Read that the Brother printer update service was at "update.brother.co.jp" and blocking it on the router would prevent it from phoning home to update. No way to prove it, but it can't hurt.

YMMV.

Nobody tell them about microplastics.

By all means, let's try to mess with natural order. Introduce/reintroduce species where they don't belong (Mongoose, Eucalyptus trees, bees/wasps, shellfish... we can go on).

Nothing can possibly go wrong.

One of the best things about early Sonos was the standalone handheld controller device they had. It was easy enough for non-techies to use and very responsive. But as with any hardware, it started glitching after a few years. The alternative was an expensive replacement, or a free mobile app.

The app was much more confusing to use for casual users, but hey, free is free. V2 just threw everything into the mix, without nailing down the casual user experience. The reason they couldn't go back to v1 was that a lot of fancy features in the most recent hardware could only be adjusted via v2 app.

If they want to go back to their roots, they could bring back the hardware controller so people could just do the one thing most people want to do: play a song (and adjust the volume).

On a visit to the John Deere Pavilion in Moline, IL, I was amazed to see a tractor with no cab. Just a smooth surface, like the back of a horse. Turned out it was their first attempt at creating a self-driving tractor. I'm vaguely remembering circa early 1990s but it could have been earlier. They explained that they designed their own circuit boards, wireless communications, and even had dabbled in early launched satellite tech for use on farms.

There's a lot of tech built into those machines.

From the horse's mouth:

"Here are some humorous interpretations of AGI:

- Always Getting Interrupted â" The struggle of trying to finish a task before someone barges in.

- Aggressively Googling Information â" The process of frantically searching for answers while pretending you already know them.

- Artificially Grown Intelligence â" What happens when you learn something solely by watching YouTube tutorials.

- All Garlic Included â" The chefâ(TM)s philosophy for truly flavorful dishes.

- Awkward Group Interactions â" What you experience at every office team-building event.

- Almost Good Ideas â" The brainstorms that sound great at 2 a.m. but fall apart in daylight.

- Arrogantly Gifted Individuals â" People who humblebrag their way through life.

- Always Guessing Instinctively â" Your approach to trivia questions when you have no clue."

And the word is...

(https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.m.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FBetteridge's_law_of_headlines)

There's also Mojo, for compiling python (and AI extensions) into high-speed binaries: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modular.com%2Fmojo.

It's a stealth marketing operation to sell more noise-cancelling headphones. And it's working.

Every time I hear someone yelling into their phone on speaker, or loud music and videogame sounds, I plunk mine in and, ahhhh...

What are we going to do with all these limp-ass kitchen utensils now?

In my last job, I got to play with early versions of voice control of HA devices. It worked reasonably well, but they had an exit hatch to send requests to ChatGPT for processing. The local stuff was too slow and clunky for consumer use, and sending it to the cloud meant you were sending all your in-home interactions out to the abyss.

This device sounds like it's a variation of the ESP32-S3 voice controller (demo https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.home-assistant.io%2F...).

Will be more interesting once their in-home servers like (https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.home-assistant.io%2Fyellow%2F) start supporting local LLMs so EVERYTHING stays local.

There used to be a place on Mission near Bernal in SF that proudly advertised Curry Pizza. No sure if still there.

Am honestly mystified Mango and Papaya-topped pizza haven't taken off.

Only Apple AI feature I've found useful so far is Image Playground. Add a picture, pick from a pre-set, add a prompt and you get an interesting, copyright-free (albeit non-realistic) image. Similar to the image AI stuff inside Adobe CC or Google Sites, but much more polished. Great for creating profile pics. VERY generous with hair, weight, and skin tone.

The message or News summaries were so off had to go turn them off.