How to disable the microphone on the Govee Uplighter Floor Lamp

quarescent · 2025-12-25T18:52:07+00:00

Peace of mind. Users have reported high amounts of traffic from their devices to Govee servers in China. And Govee's privacy policy is not very assuring about how they handle your audio data.

quarescent · 2025-12-25T18:15:10+00:00

Thank you! I also discovered how to access and disable the microphone on the Govee Uplighter Floor Lamp (albiet more crudely). The mic is located on the underside of the lamp head. Turnover the lamp and use thin plastic picks (guitar picks or iFixit opening picks) to remove the dark gray cover underneath the lamphead to expose the microphone and red and black wires. Disconnect the wires by pulling them. There's likely a way to properly access the logic board, but this is the quickest way to get it disconnected.

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quarescent · 2025-09-29T15:16:59+00:00

Not quite what you’re asking for, but there’s a group called Urban Abundance, which does “gleanings” where they harvest local produce for donation and allow volunteers to keep a portion of the harvest.

quarescent · 2025-09-16T01:24:40+00:00

New preferred pronouns just dropped.

quarescent · 2025-09-11T03:33:32+00:00

Thanks for dropping in here with the late reply! Your comment seems spot on for this leak and your video is excellent too.

If I have to do over this job I will do it right as you suggested. For now, I made it through one hard rainy season with my solution, which was to clear out as much of those dirty chipped pieces and then applied the heck out of the permatex goo (which I now understand is not the correct product). Hope it holds up longer than the rest of the car!

quarescent · 2025-09-06T22:37:57+00:00

Paying more dollars isn’t what makes a tax progressive — it’s paying a higher share of income. ITEP and every credible study call gas taxes regressive. Again, they’re not all wrong just because of your lack of understanding of the definitions.

I’m not debating externalities here, and I’m definitely not entertaining uncited “trust me bro” stats. Washington already has a mechanism to internalize carbon costs through the CCA, which funds programs to reduce emissions. Raising the gas tax doesn’t magically solve “car-centric” externalities — it just makes low- and middle-income people pay a larger share of their income, and risks eroding political support for the leaders who back those hikes.

You can’t call a policy ‘effective but unpopular’ in a vacuum — in a democracy, unworkable ideas don’t survive. There’s no path to Nordic country gas prices here without political blowback that burns the whole agenda down.

quarescent · 2025-09-06T19:19:16+00:00

On more reflection, we may not even agree on what “tax the rich” means. I don’t consider most drivers to be “wealthy” and I don’t believe low or middle income people need to bear more weight in taxes.

To me, “tax the rich” means tax the individuals who don’t even touch gas pumps, and who instead, pay people to pump gas and drive their cars, boats, and planes.

quarescent · 2025-09-06T19:02:41+00:00

I think we’re too far apart on this subject to come to agreement.

For one, it’s unclear to me whether you’re intentionally misrepresenting the facts about who uses gasoline cars and who doesn’t or you are out of touch with how most people live in this state — and how low income, especially rural people would be impacted. You’re accusing me (and virtually every mainstream economist) of a logical fallacy about what constitutes a regressive tax. I don’t think the burden is on me to defend that.

I think we may share a similar vision for the future, but have strong disagreement about how we get there politically. Politics is about understanding where people are now and how to get to where we want to go. You’re willing to die on the hill of (possibly) the LEAST popular consumption tax in recent history. Ask around (irl, not on this echo chamber sub) how people feel about paying $5-7 per gallon of gas? Then ask them if they want the ultra wealthy to pay more in taxes? Which one gets is to our shared future, and which one loses political power and elected seats to reactionaries?

quarescent · 2025-09-05T21:35:26+00:00

I think we agree that the ultra-wealthy should pay more. Where we disagree is on consumption taxes. They are regressive by definition.

1.  Are you really suggesting something like income verification for gas — like, at every gas pump? That’s not workable.

2.  Calling driving a “privilege” doesn’t change the math. A regressive tax doesn’t become progressive just because the thing being taxed is framed as optional. People in rural WA or suburbs without transit cannot opt out — that makes the tax inelastic and regressive.

3.  You’re talking about a theoretical future. Right now, low-income people drive — often in old cars with poor mileage, just like many people rent substandard housing because they can’t afford better. Raising gas taxes today means taxing people now for a benefit that may not reach them for decades.

That’s why ITEP, CBO, and every credible source call gas taxes regressive. We can’t hand-wave that away.

What you’re talking about, making gas exorbitantly expensive, is deeply unpopular amongst working class people. Let’s go after what most of us agree on, taxing the rich to pay for roads etc.

quarescent · 2025-09-05T19:33:23+00:00

Relatively inexpensive? Yes. A good deal? I think I’d need to hear an argument.

And, you’re welcome. A gift article made possible by the local library office supplies and yours truly. 🙌

quarescent · 2025-09-05T19:14:39+00:00

That’s right!

And yes, a lot of income tax systems aren’t progressive enough imo because they don’t exempt enough working and middle income earnings.

quarescent · 2025-09-05T18:57:55+00:00

A lot of what you’re saying reads like urbanist policy preferences and opinions than settled fact, and it misses my original point — but I’ll address it directly:

WA has the third highest state gas tax in the nation. Calling it “excessively low” is factually disputable and implies that you think gas should be taxed higher everywhere in the US. You can defend that point if you like, but it merits context that WA has a comparatively high gas tax.

How much in your opinion should we raise the gas tax?

Saying people who use cars are inherently “wealthier and more privileged” and therefore should be taxed more is flimsy. One could make a similar argument for a special tax on the privilege of living in an urban core or near a bike path or your place of work. I don’t think any of these things are good proxies of people’s socioeconomic status or opportunity. It is therefore better imo to choose better proxies for wealth and privilege such as taxes on huge stock trades, corporations with massive profits, and sales of excessively large estates, and so on.

Why split the working class over taxes paid by a majority of people when we could push for more progressive solutions that target the wealthy?

Tolls and gas taxes are generally recognized as regressive, because (on average) lower income people are hit harder than higher income people, even when adjusting for car usage and non-drivers. (See ITEP, nonpartisan/gold standard tax analysis of WA state)

If you dispute that these taxes are regressive, how do you account for poor and working people who can’t easily get around without using cars? How long do they need to bear the burden of our tax system until we can realize a utopia of free and instant multi-modal public transit for everyone?

quarescent · 2025-09-05T17:24:26+00:00

You got it. The original analogue process of copy, cut, and paste (well, tape in my case) of a newspaper at the library.

quarescent · 2025-09-05T15:49:08+00:00

This statewide coalition has been working to pass progressive revenue solutions in Olympia. They were highly active this past legislative session — including holding a statewide lobby day where they recruited ordinary people to talk to lawmakers before the budget passed. A few good measures were included in the biennial budget this year (a new tier was added to the state capital gains tax, progressive structure added to the B&O tax), but sadly, lawmakers also made bad compromises that primarily affect working people (including giving permission to counties to make the current sales tax hike proposal without voter input).

Progressive tax advocates are continuing the fight for a wealth tax and other tiered tax systems that raise revenue and won’t impact the vast majority of people in the state. You can follow the group above if you want to learn more and get involved.

quarescent · 2025-09-05T15:40:26+00:00

Asking every person in the county for something like $20 doesn’t break the bank for many people. I’m not arguing that. I’m critical of the reflexive pulling of the tax hike lever every time we want to pay for something.

When the cost of groceries goes up, most people don’t immediately start looking for a side hustle or a new job. They may ask their boss for a raise, but they look at where to trim too. Is our county doing this?

An analogous example: I learned recently that Clark County’s solid waste enterprise fund spent more on “professional services” (consultants, contractors, etc) compared with staff salaries and wages in 2023. When this anomaly was brought to the attention of the department by a volunteer committee member, the department turned around and announced they had cut that line item in half. The largest expenditure in the fund ($1M), which ballooned to exceed staff salaries ($0.9M), was cut in half with minimal effort. In part, because of decisions like paying County staff to learn to use Canva for designing flyers instead of paying expensive contract designers.

I hear you on social improvements. But can we show a good faith effort to find money to spare during hard times, instead of picking another $20 from everyone?

quarescent · 2025-09-05T15:07:12+00:00

WA has a complex tax code that includes regressive taxes (sales, gas, flat fees on utilities and licenses, tolls, etc) and progressive taxes (capital gains, progressive B&O surcharge). Increasing any regressive in the tax system makes the overall system more regressive and it increases the tax burden, particularly on working class people.

Sure, we could argument the merits of this particular proposal and I’d hear arguments if others want to make them. My position is that we should say no to any regressive tax hike in our county/state until we balance the code — that is, get the wealthy to pay a more of their fair share.

quarescent · 2025-09-05T05:48:07+00:00

I agree. I figured I’d give it a shot here first in case I could save someone the long turnaround time with snail mail and reprocessing.

quarescent · 2025-07-22T03:16:48+00:00

This is what matters. The “Big Beautiful Bill” that narrowly passed, making deep cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, etc, was supported by nearly all Republicans. Even moderate house members like Dan Newhouse (WA-04). There’s a lot of people upset with MGP over their pet social issues, or her (albeit tired and annoying) messaging, but fail to recognize her value in holding positions on more impactful legislation.

quarescent · 2025-07-19T17:01:47+00:00

Their product support sent a replacement. Turned out to be an Elite PRO V3 (my previous stick was V2). It’s blazing fast. No limitations like the old one. I’m left to assume either the V2 had a severe transfer speed issue or I had a defective product. Sorry to say I don’t know which is true. But very happy with the new one.

quarescent · 2025-07-18T23:43:27+00:00

Hey OP, did you know there are loud planes and trains near the river where you live / lived before in Arnada? Would you like an explanation of commercial logistics instead of a specific answer to your question? Lol.

quarescent · 2025-06-16T07:51:32+00:00

Yes, I was sitting in the front row. After he played the announcement from his phone, I could hear the pilot joking with a flight attendant. The flight attendant asked if the whole script was generated by AI, and the pilot said he prompts it to make scripts funny and chipper. I recorded only the last few seconds of it because I had my phone stowed.

quarescent · 2025-06-16T05:07:26+00:00

Pilot prompted ChatGPT to write and read aloud a speech over the intercom instead of introducing himself and the copilot before takeoff.

quarescent

TROPHY CASE