can we please appreciate their t-shirt though holy
[ID: A photo of Mayor Owen Hurcum, a person with bright green hair. They are smiling and holding up a white mug with a rainbow symbol on it. They are in a black t-shirt that reads, in white letters, THEY/THEM/THE MAYOR]
"please learn about disorder so you understand why I react the way I do" and "my disorder is not an excuse to be an asshole" should co-exist and people should understand the difference
"Gay" was such a derogatory term for my generation/demographic that with the rise of LGBTQ rights we actually had to have accompanying ad campaigns to discourage people from using it as an insult.
I've never been called queer as a slur but boy do I have experiences with the word 'gay'. And yet you don't see us falling over ourselves to stop people from identifying with the term. Anyone who says "queer is a slur!" but lets "gay" pass without comment is fucking lying. It's a dogwhistle.
Hot take: The much quieter level of corporate Pride this year is not worth celebrating.
Not because I want to spend my dollars on Pride merch sold by corporations that don’t care, but because the near-absence of corpo Pride is a canary in the coal mine. Corpo Pride is a barometer of sorts for social acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community. If Corpo Pride goes away, it should be because being LGBTQ+ is so normalized and seen as “no big deal” that there’s no message to ‘sell’ anymore; but what’s happening now is NOT that.
What IS happening then? Because I'm confused
What is happening is not that corporations are winding down the Pride displays and merch due to Pride being no big deal anymore because we live in a society where LGBTQ+ people are just seen as the same as everybody else.
What is happening is corporations are staying away from Pride because public shows of acceptance of LGBTQ+ people now comes at a much higher cost. For corporations, that cost is monetary. For people, that cost is physical violence - and I'm not saying it's new that people have been violent towards the LGBTQ+ community. I'm saying the violence is now much more widespread, and isn't just aimed at the community anymore, but at anybody who either supports the community or LOOKS LIKE they might belong to the community. Corporations deciding not to display rainbow logos and merch is just a sign of how bad things have actually gotten in the last few years.
TL;DR : Corporations "supported" us when it was easy. That many no longer visibly do so means it's no longer easy to do it. That's not a good thing.
I’m very tired. you probably heard that Russia destroyed the Kakhovka Dam to slow Ukraine’s counter offensive. here’s something I didn’t quite realize: since this February, the Russians operated the dam in juuuuust the right way so that as much water would build up as possible when the snow melted and spring showers started. and then they blew the whole thing up.
40,000 people may need to be evacuated.
I don’t really have the energy to say anything else right now.
Hospitallers Medical Battalion: actual angels can confirm. they’re combat-zone medical services - you know how humanitarian groups like MFS and Red Cross have to pause operations due to the Russians fucking shooting at humanitarian zones? yeah, these guys don’t pause for bullets, they fucking walk into them and they bring out anyone they can.
Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation: you can choose from a number of various fundraiser projects here, if you’re feeling particularly picky. for those of you who balk at the idea of supporting anything military just please remember that things like vehicles and drones aren’t just for military use, they’re also for evacuation and finding the wounded and they’re fucking vital.
KSE Foundation: similar to the above, KSE has multiple projects you can choose from to donate to. looking at it right now, one of the projects with the lowest amounts of money raised thus far - despite being started in April - is Seeds for Ukraine, which will help Ukraine recover from the ecological devastation Russia has been wreaking (and with Ukraine, the countries that rely on Ukraine’s grain exports that Russia keeps trying to steal).
Come Back Alive: do these guys even need the introduction? they’re Come Back Alive. I’m kissing all of them.
United24: Zelenskyy’s brain child, and the official fundraising platform of Ukraine. Mark Hamill recommends the fundraisers for drones in particular.
UAnimals: Nova Kakhovka’s zoo got… pretty much completely swept away. all zoo residents except the birds have drowned. UAnimals has tried throughout the occupation to keep the animals safe, and they’ve been reporting on the status of the zoo. I don’t really know what to say except that I hope they’re able to save the pets and strays in the towns along the river.
Contact your local library (or comment on their social media) positively for any pride/LGBTQIA+/queer-related displays or events they have going on.
Seriously.
What I’m seeing and hearing from the (mostly US-based) library workers in my groups and social circles is that the anti-queer (anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-drag queen story time, etc.) comments and complaints that have ramped up in the past year aren’t going away. Even library workers with supportive coworkers/bosses/boards are steeling themselves to deal with an avalanche of garbage, or are second-guessing their displays and events because the amount of vitriol can wear a person down so much. And the ones without supportive people or work environments? It’s worse.
Give the library something else: give them both the ammo (by being one of the numbers they can count worth the positive group) if they need to show their community isn’t wholly negative. Give them the compliment of knowing that their work got appreciated.
Rocky Horror is turning 50 next month and people still act like being gay was invented by Ellen in 1997
But honestly! Renowned French poet Théophile de Viau wrote the poetic ode to King James titled "The Duke of Buckingham," containing the immortal lines "One man fucks Monsieur le Grand de Bellegarde/Another fucks the Comte de Tonnerre/And it is well known that the King of England/Fucks the Duke of Buckingham" exactly 400 years ago and people still act like being gay was invented by Oscar Wilde in 1890
Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were buried together in the 25th century BC and people still act like being gay was invented by renowned French poet Théophile de Viau 400 years ago
Gilgamesh and Enkidu "loved each other like man and wife" in 2700 BC and ppl STILL act like being gay was invented by Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep in the 25th century BC
Nearly every social species on the planet has a non zero frequency of homosexuality and most likely had for millions of years before primates first evolved and ppl still act like being gay was invented by Gilgamesh and Enkidu in 2700 BC
[ID: a comment reading, "i fully know what you mean! but! i did also think "Oscar Wilde published The Picture of Dorian Gray 133 years ago as of 2 months from now, and people still act like being gay was invented by the Rocky Horror Show in 1973" and now i cannot stop laughing making more gay history comparisons." /end ID]
It’s been long enough since I worked at the hideously mismanaged nanotech startup that I’ve started romanticizing it. Like, yes the hydrogen explosion was scary and I’m entirely too familiar with the odor of decaborane, and yes the CEO and CTO got in a fistfight in the conference room, but nothing makes you feel alive like turning chunks of graphite on an ancient manual lathe with inadequate respiratory PPE.
Asbestosis-like lung damage via inhalation of loose airborn boron nitride nanotubes, nitrate-induced chronic migraines, and a crippling caffeine addiction build character.
Fondly remembering the day where we decided to try a nickel organometallic catalyst instead of our usual iron. The difference being that while nickel should be a better catalyst, if you get an iron carbonyl leak the room smells bad for a bit, whereas if you get a nickel carbonyl leak you’re dead before you hit the floor.
So much adrenaline! We went home wired and giddy, full to the brim with nightmares and scientific euphoria. Every day I dreaded waking up, and every day I held the raw stuff of miracles in my hands. Good times.
god lived in this box, I’m pretty sure
No. Even with such egregious safety shortcuts, they barely even scratched the surface of what was possible. Sure, they had drive and vision, but never enough for my taste. They weren’t mad. They were barely even eccentric.
And I was no mere hench! I know the process. Every single object you see in these pictures was designed and assembled by me, with my own mind and hands. And moreover, I know all the radical experiments that they were too timid to attempt. All I need is some space, a bit of cash, and a used furnace or two, and I will spin up an operation to put my erstwhile peers to shame.
For as much as they were willing to risk with our health, they were unwilling to risk the money. Honestly, I get it. People do stupid things when funding is on the line. Happens all the time. I can’t even be angry. I’m really not.
No, I’m not mad, I’m just… frustrated.
OP how does it feel to be a real life mad scientist
Ok so if you haven’t already heard of it, there’s an excellent podcast on engineering disasters (and sometimes engineering disgraces) called Well There’s Your Problem, and they have a segment at the end of every episode called Safety Third, which is listeners writing in about egregiously unsafe experiences they have had especially at their workplaces.
OP, I am BEGGING you to write in with this because I want so badly to hear their voices read your email with mounting horror as they get to the pictures of the box god probably lived in.
(Also if this is the first you’re hearing of the podcast, last week’s episode had the wonderful Maia Arson Crimew @nyancrimew to talk about cybersecurity among other things, which was excellent. On the whole, great podcast, would recommend.)
124 episodes of workplace drama?????? Holy crap, this’ll keep me occupied for a few weeks, thank you!
I am enjoying the fuck out of the notes here, most of which are variations on “I thought this was a bit and then OH MY GOD THERE WAS A PICTURE.” and look I’ve mostly worked in the corners of science that are founded in naturalistic variation with very little room for hubris and I still believed every word from OP there. I’ve seen with my own eyes a video of the time my friend genetically engineered a hamster for maximum rage, okay? I’ve seen the consequences of the horrors and the thwarted sulking of those whose hands have been slapped by IRBs or Environmental Health and Safety or IT. I have two different friends on IRBs and one of these days I’m gonna make friends with someone at EHS purely for the cocktail party stories. And that is in the relatively tame field of behavioral research, okay, I’m not fucking with the stuff of material reality here.
Also I’ve read the inimitable Derek Lowe’s Things I Won’t Work With and I have a healthy fear of applied chemists.
Executives at the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) decided to replace hotline workers with a chatbot named Tessa four days after the workers unionized.
NEDA, the largest nonprofit organization dedicated to eating disorders, has had a helpline for the last twenty years that provided support to hundreds of thousands of people via chat, phone call, and text. “NEDA claims this was a long-anticipated change and that AI can better serve those with eating disorders. But do not be fooled—this isn’t really about a chatbot. This is about union busting, plain and simple,” helpline associate and union member Abbie Harper wrote in a blog post.
According to Harper, the helpline is composed of six paid staffers, a couple of supervisors, and up to 200 volunteers at any given time. A group of four full-time workers at NEDA, including Harper, decided to unionize because they felt overwhelmed and understaffed.
“We asked for adequate staffing and ongoing training to keep up with our changing and growing Helpline, and opportunities for promotion to grow within NEDA. We didn’t even ask for more money,” Harper wrote. “When NEDA refused [to recognize our union], we filed for an election with the National Labor Relations Board and won on March 17. Then, four days after our election results were certified, all four of us were told we were being let go and replaced by a chatbot.”
1.) Your Reagan-era “trickle-down economics” strategy of tax breaks for billionaires that you continue to employ to this day has widened the gap between rich and poor so much that most of them will never be able to own a home, much less earn a living wage.
2.) You refuse to increase the federal minimum wage, which is still $7.25 an hour (since 2009). Even if it had just kept up with inflation, it would be $27 now. You’re forcing people of all ages but especially young people to work multiple jobs just to afford basic necessities.
3.) You fundamentally oppose and want to kill democracy; have done everything in your power to restrict access to the ballot box, particularly in areas with demographics that tend to vote Democratic (like young people and POC). You staged a fucking coup the last time you lost.
4.) You have abused your disproportionate senate control over the last three decades to pack the courts with religious extremists and idealogues, including SCOTUS—which has rolled back rights for women in ways that do nothing but kill more women and children and expand poverty.
5.) You refuse to enact common sense gun control laws to curb mass shootings like universal background checks and banning assault weapons; subjecting their entire generation to school shootings and drills that are traumatizing in and of themselves. You are owned by the NRA.
6.) You are unequivocally against combatting climate change to the extent that it’s as if you’ve made it your personal mission to ensure they inherit a planet that is beyond the point of no return in terms of remaining habitable for the human race beyond the next few generations.
7.) You oppose all programs that provide assistance to those who need it most. Your governors refused to expand Medicaid even during A PANDEMIC. You are against free school lunches, despite it being the only meal that millions of children can count on to actually receive each day
8.) You are banning books, defunding libraries, barring subject matter, and whitewashing history even more in a fascistic attempt to keep them ignorant of the systemic racism that this nation was literally founded upon and continues to this day in every action your party takes.
9.) You oppose universal healthcare and are still trying to repeal the ACA and rip healthcare from tens of millions of Americans and replace it with nothing. You are against lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs that millions need simply to LIVE/FUNCTION in society.
10.) You embrace white nationalists, Neo-Nazis, and other groups that are defined by their intractable racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and intolerance. You conspired with these groups on January 6th to try to overthrow the U.S. government via domestic terrorism that KILLED PEOPLE.
11.) You oppose every bill aimed at making life better for our nation’s youth; from education to extracurricular and financial/nutritional assistance programs. You say you want to “protect the children” while you elect/nominate pedophiles and attack trans youth and drag queens.
12.) You pretend to be offended by “anti-semitism” while literally supporting, electing, and speaking at events organized by Nazis. You pretend to hate “cancel culture” despite the fact that you invented it and it’s basically all you do.
13.) Every word you utter is a lie. You are the party of treason, hypocrisy, crime, and authoritarianism. You want to entrench rule by your aging minority because you know that you have nothing to offer young voters and they will never support you for all these reasons and more.
14.) You’re so hostile to even the notion of helping us overcome the mountain of debt that millions of us are forced to take on just to pay for our post K-12 education that you are suing to try to prevent a small fraction of us from getting even $10,000 in loan forgiveness.
15.) You opened the floodgates of money into politics via Citizens United; allowing our entire system of government to become a cesspool of corruption, crime, and greed. You are supposed to represent the American people whose taxes pay your salary but instead cater to rich donors.
16.) You respond to elected representatives standing in solidarity with their constituents to protest the ONGOING SLAUGHTER of children in schools via shootings by EXPELLING THEM FROM OFFICE & respond to your lack of popularity among young people by trying to raise the voting age.
17.) You impeach Democratic presidents over lying about a BJ but refuse to impeach (then vote twice to acquit) a guy whose entire “administration” was an international crime syndicate being run out of the WH who incited an insurrection to have you killed.
18.) You steal Supreme Court seats from democrats to prevent the only black POTUS we’ve ever had from appointing one and invent fake precedents that you later ignore all to take fundamental rights from Americans; and even your “legitimate” appointments consist of people like THIS (sub-thread refuting CJ Roberts criticisms of people attacking SCOTUS’ legitimacy).
19.) You support mass incarceration even for innocuous offenses or execution by cop for POC while doing nothing but protect rich white criminals who engage in such things as tax fraud, money laundering, sex trafficking, rape/sexual assault, falsifying business records, etc.
20.) You are the reason we can’t pass:—Universal background checks—An assault weapons ban—The ‘For the People/Freedom to vote’ Act or John Lewis Voting Rights Act—The ERA & Equality Act—The Climate Action Now Act—The (Stopping) Violence Against Women Act—SCOTUS expansion.
21.) You do not seek office to govern, represent, or serve the American people. You seek power solely for its own sake so you can impose your narrow-minded puritanical will on others at the expense of their most fundamental rights and freedoms like voting and bodily autonomy.
22.) Ok, last one. You are trying to eliminate social security and
Medicare that tens of millions of our parents rely on and paid into
their entire lives. And you did everything to maximize preventable deaths from COVID leaving millions of us in mourning.
Part of this Tweet is also here:
https://twitter.com/AmoneyResists/status/1648518134507380738
This has been coming since Reagan and Gingrich. It was as horrifying then as it is now. A generation abandoned to die of AIDS, ketchup fed to kids as a vegetable in school lunches because real food costs money that could go to the military industrial complex and special interests, the rollback of environmental protections, economic policy created to benefit Wall Street rather than Main Street, the crushing of unions and welfare programs—all by a party somehow convinced it represents “morality” and is saving America from everyone else.
This isn’t the work of an “aging minority” in the sense that some young Americans believe it is, remnants clinging to power after the rest of a generation with shared beliefs have died off. It is the work of an oligarchic class that grabbed all the economic power it could get its hands on in the 80s and then realized it didn’t even have to disguise its political power-grab in the 90s. It stopped working across the aisle to govern in good faith and literally prided itself on shutting out the representatives and even the votes of the political opposition (even when that opposition had the popular majority).
But where liberals have been fighting and losing, we now have a chance to fight and win, as we did in the election of Barack Obama—IF young people vote. It may mean voting for someone you’re not wildly enthused about, but “No More” is an important and eloquent and LOUD statement to make with your tiny +1 to tip that balance.
Please PLEASE can we have a working government back, at least one that believes in representative ideals and the role of government to protect people, even if it is not yet truly representative.
And a constitutional amendment to disband the electoral college. Fascism is a far greater threat to our country now than the mob rule the founding fathers (also a small group of rich white men) feared when they designed it.
So I just got the notification about Spotify now having audiobooks, and not to have a knee jerk reaction and shoot from the hip, but don’t give Spotify your money. Download Libby and use it if you have a library card. If you don’t have a library card, as a librarian I feel inclined to tell you to go to your local library and get one! They are almost always the low price of free. Libby is also the low price of free. Don’t keep throwing money in the Spotify pit.
If you’re a person aged 13-21, I also just want to plug the Brooklyn Library’s Books Unbanned project where you can get a free eCard, because it’s such a cool program. Anyway. I’ve typed all this in like five minutes and am going to get a snack. Don’t keep giving Spotify your money when you can support your local institutions who will get you this stuff for free
kind of wanna reinforce this here. because i’ve seen ai writing become so popular on tik tok.
it’s literally theft. just like how ai art steals, ai writing steals. it’s using authors’ very real work to generate whatever you type in. and this also needs to be said as well.
seeing this all over my fyp is REALLY discouraging. fanfic itself is already a labor of love and we love it when you interact. but please do not use ai writing for your fanfic needs when this writing literally steals from fanfic authors.
genuinely don’t know if this post will go around because my interactions outside of hcs are shit, but i hope it does.
The book is 1984, which is neither. It's anti-authoritarian, which tells you a lot.
Ya know, sometimes I wish the joke *didn’t* write itself.
I said it in the notes on the last post but I’m gonna say it again.
I’m married to someone with severe memory problems. Automation of household appliances & systems helps him a lot and helps me a lot because it reduces the number of things I have to keep in my brain at all times. I love doors that lock themselves, being able to schedule dog food being delivered, a thermostat I can manipulate from wherever. Beyond my little bubble it should be noted that voice controlled appliances can be really good for people with mobility concerns. Appliances that can measure and talk and remember little tasks can be such a blessing for people.
I will never forgive Amazon and Google for taking technologies that could be really helpful and weaponizing them, and fuck everybody who acts like its some kind of conspiracy theory that those devices are spying on you. You absolutely should be distrustful of those devices but just make sure you’re getting angry at the right people.
Making accessibility devices evil is just like so Disney villain
My mom is blind and without her Alexa literally could not cook, go shopping, or do a million other things. Because Alexa is voice-activated, she doesn’t have to fumble with knobs or write a list she can’t read.
I will never forgive Amazon for how much I hate a tool that allows my mother to live her life.
Open source and secure alternatives for some of these:
- Voice activated smart speaker: Mycroft (can be purchased as a complete unit, or DIYed with a Raspberry Pi and microphone+speaker array) https://mycroft.ai/
- Smart Home automation: home-assistant (cannot be purchased, originally developed by MIT) https://www.home-assistant.io/
- Zigbee (the wireless protocol for smart lights and other smart devices) bridge: Conbee II (this takes the place of a Phillips Bridge, for instance. And is in many cases better because it works with all brands of smart light that use Zigbee–which is almost all of them, including the cheap IKEA ones–and also works for devices that aren’t lights. Cannot really be DIYed because Zigbee needs special hardware, not just software) https://phoscon.de/en/conbee2
I don’t know any alternatives for locks, vacuums, thermometers, or anything else sadly. None of these are that difficult to set up with just a little bit of tech know-how, and extensive guides already exist for almost all problems you could run into because the open-source community is almost psychotically dedicated to its projects, unlike Amazon, Google, and Apple where it’s practically impossible to get help with any problem that’s even slightly unusual.
Oh thank you!! These area really neat
Oh thank you so much! My grandmother has an alexa and it’s really improved her enjoyment of life, but I hate even talking around it. It’s linked to my amazon and I’ve gotten suggestions based on things it’s heard. That wigs me out so much.
Can confirm, Home Assistant is amazing; I transitioned everything I could for it to control and right now that’s literally everything. It can also be integrated with other voice-activated smart speakers than Alexa as well as Alexa. It also comes WITH an Add-on called Ada for voice. So far, there is very goddamn little on the market that isn’t either officially supported or community supported and stuff is being added at the rate of literally weekly. If you do scripting and have a taste for diy, you can be Dr. Doom and your home is your supervillain lair.
Because of the market, most smart appliances and devices are Alexa enabled, but unless they’re made by Amazon, that doesn’t mean they’re Alexa exclusive and even then, someone is hacking their way into the API and pulling the endpoints. Right now, the only thing I can’t work in here (yet) is my Nest Thermostat and HA is working on adding that back in right now.
Home Assistant is fully compatible with the zwave and zigbee standards as well as wifi and bluetooth; you can directly control zwave and zigbee items or link up your existing hubs for it to control like SmartThings.
https://www.home-assistant.io/
It can be run in several ways; I’ve done it on a Pi 4 both 4G and 8G and a VM on my Ubuntu server and while the Pi is recommended–I recommend it too for convenience–it’s one of several possibilites. Currently I’m using a Raspberry Pi 4b 8G with a solid state hard drive instead of SD card. You can purchase z-wave and zigbee modules to add to it for direct control of z-wave and zigbee devices or use your existing hubs (or both). Beneath the HA umbrella is also links to the blueprints of building your own zigbee and zwave devices with Arduino just to start that HA can also control. I’m not saying you’re going to be building your own smart thermostat on the weekend, but apparently, some people are doing just that.
This does not require a high tech start value; most integrations are automatic, you just say yes and login and let it happen, it even creates your Dr. Doom dashboard with TABS.
Again, you DO NOT NEED TO KNOW ANYTHING BUT COMPUTERS EXIST AND HOW TO CLICK YES AND NO TO USE THIS. For me, it was actually easier than a lot of setups with shit I had to pay money for that said they were easy. This is open source, but that is not synonymous with user unfriendly; a lot of work was done to make this accessible to the casual automation user. The UI is card based; when you first start, HA does it all for you and creates discrete cards that control different things on your dashboard; no effort on your part, you can turn on and off any light in here or turn them red while someone is in the bathroom because that’s fucking funny. But as you get more comfortable, you can start to create your own configurtions, take direct control of the UI, and mix it up; it’s up to you.
But.
If you are a DIYer or just want to be or never knew you wanted to be but feel the vibes and need a place to start, this is the perfect sandbox for learning and escalating. There are a metric ton of tutorials, community add-ins, and message boards to consult. If you can imagine it, it can be done and its likely someone is working on version eight right now. The primary languages are python and javascript with yaml for configuration files for DIY. You can create your own layouts, your own sensors, and your own cards if you don’t like what they have. If you’re like me, you may also go in to community addins and add new stuff to their code so it runs like you want it to; it’s all up to you.
I am not a dev pro, I’m a QC analyst with a scripting hobby; I do this quite literally for fun on weekends or when I’m bored or anxious and need to soothe myself with coding.
Here is the home page of my MULTI-TAB dashboard. Yes, that is a floorplan of my apartment and those glowy orange and dark grey bits are things that I can turn on and off from the comfort of my bed. It’s fun.
I seriously would kill to get more people into this and have someone to play with and enjoy the feeling of controlling all within my (apartment) kingdom with but a single command. Dear God tell me if you’re into it; we’ll be best friends and hopefully you’ll be okay with that.
Here’s an intro to Home Assistant I wrote back in September in DW when I first started, with screenshots. You’ll also be able to see my Dash when I first started compared to the dash above. Feel free to ask me anything from the perspective of someone not a dev professional, an engineer, or even has a degree in anything, much less anything like this, and yet is a QC lead who codes their own testing tools and for whom this is just something cool and fun.
Update for Home Assistant:
If you want to try but are still intimidated by the work to put together/work with a Pi, Home Assistant has your back, and I’m so excited to tell people about this.
This is your all-in-one solution to open source home automation, built by open source developers, and buying it supports open source!!
This is what you get:
- the single board computer with 4 USB ports, one ethernet port, case, drive, and Home Assistant installed and ready to go.
- This is plug and play; all you gotta do is plug it in and then go to local address on your own computer to set up. That’s it; there is no other work required but buying shit for it to control.
A Pi kit with all the pieces you need is roughly $80 - $100; an SSD runs around $30 to whatever; the SSD case you need so you can attach it to the Pi can run from $8 to whatever.
This price is roughly $10-$25 higher (maybe) than buying a pi kit plus SSD hard drive and hard drive case, but not when you factor in the lack of work involved.
a.) You do not need to put the Pi together by hand. It’s easy and actually almost foolproof, but it can be intimidating if you’ve never done anything like that.
b.) You don’t need to flash an SD card or SSD with the latest version of HA; Home Assistant is already installed and ready to go.
c.) Home Assistant Blue, unlike a Pi, doesn’t run off an SD card: it comes with a hard drive installed. The only way to make a Pi run off a hard drive is to do a fairly basic firmware update but still, extra work. You don’t have to do it.
d.) This was literally designed for Home Assistant by the people who developed Home Assistant.
e.) Also, you get a kick ass official Home Assistant case in blue.
This is, I cannot emphasize enough, a really fucking good deal.
Here is what doesn’t come with it:
- No wifi module, but for Home Assistant, it should have it on ethernet anyway. You don’t need it.
- No bluetooth module - you can buy one for under $20, but honestly, I have yet to have anything use mine but to tell me the MAC of my headphones. With the exception of something that only runs bluetooth that you want to control, you don’t need it.
- No z-wave module - you can buy a usb dongle for under $40 or use an existing z-wave hub (example: SmartThings Hub). You probably need this if you use SmartThings,
- No zigbee module - you can buy a usb dongle for under $40 or use an existing zigbee or z-wave/zigbee hub (example: SmartThings Hub)
Pi kits don’t come with the last two either, so again, we’re talking a
$15 difference for less work, less stress, and something designed and built to run Home Assistant.
Now, real talk on zigbee and z-wave:
Get a consumer grade hub and don’t start with open source when it comes to controlling z-wave and zigbee if you’re not ready to sit down and work out the pieces. It’s not hard, it’s super learnable, there are tutorials everywhere, but if you’re just starting out and aren’t used to diy, make it easy on yourself.
Your goal is to get total open source, but you can and should do it in steps as small and easy as you need; don’t over think it. This should be functional and fun, and I promise you, this is so much fun if you don’t assume you should know everything all at once. You can and will learn everything–I promise you, it’s great–but do it at a sane pace and not one where you throw anything against the wall like some people I maybe heard about but never did that myself even like, once.
I do this as my major hobby on weekends–I’m downloading info on how to build my own humidity and temperature sensors from parts–but I’m still using my SmartThings Hub until I get a weekend free of anxiety attacks and stress to learn how to pair z-wave and zigbee from first principles.
Consumer grade hubs mean it’s plug and play; you make sure the devices you have are compatible–or buy your hub and then your devices that are compatible–then set up. It’s easy.
Personal example: SmartThings Hub.
You can get a SmartThings Hub that controls zigbee and z-wave for about $40 - $60, but you’ll need to pay $5 a month for remote access to use it. But that $5 also covers remote access to Home Assistant when you’re not home, too, so you probably want to add that to your budget anyway.
Setup for a SmartThings Hub is like an hour or less. Pretty much two thirds of the existing home automation shit is compatible with SmartThings, but there’s Wink, Vera, and several others, so sit down and google a bit.
You can feel free to email, DM, ask, or whatever me if you’re jumping in and want some advice, help, or just someone you can say “WTF” to or “Can I make this purple????” (You probably can.) or just want a learning buddy. I’m not a developer, I don’t even have a college degree, everything I know I learned by fucking up in many creative ways, this is just my hobby, but I’m a QC analyst and work in User Acceptance Testing and lead testing for the mobile app for my state because when you’ve crashed your own system sixteen times in a month because you wanted to see what those batch jobs and config files did, you get surprisingly good at analyzing for problems or finding them by accident.
You cannot surprise me with weird problems;
I’ve reviewed miles of javacript code at work that calling spaghetti
would be very kind to find the reason for an error that turned out to be
even weirder than the problem and this was written by professionals making six figures. Again, I crashed my home server sixteen times in a month fucking with config files I didn’t understand because why the fuck not. You gotta feel at least ten times more competent just reading that sentence and realizing that actually happened. I think I wrote about it in my DW under the tags “my relationship with electronics” or “coding”. It’s honestly alarming when you sit and think about it too long.
(And now I get paid to do that: they call it stress testing, and gave me database and batch permissions so I can do it in new and scary ways. I love my job, God.)
This is incredible fun, and my goal in life is to show everyone how much fun and accessible this can be to anyone.
More importantly, however, automation can be a gamechanger for people with physical disabilities/differences, the neuroatypical, the elderly, and the more people who jump aboard, the more we can make open source and non-corporate options mainstream. The more we do now, the easier it gets for those who come after us.
