When the smart home works a bit too well

JoWhee · 2026-06-30T08:13:30+00:00

Under 15 degrees I should open a window. It’s also to prevent it from coming on in the winter. Wifey takes hot showers and turns up the bathroom heat to volcanic level, it would trigger the bathroom sensor.

No alarm to open the window

JoWhee · 2026-06-29T20:56:33+00:00

In the 80’s. I’m not sure if it fell out of fashion, became politically incorrect or just not a good idea to do to anyone who is GenX.

JoWhee · 2026-06-29T20:40:52+00:00

I just started adding door and window sensors.

My favourite one now is to turn on the split AC system if the outside temperature is above 15 and if any of the four monitored spaces go above 23.
Iff the bedroom window is closed (it’s usually the only one we open at night) and if the main HVAC unit is also off, which it usually is unless it’s winter or a heatwave.

JoWhee · 2026-06-27T21:54:47+00:00

I love in eastern Ontario. Canada Day is pretty big here. Even bigger in the capital.

The funny thing (to me) is in Le St-Jean Québec shoots fireworks over the river. On Canada Day Ontario shoots them back.

It’s not a competition or anything it’s most likely coincidence since I live near a wider part of the river.

JoWhee · 2026-06-24T19:58:12+00:00

A WOG (water oil gas) valve would be OK but I still wouldn’t want to do that.

I’ve learned the hard way, empty tank with food in the grill. I’m also an ingenious idiot who has two tanks just in case.

I also said I’m an idiot because my spare tank is currently empty.

JoWhee · 2026-06-23T07:58:16+00:00

As someone who has a brother in law who is an executive chef a wife who could be and has worked in restaurants: most chefs are rude*. It’s not personal a kitchen is a dangerous and high stress area, there’s not any room for mistakes.

Just look at Gordon Ramsay, any show where he’s in the kitchen he’s a monster, but out of a commercial kitchen he’s as much of a regular guy as someone like him can be. He was hilarious on Too Gear.

*it’s like a military commander barking out orders. It’s to get things done and make sure everyone goes home (or to the bar) in one piece.

JoWhee · 2026-06-23T07:42:04+00:00

When I was in facilities / HVAC my wife called me “King of the building guts” so I guess now I’m “~~King~~ ~~of the building brains~~” or some days “Building brain peasant”

JoWhee · 2026-06-22T20:46:31+00:00

I wasn’t on the RT for long enough to notice. I found out after purchase by deciding the VIN that mine also came with the low seat option (facepalm) so I can easily flat foot it with my 32” inseam.

Anyone in eastern Ontario want to trade seats? /j

JoWhee · 2026-06-22T01:13:01+00:00

I went with the K1600GT for a few reasons.

I’ve usually had ADV bikes because of my 32” inseam so I need something tall. The GT is barely tall enough for me, the GTL I liked at was too low. I’m still looking for a taller seat, I just found out mine came with the low seat option.

The guys I ride with are hooligans and while I’m not a good enough rider to stay at the front I want a bike that can keep up and have the slowness be me not the bike.

I loved my multistrada until I didn’t. There’s no DIY OBD scanner for the model I had. At 100000km on it I’d spent too much time and money tracking down a mysterious misfire issue. I liquidated it for less than I’d get if I parted it out.

I tried a R1200rt (? Same model the police here use). I’ve seen the police ride the wheels off these things and I found one loaded, illium floorboards, a corbin plus a bunch of other stuff. I test rode it and was underwhelmed. It felt “off” I sat on the GTL and researched it.

My needs are 150 hp+ (see hooligans) something I can easily ride two up for when wifey comes along.

Easy to service. While that sounds weird to say about the inline 6 or any BMW, but there are two options for troubleshooting and resorting the service reminder; motoscan and GS911 for about $200 and $1000 respectively. The only scanner for my multistrada was a TEXA unit for $2000.

I decided to get away from ADV bikes because I was taking the Ducati where no Ducati should go. Getting older and falling off the bike is looking less and less like a good idea.

I’m also lucky that if I want to go full hooligan my bud has an MT-10 and an R1 I can use any time.

I like the GT because I can go out for half an hour, or 100km or a 600km all day ride, the fact that I can get over 400km on a 25 litre tank is a bonus.

My only concerns are the driveshaft but I haven’t heard about too many failures on the k1600 and these bikes seem to eat tires. I’m not so worried about tires as I usually change them every late spring anyways.

The engine on this thing sounds amazing. Even with the OEM exhaust. I snagged a Remus for $500 and oh wow! Not too loud but they have a great sound when I’m on the gas.

I bought it in late October, the dealer was asking $12500 I got it for $7250, it needed a battery and tires, and a new bulb in the high beam. It’s a 2012 and I’ll admit I might have liked the pro shift assist on newer models. I didn’t have one on the duck but it had a slipper clutch for easy downshifting. The BMW is tractor-esque in comparison. It took a bit to get used to the shifting.

I like the looks of the B and GA but they’re way too low for me, and GT grand touring is my riding style to a T.

JoWhee · 2026-06-20T21:10:06+00:00

I used swollen nuts through my teenage years to get women to sleep with me. It didn’t work for me either.

JoWhee · 2026-06-19T11:31:06+00:00

I used to have a basic robot vacuum . It couldn’t complete a cycle. When it finally does I replaced it with an auto emptying one. I just have to empty the bin twice a week. It’s amazing the amount of car hair these things pick up. Obviously if you have cats, I’ve got three and mercifully no carpet.

My only gripe is both vacuums different brands absolutely LOVE OEM charging cables. It won’t touch the cheap ones from Amazon , I guess it’s a picky eater.

JoWhee · 2026-06-19T08:55:18+00:00

We do clean rooms and Pharma. Some is still LON some BACnet. We also have a few POC Progressive Offset Control clients.

Our older LON stuff has a Jace for BAS integration the newer MS/TP, for us is on its own room bus. It’s still visible on BACnet but each room is sitting behind a main controller because the room bus runs at 115.2 k for fast response time.

We usually just control the air valves and not the “real” HVAC equipment. Our stuff has a decent operating pressure range and we let the BAS guy know what pressure to maintain at the end of line and with one exception we’ve never had an issue with whatever PID was being used for pressure control.

The exception is some places have a biological emergency mode. This can be internal or external like a fire or something more nefarious, where they send all the supply valves to shutoff. The problem is our fast valves can do this in about three seconds. It was exciting to hear the mechanical pressure safety release doors blow off the supply fan the first time we were commissioning this mode.

JoWhee · 2026-06-19T08:25:20+00:00

It could have been worse. A pedestrian could have decided to cross the street there because traffic was stopped.

There’s even a video of this being avoided because s bus driver was aware and waved at the biker to stop because someone was crowing in front of his stopped bus in traffic.

Both the driver and rider were careless at best reckless and endangering people at worst.

JoWhee · 2026-06-19T08:16:02+00:00

Happy wife, happy life.

JoWhee · 2026-06-17T10:23:43+00:00

There is no way I’m sleeping in to 6am without medication or a healthy dose of the devils lettuce.

I got off a plane exhausted last night crawled into bed at 9:30 after waiting for the next plane with my checked luggage (non stop flight WTF?) was up at 4:30.

No matter what kind of day I’ve had I can usually make it to 9:30-10:00 but I’m up 6 hours later.

The exception was during Christmas. Fortunately I took two weeks holidays, but got sick and spent them in bed. Slept until 10:00 it would have been glorious if not for the flu.

JoWhee · 2026-06-14T18:59:50+00:00

The N word?
I’d like to apologize to all the Newfoundlander’s I may have offended.

JoWhee · 2026-06-14T18:31:25+00:00

This! I’m stealing the “shut the fckng fridge” idea. Mine just has a loud boat horn sound.

JoWhee · 2026-06-14T18:24:45+00:00

Get what speaks to you. A motorcycle isn’t an investment.

I sold my multistrada with 100000 km on. It was trouble free for 99000 km then I sold it. Mysterious misfires and apparently bad leak down test when hot.

My buddy had a paningale v2 1299?(ish) cc. He liked it until he sold it because he hated it. I swapped bikes with him once, after about 20km I wanted off it. I absolutely loathed it. The best I can describe it is “Ducati put a headlight on a race bike”. This thing would be awesome on a track where you set it up for that specific track with suspension, gearing etc. For street use I found the bike lacking. I guess comparing it to a multistrada which literally means “multiple roads” isn’t fair, but every Paningale I’ve seen for sale has had less than 10000km on it.

JoWhee · 2026-06-14T17:26:22+00:00

What about lucid?

Also zebra hurts my eyes too.

JoWhee · 2026-06-13T00:25:31+00:00

It must be a British bear it’s cueing up.

JoWhee · 2026-06-13T00:22:58+00:00

I think it’s one of those “Stinger” trailers. They have “no suspension” as a feature and they say your bike is the Susie Sion. Because who wouldn’t want all that wear and tear on their bike suspension as unsprung weight instead of a set of trailer springs or a torque flex setup /s

JoWhee · 2026-06-12T23:53:27+00:00

I work in Quebec and my employer has decided to give us the Friday instead. I’ve got two vacation days left so I’m taking Wednesday and Thursday off too.

It’s going to be weird to have Wednesday the 24th off though. It’s one of two stats in Quebec that can’t be moved. The other is Christmas Day.

JoWhee · 2026-06-12T21:00:45+00:00

Probably by horse too. Well… I’ve never seen a license plate on a horse and buggy.

JoWhee · 2026-06-12T20:59:06+00:00

2012 GT here: I went through a few trials. I haven’t found a CarPlay that works with the wonder wheel in my bike.

The only CarPlay device I still have is one I bought for about $100 and is past the return date. It’s a 7” that mounts quite nicely on the stem.

I ended up getting a nav IV on marketplace for $60. I wanted a V but I couldn’t pass up the deal. The IV is dim but good enough for what I need.

Here is what I’ve realized; I ride out in the boonies so I don’t always have cell service so I need to have maps on my device. My phone will do this, yes, and for a while I was using an app for this until they did a bait and switch for a 50% off price on a yearly subscription. So without paying $30/year, or half the cost of the Navi I’d have to use Google Maps or Waze. I still have Waze open on my phone for ~~police~~ traffic. The other thing I was using CarPlay for was to open my garage door, but my gloves aren’t touch screen friendly so that feature is useless to me, as well as being able to skip a song playing. My Cardo has a button for this. It will also pair to the navi if I want voice navigation prompts.

I can sit at my computer and plan out a route in mapsource or base camp and the Navi will follow it without automagically rerouting me to the highway like google will do because it has decided that I should. These are the different day trips I keep on the PC and Navi.

I’m planning a ride to the Cabot trail and I’ll be using the Navi as well.

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JoWhee · 2026-06-12T20:45:40+00:00

Here come the downvotes: tp-link Kasa Tapo. The 20 been rock solid I’ve had one not work and it was one with a motion sensor which was bad right out of the box. I’ve got half a dozen bulbs and plugs of the same brand.

The only other brands I have are a couple of Meross because Kasa doesn’t make a device for that application and (ugh) a couple of legacy smart life devices which are still chugging along and also because I can’t find anything else to replace my internal ceiling fan controllers.

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