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Comment You said "cheap" and "Wifi", but... (Score 3) 77

So this isn't at all what you asked for, but I'm going to throw it out there anyway: Ubiquiti. You'll pay more and they're all PoE rather than wireless, but if you spend the money and run the wires (hey, you have to run a wire for power anyway, might as well use it for data, too) you won't regret the results.

Comment Re:Now we're just haggling over the price (Score 1) 92

Biden tried and failed, because it wasn't legal.

Actually he tried and partly failed because it was only partly legal.

But he definitely cannot create a new revenue stream and direct it however he chooses.

That might not stop him from trying, and unless Congress or the courts rein him in, it won't stop him from doing it. As I pointed out above, in this case it's unclear that anyone would have standing to sue (not taxpayers; it wouldn't be tax money -- maybe nVidia or China, but they like the deal), so stopping him would probably require Congress to act. And what are the odds that the Republican Congress would grow a spine?

Comment Re:Now we're just haggling over the price (Score 1) 92

It may have been more useful to have already known that it would not be possible for Trump to do what you described.

"Not be possible" is too strong.

It's clearly possible unless Congress or the courts prevent it, even though it is clearly illegal. But Trump is doing lots of things that are clearly illegal, which is why the courts keep issuing injunctions to stop him (and then SCOTUS keeps staying the injunctions to let him go ahead and do it anyway, at least for a while). In a sane world, the fact that an action is illegal would be a stronger constraint because the president would have to be concerned that Congress would impeach and convict him, and he would have to be concerned about potential criminal liability. In the world that exists, the GOP leadership in Congress refuses to do their job to rein in the executive, and SCOTUS has declared the president above the law so there are few practical limitations on his power.

So far, the only thing that seems to really make Trump back off is when the stock market crashes.

Nevertheless, a slush fund of several billion dollars per year that the president is truly able to spend with complete discretion would be a significant additional increase in power because it's not clear that anyone would have standing to sue, so courts could not intervene regardless of constitutionality. Congress would be able to intervene, of course, but, again, the GOP-led Congress has almost completely abdicated. I had to add "almost" only because they actually did stand up to him on the Epstein files (sort of; the bill left Pam Bondi with near-total freedom to withhold anything she wants, not legally, but practically).

Trump is more open than other Presidents.

No, Trump is more secretive than most other presidents. You're confusing "unfiltered and disorganized" with "transparent". I do have to grant that he's incredibly transparent about his corruption. Well, maybe. He has been transparently corrupt in lots of ways, but it still seems likely that there's more corruption which he's keeping hidden.

Comment Re:Now we're just haggling over the price (Score 1) 92

But last I read of it, it goes into a fund controlled by the President -- a slush fund, in olden terms.

Where did you read that? If it's true it would be momentous. A totally discretionary fund of $2-6B per year (based on nVidia's projections of selling $2-5B per quarter to China) would give the president enormous unchecked power.

I've spend some time searching and haven't found anything to substantiate this claim. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd like to see where you got the idea from.

Comment Re:Old News? (Score 2, Informative) 144

Just put it in context: Today Russia struck the Pechenihy Reservoir dam in Kharkiv.
Russia launched the war because they thought it would be a quick and easy win, a step towards reestablishing a Russian empire and sphere of influence, because Putin thinks in 19th century terms. Russia is continuing the war, not because it's good for Russia. I'd argue that winning and then having to rebuild and pacify Ukraine would be a catastrophe. Russia is continuing the war because *losing* the war would be catastrophic for the *regime*. It's not that they want to win a smoldering ruin, it's that winning a smoldering ruin is more favorable to them and losing an intact country.

Comment Re:I mean - most of them are local first (Score 3, Insightful) 98

Yep - absolutely agree with you. Just because a devices is locally controllable and has opened up localhost:8080, that doesn't prevent it from also opening a connection to https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbadthing.example%3A9999%2F and uploading everything it can find to it. Concepts are orthogonal.

Comment I mean - most of them are local first (Score 3, Interesting) 98

HomeAssistant's main strength is in tying otherwise incompatible devices together. Local first is not unique though - HomeKit is local, Matter is local, I don't know much about the Alexa/Google setups but I believe they can be controlled locally too.

Don't get me wrong, Home Assistant is an excellent bit of kit with lots of standardisation and automation. But this article is pushing the wrong part of its strengths - local-first isn't unique. Pick the right ecosystem and it's all local-first anyway.

I have many different smart vendors in my home - Google (originally Nest), Philips, Meross, Aqara, Eve, Ikea, LightwaveRF, Shelly, Eufy, Switchbot...none of them require the internet. All of them can work locally. All of them work in the same ecosystem. Then I have oddities which I use HomeBridge for to bridge the gap - Roomba (older, non-Matter, Worx Landroid (robot lawnmower), Dyson Hot'n'Cool thingy, Logitech Harmony...even plugins for Synology which show the NAS's temperature and allow shutdown. Through the use of HomeBridge, I can draw them into the same ecosystem too. None of this requires the internet.

The meme is completely overblown and quite often you can tell by people that don't actually use this kind of tech. Obviously if I want to control this kit from outside the home then I need an internet connection, and if I want to update any of the kit then I need to download the updates from the internet for that too, but operation from within the house? Just a HomeKit/Matter hub, that's all.

Comment Samsung always pisses on Samsung (Score 1) 87

Samsung is collection of several companies and if you've ever spent any time working with them you quickly realize that they all prioritize other Samsung companies below other customers. I don't know whether it's because of anti-trust concerns, or market strategy, or just rivalry, but I've never seen any Samsung company that operated any differently. I worked quite a bit with Samsung Mobile and S.LSI, who are even quite interdependent (though S.LSI depends more on Samsung Mobile than the reverse), and they constantly ignored and even dissed one another.

Comment Re:Meanwhile (Score 1) 96

The problem is that it's not intuitive that there's a special case traffic rule for that and I don't remember it ever being brought up in driver's ed

There's no way your driver's ed class failed to mention that traffic is required to stop for school buses with their red lights flashing, and I think it's unlikely that your written test failed to include a question about school zone and school bus rules. Mine (Utah) certainly did.

Comment Re:Meanwhile (Score 1) 96

I guess neither humans or bots are trained well on that. It's pretty stupid anyway. The kids should cross the street at normal crossings like everyone else, not just anywhere a huge yellow beast stops and flips out a sign.

In rural areas, like where I live, there aren't any marked crossings, and there really isn't any reasonable place to put them. If you mark a crossing it would only ever be used by the one or two houses near it, and only by school children, because there's really no need for anyone to walk across the street otherwise. The school buses stop directly in front of each child's house. There aren't any locations where a bus could pick up multiple children without making them have to walk an unreasonable distance, so each kid's house is a stop.

Also, the speed limit on my road is 45 mph, and cars routinely drive 55 mph... so having the "huge yellow beast" with flashing red lights and a flipped-out, flashing red stop sign is definitely necessary.

Comment Re:Those failing engines and transmissions. (Score 1) 254

The direct fuel injection does seem to cause more trouble than it's worth.

Low tension rings cause more trouble than their worth Low viscosity oil causes more trouble than it's worth Stop-start causes more trouble than it's worth Variable displacement causes more trouble than it's worth Integral dual volute turbocharging causes more trouble than it's worth And yes, direct injection causes more trouble than it's worth.

The extreme CAFE mileage requirements have driven manufacturers to make a large number of terrible engineering choices in ICE drive trains. Extreme CAFE mileage requirements have greatly contributed to the excessive cost of vehicles and the excessive cost of repairs.

Yep. CAFE-style regulation is the wrong way to attempt to reduce carbon emissions. The right way is to impose a carbon tax, then let consumers vote with their wallets and engineers work to make the right tradeoffs to meet customer demand. My guess is that consumers would choose to buy the more fuel-efficient vehicles and engineers might make the same tradeoffs... but now it would be clear that those tradeoffs are worthwhile.

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