themeatbridge

TIL thanks! Which VPN would you suggest?

It’s a vpn. There are many, that’s just one example.

I don’t trust anyone, but I haven’t heard bat things about PIA. That was just the first one I looked up. Did something happen that we shouldn’t trust them? I know Nord is now suspect.

Private Internet Access, it’s a VPN that handles streaming and torrenting well.

40 months of PIA is $80. So for $2 a month, you can have it all with no ads and no region locking.

The reality is that being “cancelled” isn’t a huge deal when you’re already one of the economic elite. He didn’t even do a mea culpa, he just came back to the party and shrugged.

Yeah, but in 1.8 trillion years, you’re going to be a minute late for everything.

It’s like when people in abusive relationships suddenly realize that their partner doesn’t actually care about them, and everyone around them is like “Yeah, no shit. Fucking leave their ass.”

Yeah, the whole “live and let live” movement has removed the social barriers to being a fucking moron. Ignorant people holding onto stupid beliefs should be made to feel bad by the people around them.

So… we’re doomed?

No shit.

You’re right, but the reason that hasn’t caught on is that talking to your “smart” house is stupid. You can’t possibly program every possible command or situation, and telling Alexa to dim the lights in your kitchen to 40% is slower than using a dimmer switch. Actual smart homes are automated to the point where you don’t need to talk to your room.

Alexa was never supposed to make money by itself. It was supposed to do two things, collect information and lower the barrier to buying things.

They must have either collected enough data to lower the value of collecting any more, or they have realized that people got over the novelty of asking Alexa to order more dog food.

My guess is the latter, because buying anything from Amazon now requires 15 minutes of research to make sure it’s actually what you want and not at some ridiculous marked up price. I wouldn’t trust Alexa to pick the best result on the first try.

Right? I already don’t use youtube as much as possible. Piped helps, but if that stops working, I just won’t watch movies on youtube.

I understand why people are upset anytime a company fucks their customers for money, but the solution is always to walk away.

I used to work for a European home automation company. Thing is, their gear is most cost effective in new construction and was very popular in Germany, Austria, Czechia, and Poland, but convincing anyone to wire for low voltage devices in the UK or US was like asking for ketchup on pancakes. There are a lot of reasons to like their tech, but they don’t really do retrofit, so it hasn’tanaged to make a dent in the market.

Yeah, I definitely get it. It would be illegal to mix low and line voltage in the USA, too.

I ended up running the cabling myself, all class two circuits powering 12 24vdc spots. The nice bit is that they are all addressable RGBW spots, so I can control them all individually or as groups. And it’s all automated. The downside is that I’ll probably have to remove them if we ever sell this house, because nobody but me understands how it works.

True, but more applications are supporting Linux as it becomes more popular. More users means more Linux apps means more users.

Sure, but if you have the option, you shouldn’t choose it. One reason so many businesses use Windows is that everyone knows Windows. If everyone learns Linux, more companies will use Linux.

I have some dc lighting in my basement. It’s great, but there aren’t as many options out there and electricians don’t want to touch it.

Most LEDs run on DC, and the built-in transformer is the most likely component to fail. If the LED is failing and getting dimmer, it’s most likely due to poor heat dissipation.

If we had little 12v adapters and separate LED modules, you could reduce waste by only replacing the part that fails, and manufacturers would have greater incentive to improve build quality. Instead, we get cheaply manufactured bulb-shaped disposable units that need to be thrown away when one part fails.