Feel sorry for y’all missing out. I’ve gone to so many concerts for headliner bands, for $50-$100. Not in decades, though.

The only time I paid hundreds to see a band was y2k new years party at Paradise Island …. And that was three bands and a full day

From what little we know, the guy had every right to do things the way he did, and posting an immediate reply to the Mayors lie was my re than valid

Why isn’t this a criminal investigation? I see fraud, lyin to the victims, a coverup, harassing a whistleblower, and abusing government resources for personal reasons. Do they not have anti-SLAPP laws?

BT on my 2016 Subaru has been solid. Actually there’s some sort of bad connection in the data path so the BT is more reliable than the wired connection

So you know which sofa cushion the EarPod is under

To be pedantic:

• newcomers are Thread and Matter, based on IPv6 and include standardized device profiles that should really help things work together. The standard is widely sponsored, including by Apple and Amazon
• Matter works on your regular ethernet or WiFi network, and can access the internet. This is likely used by things permanently wired to power. For example Apple HomeKit uses this to control devices like light switches or printers
• Thread is a local low powered mesh network, sometimes called Zigbee 2.0 because it’s the same frequency and comes from the Zigbee Alliance. It is very suitable for battery devices like lightbulbs and sensors, and is bridged to Matter for controllers

but I’m not techy

That’s the entire problem. Automation products depending on the cloud do have fewer requirements, are simpler to get started with, even if they’re overall poorer choices. They’re a fundamental fact that something needs to control your devices: cloud devices means the company takes care of that for you.

Taking the cloud out of the loop means you need to manage some sort of automation hub. There are many choices but I don’t know which may be approachable for non-techies. The new Matter/Thread standard tries to solve this while making everything work together, but adoption has been slow so you may not be able to use it for much yet. Your choice of automation hub drives your choices.

Maybe some of what I do is applicable, but I AM techie, I love to tinker, and I own my home, so maybe not. I try for local control where possible plus make choices that are additive: things still need to work normally.

• Prefer smart switches, not bulbs, so they still work normally. They also act as repeaters for local Zigbee or Z-Wave networks
• Z-Wave and Zigbee are local low-powered mesh networks commonly used in home automation. “Thread” is a newcomer but not widely used yet. Think of them as a network between Bluetooth and WiFi, but designed as a mesh to better cover your home. These are local networks only, there is no cloud connection (directly). They use a lot less power than WiFi, which makes battery devices more practical, and different frequencies for less interference. You should expect to pick one.
• Home Assistant (HA) on a Raspberry Pi. This was always the techie choice as opensource software that supports everything but in the last two years they have made it a lot more approachable, and Nabu Casa sells it installed in custom hardware. Among other things, it lets me use all of Z-Wave, Zigbee, and Thread devices, as well as Ethernet devices and gives a lot of automation power. When you’re starting out, you should stick to one for simplicity
• I do use Alexa, which requires internet access. I choose to subscribe to Nabu Casa to manage that in HA, since it also funds further HA development but this is not required and there are no ads or data collection
• My latest automation was for my teen staying up late all summer: at midnight, dim the family room lights and announce over Alexa that he should go to bed. He’s back at college now but I’m sure I’ll want it next time he’s home

I believe some Echo devices can control Zigbee devices locally - however I didn’t really pay attention since I’m not interested in that

If I want to get a better sense of lemmy than headlines, that 47% success at summarizing all the posts is good enough and much faster than I can even skim

If I want to code a new program, that 47% is probably pretty solid at structure and boilerplate so good enough. It can save me a lot of time

If I want to summarize the statuses of my entire team, that 47% may be sufficient for a Slack update to keep everyone up to speed but not enough to send to management

If I’m writing my thesis, that 47% is abject failure

The new Thread/Matter standard is an attempt to bring together various home automation protocols for exactly things like this.

• Previously an appliance manufacturer may have needed to support multiple protocols and decide how to expose functionality.
• the new standard is IPv6 based: Matter is the Ethernet protocol and Thread a local-only low power mesh network, and it’s sponsored by Apple, Amazon and many other players. However another great feature is a standard set of device types, so most of the functionality you need to implement is already defined and other services already know how to interact with it.

If were Matter/Thread, I can already ask Siri the status or configure Alexa to announce when it’s done or script my home automation hub to flash an LED indicator.

I do set a timer on my watch according to what the machine estimates: 59 minutes for a standard wash and 1:15 for a standard dry. Sometimes the estimate is off, so it’s not perfect.

Then again, why do I have to remember to have my phone or watch in order to use the laundry?

An actual notification could be better because I don’t have to have my phone nor remember to do it. Sort of like in the olden days when the machines had that god awful buzzer you could hear throughout the house: it just worked at least if you’re home. Now the machines let out a pleasant little tinkle that I can’t hear from the living room, plus what if I want to be outside.

It might also be a question of how we define “intelligence”. We really don’t have a clear definition and it’s a moving target as we find out more

• “reading aloud is something only a person can do. It requires intelligence”. Here’s a computer doing it. “Oh, that’s not really intelligence, is it”

What if you’re reading Lemmy, and you don’t really feel like reading the article. Is the headline likely to tell you all you need to know or is the ai summary likely to find more info and without the clickbait?

Artificial intelligence is worse than humans in every way at summarizing documents

In every way? How about speed? The goal is to save human time so if AI is faster and the summary is good enough, then it is a success. I guarantee it is faster. Much faster.

There’s no reason a laundry machine requires an internet connection

• if an internet connection provides additional functionality such as notification, it easier to have the machine work normally without notifications
• there’s no reason a machine requires an internet connection, especially with the release of the Matter/Thread standard to unify home automation local protocols

When I got new machines about five years ago, I briefly considered connected machines. It would be really nice to get notifications on my phone but how can it possibly cost that much and why does the only option depend on a cloud service?

A big problem is things tied unnecessarily to an internet service. We need to educate people that there may be alternatives and we need our purchasing decisions to support that. For example, most home automation stuff should NOT require or use any internet.

The article calls it “software tethering”. If any support commitments encourage manufacturers to stop that, we’ll all be better off. Let’s start with requiring users be clearly notified of software tethering, so they know what they’re buying

Streaming music has really changed my life!

Radio was so bad with endless ads and blather, with the occasional pop sing, that it was just not worth listening to. I kept finding myself in continuous “seek” trying to find a channel playing music and it was completely aggravating.

Now with endless streaming music of my choice , no ads or blather, I’ve gone from never listening to music in my car or home, to always. It’s like I’ve discovered a new form of entertainment.

I’ve had a new car about 8 months, and I’ve listened to the radio only once to verifying know how to use it. But Spotify is always there!

That’s not enough. Amazon tablets started with ads only on Lock Screen and startup. Those are also not ok

This is a patent troll, stiffling innovation gaming the patent system for something [we hope] they never intend to produce. Even if it’s a horrible idea we want stifled, that’s still a patent troll

I knew someone who taught Marketing at a business school and we had some really weird discussions. They do teach students not to be assholes. They do teach ethics. They do teach respect for the viewer. But what they teach for Marketing is very different from what we experience from Marketing.