[–] 2 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

That is an oversimplification of the causes of the Revolution. Anyway, I thought you seemed to be seeking to understand why people were upset about the extra-judicial killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, but it appears that I was incorrect. In short, it's about trashing legal doctrines that slowly developed over nearly a thousand years in order to protect individual rights, and tearing down "innocent until proven guilty in a court of law" that's supposedly a bedrock principle of justice.

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  • [–] 2 points 13 hours ago (1 child)

    I'm not an expert, so anybody feel free to correct me, but this should be pretty simple. Configure and flash the ESP devices as BT proxies using ESPHome, and all of the configuration to hook it into Home Assistant will be taken care of automatically. The device will show up as a Bluetooth adapter in HA, so then just pair the speakers. To sync various speakers, install the Sendspin Bluetooth Bridge to add Sendspin player capability to those speakers. Then, install Music Assistant to create groups of Sendspin players (a.k.a. speakers). At that point, you're all set to play media from Music Assistant to the synced speaker group.

    The hitch is then playing audio from an external source (like a television) on that group. There's a Music Assistant plugin that'll stream any devices that are a Sendspin Source, so hook the audio output to an ESP32 with an audio input, and that'll stream to MA, which will play it on all of the speakers.

    It may not have an elegant UI, but I think it should work.

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    If you need some feel-good news today, this 6-minute video delivers. (There's also a transcript on the page.)

    Architect Michael Wyetzner takes Architectural Digest on a walking tour of Broadway, exploring how New York City is making one of its busiest streets more walkable by prioritizing pedestrians over cars. From traffic calming around Times Square to pedestrian plazas in Herald Square, discover all the ways NYC is reclaiming space for people on foot.

    [–] 4 points 16 hours ago (4 children)

    So it would've been really easy to prove the case in court. That's not an excuse not to have a trial. They knew where he was (to drone strike him), they could've tried to arrest him. Hell, there's even the concept of trial in absentia. Killing anybody and saying that the President's say-so is all the process that due is exactly what kings do, and what the American Revolution was about.

    And, yes, I do have a problem with the way that many other cases were handled. We're well down the slippy slope to a place where the man in charge can blow up boats in the Caribbean without evidence or trial, solely on his (dubious) claim that they're drug-runners.

    So, fuck-you very much, Obama.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 day ago

    The product announcement explains that they're essentially doing USB-over-IP to support the Z-Wave adapter, but they can't get Thread to work that way. The timing isn't precise enough, or somesuch. They will need to write new firmware to turn the AUX-2 itself into a Thread router to make it work.

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    This is a picture that I snapped a while back outside of a store that I was visiting to document what a dump most American cities actually are. Don't believe the images published to hype tourism, this is what daily life actually looks like much of the time. The whole country is absolutely covered in cars and infrastructure for cars, like a true shithole.

     

    I just picked up a 4K commercial display to upgrade my TV for cheap. It has an RS232C port on the back for control, and Home Assistant has a native integration to control it via a local Linux tty. The hitch is that my Home Assistant server is located in a spot not near the television, and running physical serial line to it would be inconvenient. But, since I have a Raspberry Pi connected as the streaming media box, I should be able to plug a USB adapter into it and route the serial data over the network, right?

    Is there a a good way to do this in HAOS?

     

    Deliberately provocative title here, and I'm not going to go on record making a prediction, but I just have a bad feeling about it. The persistent bugbear on the Democratic side is voter turnout. Hong had momentum and energy, with the potential to drive strong turnout of the progressive and Democratic base. By the AP numbers I saw, she had majority support through much of the state, while Crowley won with a majority of Milwaukee voters. Which is to be expected, as that's where the biggest chunk of our population lives. But also, Milwaukee has historically had soft Democratic voter turnout.

    Voters there chose him in the primary; will they show up for the general election?

     

    People who wail, "what about the disabled?!", when somebody suggests walkable cities deserve to get slapped. Typical Burgerland hellscape struggle presented here as a feel-good story.

    (Bonus: Why doesn't the job at a trampoline park offer paid time and facilities to change out of required work clothing?)

     

    People who wail, "what about the disabled?!", when somebody suggests walkable cities deserve to get slapped. Typical Burgerland hellscape struggle presented here as a feel-good story.

    (Bonus: Why doesn't the job at a trampoline park offer paid time and facilities to change out of required work clothing?)

     

    I'm not affiliated with this shop, so I don't gain anything by promoting it. I just happened to think one day that it would be really cool to have a lighted, Planet Express sign to provide some mood lighting. As it turns out, somebody else thought so, too, because I found this product listing for exactly what I had in mind. It works perfectly as a TV lamp to provide a little extra light when watching at night. Anyway, if you think it's cool, too, here's the link!

     

    Little did I know when I found a HomeKit lightbulb in the clearance bin at my grocery store for $3 what it would lead to. Here I am, though, adding to and re-jiggering my smart home set up. It's nothing earth-shattering, but it was fun, and I thought I'd share what I found out in case it's news to other folks. It started when I bought a handful of new Sonoff devices...

    Mainly, I ordered the MINI-ZB2GS to install in the front hall. I have a 2-gang switch box there, with switches controlling the porch light outside, and the ceiling fixture inside. These are slick, little devices that fit in a standard electrical box, and convert your existing mechanical switches into smart switches. I ran into a head-scratcher, though, when I flipped the switch to test the porch light, and it cycled on and off several times before remaining off. I thought that it had to do with an interaction with the motion-sensor on the light itself, but as it turned out, it's because the MINI-ZB2GS supports momentary push-buttons, as well as switches. While tucking the unit into the box, I must have inadvertently pushed the button to put it in momentary-push mode. I just had to remove the face plate, and carefully push the button to cycle the mode back to 'switch'.

    I took the opportunity to upgrade from a ZBDongle-E to a ZBDongle Max. This is what turned into the really enjoyable part! The ZBDongle Max can operate as Zigbee coordinator over USB, ethernet, or WiFi (though not recommended). I mounted it in a convenient location where it has good connectivity to the rest of the Zigbee network, and ran a cable to my PoE switch. Home Assistant picked it up right away, it was just a few clicks to add it to ZHA, and a few more clicks to migrate the network to this new coordinator. I realized that with the HA server physically de-coupled from the Zigbee coordinator, it doesn't need to be located in the living room any more. It could live anywhere that has a network jack. Since HAOS is running in a virtual machine, I could even temporarily migrate the VM to other hosts (like my desktop machine), while moving the usual host out of the living room. (Also, this dongle allegedly supports firmware that can do Zigbee and Thread simultaneously. I haven't tried it, since I don't have any Thread devices yet.)

    The ZBDongle Max has WiFi AP functionality for up to 8 devices. It's limited to devices that connect outbound, because it won't route incoming connections, nor forward mDNS announcements. That's perfect, though, for connecting the ratgdo, since it connects to HA with MQTT! That decouples the garage door from my main WiFi AP. I have a few RGB LED light strip controllers that use WiFi, but the Magic Home integration discovers them with mDNS. If only there were some way to have them connect outbound, instead. And, as it turns out, there's OpenBeken firmware. These are BL602 devices, which can be flashed over-the-air, so I did that. Now, they connect to HA via MQTT, too, so they can get off my main AP, too. OpenBeken supports MQTT discovery for HA, so it was a snap to connect them. There used to be a noticeable delay when operating them with the Magic Home integration, but now they are lightning-quick. I can push the button on the remote, and it sends a Zigbee message to the coordinator, which forwards it to HA over the LAN, which triggers an automation, then HA sends a message back over the LAN to the ZBDongle Max, which sends it to the LED strip via WiFi. And it all seems to happen instantaneously.

    Just for fun, I also added a CAM Slim Gen2 to my order. I was disappointed to later notice that Sonoff doesn't list Home Assistant compatibility for it; you're meant to use the eWeLink app. BUT, there's thingino to the rescue! It's a BusyBox-based firmware which you can flash the camera with, and then add it to Home Assistant using the ONVIF integration. Supposedly, you can use the two-way audio via a WebRTC integration, but I haven't set that up yet.

    Perhaps the most mundane thing (to me) was adding the open/closed sensor to my freezer door. Sometimes, it doesn't seal all the way when closed. By very carefully locating the sensor and the magnet, HA now knows whether the freezer is closed all the way, and quick 'n dirty automation alerts me when it's not, using a voice announcement on the smart speaker.

    In the process, I also discovered the UPnP functionality of both my router and switch, and the HA UPnP integration. It was a good day.

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