ZZ Top on holiday

A lot of electrons have been inconvenienced just by this thread.

🤘- metal

This guy is on fire today: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8dmq88j6rro

Sort of deploying the Royal Navy to sink every small boat they can find in the channel, I’m struggling to see how he would stop the boats ™ in weeks.

Nice one. What software did you put on the ESP32?

I have not studied their API, but I would expect to find commands to start movement (open and close) and stop movement, perhaps even to move a specific amount. If the commands result in random amounts of movement the product is totally useless and no control software will help.

If the API commands work in a predictable way, then it is definitely possible to control movements accurately with Home Assistant or some other suitable software that is able to talk to the API.

I would recommend Home Assistant and integration with a protocol SmartWings supports. On quick Google looks like both zigbee and z-wave are an option. Then you can control exactly from Home Assistant what they do and when.

However, wiping eyes with fresh chillies is clearly preferable to either.

‘Operation Early Dawn’ - who comes up with the names? I’m cringing so hard my cheeks hurt!

he had entered the city centre to collect a takeaway

That’s one expensive takeway. I hope it was tasty.

Makes me wonder, is either of them interested in cyber security?

The coming weekend will tell us whether the edge is gone.

This happens easily for big successful organisations. Over decades a strong culture aligned with how they succeed forms. Once the market changes requiring a culture change, a seemingly invincible company suddenly stumbles. They simply can’t respond even if they what they should change.

Ex. Rolls Royce CEO stated this phenomenon well: culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Is there a bigger societal waste day-in-day-out than people sitting in traffic jams? Any measure that reduces car journeys taken is a good measure in my books.

Currently on holiday in the Cotswolds, UK. So long you stay away from the main touristy spots it’s good, even though we are in the middle of the tourist season.

The number of arsehole men is too damn high. Whenever I see or hear these stories my blood boils.

Remember when email was useful? I remember when it was magical!

Time for a story from the ancient times. I had this idea and asked my professor for advice. He said he knew a person on the other side of the world who would know all about it. “This is his ‘email’ address.”

I had never heard about ‘email’ so I needed to learn what it was and how to send one. I wrote my message and off it went. The very next morning I had a reply. One of the best experts on a topic I was keen about had shared their thoughts from the other side of the world, just like that.

In that time, a long time ago as you’ll appreciate, that interaction was magical.

In an instant I understood the power of the Usenet. A while later and with a couple of additional protocols they started calling that the Internet.

I made couple of bass tramps tuned to the room’s main resonant frequencies, which I measured. I followed instructions from the book.

I added sound absorber panels to the walls and ceiling to kill immediate reflections from the main speakers plus a sprinkling of additional panels to kill reflections and also act as decoration. I also needed to move one radiator because it was in the worst possible location for my setup.

The room got thick curtains to improve absorption, and they also darken the room as it is dual use music listening and home cinema room. A few defraction elements went into the ceiling for a good measure. The ceiling is made of custom panels that I made myself from wood and fabric to allow sound energy through to the various acoustic elements behind them.

I also spent a fair amount of time with subwoofer placement, but in the end it became a bit of a compromise between sound and placement of furniture. Nothing a bit of signal processing can’t deal with, mind.

Master Handbook of Acoustics is your friend if you want to learn what to do to your room. Overkill for most, admittedly, but it contains everything you need to know.

I think there is another aspect that is important: limit the blast radius. Shit inevitably happens when you create something new and complex, and when it does, you’d rather minimise the impact where possible.