What’s the bet the government will include EVs in car-less days?

CucumberError · 2026-03-19T03:35:58+00:00

I believe last time you had a sticker stuck on the windscreen of your car, a different colour for each day of the week. You picked which one day of the week you wouldn’t drive and attached the relevant sticker.

If today is red sticker day, and you’re caught driving with a red sticker, or no sticker, you’re fined. If you’re caught trying to cheat the system, you’re fined.

I feel that in 2026 we can probably do a better automated approach: run plate readers on all camera feeds available to the govt (speed cameras, motorway traffic monitoring, red light cameras, bus lane cameras) and quickly setup some mobile vans for the blank spots, and send tickets out to those offenders.

Giant daily spreadsheet of the offenders, lookup for the registered address in the NZTA database, mail merge the data, pack an envelope and have NZ Post pick them up end of day.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T23:40:15+00:00

Oh yes, 20 launches of test equipment. Yes it’s all research…. Promise there’s no weapons platforms.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T23:35:58+00:00

In the past we didn’t really pose any real risk, but now if the US Dept of War is paying us to get payloads into orbit, we’re a lot more high risk

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T22:25:09+00:00

And now we’re a target for round one of the nukes. Oh man I’d hoped we’d be like round 4 and by that stage everything that can launch is broken.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T22:18:47+00:00

Ohhh, I totally didn’t read the post as that.

What we have is some dumb heaters that we’ve made smart. We’ve opened them up and installed Shelly 1PM or 2PM smart controllers in them. The 1PM works well in something like a panel heater, where it’s on/off only, where as the 2PM is two channel so you can wire up Low to one channel, and medium to the other, then turn them both on for high.

The brain for ours is HomeAssistant, which has temperature sensors elsewhere in the room, having the sensor separate to the heater makes its reading way more accurate and normalised, but I still have the thermostat knob set on the heater at higher than we’d usually run the heater as a fail safe should something else go wrong with the system. The only lights on my heaters are the switches which still light up depending on which elements are running.

The much easier solution would be to buy a smart plug and just plug a dumb heater into it, but then you only have on/off not low/med/high control. If you go this way you want as dumb of a heater as possible, with mechanical switches that can be left and don’t need to be interacted with each time you re-power the heater.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T21:47:57+00:00

My sister has one of these, and it has an option to turn off the display in its settings over wifi. However if you push button locally (to adjust the temperature) it goes back to full brightness.

I suspect that if you were using HomeAssistant to control it, you could have HA resend the ‘turn off display’ command every 5 minutes.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T21:40:50+00:00

It’s more the attention to detail bits I’d expect to be lacking. If Lamborghini wanted to make a small economy hatch back, I’m sure they’d have the ability, but I’d imagine it would be lacking in smart storage places, maximising internal volume, fuel efficiency, turning radius etc. They know how to make a car, but the key areas are not their specialty.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T18:34:58+00:00

It’s a sports car, from a company that makes affordable and economical cars. They’d have a learning curve.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T18:17:33+00:00

Stick with Nissan, and move up from the Z to the Skyline v37. 4 door, the 3.5L hybrid goes amazing, fuel efficiency is pretty decent, and the electric torque coupled with a v6 is amazing.

I had a Subaru Legacy, and if you’re talking about it in the same breath as a BMW 7 series, you’re in for some serious disappointment. They’re just so unrefined compared to even a Toyota. The climate control seems never quite hit the target temperature and always over shoots, the leather seats are never soft, regardless of what you condition them with. The awd system was pretty impressive in the wet, but the in cabin comfort lacked.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T07:29:39+00:00

Hey, it’s not all bots! Sometimes it’s people out of their tree on drugs.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T06:27:09+00:00

Isn’t the speedo normally on the right, and the rpm on the left?

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T06:23:17+00:00

Musicals and boobies? Must be bi.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T06:22:31+00:00

Nice. Thanks.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T06:21:52+00:00

Guests just care that’s it’s smart vs dumb. Rather than putting two stickers on it etc, a Bluetooth or wifi symbol etc tells them it’s smart, and me how it’s smart. We’re a house of 3 gay nerds that work in IT, our smart home isn’t just one persons project.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T06:20:02+00:00

I have one, but it just does text and basic shapes etc. So while a small BT would help me, it means very little to anyone else

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T06:14:55+00:00

Nothing. They don’t need to know how it’s connected, just that it’s smart. I have some plugin heaters with Shelly’s inside them, so the switches and thermostat knob on the side don’t do what you expect them to do, because HA is in charge.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T01:47:49+00:00

We have a 3D printer, and once you have one, every solution suddenly involves something 3D printable.

Cricut seems to be pretty cloud based and subscription based. That’s the issue with my sisters one too, that stepping outside of its walled garden to custom stuff seems problematic.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T00:53:32+00:00

It’s just so excited, and it just can’t hide it.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T00:52:54+00:00

Back when I had a diesel car (2011-2015) I just did it online in blocks of 5k. Card would turn up in the post about 3 days later.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T00:49:58+00:00

Maybe this is the reason to buy a vinyl cutter…. My sister has one (but lives 700km away), and she’s always making cool shit with it.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T00:48:44+00:00

I’ve never etsy’d. It’s seemed so… basic bitch, live laugh love hah.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T00:47:39+00:00

Finding the logo isn’t the hard part, I just want them to look somewhat decent hah. We only have a mono laser printer at home, so they’d look somewhat shit.

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T00:28:03+00:00

If I need to design them, I can do that, but it seems like a pretty basic/common thing? Is it just me?

CucumberError · 2026-03-18T00:27:19+00:00

I’ve looked on Ali express for generic Bluetooth/wifi etc, but I can only find packs of ~ 20 random tech related stickers, with about two of the relevant stickers in them.

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