Yep. The QR code is only the encoded BT address to make connecting in the app easier than…selecting it from a list.

+1 for hybrids lol

I used to drive a lot of 4-bangers and remember having to do that with pretty much every one of them either to overtake another vehicle or even sometimes driving up a steep hill lol. The air conditioning just sucked so much power from those little engines.

Been driving a hybrid for 6 or 7 years now, which also has a little 4-cylinder engine, but the electric motor more than makes up for that. It’s got a dash display showing the electric motor/ICE power split, and when you punch the gas, you can see the electric motor doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Love it.

https://startrek.website/post/41513045

I thought about that, but one of the safety features of these batteries is an active fire suppression system that fills the interior with some kind of fire-extinguishing foam. I’m terrified to try to take these apart for fear of somehow triggering that. Plus, they’re hella expensive lol.

Yeah. These are pretty short range and my house (block construction + metal roof) blocks the signals pretty well. Batteries are installed in the basement, and even upstairs I struggle to keep a signal, especially with a crowded 2.4 GHz wifi with all my smart bulbs, etc.

Someone would have to be right at my doorstep to pull this off unless they hook up a directional antenna and point it right at them. Still, would be nice if I could just turn off Bluetooth since I can just use a wired serial connection. At least the inverter has an external Wifi/BT module I can just choose not to connect (it also has a serial connection for monitoring/config).

My house batteries for my PV system are also susceptible to this. Ugh.

They’ve both got Bluetooth for monitoring and configuration. Some config changes require a PIN but not the settings to enable/disable charge and discharge. Someone could just get within range of them, install the official app, and set discharge to “off” and shut down my house.

I’ve also not found a way to disable bluetooth on them. Gonna have to put them in a damn Faraday cage if I decide to worry about that possibility. :sigh:

If I’m looking up a movie or TV series, I always do either:

• imdb [movie name]
• wikipedia [movie name] film

And generally get the correct results.

I want one of those so badly since it’s perfect for my use cases but I also don’t want to be an early adopter.

It’s so prevalent we can literally say “I’ll verb your noun” and it still gets the point across.

I’m looking to switch banks. Who do you bank with, and would you recommend them?

That’s a project I’m gonna have to move up in priority. And yep, house is from the 50s and the thermal mass of the block itself is basically the extent of the insulation. Plan is to have those foam insulation blocks installed but put siding over them rather than spackle.

One side effect of my PV install is that I have a lot of large, thick foam inserts that I have to get rid of. They’re very similar in size and material to those foam insulation blocks, so I may hang onto them and ask the contractors if they can use them. That’ll re-use something I’d otherwise be tossing out and also save some money on buying the foam panels, though I’m not sure how much those cost.

Yep!

That’s how I found out our 18 cu-ft refrigerator is normally very efficient at around 100 watts for cooling, but it goes into a 400w “defrost” cycle every 2 hours. I’ve found no way to turn that off and it doesn’t seem to be affected by the “energy saver” mode. I get why it does that since I remember old freezers completely encrusted with ice, but I also remember only having to run a manual defrost of them like once a month or so.

On the other hand, looking at our power bill is very comforting. I’m really concerned about the rate increases power companies are going to push through whether or not all the AI data centers come up.

I’ve wanted to have a PV system for a decade or more and finally decided to just do it. Battery prices and capacity were finally within reach, and I wanted to insulate myself from further electric rate increases. Rates have more than doubled in the last 5 years and there’s another rate increase working its way through the PSC (aka the “rubber stamp anything the utility companies want commission”) right now.

How’s the humidity in the UK? I can deal with the temps (to a degree, pun intended) but the 95% or higher humidity just makes it miserable here. A lot of times I can make do with just a dehumidifier, even if it slightly warms the room, just to make things less “sticky”.

Our houses are very energy efficient as designed for cold wet weather, so retain heat extremely well.

Different construction, but our house is block and works similarly. Great in winter but just soaks up and holds heat in the summer.

Ugh. Years ago I rented a house like that. Landlord’s fix was to permanently install a massive window A/C up there. It helped, true, but even running it full blast 24/7 the best it could keep the temp was low 80s. There wasn’t a door to close, unfortunately, so any cool air just sank down the stairwell to the 2nd floor.

We tried using that as the master bedroom for all of two weeks one year, and noped right out lol.

We can run the HVAC in fan only mode, and it doesn’t seem to help much for cooling with the windows open. Just moves the same air around unless there’s a breeze outside pushing outside air in/out.

We used to have a pair of window fans we put on opposite sides of the house, one pushing and one pulling, but those both failed in the last few years and we never replaced them (Why do window fans cost ~$60?! lol) Those worked great, so I guess I’m just gonna have to pay the ridiculous prices and replace them.

It’s really messing with my sense of time realizing that Rosa Parks (2005) outlived John Ritter (2003).

I run gemma4:26b in 16 GB of RAM. It’s slow on my test rig with only 2 GB VRAM but it should fit 16 GB VRAM fine. I have one of those AMD BC-250 crypto mining units setup as a gaming rig, but my plan was to also run ollama on it. gemma4:26b was the model I planned to make the default. I haven’t messed with it yet since I’m playing through my Steam catalog that was waiting for me to have a PC that could run them lol.

We do, though it is a recent thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_named_heat_waves

In my defense, I was very, very drunk. People would bring me shots of Wild Turkey to play their song, and I took a lot of requests that night (note: I took requests for free but they brought me shots anyway).

My thought process was basically “refuge in audacity” and that a soundtrack might snap them out of whatever drunken rage they were in. Psychology wasn’t my major if that puts things into perspective.

Not sure if this counts, but I used to DJ at local bars and events. One evening, some guys had a bit too much and got into a brawl, so I put on Carl Douglas’s “Kung Fu Fighting”. People weren’t as amused as I thought they’d be.