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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 14th, 2023

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  • You’re right in that running HA just for a WoL timer would be silly, but (presumably) it’s already running for other, less silly purposes.

    I’d say the main benefit is when the machine requires regular (as in daily) reboots, or if it’s something you don’t trust is fully private and want to be powered off outside work hours. Not useful for me, but I can see why it would be handy.





  • Replacing the hanger is probably a five minute job. Finding the correct one is much harder. Replacement spoke is cheap, but making a wheel run true is a bit fiddly and I’m not particularly good at it.

    I’ve already put aside plenty of money for an upgrade, it’s the choosing one that I hate.

    Also: NZ has a Workride scheme where you can get a bike with no GST paid off over a year from your pre-tax wages/salary. It works out somewhere around 50% off the actual sale price for a typical worker (though some of that is from your own Kiwisaver contribution and/or student loan repayments, which you’re technically just putting off and not actually saving in the very long term).



  • tips on soldering

    In addition to the other comments - if you’re soldering to something that can sink a lot of heat (a great big copper connector, or the ground plane on a circuit board), you will probably need a fairly broad tip. A finer tip can’t transfer heat fast enough, so you end up having to hold it in contact for far too long to get hot enough to melt the solder and (counterintuitively) you end up melting plastic or overheating components. Doubly so if you’ve cranked up the heat to help.


  • FedEx have their own drivers in Auckland?

    I can confirm that they have at least one.

    To be fair though, our supplier invests a fairly large chunk of money in freight, and in the past ran their own dedicated flights when the previous carrier (maybe TNT? Can’t remember) wasn’t reliable enough. I have no idea if FedEx is that good in general or if it’s only for these sort of high-priority customers.












  • Node Red by far gave me the best automation for numerous lights. X minutes after sunrise, it iterates every light that is on and calls turn off with a fairly long (2 min?) transition time, so the lights all gradually fade off.

    It’s been running for years without me needing to touch anything, it doesn’t care if you replace/rename any lights, and the slow fade when it’s still getting brighter outside makes the change invisible.

    I’ll bet you could do the same thing without Node Red, but nowhere near as easily.


  • I use a dumb 433MHz wireless doorbell (apparently this one on Ali Express, but the exact one doesn’t matter) with a Sonoff RF Bridge running Tasmota. It’s far faster and more reliable than anything with the smarts built into the button, and the battery lasts at least a few years.

    I’ve got it set up to take a snapshot on the front door and driveway cameras, send a push notification with the front door camera, announce on the speakers that someone’s at the door, and turn on the outdoor lights at night.

    The doorbell was $8 shipped, the RF Bridge was somewhere in the mid $20s but I already had it for some door sensors, and if you don’t already have a camera, a decent Reolink is under $150 shipped directly (or under $250 from a physical shop in NZ like PB Tech).