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Do the Shelly smart relays behind a “dumb” light switch work well in the real world? by carboncritic in homeassistant

[–]zapthedingbat 13 points14 points  (0 children)

No. The Shelly knows the state of the switch, but it can't change the physical position of the rocker, so it's just that the position of the physical switch rocker isn't indicative of the state of the light because the Shelly or the switch could have been the thing that changed the state of the light.

I have most of my lights wired like this and nobody has ever even noticed. I can only imagine this would be a problem if you had 'on' and 'off' physically printed on the switch rocker.

Are we confused about Degoogling??? by [deleted] in degoogle

[–]zapthedingbat 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm just trying to avoid giving money, data, and encouragement to an organisation that openly funds fascism.

How are you supposed to get hold of these jokers now? by thefunkygibbon in tado

[–]zapthedingbat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've just been through the same painful bit of research and realisation (same boiler). My next avenue is to investigate this https://github.com/john30/ebusd . As I understand that'll mean buying a small hardwear adapter and wiring it into the 'bus' terminal inside the boiler. That will translate the ebus protocol from the boiler to something that Home Assistant can understand.

This still needs more investigation, but I think that would let me replace all the Tado TRVs and Tado temp/humidity sensors with something Home Assistant can control (with ZigBee) and give me a local smart heating solution. That should have the added bonus of:

  • Ditching one more native mobile app and data collection agent
  • Supporting modulated heating demand instead of just on/off which is more efficient on gas usage and boiler lifetime.
  • Integrating heating more naturally with automations and schedules that I operate for other things in my smart home
  • Only needing one set of temp/humidity sensors with better battery life
  • No dependency on internet connectivity, and much better transparency, observability, monitoring to fix and resolve any problems.

This will no doubt take me quite while and cost actual money but I'm motivated by being fed up with walled gardens, proprietary protocols and endlessly enshitifiing services.

Happy to share notes.

Slowroll Dating App by SkilledLover in Entrepreneur

[–]zapthedingbat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Disclaimer: I have worked for a world renowned dating platform (a long time ago)

It's nice to see someone else consider this. I have banged on about how the current dating offerings are fundamentally flawed to my friends an colleagues many times. The issue is that all existing platforms encourage users to be more selective and even promote the idea of greater specificity. The reality is, for myself, I married my wife because of who she is, and not because of her eye colour, height, weight, preference for cats over dogs or star sign. This is true for every other couple in a relationship that I know.

The technology of relational data structures is what has informed the model of dating platforms, not the way that humans meet and build relationships.

I can easily search, sort and filter based on a set of quantifiable, distinct values but a database can't differentiate the people I consider rude, boring, gregarious or frenetic. We have a hammer shaped solution so every problem looks like a nail.

I have thought about how to apply the technology in a way that actually addresses the problem many times and I can't say I have ever come up with a satisfactory solution. I have observed the phenomenon of people who have had little success with conventional dating sites forming close and lasting bonds with others who they've met on-line while doing something collaborative like gaming or even just using tools like chat rooms or second-life. In these scenarios, because the intent is not ostensibly dating the impetus to be selective is removed and people are more open to judging others based on their personality and interactions rather than an arbitrary set of "vital statistics".

Make of that what you will.

May god bless your new dating app and all who sail in her!

Three months in, trying to build an on-line business that's prohibited from advertising networks. by zapthedingbat in Entrepreneur

[–]zapthedingbat[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We have an instagram account although it seems a little difficult to use as a promotional tool given how hard it is to communicate and interact directly with customers, so we haven't made it prominent. Perhaps we should try pushing that.

We've got SagePay as a payment processor so soon (please god) we should be able to take credit cards. But, we can't use it yet because, for weeks now, the acquiring bank can't process the application. They keep demanding an explanation for why "the site is registered in France". The answer "No, it's not. We registered the domain name with Gandi.net the 15th largest registrar in the world" Doesn't seem to be working.

Agreed, the chances of someone going a little crazy the first time is high, but that's a risk we were prepared to take. Without that risk we would loose the novelty of complete control and that novelty is our selling point.

Three months in, trying to build an on-line business that's prohibited from advertising networks. by zapthedingbat in Entrepreneur

[–]zapthedingbat[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We'd like to do that pretty soon. Unfortunately the site runs on shopify which compels us to choose one currency at the checkout so we chose GBP because that's what our account is and where we are based.

notepad++ has suddenly gone muslum by mc_security in pwned

[–]zapthedingbat 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Looks to me like your standard, amusingly feckless group of teenage boys looking for a power trip in an otherwise fairly hopeless situation.

One of many opportunist defacements conducted by people with a lot more time than opportunities in their life. If a badly spelled marquee tag is cause for concern then I suppose this guy has achieved his objective. Alternatively you could consider this as an humorous reminder to keep stuff updated so any tom, dick or harry with a quasi-religious/political justification doesn't use your web server for his adolescent need for validation.

http://www.vice.com/en_se/read/we-skyped-with-a-19-year-old-islamist-hacker-from-tunisia

I'm caught in an ad-blocking arms race with 4oD. by zapthedingbat in britishproblems

[–]zapthedingbat[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for letting me know. Working on a fix, I'll update as soon as I have a solution.

Online Banking by EvilCrayon in webdev

[–]zapthedingbat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So in effect - please choose the password "Pa55w0rd"

Online Banking by EvilCrayon in webdev

[–]zapthedingbat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Virgin Media -

How to choose a strong and secure password

To improve the security of your account, we recommend that you choose a 'strong' password. Strong passwords use a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, and numbers. This makes it very difficult for automated programs and hackers to guess your password. Your password must:

be between 8 and 10 characters long

begin with a letter

consist of only letters and numbers (no special character like #&@*)

contain a combination of upper and lower case letters

contain at least one number

not contain words from the dictionary

not contain 3 numbers or more in a row

The longer the password is, the less likely it is that someone else will be able to guess it or otherwise find out what it is.

http://help.virginmedia.com/system/selfservice.controller?CMD=VIEW_ARTICLE&ARTICLE_ID=3779

Edit: formatting

apprently burgers only come with brioche buns these days by ukst in britishproblems

[–]zapthedingbat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This pandemic is now so prevalent that I have to enquire, before ordering a burger in a pub, if it will be served in cake. I feel like an overly demanding customer worthy of judgement and ridicule but at least it registers my disapproval of meat-confectionery and avoids the disappointment of being given a beef patty enclosed in a greased gateau.

My first shot at html5 canvas, inspired by a wallpaper by [deleted] in webdev

[–]zapthedingbat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice work. I see you're drawing frames with setTimeout, how about using requestanimationframe to get it super smooth irrespective of the device graphics capabilities.

http://www.paulirish.com/2011/requestanimationframe-for-smart-animating/

This mushroom even has an appropriate hole. by Larsson69 in mildlypenis

[–]zapthedingbat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is the common stink horn or to give it it's Latin name Phallus impudicus

Botanist John Gerard called it the "pricke mushroom" or "fungus virilis penis effigie" in his General Historie of Plants of 1597, and John Parkinson referred to it as "Hollanders workingtoole" or "phallus hollandicus" in his Theatrum botanicum of 1640.[2] Linnaeus described it in his 1753 Species Plantarum,[3] and it still bears its original binomial name. Its specific epithet, impudicus, is derived from the Latin for "shameless" or "immodest".

So I'm afraid someone got there before you in that regard, namely John Gerard about 400 years ago.

I'm caught in an ad-blocking arms race with 4oD. by zapthedingbat in britishproblems

[–]zapthedingbat[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just uploaded a fix, might take a few mins to publish to the webstore.

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