Literally just a light switch, lol. Not what I expected. I appreciate the idea, thank you.

Care to share what remote you're using?

I have thousands of dollars invested in light strings/strips, and hundreds of hours designing/building controllers that are centered around single wire chipsets. I run just about every WS281X flavor, all of which interfere with my RF garage door opener. It's not like I can just pop down to WalMart and buy the stuff I need for my display.

Of course not.

Crazy? No. No crazier than someone who DOESN'T want to do that.

TBD. ;)

My WS2811 lights interfere with my RF garage door opener. If I didn't have my GoControl devices I wouldn't be able to get into my garage in December.

Beyond that, I love being able to open my door from my phone, and getting alerts if I neglect to close it. I will agree that relying on someone else's network is stupid. After the Wink incident(s) I will never have an automation solution that requires any third party hosted anything.

XM was decent back in the day, when it was like $15/month. Now it's closer to $30 and any channels I'm interested are packed with advertisements. And they sync the ads so the similar channels have ads on at the same time. I haven't used it in my car since Pandora first came out, and haven't looked back. My wife has it in her vehicle, every time I drive it is a reminder how shitty the service has gotten.

Coalition governments that can ignore the lunatic fringe on both sides, and actually govern as moderates? The "Antifa", or whateverthefuck you want to call the far left idiots, and the MAGA, or whateverthefuck you want to call the far right idiots, can fuck off in the corner and bloviate about all the horrors that are destroying this country. Meanwhile the moderate right and left, whom are much closer in idealism than far too many people are willing to admit for some reason, can form a functioning government.

[citation needed]

Yes, that quote you posted is bullshit. Does that make you happy? I'm not sure where you were getting your COVID information at the time, I sure wasn't getting mine from some talking head rage bait news pundit.

How about a specific quote/context instead of some nebulous "Biden said we're all gonna die" BS?

Are you expecting a train of Democrats to line up here defending Rachel Maddow as a credible source of information on vaccine efficacy? I wouldn't exactly put her in the "innumerate imbeciles with abysmal comprehension skills" category, but also certainly not my first choice as a source of information for, well, just about any topic of consequence.

Never been there, but that "chili" sounds awful.

No argument from me on that one. To quote Ron White: "I don’t even think you all told the Mexican boys you were having a [Cincinnati, chili capital of the world] contest. That’s right, ’cause a Mexican boy’d come up here with a goat and an onion and kick your ass."

Long COVID, if I were to take a guess.

For sure. I would argue those same requirements are met by our current smartphone ecosystems. I can install outlook, chrome, whatever on either device, and they provide (I assume) relative feature parity. (I have to assume because I have so far successfully avoided having to learn iWhatevers.) But when you start digging deeper, things like file-sharing or authentication on PC vs Linux vs Mac, things can get dicey. You can make it happen, but it's certainly not frictionless or feature-equivalent. Similarly, I can call or text an iDevice from an Android just fine, but as soon as you start trying to merge "advanced" features the cracks begin to show. ICS is a good example.

I need to get out more. I'm from Michigan, the upper part, I don't recall seeing anything like you described. I have to assume it's another regional thing.

I assume that's on the agenda, right after peace in the Middle East. Serious answer, though: That's like saying "Windows and Linux should perform the same function in a compatible way.". I cannot even begin to describe how much I don't want that.

Who the heck DOESN'T put beans in chili? As a lifelog upper-midwest resident the concept of beanless chili just doesn't compute.

That's one of those things that never really clicked with me until recently. An EO is the equivalent of a memo from your boss. The worst they can do for ignoring it is fire you.