Thorry

Yeah I've have had encounters people who were super anti-chemicals, it had to be all natural all the time. Not only are they ignoring that litteraly every thing ever is made of chemicals and just because it's natural, doesn't mean it's good for you. But these people also had all of those granny says recipes to do all sorts of stuff, like in the olden days we had this secret knowledge to for example clean stuff, all without any chemicals. Most of these recipes involved stuff like baking soda or vinegar for example, like bitch please you are literally doing chemistry.

I'm currently using a lot of those mini hygrometer sold under a lot of brands. Mine are branded Brifit, but I've seen other brands like Oria and Ankilo and many others.

Here is a listing from Amazon, please don't buy it there, but to get an idea of the price and the specs:

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0D1FS8VR6

They use bluetooth and are powered by a little CR2477 coin cell battery, which lasts about a year (varies a bit, I've gotten some to last 10 months, others 14 months). I bought a bunch of them at once, which drops the price a lot. I've been using them for about 2 years now and they seem to be accurate and report data often (every few seconds). They are very small and can be tucked away somewhere (be sure they get good airflow tho, so it measures correctly). They are strictly for indoor use only.

My Homeassistant server (tiny old Intel Nuc thing) is pretty central in my home and I have a USB bluetooth stick attached to it. It's on an USB extension cable to have the antenna of the bluetooth stick out of the enclosure it's in for better reception. The sensors are scattered throughout the house and all seem to have an excellent connection. The USB stick I use is a UGreen one which is very common, with excellent support in Homeassistant.

I think this is the stick I have, at least the picture matches, again please don't buy from Amazon.

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0BXF13GB7

UGreen stuff is pretty good and sold in a lot of places.

Both the bluetooth stick and the sensors are China special, but these days it's very hard to find anything that isn't. Quality seems great tho.

Yes smart thermostats are great. I live alone and have a somewhat random schedule. Being able to turn on the heat before heading home is a total game changer. If I'm away when I'm usually at home, I can change the schedule in advance, or change it when I already left if I forgot. This helps save money. It can also track usage, so you can double check your energy bill with your actual usage. Although I have a Homeassistant setup with sensors to track usage from the meters, but still a useful tool to have. If you use gas for example for heating and hot water, the thermostat can give the data needed to split up the gas bill between those and see where savings are to be had. It's also an extra temperature and humidity sensor, keeping track of how comfortable your home is and it's possible to act not just on temperature, but other factors as well. I have a bunch of temperature sensors scattered in my home and the curves are useful for tweaking heating and ventilation in the home. Giving an optimal balance between cost and comfort. And preventing things like mold, which might save on heating in the short term, but put on costs in the long term with health issues and mold damage.

I have a lot of automation, but I have one rule. Everything must still basically work when the internet is out or the home automation has issues. So I use physical switches with sensors and relays, when everything fails the lights will still turn on and off with the switch. If there is no internet, physically turning the thermostat up or hitting the big override button next to the heater still turns on the heat. Stuff like that is important, it's a luxery and a convenience, but it must never become a hindrance.

I try to use open source stuff where I can and have contributed to some projects. I've made stuff myself like sensors with self made pcbs in 3D printed enclosures. But I also use some proprietary stuff, like for example the Nest thermostat. I bought it about 10 years ago and mostly because I loved the design. This was when they were recently acquired by Google and were still fully autonomous. Back then there weren't many alternatives and the Nest was by far the best looking one (imho). The software absolutely sucks, the old Nest app didn't get many updates with Google, but the older models still only work in the Nest app. But with Homeassistant I can work around most of it. It's a shame because Nest had so much potential and was doing good stuff, now under Google their product are kinda meh.

Interesting little detail: Even though the light doesn't interact directly with the dark matter, so in a sense it just passes through, the light can still be affected by the dark matter indirectly. Because the dark matter does have mass, or at least interacts gravitationally like it has mass, it actually deforms space-time. This deformation can cause light to travel through a longer path than one might expect.

This has been used to create dark matter "maps", to show where there is more and where there is less dark matter. It also shows up in gravitational lensing.

Damnit Donut

Another big issue with these modern huge cars is how isolated the drivers are from the outside world. It's like being in another world, completely cut off from the rest. This means if they are even a little distracted or not looking around properly, they are going to miss stuff much more easily. And it doesn't help these new cars usually have terrible touch screens which make you look down to do something. Plus because of the size and shape of the cars they have huge blind spots. With how safe they feel, how high the driver sits and the sound isolation, they also lose their sense of speed, which causes them to always drive way too fast for any situation. And all of the new driver aids make it easier to slack on proper driving as well. Phone distraction was already a huge issue before we got these huge cars.

I was riding my bicycle in a crowded city on Friday and the amount of huge cars is terrible. These days they are all electric or hybrid as well, which means they accelerate like crazy. We had one street with a lot of pedestrians and bicycles about and those huge cars were darting all around. Accelerating like crazy and then braking hard when the next "obstacle" aka other human beings neared. It was outright dangerous.

I've been riding my bicycle to work for decades now, but the amount of near death experiences per day have gone up and up the past few years. People drive like maniacs and cars seem to be designed specifically for them to do so. I feel less safe every day and wonder if it will be the end of me. But I like the fresh air and the outside, plus free exercise.

I hate cars, so even tho I have a car, I try not to ever use it unless I absolutely have to. It sits rotting in the driveway for weeks on end. And it's only because I sometimes need it unplanned I still keep it around. Lots of times I've gotten a call from a friend who needed help with some job around the house. I'm handy and I have tools, so I load up my car and drive over. I like to help people, so I guess I'll keep the car.

I printed a large complex part once, only to see I overlooked another thing that got in the way of my part. Instead of changing my design and re-printing it (which would take hours), I walked over to the mill and milled off a section of my print so it would fit properly. Plopped it on, fits like a glove, design king status achieved!

THEN FUCKING DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

Reminds me of those soap operas where a regular character is played by a different actor and they have to announce it at the start of every episode for a couple of weeks as to not confuse the viewers.

Head's empty, weighs absolutely nothing