From the “redirect the vents” side of things, I’ve been doing this manually for the 7 years with no ill effects. Last year I added a Flair system and Ecobee to automatically balance using the registers. They have back pressure detection to prevent damage to the HVAC system so there’s always enough vents open. At least in my scenario it’s been a game changer for the third floor of our townhouse. As we’ve headed into warmer months our bedroom is actually cool in the evenings and the lower floors are normal temperatures. During the winter our living space on the second floor was cozy without blasting the bedrooms and making it too hot to sleep. With the number of vents I had it cost just over 1K to do, but that was way cheaper than it would have been to have the house and system rezoned.

I’m into smarthome stuff so now I’ve actually got room level presence detection going and tying that back to Flair with Home Assistant so we only cool or heat occupied rooms. Wife is a very happy camper in her now temperature controlled office, and it only targets the office when she’s in it.

Lots of good advice here. I’ve got a bunch of older WD Reds still in service (from before the SMR BS). I’ve also had good luck shucking drives from external enclosures as well as decommissioned enterprise drives. If you go that route, depending on your enclosure or power supply in these scenarios you may run into issues with a live 3.3V SATA power pin causing drives to reboot. I’ve never had this issue on mine but it can be fixed with a little kapton tape or a modified SATA adapter. It’s definitely cheaper to shuck or get used enterprise for capacity! I’m running at least a dozen shucked drives right now and they’ve been great for my needs.

Also, if you start reaching the point of going beyond the ports available on your motherboard, do yourself a favor and get a quality HBA card flashed in IT mode to connect your drives. The cheapo 4 port cards I originally tried would have random dropouts in Unraid from time to time. Once I got a good HBA it’s been smooth sailing. It needs to be in IT mode to prevent hardware raid from kicking in so that Unraid can see the individual identifiers of the disks. You can flash it yourself or use an eBay seller like ThArtOfServer who will preflash them to IT mode.

Finally, be aware that expanding your array is a slippery slope. You start with 3 or 4 drives and next thing you know you have a rack and 15+ drive array.

Same, though I’ve got a couple Decepticons sprinkled in. They all connect to the Allspark ssid.

Now they’ve even started offering this at the check-in counter! Critically it’s after the “pay us $35 to check your bag” screen. It says it’s a one time special offer but I’ve done it a half dozen times now on American and twice on United. Bag just is supposed to be carry on sized. I don’t even have to take it through security when this option is available.

Seconding the Shield, for all of the above plus Nvidia’s update commitment to it. IIRC the 2015 Shield is the longest continually updated Android device ever. I have a 2015, 2017, and a 2019 at my house, and a couple of 2017s at my parents’ place. I upgraded the older ones to the toblerone remote last year. All are still working great, and continuing to receive regular updates.

My error, I just checked and apparently it’s actually a Precision. I don’t deal in Dells so I don’t know all their nomenclature! It’s still been a downgrade though from my ThinkPad.

Even on the Windows side of things they’re frustrating. Company took my perfectly working Thinkpad and replaced it last September with an “upgraded” Dell Inspiron laptop. It’s a piece of crap. Wakes up all the time in my bag, randomly drops wifi, and randomly drops ViewSonic monitors. Official IT solution: this happens sometimes, we don’t know why, and we’re going to send you Dell monitors instead.

*Edit I guess it’s actually a Precision, not Inspiron. I don’t buy Dells so I don’t know all the names!

The better upload requires using their modem/router, or one of the specific users owned ones that are approved by them to work with the mid-split tech. While my old modem could technically do it, it wasn’t “approved” for the speed. I was limited on upload to 35 but could usually hit 45 from over provisioning. I had to buy a new modem but now I get 1400/200. They just flipped the switch on being able to use consumer owned hardware at all with the mid-splits this fall.

Are you in the US? I believe call screen is region limited.

I’ve been using one for several years now with one of the documented switches that add multiple ports. https://docs.pikvm.org/ezcoo/#connections First in a DIY and then with the v3 hat Kickstarter I guess total I’m at $270 between the Kickstarter HAT and ezcoo switch plus the cost of a Pi (which I already had) I can reach 4 machines over my Tailnet and jump between them reliably. I can also control power on my primary server. (others are on a network managed PDU and can be forcibly reset that way if needed)

I had an old console from a job but it was so old that it required an ancient version of Java to access through the web interface. I’m sure there may be better options, but for my homelab setup the pikvm has worked well at a price that fit in my budget.

It’s considered a “level 2” driver assist, enhancing the existing adaptive cruise or lane keep assist built into the vehicle (which are also considered level 2 and perfectly legal) The driver is still completely responsible for anything the vehicle does.

That said IANAL, but I feel comfortable with this level of vehicle modification and any liability involved.

A Comma 3 to run Openpilot on my Honda Civic. It’s lane keep / adaptive cruise control on steroids. I drive about 40 thousand miles each year for work, 46 miles round trip on “local” days. Having that level of driver assist on the highway makes a life changing difference. I arrive less fatigued and feel more capable of reacting to hazards. Their tagline is making driving chill, and it really has delivered. I don’t know how I did this mileage before Openpilot.

Both. Verizon service at one of my offices is trash, but our family unlimited plan is ideal for just about everywhere else. I can’t beat the present pricing for the number of lines we have. My phone supports DSDS so I’ve got a physical Verizon sim as my primary and then a secondary esim that connects to T-Mo when needed.

Prosthetics. Costs are always blown way out of proportion because the media looks at just the device and ignores the professional expertise and custom fabrication work that goes into the devices. They also all like to hype that arms are “mind controlled” when they’re all using different variations of the same myoelectric technology that’s been around for years. There have certainly been dramatic advances as a result of better battery technology and 3D printing improvements to rapid prototyping, but what the media presents is typically very out of touch with reality. It’s even worse when you go from news media to movies and TV shows that set completely unrealistic expectations for patients.

Personally I’ve been pretty happy with Unifi Protect. Reliably records locally but accessible remotely and notifications are quick within a few seconds. Cameras can connect to HA and support RTSP if you want to link them into Frigate.

Ditto. This is probably my only Sync for Lemmy complaint right now.

I’ve had the exact opposite experience historically. Of 5 Seagate drives I’ve purchased over the last decade or so, only 1 of them is still working. Meanwhile 25+ WD hard drives are still in production over the same time with only 1 that started throwing smart errors a couple years back.

Wife and I had a similar experience. We kept thinking “oh, here’s the part where we’re going to talk about all the science and physics!” but then went off on another track. I liked it overall though and have generally been a Nolan fan.

Not necessarily. I’m on a daily medication that has a generic but is available in both extended release and immediate release forms. The extended release provides a more consistent dosage and has historically prevented me from getting sick. The immediate release causes inconsistent spikes and I have a history of getting sick on it. Insurance refused to pay for the extended release type for about 2 years before it made it onto their “formulary.” In the meantime I was using GoodRx and paying $100/mo instead of my paid health insurance pharmacy plan to make sure I wouldn’t get sick. The person I spoke to at the pharmacy management wing of the insurance company literally told me “you can get an app on your phone which will tell you when to take the immediate release medication.”

Yeah, Paxlovid didn’t exist the last time I had COVID. The mouth taste off of it is indeed weird, but the fact that I already stopped feeling the brain fog is a huge plus. I was feeling the brain fog for a good month or so after my last infection.