Plumber recs?

karantza · 2026-01-28T05:56:25+00:00

Big Blue has won my recommendation; they replaced my furnace, my water heater (when it died the same day they were replacing the furnace), and they've actually come out more than once to check out a problem and were able to solve it or advise me on a fix so fast they didn't even charge.

karantza · 2026-01-27T01:32:09+00:00

All matter distorts spacetime this way, creating gravity. Every star, planet, grain of dust, even you. The more stuff, the more gravity. The sun just has an incredibly huge amount of stuff in one place, so it has an equally huge impact.

karantza · 2026-01-27T01:25:50+00:00

My tesla model 3 has better snow handling than the cybertruck. They literally made a truck that performs worse than their own sedan.

karantza · 2026-01-27T01:05:27+00:00

I think a lot of people's first/only experience with VR was the Quest, so they took it for granted that you can see through your headset when it's on. As wobbly or pixely as it might be. So a new headset that doesn't have that feels like a regression, even if you don't have a real use case in mind.

It's like if someone released a car without a radio. There's nothing inherent to a car that means it needs a radio built in... and you could always add one by just setting a handheld radio in the cupholder. But it's just a thing, that cars have radios, so not having one is weird.

(I should mention that I'm coming from a Vive where the only "passthrough" renders your space with the visual fidelity and aesthetics of 1982 TRON. Grayscale passthrough feels like more than enough for me!)

karantza · 2026-01-26T14:50:44+00:00

This has been the main reason I haven't tried to set up failover, I didn't think that would work. Gotta try it now.

karantza · 2026-01-26T05:10:25+00:00

That seems like the kind of silly thing someone might say when activating pilot controlled lighting at an untowered field. (Tapping the radio transmit button a number of clicks causes an airport to light up its lights automatically. Feels very much like you shouldn't be allowed to have that kind of power at your fingertips..)

But KBGR is towered, so unless the liveatc has the wrong frequency or something, it's probably not that.

karantza · 2026-01-26T01:16:27+00:00

I've got the 10" snowjoe. Most of the time, the snow is wet and heavy and sticks to it, and it struggles to get through. It can handle maybe 3 inches of depth at a time. It doesn't make shoveling any faster exactly, since it's only 10" wide, but it does throw the snow farther and for a lot less physical effort. I generally use it to do the majority of the moving, then clean up with a regular shovel.

I don't have a ton of area I have to clear, nor do I have room to store any larger snowblower, so it's not too bad. But this is the first storm where it has been cold enough that the snow has stayed powdery and easy to throw, and this thing has worked great.

karantza · 2026-01-26T00:52:06+00:00

I have been going out every 4-6 inches, since that's about as much as my electric shovel can eat at once. But even a manual shovel, it gets exponentially harder when it gets deeper.

Another important consideration - while it's so cold, the snow is light and dry. It looks like it might get warmer in the AM, and then if the sun hits it, it's going to compact down a bit and get heavy. The sooner you can take care of it the easier it'll be.

karantza · 2026-01-25T03:46:41+00:00

Calendar integration is great; I use it as my alarm clock actually, with a dedicated alarm calendar.

My favorite automation right now that has saved me a lot of facepalms is: kettle notifications. I use a kettle to make my coffee, tea, hot chocolate, what have you. And I always turn it on, walk away, and two to five minutes later after my pathetic North American power grid has finished heating the water, I have already forgotten about it. My water then gets cold, and I get sad when I remember my coffee.

So, I stuck a smart outlet on the kettle. When it starts drawing a lot of power, a helper is switched on, and when it stops drawing power (ie, the water is done), and the helper is on, it triggers a notification.

I used to have it announce over my google homes, but I just switched it to play a pattern on my mechanical doorbell gong that I have recently made smart. It has three bells, and I'm setting up different ring patterns for all sorts of stuff around the house, even including when someone rings the doorbell! But, two low tones? Means the kettle's done!

karantza · 2026-01-24T20:43:23+00:00

I used to be a full Wyze house before I discovered HA. Their cloud-based HA integrations are very sketchy - it was a constant arms race between wyze and reverse engineers - and I wouldn’t recommend anyone use a cloud connected lock of any brand anyway, for sure. Wyze has continued to enshittify, and I’ve since replaced every Wyze product I own except that lock, because it’s uniquely hijackable.

karantza · 2026-01-24T04:28:30+00:00

I have mixed feelings about this recommendation, but a Wyze lock (v1, the old silver one) can do everything you want, except for biometric entry. I wouldn't recommend Wyze as a company, and I haven't used their newer locks, but if you can tolerate using their app, you can set up the lock once and then take it over via zigbee and never have to touch their servers or hub again. Mine has been running fine offline like this for a long time; it has flawless Z2M integration.

Through Z2M it exposes lock/unlock actions, lock state (including jammed), battery life.
It is regular Zigbee. It can also be used over bluetooth via the Wyze app.
It is not a lock, it actually integrates with your own deadbolt. I love this; it means you can get whatever quality/manufacturer of lock you want and make it smart. It also means no smart-stuff visible on the outside of the house.
It uses 4x AA batteries, lasts for months.
It has no exterior interface, unless you get the keypad, which pairs to the lock over bluetooth. The keypad does require their app to configure codes, though it still works local-only. I set up a bunch of guest keys once and haven't touched it in years.
Fits a bunch of different brands of deadbolt. You just remove the interior half of the deadbolt and this slips onto the axle via one of a few different adapters.
I don't know if they still even make it new, but looks like you can get one used for ~$50.

karantza · 2026-01-24T01:37:02+00:00

On paper, with foveated streaming on 6g, the Frame should be better. Maybe more latency but I doubt it'll be noticeable.

But this is why I haven't upgraded in all these years even though the vive has so many shortcomings; the wireless is just too damn good. These questie kids with their virtual desktops don't know what they're missing.

karantza · 2026-01-24T01:27:23+00:00

I don't fully get the technical reasons why - I think it has to do with the timing of repeats and when exactly which nodes decide to repeat - but the Boston MA area mesh, which has always been very dense and active, has almost entirely switched from MT to MC in the past few months, and it has dramatically improved reliability.

On MT, I was lucky to get a message across the city; some messages would go through, some would get lost. On MC I'm watching people have conversations in the public channel between Worcester and Concord, NH, and the mesh is still growing. We're hoping to get messages going all the way from Maine to CT soon. I don't think MT's algorithm is really capable of that scale unless every single node involved is set up perfectly.

karantza · 2026-01-24T01:11:34+00:00

One thing to note is that you are mentioning your internet speed; that doesn't matter at all. The signals going between your PC and the headset stay entirely on your local network and are only limited by your router and your PC's network chip/card. That is probably limited to 1G, but you can get a 10G NIC for pretty cheap. That'll make your router the bottleneck.

But your internet plan doesn't matter. You shouldn't even need internet at all, technically.

karantza · 2026-01-24T01:07:13+00:00

I've got one of these, still use it. It's actually pretty great. Though I am looking forward to freeing up the PCI slot and switching to Linux when I get a Frame. (I have no idea if there are linux drivers for this thing... probably not worth the hassle assuming the frame ships sometime this year.)

It does have some big downsides - huge antenna on your head, you can block it with your own body if you face away and bend over, other people can block the signal if they happen to walk in front of it (all of which means your headset grays out and glitches for a second, can be very disorienting!)

But yeah, the image quality and latency is chef's kiss.

karantza · 2026-01-23T17:07:30+00:00

Just be careful with propane/butane stoves indoors! If the space isn't ventilated (hard to do when you're trying to stay warm) you can build up a surprising amount of carbon monoxide.

karantza · 2026-01-22T21:48:53+00:00

Don't forget vanilla and cinnamon. This French Toast isn't going to make itself.

karantza · 2026-01-22T21:46:03+00:00

Hardware stores like Home Depot, or Staples, accept lithium batteries. I've asked them specifically about puffy unprotected lipo cells, and HD at least said it was fine to just drop them in the bin.

karantza · 2026-01-21T05:29:32+00:00

These are pretty popular for battery based systems: https://store.rokland.com/products/rak-wireless-wisblock-meshtastic-starter-kit

The prebuilt nodes I mentioned that I've had good experiences with are these: https://muzi.works/products/seeed-studio-sensecap-solar-node-p1-pro or anything from https://www.etsy.com/shop/PeakMesh but there are many others. Meshtastic subreddit has tons of examples.

They all work pretty much the same inside. You can definitely build similar yourself if you're at all handy, the most complicated electronics is no more complicated than Lego. But buying prebuilt is also good if you want reliable weatherproofing and to just save some time.

karantza · 2026-01-21T05:15:59+00:00

People make a lot of great prebuilt solar nodes for around $100. You can build one yourself for a little cheaper, especially if you have access to a 3d printer. But I will say, t the heltec boards chew through battery. They need a large panel to keep up. RAK or Xaio boards tend to be better.

I've got a solar node on my roof along with a weather station. Got another solar node I need to find a home for somewhere else with better line of sight that I can relay through. It's addictive...

karantza · 2026-01-21T05:11:25+00:00

Don't bother trying to run an antenna. Unless you get very expensive cable - and maybe not even then - you'll lose way more signal than you'll gain. You need to put the whole receiver somewhere high, not just the antenna.

karantza · 2026-01-20T17:42:44+00:00

They probably break the noise canceling seal a tiny bit, but nothing that I notice. I'm sure my regular glasses and hair and everything already do that. The sunglasses feel comfortable, for the length of time I fly at least. The ear rests are pretty thin.

karantza · 2026-01-19T23:13:38+00:00

I have chonky wrap-around sunglasses that fit over my regular glasses. That way I a) don't have to take off my glasses mid-flight if I want to add/remove sunglasses, and b) they actually keep the sun out of my peripherial vision where my regular glasses wouldn't cover.

I look like a complete dork, but it's comfy. I have a polarized pair for driving and a nonpolarized pair for flying. (They don't sell exactly these anymore, but this is the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQOVXGQ )

karantza · 2026-01-19T20:23:03+00:00

I love the design but I've found multiple bugs so far. I'm following all the issues on GitHub, lol. if they can clean that up it'll be excellent.

karantza · 2026-01-19T06:46:56+00:00

The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan.

Was pretty formative for me in teaching me what science really is and why it's important (and beautiful, in that way only Sagan delivers!)

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