticed that the...

    42 years old. Was playing around with something the other day which necessitated me logging into my Last.FM account that needed a new password and as I was updating the password noticed that the time zone and zip code on that account was at least 15 years out of date.

    Some of us are getting old.

    2 votes
  6. Comment on Weirdest films ever? in ~movies

    fifthecho
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    Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes (2020)

    Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes (2020)

  7. Comment on How to read House of Leaves in ~books

    fifthecho
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    Yeah, scans exist, but you will be miserable trying to read it digitally. You genuinely need a paper version to be able to read the book.

    Yeah, scans exist, but you will be miserable trying to read it digitally. You genuinely need a paper version to be able to read the book.

    1 vote
  8. Comment on It's time to buy some new non-stick pans... need recommendations in ~food

    fifthecho
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    Weird. Might be worth reaching out to their support.

    Weird. Might be worth reaching out to their support.

  9. Comment on It's time to buy some new non-stick pans... need recommendations in ~food

    fifthecho
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    Interesting. I have a set that’s almost 3 years old now and I abuse them with metal tools and the dishwasher and they’re basically like new.

    Interesting. I have a set that’s almost 3 years old now and I abuse them with metal tools and the dishwasher and they’re basically like new.

    2 votes
  10. Comment on What is productivity, and is it a reasonable lever to force a return to office? in ~life

    fifthecho
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    I can’t speak for your employer, but with mine there were more than a few meetings where they didn’t explicitly say “we’re going back in to cull the herd” but it was such an overt overtone that in...

    I can’t speak for your employer, but with mine there were more than a few meetings where they didn’t explicitly say “we’re going back in to cull the herd” but it was such an overt overtone that in verbal conversations with HR & recruiting they unofficially confirmed it.

    If you’re publicly traded, having layoffs looks bad and makes your stock go down in value.

    If you can make work mildly miserable enough that poor performers drop out, you get the benefits without the dip in valuation. The fine line comes in not pissing off your top performers so they leave.

    7 votes
  11. Comment on Tildes dev environment on Apple Silicon // Apple M1 in ~tildes

    fifthecho
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    As someone with decades in IT Ops and deeper knowledge of containers than I like, let me dig a little into this tomorrow. A good suite of Dockerfiles and a Compose YAML shouldn’t be more work to...

    As someone with decades in IT Ops and deeper knowledge of containers than I like, let me dig a little into this tomorrow.

    A good suite of Dockerfiles and a Compose YAML shouldn’t be more work to maintain than a Vagrant box.

    4 votes
  12. Comment on What is productivity, and is it a reasonable lever to force a return to office? in ~life

    fifthecho
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    As someone who up until recently could’ve been easily considered a “middle manager,” it’s been more of #1 and # 4 from my viewpoint.

    As someone who up until recently could’ve been easily considered a “middle manager,” it’s been more of #1 and # 4 from my viewpoint.

    7 votes
  13. Comment on Books that changed your perception in ~books

    fifthecho
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    This is why I love Stephenson - “after the first 200 pages it gets really good.” That’s also my summary of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle as a whole.

    This is why I love Stephenson - “after the first 200 pages it gets really good.”

    That’s also my summary of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle as a whole.

    2 votes
  14. Comment on Books that changed your perception in ~books

  15. Comment on Books that changed your perception in ~books

    fifthecho
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    House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. It's a metafictional horror story about a guy who is editing a book (which you're reading) about a movie about a house that's bigger on the inside than the...

    House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.

    It's a metafictional horror story about a guy who is editing a book (which you're reading) about a movie about a house that's bigger on the inside than the outside.

    11 votes
  16. Comment on Why is real balsamic vinegar so expensive (Part 1 of 3) in ~food

    fifthecho
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    I've enjoyed some of Ethan Chlebowski's other deep dives into other food topics - his video on Olive Oil is particularly fascinating - and this is the start of a multi-video series on balsamic...

    I've enjoyed some of Ethan Chlebowski's other deep dives into other food topics - his video on Olive Oil is particularly fascinating - and this is the start of a multi-video series on balsamic vinegar.

    3 votes
  17. Comment on Let's talk about Reddit alternatives, shilling, and Tildes bans in ~talk

    fifthecho
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    It does, but there's still a bias for a big jump because the Y-axis doesn't start at zero. I'll defer to @Algernon_Asimov having shown that this is a 36% increase in 2 weeks...which is...

    It does, but there's still a bias for a big jump because the Y-axis doesn't start at zero. I'll defer to @Algernon_Asimov having shown that this is a 36% increase in 2 weeks...which is substantial, but I still stand that the graph is making it look bigger than it is as a result of the Y-axis there starting ~12,000.

    2 votes
  18. Comment on Let's talk about Reddit alternatives, shilling, and Tildes bans in ~talk

    fifthecho
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    Fair. Good callout. Apologies that this morning I was already grumpy about people misinterpreting data in the way I described at work when I posted.

    Fair. Good callout. Apologies that this morning I was already grumpy about people misinterpreting data in the way I described at work when I posted.

    4 votes
  19. Comment on Let's talk about Reddit alternatives, shilling, and Tildes bans in ~talk

    fifthecho
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    The graph is also a victim of scaling - something super common in computer monitoring when dealing with large numbers regularly. If you look closely, the baseline (bottom) of the graph is roughly...

    The graph is also a victim of scaling - something super common in computer monitoring when dealing with large numbers regularly.

    If you look closely, the baseline (bottom) of the graph is roughly 13,000 and the top of the graph is roughly 17,500.

    While adding 4,500 people is pretty substantial and nothing to sneeze at, it’s realistically less of a hockey stick to the count than the graph makes it seems.

    3 votes